Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,72
to tether us, he pulls me away from the altar. I’m encased in shadow, his hand my only anchor, until the hard planes of his chest cushion the back of my head and I’m embraced. “Am I right, Rowena? Am I what you want?”
Yes, yes, yes.
My nails bite into the forearm clamped across my breasts.
“A shared glance from across the room.” Damien touches his fingers to my chin then angles my head to the right. Warm breath mists over my lips, and a shudder of want slips down my spine as realization hits: I’m the center of his attention, the sole focus of blue eyes the color of crystal waters.
A shared glance, even if it is one-sided.
“A brush of fingers when no one is looking”—the hand at my throat tightens imperceptibly, his thumb drawing lazy circles on my collarbone—“and a whisper in her ear when she wavers to do the right thing.”
He demolishes the remaining distance between us with the slightest shift of his hips—and oh, my God. Oh, my God. Air drives into my lungs and my hold on his arm turns brutal, wild, when he deliberately rolls the hard ridge of his denim-sheathed cock against my back. Once, twice. It’s a goddamn siege of sensuality. The pressure. The heat of him. A moan wrenches from my throat.
“Do you feel me?” he rasps against the shell of my ear with another roll of his hips. “Do you feel how hard I am for you?”
I give a feeble jerk of my head.
“Say the words, Rowena. Give them to me.”
Fuck.
I’m swaying and swallowing fistfuls of air like that’ll do me a world of good when it’s so incredibly obvious that I’m two seconds from collapsing at the foot of the altar. Burning from within, I press my knees together. Flex my toes against paved stone. Claw at Damien’s forearm. Only . . . I’m not clawing him at all but kneading the corded muscles like a cat preening for affection. Another second of this and my pride will be demolished beneath the sole of his heavy boot.
In the end, all I manage is a hoarse, “I’m going to die.”
Damien clicks his tongue like I’m some naughty schoolgirl who’s displeased him.
The fingers clasping my chin let go. A moment later they circle the nip of my waist, beneath my bent arms, to find the knotted sash of my robe. He pauses for only a moment then tugs sharply. The bow unravels, the silk over my shoulders loosening and rippling down to expose my upper shoulders. “Give me your hands.”
I swallow roughly. “You’ll tie me up?”
“I chased you to the ends of the earth and you brought us here,” he murmurs, already hooking the sash around one wrist while he reaches for the other. With deft movements, my hands are pressed together, the silk knotted tight. “Far be it from me that I should sin and keep you from being a proper sacrifice.”
I Samuel 12:23.
Only Damien Priest.
Only this man would bastardize a verse from the Bible, in a chapel, while binding me like some pagan princess. I would laugh, if it weren’t for the fact that his nimble fingers are untying the knot of my pajama bottoms and destroying every last train of thought.
I glance down and see nothing.
But I imagine the dark hair dusting his forearms, his thick wrists. I imagine my tied hands pressed to the altar, where he placed them, and those strong fingers teasing my hipbone with tantalizing back and forth caresses.
And then I imagine nothing more because the elastic waistband is being eased down.
Down over the width of my hips, down over the curve of my arse, down far enough that I’m completely bare, save for a pair of knickers. His hands glide south and then his tall frame sinks down too. Soft lips find my nape then claim the spot between my shoulder blades. He lifts the back of my robe, and the shirt beneath, exposing healing skin to his perusal. And then comes another soft-as-silk brush of his lips to the devastated flesh.
“Damien.” Trembling, wrists kissing, I clutch the altar. “Damien, what are you—?”
“Finding the wreckage that you promised me.”
“The wreckage?” I ask breathlessly.
“Do you see any angels here?” One big hand sweeps over the place where my thigh and bum meet, his fingers pressing deep into skin untouched by fire. “There are none,” he answers gruffly, “just me. There’s only me.”
The angel dead on the floor, defeated. The devil on his shoulder.