Page 6 of Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection #2)

Chapter Six

B y the time the play was over, I felt strung as tight as the strings on a fiddle. Night was falling as the carriage rolled its way back up the path to the palace, and my heart sat too high in my chest, constricting my throat the entirety of the drive as I considered the possibility that I had wound up in a situation that was beyond my ability to manage.

For some reason, I had expected Draven to be waiting for me when I returned, but he wasn’t. Leela had no news, and I began to seriously contemplate the possibility that Dovegni had gone after him and he was in an interrogation room somewhere, spilling all his secrets and implicating me in treason. The thought made me feel sick with anxiety.

‘Shall I fetch your nightwear?’ Leela asked as I stared blankly out into the night, gnawing on a fingernail.

‘No, I think I’ll go for a walk.’ There was no sense in going to bed now, I’d only end up staring into the darkness as my mind spun scenarios I wasn’t ready to live—real or imagined .

If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. ‘Of course. It’s a warm night. But I don’t think you’ll want to walk in that,’ she said, eyeing the heavily embroidered brocade of my skirt. She helped me out of the outfit and into a dress of loose, soft cotton, and it was a relief to be able to breathe freely. ‘What happened to your bracelet?’ she asked as she put away my other jewellery.

‘I think it’s probably been sold by now,’ I replied vaguely as I let down my hair. I only smiled at her confusion. ‘Don’t wait up for me. I can get myself to bed.’

There was no one out in the gardens, which was a novelty. The palace was always choked with courtiers and ladies and maids and bell boys and footmen and gardeners and the endless stream of other people whose lives buzzed around this place. It was a relief to walk through my own garden and not see dozens of eyes flickering my way.

I drifted down the steps and through beds of plants still wilted from the day’s unseasonal heat. A light breeze was shifting the humidity, running cool fingers through my hair, ruffling the water in the fountain where I’d seen Draven and Gwinellyn walking together. I wondered if she was still alive, if she was alright. The thought sat in my throat like something I couldn’t quite swallow. I’d send Cotus on a phony snatching mission to stock his cabin with new supplies that she could steal. He could take books and some of her favourite foods. Within reason, of course. I didn't want her thinking I hadn't actually wanted to kill her, and she could come trotting back whenever she felt like it.

I walked on towards the hedge maze, past a collection of tables that were usually surrounded with lords and ladies playing an array of different games, sometimes betting entire fortunes on the outcome. There was still a board laid out on one of them, the pieces halted halfway through their advance across the battlefield. I’d sat there with Senafae a lifetime ago, playing cards and winning. Remembering that made me feel lonely. Aether’s teeth, I was in a strange mood, mulling over my past decisions and maybe even regretting some of them. I gave myself a mental shake. What good would it do? There was no going back. Your choices affect so many lives now, Senafae had said. I thought about the girl with the frizzy red hair. I hadn’t ever really thought about how the things I did now impacted people like her, people like the clamouring poor at the doors of the theatre. I knew they did, of course, but it was an abstract sort of knowing, something I didn’t put a face to. I was more focused on how my choices impacted me.

Was that why she didn’t think I was cut out to be a queen?

Two figures peeled away from the shadows out of the corner of my eye, drawing my gaze and setting me immediately on edge. When I realised who one of them was, it wasn’t relief that coursed through me, but it was something very close.

‘Where have you been?’ I demanded. ‘We need to talk.’

‘And here is my dutiful wife, waiting to welcome me home,’ Draven drawled. His shirt was a little damp with sweat, his dark hair windswept, his mouth cocked in that infuriating half-smile of mockery. Then he seemed to take in my expression and he sobered a little. ‘What’s happened?’

But my focus had moved on from him to his companion. A tall, long-limbed man with a flop of sandy-blond hair, who presented me with a bow.

‘Your Highness.’ He straightened and shot me a wink, then moved on up the path towards the palace .

