The Soul of a Rogue (A Box of Draupnir Novel Book 3)

by K. J. Jackson

  Rune shook his head. “Why have you not extracted yourself from this lifestyle?” He jabbed his thumb toward the pond. “From these people that give you nothing but agony? I saw you cringe when she yelled at you. For all that you claim not to care what others think, her words hit you hard.”

  Her right hand flitted upward from the windowsill. “What would you rather have me do? Sit at home, wasting away until I am ash and bone? Do I not deserve smiles of friends? Laughter? I failed as a wife, yes, but why do I have to hide in a dark hole? My only sin has been becoming a widow at such a young age.”

  He had to give her that. A man in her situation would be a lovable rake. Not the same barometer of expectation by far.

  He nodded, but then his head tilted to the side. “So you don’t flit from man to man, happy for a moment until they displease you and then you fly off to the next?”

  She turned fully toward him, her palm flying upward. “If I do, so what of it?”

  “Nothing, I suppose.” Rune’s shoulder lifted. “Only it seems as though you’re searching. That is all. Or avoiding.”

  “What could I possibly be avoiding?”

  “Getting too close to anyone.”

  She stilled, her blue eyes darkening to the depths of the sea as she stared at him. “I have numerous friends that I would die for.”

  “Any of them male?”

  Her lips pursed.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “And you also don’t understand.”

  “Make me.”

  She moved away from the window and, for a breath, Rune thought she meant to leave. But then her feet stopped and her mouth opened. “I was born to be a grand lady—my whole purpose. Everything I was educated for. Everything I was promised. Both my mother and father had hopes for a duke and I failed them on that score, only landing an earl. First failure. Then I only existed to be his wife. So when he died, my purpose, my life died that day. Second failure.”

  Her right hand flipped about in front of her in a manic circle as she turned to him. “No woman survives a third failure, so forgive me if I’ve decided not to form attachments and go through all of that again. I may flit from man to man, but I never touch another woman’s property. Never encourage anything more than I will offer. Never promise more than the moment.”

  His hands went up against her rising ire. “I don’t judge, Elle. And I actually understand because I am quite adept at extracting myself from anything that hints at meaningful.”

  Her right eyebrow lifted. “You are?”

  “As good as you are. Probably better.”

  She scoffed. “You honestly think you are better at it than I am?”

  “I’m fairly certain of the fact.”

  “Prove it.” A smile, wicked and straight from the lips of Aphrodite, came to her lips.

  Dangerous territory. He wasn’t just wading in, he was charging and he full well knew it.

  That didn’t stop his damn mouth from opening. “How?”

  She took two steps toward him, pausing as the smile on her lips turned into pure temptress. “I can think of one way.”

  Her right hand moved to her shoulder and her fingers slid under the white lace trim of her walking gown. Slowly, she slipped the sleeve down her shoulder, baring skin. Lower. Lower. The bodice of her dress tugged down the mound of her breast until the pink of her nipple began to show.

  His gaze lifted from her chest and his stare locked onto hers. “You’re playing with fire, Elle.”

  “I am fire. You said it yourself.”

  He glanced out the wide opening of the pavilion toward the pond and the trees beyond. They were in the shadows, well hidden from everything.

  A curse or a blessing he wasn’t sure.

  He wasn’t a fool. He understood perfectly her actions had very little to do with him and much to do with the scene he’d just witnessed by the pond.

  But he’d always had a damned hard time denying a breast offered to him. Especially one as delectable as hers.

  Rune pushed off from the wall, tugging off his coat, cravat, waistcoat and then yanking off his lawn shirt. The whole of his clothes fell to the fat square stones at their feet. Half naked, he stood before her.

  But he refused to move toward her. Not even a finger twitch.

  He had to know she truly wanted it.

  It only took a moment before her fingers slid along her smooth skin, slipping off her dress, untying her stays and snaking her chemise down her body. Slowly, the act of it pure seduction that twisted the blood in his groin into a hot, pounding mess.

  Bending, her legs partially bent, she stripped down one stocking, then the other, and removed her boots.

  Her toes stepped from her clothes, spreading along the cool stone of the floor, and she stilled, her look lifting to him, her dark blue eyes dancing with fire. Completely naked in front of him.

  She’d taken his dare and upped the stakes.

  And hell, she was beyond beautiful. The curving line of her body from toe to shoulder. The swell of her breasts, heft that he could almost feel in his hands making his palms itch. Taut pink buds capped the swells hard, begging to be tugged between his teeth. The soft skin of her belly leading down to curls he ached to bury himself in.

  She cleared her throat and it drew his look upward. Her blue eyes moved down to his trousers, her stare resting on his hard cock insistent against the dark fabric.

  A chuckle escaped his chest with an exhale and he popped free the buttons on the fall front of his trousers. Shoving the fabric downward, he yanked free his boots, clearing his own body to the air. He stood, his member tall and straining, the tip of it twitching, confused as to why it wasn’t already sliding into her.

  Her eyes lifted from his cock, the blue in her irises glowing. “Look me in the eye, Rune. Tell me what you find. Tell me what I want.”

