She heard Thane’s voice in her head as she brushed the crystal along her skin, daubing her body with the perfume. How wicked and sinful to think of such things. To think of him. But she was helpless to stop the words. They came, despite her resolve not to hear them.
Her mind’s warning was not heeded. Her body now felt warm, and her head swam with fleeting images of Thane and vignettes of her dream, as if the perfume was starting to drug her.
Let me become part of you. Cover you. Feel me.
“Yes.” One word of acquiescence. Acceptance.
NINE
WRAPPING HIMSELF AROUND HER, THANE MARVELED at the feel of her. Even through the heavy layers of her night rail and robe, he was acutely aware of the outline of her body—very generous breasts, full hips, lush thighs. A body suited to his taste—a body that Lust wished to sink into and possess.
Enveloping Chastity with his scent, he felt a primitive satisfaction, knowing he was marking her. Soon, he would mark her with his essence—inside and out. She would smell of him—the erotic incense of the Dark Fey, along with the musky sex of Lust.
Even now he felt Lust push forward, insisting on sharing her with him. How could he not? Lust had been starved for too long, deprived of any sexual play. But sex with this woman would be like nothing Lust had ever experienced—or Thane for that matter. She was so pure and innocent. An intoxicating experience for someone as corrupt as he.
Lust wanted her, too. The unsullied, chaste Chastity. He wanted to play with her, to teach her all the depraved sexual acts his sin lusted for.
Instinctively, the Dark Fey in Thane reared its head, struggling with Lust. In all his other conquests, he had allowed Lust to win over—to overtake the dark, sexual needs of his Unseelie blood. It had been easy. A matter of no consequence, for he felt only desire for the women he had bedded, not this all-consuming compulsion to protect and possess.
But tonight, Thane felt as though he was fighting for his life and that of Chastity’s precious mortal soul. To allow Lust to win would mean that he would have to give Chastity over to his sin.
He couldn’t. Everything Unseelie inside him roared in protest. Chastity was his and no one else’s. When he had seen Crom in the salon, courting her, he had nearly revealed himself. Crom wanted her.
The dominance of his blood sprang forth, forcing Lust to retreat. But then he was left with his Unseelie self, hot-blooded, dominant, aching for Chastity to yield to him. To thwart Crom and steal her away to his court.
As he watched his body shroud hers, he studied her response to the perfume that was his very essence. She was aroused. The pale skin above her throat was flushed red with sexual arousal.
“Do you wish me to come to you?” he asked while her skin absorbed him, and he sensed that profound connection with her. He experienced the pulsation of her heart within his body, heard her breathing, experienced the little tremor of excitement as it raced through her blood, only to feel the way her nipples beaded, and her core pulsed in anticipation.
Stilling, he concentrated on her, absorbed her entire being into his, as she had done with the perfume. And finally he heard it, a small little whisper, barely audible, despite the quiet.
“Yes.”
“Who do you want to come to you?”
The secret voice she buried so deeply answered his silent question with a flicker of images; him as the masked stranger in the maze, followed by Thane in the garden, then back to the masked stranger. Chastity’s mind volleyed between the two until the images morphed into one, that of the masked stranger stripping himself of his disguise, only to reveal Thane’s image.
He knew what she wanted. Knew who the voice inside her desired. The Dark Faery. The dangerous, prevailing side to the man she had met in the perfumery.
With Lust banished for now, Thane allowed his body to come together. No longer perfume, he changed to mist, then smoke, slowly and sensuously unraveling himself from around her waist and hips before sliding along her thighs.
He heard her inner cry of protest that he was leaving her, but he quieted her alarm and stood behind her. He was, at that moment, his true self. A Dark Fey prince whose glamour was not disguised or diminished.
As much as he desired to see Chastity yield, to watch her shed her mantle of virtue, the need for her to know who it was she belonged to was stronger.
“See me.”
Slowly her eyes opened and she gasped at the image that met her. In the long looking glass she was standing barefoot, clad in her virginal white lace and ruffles, while behind her, all darkness of hair and eyes, stood his Unseelie form.
