by Jaide Fox
He inched higher between her thighs, despite her efforts. He delighted in tormenting her. That was obvious. She would not give him the satisfaction of winning so easily. She returned his smile, her teeth gritted as she said, “No, my lord, you are not disturbing me.”
“That is good, for I find for the first time in centuries, I’m enjoying myself.”
She felt his toes wiggle on her sensitive flesh, and wondered how he’d managed to remove his boot. She tightened her thighs and smiled at him with death in her eyes. “I wonder that your mind focuses so readily on sensual pleasures, my lord, when you deny such impulses affect you.”
“Perhaps you’ve healed me after all....”
Bianca startled as he touched her intimate folds. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in joy and gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles whitening under the pressure. All hint of humor had vanished from her mood. Catching her voice, she said, “Stop that.”
“This?” He teased her slit, her own moisture easing the glide of his digits. “Or this?” He flicked her clit, and she gasped, unable and unwilling to move away.
She nodded. “Yes. Yes that.”
He rubbed roughly against her swollen nub. She jerked against him, her hips moving forward of their own accord, grinding against him. Her nerves danced with burgeoning pleasure.
“I apologize for my confusion. You wanted me to stop?”
Bianca bit her lip and nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again, dizzy and unsure of what she wanted anymore. She squirmed in her chair.
He stopped, and she wanted to cry out for him to continue. She cursed herself a fool.
“If I disturb you, leave,” he said.
But she couldn’t. Not until she had some assurance she could move about freely, and she’d not even begun to ask him. He was a devil for taunting her this way, for distracting her from her purpose. “Is ... is our arrangement still in place? Can I continue to gather necessities?”
He gave her a dark, unreadable look. “You must convince me I can trust you once more.”
“How, my lor--Damian?”
He held her gaze locked with his own, intense and hot. “You must please me, Bianca.”
Her eyes widened. “But--”
“If I feel confident you’ll do anything I ask, then surely you would not break your word again. You wouldn’t, would you?” He stood, over her, and she craned her head up to see him.
“I will do ... whatever it takes, Damian.”
He smiled, and she shivered at the promise in his dark eyes. “I had hoped you would say that, my sweet lady.”
* * * *
Damian swiped his arm across the end of the table, sweeping away the tableware. Plates and crystal goblets shattered as they struck the stone floor, shards scattering like pebbles skipping over a still lake. The flames of fallen candles snuffed in the spilled wine, and thin tendrils of smoke rose in the dimmed room.
Bianca froze in her chair, startled by his actions. She was unable to keep her eyes off of him. “Why are you doing this? You can’t derive any pleasure from it.”
He turned back to her and slid his hand around the back of her neck, digging his fingers into her hair as he tilted her head back. He pulled her close, and she rose instinctively, her skin prickling with the feel of his cool fingers guiding her.
He bent his head toward her, his mouth inches from claiming her own. “Your pleasure is my pleasure, Bianca.” He leaned closer, so near she could almost flick her tongue out and taste him. She realized she wanted him to kiss her, almost as badly as she wanted him to claim her.
He teased with his nearness, massaging the base of her skull lightly. “More than anything, I want to slide my shaft inside you and watch you come,” he whispered.
Her womb pulsed with each drawn out word, and she shivered. She should stop this ... but she couldn’t.
A breathless expectancy seized her as she waited for his kiss. He released the back of her neck suddenly. A surprised gasp escaped her throat as he grasped her waist and lifted her onto the table. She clutched his armored shoulders as he stooped and grabbed two handfuls of her skirts and lifted the hem high on her thighs.
He pushed between her legs, forcing them apart, spreading her cleft wide to him. He rounded her hips with his hands, pulling her close, and the cool metal of his armor rubbed against her exposed clit. She arched her head back, shuddering from the contrast of cool hardness to her feverish skin.
Bending, he dragged his lips down her exposed throat, tearing a moan from her as he moved to the curve of her neck and bit her lightly. She felt the pull of her laces, a shot of fresh air on her skin, and then he’d shoved one hand into her bodice and cupped a breast, squeezing the soft flesh.
“Will ... will you not ... kiss me?” she breathed, running her fingers through his silky hair, trembling as he pinched her nipple between his fingers.
He broke away from her neck to study her. “Where would you like to be kissed?” he asked huskily.
A hot flood of moisture suffused her cleft at the smoky look in his eyes. “Anywhere you will it, my lord.”
Damian leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers briefly. She parted her lips, expecting more, but he pulled away.
“Lie back, my beauty, and I will give you your kiss.”
Unsure, she slowly complied. Her breasts flattened slightly as she lay down, the nipples hard and rosy in the soft, golden light. Her hair spread around her in inky pools, clinging to her shoulders and neck like vines. She was lovely and open to him, open to anything he desired.
