Page 90 of Demon's Bane

I am undone.

27

Joan

With the whisper of his name and the brush of my lips on his, Rhett breaks.

One heartbeat there’s still a few inches of distance between us, and the next it disappears. His big hands curl under my ass, lifting me off my feet and forcing me to wrap my legs around his waist. With as questionable as the dress’s coverage is already, it’s all but gone as the fabric parts to drape over my thighs and Rhett presses himself between them.

My back thumps against the wooden door behind me, and Rhett grunts what might be an apology, even as he deepens the kiss. The press of his mouth on mine is devouring, uncompromising as he demands my complete surrender.

And fuck, do I want to give it.

Anything, everything he wants from me, it’s his.

The wood behind me gives way suddenly and I let out a yelp of surprise, but Rhett’s not letting me go anywhere. His arms tighten around me and he walks us into the room.

The chamber Allie arranged for me—because there really is no word for it other thanchamber—is huge. Like the rest of the court, it’s carved into the mountain itself, with soaring cathedral ceilings and a curious archway at the side of the room that looksout of the mountain and onto a sweeping forested valley, but doesn’t let in any of the wind or chill of the night.

Not that I have a lot of spare brain cells to appreciate it. Not right now. Not when I’ve got a big demon body pressed up against me, walking me deeper into the room, toward the massive bed piled with pillows and furs and blankets.

Rhett sets me down near the bed, finally breaking the kiss to run his lips over my jaw and neck, trailing them down my throat and to the bare, glittered skin between my breasts.

When his hands find the wisps of straps at my shoulders and grasp hard, like he’d tear them right from my body, I gasp in protest.

“Absolutely not. You’re not going to ruin this dress.”

“You do it, then. I… don’t trust myself enough not to destroy the damn thing.”

The things that voice does to me.

Deep and graveled, filled with the same note of dark desire that’s pounding through my veins and pooling low in my core.

Burning, aching, desperate for more, I reach up and find the hidden clasps that release the straps of the dress. They fall free and the silky fabric pools at my waist, exposing the fact that I’m not wearing anything underneath.

Rhett’s crimson eyes sweep over me, and a growl builds in his throat as he reaches for me and tugs me to him, turning me in his arms so my back is pressed to his chest. With his hands at my breasts—cupping me, kneading me, teasing my nipples into tight, aching peaks—he murmurs into the shell of my ear.

“Tell me you’re wearing something,anything, beneath this dress, little mate. Tell me you didn’t spend all night at court with only this thin silk between your body and all those demons.”

I’m missing beats, not quite able to form a complete thought with the heat of him behind me and his hands still teasing me, with the hard ridge of his cock pressing into my lower back andthe hint of fangs running along the tender skin just below my ear.

“Joan,” he says, a warning this time.

“I’m… wearing underwear. Kind of.”

Rhett’s clever fingers find the additional clasp at the small of my back, and the waist of the dress loosens as all that sparkling black fabric whisks down my legs and drops to the floor.

“You call this underwear?” Rhett asks, low and ominous, fingers catching on what amounts to a barely there black lace thong.

He steps away from me, and I can’t do anything to stop the whine of protest that slips out over losing all that warmth.

It’s replaced an instant later, though, when he begins to slowly circle me.

Standing in the pooled fabric of my dress, with nothing but a scrap of black lace and the flicker of candlelight to clothe me, I’m entirely at my demon’s mercy.

His eyes trace every inch of me, like he could commit the sight to memory. With embers kindling deep in his red gaze and an undeniable hunger darkening his features, he keeps me pinned in place. Helpless, worshiped, strung tight as a bowstring as I wait for him to touch me.

Just like when he saw me in the great hall, every place he looks at me burns. Only this time there’s so much more of me on display, nowhere to hide, nothing between me and him but the distance he’s holding himself at.