‘Isn’t that the soldier who helped us escape the riot?’ I asked as I watched him with narrowed eyes, my mind ticking over. The one who’d been at the Winking Nymph that night, too.

‘Rhiandra, what’s happened?’ Draven repeated.

I licked my lips, then offered him a thin smile. ‘You know what? If you’d been here, you’d know.’ I turned away from him with a flick of my hair, but he gripped my elbow before I could storm off.

‘Don’t bait me unless you want me to take a bite out of you.’

‘You left!’ I snapped, rounding on him. The words were louder and more frantic than I’d meant them to be. I took a breath, folded my arms like I could hold in the dread that had been tormenting me all day. ‘Dropped me in a firestorm and disappeared for the whole day without telling anyone where you were going. For all I knew, you weren’t coming back.’

He canted his head as he studied me. ‘Why would I go to all the trouble of convincing you to marry me only to disappear?’

‘Well, you might not have had much of a choice in the matter if you were dragged off to a dungeon. That seemed a distinct possibility after the Grand Weaver confronted me this morning. He wasn’t exactly pleased to have been enchanted. So while you were off gallivanting around the countryside, I spent the day waiting for the other shoe to drop.’

To my chagrin, he didn’t look afraid, or even worried. ‘Is that all?’

‘As comfortable as I am with the idea of you being tortured and executed,’ I shot back, reacting to his blasé tone, ‘I’m less comfortable with the amount of suspicion that would lump on me. So if you could stop complicating everything by showing up at dinners I’ve explicitly told you not to attend, or, I don’t know, working magic in front of the whole damn council, that would be grand.’

‘You talk like I act without good reason.’ There was a thin thread of anger through his voice now and he was no longer smiling. ‘Did I not quell your mutinous council?’

‘At what cost?’ I returned. ‘I’m sure there’s plenty of reason behind everything you do, but I’m equally sure none of it is good. So far, you have had me kill a king, then a princess.’ I counted the charges off on my fingers. ‘Then you forced me into this sham of a marriage. You have also completely disregarded everything I’ve asked of you. Oh, and let’s not forget that you’ve threatened to take back my glamour and turn me in for unsanctioned magic use if I refuse to bend to your demands. Does that about sum up our relationship so far?’

‘You forgot to add that I’ve kissed you breathless and fucked you senseless,’ he crooned and I seriously considered slapping him. Instead I stepped closer until I was practically pressed up against his chest.

‘You’re right, I did forget it. Because it was so forgettable .’

He snorted in what might have been surprise. ‘Forgettable?’

‘I hardly enjoyed a moment of it,’ I lied. ‘You’re heavy-handed and think too much of your own appeal.’

But instead of the anger I’d been hoping for, he menaced me with a slow smile. ‘I don’t know about that. What about when I kissed you here?’ He reached out to touch a spot just below my ear. I shifted away from the touch. ‘And here.’ He brushed the swell of my breasts with the backs of his fingers and I inhaled sharply, before he trailed his fingertips down the flat of my stomach. ‘And here.’

‘Stop it.’ I took a step back, glad the moonlight would hide the flush in my cheeks. If I didn’t get a hold of myself, then he was going to keep using the same tactic to knock me off balance, because it worked, so why would he stop? ‘Draven, you offered me a partnership, but right now it seems like all you want is a war. If you want to be on the same side, then you need to start trusting me with the truth.’

He seemed to consider me, his grey eyes silver in the moonlight, before he shook his head. ‘No one in their right mind would want you for an enemy, my dear. Lester is my brother,’ he said, walking away from me without offering any further context, seeming suddenly fascinated by the gaming tables spread out across the lawn.

I scrunched my brow, confused by the sudden change in topic, for a moment forgetting who he was talking about. ‘What?’

‘You wanted to know who that soldier is to me. He’s my brother. Well, half-brother.’

‘ You have a sibling? ’ I didn’t mean for the words to sound like an accusation, but the idea of him having family threw me. I thought he’d just, sort of, materialised. Spawned by some sort of evil deed, perhaps. ‘But what’s he doing here?’

