'Not by me,' he said.
She pushed the cook's gown from her lap. She uncrossed her legs and slid off the bed, walking toward the door, veering to the mirror, touching a hand to the sheet that still covered it.
She would have sworn she could hear the chorus of voices swell from behind it. Could see the darkness shifting, small lights drawn into coronas around the tips of her fingers.
Rhys had managed to come up behind her without noise. He touched his hands to her waist, lightly, diffidently. She felt his head bend to hers, his exhalation at her temple.
He did not speak. He moved his lips to her hair. She turned in the circle of his arms and met his gaze.
He was wild and not, a green reflection of the woods, of home, and not. Because he was here too, he was a shadow creature tortured into the light, and he gazed at her with such a sober wild clarity it sent quivers of awareness crawling all along her skin.
'You should stay here,' she managed, her voice a thread as small as those from the apron. 'No.'
Her fingers had found his own waist; she had changed into the salmon-pink satin but he still wore no shirt, only those breeches, torn and knotted, because she hadn't had the courage to go into Hayden's portmanteau and get him anything else.
His skin burned her. He was hot, very hot, still too slim. He felt as if he were a man cut from paper, so brittle and impermanent as if he might flame to ash at any moment. Wintry cold or sizzling heat, there was never anything temperate about Rhys Langford. His passions ruled him. He'd decided that this was love, and Zoe knew he'd never change his mind. She would be the one for him for the rest of their lives . however long that might be.
'Please,' she said. 'Please stay.'
'I can't. I'm tied to you. Don't ask again.'
He kissed her, and this time there was nothing soft about it. It pushed her back against the mirror, a small bump of the frame against the wall. He shoved his body against hers and spread his legs, trapping her, talons jabbed into the garish red silk.
Her body arched in instant response. All the memories from last night, all the burning white heat that turned her face to his, that had her tongue meeting his. She tasted him and reveled in it: He was not paper, nothing insubstantial despite the bones of his ribs and the twisting claws. He was still
She craved him. She wanted to taste him, to feel him. She wanted his scent on her and hers on him; there was an animal inside her after all, and the animal wanted to bend down and submit to whatever he desired. However he desired.
His mouth devoured hers; they were breathing each other, clinging to each other. When he drew a hand down between them she felt only a tug and a catch, heard the popping of stitches.
The bodice of
He yanked the bodice from her. The sleeves were tight and they caught on her arms, but he pulled them down and down until her arms were free again, and she wore only her torn shift and the skirts. He shoved them both to the left, away from the mirror, and when she tried to step away he pushed her back against the wall, gold barbs stabbed through petticoats and pink satin, hauling them up to her thighs.
She raised a leg to his hip, her stockinged thigh to his hip. She found the knot in his breeches and yanked at it, cinching it tighter, so she pulled and pulled until the fabric split down the seam on the other side, and she could grasp his shaft.
He made a strangled sound in his throat. He held motionless, trembling, as she wrapped her fingers around him and began to stroke, using first her fist, then her fingers, and finally her nails—deliciously, delicately, scraping his skin, then soothing it, tracing the crown of his head and the tender underneath as if she'd always known how to do it. Always known his body and his wants, and how to make him thrust into her hand with his eyes closed and his mouth drawn tight. His claws scoring furrows into the wall, ravaging her skirts.
She guided him between her legs. She urged him there, remembering the way of it, her hands around the hard muscles of his buttocks, and he slid back and forth in her slickness, that small strangled sound turning into a rasp with every breath.
He bent his knees, brought his palms to her shoulders and thrust up deep into her, lifting her to her toes. The hurt came again, quick and hot and wet . and then easing into something better, a dark licking flame eager for more of him.
He put his forehead to hers. They moved in silence, neither speaking, only the smack of their skin filling the air, perspiration beading down his face, onto hers. Strands of dark and gold hair clinging to her neck. Moisture between her breasts. One twisted clawed hand shifted from the wall to scoop behind her waist; he bent her there, bowed her toward him, and she nearly lost her balance until he grunted and shoved even deeper inside, lifting his face to the ceiling with his eyes now closed, something that looked like anguish hardening his features.
She stood on the balls of her feet. She kept her fingers clenched into his shoulders. She could not move otherwise without tilting them both off-balance, and Rhys knew it. He had mastery of the moment and used it, pumping in and out of her, using his body to rub against hers, the crisp curls of his groin, the center of her caught in some terrible tight torment that wasn't letting go—
She tried to turn her face away but he wouldn't let her, bending close to suck at her lips, her breasts bouncing, then crushed against him. She couldn't move, she couldn't fight him. He had control of every aspect of her body, shifting from hard and fast to slow and deep, deeper, and without warning she felt that rising within her once again, spiraling white flame.
Zoe tore her mouth from his; she could not breathe, and she needed to breathe because she was about to incinerate; she was the one made of paper—
Rhys paused, only long enough to hear her low, desperate moan, then pushed so far into her the wall surely buckled, and she no longer touched the floor at all, and someone's voice had risen to a gasping, wordless plea.
'Yes,' he growled. 'Yes, yes, Zee.'
She climaxed, her body clenching around his, shuddering, and he pumped and pumped and came inside her with a sudden stiff push, flooding her without sound, only his breath harsh and frantic in her ear.
Her toes gradually sank back to the floor. He waited until he could speak again, until they could both speak, and then ran his tongue up the line of her neck.
She shivered. His teeth closed over her earlobe.
'You will love me,' he whispered.
'Unlikely.' She closed her eyes, opened them, and struggled to find her sense in the sex-scented gloom of the crimson chamber.
* * *
He convinced her to delay their leaving. He convinced her with words and his hands, and finally with the remnants of the food he'd stolen for her, slivers of roast beef and apples that he fed to her in bed. He knew if he delayed her long enough, she'd give it up for the night. Her plan required daylight and respectable people surrounding her in the fashionable quarter of the Palais Royal.
Let it grow dark. Let the sun set. Let him have one more day with her in the flesh, one more night, before their lives were tossed back to the fates.
Rhys lay with his head pillowed upon her stomach, enjoying the unhurried rise and fall that shifted his view: the bed and window, the ceiling and window. Bed and window. Ceiling and window.
The apartment had grown dim. It had been some while since either of them had spoken, and he wondered if she'd fallen asleep.
'I should go,' she said just then, as if she'd read his mind and was determined to dash all his hopes. He realized, oddly, that perhaps she had.
'Not yet.'
'There's no reason not to.'
'There are a thousand reasons.'
'Name one.'