Damian knelt between her legs and smoothed his hands up the inside of her thighs.
She started to rise. “Wh--what are you doing?”
He pushed her hips firmly down, forcing her to drop back. “Shhh,” he murmured, his fingers firm and demanding.
She was soaked for him, so eager and ready for him to thrust his shaft inside her. He bent and kissed the smooth skin along the inside of her knee. She jumped, and he smiled, knowing she couldn’t resist learning what he planned.
Trailing kisses up her thigh, he moved his thumbs in circles on her hips, calming her nervousness. He nipped the soft flesh at the crease of her juncture and she gasped in surprise.
When he ran his tongue up her slit, she moaned and squirmed. He plunged his tongue into her passage, and her hips jerked against him at the shock of it.
“Please ... Damian ... don’t stop,” she gasped, grasping her skirts and tilting her hips to his greedy mouth. He held her down as he lapped at her juices, alternately teasing her swollen clit and thrusting into her sheath. He wanted to taste her so badly, to smell how much she wanted him. Her muscles clenched around his tongue like a glove, and he moved one hand to replace his tongue, plunging two fingers deep inside her wetness.
He stood, inexplicably weakened, his mind surging with need.
Bianca writhed on the table, tilting her hips to his fingers curling inside her. To see her legs spread and the dark pink lips of her femininity, unleashed a savage desire in him. He ached to drive deep inside her until their souls melded as one. Damian unbuckled his cod piece, freeing his cock. He removed his hand and settled between her thighs. The pleasure halted, she looked up at him through heavy lidded eyes.
“Please, Damian ... please....” She arched back, moving her hips closer to him. His arms shook with the effort to control himself from ramming into her.
She didn’t know what she was saying. She was as drugged with lust as he was. He could take her now, wanted to with a desperation bordering on insanity, but he couldn’t. The shreds of his honor wouldn’t allow it. And deep down, he knew he would draw no pleasure from the act, that taking her would only be tormenting mockery.
With a frustrated growl, he pushed away from her and tucked his aching shaft back inside his mail. He couldn’t satisfy himself, but he could take her to bliss.
Picking up one of the tapered candles that had fallen to the floor and gone out, he rubbed it against her thig
h and leaned over her.
Bianca wrapped her arms around his neck as he neared, pulling him down to her neck. She kissed his face as something cool and hard slipped inside her.
Yes, that was what she needed. He pushed it in further, as if reading her mind, inching into her tightness until he encountered her barrier. He kept pushing, stretching it to pain, then pulled back to the edge.
Her juices flowed harder as he worked into her again, easing his passage. “More,” she begged, feeling herself edging to that precipice again. Damian scraped his teeth down her throat and nuzzled the valley of her breasts, nipping her soft flesh as he pushed inside her again, harder, nearly breaking the seal of her body.
She cried out at the pleasure and pain, jerking her hips as she spasmed around it. She dug her fingers into his neck, forcing him to take her nipple into his mouth, writing beneath him as he pushed in and out, faster. He sank his teeth into her aureole, and she screamed as the orgasm burst through her body, singing in her veins.
He pulled the hardness out of her, leaving her strangely empty, and brought his hands up to cup her face. Her scent covered his hands, marking him, and it pleased her in some indefinable way.
He pressed his lips to hers in a brief, chaste kiss. Bianca clung to his neck, desperate for more, for a deeper connection to him, willing him to open his soul to her. If he would just allow her in, she could heal him, she knew. She cupped an arm around the base of his neck, keeping him close when he would have pulled away. Willing her power to heal him, she tasted his lips with her tongue, hoping this time it would work if she prayed enough, wished enough.
Nothing happened. Her eyes watered as he pulled away. She’d failed again. No matter how much she wanted it, she could not help him.
His eyes grew dark, angry, and she knew he thought the worst, that he thought she hated him for touching her like this.
He scooped her into his arms and carried her across the floor, away from the glass. He set her on her feet, and without a word, left her.
She stared after him. She did hate him. With a passion. But she could never tell him why.
Chapter Six
As much as Bianca hated to admit it, there was no future for her at Helmskeep. She could forgive Damian for being determined to find a cure, and she could forgive him for being selfish in locking her away. She could not forgive herself for allowing him to have hope. To dangle the promise before him was abominable, and she couldn’t live with the guilt. He surrounded her here, this castle, his lands, the whisper of his voice as he spoke to himself in the library--the constant reminder would slowly eat her alive.
She had to get out, if only to grant them both peace.
She’d unintentionally hurt him last night and had made no effort to dissuade the turn of his thoughts. It was better that way, she felt, for his anger at her would allow him to easily forget her.