‘Whatever it is that soldiers do,’ was his idea of a reply as he peered down at the half-played game. ‘Does that fulfil your criteria for trust?’

‘No. You can explain to me why the Grand Weaver knowing you enchanted him isn’t something you’re worried about. Is it masculine chest beating, or are you a bit thick?’

‘Neither. I knew he was going to react that way, and I know what he’s going to do next. Satisfied? ’

‘Not even remotely,’ I said, watching him as he began rearranging the pieces on the board, returning them to their starting positions. ‘Now you can tell me where you've come across this ability to predict the future.’

‘You’re like a dog with a bone,' he muttered. 'I’ve dealt with Dovegni before. I don’t know if he realises that yet, but when he does, he’ll come for me, not you. So don’t worry for your lovely neck. Do you play?’ he asked suddenly, changing the subject yet again as he sank into one of the chairs.

I eyed the board. ‘I know the rules.’

‘Then have a game with me.’

I considered the request. It was late. There were a dozen things to worry about. But I had a taste of the night, for the anonymity of it, out here with no one else around. And he seemed to be in the mood to share information, as sparse as it had been.

‘Alright,’ I said, slipping into the opposite chair. ‘How about if I win, you tell me where you’ve been all day? And why your brother was with you?’

‘And if I win?’

‘What do you want?’

His smile turned predatory. ‘You give me your stockings.’

My heart, curse it, fluttered a little. ‘I don’t think they’d suit you.’

‘That's not why I want them.’

I scanned the rows of pieces, at my soldiers all in a line, the fierce generals, the crafty druthi, the two paptiches flanking my king and queen. If only it were so easy to move them around a board and to the positions I needed them in. Picking out a soldier, I pushed it forwards, and he made his first move with just as little hesitation, his gaze barely even leaving me to touch the board. As I picked my next piece, I tried to predict the sort of player he would be. I could imagine him plotting out several moves in advance, perhaps setting traps he hoped I wouldn’t spot. Our pieces slowly broke out of formation to lay claim to new territory, and when I captured the first of his pieces—a soldier—I felt so smug that I could almost have started licking my paws.

‘Has being queen been everything you expected?’ he asked suddenly as he moved his next piece and I raised my eyebrows at the question.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Think of what you’ve done to be queen. You must have had something you were hoping to get out of it. I wonder if you’ve got what you were hoping for.’

Frowning, I turned the question over as I took another of his soldiers. ‘Who wouldn’t want to be a queen?’

‘Plenty of people.’ In a move that swept his general into the centre of the board, he captured one of my druthi. Curse it. I hadn’t seen that.

‘Then plenty of people are idiots. I can make people do as I tell them to and I have enough wealth to have anything I want.’

‘You could have had that if you’d picked the other option I offered you.’

My throat tightened as I remembered the choice he’d given me: to kill Gwinellyn and marry him, or be pushed off to the side. ‘Oh yes, you would have liked that, wouldn’t you? You would have sent me off to some far-flung corner of the kingdom to live out the rest of my days.’

‘Even if I had, you’d still have had power and wealth. A dowager queen is no small position. So why choose to remain here?’

‘For the dazzling company,’ I said dryly, flicking my gaze to him when I’d made my next move. Bright moonlight picked out features of his face, leaving his mouth illuminated, his eyes shadowed, making it difficult to read his expression.

‘Do you want to know why I think you stay?’

‘I’m guessing you’re going to tell me whether I want you to or not.’

He canted his head, his mouth curling. ‘I think you want them all to love you.’

I barked a laugh, leaning back in my chair. ‘I don’t give a whit what they think of me. In fact, I hope I’m as universally hated as I think I am. Only fools chase love.’ I knew better than most how love ruined people. I’d seen it happen plenty, to the girls at the Nymph, to the customers. To that bitter woman who’d given birth to me.

