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But until then, Lissa was his.
He would taste that honey flesh. Cup those round, firm breasts. Kiss his way down the length of that soft throat. Bury his face in the wild tangle of that hair. It might only be for a few hours; still, he would leave her remembering him.
Before she was widowed, she would be very, very married.
Twining her arms around his neck, Elisabeth answered Brendan’s impatience, hoping to lose herself in the luscious thrill of his lovemaking. Hoping to forget for a few precious moments the reality behind his terrible admission. He was leaving. And, without a miracle of epic proportions, would not return.
He’d tried to make her understand. He’d done everything but spell the truth out for her in big red letters, but in her desperation she’d ignored him. Taken his dire warnings as a last attempt to escape the fetters of an onerous marriage.
Nothing with Brendan was ever that simple.
Faced with his implacable determination to confront Máelodor, she’d been too shocked to respond at first, and then too numb. Arguing would be pointless. Brendan might call her stubborn, but a more mule-headed man did not exist, and she knew that bullish jut to the jaw all too well.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m a fool?” he murmured, his warm breath against her neck sending shivers fluttering down her spine and into her belly. “Or mad? Or both?”
“Would doing so change your mind?”
His gaze grew dagger sharp, his hands tightening around her waist. “No.”
“Then love me, Brendan,” she whispered. “That will have to be enough.”
His lips brushed her forehead, her temple. Behind her ear. Down her throat. Everywhere he touched, her skin tingled. Every kiss sent sharp jolts of heat straight to her center until she burned with wanting him. His hands fumbled with the buttons at her back until her gown slid free to her waist, her breasts bared. Nipples puckering at the first blast of cool air.
Palming their soft weight, his thumb skimming over the taut pink buds, he lowered his head to take one in his mouth, the swirl of his tongue delicious agony against her tender flesh. She threw her head back, a low purr escaping her throat as she dragged free the tail of his shirt to slide her hands over the sinewy hardness of his packed muscles. She rubbed against him, inflamed by the hard length of his arousal nestled in the junction of her legs.
Dropping to his knees, Brendan slid his hands beneath her skirts, dragging the fabric around her hips, exposing her stockings, garters, and quaking legs. A wash of embarrassment stung Elisabeth’s cheeks, but only for a moment before recklessness and a wanton craving overpowered all lesser emotions. Her stomach clenched, her heart thrashing against her ribs as he climbed with mouth and fingers toward the throbbing, wet heat between her thighs. The slow march of his seduction pulling her into a whirlpool of sinful desire until she gritted her teeth to keep from begging him to never stop.
His hands skimmed and stroked her swollen, aching flesh. She jerked, choking back a cry as he licked and sucked the sensitive nub hidden there. Her legs buckling as she melted into the lightning shock of pleasure generated by each expert flick of his tongue. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and without his arms about her waist, she’d have melted into a puddle onto the floor.
Pressure built low across her stomach, an insatiable longing expanding with each swirling thrust of his tongue. Tremors vibrated her limbs until she pulsed with a brutal, painful need, her breathing ragged as he assaulted her senses. As the riot of mind-stopping ecstasy exploded through her like fireworks, she bucked and cried out. Her inner muscles contracting in wave after wave of crashing, shuddering bliss.
Brendan drew himself up, the pulse in his neck throbbing as rapidly as the space between her legs. And as easily as if she were naught but featherlight, he tossed her onto the old four-poster, the scents of camphor and dust rising from the lumpy mattress. It could have been a granite slab for all she cared.
He raked her with a look, his glittering eyes as dangerous and full of desire as she’d ever seen them. This was no gentle lover. This was a man ready to devour. A predator. A conqueror. Shucking himself free of his breeches, dragging his shirt over his head, he kneeled above her, his greedy gaze searing a path over her body until sweat damped her skin, and she quivered with renewed anticipation.
She kissed him, licking her taste from him even as she wrapped her hands around his shaft, guiding him into her, rocking upward until he groaned against her lips.
They stayed this way for a long delicate moment, neither one willing to end the fiery, devastating torture. Finally, he drew out before plunging deep into her again. She wrapped her legs around him, meeting each thrust, their coupling frenzied and ardent and stormy with loss and grief and a love struck down before it ever had a chance to bloom.
Movement caught Elisabeth’s eye, and she turned to catch a glimpse of their joining reflected in the dark of Madame Arana’s mirror. Elisabeth’s hair falling loose across her shoulders in a scarlet ribbon, Brendan’s sleek, muscled body driving into her in a raw, urgent assault. Watching him pleasure her awakened a new sexual thrill. She smiled, feeling her passion coiling tighter and tighter until she peaked, writhing against him as scalding rivers of volcanic heat slid through her veins, drawing a shout of exhilaration from her kiss-swollen lips.
He gasped her name like a prayer, his neck muscles taut, back slick with sweat as he thrust once more, shuddering his climax, spilling his seed inside her. He lay unmoving, still sheathed within her, as he pressed a kiss upon her cheek and each eyelid. “If that’s your idea of a farewell, I should leave more often.”
He joked, but there was no humor in his tone and shadows crouched dark at the corners of his gaze.
Elisabeth closed her eyes as twists and eddies of lingering pleasure pooled and swirled through her. “You should see what I do for a homecoming.”
A chuckle rumbled low in Brendan’s throat. “I’d like that, sweet Lissa.”
She swallowed back bitter tears, refusing to send him away with weeping. Cradled his face in her hands to stare deep within the Fey-born beauty of his eyes and smiled through her heartbreak. “So, my love, would I.”
“Mon dieu! There you are. I have been looking everywhere for the two of you.”
Brendan and Elisabeth broke apart like guilty children as Madame Arana caught them on the landing outside Brendan’s door, her crinkled, wizened face pulled into frightened lines, alarm edging her tone.
Brendan’s transformation happened in an instant. From desirous to deadly between one beat of her heart and the next.
“Downstairs. The Amhas-draoi. Helena’s out, but they have said they will wait for her return.”
