A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,173

all she could think of was how easily she could have died in Valbeck. Beaten to death. Starved to death. Burned to death. Ripped apart by her own machines. Manners, and propriety, and reputation, and good sense … none of that seemed to matter beside the necessity to tear off this sack of a dress and have his skin against hers. Her face was wet. She might have been crying. She didn’t care.

She twisted around so he could get at the fastenings. ‘Get this thing off me.’

‘Doing my best,’ he muttered, fumbling at her collar. ‘Fucking … damn it!’ A ripping of stitches, a tap and rattle as buttons bounced away and she tore her arms free of the sleeves, dragged it down, wriggled out of it like a snake wriggling from its unwanted skin. She kicked it away, cheap petticoats and all, making the canvas wall of the tent flap and rustle.

There had been times, in Sworbreck’s office, when she had not got as far as taking her hat off before they were done. Now she stood stark naked. Uncovered, unguarded. His hands were on her waist. Fingertips scarcely brushing her skin. As if he hardly dared touch her. She could hear his breath. Slid her fingers between his, wrapped his hands around her, guiding them, up onto her chest, down between her legs. She had her tongue between her teeth, biting, almost painful.

In the overwritten romances her mother pretended not to read, the prince would always ride to the heroine’s rescue and whisk her from danger in the nick of time, and she would fall into his bed, swooning with gratitude, so pathetically predictable. Savine had always felt nothing but contempt for reading that nonsense, and here she was actually doing it. She didn’t care.

He paused a moment, ragged breath tickling her ear. ‘Are you sure you want to—’

‘Yes, I’m fucking sure.’ She reached behind to twist her fingers in his hair, twist his head down so she could kiss him over her shoulder, suck at his tongue. Clumsy, hungry, mouth-crushing kisses while her other hand struggled with his belt buckle behind her back, digging at it, twisting at it, finally dragging it clinking free. He gave a little gasp as she pulled his trousers open, found his cock, started to rub it, wrist painfully twisted.

‘Damn it,’ he gasped, fumbling with the buttons on his jacket. ‘Bloody … uniforms.’

When he finally ripped his shirt off, she closed her eyes at the warmth of his bare chest against her bare back, his arm slipping around her ribs, holding her tight against him, skin pressed to skin. His other hand slid back down between her legs again and she rubbed herself against it, backwards and forwards. She slipped one knee up onto the bed, clumsy, off balance, almost falling, had to grip the bedstead with one hand, the other still rubbing at his prick, feeling the end prod wetly against her backside.

No ambitions or manipulations. No fretting on what happened yesterday or what would come tomorrow. Just his breathless grunts and her whimpery moans, eyes closed and mouth open. By the Fates, she sounded like a cat crying to be let in. She didn’t care.

She let go of everything.

Lost Causes

‘You can go,’ said Vick.

The Practical’s eyes slid over to the prisoner, sly and cruel and very narrow. She wondered if they were trained to use their eyes that way, or if only people with a naturally threatening glare wanted to work as Practicals in the first place. Bit of both, maybe.

‘I think I can handle him,’ she said. The prisoner’s wrists were shackled behind his back, after all, and chained to the chair for good measure, the bag over his head shifting as he breathed.

The door shut, and Vick took the bag by one corner and dragged it off.

She’d liked Malmer from the moment she met him. She’d never have admitted it, because it could have become a weakness to exploit. But she liked him a lot. Respected him. Reckoned he was as close as men got to being good. So it hurt, his wounded look as he recognised her. But a look was all it was. Vick had met kicks and sticks and knives with a smile, and some of them from people she’d liked. A hurt look wouldn’t shift her resolve any more than a breeze would shift a mountain. Or so she told herself.

‘You’re one o’ them,’ he breathed, and he closed his eyes, and slowly