Page 30 of Seduction of a Psychopomp
“Oh,” was all he got out as he raised both arms and inched toward the backrest to give me more room. I didn’t want more room. His arms stayed up as if he were unsure where to place them while I struggled to get comfortable. “What—I—okay.” He was clearly at a loss as to what I was doing clambering into his chair with him.
I shifted around in his lap until I was pressed against him and finally able to lay my head on his chest. Once I was there, I melted into him, feeling safe and relaxed for the first time since we’d come home. I’d been so exhausted yesterday after we arrived that I’d fallen into a fitful sleep and remained that way until late this afternoon. The errand had taken a lot out of me. It had been good to get out and push myself, but my body was still weakened. Between the exertion, the social interactions, and the adrenaline from encountering the banshees on the way home, I’d been completely depleted of energy. Replaying the feelings of fear the banshees had caused was a normal side effect their power had on people, but it had ruined my sleep, which I’d been in desperate need of.
“Where are your wings, Doveling?” he finally asked, his voice solicitous as he settled his free hand on my shoulder and began smoothing it down my back.
I simply shrugged and cuddled closer. How could I explain that shifting forms and conjuring feeble little fae lights was the only magic I could wield right now, so I wanted to practice what I could in hopes of building my strength? It sounded pathetic. “Will the ghouls still try to eat me once I’m immortal?” I asked instead. Ghouls were horrible creatures—invisible parasites that ate a person’s magic, and when that was gone, sometimes ate theirsouls. “Why do they even want me if I don’t have very much magic right now?”
Victor’s hand paused on my back as he answered in his deep, soothing voice. “I think it’s more about the type of magic than the quantity,” he murmured. His hand squeezed my shoulder in a reassuring way. “I don’t know the answer to your question about immortality, but I suspect they won’t be as dangerous to you then. We can see what my grandmother knows when she comes back.” I involuntarily shrank into a smaller ball as I remembered the woman who had cut into my arm at the ceremony. And whom he’d purposefully defied, at my request, by taking me from the castle. He misunderstood my anxious response and tutted at me, smoothing his hand down my spine again. “I will keep you safe, Angel. I promise.”
And I believed him. This man was a gift. He had become my safe place and my favorite source of comfort. Even though I didn’t like the thought of being so utterly dependent on anyone—especially the way I was on him—I couldn’t think of a better person to have to depend on.
As the fire crackled beside us, casting its warm glow across his alabaster skin, the panes of glass rattled behind us in the ancient windows. “It’s just the wind,” he reassured me quietly when I flinched. “You’re safe here.”
I nodded against his chest, and my mind began to drift to the way it always felt as though he wasso awareof everything around him at every moment. And the way he wielded such immense and dangerous power with what seemed like so little effort. He shielded me as a matter of course, it was ingrained to protect me not only from harm but from even the smallest discomfort. I pondered the way he spoke to everyone we encountered with thoughtful manners and gentle deference, regardless of their station—or the fact that he could end their life in the blink of an eye.
And I remembered the way his muscles had felt pressed against my back and his lips had felt so silken touching my own. I think, somehow, I had already become addicted to him—or at least was well on my way—to his quiet strength and his considerate nature, and like an addict I needed just a little more. My fingers curled into his shirt like they had a mind of their own and I found myself turning my head to his chest and pressing my lips to the muscle there beneath the smooth cloth of his shirt. I was so focused on his slow, rhythmic breathing that I couldn’t have missed the way he held his breath each time I pressed my mouth to his body.
I inhaled deeply as I drew my nose across his collarbone to his neck, savoring the now-familiar scent of him that mixed with wood smoke and the ever-present salt air from the strait below. The skin of his neck was soft and warm, and I could feel his blood racing in his veins as my lips brushed over the artery there.
The tiniest intake of breath—a gasp?—proceeded his full body shiver as I gave in to my craving and pressed my mouth more firmly to his throat. His fingers spasmed reflexively, causing him to drop the book that he’d been resting on the arm of the chair. It landed with a thud on the thick rug as I kissed my way up to his jawline. I wanted to test the firmness of the muscles here with my teeth, but I settled for a gentle nibble with my lips that left him breathless anyway.
I pulled back to study his face—his striking, deep-set blue eyes under sharp black brows, his beautiful, sulky lips, the pink stain of heat beginning to mar the unnaturally pale hue of his skin. I knew my own pupils were so blown out that I probably looked like I’d been rolling in pixie dust or some other illicit pain killer. I certainlyfeltlike I had been. “May I kiss you?” I asked him, staring at his lips with something akin to desperation.
“Is that not what you’ve been doing?” he asked, lifting his hand to trail his fingers along my jaw, and I couldn’t help but lean into his touch. I raised my eyebrows at him as he guided my mouth to his own with the tips of his fingers under my chin. If he thoughtthatwas kissing…
I was going to consume him.
His lips were as plush and silken as I remembered them, but even better than that was his finger still lingering under my chin and the shaky breath he exhaled as I tasted him with the gentlest of kisses. I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself with him forever, but for now I met his hesitancy and softness with feathered kisses like the caress of a butterfly’s wings. I waited, testing and tasting and learning him as slowly as I could bear, meeting his energy with like energy so I didn’t scare this shy man away with my eagerness. I pressed my palm to his chest and felt his heart thundering beneath his heavy rib cage, traced his sternum up to his throat and felt the way his Adam’s apple bobbed against my thumb, slid both hands over the caps of muscles on his shoulders, squeezing gently and appreciating the strength beneath my fingers.
