He was quiet, breathing as needy as mine. I heard the strain in his voice as he asked, “Would you still only like touch or would you like a kiss? Or more?”
I knew what would happen if I agreed to more, and as much as I wanted his mouth on my body, I wanted to see him when we burned that bridge. So, I reached out into the darkness and trailed my hand over his hip. The oil from where his naked body had been against mine made my hand glide over skin and muscle.
“Touch,” I asked, demanded, begged.
“Yes.”
So, I stroked him as he touched me. We were nothing but hands and skin and moans in the darkness. I wanted more, but I wasn’t sure I could endure it.
~ 6 ~
I’d slipped out of Eli’s house in the night. I slid away from his embrace and fled. He said I was to be myself, and well, my self wasn’t great at the softer side of dating. My world was tilted by the intimacy we’d shared—and in my usual way, I ran from emotions.
Honestly, sometimes I felt sorry for anyone who tried to date me.
I liked Eli more than I’d cared for anyone, and I suspected most of our conflicts boiled down to my innate panic at feeling tender things in his direction. Some girls had pretend-weddings as children, fantasies of gowns as teens, and thought about the future as young women. Me? I thought about monsters. I dreamed of swords or trips. I fantasized about the sort of sex that made grown men blush.
The odds of finding anyone who found my messed-up brain and monster-tainted body appealing were so thin that I never really expected to deal with it. I’d always been the person that nice boys and girls took for a spin before settling down. I was the mid-life crisis car, the thrill-ride, and not the sort anyone wanted to marry. I chose that. I highlighted my traits that kept me firmly in the “makes a great mistress, not a wife” box.
So, I was not prepared to wake up the next evening to a gift-wrapped faery-wrought dagger and antique bottle of the same oil Eli had rubbed all over me. I sniffed the bottle and couldn’t help but smile.
The post also delivered a piece of parchment with elegantly written instructions for a “celebratory holiday gathering” hosted by the dead-chick-in-charge of the draugr. The dinner at Beatrice’s castle was later that week.
No rest for the dead, or half-dead, I supposed.
By the time the gala rolled around, I’d procured a total of three dresses, contacted my mother to tell her that I’d be bringing an extra guest the next week for our holiday dinner, and managed to not feel completely overwhelmed by my fiancé.
The latter took a lot of effort. Eli sent gifts each day: a brooch, a poison ring and pendant set, a scarf with a beautiful wire embroidery that was perfect to garrote someone. When he saw me—a brief moment here or there—he bent me into a dip and kissed me, or he pulled me into a hallway and pulled me tightly to his always aroused body.
Every embrace he whispered, “No intercourse?”
My resolve was not . . . weakening. I would not be married because my needs were spiking so intensely. I was stronger than that.
By the time the night of the gala was upon us, I was ready to torment him until he was as maddened with need as I had become. I chose not one of the reasonable holiday dresses I’d planned, but an ivy column gown. My throat was covered by a high collar, and my arms were bare. The back had a teardrop cut-out, the bottom of which was scandalously low. The left slit exposed a long thin dagger—Eli’s gift—strapped onto my thigh.
If I stood perfectly still, I was as covered as a matron. Only my arms were bared. If I walked or turned my back to him, bare flesh and weapons glinted at him. And if the light was bright, most of the dress was nearly translucent.
Eli met me at my home—and the light was, indeed, bright enough that his eyes dilated in desire. “You are radiant, Ms. Crowe.”
I twirled, and yes, I’d practiced to get that twirl just right. My leg with the dagger practically winked at him, and the hair pins that he’d gifted me that day were holding my