He laughed, an intimate brush of sound in the dark. “I said you are similar to Thomas—not alike. I’d never find you boring.”
“How kind.” She touched the curtain with a fingertip, pressing gently until she felt the plane of his cheek through the gauzy fabric.
“I think that it’s our very differences that make us a perfect match,” he said, and his jaw moved under her fingertips. “You’d die of boredom with Thomas within a year. If I found a lady with a temper similar to mine, we’d tear each other apart within months. You and I, though, we’re like bread and butter.”
She snorted. “That’s romantic.”
“Hush,” he said, his voice quivering with laughter but also with an undertone of gravity. She cradled his jaw as he said, “Bread and butter. The bread provides stability for the butter; the butter gives taste to the bread. Together they’re perfect.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “I’m the bread, aren’t I?”
“Sometimes.” His voice was a thread of rumbled sound, low and ominous. She could feel his words as they drifted over her palm. “And sometimes I’m the bread and you’re the butter. But we go together—you understand that, don’t you?”
“I…” She wanted to say yes. She wanted to agree to marry him and turn a deaf ear to all the dissenting voices in her head. “I don’t know.”
“Hero,” he whispered, and she traced the movement of his lips through the curtain as he spoke. “I’ve never felt this way about any other woman. I don’t think I ever will again. Don’t you see? This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. If you let it slip through your fingers, we’ll both be lost. Forever.”
His words made her shudder. Lost forever. She couldn’t bear the thought of him lost. Impulsively she leaned forward and set her lips against his through the curtain, feeling his heat, feeling his presence.
But he drew his head back. “Do you understand how much you mean to me? What we are together?”
She shook her head. “Don’t you see how much you’re asking of me? To leap into an abyss on just your words. I can’t see how—”
“Then let me show you.”
The bed curtains were shoved aside, and he was in bed with her. He pulled the curtains closed, and suddenly her bed was small, intimate, and dark. They were enclosed in their own tiny world, just the two of them, outside of time and space.
He drew the covers from her grasp, and she let him without even token protest. The fabric made a shushing sound as it slid down her legs, and she swallowed, her body beginning to throb with want for him. She knew him now—knew what he could do to her. What he could make her feel.
His hands touched her ankles, encircling them, warm and firm. “Hero.” His voice was gritty, deep and threaded with intense emotion.
She felt his hands smooth up her calves, his touch almost too tender here in the dark. He was only a shadow, so she closed her eyes and concentrated on his fingertips, trailing over her thighs, trying to forget that this would surely be their last time together. He traced swirls on her skin, and when her breath hitched, it sounded loud in her ears. He reached the tops of her thighs, and she moved her legs restlessly, but his touch left her as he drew her chemise off over her head. She lay nude, her skin prickling with the chill of the night air.
Then his fingertips descended again, lightly skimming circles on her sides, almost tickling. Her skin seemed to tune itself to him, coming alive with tingling sensation.
She reached for him impatiently. “Griffin…”
“Hush,” he whispered. “Just let me show you.”
His fingers trailed from her sides to her belly, meeting over her navel. She sucked in a breath, unable to keep completely still under his touch. He breathed a laugh and scraped his nails lightly up to just under her breasts. Her nipples were tightly drawn already, pricking with anticipated pleasure. He traced the tender curve of the underside of her breast, tickling, faintly scratching, and she had to squeeze her thighs together to contain her own excitement.
When his mouth descended on one trembling nipple, hot and wide open, she jumped. She clutched at his hair as he traced around her nipple with his wet tongue, then sucked strongly. He was pinching at her other nipple, nearly painfully, his entire mouth over her breast, devouring her flesh in erotic hunger.
“Griffin,” she sobbed.
He nipped at her in punishment. She gasped and raised her legs, shocked to feel his breeches against her inner thighs. He was still dressed, but at this moment she no longer cared. She raised her hips and ground desperately against him. She found him, hard and big inside the fabric of his breeches, and she widened her thighs still farther to press her aching flesh against him.
But he dropped his weight on her, pinning her open and vulnerable beneath him.
“Not yet,” he murmured, and moved his mouth to her other nipple.
She tried to shift her hips, to rub against him somehow, but he lay, large and male and implacable, upon her. He held his upper body off her with his arms as he leisurely ravished her breasts, but his hips pinned her completely.
She grasped at his hair, trying to tug his head up. But his locks were shorn too short, and he merely chuckled against her nipple.
He was pulling strongly on her oversensitive nipples, and she was close—so close! If he’d just let her—
“Griffin!” she hissed in frustrated exasperation.
She felt herself heating from within, the entire surface of her body alert and ready for him. She could feel him, hard and long, against her clitoris, but he would not move.
“Shhh.” He raised his head and licked lazily at a nipple, his breath caressing her wet skin as he whispered merely another torment. “Easy, sweetheart.”
He spoke as if she were a mare in need of gentling, and at any other time, she would’ve made him aware of his insult. But at this moment she was entirely at his mercy.
“Griffin, please,” she whispered.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
“Yes!” She tossed her head restlessly. She’d explode if he didn’t give her release soon.