He towered over her, dwarfing her with his height and the bulk of his body, which was clothed in the way of a mortal gentleman. He felt and heard that voice tremble inside her, replaced the rational voice she allowed to govern unchecked. He could break me, hurt me…dominate me.
“Not break. Not hurt,” he murmured as he raised a hand to her cheek and smoothed his fingers down its softness, “but dominate, yes. Master you? Yes. Make you yield to what you want, make you surrender to who you truly are? Yes.”
Bending his head, he brushed his face against the crook of her neck, taking every nuance of her humanity—body, mind and spirit—into his own. “You have a friend inside,” he murmured darkly, “a friend who shows me everything you try so desperately to hide.”
“No.”
“I have already heard that voice, crying to break free. Trying to allow you to experience one simple pleasure—like that kiss you asked for in your dream.”
Her eyes pressed shut, and he thought for certain she would deny it, but she softened with resolve, and pressed her head against his. “I’m frightened.”
“Not of me.” He inhaled her scent, warmed by the heat of her rushing blood as he skimmed his fingertip down her quivering throat. “But of what you truly desire.”
She shook her head in protest, but he pulled her to him, reached for her unbound hair and gently clutched it in his hand. “Do not be afraid of desire. Lust is a powerful thing. Consuming. Elating. Freeing.”
He watched her eyelids close, her lashes fluttered as her head tipped back, exposing the long, smooth column of her throat, which he wanted to kiss and lick. Lave and most definitely nibble at. “Have you ever wanted to be free, Chastity?”
“None of us are free. We are bound by society’s rules, and the dictates of our sex. Women are slaves to men. Men are slaves to money, power and position.”
Her words pierced through his thoughts. Indeed, both mortals and fey were indentured chattel. He and the other Unseelie princes were more so than any other Dark Fey. He was a slave to Lust. A disciple, compelled to follow and kneel beneath the very great desires of his ever-present voracious sin.
This mortal, he thought, watching her, was going to break him.
“I am imprisoned by chains I cannot shed,” she said.
“It is your fears that bind you,” he replied in a hushed whisper. “You allow your virtue to keep you prisoner because it is easier to hide behind it than to accept your wish to submit to your desires.”
She gasped, a sound of shock. He had hit on something. A secret fear she kept hidden. “Ah, I see that I am right. You have wondered what it would be like not to think. To only feel. To experience.”
“No, that’s not true.”
“Have you ever thought of what it would be like to yield? To lay down at someone’s feet and give yourself over to them?”
Her body went soft, the scent of her quim perfumed the air, and he knew then that Chastity Lennox secretly yearned to be taken. With that knowledge, Lust all but overtook him, desiring to dominate her. The Dark Fey in him wished to see Chastity submit to him. He would make her surrender so stunning, so beautiful and intense, that she would never think to leave him.
“This is truly not happening. You are only a dream. A figment of my imagination,” she admonished, struggling against her inner feelings.
“But am I who you want?” he asked softly, allowi
ng his breath to whisper past her ear. Inside him, he felt her response, felt desire pool between her thighs, where it mixed with his own need, and the swell of his cock.
Slowly her lashes raised, revealing her eyes, which were now the color of green grass—the very same color of the grass he would lay her in while he lifted her gown and put his lips to her cunt.
His fantasy flashed through not only his mind, but hers, and he saw her version of him, with his dark head buried between white thighs and her hands ruthlessly pulling at his hair.
“Yes, you want me there, but this image behind you—open your eyes and see—does the image of the man you see now, is he who you want?”
Quieting his mind, he listened for Chastity’s thoughts, her fears, her possible repulsion of him. There was silence—for so long he thought he would never hear her. Then it came. A quiet voice, laced with innocent wonder and alluring huskiness.
So beautiful. So dark. He calls to me, and my body wants nothing more than to answer. A…a… She could not finish the thought, so he aided her.
“A Dark Fey.”