He stared at me a moment longer, before returning his eyes to the board. ‘I don’t think that’s true. Sounds to me like disappointment pretending to be strength.’

‘And what gives you the right to make assumptions about me?’

‘I watch you,’ he said, fingering one piece, then seeming to think better of it and moving to another. ‘And I think that, for all your talk of power, there is a little shred of you who’s starving for that love you claim to despise.’

Why did he always make me want to throw something at him? ‘And what exactly have you seen to make you to think that?’ I asked, trying to keep my tone mild, trying to hide how he’d planted a withering, sinking feeling in my chest. Like he’d caught me doing something shameful. If he’d seen something weak in me, then I wanted to know what it was so I could crush it.

He finally settled on a piece, plucking up a druthi and moving it across the board to face off with my general. ‘The way you want to smooth the council into agreeing with you instead of forcing their compliance.’

‘That’s self-preservation. You speak as though they have no power of their own.’ I moved my general out of the line of attack, tightening my defences as I plotted out a path to capturing the invading piece. ‘The lords of the council command their own loyalty. They have their lands and their men. The Guild has their druthi, the Sanctum their flock. It’s not as simple as just beating them down and expecting they won’t retaliate. They’re supposed to hold the crown in check.’

He tapped a finger against the tabletop as he surveyed the board, then swiftly captured one of my soldiers. ‘And where do you get your nose for politics?’ he asked, returning his gaze to my face.

‘Why do you want to know?’ I replied warily.

He heaved a sigh. ‘Do I need a motive? Can’t I just be curious?’

‘You always have a motive.’ There was no conviction in my words and they crumbled as they met the space between us, brittle and empty. Licking my lips, I dropped my gaze back to the board and pretended to plan my next move. ‘I like being able to predict how people will act.’

‘Why?’

I skimmed my fingers across one game piece, then another, and the silence settled over me, mingling with the intense sensation of the way he watched me, like there was nothing else in the world but me and the answer he was waiting for. And despite everything, despite my conviction to keep him at a distance and stay on my guard, I was honest. ‘Because then they can’t catch me unprepared.’

My hand was still floating above the board, but it stilled when he caught it, turning it palm up and running his thumb over the surface of my skin. ‘Who taught you to always be so wary?’

‘I’m living in a court surrounded by people who don’t think I should be queen.’

‘I don’t think it’s something you’ve learned recently. I think it’s something you’ve known for a long time.’

It was something I'd always known. A shiver crept over my skin as I pulled my fingers out of his grip and made my move, taking his paptich. ‘Your turn.’

He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘Your lords are never going to accept you. Not fully. You’re an outsider, and they’ll always be looking for a way to throw you back out.’

I leaned over the game board, dipping my cleavage forward and looking up at him from beneath my lashes. ‘Do you know what I love about you?’ I purred as I found his knee under the table and ran my fingertips up his leg.

A smile skulked around the corners of his mouth. ‘What?’

‘The way you talk to me like I only have half a brain.’ I meant to snatch my hand back, but he caught it and held it, trapping me against the hard muscles of his thigh.

‘Do you want to know what I love about you ?’ Now it was his turn to lean in as I tried to tug my hand out of his grip.

‘No. I don’t care.’ I replied instantly. Which was a lie.

‘I love,’ he said, his voice a low rumble, ‘how much you want to hate me. And how little you really do.’

I finally tugged my hand free and muttered, ‘Hurry up and take your turn.’

A few moments later, his queen entered the fray in an aggressive push through my defensive line. ‘Check,’ he said.

‘Risky move.’

‘We’ll see.’

Our next few moves were a parry of attack and defence which cleared the board of several pieces, none of which were his queen.

‘Tell me about that little girl who learned to be wary,’ he said suddenly as I added one of his druthi to my prison.

‘Tell you what?’ I asked cautiously, wondering where he was going with this line of questioning.

‘Everything.’

