Page 24 of The Consort's Curse
A bit late for that, and I couldn’t help the laugh that fell off my lips, hurting my chest on its way out. Dance with him? Our hands clasped, in front of everyone, doing steps that I hadn’t practiced in six years and had never been expert in to begin with. If I threw up all over the dance floor, that might be the very best possible outcome; I could think of far worse.
“Your parents wanted us to be here tonight, and I’m sure they’ll have someone reporting what we do,” I said dully. “Another drink, I suppose. More of that wine, since I don’t have a head for anything stronger. How long before we can go?”
Stefan’s jaw tightened. “Now. We can go right now, if you like.” He took another step—close enough to have gathered me in his arms again, if he’d wanted to. “As long as you’re willing to participate in another round of playacting, anyway. Yes, that’s part of it if we stay, too,” he went on, answering the question I’d opened my mouth to ask. His voice lowered even further,going husky, raising all the hair on the back of my neck, as he said, “But if we stay, we can simply pretend to be enjoying one another’s company. We won’t need to look as if we’re leaving early so that I can complete your ravishment somewhere more private.”
My skin warmed, suddenly too tight all over me. “Complete my ravishment. That would suggest you’d already begun it. Here?”
Stefan leaned down, lips now a breath away from mine, eyes glittering. “Right here,” he murmured, and closed the gap.
Chapter Ten
When I’d kissed him in the carriage, it had been desperate and clumsy. And when he’d kissed me, it’d been rough and angry, not quite cruel—but far from gentle.
But this kiss, only the third I’d ever experienced in my life, couldn’t have been more different. Stefan’s lips coaxed mine so sweetly that he could’ve been an adoring lover rather than my detestable husband who detested me in turn. He pressed his mouth to the corner of mine, teased me open with his tongue, brushed over my lips as softly as if my skin were made of the most delicate silk.
The warmth of his touch soothed me like a drug. I swayed against him, into the tenderness of that kiss and the support of his hands as they slid around my waist and tugged me against him.
He broke the kiss long enough to murmur, “Run your hands through my hair, mess it up a bit,” before he pinned the nape of my neck with one big hand and bent me over his arm.
“Stefan, what—”
He cut me off with his mouth, and this time he kissed me in earnest.
The kiss stole my breath and left me dizzy and barely able to reach up and do as he’d told me, burying my hands in his thick hair. He tilted his head and somehow deepened the kiss, tongue tangling with mine, a dance as intricate as any he could lead me through on the ballroom floor. When he releasedmy mouth, I couldn’t help my high, gasping moan, the kind of sound that begged for ravishment. Stefan bit at my throat, teeth stinging and lips hot, and I gripped onto his hair so tightly that he grunted in surprise and bit down again, this time on the curve of tender skin half exposed by the lace spilling from my corset.
Heat gathered in my belly, between my legs, everything tightening. I needed, I needed—but it couldn’t be. That slight hardening of a cock that had been stubbornly soft for years could only be my curse making itself known earlier than it ought. Sometimes mages’ cycles changed over the years. Gods, why did it have to be now?
“My curse,” I choked, and yanked on Stefan’s hair, trying to make him lift his head. “I can’t stay here.”
“Fuck,” he said, and straightened us upright, my head spinning with the motion and my feet both finding their place on the floor—and when had my leg wrapped half around his hip? “Are you usually this careless with taking your potion?”
“I’m not careless! It’s supposed to be the day after tomorrow morning. I don’t know why—I don’t—” Horribly, I found myself breathless and on the verge of tears, stammering into incoherence.
“All right, I believe you, don’t look like that,” he said.
“You mean my limpid-eyed virgin nonse—”
His fierce, sudden kiss took me out at the knees, and I tipped into him, whimpering, the heat in my abdomen blooming into a raging fire.
Stefan pulled away with one nip to my lower lip that sent a sharp, stinging ache down into places that shouldn’t have felt anything at all.
“Stop repeating what I’ve said to you, if you please.” This time he sounded nearly as breathless as I did, and I might have taken some satisfaction in that if I hadn’t been a heartbeat away from sliding onto the floor and pressing my burning face againstthe cold tiles. “I need to get you home. Come on. Try to look more ravished and less ill, if you can manage. Just for a couple of minutes.”
I tried, I truly did, but the bright alchemical lights set in the ballroom’s great chandelier nearly blinded me as we left the dimness of the alcove, and only Stefan’s arm wrapped around my waist kept me on my feet.
The pain of my curse hadn’t started yet, but the fever had, my whole body flushed and damp with sweat. I wouldn’t have wished a sweaty corset on my worst enemy—and then an image of my father-in-law wearing one flashed through my jumbled mind, and I hitched out a strange little laugh, and Stefan pulled me closer and hustled me up the stairs out of the ballroom, leaving a legion of gaping, snickering faces behind us.
The carriage ride passed in a rattling hell of confusion and mounting fever, curled into Stefan’s side with my face pressed into his shoulder. He kept his arms around me, preventing me from sliding about, and I wanted, Iwantedto climb into his lap, spread my legs over his, feel the power of him between my thighs…oh, this would kill me, and now I knew why dawn mages had the reputation of being desperate, voracious sluts, because now it hurt, oh, Ennolu, ithurt.
Stabbing pains struck like lightning: in my back, in my legs, between my legs, where my erection strained against the front of these too-tight breeches, a sensation that would’ve been normal for any other man my age, but that bewildered me more than the pain.
“Please,” I found myself gasping. “Please, I need—”You, I bit off before the word quite left my mouth, smothering myself against the silk of his jacket, ruining it with my open mouth and tear-streaked face.
“Two minutes, Remi,” he said hoarsely, and tightened his grip on me, holding me off as I tried desperately to press myselfcloser. “Almost there. Fuck, what the fuck,” and he stroked my back, setting off another wave of sensation, tingles rushing down between the cheeks of my ass.
I writhed and struggled and moaned, and his voice faded into a litany of cursing and what might’ve been attempts at reassurance.
The carriage jolted to a stop and the world spun sickeningly around me as Stefan hoisted me into his arms and jumped down. “Make sure Aldrich is in Lord Remi’s rooms, now,” he snapped, amidst the cries of concern of the footmen and the blur of torchlight and the cold air on my burning face, and I pressed my legs together, twisting in his arms…