“Do you need me?” He kissed her nipple too gently.
“Please, please, please.”
“Do you love me?”
And somehow, despite her extremis, she saw the gaping hole of the trap. She peered up at him blindly in the dark. She couldn’t see his face, his expression.
“Griffin,” she sighed hopelessly.
“You can’t say it, can you?” he whispered. “Can’t admit it either.”
He rubbed his face against her breasts, and she thought his cheek might be wet.
“Griffin, I—”
He raised his head and tilted his body to the side. “Never mind.”
For a moment, she thought he meant to leave her, and her heart dropped in panic. She grabbed his arms desperately.
But she could feel his muscles moving beneath her fingers as he worked his hands between them.
“Shhh, it’s all right,” he murmured as he settled between her thighs again. His penis was naked and big. “I’ve got what you want and need, if not love.”
She shook her head, no longer sure, no longer able to decide what was real and what was sexual excitement. “I don’t—”
“Hush.” The head of his cock nudged her entrance, and she felt the delicious stretch. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
A rough edge lined his voice now. He entered her, one slow inch at a time, and it was torture. She made to arch up, to embed him all at once, but he shifted one hand, holding her hips firmly down.
“Take it,” he growled. “Let me give you this at least.”
He withdrew a bit, and she mewled in protest; then he was crowding into her again, his length endless and rock hard. He shoved and shoved again, and she felt his pubis meet her mound.
He paused, and she could hear his breath coming in quick pants, but when he spoke, his voice was even and smooth. “There. That’s better, isn’t it? That’s what you want—good, hard cock.”
On the last word, he reared and withdrew his length to the very tip before slamming his hot flesh back into hers. And he was right: It was what she wanted. It was perfect, in fact. Him moving on her like a stallion, all muscle and sweat, intent on their mutual pleasure.
He grabbed her knees and raised them higher, spreading her wide for his pleasure as he hitched himself up her. He pounded into her in a strong, insistent rhythm. With every thrust, he shoved her up the bed until her head was buried into her pillow, the pillow hard against the spindles of her bed. She gasped helplessly, glorying in his savagery. She loved this, wanted it to continue forever, wanted him to thrust into her until she forgot who he was. Who she was.
Until time itself stopped.
But neither of them could continue indefinitely. His thrusts were becoming jerky and hard, and she felt herself at the edge of her own release. She arched beneath him, her hands scrabbling at his shoulders. He slammed his mouth over hers just as she opened it to scream. Hot flashes of lights were going off behind her eyes. His cock was rubbing, rubbing, rubbing over that one delicious spot, and she was going to die from the endless pleasure.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth, and she sucked it helplessly. He ground his hips into her and shuddered. She felt the tremors wrack his big shoulders. He tore his mouth from hers and groaned, long and low, his body shaking as it poured life into hers.
He dropped like a stone onto her and lay unmoving for a moment while she tried to catch her breath.
Finally he turned his head toward her face and brushed a kiss over her cheek. “I love you and I believe with all my heart that you love me as well. Why can’t you say it, Hero?”
Chapter Sixteen
Queen Ravenhair looked at the answers to her question and nodded in acknowledgment. “I shall see you on the morrow, gentlemen.”
But as she rose to leave the throne room, Prince Eastsun spoke. “What is your decision, Your Majesty?”
She looked and saw that all three princes were staring at her rather sternly.
“Yes, which of us have you chosen?” Prince Northwind demanded. “We have answered each of your questions, yet you have said nothing.”
“You must decide,” Prince Westmoon said. “You must decide and tell us on the morrow which of us you will marry….”
—from Queen Ravenhair
Griffin got up and lit a candle from the banked embers in her fireplace. He walked back to the bed, arrogantly nude, the candlelight shining on his smooth stomach. He set the single candle on her bedside and climbed in beside her again, large and male and demanding.
“Well? Why can’t you say it?”
Hero looked at Griffin and felt her heart begin to crumble. “Does it matter so much, three little words?”
“You know it does.”
But she shook her head. “I can’t. You want me to give up my family, all that I know, and you won’t even give up your awful still. Can’t you see that what you’re asking is impossible?”
She expected anger and harsh words. Instead, he merely closed his eyes as if too weary to keep them open. “I need but a little time with the still. After I take down the Vicar. After—”
“How long, Griffin?” Her voice rasped in her throat. “Days? Weeks? Years? I cannot wait that long. Maximus and your brother will not let me.”
He opened his eyes, and his gaze was hard now. “So it comes down to this: You will choose marriage to my brother over marriage to me?”
“Yes.”
“How can you do this to me? To us?”
She bit her lip, trying to find the words. “I’ve spent my life obeying the rules set before me by society and my brother. Maximus has decided that Thomas is the better man for me.”
“You accuse me of not giving up my still for you,” he said quietly. “But I think you are the greater coward. You will not give up your brother’s approval for me.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she answered. “I cannot go against Maximus now. I cannot. He has the power to ban me from my family. Besides, he’s made the right choice. Thomas is reliable. He’s safe.”
“And I’m not?”
