Once again she was remined of Guillaume Geefs Lucifer statue.
Dipping a finger in the paint—the one without the blood—she began painting binding runes all over him. His skin was warm, and muscle flexed beneath her touch like a cat leaning into a caress.
“Edie,” he prompted, his eyes twinkling merrily. “Saliva next.”
She stuck her cut finger in her mouth and suckled on it, intent on painting the blood across his throat, but he caught her wrist and slowly lifted it to his mouth instead.
The hot suction of his mouth speared through her.
Edwina stilled as the beginnings of the spell caught hold.
Warmth washed through her lower abdomen—magic stirring, thick and heavy in her womb. She could feel him now, his soul melding with hers. The heat of his own magic was like a blazing corona.
Her magic was of middling range, but Sterling could shatter the entirety of London if he wished it.
Edwina’s breath caught as his magic slid under her skin like lips trailing up her arms, across her collarbone and lower, toward her heart.
“You are going to get me in so much trouble,” she whispered.
“Always,” he promised, pressing a kiss to the tip of her finger. “You need a little trouble in your life, Edie Marie.”
“Sterling—” This wasn’t the time. Nor the place. But?—
“We’ll discuss it later.”
Now he wanted to talk about it later. She almost threw her hands up in the air.
“My turn.” Heat smoldered to life in his blue eyes. “Unbutton your gown.”
“You just want to get me out of this dress so you can burn it.” But her fingers lifted to the row of buttons that began beneath her chin.
“I’m going to get you out of your dress at some stage, Edie. But I think I might be too distracted to even think of the fate of your gown.”
“Flatterer.”
“An honest man. I want you, and I won’t pretend I don’t anymore.”
Every button she unleashed brought a chill of cool air prickling against her. Or perhaps that was the weight of his gaze, pebbling her skin and hardening her nipples. She felt not at all herself.
“Hold still,” he murmured, dipping his finger in the paint.
The first brush of his index against her collarbone made her shiver.
The faintest of smiles touched his mouth. “You are shockingly receptive to a man’s touch, Edie.”
“This is new to me,” she argued.
“I like it. I can’t wait for it to be my mouth.”
The way he said such things…. She shivered again, and then his finger was tracing lower, painting his familiar bindrune in the valley between her breasts.
“Blood to bind,” he whispered, slicing his index finger on the athame.
Blood mixed with the paint, and Edie squirmed as slivers of delicious heat spread through her.
It felt like he had his fingers inside her.
“Saliva to mark the spell,” she breathed, expecting him to pop his finger in his mouth, as she had.
