Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
After a few uninterrupted hours of sleep, Charlotte awoke to the sensation of Duke jumping off the bed. She listened as he left the room, likely hunting for some milk from one of the maids, who she was glad to discover treated him far better than the staff at Lovett Manor ever had.
Her eyes fluttered open to the dark, the lids gently shutting when she felt Nathaniel’s arm tighten around her as she adjusted her position on the bed.
Flickers of touch ran between them when she turned to face him, his fingers diving into her black curls. His breaths grew longer and more pronounced as she inched closer to him, his touch whisking her waist.
A flurry of butterflies stormed through her abdomen, her heart racing. She bit her lip as a thought shoved into the forefront of her mind. Damned to Hell, he could hear her pulse.
She hated that she couldn’t even hide her body’s reaction from his keen sense, yet she had no idea what he was feeling.
With a sudden tug, his arm was around her waist. He pulled her close, biceps tensing.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes,” she whispered with a shaky breath, even though it wasn’t true. The shivers running through her had nothing to do with temperature. With a smooth shift of his hips, he entwined her legs with his and moaned softly into her hair. Sparks shot through her lower extremities, tingling her toes.
The restraint in his low sound of pleasure was enough to send her over the edge.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. The pain is gone,” she said, turning to face him. “Even the pain in my joints. I almost feel normal again.”
He trailed his fingers over her hip, sighing relief. “Good.”
Tipping her nose forward until it brushed the tip of his, she let out a stammered breath, then held it.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she asked in a soft voice, the facade of innocence obvious.
He looked at her with hooded eyes, as their breaths mixed, lips just an inch apart. “You know what you’re doing.”
She pressed up against him once more, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth.
“Stop,” he murmured against her lips, but his tone begged the opposite. “Before I lose all control.”
Her breath caught at the thought and further flutters sprang to life, but this time, between her thighs.
Tempting the monster was a terrible idea. Awful. Dangerous. Foolish.
But she was trapped, eyes closed, her body arching into his. Cautiously, she pressed her palm to his firm pectoral muscles, and he snarled when his heartbeat galloped against her hand.
She threaded her fingers through the soft tresses of his midnight hair, her fingertips purposely grazing the back of his neck. His scent was intoxicating. She breathed deeply, her mind fogging with the temptation of desire, wondering if he would taste as good as he smelled.
Slowly, she lifted her lips closer until they were almost touching. She tangled her fingers deeper, searching his face to see if there was anything that revealed he wanted this too.
As her lips grazed his, shadows cast into his eyes until the darkness in them swallowed the smoke of his irises. “You don’t want this,” he husked.
Her lashes fluttered as the confession fell from his mouth. She consumed his words, allowing them to fill her up, before saying, “I do.”
His eyes squeezed shut, his dark brows pulling together in the middle, wrinkling the skin at the bridge of his nose as if her words were a kind of torture.
“It’s the blood. You’re not thinking properly,” he said in a pained whisper, but his questing hands told a different story. His fingers trailed through her hair before sliding down her neck to her clavicle.
“Yet you are not pulling away,” she whispered, her heart skipping a beat when their lips brushed lightly with every word. “Let us pretend, just for tonight, that you do not wish to kill me and there is no ritual or blood bond.”
His forehead dipped to touch hers, his fingertips gently caressing her spine, a warmth spreading through her core as he suddenly tugged her closer. “I don’t want to kill you.”
His pupils dilated when he looked at her, the shock of his penetrating, heated gaze making her gasp.
“Then why are you letting me take part in The Hunt?” When he didn’t answer, she pressed him. “Tell me.”
With hooded eyes and a thickly graveled tone, he said, “I just want a reason to chase you.”
The thought of him chasing her through the manor sent an unexpected warmth into her core. She cleared her throat, then licked her lips and rushed on before nerves could tangle her tongue.
“I would want you to catch me,” she said, her breath hot against his lips.
The silence was heavy, their lips flickering touches, when he finally grunted, “Fuck it,” on a sharp breath, and his mouth claimed hers.
Her body tensed for a second before she kissed him back, his passion igniting something hidden inside her. Time stilled, his tongue teasing against hers. Excitement bloomed over her skin, his touch eviscerating all her other senses.
He deepened the kiss, and when he pressed himself harder against her, her thighs fell open, a silent, desperate plea escaping her in a moan as her lungs begged for air, but she couldn't pull away.
She didn’t want to.
All she could think about was him consuming every inch of her, of how all she wanted was for them to stay like that, in the dark room where things between them were not contractual, or doomed.
A whimper left her lips when he rocked his erection against her, the large bulge taut under the thin fabric of his underwear. Heat drove through his length, and she imagined reaching down and taking the shaft in her hands.
Slowly, she dragged her fingers over the thick ropes of muscle contracting under her hand when she trailed over his lower abdomen, tracing the dipped V-shape, inching lower.
With a flexed jaw, he pulled away and rested his forehead against hers, panting. “Forgive me.”
Blinking twice, she leaned closer to his lips, but he turned his head, leaving a hollow ache in her chest.
“Nathaniel,” she whispered when he wouldn’t look at her. Soft fingertips grazed the sharp edge of his jawline as she tried to get him to turn back. “My doing this has nothing to do with your blood,” she protested, knowing why he’d pulled back, the cold distance between them too much to bear.
With a sweep of his thumb over her swollen lip, he said, “When I take you, I want you fully lucid.”
Dragging her tongue over the warmth on her lips, she let out a long, shaky breath as she mulled over the word when. With a roll of his hips, the head of his thick cock twitching against her thigh, he moved back, and her heart stammered.
He was aroused by her. She hadn’t imagined it or mistaken his kiss for the bond. His lips were pulled into their familiar, neutral hard line, a sheen of sweat covering his forehead, his jaw ticking when he looked at her lips. Nathaniel wanted more than just her blood.
God be damned, she wanted him too. Even if it was just for one night, tonight.
“Don’t go,” she said when he shifted his weight, her voice breathy but with a surety that surprised even her.
He clamped his eyes shut, then opened them again and wrapped his arm around her. “I’m not. Now turn around and sleep,” he commanded, brushing her hair back behind her ear with a softness she didn’t think those strong fingers could produce.
She rubbed her fingers over his arms, a gentleness she assumed he was not usually afforded from the way he jolted. Slowly, she entwined her fingers with his and closed her eyes.