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He needed to learn some patience first. Needed to writhe and squirm and moan. My gloved fingers dug into his hip as I moved down again, letting my mouth go where it would, tracing every muscle, every line. Because I wanted him to remember this.
No matter what happened, no matter if I ended up as little more than a memory in some recess of Dorina’s crazed mind, I wouldn’t forget this. I wouldn’t forget him. Hard muscles shining in the firelight, gleaming with the spilled wine, my red-stained kisses on his skin. Everywhere.
And something in his eyes I’d never thought to see from anyone. And I suddenly found that I didn’t care why it was there. It was there. It was enough.
I trailed the leather-gloved hand across his stomach, down his hipbone, then traced the length of him. I wasn’t holding him down anymore, but he stayed in place, watching me with half-closed eyes. Determinedly still.
Until I slowly followed the stains my finger had left with the tip of my tongue, licking them away.
And then his breath caught, and he gasped something and his body arched—but not enough. Because I drew back as he rose up, staying just above him, only my breath touching him. And either the wine was a lot more alcoholic than usual, or I was getting drunk on the whole experience. Because I laughed suddenly, low and elated, and reached for the carafe once more.
And somehow ended up on my back instead.
It happened so fast, I never even saw him move. But between one blink and the other, I was lying on the soft clover. And he was—
Standing over me, heavily muscled and solid as an oak, and barer than I was, since I still had on a glove and he was somehow wearing nothing but firelight. It shone in his hair, played over the hard body, darkened his eyes. But I didn’t have much time to enjoy the scenery. Because he scooped up the jug of wine, and then slowly, gracefully, went to his knees over top of me.
And he was more generous than I had been, scooping out a wine-soaked offering, holding it to my mouth. I opened it automatically, even though it felt like I’d already had enough. Maybe a little too much, I thought, as I felt the world shift beneath me.
And then it happened again, that strange connection we’d always had, clicking into place even though this wasn’t that sort of wine. But right now, I didn’t seem to need it. Maybe because I was already in his mind, or he was already in mine? Didn’t know. Didn’t care, caught in the floating, surreal feeling of feeding and being fed, all at the same time.
I felt soft lips part, brushing fingers that were both mine and his at the same time. Felt the heat of my own tongue as it curled around a finger, saw myself in a flash—dark eyes shining, face flushed, lips full and red-stained and opening hungrily again.
“More,” someone said. And I wasn’t sure if it was him or me.
But he was the one who sat back, showing me the whole long line of his body, almost every inch displaying signs of my possession. A bite mark on his left shoulder, which he deliberately wasn’t healing. Twin outlines of my hands, like the ochre-colored impressions found in cave paintings, on his pecs. A perfect imprint of my lips, caught in the middle of an openmouthed kiss, on his lower stomach.
Mine, I thought, but didn’t say. Because he wasn’t. Except for tonight. And if this was all I had, all I would ever have, then I needed to touch—
My fingers flexed under his knees, but he didn’t let up. It should have infuriated me, but instead I felt something in me twist, uncoil, release. I felt drunk on more than wine, as his thumb ran along the curve of my mouth, chasing some wayward juice, and received a nip of teeth instead. A silent order for more.
And more there was, more fruit, more wine, more strange double vision, showing me my own face superimposed over the flames dancing in blue, blue eyes. More emotions, most of which I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, name. But behind the heat was a strange vulnerability that was all too familiar, and a terrible sympathy that raked my soul, without stirring up the sharp-edged pride I carried like a shield.
Because he understood. What it was like to be unwanted, to be abandoned, to be shunned. Our isolation might have been caused by separate things, prejudice on my side, politics on his.
But the result…the result had been the same.
And it was suddenly too much, like something was cracking open inside. I let my eyes flutter closed, but I could still see through his, although I almost wished I couldn’t. Because my lids might have been shut, but my face was open, too open. He cupped my jaw, and I turned into his palm. And when he leaned close enough to lick the wine from my cheeks, I tasted it right along with him, and the faint edge of salt beneath the sweetness.
My voice sounded strange when I spoke, harsh and raw, and so low I could feel it in my belly. “More.”
He took a handful of fruit, bringing it to his mouth, before bending over me, one fat, wine-soaked strawberry held between hard white teeth, dripping a trail of bloody drops across my torso, my throat, my—
I took it from his lips although it wasn?
??t what I wanted. Not anymore. But the kiss that followed—yes. Yes.
It was slow, sweet from more than wine, and gentle, but not careful. I licked the taste of crushed berries from his mouth, finding Louis-Cesare beneath the wine. I wanted to kiss him until what passed for morning, to lick away every taste but my own. I moaned around his tongue and the sound made him kiss me harder. And I discovered that when he lost control, Louis-Cesare kissed the same way he fought, wild and passionately, and with his entire body. He kissed like he was never going to stop—
Until he suddenly did, leaving me gasping for air, while smooth lips and rough hands and soft hair trailed down my body. I could feel my heartbeat loud in my ears, at my groin, fluttering in the bottom of the foot I’d pressed against his thigh. He was marking me now, too, leaving prints and streaks on my skin as he worked downward, as he parted my legs, as he…
I breathed his name as he settled between my thighs, stroked his cheek, buried my hands in cool, silky hair as a warm tongue went to work. And I could swear his strokes matched the pulse of the stars, the beat of the drums, the sounds of the night. All of which became louder, brighter, more real as I was ravished by hard hands and soft lips and wet tongue.
I let my hands grip his head to steady myself, rather than to guide him where he needed to go. Because he already seemed to get that, judging from the way my breath was coming faster and my body was quivering and my thighs were clenching uncontrollably. And my fingers were digging into the muscles of his shoulders where they’d dropped when the hillside started to shake and the stars to spin.
To the point that I barely noticed when a storm spread across the horizon, blotting out half the sky.
It was sweeping this way, on wide, tattered wings of night, but it didn’t seem to matter. Not in comparison to the fingers digging into my hips, or the sounds Louis-Cesare was making in his throat, or the warm tongue dragging over me. And then I threw my head back and—
