His hands plunged into her hair, scattering pins to the stones as he ravaged her lips.Constance groaned into his mouth with desperate approval and tore open the buttons on his waistcoat.
She ran her hands up the fabric of his shirt, feeling the taut planes of his chest—then burned with frustration at the barrier between her and what she wanted.
She yanked the shirt from his trousers and tried again.
Her fingers glided up smooth skin.Lean muscle flexed beneath her touch with bare control.
Neil set his hands to her hips and drove her backwards, Constance blindly stumbling until she bumped up against one of the pillars.
Then he grabbed her thighs and lifted them around his waist.
Blinding, ravenous sensation flooded through her.Constance used the power in her legs to lift herself higher, tugging back Neil’s head and plunging her tongue into his mouth.
Neil’s scent enveloped her—ink and paper, amber and cinnamon.Hot, strong hands gripped her through the silk of her skirt as he pressed himself closer.
Everything about it felt so bloody good… and Constance wantedmore.
She hooked her ankles behind his hips and bit his earlobe.
Neil’s curse was accented by the soft crash of shattering porcelain.
Constance looked over Neil’s shoulder to where Ellie stared at her with wide-eyed shock, a broken plate of pastries lying at her feet.
Adam stepped out from the doorway behind her and took in the scene with a glance.
Constance burned with the knowledge of what he saw.
Neil stood with his shirt untucked and his spectacles askew.Constance’s dress was pulled down at the shoulder where Neil had been tracing lines of fire across her collarbone with his lips.Her hair had fallen into an abandoned mess.
Her legs were still locked around his body.
Neil released his hold on her thighs, and Constance’s feet dropped back to the floor.She took a quick, shaking step back as she tugged up her sleeve.
Her forced, cheerful tone rang with jarring falseness.“Oh.There you two are.”
Neil said nothing.He made no effort to right himself.He just stared at his sister helplessly—and then turned to Constance.
His look pinned her in place as the heat faded from the places where he had touched her skin.She tried to read the poetic lines of his face, wondering urgently what he seemed to want—no,need—to say.
Aai’s voice sang from the door to the hall.“Kondi!”
Neil spun on his heel and ran.
Constance froze with the sense of being torn in four different directions.All of them felt important—but she knew without a shadow of a doubt which one mattered most.
She looked to her friends urgently.
“Stall for me!”she begged Ellie and Adam.“Please!”
Then she bolted after Neil.
?
Forty-One
Ellie was stillgaping after her departed friend and her brother when Adam hooked a hand around her waist and propelled her back into the palace.
They ran directly into Mr.Mahjoud.The impeccably dressed dragoman stared down at them with an air of tired exasperation.
