Lust (10 page)

Women had sought him out for pleasure, but never for sanctuary. He had never been called upon to protect a mortal woman—to keep them safe. To hold them till the storm of fear had passed.

As Chastity looked down into his face, her fingers still clutching steadfastly to his shoulders, Thane wanted more than a sexual connection with her. He wanted her trust. To be the embodiment of a knight in shining armor. It was ridiculous, but he wanted something more out of his union with his virtue.

Breaking the spell of her eyes, Thane examined her foot and concentrated on what he was supposed to be doing. “I vow to you, Chastity, on my honor, that Bel will not hurt you—ever.”

The white stocking was saturated, torn at the ankle with a fresh trail of blood flowing from beneath the tattered silk. With trembling hands, Thane slid his palm up higher on her calf, knowing the stocking needed to come off. The wind blew up, carrying the metallic tang of blood on the air, which made Bel whimper, which made Chastity jump and squeak.

“Be easy,
muirneach
.” The whispered endearment slipped effortlessly from his tongue.

“I don't like the way he is looking at me, as though I were a nice juicy lamb chop.”

Despite the gnawing tension he felt, Thane could not help but smile and laugh at her jest. “How did you know that lamb is his favorite?”

She watched Bel warily. “He seems the sort of beast who delights in consuming the most innocent of creatures.”

She had more to worry about from him than Bel, if her fear ran to beasts who consumed the innocent. When he looked up at her, she was watching him, as if she knew of the beast that lurked inside him, the animal that wanted to lower her to the ground and lift her skirts and plunge inside her. It was like that, when Lust was starved. He gave no thought to pleasure or seduction, only the feeling of ecstasy—his own.

Thane didn't want that for this innocent woman sitting before him. He wanted her to be writhing with desire, flushed with sexual arousal. He wanted her first time to be decadent, consuming. In Lust's famished state, there would be no lazy caresses and kisses. No slow seduction. It would be carnal.
Fucking.
Her first time would be base and animalistic. Not beautiful, as he so wanted it to be for her.

No, he could not be the beast with Chastity.

“Do you trust me,
muirneach?
”

Her head cocked to the side, and the moonlight glowed around her hair, giving her the appearance of a celestial virgin, which, of course, she was. While he awaited her answer he studied her expression, watched her gently arched brows pucker with concern.

“I know I should not trust you, but I cannot help it. Something deep inside me tells me that I can. That I ought to. There is a voice there—” She stopped, shook her head and glanced away.

“What does the voice say?” he asked as he slid his palm up behind her knee. Her breath hitched, the sound a punch to his midsection.

“The voice,” she whispered, “it speaks of strange feelings. It tells me to crave things that I know are sinful and wanton, and not what I should feel. But my mind tells me that trusting you is folly. That you are not what you appear to be.”

His nerves sharpened. What could she know of him? He had taken great pains to hide his fey glamour. To appear as nothing other than a titled gentleman. “Who am I, then?”

Her gaze flickered to his. “You are the masked stranger from the other night.”

Closing her eyes, she sniffed delicately at the air. “I smell you—everywhere. The scent is dark and seductive, arousing, yet drugging. I feel awakened, yet asleep. It lures me, rouses that voice so deep inside me. It was the same that night, too. I was aware of the same scent, and then you appeared.”

Hands shaking, Thane slid his palms higher, to her knee, where he felt the satin of her garter brush his fingertips. He was now the one to be entranced. He was charmed by the blissful expression on her face, aroused by her words.

“There is an erotic masculinity to the fragrance, calling to a place inside me that I didn't know existed. A place I fear because I cannot understand it.” He watched her inhale deeply of the air. “I remember the scent so well. It is the same now, as it was when it wrapped around me in
the maze. Notes of sandalwood and frankincense, mixed with the faintest scent of cedarwood and jasmine. It is the scent of night and moonlight, of forest and forbidden, decadent lands. Even now I can feel it enveloping me.”

