“Your father threw your mother into a madhouse, Ness. What do you think he’ll do to you if you don’t listen to him?”
Her lips drew inward, her eyebrows pulling tightly together.
“Exactly. Let me protect you from this. Let me do this. You say you once knew me. You say the sun revolved around me when we were children. Yet I was awful to you. Let this be my amends. Let me give you this. Protection.”
Her eyes closed for a long moment, her fingers rubbing her forehead, and she looked to be drawing upon a well of patience. But there was the slightest crack in her facade. She was considering it.
And hell, he wanted her to consider it. Wanted her to say yes. He’d never even contemplated it, but suddenly, poised in front of him, the thought of marrying Ness was maddeningly attractive.
He wanted her.
Wanted her for a wife as long as she would have him.
Her amber eyes opened to him. “Sneaking toads into my slippers does not require a marriage proposal, Talen. You don’t even remember me from that time.”
“But you remember me, and I trust you.”
“You do?” Her right eyebrow arched.
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“Frankly, you have no reason to lie on the matter. You never did. I was going to protect you no matter what because Juliet asked me to. It was that simple.” He shrugged. “And the fact that you bring absolutely nothing to the marriage should assuage you of any apprehension you have on my motives.”
A breathless chuckle left her lips. “I bring nothing?”
His chin jutted out, nodding to her. “You bring you.”
“But that, that is nothing.”
He took a step toward her, so close now he could feel the panic and fear and hope vibrating off of her.
He needed her to choose the hope.
His hand lifted to drag his knuckles along her cheekbone. “I’d say that is everything. And I would never demand anything from you. Nothing that you didn’t want to give me.”
Her breath caught in an audible hiccup. She stared at him for long seconds, scrutinizing him. Scrutinizing his intentions.
He held her gaze, not flinching under her assessment.
“But this isn’t fair to you.” One last futile argument against what she was being swept into. Admirable.
“Does it matter? You’ll live life on your terms, away from your father’s clutches.”
Her right hand lifted, her fingers settling on his chest. “It matters. It does. What you want matters. What if you meet a woman you truly want as your wife?”
“I want you, Ness. I didn’t imagine this when you first appeared at the Alabaster. I didn’t imagine it in the first, the second week. But I came back here and you were gone.”
He paused, his look going to the ceiling as his head shook. “I was going to tear London apart to find you.”
“You were?”
His gaze dropped to her, his stare piercing. “I was.”
Her lips closed tightly as she stared at him. Stared at him for the longest moment, disbelief lacing her eyes. But then a flicker. Heat lighting to flame in the amber of her eyes. Fire that made him want her all the more.
Her full lips finally parted. “What if I want you, as well?”
{ Chapter 17 }
The words had barely left her mouth and he was on her, his lips finding hers, his hands wrapping around her ribcage, her back, pulling her into him.
Not tentative, his fierce intensity enveloped her, heat and lust descending from him, parting her lips, consuming her every nerve. The whole of the onslaught creating an insistent, pounding thunder in the core of her.
This was what it felt like.
To truly want someone, deep in the depths of her soul. She’d never experienced this raw, brutal yearning that was consuming her from the inside out.
Except in her dreams.
Dreams she’d had one too many times in the past weeks. Talen’s body over her. His skin on hers. His tongue dragging along her shoulder. For all the thoughts she’d refused to allow to worm into her mind when she was awake, in her sleep his naked body was painfully vibrant. How he would cup her breasts, set his mouth to taste the crux of her neck, crush her body into him. Too many times she’d woken in a thin sheen of sweat, panting, her body aching for his touch.
Dreams she would force out of her mind the second her eyes opened.
Unrequited lust was not going to help her move on with her life.
But now this.
She wanted him, and it was the first time she’d let herself think that thought while fully conscious. The first time she could acknowledge it.
She wanted Talen.
She wanted him, wanted everything about him on her, in her, making her feel the exact opposite of everything that had swamped her soul these past weeks. Despair. Fear. Anger. All of that bounded up and discarded by the carnal craving ripping through her body.
His tongue explored her mouth, demanding everything he could reach, his breath hot on her skin. The scent of him sent her head light, spice and evergreen and smoke and something she couldn’t quite identify, could only classify it as man—as Talen.
The kiss wasn’t enough. She wanted—needed—more.
Her tongue warring with his, her hands lifted up along his chest, sliding under his coat and pushing it off of his shoulders. She popped buttons on his waistcoat free. Not fast enough, for all she wanted was to touch his skin, slide her palms against the smooth expanse of his back, his arms.
She tugged upward on his lawn shirt, pulling her mouth away from his to rip it over his head.
His shirt on the floor, he paused as he looked down at her, his crystal blue eyes cutting directly to her soul.
Everything she wanted from him, he wanted from her tenfold. All of it pulsated in his eyes. Harder, faster—he wanted to ravage her head to toe.
Her breath caught at his stare, instant panic that she wasn’t enough for him spiking through her chest.
Panic he didn’t give air to breathe, for his lips captured hers again, the kiss battering any misgivings into oblivion.