  He stared at her, counting seconds. Eleven—eleven counts. That was the limit of his patience when all he wanted was her back against a wall and to be driving into her. “You want me. You want to use me.”

  She nodded slightly. “And you want the same thing. So why are we standing here naked, staring at each other?”

  Why wasn’t he touching her?

  He was too bloody afraid he’d break her for what he wanted to do to her body. How he wanted to bend it, twist it.

  Her gaze lowered to his shaft, then lifted to his face. “Unless you are all show and no flame? If so, I have a nice image I can take to bed and satisfy myself with.”

  Bloody hell she was the devil wrapped in the cloak of an angel.

  Two steps forward and his naked skin crashed into hers, his hands wrapping along her jawline as he captured her lips in a kiss. Hungry and raw, and she met him with just as much ferocity.

  Her right leg slid up along the side of him, the smooth of her thigh wrapping along his hip.

  Damn—she would slay him, moment by moment. A woman that knew exactly what she wanted, even while she managed to hold an air of innocence within the core of her—not burdened by all the darkness the world had to offer.

  Darkness that had sunk his own soul long ago.

  His hand drifted down her body, rough, until he reached her thigh and he yanked her farther upward. Her left leg wrapped around him and he dragged his mouth away from hers, his tongue moving downward along her neck, needing the taste of her skin deep within.

  It only made him want more. More of her body before he sank into her. He spun, storming to the wall of open windows and he set her bottom on the wide stone ledge.

  He pulled back slightly, his lips hungry, devouring her body downward until he found her right nipple. Slipping it into his mouth, he sucked, drawing a gargled mew from her throat. He didn’t imagine his cock could be any harder, but at the sound, the straining muscles along his shaft surged, pain clamping about his nerve endings.

  Not knowing how much longer he could take, his hand slipped downward into her folds, his fingertips finding the nubbin along the core of her. Alrea
dy throbbing, begging for his touch. He circled it, his middle and forefinger diving inward, sliding into her to pull hot juices from her and slather them about her folds. Return to the nubbin, circling, teasing and then tugging just hard enough to make her back arch, a cry of pleasure mixed with pain rolling upward from her chest.

  More torturous minutes of patience—of pushing her into a peak—and her ankles wrapped fully around his back, dragging him closer, demanding. “I need you in me.”

  His mouth pulled up from her breasts, his lips landing on hers, their breath hot as it mingled. “It’s all yours, finch.”

  Her fingers went down his back, her nails digging in and he satisfied her demand, slamming into her.

  Into her tight slickness. Into heaven.

  He pulled back, the ferocity of his thrusts taking on a life of their own. Harder and harder and his head pulled back, afraid he was hurting her. But her mouth was parted with gasp after gasp that pushed him faster, her face molded in ecstasy as her half-lidded eyes watched him, drank in everything that was happening in front of her, to her body.

  She screamed, doubling over and her legs clenched around him, not wanting him to stop, not wanting him to abandon her.

  Three more thrusts and he sank so deep into her, there was no going back, no pulling free. A scream even louder echoed in his ear, her body tightening with brutal force. With his last vestige of control he pulled free and came, a surge of fire flooding his veins, every muscle contracting in the pure agony of the release.

  His arms wrapped around her, refusing to give up her body, refusing to let one inch of her skin leave his. No matter how hot her breath was on his shoulder. No matter how her chest warred with his. He couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t give up the moment.

  The purity of it.

  Nothing he’d ever felt before.

  Everything dark in his past—dark deep down inside of him—illuminated for one brief spark of a moment.

  He couldn’t quite explain it, couldn’t quite pin what it was and where it had manifested from. But he wasn’t about to give up the moment before he was forced to.

  Their breathing had long since returned to normal before a breeze clipped through the open window and she pulled back, her lips full and red raw, a flush still in her cheeks.

  Sitting on the stone ledge, she moved her hands inward along his chest as her eyes swept over him. “The scars on your body, so many of them. What are they from?”

  He stiffened slightly. “The years surviving. The years on the ship. Everywhere.”

  “An answer that isn’t an answer.”

  “Elle—”

  “One. Just tell me about one.”

  His lips pulled inward, everything in him wanting to refuse. To not mar the moment with the past. To not let the darkness take over the shreds of light he was just offered.

  “What about this one?” Her fingertips ran along the left side of his chest, a feather-light whisper of a touch along the crooked scar that sat diagonally over his heart.

  He closed his eyes for a long second.

  “Rune?”

  “I got that one the day my father died.”

  “How?”

  He opened his eyes to her. Her look was fixed on his chest, on her fingers moving along the scar from end to end. “I was angry. Stupid.”

  She nodded, not prodding for more.

  And then her head sank forward, her lips soft against the ragged line of skin. The first woman to ever touch the scar. Every other woman he’d been with had looked at that one scar as a curse.

  A scarred heart promised no love.

  But Elle had just kissed that scar.

  He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away from him. “Why did you do that?”

  Her blue eyes opened wide at him. “It looked like it needed to be kissed.”

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “I wanted to feel it. Feel you. What happened to you. Touch it.”

  No words. No words for what she’d just done.

