Her Reaper's Arms (27 page)

had been placed before the windows—one to either side and the other sitting at one end

between the other two. A huge square table loaded with candlesticks both fat and tall

covered the glass-topped table.

“I like to light them at night and just sit and watch the light reflected in the

window,” he told her.

Lea looked at him and recognized the loneliness in his tone. “We’ll sit and watch

the light together, milord,” she said.

A grand piano sat in one corner of the room.

“I don’t play,” he said. “Do you?”

“As a matter of fact I do,” she said. “Not well, but I do play.”

“That’s wonderful!” he said, and hugged her. “I can’t wait to hear you.”

“Well—”

He didn’t give her a chance to finish for he was showing her the rest of the parlor.

There were no curtains on the window, but curious things he called blinds that could be

drawn across to conceal the glass. Finishing out the room in one corner was a tableau of

two very comfortable-looking chairs with footrests flanking a small table with a lamp

where he told her he spent many an hour reading. Behind the chairs on the two

adjacent walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves groaning beneath the weight of many

tomes.

133

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Most of them came from the lowest level,” he told her, running a hand gently and

respectfully across the spine of a large book. “They’re not mine but I think of them as

belonging to me.”

Before Lea could comment on that, he had grabbed her hand to show her what he

called the galley.

It was a kitchen complete with large stove, an icebox, huge sink and so many

cabinets and so much countertop space it would have done a hotel proud.

Next he took her past the formal dining room with its table large enough to seat

twelve diners, down a short hall to the first bedroom.

“It’s one of two guest rooms but no one’s ever slept there,” he said, tugging her

toward the last room he wanted to show her. “And this is our room.”

Lea’s mouth dropped open. The room was larger than the parlor and in the very

center of one long wall sat the largest bed she’d ever seen.

“It could sleep three people comfortably,” he told her with a wicked gleam in his

eye.

Made of brass, the bed’s headboard and footboard posts had to be as large—or

larger—than her thigh. It was massive with swirls that caught the faint light from the

rainy day. She knew it would be stunning in the full light of the sun.

Though the walls were a pale shade of green she found very pleasing, the rustcolored coverlet on the bed clashed horribly with the green-and-wine-plaid drapes at

the window. The carpeting was a deep burgundy and so plush under the foot she felt as

though she were sinking into it. She knew the only thing she’d change would be the

horrendous coverlet.

“And in here’s the bathing room!” he said, his eyes bright.

Nothing could have prepared her for the opulence of the bathing chamber. As large

as her mother’s parlor had been when Lea still lived at home, the room was tiled in a

paler shade of green than the bedchamber walls, and the floor was tiled in dark green

with flecks of gold running through the pattern. A black marble tub large enough to fit

four people sat in one corner beside a glassed-in area Bevyn labeled the shower. The

necessary was a beautiful black marble fixture with a handle he told her had been cast

from pure gold. Dual black marble sinks had been sunken into a long counter with a

mirror that covered nearly one entire wall behind the golden faucets.

“It is amazing,” Lea breathed.

“Now, time’s wasting. Let’s have sex,” he said, dragging her back through the

bathing room.

“What?”

He pulled her to the bed, scooped her up and tossed her to the center of the bed,

ripping off his shirt as she bounced on the mattress. Buttons pinged against the wall.

“Bevyn!” she chastised.

134

Her Reaper’s Arms

He was hopping on one foot as he yanked off a boot. “Sex,” he said. “We’re going

to have sex. No argument.”

She lay there braced on her elbows with her legs splayed, skirt hiked up to her

knees, watching him discard his clothing, and when he was entirely naked, before he

could throw himself on her, she held up a hand.

“What?” he whined.

“Why didn’t you just poof your clothes away, Reaper?” she asked, trying not to

laugh at his expression.

Bevyn’s eyebrows slashed together then he slapped his forehead with the base of

one palm. “Shit,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think of that!”

She lay down and held her arms up to him. “Come here, you bad man.”

The Reaper grinned so manically, she could not keep from laughing as he came

crashing down on her, pressing her to the bed as he fumbled her skirts up higher and

cupped her between her thighs.

“Gods-be-damned bloomers! What a fucking nuisance!” he snarled, and in one lithe

movement divested her of the offending garment, ripping them as they caught on the

heel of her slipper.

He snatched off her slippers, tore off her stockings and nudged her legs apart, his

hand going to her breast. His head swiveled toward the clock on the bedside table.

“Forty minutes. I’ve got forty minutes.”

Lea reached both hands to his face and turned his head toward her. “Bevyn,” she

said in a reasonable voice. “It only takes ten minutes to fully satisfy a woman. In forty,

you could bend our world, my love.”

“But it’ll have to last us, wench,” he said, his eyes filled with pleading. “I’ll be gone

a week and—”

“I will miss you every second you are away but when you return, just imagine how

intense the reunion will be,” she said calmly.

“Intense?” he echoed.

“
Very
intense,” she said. “Now slow down and make love—not sex—to your

woman.”

She could feel his heart slamming against his chest, the heated pulsing of his erect

cock stabbing against her stomach as he slid gently down her until he was lying

between her thighs, nudging her legs farther apart. His hand shook as he softly

kneaded her breast.

“I love you,” he said, his heart in his gaze.

“I know, milord,” she said. “And your love is returned a hundredfold.”

It was slow, sweet love he made to her then. Gentle, caring, filled with the most

tender expression of his emotions any man could ever express. The world and its

problems were thrust aside. His impending punishment no longer hovered at the back

135

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

of his mind. All he cared about, thought about, wanted was to show his lady how much

he loved her and needed her and would miss her.

