by Bec McMaster
"What is your relationship with the Prime?" He was beginning to suspect that he'd been very, very wrong in regards to everything he knew about her.
"Why?"
"So I can stop making assumptions about you, and perhaps because last night was rather... intimate. I'm curious about you. You have the body of a courtesan, but in bed, you're somewhat... Not shy. That's not the word I'm looking for. Perhaps not quite certain of what I was doing to you at times or what my intentions were. You kept hesitating."
"Perhaps the word you're looking for is 'inexperienced'," Miss Martin said, puffing up like a peacock. "I do hope it wasn't boring to a man of your caliber."
"Certainly not boring. It was more than I'd ever hoped for," he replied, though he couldn't stop chewing over her words. "Inexperienced?"
She looked away. "Forget I said it."
"No. I want to know what you meant by it." A sudden thought struck him, a thought that made his stomach twist a little. "The Prime's not your lover, is he?"
"Well, I thought it might take you a little longer to discern the truth. There goes your revenge, my lord. No, I'm not his mistress. I never have been, and I never will be. That place is already taken. Why do you think I was so certain Mrs. Ross had not stolen the relic? Let us just say that her whereabouts that night were quite well-known and her alibi is foolproof."
"But you love him?"
"Of course I love him. He is terribly dear to me." She seemed to enjoy his discomfiture.
Lucien's eyes narrowed. Miss Martin actually laughed, a soft, husky sound that he liked very much.
"Come here," he said.
"But it's not nighttime, my lord." Miss Martin blinked her eyelashes at him flirtatiously. "I don't have to do anything that you say. Quite the opposite."
Reaching forward, he hauled her into his arms. Miss Martin gave a startled squeal that died as he settled her in his lap. Her skirts fell around his thighs, and the snug curve of her bottom settled against his groin. Miss Martin sucked in a sharp breath.
"Why do you hold him so dearly?" he asked, toying with the buttons on her dress. It was buttoned all the way to her throat, where a fringe of lace brushed against her neck. Red suited her. It was a color made for dangerous women, though her admission of inexperience threw him a little.
"Why does the precise nature of my relationship with Drake concern you so much?" As he drove forward to press his lips against the soft skin beneath her jaw, her fingers pressed against his mouth, stilling him.
Lucien looked up, then sucked one of them into his mouth, circling it with his tongue. Miss Martin's pupils were so very large, her lips parting breathily. She might be unused to such displays, but she didn't dislike them. White teeth sank into her lower lip. He wanted, very badly, to replace it with his own mouth.
And couldn't.
"It doesn't," he lied. Again those fingers denied him.
"Answer my question, and I'll answer yours."
That irritated him, for as much as he didn't particularly want to explore his own motivations in pursuing the answer, he did indeed want to know the truth.
Lucien nipped at her fingers. "Because I want you. Because I wanted to steal you away from him. Because I wanted to fuck him out of your mind. That's why I wanted to know what he is to you, especially now that you speak of him having another mistress."
"He was never in my mind."
"In your heart then." He started to undo the buttons at her throat.
"My lord," she protested in a whisper.
"It's not night. You have no obligation to let me please you, unless you wish to. And you owe me an answer."
Thick lashes dragged over her violet eyes. Miss Martin looked both helpless and fascinated. Her hand splayed flat over his heart, holding him at bay. "Drake was the father I never had," she blurted. "You don't have to do this. He's not your competition."
That satisfied something inside of him that Lucien hadn't even known was bothered. It also raised numerous questions about her. "Your own father chairs the Vigilance Against Sorcery Committee." Grant Martin was a thorn in all of their sides, and a bastard to boot. "Does that have anything to do with you?"
