I pressed my forehead to hers, sharing breath, for a wild moment wondering if I could just push her against the wall and sink into her.
Oathbreaker. My insides shrank away from that word, easing my throbbing cock.
She squeezed the front of my shirt. “I understand. It’s the only part of yourself you haven’t surrendered to duty.”
I wanted to surrender it to her, though. Or at least my conscious self did.
She gave a slight smile, stroking my collarbone. “You need a scrap of something to hold on to.”
I almost laughed with relief, but my throat was too tight. “I do. We will free you from this contract, Katherine, I promise. One way or another. Then my subconscious can shut up, and I will make up for every time it’s denied us. In the meantime…”
Releasing her, I backed off.
She swayed towards me. “What are you doing?”
“Obeying the letter of the law, if not its spirit.” I sat at the centre of the settee. “Come here.”
She approached so quickly, she couldn’t have taken a moment to think of it. Because she was that sure or because she wasn’t thinking? But she’d only had one glass of brandy, even though it was good stuff—rich and smooth, the way she liked.
Still, considering her past, it didn’t hurt to check.
“Will you do as you’re told, Katherine?”
Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink. “I will.”
“Will you tell me to stop if you want me to?”
“I will.”
“Are you my ember?”
“Yes,” the word spilled from her on a breath.
My blood roared, cock stiffening in anticipation. I patted the settee on either side of my thighs. “Good. Kneel with your back to me.”
There was no danger of kissing her that way.
If I kissed her, I’d be lost.
No kissing. No touching her anywhere forbidden. And definitely no fucking her—not with any part of my body, anyway.
As she obeyed, I pulled open the hem of her nightgown, the slit allowing me to bare her to the waist. Her breath caught as she held her weight on her knees.
“You are safe with me,” I murmured, telling my writhing shadows to pull the hair away from her neck. They did at once, glad to touch her. “This… all of this is my responsibility.” I placed my hands around her ankles and gave a reassuring squeeze. “That is why you obey. That is why I hold you. You have only to surrender.” More shadows snaked around her wrists and lifted them. “Do you understand?”
She nodded, hair spilling free from my shadows, but I think they let that happen deliberately, so they could gather it all up again and whisper over her neck, making her shudder.
“Use your words, love.” I used the opening my shadows created to brush my lips across her skin, enjoying the way it set on end the delicate hairs of her nape. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
I huffed at the desperation crackling through her voice, at how it mirrored my own. “Such a good ember.” Biting my lip, I allowed myself to lift her nightgown rather than having my shadows do it. I edged the outside world’s rules. We were playing by mine today.
I ate up the sight of her backside, the dimples above it, the stretch marks silvery on her tan skin, the curve of her spine as each inch became visible. Once she was fully, perfectly naked, the nightgown slid from my nerveless fingers, pooling beside us on the settee.
“That’s it, love, now come here.” I couldn’t help the growl that came out with those last two words as I looped an arm around her waist and pulled her against me.
Fuck, even through my shirt, she felt perfect—hot and soft with this little sound of surprise reverberating into my chest. Without being told, she rested her head back on my shoulder when my shadows released her wrists. I squeezed, simply enjoying her closeness, even if the voice inside warned me of danger.
From this angle, I had a view of her peaked nipples and the fullness of her glorious thighs, taut as she held herself up.
That wouldn’t do. And neither would this restricted view.
I was denying myself some things, but not that.
My shadows brought over the mirror from beside the armoire, and I bit back a moan at the full sight of her. Knees planted either side of mine. Thighs open so I could see a hint of her pink slickness. Heaving breasts begging to be held.
I caught myself before I obeyed that instinct, and let myself squeeze her thigh instead. Still, it was a reminder of how dangerous a game we were playing.
“Fuck. Don’t you look incredible?”
In the mirror, her need-hazed eyes met mine, eyebrows peaking above them. She didn’t understand that I expected an answer. Though I wondered if the words of men like Langdon who would rather she only looked at cake instead of eating it made it hard for her to reply. We could build to that.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She tilted her head and met my gaze directly instead of through the mirror. “You’ve been drinking.”
I scoffed and touched my nose to hers. “I haven’t drunk that much. Just enough to make myself weak, not to blur what I truly want. Now”—with the arm wrapped around her waist, I pulled her tighter to me—“give me all of you.” She gave a delightful little huff of surprise as I took her weight. “I can hold you just fine,” I murmured in her ear and parted my knees just enough to leave her pussy over the gap.
And then I set my shadows to work.
I let them have her tits first, kneading and cupping them as I soaked up the way that made her back arch. When they slid around her nipples and squeezed, she moaned, and I soaked that up too.
This grip was too tempting, too risky. If I moved my hand just a little, I’d be pinching her tight nipples, and then I’d lose all semblance of control. Instead, I guided her arms behind her back and held her wrists with one hand. The other hand I fisted in her hair and tilted her head back, just enough that I could meet her hooded gaze in the mirror and see her parted lips but still graze the point of my canine down her leaping pulse.
Then she said the word I’d been waiting for.
“Please.”
I watched in the mirror as she arched and spread her legs, making my pulse roar, urging me on even as the warning voice shouted in alarm.
But I was in control.
So, like I wasn’t one slip away from yanking my trousers open and driving into her, I smirked and murmured against her ear. “Please, what?”
“Please touch me there, I need…” She twisted her wrists in my grip, but I was only letting go if she asked me to stop.
“What is it you need, my little ember?”
She made a little whining sound as I had my shadows form a hand and slide down her belly at a speed I knew would feel agonisingly slow. “I want you to touch me. To make me come.”
I teased the edge of the auburn hair over her mound. “You want to burn, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
I let the hand dissolve into tendrils and sent them between her legs.
Her head fell back against my grip as her breath eased out.
I didn’t need to feel to know she was slick and wet—I could see it glistening over the shadows as they teased her.
She tensed, trying to press into their touch so the tease would end and she could get what she wanted.