There was no comfort for her in the thought. Only to think of him passing the years away with no memory of her hurt her inside.
Bianca didn’t know what horrid deeds he’d performed long ago, but she would pray for his soul on her return to Raedan. There could be no deed so horrible as to justify a penance that lasted an eternity.
The hour was early when she went outside to roam the withered orchard behind the castle. A fog coated the ground like gauze, chilling her feet as she walked among the ancient, twisted trees that no longer bore fruit. She could see her breath in the cool, crisp air, and she hugged her arms around her chest.
Nothing lived here, almost as though perpetual winter encased the land. The only life she saw were a few birds wheeling in the sky. And they were so few in number as to be depressing. It was almost as if what infected him also diseased the land. She was saddened by it, for she could see Helmskeep had once been a jewel. Now it was dead and decaying. How long had it been like this, unkempt, ruined and empty?
As long as she walked, she could see no way out other than to scale the wall surrounding Helmskeep. The stone facade stood high, at least as tall as two great men, and likely taller, for she could not judge the distance it was so high above her head.
On the interior, no trees reached close enough that she could cross their branches and bound over the wall. Even if there had been, she had no way of getting down the other side other than jumping, or possibly using the vines that covered the outside. She would break something, of that, she was certain. The castle was meant to keep others out, but was just as effective at keeping her inside.
She would have to examine more of the grounds later, lest she arouse his suspicion staying out too long. As she walked back and passed the tower, she caught the flutter of wings overhead and looked up, just as the bird struck the uppermost window of the tower.
Her hands flew to her mouth as the bird crashed to the ground in a broken heap. She ran to where it had fallen. An unbearable sadness crushed her heart, that even so small a thing could not survive in this place. She knelt on the ground and touched its soft feathers.
Her fingertips shimmered, and she looked at them in surprise. She gently scooped the bird into her hands, and they glowed brighter. The crimson light enveloped the bird. Its soul had not fled the body yet--she could give it life once more. She knew she could.
Slowly, carefully, she massaged its chest with her thumbs, infusing it with the power. Mere seconds passed, but to her, it seemed an eternity until the bird’s chest rose and its golden eyes blinked up at her. She released it and it flapped its wings, flying away.
Bianca gave a watery laugh, wiping her eyes. She’d not lost her power, as she’d secretly feared.
“You would do for that bird, what you will not do for me?”
His deep, accusatory tone cut to the quick of her soul. “Yes, I have,” she said softly, rising from her position. She slowly faced him, banishing the sorrow she knew darkened her eyes. “There is nothing more I can do for you.”
“Nothing more you are willing to do.”
He began walking away, down the drive. She debated not following him, but she had to make herself clear to him.
“You can take my meaning as you will, my lord,” she said, walking beside him.
He glanced at her briefly, continuing his stride. “So we are back to formalities.”
“It helps me to keep an ... emotional distance.” The gates loomed ahead. Why had he led her here? Merely to tease her yet again? She turned to go back, and he caught her arm.
“So you feel nothing for me?”
Bianca faltered, her confidence wavering. Did she? How could she feel anything beyond hate for him? Did he want her love? It wasn’t possible, not in so short a time. And yet each minute seemed an eternity with him, not with the dullness of passing time, but with a rushing sensation of pleasure. His presence intoxicated her, yes. His touch made her weak.
An addiction wasn’t love, and she should have never allowed herself to dwell on such feelings. He would always be a death knight. Black deeds cursed him. Nothing she could do would change that. That she wanted to save him from his own accursed eternity was a testament to her silliness in thinking she could save the world—and him.
Swallowing hard, she summoned her voice and said, “No, I feel nothing.”
Expression vanished from his face as if he were made of stone. The light in his eyes, the amusement she’d given him over the weeks had faded. She didn’t know when it had happened, but she knew it would never return. A sick hopelessness assailed her, turning to despair. She’d hurt him with her admission.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to it. The gates slowly opened of their own accord. “What are you--”
“Shhhh,” he soothed, and cupped her chin, tilting her face up. She closed her eyes, parting her mouth, slightly breathless. Had he forgiven her?
He stroked a finger along her jaw and pressed his cool lips to her eyelids before whispering, “Go, Bianca. Remember this only as a dream ... or a nightmare, as you choose it.”
“What did you say?
” she asked, sighing.
He pulled away from her, and she opened her eyes to find him gone. A cold breeze slid across her skin, and she shivered, turning to look at her freedom. The gates still stood open, awaiting her departure. She’d been right. There was nothing for her here, no hope.
Bianca walked to the entrance and passed through the gates, out into the beyond and out of his life. Forever.
* * * *
The patrol guard found her on the overgrown road, freezing and exhausted. She collapsed as they gathered her up and settled her onto a horse in front of one of the men.
