Nevan
The moonlight traced the curve of her shoulder, the heaviness of her full breasts, pert nipples standing at attention, down to the dip of her waist and the long line of her legs.
She was sprawled across the bed, both legs wide apart, and her chest lifting up and down rhythmically. She was fast asleep.
Something stirred inside me, and I swallowed hard, forcing my gaze to the ceiling. This wasn't why I was here. She was drunk, and if she weren't covered, by morning, she'd catch a cold.
I reached for the sheet at the foot of the bed and drew it upward, carefully pulling it over her body without letting my fingers make contact.
I had just tucked the sheet around her shoulders and was stepping back when I noticed her eyes were open and were fixed directly on mine.
I froze and straightened.
"Rosamund—"
"I've been waiting for you," she purred.
Her voice was friendly, nothing like the sharp-witted woman I had left in the carriage that morning. Was she no longer angry at me for breaking my promise?
"You're drunk," I said, taking a step back. "Go back to sleep. We can talk in the morning."
She sat up, and the sheet fell to her waist. She didn't reach for it or flinch; she just looked at me with those wide, unblinking eyes and a slow, deliberate curve of her lips that I had never seen on her face before.
Now that she was up, I could see the full outline of her breasts and her rosy buds.
"Cover yourself properly, my lady," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. "And then you can tell me what this is about."
She laughed softly, then rose from the bed without hesitation and walked toward me.
Her full breasts swayed enticingly as she took short, measured steps in my direction, her bare feet silent on the floor, her body catching the moonlight that made rational thought impossible.
Her hips rolled with every step, accentuating every curve and every line of her body as though she knew exactly what the sight of her was doing to me.
And God help me, she was right.
I had seen women naked before me. It came with the title and the power, but none of them had done this. None of them had made my blood rush so violently that I could hear it pounding in my ears.
My mouth went dry, my hands clenched at my sides, knuckles whitening, every muscle in my body locked in a war between restraint and want.
"Rosamund—my lady," I managed.
But she didn't stop.
She circled behind me slowly, like a predator savouring the moment before a kill. Her hand found the small of my back, fingers trailing upward along my spine, tracing each bone through the fabric of my coat.
The touch was feather-light, but it burned. When she reached my shoulders, she dragged her fingertips forward, over my collarbones and down my chest again.
Her fingers grazed my nipples through the thin shirt beneath my coat, and a shockwave of pleasure tore through me so hard my jaw clenched. I sucked in a breath.
"Rosamund. Please, stop."
She didn't.
Her hands moved lower, trailing down my abdomen with agonising slowness, fingernails catching lightly against the fabric. When she reached my waist, she paused, her palms resting flat against my stomach, and I could feel the warmth of her breath against the back of my neck.
"Tell me what you want," she whispered.
"We cannot do this." My voice came out hoarse and strained. "If we are discovered before the wedding, the engagement will be nullified. Everything I've done to bring you here will have been for nothing."
"That's not what I asked."
Her hand slid lower. Her fingers brushed against the bulge straining against my breeches, and my entire body went rigid. A groan tore from my chest before I could stop it, guttural and raw, and my hips betrayed me, bucking forward involuntarily into her touch.
She made a sound of approval, and her fingers traced the outline of my arousal through the fabric, moving up and down the velvety skin of my shaft, mapping every inch of me with a patience that was driving me to the edge of madness.
"Rosamund." I grabbed her wrist. My grip was firm, but my hand was shaking. "Listen to me. This is not how I want our first time to be. Not like this. Not when you've been drinking."
She looked up at me with a mischievous grin. "I'm not drunk, Nevan."
The way she said my name sent heat flooding to every corner of my body. It was the first time she had used it, and it sounded like sin coming from her mouth.
"You are," I insisted, though the conviction in my voice was crumbling with every second her body remained pressed against mine. "You've had wine. You don't know what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing." She pulled her wrist free from my grip with surprising ease and brought both hands to my face. Her thumbs traced my jawline beneath the mask; her touch was impossibly gentle and warm. She tilted my head down toward hers.
"Don't act like you don't want me," she murmured. "I keep thinking about that kiss. About the way your tongue slipped into my mouth and the way you held me like you wanted to have me right in that room." Her lips brushed against the corner of my mouth. "I know you want me. And I want you, too."
"Rosamund, please. Have mercy on me." I was begging now.
The Duke of Wellspring, a man who commanded armies and bent the court to his will, was begging a woman not to kiss him.
"There are things you don't understand. Things about me I haven't told you. If we do this now, I…"
She silenced me with her mouth.
Her lips pressed against mine, soft at first, teasing, her tongue tracing the seam of my lips until they parted. The moment they did, she deepened the kiss with a hunger that sent my mind spiralling. She tasted like wine, rich and warm, and it only made me want more.
My hands, the traitorous things, abandoned all pretence. They found her waist, her hips, the smooth curve of her lower back. Her skin was impossibly soft beneath my palms, warm and yielding, and when my fingers spread across the small of her back, pressing her body flush against mine, she moaned softly into my mouth.
The sound undid me.
I kissed her back with a ferocity that frightened me. My hands roamed her body, exploring the dip of her waist, the swell of her hips, the silken skin of her thighs. She arched into me, her breast pressing against my chest, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck.
She was going to be my wife. She was going to be mine, so it didn't matter if we consummated the union today or another day.
And the way her body moved against mine, the way her breath hitched when my hand grazed the curve of her breast, the way she whispered my name between kisses like a prayer she'd memorised, it all felt so right that nothing else mattered.
I backed her toward the bed. She went willingly, pulling me with her, her legs parting as she sat on the edge and drew me between them. Her hands fumbled at the buttons of my coat, shoving the fabric off my shoulders.
I let her. My shirt followed, and when her palms pressed flat against my bare chest, her fingers tracing the ridges of my muscles and scars, I shuddered.
"Say it," she breathed against my neck. "Say you want me."
"I want you." The words fell out of me. "Damn! Rosamund, I want you."
She smiled. A slow, wide smile that I had been too lost to question. She pulled me down onto the bed, her body arching beneath mine, her legs wrapping around my waist.
Her warmth, her softness, the wet heat of her mouth on my throat, consumed everything. My vision blurred. My thoughts dissolved. There was nothing left in the world except her skin against mine and the fire roaring through my veins.
Then the scent hit me.
It had been building since she first touched me, I realised. A faint sweetness, woven beneath the wine and the warmth of her skin. I had mistaken it for desire, for the natural scent of a woman aroused. But now, with my face buried in the curve of her neck, it thickened.
My body went cold.
I knew that scent.
I pulled back. Rosamund's legs tightened around my waist, trying to draw me back, but I braced my arms against the bed and looked down at her.
She was smiling up at me. That same slow, deliberate smile. Her eyes were dark, darker than they should have been, and in their depths something shimmered. Something that moved with its own intelligence, watching me from behind Rosamund's face like a creature pressed against the other side of a window.
The last time I had smelled that scent, it had been clinging to Catherine's hair. The night I found her in the east wing, tearing at her own reflection, screaming in a language that hadn't been spoken in four hundred years.
The night she lost her mind.
"What's wrong, husband?" Rosamund whispered, tilting her head. Her smile widened. "Don't you want me anymore?"
I knew what would happen if I didn't stop. I had seen it before. One more kiss, one more second of her mouth on mine, and whatever was inside her would finish what it started. The same way it finished Catherine.
And Rosamund would be gone before morning.
I seized her wrists and pinned them to the bed.