Chapter 29
Four-Poster Refuge
Only the patter of rain and the even cadence of their breathing whispered their lullaby as they held each other through the night.
Malachy wished he could bottle the feeling of Cora in his arms and the precious knowledge in his heart that out of the billions of people alive and dead, he was the one person she trusted.
In the dreaming twilight, it was achingly clear. He loved her.
Though he couldn’t tell her, not yet, the words flirted with escape, threatening to make themselves a reality regardless of his better judgement. Saying those words was an ill-advised strategy, unless he wanted to frighten her off.
A pleasurable sigh escaped her sleep-soft lips as she stretched luxuriantly in his arms. All his thoughts redirected to the warm caress of her slumberous body along his own hardening one as she draped herself over him.
“Mal,” she mumbled against his bare chest.
“Hm?”
“Telephone’s ringing.”
He started. His mind and body had not gone farther than the borders of their four-poster refuge for hours; the shrill sound of the telephone hadn’t registered.
“Gonna answer that?”
“Of all the things I want to do right now, answering the bloody telephone is dead last.” His arm tightened around her waist. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent. “You’re the reason I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I love sleeping next to you.”
A sleepy, contented sound emerged from her throat. “What else do you love?”
“I love… your mouth. The shape of it.” He pressed a soft kiss on her lips.
“The feel of it.” His tongue swept along the seam, and her lips parted on a sigh.
“The taste of it.” His tongue delved inside, tangling with hers.
She moaned into his mouth, fingers threading through his mussed hair.
They kissed, slow and sweet in the slumbering dark.
Beyond the curtains, the sky purpled like the faint ghosts of his fingers left behind on her flesh, from pressing his want into her all night. Also left behind was the reminder of his irresponsibility drying on her thighs. Christ, how could he have been so careless?
“I’ll be right back.” He got up to rectify his mistake.
She had fallen back asleep in the nest of sheets by the time he returned with a steaming cup of over sweetened tea. She blinked awake to his solemn face hovering beside the bed.
“I never forget myself.” He set the teacup on the nightstand and raked back his hair. “Until last night. And this morning, when my mind was apparently void of all reason. I never forget to wear a sheath.”
“You’ve never… with another woman before?” Bleary-eyed, she glanced between him and the teacup. “Is there something in the tea?”
“Too much sugar.” He sat at the side of the bed, dropping his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Cora. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I can take you to my private doctor, a Sanguimancer I pay well for his discretion. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Did you like it?”
Slowly, he turned to gaze at her, sprawled naked in his silken sheets. “Did I like coming inside you?”
Color rose high on her cheeks. She nodded. His fingertips trailed along the curve of her breast, caressed her pebbling nipple.
“Aye.”
“Then don’t stop." With a tug on his arm, she pulled him back down beside her. “Magic has its uses.”
Three blissful days and sumptuous nights dedicated to the slow discovery of her body ensued. Malachy had never been more happy or less responsible.
Cora had opened herself to him, as much as she was able.
He had mapped her boundaries in a subtle exploration.
Her mouth could be played with but never covered.
Her hands could be pinned but never restrained.
He could never be behind her, unless perhaps she saw him through a clever arrangement of mirrors. He had several ideas in mind.
He was about to partake once more in sins of the flesh when the telephone rang, as it had every morning without answer. This time, the ringing did not stop.
“For fuck’s sake.” Reluctantly, he forced himself away from the temptation of her supple, giving body and climbed out of bed. Padding naked down the hallway, he grabbed the telephone receiver and barked, “What?”
“Mal?” came the tinny voice of his solicitor, John O’Leary. “Thank god. I have cancelled your meetings for the past few days, but there is an urgent matter requiring your attention. The new transportation contract needs your signature.”
“Fuck. I forgot. I’ll be in soon. Anything else?”
“There are slightly less urgent matters that also require your attention. I shall have them prepared on your desk. And if I might inquire, Mal, what have you been so busy with? In the dozen years of our business relationship, I have never known you to take more than a day off, and then only for the most dire of circumstances.”
“I have been…” His gaze slid to the bedroom. “Engaged in a new opportunity.”
Crackling static filled the long pause. “I see,” O’Leary said. “I take it Ms. Walcott will also not be in today. My wife Edie will happily cover on the piano.”