"Of course it does. My father thinks that I am filth. He threw me out onto the streets when I was seventeen. I had no one. Nothing. Only the clothes I wore and a future where I could earn my living on my back or as some rich man's mistress." Her laugh sounded brutal. "You will never understand what Drake did for me. He'd felt my sorcery—the way I expressed it—and he came looking for me. He offered me a life as my own woman and took me under his wing as his apprentice when nobody had ever given a damn about me, and when such a position was highly coveted. Of course everyone in the Order thought I was his lover. What other use could a man have for a young woman? Why else would he help her? I love him for that. I love him for showing me that men can be trusted. That someone wanted to be my father, without trying to ever take anything from me. You don't know what it is like to grow up knowing nothing but shame—"
A queer feeling twisted in his stomach, an echoing ache. Yes, actually, I do...
"—and then realizing that you do have worth. That everything that you had despised about your own nature was something to be celebrated and accepted. It was encouraged. Does that explain it all?" Tears pricked at her eyes, but they were fiercely determined and very, very protective. "I would do anything for Drake. Anything at all."
The cut of it went deep, that the Prime could be a father figure to her, when he had never given a damn about a son of his own blood. It was an ugly feeling, for Lucien hadn't known he'd even craved such a thing.
"Yes, it explains it." It also explained her anger at the way he'd assumed such a thing too. Taking Miss Martin's hand from his chest, he set it on his lapel, then took her chin in his hand, his thumb resting against those pretty lips. "Why did you agree to this?"
"Because I wanted you," she whispered, her fleshy lower lip teasing his thumb. "Perhaps I knew it would be like this between us? Perhaps I just wanted... something to take my mind off everything. When you touch me, sometimes it feels like I'm not alone. And I don't think I could stand to be alone, not right now." A tear slid down her porcelain cheek. Cupping his face in both hands, Ianthe leaned forward and licked at his jaw.
His cock leapt against his trousers. Lucien bared his teeth in a snarl and tilted his head back, granting her access as he shoved both hands under her skirts. He hadn't liked the thought that she'd done this with the idea of herself as his whore, or that she'd done this to protect the Prime, but desire... the idea of her wanting him made something primal rear inside him.
Such soft skin... Warm, plump thighs... He went straight for the heat of her, slipping two fingers between the slit in her drawers, and grasped her hip with the other hand. There was wetness there. Miss Martin gasped against his neck, her teeth sinking into his flesh as he rasped his thumb over her clit and buried his fingers to the hilt inside of her.
"Fuck my hand," he whispered, nuzzling his mouth against her throat.
There was a flash of uncertainty in her eyes; then she rocked her hips forward gently, filling herself with him.
"You were not a virgin," he said.
Miss Martin laughed her husky laugh, and her body tightened around his fingers in response. "Why are you so fascinated with me?"
I don't know. He met her gaze with a challenging one of his own. "Perhaps I just want to know how far I can push you."
Nipping at his fingers, she rocked forward again, a slow undulation, as though she was beginning to learn what he wanted and perhaps what she herself needed. "As far as you want to, my lord. I won't break."
It was an effective sidestep away from his question. "How many lovers have you had?"
Her dark gaze was oh, so knowing. "Two. The first was... unexpected, but not undesired. I was lonely and curious. I wanted to know what it felt like for someone to pretend to care for me for just one night, and then... Well, he far exceeded my expectations. The second was out of c
uriosity. It didn't last long, and it didn't end well. Quite soured my opinion on the subject for a few years."
Hardly innocent, but still untutored. "I shocked you last night." He began rubbing slow circles around her clit with his thumb. The scent of her desire was rich and heady. As she rode him, her eyelashes fluttered as if the sensation his thumb was wringing out of her was entirely too much.
"Yes," Ianthe gasped, her mouth parting and her nails digging into his shoulder. "Rathbourne."
"Yes?"
"I enjoyed every second of it," she whispered, her hips jerking with small, taut movements.
He could feel the press of her body, the way she clenched around his touch. The idea that she'd enjoyed his mastery made desire flush through him. He wanted her to find her pleasure with him. He needed her to, but he couldn't force it. "What part of it did you enjoy?" he murmured, pressing his cheek against hers so that his breath brushed her ear. "The fucking?" Her body clenched again. "Or the surrender?"
There. That was it. Ianthe moaned lightly, her nails digging into the sleeves of his coat. "All of it."