Her head spinning, she grasped onto him, her nails raking his back as she fought to stay upright.
He pulled up slightly, his eyes searching her face, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth. A grin that belied the desperate heat in his voice. “You don’t owe me anything, Ness. We can stop anytime.”
In that moment, she realized her dress and chemise had slipped down about her waist, her stays long since dropped to the floor. Her back was arched toward him, her right breast fully encapsulated by his hand, his fingers rolling her nipple into taut submission.
A sorcerer.
When had he even managed all of that? She’d been so focused on him—on touching his body—she hadn’t even considered her own until that second.
And now that she did—blast—the sweet agony shooting through her body from her nipple sent a thirst she couldn’t control into her throat.
He was waiting for an answer, his mouth not moving back down to her, and for the life of her, she couldn’t form words, the thirst holding her tongue hostage.
She could only nod as she reached up and wrapped her right hand around his neck, yanking his head downward, first to her mouth, then he drifted lower, devouring every speck of her skin from her mouth to her left nipple. Pulling, sucking, rocking the nub back and forth between his teeth. A fine line between pain and pleasure, and he walked it with aplomb, never letting the pain last long enough to really hurt, the pleasure sending guttural moans into her throat.
Awkward as it was with the bottom half of her left hand wrapped with the splint bandages, her hands went to work on his trousers, clearing the buttons of the fall front and shoving the black fabric down his legs, her hands skimming across the hair along his thighs, the muscles underneath tensing at her touch.
His head at her breast, she couldn’t see downward. So she moved her right hand inward, brushing along his shaft. Bru
shing again until she could grab a hold of him, dragging her fingers along the smooth span of his member. Heaven help her, there was no way they would fit together. Not with the girth. The length.
“Damn, Ness.” A guttural rumble vibrated his tongue as he swirled it about her breast and his hands ran down to her thighs, sending shivers along her skin in the wake.
Her dress was gone. Her chemise as well. She needed to pay more attention to the clothes stripping off her body.
Talen kicked his way out of his boots and trousers and then set his hands under her backside. His fingers clenched into her skin as he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him.
His cock suddenly long and hard along the crux of her made the insistent throbbing in her folds spike. His hips grinded, teasing his length against her, and her breath lodged in her chest.
With a crushing kiss, he barged four steps forward and her back hit the wall through the long drapes alongside the window. Velvet dragged along her back, cushioning her from the hard plane of the wall.
He pulled away, yet his teeth stayed attached to her bottom lip, nipping, tugging. Talen liked to skirt to the edge of pain and she wondered just how much he liked it.
The second his bite let her free, she returned in kind, raking his lower lip between her teeth. Too hard. The metallic taste of blood touched her mouth—not her own. It only sent a growl ripping through him and he attacked her neck with a fury, dancing to that edge of pain again.
So much energy swirling within her from a thousand directions. His mouth. His hands. His cock pressing along her folds.
“Forward?” His voice raw, the one-word question rumbled into her neck.
“Yes.” The word came out weak, already wearied. “Yes.” She repeated, full force, almost a scream as his fingers twisted her right nipple, sending shockwaves down to her core. If she was going into this, she was going into it with genuine intention.
He exhaled like a tiny death had embraced him, pausing for a moment, his breath on her neck, his muscles twinging before he moved again.
Holding her up against the wall with his left hand under her, Talen angled his hips slightly away, grabbing his shaft and positioning it at her entrance, ready to plunge.
She tilted her head back, her eyes closing with a grimace, bracing herself.
He stopped, the whole of him frozen in motion. “What are you doing?”
His words cut through the haze muddling her mind and she dropped her chin and opened her eyes to him. “What?”
“The grimace on your face that just traveled through your entire body.”
Her eyes dipped down between them. She’d meant to hide it. “This part hurts.”
“Hurts? Hell, Ness.” He reached up with his right hand, lifting her chin so she looked at him. “It hurts?” His eyes searched her face.
She nodded, sudden heat flaming her cheeks. “It always does.” Her fingernails clawed into his back. “I don’t care, I want you. Want you inside of me. Even with the pain.”
With a shake of his head, his hands dropped her backside downward, setting her feet onto the floor.
For a full second, he looked to leave her. Abandon her with this throbbing, aching need for him that needed to be sated.
Instead, he dropped down onto his knees in front of her, his mouth going to her upper belly, the edge of his top teeth raking across her skin. “Devil take it, you taste so good. Every part of you.” He worked his way downward past her belly button.
Without warning, his finger slipped in between her folds and she went up on her toes, the shock of him finding her nubbin sending her body into a quiver. She could feel him smile against her lower abdomen.
Dragging his fingers deep along her folds, seeking, he dipped his middle finger into her. “You’re already so wet for me.”
Hell, that was what that was? For as many times as Gilroy had battered into her, she’d never felt this. Her body had never once reacted this way.
“But we can do better.” The rasp in his voice dripped with arrogance.