His own hands slid up my back to my shoulder blades, trembling so slightly that I might not have noticed except that I was so focused on his every movement. Every sigh, every shift, every beat of his heart. So, the little involuntary moan that slipped out of his throat when I licked his bottom lip? It hit me like a lightning bolt.
My heart burst into a sprint of its own as his fingers trailed up the side of my neck and slid into my hairline. Where his kisses were tender and sweet, mine grew hungry and seductive. I turned, clinging to his shoulders, so that I was no longer seated across his lap but straddling it, endeavoring to get even closer and feeling my skin heat everywhere we touched. One hand cupped the side of my face, the other pressed gentle fingers into my back, anchoring me to him as his breath fanned across my face. I was losing my hold on my restraint; licking and tasting until he opened his mouth to let me in. The sensuous slide of his tongue against my own was everything I needed and not nearly enough.
He groaned as I sucked the tip of his tongue into my mouth, sending a frisson of need straight to my core. His hands tightened on me, and I slid my greedy hands up into his hair, carding the silky, raven-dark strands through my fingers before gripping them to pull him closer. We were both panting, his chest pressing into me as he heaved for air and his lips seeking mine as earnestly as I sought his. He was a quick learner, all of his hesitancy replaced by arousal—as demonstrated by the thick, hard evidence of his wanting that pressed up between my thighs. Had I ever wanted to combust from a simple kiss? His eyelashes dipped even lower, fanning across his cheekbones as he broke our kiss in a low gasp when I rocked my core against the delicious hardness in his lap.
And then a prim cough behind me made me yelp like a whipped pup and sent me scrambling out of his chair in horror. Of course, I was tangled up in him and would have sprawled across the floor if he hadn’t caught me and set me to rights. He held me steady in front of him as he bent himself double on the chair, refusing to let go and allow me to give in to my urge to flee in embarrassment. We were both breathless, but at length, he cleared his throat and sat up. Keeping one hand locked around my wrist like a steel shackle, he tugged me gently to the side so he could see Madam Helda, our elderly cook, where she stood in the entrance to the room.
I couldn’t understand much of what she said, but Victor nodded as she spoke to him, even though he had half his face covered with his other hand and his cheeks and the tips of his ears were the reddest I’d ever seen them.
“Of course,” he told her. “I would be happy to help.”
I couldn’t follow the conversation, something about needing more wood in the kitchen and some whisky for a recipe. My own face felt like it had been coated with whisky—the stinging heat was suffocating. My whole body was hot as I studied my shoes and the pattern of the rug around my feet and sought to get my breathing under control.
After her conversation with Victor, she turned to leave, and he gave my wrist a reassuring squeeze. “She needs me to carry in some wood and make a request for some things from Yasgrot. I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, standing and straightening his clothing before drawing a hand through his hair to fix the mussed strands.
I bit my lip as I watched him go, noting that notallthe evidence of our dalliance was so easily erased. A whimper escaped my lips as I collapsed into the high-backed chair with my hands over my face. I sat like that for several moments, vacillating wildly between unhinged hilarity and utter mortification, until finally dropping my hands to gaze into the flames with a thousand-yard stare. My rumination was short-lived, however, because the book that Victor had dropped caught my eye at the edge of the hearthstone. I reached for it, fearing an errant ember might singe it, and noticed that it was one I’d seen him reading before. The writing was a strange script, nothing I was capable of reading anyway, but the illustrations were…interesting. Various images of inked figures contorted into increasingly confusing sexual positions graced each of the pages, and I found myself tilting my head this way and that, trying to understand what I was looking at. This was clearly an educational book about intimacy, and though I’d had the same classical education as anyone else my age, I didn’t recall anything likethisever being included. Was he… uneducated about sex and trying to learn? This seemed like an odd way to go about it. I looked around and spotted a small stack of books near the chair, and they all appeared to be full of diagrams and explanations about different ways of achieving intimacy, though none so explicit as the one I held. I replaced his stack and carefully laid his current read on top, feeling like I was snooping but also immensely fascinated. Maybe his skittishness was just nerves and lack of knowledge. Maybe I should just take the reins and—
Footsteps in the hall alerted me to his return. He carried two trays of food into the library and set them on the table near the door with a clunk.
I waited for some kind of greeting, or acknowledgement of how awkward that was, but he seemed to be mentally stuck somewhere in the space between hilarity and mortification just as I had been, staring into the middle distance in the exact same way. It probably didn’t help that he still appeared to have a partial erection. I rolled my lips between my teeth to try to control the giggles that wanted to slip out. “I’m sorry!” I said, my voice pitching high as a laugh slipped out, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle it.
His eyes snapped to mine but that was the only movement he made. His facial expression might have been interpreted as a scowl, but I was beginning to think that was just his face. My husband had resting scowl-face. The blush in his cheeks had begun to fade but now it returned with a vengeance, making me laugh even harder.
“I got a little, um—”Unhinged.“—overzealous,” I settled on, aiming for prim and falling far short. The movement of me lowering my hand to clasp my fingers together caused him to drop his gaze long enough to break the feeling of being pinned.
He raised a hand to drag his palm down his face, and then uncovered the trays without comment on my earlier antics.Like climbing up on him and thoroughly mauling him in front of the help.“Helda had our food prepared already, so I brought it up.” If he was aiming for prim, he’d nailed it.
I could think of something else I’d rather do instead of having dinner, but he seemed like he was intent on collecting himself, so I moved to join him at the table.Patience. I am trying for patience. Very poorly.