Cupping his free hand behind her nape, he dragged her closer, thrusting a little to give her what she could barely force herself to take at the moment. Her skin was soft as he brushed his face against her throat, then moved lower, unbuttoning buttons as he went, and licking his way down all of that pale, creamy flesh until he found the soft curve of her breast, still cupped carefully in her wealth of lace and the restriction of her stays. Lucien's tongue darted beneath her bodice, finding her nipple hard and swollen.
"Oh," she whispered, arching into the caress. "Yes."
"I think you like being under my command." This time teeth accompanied the words.
Miss Martin cried out, clutching his hair in her fist. Lucien surveyed her shocked face over the smooth expanse of bare skin, then softened the sharp pain of his bite with his tongue. What was it about her that drove him to such lack of composure? He wanted to ruck her skirts up, tumble her back on the seats, and fuck the sense out of her. She was madness-inducing. He'd never felt such lack of composure when it came to a woman.
Control it...
Turning and pressing her back against the seat, he knelt between her parted thighs and pressed them wide. Her drawers were soft silk and wet with her desire. Grabbing her by the bottom, Lucien dragged her hips to the edge of the seat and buried his face between her thighs, licking through the silk, his tongue tracing small circles around the hard nub there. His cock was hard. Aching. But this was purely for her.
It had nothing to do with controlling his own fierce need...
Miss Martin gasped. "Rathbourne."
"Not the time for questions, love." Spreading both thumbs against her draws, he parted them, leaving her at his mercy.
She shivered as his breath wet her sensitive skin. Anticipation locked her up harder as Lucien enjoyed the moment, letting it extend until she was practically quivering.
"Look at you," he whispered, "all pretty and pink."
Then his tongue found her clit.
Miss Martin's thighs clenched around his head. "Oh, God!"
She was both delicious and responsive. Lucien drowned himself in her, listening intently to her soft sounds, feeling her body's tension twist tighter and tighter, until...
She came with a shocked cry, her fingers gripping fists of his hair. Lucien panted on his knees, a smile of satisfaction crossing his face as he looked up at her flushed face.
This time, her pleasure was real.
***
AFTERWARD, he drew her into his lap, letting her head rest against his chest. There was no help for it. Ianthe was going to look breathless and utterly ruined when they arrived. It made his chest clench a little. From her relaxed pose, it seemed she hadn't thought of it herself yet, but he didn't like the idea of her arriving at Balthazar's Labyrinth and having hard eyes notice the disheveled state of her hair or the flushed skin at her throat where his whiskers had grazed, of people assuming what she had called herself.
Whore. It was an ugly word, but one in which the men he knew cast too easily. And one which she knew, far too well, it seemed.
A finger traced the buttons on his waistcoat. "Do you want to...?”
God, yes. He wanted to tumble her to her knees and drive himself into her willing body. Instead, he shook his head. “Tonight. There’s time for that later tonight.”
Miss Martin’s gaze dropped to his lap, sighting the evidence of his lack of composure. She looked dubious. And guilty.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Miss Martin said. "I just feel... like I shouldn't have enjoyed myself. Not when everything's going wrong."
"And energy-wise, how do you feel?"
She frowned. "Wonderful."
"Your affinity lies with sexually charged sorceries. Consider what we just did a way to strengthen yourself. Not something to be ashamed of. Here, sit up. We're nearly there."
Miss Martin sat up quickly. Lucien busied himself with fixing the buttons at her throat, and then turned her in his lap, so he could smooth her hair back into place. It wasn't perfect; he was far more skilled at unraveling a woman, rather than putting her back together, but it might do to fool all but the most practiced eye.
When he had finished, she glanced at him from underneath those thick, dark lashes. There was a question there.
Lucien shifted her to the seat beside him. "I swore to protect you. That includes your reputation."
Ianthe considered his words, the moment drawing out. "You're a...complicated man."
Their eyes met and held for long moments.
"Yes," he replied, "I am."
CHAPTER 8
T HE GIRL was crying again.