‘I see. You want me to spill my insides all over the table so you can feel smug when they match your observations . Honestly, if you want to probe me for weaknesses, you should be more subtle about it.’

‘You’ve been educated,’ he pressed, unhinging my bite.

‘Is that a question?’

‘A guess.’ He made his move and took another of my soldiers, whittling away more of my defensive line.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek as memories surfaced. My mother smacking me so hard across the cheek that black spots danced in my vision when I pronounced a word with the drawl of the Troth. Other street kids spitting on me for my clipped, precise way of speaking. Draven was still watching me with that unflagging intensity, and I battened the memory down.

‘What were you thinking just now?’ he asked.

‘Nothing interesting.’

‘Yet, I’m interested. ’

‘Look, you won’t find anything special by digging around in my past. My mother came from a noble family so she was obsessed with educating me to pass off as high born, that’s all. She taught me to round my vowels and which noble families wield the most influence, but not a single thing about surviving in the Trough. Other than that, she mostly forgot I existed, so by the time she died I was practically a street urchin, anyway. You want to know who taught me to be wary? I learned it the hard way.’ The words clambered out of my mouth, small and defensive, but there was a strange, bitter pleasure in it. I didn’t often talk about my past. Few people had ever asked me about it, had ever studied me like this. Most had only really ever been interested in my body, in the way I pumped their ego and soothed their shame. I could almost hear Madam Luzel whispering in my ear, telling me no one cares who you are. So put a smile on that pretty mouth and make them think you have no past . But that little neglected street urchin inside me enjoyed the attention, the interest. It was like turning my face into a shaft of warm sunlight.

‘What about your father?’ he asked.

I laughed. ‘What father?’

He said nothing, let the words waver in the air.

I turned my attention back to the game, picked up my queen and smoothed my thumb over the carved grooves of the figure. ‘My mother was young and unmarried when she was disowned for falling pregnant with me. She was cast out by her family, lost her inheritance and her birthrights and was forced to survive on her own in a world she didn’t understand. The man who fathered me, on the other hand, gets to just vanish into thin air. No consequences for him. But they both committed the same crime.’ Reaching out, I placed my queen down with clipped precision. ‘Check.’

His gaze didn’t even flick to the game board. ‘Did you ever meet him?’

Folding my hands atop one another, I met his eyes with what I hoped was casual indifference. ‘No. And I’ve no desire to. Are you going to find a way out of my trap or not?’

He seemed to drink in my face, scanning my features, something I couldn’t name shadowing the edges of his expression, shaping his mouth with something that might have been regret. I held my ground and the gaze, trying not to squirm in my seat. Finally, he made his move, edging his king out of my line of fire.

‘What about you?’ I asked, after hopping my remaining general forward. ‘Do I get a narration of your childhood now? I’ve surely earned it.’

He rose from his chair and leaned over the table, placing both hands carefully on either edge. I looked up at him, my pulse rising, breath quickening as I waited for him to come closer, to scatter the game board and draw me to him, to dissolve the spectres of the past with the white-hot touch of his hands on my skin. But he just smirked and moved a piece.

‘Check mate,’ he said simply, before leaving the table. I stood and examined the board, gritting my jaw as I recognised his scheme, the way he’d manoeuvred my king where he’d wanted and distracted me while he did.

‘Rematch,’ I demanded.

‘I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.’ He was staring back up the path, to where the palace loomed just above the tops of an avenue of trees. But then he turned back and eyed me expectantly. ‘I’ll have my prize.’

And I didn’t argue. Because it was dark, and I was tired of playing a part, of pretending to be a grieving widow, a well-behaved queen. Of pretending that I didn’t ache to touch him. I wanted to be wicked. I wanted to be the woman who’d seduced a king, not this highly strung bundle of secrets and fear. I hitched up my skirt, perching a foot on the chair and exposing the lacey top of a white stocking. I pretended to ignore him as I unbuckled my shoe and slipped it off my foot, before slowly peeling the stocking over my knee and down my leg. He didn’t say anything as I did the same with the other one, and I met his eyes as the silk curled down my thigh.