Mesmerized by her words, he slid his palms up her thigh and pulled the ties on her satin-ribbon garter, feeling it unravel in his hand. The next time, he would untie it with his teeth and nip at the ivory flesh above her stocking. But for now, he could do little more than listen to her words, and wonder if somewhere inside her, Chastity longed for pleasure. If she realized how deeply she could connect with her sexual nature, if she would but allow him close to her.

“It was you last night in the maze, wasn't it?” she asked.

Memories of them together, and what he had done to her, must have surfaced, for the pale skin above her bodice began pinkening, giving him a glimpse of what she would look like when flushed with sexual need. He, himself, was now fully ensnared, and Lust…he was practically salivating at the thought of tearing into her skin and sinking himself deep within her quim. But Lust could not appreciate the beauty of her virginity. The significance of it. Lust could only be ruled by his urges, and breaking the barrier is all he would do. Lust, Thane knew, would not take care of her, would not wait to feel the petals of her sex moisten and blossom, unfurling for him beneath his touch. It was Thane and his Dark Fey need to arouse and pleasure that would see to that. It was Thane that would make their first coupling beautiful
and sublime—passionate. So damn impassioned that she would think never to spurn him, to live without him. And then, she would agree to follow him to Faery, to his court of voluptuous pleasures.

“Thane?” Her voice was so soft, a bit husky with wariness, and perhaps desire. “That is your name, isn't it? You were the one in the maze.”

She was fully beneath the charm of his spell now. He could do anything he wanted with her and it ate at him, sapping his strength, giving Lust the edge over his iron self-control.

His hands shook and he glanced at Bel, trying to take stock in something other than the idea of pressing himself atop Chastity. He would ruin it all, destroy her innocence and faith if he were to allow Lust to rule him. He had not waited behind this gate for a day only to destroy it with his unbridled desire for the woman before him.

When he had discovered the gate, he'd also learned that it was the only place on the grounds or the house that was not warded by the Seelie. Whether they had not known the gate existed, or whether they thought it insignificant, did not matter. Thane had used the fact to his advantage, warding this forested patch to his benefit. Then, with his magic, he'd turned what had been an uninspiring view into the image of the land that surrounded the Unseelie Court. By day, it was a lovely quiet spot full of solitude and trees and a trickling stream. At night, it became a decadent pleasure garden. Even now the vista was changing, the night-blooming flowers opening, releasing their heady perfume.

He had no idea that Chastity would be so responsive to the garden, to the fragrance of not only the flowers, but his body. He was aroused by the notion, intrigued that an innocent could be so open to the seduction of scent.

“It was you that night, wasn't it?” she asked again, cutting into his musings.

She was under his spell. Anything he told her, he could wipe it away, make her forget if he needed to. “Aye, it was me.”

“You ravished me.”

No, he had merely toyed with her.

Swallowing hard, he focused on her cut foot, not seduction. She was under the influence of magic. It was dishonorable to act upon what was so obviously innocent sexual curiosity.

But honor only got him so much. It would not do anything for his cock, which was now hard and demanding. Just a glimpse, a touch…

Raising her skirt, she protested, but he quietly shushed her. “It's okay,” he whispered. “You'll like this.”

Skimming his hand up her thigh, he made small circles there, watched her expression, her wide eyes, the way her tongue came out and moistened her bottom lip. He let his thumb pass over her sex, and she squirmed, her bottom coming closer to his searching hand. “That's it,” he encouraged. “Part your legs for me.”

Under his enchantment she obeyed, and lifted her skirts, revealing her quim, the blond thatch that shielded her center. Parting her, he traced her slick sex, bringing
the wetness on his fingers. Drawing back, he saw the moisture on his fingers, and heeding Lust's beckoning pleas, he brought them to his mouth and licked them clean, tasting her.

A startled sound escaped her, and he smiled wickedly. “Lie back and let me put my mouth to you.”

Struggling with what she should do and what she wanted, Thane watched Chastity break for him. With a triumphant smile he lowered his mouth to her sex, and brushed his tongue along her. She cried out, grasped his hair as he teased her. His tongue circling her clitoris, he felt her fingers tug tighter, her hips searching, begging for more. So quickly she began to shake. Exploding beneath his mouth. So soon…he could hardly believe it, she was an innocent, yet she shuddered in orgasm.

