hand to her back and lifting her into him while his fingers split her open. While he drank down every shift in her expression. The flush she felt rising to her cheeks. Her sharp exhalation of held breath.
His fingers found her clit and circled it slowly until she began to move with him.
“That’s it,” he murmured and increased the pressure just enough to make her frantic.
He pinched her lightly and she jerked against his body. When she might have pulled away, he simply resumed that rolling caress. Lifting her hands to his chest for balance, she tilted her hips to allow him better access. He eased a finger inside of her. Earlier she’d admired the single ring he wore, extravagant but too well crafted to be truly vulgar. It was thick and heavy, carved with his family’s crest. She could feel it now, scraping against her skin. He twisted his arm, sinking another finger inside of her while he ground the heel of his hand against her clit. She could feel her own wetness on his skin when he turned his wrist to find a better angle. Her thighs parted to accommodate him, her body stretched around his fingers, melting onto him.
He set the pace, slow and steady but no longer gentle. Demand not seduction. And nothing for himself. When she reached for his cock, fingertips brushing against the hard solid length of his shaft, he pulled his hips away.
“I want you to come for me, Ily. I’ve wanted to see you laid bare and open since the moment I met you.”
She was too far gone to wonder at that, her body pulling tighter and tighter like knotted thread.
He kissed her temple, brushed his lips across the crest of her cheek, dipped lower to taste the side of her neck when she turned her head. She made the mistake of looking at him. The wicked tilt to his smile, the ruthless cast to eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “Let go, I have you.”
It was embarrassing how quickly her body leaped to answer him. As if it belonged more to him than her, as if it always had. His face blurred in her vision and her whole body trembled. She pulled at his shoulders and lifted toward his body, everything inside of her rising with the motion. His fingers pushed deep and held there as she came around him, shuddering and biting at her lip to keep from crying out. Her eyes had shut tight so she wouldn’t have to see the look on his face, but she couldn’t block her ears from his soft laughter.
Oh gods, what had she done? She knew better than to find herself in such a position. She truly did. He removed his hand and gathered her clothes while she stared at his bowed head. Thick black hair, expertly trimmed. It looked clean and sleek. She’d barely touched him. She wanted to know the texture and taste of him. And this...it was over too quickly. Like catching a raindrop on her tongue when she was dying of thirst. His gaze angled up from beneath a fringe of ridiculously long eyelashes. Amusement there. Hunger. Triumph.
He tugged at the rough cloth of her skirt and began to set everything to rights, folding the top down twice as if he’d dressed her a thousand times. The pocket created by the cloth was empty now and had been for some time. He retied the sash at her waist, his fingertips lingering for a moment on her exposed skin before falling away. And then, for the second time that day, he simply let her go.
As he stepped away, she took a deep breath to collect herself. Her thoughts were as unmanageable as rats fleeing floodwater. Somehow, she’d need to regain the upper hand. She wanted more of him and, clearly, he wanted her as well. He enjoyed playing with her at least, and if she could engage him as a business partner, then...
He started walking toward the door and her head snapped up. He did want her, didn’t he?
“Come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss terms.” He paused in the shadows, eyes glittering as he glanced back. “Or don’t. Your choice, Ily.”
* * *
Kal watched her go, watched the guard he’d dispatched to see her home safely slide through the shadows behind her. Moonlight touched her hair, streaking it with silver.
“You left her to run away weeping?”
He didn’t turn.
“She won’t weep.”
“She came to you as a whore.”
“Yes. I know.”
“She’s not the woman you think