  So he grabbed her fully, his right hand deep in her hair and he dragged her body back into his, her breasts pressing into his lower chest, her breath hot and humid on his skin.

  What the hell had he just done? Just let happen?

  Her fire was going to burn him.

  Scorch him to a crisp if he didn’t get his head straight.

  { Chapter 9 }

  “Don’t say a word, don’t interject anything into the conversation unless you are specifically asked twice.” Elle looked down, smoothing the skirts of her riding habit for the fifteenth time. She shouldn’t be nervous—Lord Kallen adored her and she knew it. Of course, she’d never shown up in his drawing room with a strange man in tow.

  Her look flickered to Rune. “He asks people questions all the time that he doesn’t want answers to. So the question has to be repeated twice—three times is best—before it is answered. And stand behind me, not next to me.”

  Rune bristled, his right eyebrow cocking. “Like a servant?”

  She took a decided step closer to the door of the drawing room before Rune could fight her on it and she looked at him over her shoulder. “No, not like a servant. Just trust me and do it, Rune, please. I know how to handle the marquess and having you stand next to me doesn’t help this matter at all. He’s very protective of the baths—he doesn’t want the riffraff down in them.”

  Rune’s head angled to the side. “So I’m not a servant, but riffraff?”

  Her look went to the ornate gold-leafed ceiling with an exaggerated sigh as her voice dipped into a whisper. “Just because what happened with us two hours ago, happened—”

  “Twice.”

  “Twice, yes.” She swallowed a groan. “But none of that gives you any leave to try and control a situation you know nothing about. I am the one that will get us access to the Roman baths, and you need to stay behind me and stay silent or he will never let you down there with me.”

  “Do you even want me down there with you?”

  “Of course I do, don’t be silly. I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m looking for and two sets of eyes are better than one.”

  “You just would like me silent now?”

  “Correct.”

  He stared at her, his head still cocked to the side, his jaw shifting back and forth. She didn’t think it possible, but the ire on his face made him all the more handsome. Dangerous. A pang twisted deep in her core, vibrating outward along her folds. Damn. Why did she have to revel in dangerous?

  She clamped down on the thought of his hands raking over her body, rough and demanding. Now was not the time.

  “Rune…”

  He offered one curt nod.

  The relieved sigh barely left her lips before Lord Kallen walked into the room. Rather, shuffled into the room. The tufts of white hair determined to stand upright in clumps on his head swayed with each heavy step. His shoulders hunched, the gold-tipped cane he’d always held in his hand clunked on the floorboards as a third leg.

  Elle frowned. His gout must be bothering him far more than the last time she’d seen him four months ago.

  “My dear Eliana, finally, you have returned to the island.” His arms went wide in delight.

  Elle rushed forward, grabbing his free hand and trying to block as much of Rune as she could from his aging grey eyes. The marquess was close to her height, even more so as his shoulders had started to droop throughout the years. “It makes my heart so happy to see you and to see how spritely you came into the room. You must be feeling well, my friend.”

  “Oh child, you flatter me so.” He lifted his weathered left hand from her grasp and his fingers curled as he patted her cheek. “You saw me shuffle in just the same as I felt it. But we don’t dwell on that. What we dwell on is the four months you were away. Far too long. The isle misses you.”

  “Or is that just you? I think the rest of the island can do without me.”

  “Scissorsquack—we all missed you. Even Mrs. Flordin.”

  Elle smi
led. “Now it is you that flatters me. Please, sit.” She ushered him to the yellow and black damask settee nearest them. He dipped down to the cushions and she sat next to him. Rune started to move to the chair opposite them, but she shot him a look to be still.

  He took it as intended and stiffened, insulted, but he stopped.

  Good. Better to have Rune be a rigid statue at the side of the room than to draw any attention to himself.

  Too late. Lord Kallen was already jabbing his cane in the air toward Rune. “Who are you, sir, standing in my drawing room like this?”

  Rune glanced at Elle. She shook her head. He stayed silent.

  Lord Kallen looked to Elle. “I tell you, the island hasn’t been right since you’ve been gone. Mrs. Flordin has taken to hogging all the good asparagus from the fields and you always used to beat her to the farmer and now she lords it over me like she’s found a golden calf. So I bought all the early peas on the island before she could get to them. The sweet ones.”

  Elle laughed. “Did you eat all of them?”

  “Of course not. Gave them all to the staff. As long as they didn’t go into Mrs. Flordin’s swinging yapper.”

  “You are so naughty.” She squeezed his hand. For as much as she worried on her old friend, as long as he was fighting with Mrs. Flordin, she knew he was doing well. “But it is good to see your spirits high.”

  “They are now that you have returned. I trust you will stay on the island for a spell this time?”

  She nodded. “It is possible. Regardless, we will have to visit at length in the next few days. Maybe we could go underground and work on the Golden Chamber in the baths? Have you made any more progress in that area since I was down there with you last?”

  “Flugbusters—the last time I went down I fell asleep against the serpent mosaic and didn’t wake up until well after dark.” His lips went into a frown. “A moonless night too, so I took some bumps on my way back to the castle. I should have just slept down there. Haven’t been down in the baths since.”