Chapter 3 #3
Her muffled cry brought him to his feet. A small step through a portal and he was beside her. His fingertips were light at the nape of her neck, gently turning her face to him. Tears leaked through the crumbling mask of her self-composure that he should have known better than to take at face value.
“He didn’t tell you because he didn't want you to stop him.”
“But I should have known. He’s my twin. I should have stopped him from throwing his life away.”
“It wasn’t your choice to make.”
On a choked sob, she squeezed her eyes shut. “I just want Teddy back.”
“I know.” Skirting the edges of a deep wound, he gently asked, “Cora, are you all right?”
“I… wasn’t.”
The tortured depths of that quiet confession.
She had suffered, and Malachy had not been there.
But he would be here now. Sweeping back a lock of her hair, he caressed the soft strands between his fingers.
The back of his hand stroked her cheek, and she flinched.
He withdrew his hand, cursing his errant touch.
He knew better than to touch her there, where cruel hands had once silenced her cries.
After a stuttering breath, she wiped her tears away. “I wasn’t all right, but I will be.” Then, with more conviction, as if she were trying to convince him as much as herself: “I will be.”
Tenderness welled in his chest. He captured her hands in his and lifted her to stand.
“I’m glad,” he told her in a vast understatement.
“Are you all right? Honestly.”
The question took him aback. When was the last time anyone expressed genuine concern for him? “I… wasn’t. But I will be.”
“I’m glad.”
They smiled, soft and a little sad.
“Do you really mean it, Malachy? That you didn’t leave because—because of me?”
Hearing his name from her lips sent his heart skittering. “No. Quite the opposite." His fingers tunneled through her hair, thick and silky and wild. When she didn’t withdraw, his heart soared. "The Masters chose their punishment well. It has been torture being apart from you.”
She searched his features for deception and found only earnest sincerity. The tremble of her bottom lip was the only warning before she launched herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank god.”
Finally, he thought as he captured her in a fierce embrace. Fucking finally.
His heart broke at the precious weight of her against him. The woman that filled his arms now was more than she had been, softer skin on harder bone. Finally, Malachy was home.
“I missed you, Cora.”
Her arms tightened around him. “I missed you, Mal.”
The exquisite agony of those words.
His hands circled her waist, pressing into black silk and the warm flesh beneath. He pulled back until her breath became his. Her mouth lingered like the hope of a kiss.
The moment stretched, an eternity between heartbeats.
The war within her played across her flushed face as she gazed at him, teetering on the brink of a decision he had made months ago. Blood pounded in his veins. If she wasn’t ready— If she was ready…
Her lashes fluttered closed, lips parted on a sigh. In mutual surrender, he lowered his head.
Before his mouth sealed over hers, the house gave a violent shake. Dishes crashed to the floor in a burst of porcelain.
Alarm coursed along his nerves. Had the house wards been breached? He wrenched away. His gaze darted over the trembling walls, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source of the breach.
“What was that?”
“Just the house being temperamental,” he said, not fully convinced. “Was it like this a lot while I was gone?”
Her brows furrowed. “I can’t remember.”
The house shuddered again. This time, Malachy located where the shock of alarm was centered. The wards in the Witch’s Cap had been breached.
“Something’s upstairs. Stay here.” He stalked out of the kitchen. A moment later, she was beside him. He spared the stubborn Necromancer a sidelong glance.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“You don’t know what could be up there.”
“Neither do you.”
Dragging in a resigned breath, he offered his hand. “Want to take the shortcut up?”
“No traversing. Unless you want me to puke on your suit.”
Silently, he followed her through the library and up and up the spiral staircase into the Witch’s Cap.
His heartbeat ratcheted with each step, and not entirely because of what might await them beyond the door above. So many days and nights he had thought of Cora, and with her delectable nearness—and even more delectable backside at eye level—the torture was sweeter than he had imagined.
At the top, her hand rested on the door handle while his own grasped his revolver. With a final glance over her shoulder, she flung the door open.
Malachy stormed inside, gun aimed at—
Nothing. Only the comfortable chaos of Cora’s bedroom greeted him.
The alarm that had been coursing through his veins cut off like a faucet. Moonlit prisms from the stained-glass windows rippled over him as he inspected the dark corners for intruders that weren’t there.
“What is it?” Cora hissed at his back.
“Nothing, apparently.”
“Oh. Guess the house is just being temperamental.”
In her moonlit room, they stood before the bed, close enough that he could feel the heat of her skin. Silence thickened.
“Well. It’s late. You must be exhausted after traversing all the way from Rome.”
With her near, Rome was a distant memory. “I have never been less tired.”
Their gazes held in the moonlight. The rumpled bedsheets beckoned, as silken and soft as her skin in the darkness.
“Me neither.” A husky confession. “I doubt I’ll sleep at all tonight. After this bout of the heebie-jeebies, I mean. I usually have trouble sleeping, though. I haven’t slept as well as, well, the last time we slept together. Er, in a bed. You know what I mean.”
“Yes.” The word tumbled from his lips. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“Will you sleep with me?” she said, and all his blood shot to his cock. “Er, next to me. Not with me. Just tonight, until I know it’s safe.”
“There are few things I would rather do,” he managed. Things—fantasies from the innocent to the sordid—that he would have to wait to actualize by her hesitation. Though patience was a distant virtue with the growing ache to touch her, to fill her.