“No.” The word dropped between them like a leaden weight. Hero felt tears fill her eyes, though she wasn’t sure for what she mourned.
The bed shook and suddenly Griffin was atop her, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his breath hot and angry against her cheek. “He might be safe, but do you love him, Hero?”
“No,” she sobbed.
“Does he make you blush with anger and then with want?” He kicked apart her legs, settling hot and heavy between them. “Does he know how sensitive your nipples are? That you can come just by me sucking them?”
“God, no.”
“Does he watch you like I do? Does he know that your eyes turn to diamonds when you’re aroused?” He nipped along her neck, his kisses insistent and hard. “Does he know that you like to read in Greek but loathe drawing? Does he wait with bated breath for you to arch your left eyebrow so prissily—and then grow hard when you do?” He thumbed both her nipples at once, bringing a surge of heat between her thighs. “Tell me, Hero, goddamn it to bloody hell, tell me: Does he make you feel like I do?”
“No!” Her answer was a despairing wail.
His thumbs were between them, spreading her folds as if he had every right, as if she was his, now and forever, until the end of time, amen. And then he was in her. Hard and hot, moving so exquisitely she began to cry.
She wrapped her legs tightly around his narrow hips, her arms about his shoulders, holding on to him with her entire body as he rode her.
His big penis slid in and out of her slick folds. She was already sensitive from their previous lovemaking. She was gasping, hardly able to keep up, his pace rough and fast. It was too much; she couldn’t hold herself together anymore. She wanted to push him away. To flee this room and him and his too-strong lovemaking. He wasn’t giving her time to yield to him, to hide or assimilate his angry urgency. He was simply pushing her to experience what they shared—what they made—here and now.
He bent and caught her mouth, kissing her possessively even as his cock worked in and out of her. She moaned, opening her mouth, accepting the invasion of his tongue, tasting her own tears on his lips.
“Hero,” he murmured. “Hero. Hero. Hero.”
He punctuated each utterance of her name with a hard thrust of his hips as if to brand her as his. Sweat was dripping from his body, his breath was coming in hard gasps, and the bed was quaking.
She shook her head against the pillow—in denial of him or their lovemaking or of her own urges, she was no longer sure. But he pursued her, catching her head between his hands, holding her and making her look at him as he thrust himself into her body.
“Do you love me, Hero?” His pale green eyes were full of torment. “Do you love me like I love you?”
And she cracked apart on his words, a stream of liquid heat pouring forth from her center. She trembled beneath him, trying to tear her gaze from his as her passion exploded within her. As rivers of sweet pleasure spread through her thighs and belly. As her heart fractured and re-formed.
But he wouldn’t let her look away. He held her gaze as his own eyes half closed and the muscles of his face, neck, and chest tightened. She watched helplessly as he convulsed above her, his big, strong shoulders gleaming with sweat.
He thrust into her once, twice, three times more and held himself there, tight against her, their bodies locked, as he orgasmed. His eyes pled silently with hers, defiant and proud.
Her vision blurred.
He slumped onto her, his chest heaving.
Hero closed her eyes, running her hands over his slick shoulders. She wanted to imprint this memory on her mind: the musk of their lovemaking, the weight of him on her, the sound of his harsh breaths in her ear. Someday, perhaps soon, she would want to draw upon this memory, to cherish and hold it in her heart.
He suddenly rolled off her, and her hands clutche
d after him, but he wasn’t leaving her bed. Not yet at least.
He gathered her close, nestling her bottom into his groin, surrounding her back with his wide shoulders. He brushed the hair from her nape and kissed her there.
“Sleep,” he said.
And so she did.
THE DAY WAS gray, but then every day seemed gray now, Silence thought as she gazed out the grubby kitchen window.
“Mamoo!” Mary Darling cried, clutching fretfully at the front of Silence’s dress with grubby hands. “Mamoo!”
“Oh, Mary Darling,” Silence sighed.
She’d forgotten to don an apron before sitting down to a late breakfast with the toddler. Now there were two smears of grease across her black bodice. She stared down at herself, feeling helpless and blank. She ought to rise and wash herself off—or at least find an apron—but she didn’t seem to have the energy.
“Give the child to me, sister.” Winter hung his round black hat by the door as he entered the kitchen, then placed a plain wooden box on the table. He plucked Mary Darling from her arms and flung the child in the air, catching her easily as she squealed and giggled.
Why must men fling babies about? Even Winter, the most staid of her brothers, was prone to the disease. “I’m always afraid you’ll drop her when you do that.”
“But I never do,” he replied.
“What are you doing home in the middle of the morning?”
“Half the boys were absent, sick from some type of fever, and the other half could not concentrate.” Winter shrugged. “I sent the remaining boys home. Where is everyone?”
“The children have already eaten. Nell has taken them for a morning walk.”
Winter glanced over the baby’s shoulder, eyebrows raised. “All of the children?”
“The ones big enough to walk anyway,” Silence said, feeling guilty. “I should have gone with her.”
“No, no,” Winter said hastily. He tucked the baby against his side and took down a plate from the cupboard. “We all must take a respite from work now and again.”
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