Page 67 of The Consort's Curse
When I did, I found him frowning, eyes shadowed. I bit my lip, and his glance flicked down to my mouth.
“You’re very young,” he went on, as I lay there in frozen horror, still unable to believe I’d told him I damn well loved him, and why, why would I be such a fool? He wasn’t helping me feel like less of one by saying, “Your magic makes you—your magic wants me. It’s not you, Remi. I was going to offer you a divorce.” His jaw worked. “I was going to try to offer it to you. If I could force myself to do it. You may have noticed, I’m a selfish bastard.”
It took me a long, breathless moment to work through all of that. A divorce. He’d meant to offer me a divorce? “You meant to divorce me?” My voice rose to a high, absurd pitch that would’ve been humiliating if I hadn’t already reached my peak in that regard. Stefan still lay on top of me, both of us a sticky, spent mess, and the fresh sheets would be all damp and filthy,and by all the gods, there would be no excuse whatsoever for this debauchery if we weren’t married!
“Remi, no! Of course not! Not divorce you, letyoudivorceme, if you—”
“If I what? If I what, Stefan?” I shoved at him, and it was infuriatingly like shoving a stone wall.
“I meant, if you—”
“It was fucking rhetorical!” I couldn’t hold this much rage. My chest would explode, and my skull would explode, and I’d light him on fire! “You’re not just a selfish bastard, you’re a patronizing bastard! I’m very young? You married me this way! You knew I—get off of me! Fine! I don’t love you, and I’ll divorce you this afternoon! Are you happy now?”
Stefan’s eyes blazed, and his jaw set, and—oh no. Oh, gods, I’d pushed him too far. As fast as a striking cobra, he shoved up off the bed, caught my arms, and pinned my wrists over my head with one hand. I twisted in his grip, but he held me with no apparent effort at all, and my cock started to harden again. Damn it all to hell!
“Fucking rhetorical?” he snarled. “I’ll give you fucking rhetorical. No,” he said, and slid the other hand up my chest, resting it across my throat and nudging my chin up so that I had to meet his eyes. “No, I will not get off of you. I’m going to kiss you. And then I’m going to lick and kiss and suck every part of you I can reach, which will be all of you. And then I’m going to fuck you until you can’t move, and if you try to move, I’ll fuck you again, and then you can divorce me if you fucking want to. Even though, gods, fucking gods, you’re everything. You’re my life. I don’t—there’s nothing I can fucking do about it,” he said roughly, a dark red flush spreading over his cheeks.
Oh, this was even worse than when he’d tried to apologize to me after I discovered his reasons for marrying me. If my heart hadn’t been trying to beat its way out of my chest, I might havebeen fascinated by the sight of a man who could barely admit to having feelings at all, who’d gone through his life showing none of them, trying to declare them.
To me. Gods. Trying to declare them tome. I gazed up at him, wide-eyed with shock, the giddy bubble growing in my breast making it almost impossible to speak.
Almost. I managed to choke out, “You have to actually say it, Stefan. The actual words.”
His eyes softened, and the hand on my throat went from holding me to caressing me, thumb sweeping over my lower lip.
“You need me to tell you that I love you, Remi?” he asked, very low, with almost frightening intensity. “All right. I love you. I’d die for you. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to live for you instead, unless you divorce me, and then I’ll die at the bottom of a brandy bottle, probably. But I’d rather have you,” and he bent down to trace the path his thumb had taken with his tongue, “however I want.” He kissed the corner of my mouth. “Like you said. Please.”
This time his kiss lingered, and I parted my lips, clinging to him, the world spinning around me—that optical illusion again, with everything settling at a slightly different angle. Now I couldn’t see anything but Stefan, his smile, the light of love in his eyes.
“You really love me?” It came out breathy and plaintive and desperate, and he kissed the plea off my lips in a way that answered my question more thoroughly than more words could have. “This isn’t a bad decision you’re trying to justif—mmm.” His tongue swept through my mouth with intent, and I wriggled around, and he groaned and started to move between my legs again, hips shifting back and forth, cock beginning to nudge at me. “I’ll take that as a no, then, or is it a ye—oh, Stefan. Oh, yes, please. Stefan! ”
He lifted his head from where he’d sucked a nipple into his mouth and began to knead the soft flesh around it. “Yes, I love you. And you’re going to tell me you love me again, too. Over and over again, sweetheart. While I prove how much I love you.”
“Oh, gods,” I panted, and then whimpered as he held my eyes with his, pulling my nipple between his lips and flicking it with his tongue. The pulse of tight heat that sent down between my legs nearly made me faint. “I love you!”
“On the other hand,Imay be a bad decision,” he said, and moved to the other side of my chest, kissing along the way. He glanced up at me and grinned. “But I’m going to be the kind of bad decision that justifies itself. You have my word on that.”
And he spread my legs and bent down, kissing me, loving me, making me his. I spared a single thought for the servants outside the room as my cries echoed off the ceiling, and then I forgot the rest of the world as Stefan kept his word.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lord Corombos politely offered us the use of his guest suite for as long as we wanted to occupy it, but we went home as soon as we’d managed to bathe and make ourselves presentable that evening—and I was sure that everyone, from Lord Corombos on down to the scullery maid, let out a sigh of relief as our carriage rolled out of sight.
The ride home left me oddly shy, in a hushed, fluttery way that might’ve resolved into happiness if I’d been less nervous.
Stefan loved me. Helovedme, and while even I knew better than to believe vigorous, passionate lovemaking proved a damned thing, especially from a man as experienced in vigorous passion as my husband, his awkward silences in between spoke volumes. Stefan always knew what to say. I’d never seen him at a loss, in public or in private, always with an amusing observation or a compliment or something clever and meaningless to smooth a conversation over. But after he’d kept all of his promises, and had kissed and stroked and filled me to such completion that I didn’t know if I could ever move again, he’d had nothing to say but my name, now and then, in between softer kisses that felt more like confessions than caresses.
The way he’d kissed my fingers as he handed me into the carriage, the gleam in his eyes, the little secret smile as he let his lips linger, had told me he loved me more clearly, and far more believably, than hours of fine words.
What would he do once we were alone in our own home, in my bedroom? That flutter intensified as we stepped into the hall, the footmen gathering round to take our coats and tell Stefan how glad they were to see him well again.
And then Fritz stepped forward, clearing his throat. “There’s a matter for your attention, my lord,” he said. His glance at me held an apology, but no room for argument. “I don’t think it can wait. There’s also a messenger here from Lord Rathenas, although I think that’s slightly less urgent.”
If Lord Benedict’s messenger was the less urgent of Stefan’s pressing business, then…I’d married a courtier and a spy, hadn’t I? And that meant stifling my sigh and pasting on a smile as Stefan quickly kissed me, told me he’d be with me the moment he could, and strode off with Fritz in tow. Hopefully no one stabbed him this time, and beyond that, I could wait a few hours.
But a few hours turned into the whole night, and then the next day. I slept through most of it, exhausted beyond anything I’d ever imagined, but by the following evening I’d also written and sent a long letter to my mother—she had a few friends in Nevaia, and I had no doubt there were other, and highly colored, accounts of the duel on their way to her already—eaten my own weight in pastry, and drunk enough tea to float a boat.
Stefan had told me he loved me. He’d told me I was hislife, damn it all! He’d shaken apart in my arms as he spent inside me, so deeply I still ached, wet and needy and soft, ready for him to take me again.