Her eyes widened in shock, but her body trembled with yearning.
“There is a whole new world out there, Chastity, a land of decadent pleasures. A court filled with bliss and passion. Allow me to show it to you.”
Thane felt the inner struggle, the fear tearing at her. So strong. Her virtue ran true and deep.
“Submit,” he whispered as he nuzzled her neck and pressed his aroused body against hers. “Surrender to me. Give me pleasure by allowing me to show you my world.”
“This is not real,” she said in a voice that was trying to be firm, but fell short. “You are not real.”
Thane allowed his hands to leave his sides and cup her breasts from behind. As the heat from his palms permeated the silk, he heard her gasp. Felt the tingling of her nipples as their connection intensified. “Is this not real?” he asked. “The hardening of your nipples and the swelling of your breasts?” Gently, he pulled at her nipples through her night rail, making a rhythm that was slow and arousing, matching the cadence his mouth would make as he suckled her.
She whimpered, her legs weakened and he pressed against her, holding her upright. “You have enchanted me with your faery magic.”
“No,” he said darkly. “You have enchanted me. You are all I can think of. Thoughts of you consume me.”
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered brokenly.
“Awakening you.”
Smoothing his palms along her breasts, he soothed the hardened flesh, trying to stave off the desire to rip the gown from her body and reveal her naked form to his hungering gaze.
“You will come to me,” he demanded as he clutched her chin in his hand and lifted her face to his. “In your dreams you will allow me in. You will deny me nothing.
You will submit to me and my desires.”
Her gaze flickered, wavered, but he held her firmly in his grasp. “And I will pleasure you, Chastity Lennox, like no man, or other fey, could.”
“What is a dream but a hopeless wish?” she whispered brokenly. “For I have dreamed for so long things that can never be.”
He softened against her, and brushed his mouth softly against her lips. “Never hopeless, muirneach.”
Her gaze flickered to his, and he saw great sorrow mix with retreating passion. “I can promise you my dreams, but never my waking moments.”
“I will take that promise—for now,” he added. “To bed. To sleep. Only to come to me and my court.”
Dear Diary
Something is happening to me. I am changing. I can sense it, the woman I was is slowing being taken from me, replaced with a woman I do not know. A woman I cannot understand.
As I look about my room, my gaze always returns to my dressing table, and the assortment of beautiful bottles that litter the mirrored tray. The bottles are all different, all decorated with gilt and gems, and inside, a myriad of scents are concealed. But there is one bottle that always draws my eye. It is blue and gold and, inside, the perfume is clear, like the crystal of a bead of water. It sparkles in the sunlight, and against the orange flicker of the hearth at night, it glows bright and enticing—beckoning me to cover my body with its crystal liquid. I resist, for I derive far too much pleasure in dipping my fingers into that bottle and touching my skin.
Even now the bottle calls to me, as though it were alive. Its voice is dark and compelling, and when I close my eyes, and shut out the world, I can still hear the bottle calling, but this time the voice is more seductive. It whispers to me to do very wicked things. Sinful things. And my body… Oh, my body wants to obey that voice, but I cannot.
I am a virtue. An innocent. But perhaps I am not. Perhaps I am just an ordinary woman. And that frightens me more than these feelings of lust. I have always known who I am. What I was destined for, but to discover that maybe I was wrong… That the person I thought I knew had never really existed…
Who am I? I question myself. The silence answers me, and it terrifies me.
She did not dream last night. Chastity did not know why, but felt slightly bereft by the fact. She had wanted to dream, to return to that moment when she had stood in front of her looking glass and imagined that Thane was standing behind her.
Foolish though she was, she pretended it was real. Pretended that Thane had truly come to her. A dream. A hopeless wish…
He had been a Dark Fey in her daydream. She did not know what that meant. Was it a deep-seated longing, finally breaking free, or was it a secret fear, or a method for her mind to come to terms with what her future held? Surely it was aberrant to dream of sexual pleasures—with any man—let alone a dark and commanding faery.
