For three hundred years a curse had plagued Arden Castle. The woman before him might be the first to challenge it directly—to try to fix it. One way or another, Clark knew she’d be the last.
“So . . .” Riley said in a way that made it clear he’d been silent for an usual amount of time. “Should we, like, brush our teeth and stuff? It’s pretty late.”
Ah. Clark checked his watch and saw the hour dashing toward midnight. The sun had set hours ago.
“I suppose we should get to bed.” As he stared down at the looming piece of furniture, he gulped.
Though he’d packed a bag to sleep here, Clark hadn’t actually engaged with the reality of climbing under the sheets chained to Riley. Of trying to sleep next to her. You couldn’t maintain your defenses in sleep. What if, in the midst of a dream, he tried to cuddle her?
Completely unaware of his crisis, the woman causing it sniffed her collar.
“Ugh. Okay, that’s it. I can’t stay in this disgusting T-shirt a moment longer.”
Clark jerked his head to stare at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m not gonna sleep doused in vinegar,” she said, as if this were a foregone conclusion. “I assumed that since you’re, uh, shall we say familiar with the impacted area of my body, it wouldn’t be a huge deal if I just—” She made a Hulk shirt-ripping gesture.
Panic must have registered on his face because she lowered her arms sheepishly.
“Or I can totally keep it on if you’d be more comfortable?”
“No.” Clark was gratified to hear his voice come out even. “No, don’t be silly. Of course you should change.”
“Oh, thank god,” Riley said, sagging in relief. “I’ll grab the scissors for you right now.”
Scissors? Oh. Right. She couldn’t remove the T-shirt over her head because of the manacles.
“Are you sure you don’t want to cut it yourself?”
“Well, yeah.” She tried bending to demonstrate how the angle wasn’t going to work.
In the loo, they fetched the small—tiny, really—pair of scissors she kept in her makeup bag. So much for getting this over with quickly.
Riley stood with her back against the sink, with Clark facing her. He could see himself in the mirror—he looked fucking terrified.
Starting at the bottom, he carefully pulled the fabric away from her skin with his opposite hand as he sliced through the saturated cotton. The soft skin of her belly was warm against the back of his knuckles.
As each snip of the scissors exposed a little more of her, Clark pressed his molars together, reminding his brain that this wasn’t a prelude to anything. He really needed to see a dentist after this trip.
By the time he reached her collar and parted the stained fabric, Riley’s chest had begun to rise and fall with slightly greater frequency. She must be nervous.
At least she still wore one of those soft, cloth bras, the kind without underwire. He didn’t know the name, but it was like a bathing suit, he told himself. Nothing particularly illicit about that.
Unless her tits were sore from his mouth, her nipples too sensitive for lace.
Clark was still standing close enough that he couldn’t really see her exposed skin below the neck—a blessing, if temporary. He cut the sleeve from her collar down her arm and freed her of the garment.
“You can cut the bra too,” Riley said easily. “The vinegar bled through, but at least I got it from the clearance bin at Target, so no great loss. That way I can give myself a little sponge bath before we go to bed.”
A sudden, vivid visual of her running a washcloth over her chest, water dripping from her nipples, made Clark fairly faint. They were chained together, for Christ’s sake. Even if he didn’t see it, closed his eyes, turned away, he’d hear it. The wet swipes across her naked skin.
Damnit. It was too close a counterpart to the way he’d anticipated clearing his spend from her body after they’d been together in his camper. Clark had wanted that chance to linger over her body—to worship the marks he’d laid across her skin.
Fuck. The marks. If he looked down, he’d see them.
He was already hard.
“Riley.” He almost said I can’t do this. It was too much. Being this close. Knowing it was temporary. Everything about her undid him.
“Yes?” Her lips were shiny; she must have run her tongue across them. God, he wanted her mouth again. Wanted his hands in her hair. Needed everything he’d had the other night—but more.
He hadn’t known last time that it was the last time.
“Nothing,” he said, and lifted the scissors again. Comparatively, the bra was quick, three snips before her breasts were bare for him. And even though he knew it was wrong, Clark did look then. At the expanse of Riley’s smooth skin from collarbone to navel. At every place he’d laid claim to while he had her underneath him, pliant and gasping for it. Each point of possession carefully placed so they’d linger like this, pale but present. The memory of his teeth.
If things between them were different, he would have loved tending to her this morning. Running an ice cube in a trail from one mark to the next, chasing the drops of melting water down her stomach with his tongue. Letting her tight nipples go from cold to warm in his mouth.
Enough. He tore his gaze away, made himself turn so he couldn’t look anymore even if he wanted to. Staring at the tiles of the wall, he forced himself to start counting them, trying to hide the fact that he’d lost control of his breathing somewhere.
After a long moment where there was nothing in his ears but ringing, Riley turned on the tap. She must have done what she’d said. At least the air went from smelling like a chip shop to smelling like hand soap, lavender maybe. Clark was grateful for the small mercy that she hadn’t reached into the shower for her shampoo. If forced to think about lube right now he might actually cry.
Riley grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself until she could pull out a clean shirt—something she called a tube top, which had no sleeves, so she could step into it and hike it like a band around her chest. She changed her trousers too, to sleep shorts, very quickly. Despite his grim efforts, Clark caught a glimpse of mint-green cotton panties out of the corner of his eye.
“There, I’m decent,” she announced when she’d finished.
Clark couldn’t say the same. All he could do was hope she mistook his silence, his refusal to meet her eye, for priggishness as they finished their nighttime washing up.
Riley tucked her toothbrush inside her cheek. “Are you gonna sleep in your clothes?”
Normally he didn’t, but if he took off his denims right now, she’d know just how calm he wasn’t.
“Yeah.” He tossed his floss in the bin. “Might as well.”
Finally, they lay down with as much space between them in the bed as the chain would allow. It wasn’t much.
Highland chill crept in through the inn’s double-paned windows. Despite the sturdy quilt, it was an effort not to curl toward the beckoning warmth of Riley’s body as the temperature in the room dropped increasingly lower.
Even with his eyes closed, Clark couldn’t pretend he was alone. His brain kept zooming in on the sound of her breath or the slight dip in the mattress when she shifted.