She kicked off her shoes and removed her gloves. She reached for the straps of her dress, then dropped her hands, twisting them as she stared at the bed like a battlefield. “I shouldn’t wrinkle my dress. Right?”
“Right,” he said in a stunning display of his mental faculties.
“Right.” Turning, she peeled the dress straps from her shoulders.
Fabric shimmied down her hips and slithered to the floor in a hiss of silk.
For a breathless moment, she stood before him, clad in only a blush-colored chemise that offered tantalizing glimpses of her curves.
Then she slid beneath the tangled sheets.
His throat worked on a swallow. Tonight would be a test of his dwindling self-control. A test he would gladly fail, if only she would reopen the doorway between them and beckon him with a crook of her finger to his welcome downfall. Until then, he would wait, erect and painfully aware of it.
Stripping down to his undershirt and trousers, he climbed into bed beside her. The mattress dipped under his weight, and her body shifted closer. Their skin grazed, sending licks of heat straight to his groin. Neither moved away.
This is fine, he told himself, adjusting his hard on while the woman he had spent months fantasizing about was only a few scraps of fabric away. This is perfectly fine.
Eyes closed, her lashes were dark half-crescents resting on the curve of her cheek, but by the hitch of her breath when he moved, she was no nearer to sleep than he was, caught in an agonizing silence thick enough to slice through.
He dared not move. Cradled in this slumberous cocoon was an illusion about to shatter.
The warmth radiating from her body began to wear down his resolve.
He fisted the sheets to keep from touching her.
Again, he reminded himself that her invitation had included sleeping and only sleeping, until she felt safe.
She was already overwhelmed by his sudden reappearance.
It was better to give her the space she needed, let her come to him when she was ready.
This logic immediately collapsed when she moved onto her side, facing him. Arms folded between their bodies, her fingers brushed his chest, and that one touch shredded his moral fiber. His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her closer. A small gasp. She didn’t move away.
“I can’t sleep,” he whispered.
In the lush darkness of night, she was bolder. She angled towards him, fingers skimming down his chest as he laid completely still, willing her to continue the torment of her featherlight touches.
“You could take your shirt off. If that’s more comfortable.”
She did not need to tell him twice; his shirt was over his head and on the floor.
He settled back, facing her in the night.
The tips of his fingers traced the shape of her cheek, the column of her throat, the hollow of her collarbone, trailing down to follow the dip of her waist and curve of her hip.
Goosebumps pebbled her soft skin when the backs of his fingers reversed their path, from hip to cheekbone.
Her hands charted the scar over his heart where she had brought him back to life. “Do you know what still bothers me about how you left?” He tensed, then gradually softened under her touch as she brushed hair back from his brow. Her breath danced across his lips. “That you didn’t kiss me goodbye.”
His pulse pounded in his veins, but he gentled his touch as he caressed her cheek. “Shall I kiss you goodnight?”
“Yes.”
Softly, he kissed her. Sweetly, she kissed him back. Malachy wished he could capture the moment and carry it in his pocket wherever he went.
Tangling his fingers in her hair, he coaxed her lips to part with a sweep of his tongue, delving in and entwining with hers, dancing in a slow caress. She moaned into his mouth as he angled for a deeper taste.
Too soon, she pulled back, her parted lips glistening. Moonlight kissed the curves of her breasts, their peaks straining against silk. She settled her hand on his chest, her fingers curling into the dark chest hair.
When she laid her cheek over his swift-beating heart, Malachy knew the sweetest misery, to have her so close and not close enough. He threaded his fingers through her hair, a halo of chestnut waves spilling around them, and held her near.
“Cora.” He whispered her name like an incantation in the soft dark. She barely stirred, her breaths growing deep and even as the moon rose.
A languid warmth suffused his body and a smile curved his mouth. Exhaustion slowly overcame him as he joined her in sleep.
The prickling awareness at the back of his neck pulled Malachy out of a deep, dreamless slumber. That prickle turned into a shiver that coursed along his nerves. His eyes shot open.
The house wards were going off.
Cora stirred in his arms. Her bottom ground against him, and all thoughts of the wards were promptly forgotten. The sleep-lulled sound from the back of her throat made his arms tighten and his cock harden. His gaze feasted on her, lovely and wrapped around him, her lips as soft as a morning kiss.
Another shudder wracked the house. Her lashes fluttered then flew open when a glass on the nightstand crashed to the floor.
“What’s the fuckin’ house upset about now?” he grumbled, reluctantly disentangling from her. “I’ll check. Don’t go anywhere.”
She shot him a panicked look over her shoulder as he padded out of the Witch’s Cap.
Searching the house was a waste of time. It was empty save for Caoimhim, who trotted away when Malachy attempted to pet him, his tail held high and sawing through the air like a shark fin.
“Little orange bastard,” he muttered.
The tripped ward had been concentrated in the Witch’s Cap, and it had been only the two of them inside, needlessly interrupted from bringing last night’s promises to fruition. The traitorous house must still be adjusting to him.
When he returned to the bedroom, Cora was staring at her sleep-tousled reflection in the standing mirror.
His gaze traveled down the length of her, clad only in blush-colored silk. Obscene ideas flitted through his mind like thumbing through the pages of a dirty book. In two strides he was behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing the delicious spot where neck met shoulder.
“Bane?” She bolted away, clutching a hand to her chest. “When did you come back to London?”