His lips were soft as they plied hers. His tongue was a sweet, gentle caress slipping

into her mouth to sweep across her lips and tickle her pallet, run between her bottom

teeth and lip. His breath was warm and smelled of lemon drops.

Lea’s hands were in his hair, stroking the thick curls, scratching lightly, seductively

along his scalp. She tugged playfully at the deep waves and smoothed them back from

his high forehead, meeting his needy gaze with a sultry one of her own.

“By the gods, you are my very heart, Lea Walsh,” he told her.

His hand was on her breast, lightly kneading the fullness. He dipped his head and

kissed her nipple through the fabric of her gown and chemise.

“Undress me, my man,” she said. “Let me feel every inch of you.”

He did not need a second invitation. Pushing to his knees, he knelt between her legs

and helped her to sit up, drew her dress over her head, the chemise following in a

heartbeat. His hands shook as he molded them to her lush bosoms.

“I never thought to know such happiness, sweeting,” he told her. “I never thought I

would find any kind of peace this side of the grave.”

She put her fingers to his lips and smiled gently then lay down, her hands to either

side of her head, his still on her breasts.

Bevyn stretched out atop her and took one glorious mound into his mouth, laving

the nipple sweetly, flicking his tongue across it, swirling around it, drawing it deeply

into his mouth. As her fingers threaded through his hair, he suckled her.

His weight crushed her in such a glorious way, Lea wondered how she had ever

existed without it. It was as though it was a part of her, he was a part of her, and she

would never be whole again were she to lose him. At that sweet moment of feeling him

pressing her into the mattress, his strong, muscular body imprisoning hers, she could

almost see herself accepting that part of him she found so repulsive, so she could be

with him like this for as long as they both drew breath.

But it was a fleeting thought as he moved to her other breast to worship the

sweetness there. She knew she would be hard-pressed to take into her body such a

revolting thing as the parasite that lived within his no matter how much she loved him.

The thought of having to drink blood, to exist on the strong drug she watched him

inject so painfully into his neck…

She shuddered.

Bevyn lifted his head, looked up in to her eyes, and at that moment she knew he

had been intercepting her wayward thoughts. “You need not worry about it, sweeting,”

he said. “I swore I would not and I will not.”

“I know,” she said, and put her hands to his cheeks to draw his mouth to hers but

her hands were trembling.

136

Her Reaper’s Arms

He slid up her, luxuriating in the feel of her hard little nipples pressing against his

chest. Where they touched his flesh, they practically singed him. He shoved his hands

beneath her rump and lifted her to him.

“Then know this,” he said. “I belong only to you. No one else, nothing else matters.

I will be yours for as long as you want me.”

He slanted his mouth across hers and kissed her deeply, passionately, as he pressed

his hard cock against her stomach.

Lea reached down to wrap her fingers around his shaft, arching her hips to make

him move back so she could position him between her legs. As the tip of him touched

her core, he drew in a harsh, ragged breath, barely able to contain the pleasure driving

through him.

She slid him inside her then moved her hand so she could cup his buttocks, seating

him deep within her. Her fingernails dug into the hard muscles of his cheeks to goad

him into thrusting.

And thrust he did. He lifted her ass up even as she scored his with her short nails

and he pumped into her slowly at first then with increased speed as their kiss deepened

and his rod grew impatient. Her folds were like warm honey around him—slick and

sweet and coating him with their combined juices. Her muscles flexed about him in

sweet little pulses that set his blood to racing.

His cock swelled inside her to such an unbelievable degree he thought he would

burst. He was driving into her with such power, such heat, such juicy thrusts, that she

was now clinging to him, making little groaning sounds as he touched some part of her

that was giving her great pleasure.

“Aye, milord,” she whispered as she tore her mouth from his and put her lips to his

ear. “Take your woman. Take her hard!”

Her words were like a prod to his ass and he felt it all the way through his lower

body and into his belly. His cock leapt then strained then began slamming into her with

such force the bed rocked beneath them.

Lea lifted her legs and locked them around his hips, her heel digging into the cleft

of his ass as he drove into her with wild abandon. She closed her eyes and held her

breath for the spasms were beginning deep inside her and she arched herself up,

bearing down on his shaft.

“Merciful Alel,” she heard him say as he became a frenzied engine pistoning into

her. The bed no longer rocked, it shook beneath them, the headboard slamming against

the wall.

“Come, my lover,” she whispered in his ear as her climax shot over her. “Fill me!”

Bevyn shot hot and long into her sweet body, his head thrown back as he howled

his release. His hips swiveled against her, pumped into her, ground down on her as he

shuddered violently with the coming, his entire body wrapped in the most intense

climax he’d ever known.

137

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Her legs tightened around him as she came a second time—even more intensely

than the first—and felt as though her insides would shatter with the glorious strength of

the pleasure. She writhed beneath him, lapping up the very last of his juices like a

woman dying of thirst. She moaned. She hissed. She gave herself entirely to the

experience and when she collapsed—lying as still as death with him pressed heavily

upon her—she knew she had been loved and loved well.

“If we don’t conceive a child from that, we never will,” she told him.

Bevyn lifted his head and looked down at her with such a shocked expression it

frightened her. “C-Child?” he repeated.

“Aye, milord,” she said, her forehead creased with concern. “Did you not consider

it?”

He shifted off her, pulling free of her intimate hold on his cock and practically fell

beside her, one arm draped over his eyes. She’d broached this subject the first time they

lay together and he had pushed it aside then. He wanted to push it aside now, pretend