Victor rose and helped clear the table. “Goodnight.” He nodded to us both with that slight upward curve of his mouth that passed for a grin and followed her out.
Lilia looked at me across the empty table, and I met her gaze.
“Subtle,” she said with a quirk of her lips.
I let out a low laugh.
Lilia turned her head to glance out of the hall. “Perhaps we’ll play a game in the library?”
I could think of better ways to spend the time alone with her, but didn’t push it. “The library,” I agreed.
We madeit as far as the door.
I’d told myself I’d show restraint. That we’d sit by the fire as we had before, talk through the progress on the wards, perhaps read. That whatever had happened between us would be something I could manage in the presence of armchairs and good sense.
The door had barely closed behind us when she turned, her pupils large and eyes darkened. I was there within a heartbeat.
I pressed her back against the shelves and kissed her hard, forgoing the careful deliberateness of last night, and drawing oneverything I’d been holding back throughout the evening, while we tended to the wards, since she’d caught my eye from across the dinner table—the fire building in me more. She let out a soft sigh on my lips, and then ran her hands through my hair and kissed me fiercely.
Books shifted somewhere on the shelves. Neither of us reacted. I kissed down her throat, her jaw, to her collarbone, while she let out soft sounds that undid every last bit of restraint.
She fumbled with the buttons of my shirt, and I traced my hands over her curves. I slid them under her dress, cupping her ass and lifting her up. She moved with me, wrapping her legs around me, and I braced her back against the shelves. She was warm everywhere. And she smelled intoxicating.
“Hadrien.” My name was a breathless sigh from her lips.
“I’m right here,” I said in a low rumble.
I carried her to one of the large chairs and sat her down. The firelight cast a warm glow on her soft skin and a reddish hue on her dark hair, now spread over her shoulders. Her lips were swollen from kissing, and her hooded eyes watched me as I lowered to my knees before her.
I dragged her dress up and settled between her thighs, touching and kissing, licking and teasing.
“Oh…” Her breathy word was barely audible.
“Let me taste you,” I urged.
One heartbeat later, she whispered, “Yes.”
How intoxicating it was to explore her. To savor her divine taste. To discover what made her respond and turn to mush in my hands. Breathy moans escaped her as her fingers returned to my horns. Desire bolted through me at the sensual touch. Her hips rose and fell and she grasped the arms of the chair. Her rising pleasure amplified mine, and I was right on the edge of reason with her.
When she came apart, gasping out my name, I held her through the waves, relished every tremor, savored every drop.
Afterward, she lay flushed and spent, appearing even smaller in the chair. She glanced at me, still breathing fast. Her face now appeared utterly relaxed, content. That undisguised expression in her eyes unraveled me even more.
I rose from the floor and held out my hand.
She cocked her head as she looked at my hand, then up at me.
“Let’s continue upstairs.”
“Yes.” She placed her small hand in mine, coming to me without hesitation.
Even up in my room as I laid her back beneath the dark coverlet and crawled over her with my much larger frame, she didn’t hesitate. Instead, she reached for me, running her soft fingers over my back with her featherlight touch. Her desire, her understanding, her acceptance—it left me without words. I’d been here alone for so long and didn’t realize how suffocating the loneliness was until now.
When I finally pressed into her, slow and deep, something shifted in my chest. Our connection went beyond desire, touching me somewhere deep, loosening the shield that I’d erected long ago, as if she was dismantling a wall, stone by stone.
She sighed my name against my temple as she clung to me.
I held still inside her for a moment. Just feeling the warmth of her, the realness of her, her surrender in trusting me. Her heartbeat pressed against my chest, and a realization took form.