Malachy was glad the memory mage couldn’t see his smile. “Thank you, John.”
“Very good, Mal.” O’Leary hung up before either Irishman could devolve into further sentimentality.
Malachy returned to the bedroom and spared a longing glance at Cora, temptingly naked in his sheets, then threw open the closet doors and began dressing in a three-piece suit. “I need to go to the office.”
She propped up on an elbow. “Don’t you ever take a week off?”
He looked at her as if she’d suggested burning down his rum warehouse. “Why?”
“To enjoy all your money?”
“I enjoy it by making more of it.” He straightened his tie in the looking glass. His usual choice of black on black didn’t sit right today. He swapped the black silk for a tie of deep blue. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Fine.”
Malachy had the wherewithal to know that word coming from a woman’s mouth could not be farther from the truth. He held her gaze as he made his way towards her. Leaning down, he brushed back her hair and softly kissed her cheek. “Don’t move. I want you naked in my bed when I come home.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“I’ll bring you chocolate croissants from that bakery you like.”
“Correct.” She smiled.
He basked in the warmth of that smile as he traversed to the club.
Usually, Malachy preferred to finalize contracts and balance accounts without distraction, but the silence in his office was deafening.
Minutes ticked by as he kept glancing up, hoping to see her.
Poring over numbers in the solitary, wood-paneled confines seemed a poor use of time when he could be with her, sinking into the snug groove of her orbit.
He could sign documents until his hand cramped at home, couldn't he? Malachy grabbed several ledgers to traverse back and do exactly that. On his way out of the office, he ran into John O’Leary.
“Oh, Mal. Hello.”
“Goodbye,” Malachy said without breaking stride. “I signed the contracts. I’ll fix the numbers at home and call you tonight.”
“Are you wearing a… non-black tie?” O’Leary removed his gold-rimmed spectacles and blinked shortsightedly after Malachy’s retreating form.
A vision awaited Malachy when he traversed into his bedroom. Kissed by dawn’s lavender light peering over the horizon were soft sheets and a softer woman. Eyes resting in sleep and full lips parted, Cora was breathtakingly nude, as he’d told her to be.
His jacket and waistcoat were off by the time he reached the foot of the four-poster bed. All that soft skin spread out for him, begging to be touched. His fingertips trailed along the arch of her foot, the curve of her calf, the sensitive skin behind her knee.
Her lashes fluttered to half-mast. A slumberous smile curved her mouth. “You’re home.”
Malachy was struck then by what his heart already knew: he loved her. Though he couldn’t tell her, not yet, he could show her.
He yanked off his blue tie. His hands glided up her calves, hooked under her knees, and dragged her down the bed until her legs wrapped around his waist. Her moan set the need building inside him aflame. He wanted to lose himself inside of her.
His gaze roved over her delicious body, spread open for him, as he shrugged out of his shirt and kicked off his trousers, releasing his hardening length. Arousal beaded from the swollen head and dripped onto her belly.
He kneaded her breasts, tender at first, then firmer, possessively, stroking her nipples into taut peaks that he tasted with flicks of his tongue.
Between her splayed thighs, he found her wet and wanting.
He sank a long finger inside of her and captured her moan in a searing kiss.
He slid in another, filling her, curling deep inside of her, claiming her, preparing her for him.
Her hand closed around his cock and pumped in long, slow strokes, her thumb swirling over his desire. He drew in a sharp breath, gliding his length along her.
Gazes locked, he fed her his cock, inch by inch. He drank in her moan like ambrosia. Slowly, he withdrew, then slid back in with one long thrust, dragging along a hidden place that made her clench and moan.
“Keep moaning my name like that, love, and I won’t be able to stop.”
Cupping her arse, he carried her up to lie upon the pillows and braced himself above her. Long legs wrapped around his hips, tugging him closer. He buried himself inside of her in a slow, tortuous pace, watching where they were joined, the way he filled her, the way she left him dripping.
“Christ, you’re a gorgeous sight. Take me so good.”
She clung to him, moaning, as his thrusts grew more powerful.
Nails scored his back, his chest; the sweetest violence.
He slicked his fingers with their shared desire, rubbing her clit in agonizing circles.
She tightened, tightened, and came undone.
The walls of her channel rippled in waves, clenching around him, tight as a fist. With a groan, he came in long, hot spurts.