Severin murmured softly, without words, using his free hand to caress between her shoulder blades.
“It’s gone,” she whispered.
“What has?”
“The great, empty hurt inside me. You fill me up.”
She heard his soft laugh.
“Oh that was rude, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know what you meant, my love.” He traced a spiral on the skin below the nape of her neck. “But I don’t mind you being rude either. In fact, I like it a lot. And I’m going to do my best to fill you up, in every way, as often as I can.”
Eloise giggled. “Are you happy?” she wondered.
He considered, filling the lazy silence with caresses. “Yes. Completely. For the first time in years. Maybe the first time ever, really.”
“Now that’s funny.”
“Why?”
“You said happiness wasn’t that easy.”
“Oh it isn’t easy, little mouse. I doubt it will ever be easy. Love will always hurt.”
She let the words sink into her heart and saw what lay behind them. “How long can you stay?” With her head against his chest, she felt his breath catch and hold before he exhaled again.
“I have leave to be absent from Court for a month.”
She grimaced. “Just long enough to get me with child, then.”
“That’s the general idea, I imagine. I need to be back there before the Bull Festival.”
“Ah.” She was too filled with bliss, just for the moment, to feel more than a pang of dread. “I can’t come to Court with you, can I?”
“No. That would be extremely foolish. You mustn’t show your face there unless the King summons you.”
“Oh.” Involuntarily, her fingers tightened on his ribs.
“So you have two choices, Ella.”
She moved to look at his face up the warm curve of his chest. “Yes?”
“The first is to stay here on Venn, where you belong. You’ll be as safe as you can be here, with your father and your people. And I’ll come visit you when I can. Not often, but sometimes.”
“What’s the other choice?”
“Well, I’ve rented a house.” He raked his teeth over his lower lip, hesitating. “It’s not such a good choice, this. It’s an old place, outside Kingsholme—very unfashionable now, beyond the walls. It’s about two hours’ ride from the city. I could get there many nights. But…”
“But?”
“It’s a mess. It’s right on the coast, so it gets all the salt-wind gales. It used to be a manor house, but it’s been abandoned for years and the tenant farmer has been using the great hall to byre his oxen during winter. It’s…knee-deep.”
She grinned. “It sounds perfect.”
Severin nodded, his smile a lot more guarded. “There’s another drawback. You will not be as safe there. I won’t leave you on your own, of course, but…I have enough enemies that some of them might choose to spare time and attention for you.”
Eloise brushed his lips with her fingertip. “Severin de Meynard, you know that I would rather share danger with you than a bed of rose petals with any other man.”
“Oh I do,” he agreed, with a certain wry fatalism.
He looked so handsome lying there, she thought, that she could eat him up. That was a plan for later, anyway. Shaking herself, she began to cast around her on the bed.
“What are you looking for?”
“That bottle of oil.”
“Oh?” He reached behind the bolster and pulled out the little leather bottle on its thong. “This?” This was already a speculative light in his eyes.
“Oh yes.”
“What for?”
“You remember what you did to me in Rounay? With the oil?”
“I remember particularly clearly.”
She flashed a grin. “I want you to do it again.”
Severin’s answering grin was of a sort that would have respectable men locking up their daughters in convents. “Ella, my love—have I corrupted you, little mouse?”
Rising on hands and knees over him, she stooped to tease his lips with hers. “Maybe. A little. Corrupt me more.”
Sweeping her in his embrace, he rolled her beneath him. “Now?” he growled.
“Right now.”
The End
About the Author
Janine Ashbless is a multi-published British author of erotica and erotic romance. She lives with varying numbers of rescued dogs (mostly greyhounds) and a longsuffering husband. She was probably lost to the world of reality at age 13, when she started playing Dungeons & Dragons. It was all downhill from there on, and she was bound to end up as a writer.
Janine likes best to write paranormal- and dark-fantasy-themed erotica and has a lifelong interest in mythology, folklore and history. She loves to travel abroad and wishes she could get back into 1920s LARP, if only she had the spare time.
Visit her at her blog, where she witters on about Victorian art, Minotaurs and writing dirty.
Janine welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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