Page 129 of The Silversmith

He hissed, tightening one hand on my ass, using his lips and tongue to hungrily lick, kiss, worship my neck. “My Ella, you have no idea,” he breathed. “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamt this. Dreamt of us like this.”

I whimpered in response and kissed him, cutting him off, unable to be parted from his mouth for a moment longer. I couldn’t think, could hardly feel beyond the places he touched me. The places I tasted him, and he tasted me.

“Touch me,” I begged, leading his hand to my breast. “Please touch me.”

He shuddered at the feel of my stiff nipple under his thumb as he circled it, then did the same to the other, mirroring his tongue in my mouth. My hips bucked against him, pulling a desperate shudder from his chest. The deep vibration of his moan infiltrated every atom, every cell in my body. I almost came undone.

But with his hand in my hair, he parted us again, despite my frantic efforts to keep myself glued to him. He whispered against my lips, “I love you. Tell me you know.” Our eyes locked together, and if it was possible for him to make love to me with his eyes, he did. “Tell me you know I love you, Ella.”

A rush of emotion, of love overwhelmed me too. But I didn’t understand why he felt the need to part us, to tell me now, again, in the heat of it, when we were both getting what we wanted. When we only had one chance. This had to happen now, tonight, and we both knew that I… couldn’t say it. Even if it was true, I couldn’t say what couldn’t be.

If I told him I loved him, if I admitted it out loud, I knew it would break something irreparable inside of me.

So I refocused on his touch. His strength and his warmth. His body, and how he made me feel. Alive and warm and safe. I covered the hand that palmed my breast and guided him down past my navel. He hissed through clenched teeth, breathing faster, his glazed brown eyes shuttering closed.

“Ella,” he warned me. He knew where I was taking him. “Ella.”

But I needed him to understand. I needed him to feel what I felt.

“Show me you love me.” I slid his fingers beneath the front hem of my underwear, into my wetness.

“Fuck!” he gasped into my neck when he felt how soaked I was. A tortured, pleading, helpless groan so powerful, my core dropped closer to the edge of unraveling. He was controlled violence, dominance personified, trapped in the prison he kept himself in, and I was determined to release him.

I breathed shakily, whimpering as I shifted on his stilled fingers. It felt so wonderful—like light and warmth and tingling on the brink of euphoric explosion—even though he refused to move. And I knew, if he flexed them once, I would… I would…

“Please.” Tears bit at my eyes, strangled my voice. “Take all of me.”

With a tortured, raspy moan, he pulled his fingers from my wetness. With one hand, strong despite the slickness of my arousal on his fingers, he trapped my wrists above my head. With the other, he gripped the back of my neck and held me still, kissing me again.

But this kiss was softer. Lingering. More… final.

When he pulled away, his eyes locked with mine. Brimming with remorse and loss and love but unwavering in his resolve.

“Ella,” he pleaded, my name a desperate whisper. And I swear, my heart split in half at the sound of his shallow, broken, “No.”

Chapter thirty

Ice crystallized in my veins.

He lowered me to the bed and turned away.

“I didn’t want you to stop,” I whispered, suddenly feeling like a shell of myself. Feeling lost.

“And gods, I don’t want to,” he groaned, and ran his trembling hands over his face. “But I have to, Ella.”

I lifted my fingers to my swollen lips where I could still taste him—sweet, hot, and alive on my tongue. I looked down at the skirt of my sea-green dress still hiked around my waist, leaving my thighs and the white lace undergarments he’d given me in Tovick fully exposed.

And I was suddenly very cold, very… aware of myself.

Face flushed and body wracked with violent shakes, I straightened my dress on my shoulders and pushed it down to cover my knees. I grasped at the blankets on the bed and wrapped myself in one.

“You don’t have to hide yourself just because I can’t give you what you deserve, Ella.”

I froze beneath the heat of his stare, afraid to look up. I didn’t want whatever he thought I deserved. I only wanted him, but he didn’t seem to get that.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he insisted.

But I didn’t believe him.