Morgana set aside the letter she had been writing and glared at the door separating her sitting room from the room that Louisa was currently attempting to flood. She'd been trying to ignore it, but the exhausted half-sobs reminded her only a little too well of all the times she'd been locked away in small rooms as a child, after she'd been beaten by her uncle. The only difference was that she'd soon stopped crying. Tears earned you nothing, and this was hardly comparable. After all, the girl had an entire bedroom with a nice bed and soft blankets. Not a small closest tucked under the stairs, or even the box that her uncle liked to put her in for the day. She wasn't being starved. She wasn't being beaten for not being a boy, or for being another burden, another mouthful to feed when food was scarce. There could always be bloody worse things to cry about.
Morgana scraped back the chair, stood in a swish of dark aubergine skirts, and rapped sharply on the door. "Cease that noise at once, or you won't get any supper!"
It worked. Silence descended, golden, blessed silence. Thank goodness.
"Threatening children again, are we mother?"
Morgana stifled the leap of her heart. Visits from Sebastian always required a steeling of the nerves, but he'd taken to the habit of sneaking about on cat-quiet feet. Sometimes she wondered if he knew how much his presence unnerved her. "You're late."
He always was.
It was always fifteen minutes, or ten, here and there. She'd chided him for the small rebellions, but punishing him for each and every infraction would have gained her nothing. It was something her uncle had taught her. The more you punished someone, the more they seemed to be able to tolerate it. By doling out pain in rare increments, the tension built. You were always waiting for the fist to fall, always on the tip of your toes, watching your tormentor for the slightest hint of movement. Sometimes she'd just wished her uncle would get it over and done with, and perhaps that had been the worst part.
Her son stood staring through the windows at the park in the Square, the gray afternoon light washing over his features. There was a beaver hat in his hand, which he toyed with absently, and his coat and trousers were impeccable and richly furnished. He looked like some devastatingly handsome noble, but that was innate, not something she'd been able to provide with rich clothes, fine boo
ts, and countless hours of tutoring. Sebastian had his father's air; arrogance lingered in the upright tilt of his chin and the firm press of his lips spoke for little tolerance for others and their foibles.
The only discrepancy in his appearance was the lack of tie and the way his shirt was unbuttoned just enough to show the glinting gold of the collar around his throat. Sometimes Morgana wondered if he flaunted it like that on purpose, whenever he was within the house she'd rented, as if to say: You might be able to control me with this mother, but I will never forget what you have done to me, or forgive you for it.
"I had something important to attend to," he replied.
No doubt that something important had been perusing the books in the library, or strolling through the gardens behind the house and tending to his precious bloody roses. "Matters are moving quite swiftly at the moment, Sebastian. We're beginning to set our act into play. If you keep me waiting one more time..."
He looked at her, giving her his full chill-inducing attention. The mercurial color of his eyes were Drake's, but the predatory intensity behind them were not. Her ex-husband had never been this dangerous. Drake had been warmth and heat; Sebastian was pure ice. "You'll what? Send me to my knees with this collar?" Tapping the hat against his leg, he took a step toward her, his lips curling into a smile that never reached his eyes. "How long do you think that ring you wear on your finger will protect you? How long can this collar keep me as your slave?"
It was something she'd thought about almost every day since his twelfth birthday, when his powers began to manifest, a strength of sorcery like the boiling clouds of a thunderstorm on the horizon. She'd never seen anything like it, though she'd long since known that this son of hers, this son she'd stolen from the Prime, would be dangerous and difficult to control indeed.
The previous Cassandra, Lady Rathbourne, had predicted it after all, with her belly thickening with Drake's bastard.
That day seemed burned into her memory. It had been a tea party, with all of the Order's malicious eyes watching as the two women circled each other around a table laden with small cucumber sandwiches, honey cakes, scones, jam, and clotted cream. They all knew that Morgana had been on the outs with her husband after the unfortunate poisoning of his nephew and heir. Begetting Sebastian had been a feat in itself—an explosive argument between them that she'd turned to her advantage—and the precious, precious little weapon growing inside of her had been her insurance policy against the divorce Drake had threatened her with.