His thumbs traced inward along her thighs and he spread her legs slightly, his mouth finding the crux of her. His tongue slipped out, following the same path that his finger had forged.
Shock jerked her body farther up the wall, her right hand pushing off from his shoulder.
Heaven to hell, what he was doing was torture. Pure, unadulterated, delicious torture.
His tongue swirled around her swollen nub and then his lips locked onto it, rolling it back and forth.
Death, death was coming for her and her screams told him exactly that. Her fingernails dug so far into his shoulder she could feel the warmth of blood seeping out.
He sucked until her body started to shudder, a barrage of nonsensical words flying in a scream.
He pulled away, looking up at her with devil eyes, his chin dipping into her folds, rubbing with the rough stubble that had appeared on his face during the last day. “You like the edge, Ness?”
“Wh—what edge?” She formed the words, but they didn’t sound right in her own mind.
“This one.” He dragged her left leg up and over his shoulder, then dipped down to suck her nubbin again, his tongue swirling hard.
Saints and demons. The edge—the damn edge she needed to go over. He knew exactly how to make her body bend to him. Beg for more. Her right hand still locked on his shoulder, her left fingers moved to his hair, clutching his head as her body pleaded for more. But how could there possibly be more than this? More than this painful, glorious, raw pleasure that she wasn’t sure what to do with.
But her body knew. Her body wanted him inside of her.
Freeing her leg from his shoulder, she dropped, sliding down, her breasts dragging against his mouth and then chest. Further down until the tip of his shaft reached her folds and she wrapped her legs around him. Balanced on his knees, he chuckled, his mouth finding his way to her neck as his hands wrapped around her waist, holding her steady.
She plunged, sending the full length of him deep up into her.
Ballocks. It didn’t hurt.
His cock slid up into her—tight, filling her—but it didn’t hurt. The exact opposite. How could it be that this was exactly what her body had been pushing for, begging for?
He lifted her, sliding her up along his member, then let her crash back into him. Yes. Hell, yes. Again and again and the edge was back, the very edge he had goaded her to with his tongue.
Up and down, the hard length of him reaching deeper with each thrust.
“I can’t hold it—I need to pull out, N—”
She slammed her hips down onto him, not thinking, trading any rational thought for her body to go over this edge she so desperately needed.
A growl ripped through his chest and his cock expanded deep within her, warmth flooding her and spiraling her over that very edge. A cry ripped from her lips, her body fracturing into streaks of pleasure burning straight from the sun. Even as she gasped for air, her body jerked, curling into him as burst after burst vibrated through her core, contracting viciously around his hard shaft.
A limp rag against him, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, only the comforting peace of utter blackness filling her head.
Talen collapsed backward onto the carpet, dragging her body down with him.
She stayed in that position for far too long, her forehead and nose buried into his chest that moved up and down, her lips gasping for breath after breath. Her muscles unable to relax enough to fully collapse down onto him. What in the good earth had Talen just done to her? Demons and angels had just warred in her body and she had come out the victor.
His hand moved upward from the small of her back and he nudged her downward, making her body cover his, every inch of her skin that could be touching him, on him. She needed the prodding for she couldn’t move on her own.
Her body eased into a puddle on top of him and his hand moved farther up along her spine, his fingers entwining in her hair that had lost its pins long ago.<
br />
When her breath finally came back to her, her right hand drifted up along his chest in front of her face, watching the muscles under his skin flicker alive at her fingertips. For as much as she now dared to want more—want this with Talen, when she never could have imagined it hours ago—she had to speak to the one thought festering in her brain. “Talen, this…marriage…it is too much. You do not have to sacrifice yourself for me.”
His fingers twisting strands, entangled in her hair, stilled. “Why do you insist this is a sacrifice I am undertaking?”
“Because it is. You are free and now you won’t be.” She shifted her head along his chest to look at his eyes.
He tucked his free arm under his head to see her better. “Or is it that you are the one worried that you won’t be free? You said you trusted me, Ness.”
“I do.” Her head shifted down, her cheek brushing his chest as she nodded. “I do.” She repeated, more to convince herself than him.
“Then we get married in Scotland—it’s the quickest choice and it will get you out of London. We marry in Scotland and you can always seek to end the marriage in the future, should you want to. Either way, I will ensure you are taken care of.”
All of this, his generosity, was too much to believe in, to trust in from where she was a month ago. She wedged her right hand onto the carpet and pushed herself up, hovering above him, her gaze pinning him. “Why would you do this for me?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know, Ness. I don’t know what it is about you, but from the first moment I saw you, even bruised and battered, you were someone that I knew, instinctively, that I needed to protect. I cannot explain it and I have not been able to place that compulsion. And then the more time I spent with you, the more I have come to want you just for you, beyond protecting you.”
Honest. Not a declaration of love, not that she was looking for one. Love was the last thing she needed at the moment. Her brow furrowed. “So if we did marry, how would we…I mean—us—you and me…” The heat of a blush crawled up her neck. “How would we live? Where?”
“We will figure that out.”
Dangerous Exile (An Exile Novel Book 3) Page 12