‘I’ve changed my mind. We can play again,’ he said. ‘There’s something else I want.’

‘And what’s that?’ I held the stockings out to him. As he took them, he caught and held my fingertips.

‘Last night you kissed me and ran. Tonight, I want you to kiss me like you mean to stay.’

‘If you want that, I think we can play a different game.’ I pulled my hand out of his, my heart now a heady flutter in my chest, thrilled with my own daring. ‘I’ll kiss you. If you can find me.’ I backed away and he followed, something flickering in his expression that sent a shiver across my skin as I held up a hand to halt him. ‘That’s not how this game works. You have to count to twenty.’

He arched an eyebrow, but stopped and folded his arms. ‘One.’

I backed away a few more steps, the grass spongy beneath my bare feet.

‘Two. ’

Turning away from his burning stare, I capered down the path, knowing immediately where I would run to.

‘Three.’

I reached the entrance of the hedge maze by the time he got to five and disappeared between the towering walls of foliage. There was just enough moonlight to make out my steps, but it was dark within the maze, the walls shadowy and seeming to spring out in my path unexpectedly. I felt a little dizzy, almost tripping over my feet in my rush to get away from the entrance and lose myself in the depths of the winding lanes. There were two ways I saw this going. Either I would find an exit and escape, humiliating Draven by leaving him fruitlessly searching while I headed for bed.

Or, he would catch me.

I couldn’t hear him counting anymore, couldn’t hear much of anything other than the rustle of the wind in the leaves as my path led me to a dead end. I retraced my steps, looking for another way, adrenaline beginning to surge in my blood. He would surely have given chase by now. I found another fork in the path and took a different arm this time, only to be confronted with a stretch that had too many other routs cutting through it, ending in an old oak tree with a bench beneath. I broke into a run to get past all the junctures, tense with the expectation that he might be on one of those paths at this moment, ready to spring out at me. I swung a right, switching direction, but soon found myself at an intersection that looked familiar. I halted, my heart pounding loudly as I strained my ears. I thought I could hear a rustle that wasn’t the wind. Maybe a footstep, maybe a hand trawling across the leaves. I backtracked, headed back for that corridor of junctures, when I caught the sound of a voice in the dark .

‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

The words raced over my skin like static, waking every nerve, charging the air like the moment before a lightning strike. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep my breathing quiet, raced onwards on footsteps that weren’t silent enough, away from the voice. I reached the end of the passage and peered around the corner, trying to see if anyone else was there. But clouds were tracking over the moon, stealing away what little light there had been, and I could barely even make out the tree at the dead end ahead. He could have been just a little further down the path and I wouldn’t have known either way.

Taking a deep breath, I slipped out around the corner, creeping quickly onwards, past an opening on the other side of the hedge.

An arm captured my waist from behind. I cried out in shock.

‘Not quick enough, my dear.’ His voice was husky, raw, and he pulled me hard against him. ‘It’s like you wanted to be caught.’ He pressed his mouth to my neck, and I dropped my head back against him, my eyes fluttering closed as wild, raging heat tangled with the adrenaline and made every hair on my body stand on end. His hands on my waist relaxed and I surged away, slipping his grip.

‘You declare victory too quickly,’ I laughed, breathless as I backed away from him, daring him to reach for me again.

He followed, smiling like something with fangs and a lust for blood. ‘You refuse to admit when you’ve lost.’

I tried to dash past him, but he was too quick for me, darting into my path and forcing me a few more steps back, herding me into the dead end.

‘I thought about you after you left me in the hallway last night,’ he said huskily. ‘I thought about peeling off your dress.’ The words were electric, delighting me with the idea that I’d had that effect on him. He caught my hand, pulled me to him, and all my thoughts of resisting, of prolonging this chase, dissolved as his arm encircled me. ‘I thought about what you were wearing beneath it,’ he murmured. He took my chin in his fingers, tilted my face up, his eyes on my mouth. But he hesitated.

