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Cobwebs trembled from the ceiling. My breathing grew slender and shaky as I unclipped my necklace and discarded it on a shelf for him to find, then traipsed into another lane. His masculine chuckle rumbled through the vault, signaling he’d found my token.
I had never done something like this, divested my clothing in such a teasing fashion, purely to goad him. Yet he inspired me. Staggering as it proved to be, my lover awakened these impulses on a frequent basis, cracking them open like a porcelain shell.
It had been the uncivil way he looked at me in the orchard. Jealous. Covetous. Vicious. I’d sensed his reaction as he observed me beside Winter, and I had liked every one of my lover’s possessive thoughts.
So why not bait him more? If we must partake in this performance, why not derive a thrill from it?
Next, I skirted into a niche of rolled maps and kicked off my heels. Then I snuck past a rack of priceless coronation robes. Plucking the front laces of my gown, I striped off the garment and hung it beside the collection. After that, the underskirt puddled into a basket.
Each panel of material produced a different husky noise from him. But it was the stockings and garter that unleashed the harshest growl.
I skulked behind a broad ring of tapestries depicting all four Seasons, the artworks surrounding a chaise lounge. By then, I felt winded. Oxygen fled my lungs, my pussy leaked with desire, and my pulse crashed against my chest.
The tapestries quivered. And he appeared.
The Court Jester stalked from the shadows, the back of his hand whipping aside one of the textiles. His tall, sculpted body filled the compact space, the muscles of his arm flexing as he braced the tapestry. His eyes glittered from behind a black mask with a long beak, which he must have collected from the pile of costumes dating back to ancient Reaper’s Fests. Through the peek holes, his gaze poured green light into the vault, those irises the very color of envy and mischief.
Poet stood there, blocking my exit. The same way I’d lured him into a sealed room, he now had me cornered.
Yes. We had trapped each other.
That accounted for the upward slant of his mouth beneath the visor. Those illicit lips, loaded with shameless words, which he could unleash at any moment.
I braced myself. Then I changed my mind and stopped waiting.
“I’ve been expecting you,” I confessed.
“Oh?” the jester inquired, still holding the tapestry aloft. “Based on your little breadcrumb trail, I might have thought you were anticipating a different visitor.”
Because I knew who he meant, my lips curled. “Never.”
“Really? If he weren’t ice cold, I’d say the prince was rather hot.”
“Yet he’s not the person who tempts me. Only one man does that.”
“Hmm. Lucky for him, he’ll live to see another day. I’d hate to waste such a fetching garter on someone who looks like he’s never peeled a scrap of fabric from a conquest’s body in his life.”
“Rest assured, you’ve tricked, ruined, and burned me for eternity.”
“Such prose,” the jester mused. “For your sake, it had better be fact instead of fiction.”
The sultry warning oozed from him like liquid silk, imbuing me with power. This man, who could have anyone he wanted, who could verbally pick the lock off a chastity belt, and who took a person’s virginity merely by speaking. This man could never be threatened by that monster. Yet even as we made this into a game, I detected a thread of spite in his words. Not because he distrusted me, but for another reason entirely, the notion wetting my undergarments.
I leaned casually against the wall. “Loyal jester. Are we feeling a bit territorial?”
“Cheeky heiress,” he taunted back. “Are we feeling boastful?”
“Well, now that you mention it,” I mustered. “It’s dangerous to be left alone with a princess like me.”
Officially prompted, the jester glimpsed my reduction in clothing. His attention scraped down my corset and drawers, the nexus of which had grown damp. Noticing this, his pupils swelled like bottomless pits.
Poet’s fingers snapped open, releasing the tapestry, which flopped in place as he sauntered forward. His long legs ate up the distance. Looming over me brought the devil-black kohl lining his orbs into stark relief.
Despite the mask’s beak, the jester’s mouth was fully exposed and accessible. Therefore, he swept his lips over mine. “’Tis dangerous to be near youanywhere,” my seducer corrected. “Whether alone or among thousands, be it in a cramped throne room or trapped in a vault—” one of his arms snatched around my waist and jerked me forward, “—you have me in your relentless grasp.”
“That’s because you’re the only one I want.” My lips shook against his and dared to bait, “So if you’re feeling possessive, I cannot imagine why.”
“Forgot how you affect me, is that it?” His arm tightened, fingers burrowing into my hip. “Allow me to remind you.”
