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Craven simply looked at him. It was the same look he’d given Maximus when he’d snapped at one of his sisters as a youth, when Maximus had drunk too much wine for the first time, when he’d refused to speak for that fortnight after his parents’ death. It was the look that said, This is not behavior becoming of the Duke of Wakefield.
That look had always stopped Maximus.
But not this time. This time he was the one who was right and Craven who was in the wrong. He could not marry Artemis—his debt to his father’s memory, to what he must be as the duke in order to make something right, did not allow it—but he could have her and keep her and make her his most secret desire.
Because he wasn’t sure at this point that he could live without her.
He looked at Craven and he knew his face had assumed the cold, stony mask that made other men glance away. “I will marry Lady Penelope, and I will continue bedding Miss Greaves as I see fit, and if you are unable to reconcile yourself to those facts you may leave my employment.”
For a moment Craven merely looked at him and Maximus was reminded suddenly of his first sight the day he woke after his parents’ murder: it had been Craven’s face as he’d slept in a chair by Maximus’s bedside.
Craven turned away and left the bedroom, shutting the door gently behind him.
It might as well have been a gunshot to Maximus’s soul.
Chapter Fifteen
Now Tam rode behind the Herla King, and though she tried to talk to him, never in that year did he speak to her or make a sign that he knew her. Still, when the night of the autumn harvest next came, Lin took a deep breath and did as the little man in the hills had bid her: she reached back and dragged her brother from his ghostly horse, gripping him tightly. Immediately Tam turned into a monstrous wildcat.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
The steps to Maximus’s cellar were damp. Artemis climbed down carefully, for she held Apollo’s breakfast in her hands: tea, bread thickly spread with butter and jam, and a huge dish of coddled eggs. The maid had looked at her a little oddly when she’d requested such a large breakfast but was obviously too well trained to inquire about her unladylike appetite.
Now Artemis balanced the wooden tray on one hip as she fumbled with the key to the door. It seemed rather odd to lock Apollo in like this—surely no one would dare investigate the duke’s cellar—but both Maximus and Craven had insisted it was for the best.
Inside, nothing seemed to have changed since she’d bid Apollo good night only hours before. The brazier still cast a dull light and Apollo sat upon the narrow cot. But as she drew nearer she saw there was one very large difference: Apollo had a ball and chain around one ankle.
She stopped short only feet from him. “What’s this?”
He might be half-starved, beaten near to death, and for some reason still unable to speak, but her brother had never had any trouble expressing his thoughts to her.
He rolled his eyes.
Then he looked down and started theatrically at the ball as if he’d never seen it before. The skittish movement was quite silly when made by such a large man.
hot him a look from under her brows and saw that he had an extraordinary expression on his face—a kind of fond hunger.
“Diana,” he breathed, and caught her lips with his.
Suddenly she no longer wanted to play. There was a coiling within her, drawing her body tight again, building to what she now knew was unbearable pleasure.
She shifted closer, rucking her skirts up and bringing the tip of his hard penis against her folds. They still kissed as she rolled her hips, her breath stuttering when she used him to rub herself.
He opened wide his mouth and kissed her deeply, shoving his own hips up. She knew what he wanted—what he probably needed at this point—but she, too, needed.
Just a little more.
She caught her breath, writhing as she slid him through her slippery folds. He was so hard, so wide, so absolutely perfect, he might’ve been made expressly for her.
Well, in a way he was, wasn’t he?
But his patience broke.
He grasped her waist and raised her, looking her in the eye fiercely. “Hold me there.”
So she reluctantly put him to her entrance, holding him steady as he let her weight bear down.
As he joined with her.