‘What are you waiting for?’ I breathed.

‘I find I want you to take some responsibility for this.’ He pulled me a little closer. ‘But know that if you kiss me this time, I won’t be letting you slip away.’

I barely even thought about it. I wrapped my hands around his neck and drew him down, kissing him with all the wild delight of being chased, of being caught. It was an unbridled kiss, a devastating kiss. His tongue was in my mouth, caressing mine as my fingers ran through his hair, revelling in how soft it was, how it felt to grip it tightly and pull him closer. His hands found the laces of my dress, tugging, and I stumbled back another step, coming up against the rough trunk of the oak. My gown came away just enough for him to slide a hand beneath it, to take a hold of my breast and run his thumb over the tightened peak, sending shards of pleasure through me as his kiss deepened, growing more urgent, and I felt drunk with it, wanting him like a vice I couldn’t help but crave.

The tree was coarse against my back, but I barely felt it, tuned to the way my fingertips ran over him, tugging up his shirt to map smooth, warm skin, rising and falling with corded muscle. I wanted to run my tongue over it, to explore those hills and valleys, but then his hand left my breast and he was hitching up my skirt, and I wanted that more. He dipped down between my legs, found his way through my undergarments.

‘Tell me how badly you want me,’ he breathed against my mouth, his fingers igniting me with sparks of pleasure as he touched me. As though he couldn’t already tell by how wet I was.

‘I don’t even like you,’ I gasped as I arched against him, my eyelids fluttering closed, desperately wanting more than this painfully decadent touch of his hand, wanting that hard length I could feel through his pants.

‘But you want me to fuck you. Admit it and I will.’

I hated him. I hated him so much in that moment for making me say it. Especially when it was pretty fucking obvious. ‘I want you to fuck me.’

He kissed me hard as soon as the words were out of my mouth, like he wanted to taste them on me, and then he was lifting me like I weighed nothing, pressing me back against the tree and I didn’t give a fig for whether every inch he gained on me was just a notch to his bedpost, because I was tugging at his pants and his fingers were digging into my thighs and he took my lip between his teeth while I freed his cock. I inhaled sharply as he pushed into me, filling me slowly with a smooth roll of his hips, and I wrapped my legs around him.

‘I want you to remember this if you ever think you can run from me,’ he hissed against my ear. ‘Because I will always catch you.’ He buried his face in my neck and I drew him deeper, ravenous for the friction of every thrust of his hips. I wound my fingers through his hair, holding on as his shallow breaths scorched my skin, my eyes closed, a slave to the feeling of having him between my thighs, chasing that release that had rendered me such a fool. It was like he knew the exact right spot to hit, the exact right angle, tilting my hips and holding me with complete control over my position until I was trembling and making sounds I didn’t know I made.

I cried out as the tension reached a crescendo, sharp and sweet and radiant, and he kissed me again, increasing his pace as I fell apart around him, dissolving, kissing him back like I couldn’t breathe without his mouth on mine, whimpering with the strength of my orgasm. A moment later he slammed into me and found his release, as though he’d been waiting for that moment, making a sound that was as rough and unravelled as I felt.

Slowly, slowly, my heartbeat evened out. I caught my breath, untangled my fingers from his hair, pushed my hands against his chest. He held still for a moment, but then relented, pulling out of me and lowering me back onto my feet.

‘What was it you said before?’ he said, his voice husky as he straightened his clothes. His hair was plastered to his forehead and he swept it back. ‘That you hardly enjoyed a moment?’

Pulling my skirt back into place, I shot him a sidelong look. ‘You ruin everything by talking.’

‘A liar to the end.’ He held out his hand, like he was some sort of gentleman offering me a stroll through the flowerbeds. ‘I think I’m going to enjoy being married to you.’