Excitement made Lust eager. He could take her like this. Lust wanted that, but Thane didn't. She was under his enchantment, and he wanted her free of any magic when she gave herself to him.

Turning away was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Lust protested violently, but he ignored him. Pulling the stocking from her leg, he tossed it aside and lifted her foot. In the moonlight he could see that the skin was torn—but not horribly so. With a nod to Bel, he allowed the animal to come close. First he sniffed the wound, then, with his long tongue he began to carefully lick the cut. Bel was not just any dog. He was a faery hound, and a healer. It was what he was meant to do.

With a squeak, Chastity seemed to come out of her trance. The sensuality and the afterglow of orgasm he
had seen in her eyes was gone, replaced with horror and fear.

“Shh.” Thane silenced her protests. “He has the ability to heal.”

Chastity watched in fascination as Bel licked at her injury, which seemed to heal before their very eyes. When he was done there was nothing more than a pink scrape-mark on her ankle.

When their eyes met, Chastity pulled her foot from his hand and jumped up from the bench. “What are you?” she cried.

 

The languid feeling that cloaked her vanished, and Chastity was left horrified by the evidence that was strewn around her. Her shoe and stocking were scattered upon the grass, and her fichu was half hanging out of her bodice, revealing the swells of her breasts in the low-cut gown.

The man—Thane—had been perched between her thighs, the hem of her skirts raised to her calves. Even as she took in the scene around her, her words came rushing back. Such personal, intimate thoughts, and she had said them out loud. Had admitted to this stranger something that she had not even allowed herself to admit to.

Rising to his full height, he towered above her, watching her with his strange blue eyes. Eyes that a woman could drown in. Eyes that promised pleasure and seduction.

“Oh, God,” she whispered as her fingers trembled over her mouth. “What are you?”

“A man.”

She shook her head, her hair spilling from her pins. “No, you can't be. You aren't a man.”

Chastity somehow suddenly knew what he was. A fey. A Dark Fey. Those beautifully seductive creatures whose sole purpose was to entice. Defile. Deflower. What had she done by walking through the gate? What sort of enchantment had he put her under?

His hand reached out to hers, but she jumped back. Frightened to touch him. Horrified that the voice deep inside her pleaded with her to allow it.

“You're not a man.”

His eyes narrowed and he folded his arms across the considerable breadth of his chest. “If I am not a man, what then do you propose I am?”

“Fey.”

The word hung heavy and quiet between them. His gaze darkened even further, becoming a thundercloud of swirling tempests.

“I am Thane,” he said again. This time his voice brooked no argument.

“A prince of the fey.” She stepped back from him, attempting to put as much distance between them as possible. “You're a Dark Fey.”

Deep inside she knew she was right. He was a member of the notorious Unseelie Court. Everything screamed it to be true. Every instinct she possessed warned her to run from this creature and hide before he could carry her off into the night. For that was his intent.

Lifting her skirts, she ran blindly into the shadows,
making her way to the gate, but she was stopped, lifted high off the ground and brought up hard against a body that felt like granite. “What do you want from me?” she cried, terrified of what he would do to her.

Pressing her up against him, he turned her in his arms until her breasts were crushed against his chest. “I want everything,” he whispered in her ear. “Your heart, your body. The very essence of your soul.”

“No!” she cried, fearing he would throw her to the ground and take her right there.

“You're mine. Created solely for me.” The words were deep and dark in her ear. “I will have you. Take you. But I will not throw you down on the ground,” he said, his voice growing seductive as wisps of hot breath caressed her ear. “I don't want you quick. I want you long—slow and languid. I want to take my time when I lure you. Defile you. Deflower you.”

Struggling in his hold, she punched at him, frightened of his masculinity and the fact he knew her thoughts.

“Soon, Chastity. Soon I will come to you and you will be mine. But this is not how I want it. I do not want you fighting me. I want you—”