“Come and see the lotus flowers,” Mercy called from her shady spot by the pond. “Lady Sefton says that they were shipped to her in a crate from India from the British East India Company. They’re a marvel,” Mercy said with a smile. “I’ve never seen anything so strange yet so beautiful.”
Wrapping her woolen shawl around her shoulders, Chastity fell into step beside Prudence who shrouded them from the afternoon sun with a parasol. “You’re very quiet today,” her sister commented. “Did you not sleep well?”
“I am in a contemplative sort of mind today, I’m afraid.”
Prudence nodded and studied their youngest sister. “Mercy seems oblivious to what is going on. I wonder at her naiveté.”
“She copes with it the only way she knows how. By constantly wearing a smile. It is just another mask she wears. Different from ours, but its purpose is the same.”
“I hope for her sake that the fey have not made a mark for her. She’s a far too gentle and trusting soul.”
Smiling, Chastity thought about what Prudence was saying. “I don’t know. I think Mercy could prove quite tenacious if the provocation was strong enough.” Chastity glanced at her elder sister. “You’re talking of the fey today as if you have somehow come to accept the truth throughout the night.”
Prudence’s fair skin blushed pink. “I did. It was some where around three and four in the morning as I was tossing and turning, unable to stop thinking of the golden man who was sitting so close beside me on the settee.” Prue stopped and placed a gloved hand on Chastity’s forearm. “It’s blasphemous, isn’t it, to believe in the fey. To actually desire an alliance with them.”
“There are many who have committed greater sins, Prue. For this, for longing for a man who makes you feel, well, I believe you’ll be spared purgatory.”
Prudence glanced at her, was about to say something in response, but held her tongue as they came to stand beside their sister. “Gorgeous, aren’t they?” Mercy asked, pointing to the white flower.
“Indeed they are. Do they smell nice?” Chastity asked.
Scooping up a flower, Mercy held out her palm to Chastity, who inhaled delicately. “Floral. Pretty. But there is a spice to it.”
Mercy colored delicately. “I heard Lord Ashcrombe telling Lady Sefton that t
he lotus bloom is compared to a woman’s most intimate parts for the way the petals unfurl, and it’s sweet but spicy scent.”
Prudence snorted, and Chastity inhaled the bloom again while she said, “Lord Ashcrombe is desiring an affair with Lady Sefton. He would tell her anything she wanted to hear.”
Shrugging, Mercy plucked the bloom from Chastity’s hand and let it slip back into the pond. “I thought it a beautiful analogy, actually.”
“I’ve never been one to compare my intimate parts,” Prue said on a chuckle. “But then, being the virtue of temperance and restraint, I have given very little thought to anything that could be construed as…licentious.”
Mercy turned to look at them. “Do you really think that wrong?”
“Yes, I do,” Prue whispered. “A man should not even know what a woman’s parts look like. If he were at all a gentleman, he would see to his needs in the dark, as is proper. He most certainly should not go about gazing at flowers and thinking of intimacies.”
Mercy shrugged, allowing Prue’s censure to run off her like water off a duck. “Ah, well, I could stay by this little pond forever. I find it so tranquil. The water is so clear and still that you can see your reflection perfectly.”
“Do you not think you’ve stayed here long enough, Mercy?” Prudence asked with reproach in her voice. “People will start to talk about your not socializing.”
“I only wanted a few minutes alone with my thoughts. I’m tired of small talk.”
“And smiling and being kind,” Chastity finished for her.
Slowly Mercy nodded as she untied her bonnet strings and pulled her hat from her golden hair, only to lay it on the grass beside her. “Remember in the books Mama would read to us at bedtime? The ones filled with faery tales and romance? Do you recall how one of the stories spoke of a magical pond that when one gazed deeply into the water, one could see the reflection of the person they were to marry? No? Well, I do, and I have sat here all this time, gazing at the water, and I’ve seen nothing. Naught but my own smiling reflection, and it’s left me feeling…empty, I’m afraid.”
Lust Page 14
