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With one hand Marius explored me, and with the other he gripped onto himself. I risked a glance for a moment as his hand ran circles on the protrusion that waited beneath the material of his trousers. The outline of his manhood sent a shiver across my arms, until every hair stood on end.
“I am on your mind,” Marius breathed.
I arched my back as his hand found what it searched for.
“This is the first time you have called for me.”
I could not reply, not as I gripped onto his caressing hand to slow him. His touch intoxicated me.
“Do I fill your thoughts?”
His other hand now gripped my throat, nails biting into my skin as he held me down, stopping me from squirming as he worked away at me.
I was sensitive beneath his touch. It thrilled me. Enthralled me. Marius did not once take his deep, maroon eyes off me.
“Why do you dream of me?”
His words were the crashing wave of water that woke me. I bolted up in his bed, finding the room still lit from the daylight beyond the castle window. Marius was nowhere to be seen. The room was empty.
Breathlessly I waited for my heartbeat to calm for it thundered in my ears. My forehead was damp, as well as my arms and legs. My entire body stuck to the sheets.
It took a moment for the dreamscape to leave me. I lowered my head back onto the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, shocked at myself. My subconsciousness ruled my mind during sleep, and I had conjured that sensual thought. It sickened me.
Or did it?
I rolled over, pressing my face into the pillow in hopes to suffocate the image of Marius from my mind.
“It is the wine,” I told myself, promising that I would not touch a drop the next day. But as I closed my eyes again, I half expected to fall back into the scene with him. It had been so clear. Every detail so vivid and real.
The sleep that followed was empty and uninterrupted — but as I fell into its embrace, I was certain I still felt his phantom touch linger across the skin of my thigh.
11
It was a struggle to hold Marius’s stare as he made himself known at the threshold of his room.
“May I come in?” he asked, voice dripping with velvet.
I fussed with the sheets, making the bed and puffing the pillows. Doing anything to busy my mind from the dream that had occupied it. But it did not work. “You left me last night,” I said through a slight pout.
“I did.” I had to admire his bluntness. “And I come with an apology.”
I glanced up at him as he clearly held something concealed behind his back with both hands. The jacket Marius adorned today was midnight black and had a cloak attached to the collar which swept proudly behind him. His white locks had been combed over to the side, not a single hair out of place.
I realised all too late that my pause in response was noted as Marius smiled, following my gaze as I searched him up and down.
“Is something wrong?” A single brow lifted in question.
I turned my back on him and sighed. “I am trapped in this castle knowing that my end is weeks away. Of course something is wrong.”
It sounded funny, even to me, as I spoke the complaint aloud.
“Well put.” Marius voice was right behind me now, forcing a small yelp to escape my lips, silenced by his hand as it rested upon my tensed shoulder. “I did not mean to frighten you.”
Beneath his touch, my stomach jolted. Yesterday I was confident that I had him in the palm of my hand. But the dream had left me feeling a way I could not explain.
I turned to him, keeping my face void of expression. Shrugging his touch off my shoulder, I stepped back until the frame of the bed pressed into my lower calves. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company this evening, Marius?”
Marius pulled a face, fingers flexing where they hovered in the air. “If my disappearance last night has truly angered you, perhaps this will help.” He held in his hand a small china plate. Atop it was a single bun, glazed with white icing and drizzled with an amber, sticky substance. “A sweet treat as promised.”
