Sitting up, I started to move from the bed, but Casteel hooked his arm around my waist. “I can’t lay here. I can’t sleep. I just need—”
“To forget.” In the fire’s glow, he touched my cheek, bringing my gaze to his. “I know. I get it. I do.”
Sucking in too-shallow breaths, I knew he of all people did understand. I folded my hands over my face. “I don’t want to think about that night.” Tears burned my throat, and I hated them—hated this glaring weakness. “I want to forget.”
“But you need to feel to do that. You need to replace that fear with something else. That’s why you used to explore the city at night,” he said, pulling my hands away from my face. “But there’s no city for you to run off to. All you have is me.”
All you have is me.
My heart twisted itself up into a knot.
“Let me help you replace the fear and helplessness. I can erase it. I promise,” he whispered, guiding me back until I was lying down once more. “Let me be enough, at least for tonight.”
“I…” I ran out of words as he shifted so he blocked out the fire’s glow, leaving me in the darkness of the room.
“There’s just us. No one else.” His lips brushed my cheek, causing me to gasp. “Like earlier, in the pantry, we can pretend.”
I closed my eyes.
“Right now, in the dark, I’m just Hawke.” His arm eased from my waist as his hand drifted over my hip and down my thigh, to where the gown tangled around my legs. “You’re just Poppy, and I can help you.”
Maybe it was the nightmare. It could’ve been the darkness and the sudden, throbbing ache that sprang to life. Or perhaps it was because in the darkness we could be Hawke and Poppy, with no past and no future. And pretending…pretending made none of this real. Maybe all of those things were the reason I turned my head to his. Our lips brushed.
“Pretend,” I whispered, and I…I kissed him.
Casteel let me explore his mouth, holding himself still, all except for his hand. He slowly drew his palm up my hip, my stomach, and moved it between my breasts, dragging the hem of the gown up until it gathered below my neck. Cool air followed, teasing my exposed skin.
I kissed him, trembling when I felt his palm on my breast. The tip hardened to an almost painful point. His thumb moved lazily over the peak and then to the other as he said, “I wish you could see what I’m about to do.”
I wet my lips as he pulled away, his thumb dragging over the rosy, puckered skin. Then he did something with his thumb and forefinger, causing my entire body to jolt, and a rush of wet warmth to pool between my thighs.
“Gods,” I gasped.
“Mmm.” His mouth coasted along the skin of my neck again. “You like that?”
There was no point in answering that. He knew it, and he did it again. My hips moved on reflex, spurred on by the rapidly building ache between my thighs. He hadn’t—we hadn’t—touched like this since the woods after I’d stabbed him, but my body hadn’t forgotten. I was blossoming with heat.
His mouth closed over my breast, and the combination of his tongue and the sharp rasp of his fangs caused me to kick my head back. A breathy moan left me as my eyes peeled open wide. He tugged at the skin with his mouth as his hand drifted down my stomach and lower, over the very center of me. It was the lightest, softest touch, teasing and taunting.
“You’re very wet, Poppy,” he murmured against the aching peak of my breast. “I like that. A lot.”
Incapable of embarrassment or being shocked by the rawness of his words, I could only whimper as his finger moved in slow, lazy strokes.
“I also like how quickly you respond to my touch.” He nipped at the skin of my other breast as he swirled his thumb around the sensitive flesh. “Want me to do something about it?”
I panted for breath. “Yes.”
Casteel answered by pressing down on the bundle of nerves. Crying out, I arched against his hand, and I felt like I was drenched, drowning already. Just as his mouth closed over my breast once more, he slipped a finger inside me. A strangled sort of sound left me, and there was no room for thoughts of a night from long ago or worries for the morning that was quickly approaching. My heart thundered in my chest.
He dragged that finger in and out as he lifted his head, and even though I couldn’t see, I knew he could. I knew he watched his hand between my spread thighs. I knew he was fixated on what he was doing, on the way I lifted my hips to meet his thrusts. He watched as he eased another finger into the tight wetness. My eyes drifted shut again, and I knew this was what he’d wanted to do earlier, in the pantry. I gave in to this, into the wet heat and the darkness and the wickedness of his touch. Casteel groaned as I ground my hips against his hand.