Shadows of Asphodel (20 page)

“This room will make you feel like a princess,” Wendel said.

She rolled her eyes. “I never wanted to be a princess.”

He glanced sideways at her and furrowed his brow, as if he couldn’t believe this, and looked as if he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. They reached the door to their room, and he handed her the key.

She struggled to unlock the door, and laughed. “My fingers are numb.”

“Almost to the shower,” he said. “As soon as you open the door.”

Ardis sighed in exasperation, but she was glad to see a hint of teasing in Wendel’s eyes again. She wanted to forget what had happened in the catacombs, and she suspected that a shower would help them both.

At last the lock clicked, and she pushed open the door.

The room was the color of peaches and cream, wallpapered in silk brocade, and the crystals of the chandelier winked in the dimness. She kicked off her boots and let her feet sink into the plush carpet. When she started to walk toward the bed, Wendel wrapped his arm around her waist and swung her toward the bathroom.

“Let me show you the shower,” he said.

She arched her eyebrows and tried to think of something clever, but he dragged her to him and kissed her hard. The length of his body pressed against hers, his wet clothes clinging to his skin, and she shivered against him.

“You feel so cold,” he said. “Shower. Now.”

Ardis could feel Wendel’s feverish desperation, and it was contagious. She followed him into the en suite bathroom. Her fingers unsteady, she unbuckled her scabbard and tossed her sword onto the carpet in the bedroom. He pulled her back into the bathroom. Laughing, shaking, she let him peel away her shirt.

“Help me,” he said. “I don’t want to
rip
your clothes—”

“Oh, I think you do.”

Ardis danced back before he could call her on her bluff. She wriggled out of her clothes and tossed them onto the floor. Wendel turned on the water in the shower and held his hand underneath to check the temperature. Rainwater dripped from his clothes and pattered on the tiles. She struggled with his waterlogged coat.

“Let me,” he said.

Wendel shrugged off his coat and tossed it on the floor, then shook his head and picked it up again. He brought the coat to the bedroom, and she realized he must be taking out Amarant and hiding the black dagger somewhere.

He returned with the tin of preventives held aloft. “Can’t forgot these.”

“These?” she said, with a teasing smile. “Plural? What makes you think—?”

He silenced her with a kiss, stopping only to strip naked and drag her into the shower. When the steaming hot water hit them, he closed his eyes and let out a moan of a sigh. He tilted back his head and let the water fall over his face.

“Better,” he said.

Wendel rubbed his hands over his face, then leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. His hair ran in black rivulets down his back. Ardis lathered the soap, then ran her hands along his shoulders. He let her massage away the tension still tight in his muscles. Her fingertips lingered on the scars crisscrossing his skin.

“Ardis,” he said.

She froze, afraid she had touched a scar he didn’t want to remember.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I—I can’t stop thinking about the catacombs.”

Ardis lifted her hands from his back. She felt an ache in the pit of her stomach.

Wendel turned around, his hair straggling in his face, and took the soap. Without looking at her, without saying a word, he rubbed the soap over his hands like they were still bloodstained. He stopped only to wash the rest of his skin, then returned to his hands, scrubbing under his fingernails to rid himself of imaginary dirt.

“Talk to me,” she said.

Wendel’s hands clenched around the bar of soap. “What is there to say?”

“You don’t like to touch the dead. You don’t like to feel anyone die.”

Wendel grimaced, and the soap squeezed out of his hand. He fumbled as he tried to catch it, and Ardis couldn’t help but laugh.

“Sorry!” she said. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just…”

“It’s ridiculous, I know. I’m a necromancer. It shouldn’t bother me.”

Ardis shook her head. “If it didn’t bother you, I would worry.”

Wendel made a show of picking up the soap, though he looked at her with hesitant eyes.

“Help me forget,” he said.

Ardis kissed him on the lips, on the cheekbones, and on the water that clung to his eyelashes. Wendel let out a shuddering sigh. He curled his arms around her waist and buried his face in the curve of her neck.

“Can we stay like this forever?” he said, in a hoarse murmur.

“The water might get cold,” she said.

He smiled wickedly. “You should at least stay naked forever.”

Ardis rolled her eyes. Wendel reached around her hips and tugged her to him. He kissed her neck, lingering there, then bit her gently. She sucked in her breath. He bit harder, enough to mark her, and she tilted back her head.

“Good?” he said.

Shivering, she nodded.

He licked where he had bitten her, then took her earlobe between his teeth. When he traced her ear with his tongue, her knees wavered, and she leaned onto him to keep herself standing. He held her with an arm around her waist.

“Better?” he said.

“Still good,” she said, and she smiled. “Don’t think ‘better’ and ‘best’ will be easy.”

“Ah,” he said, “but you don’t like easy. You like hard.”

“That is a
terrible
pun.”

Wendel laughed, then rubbed the soap between his hands. He slid his slippery fingers over her breasts and looked into her eyes with bold intimacy. She didn’t break their gaze, her breath quickening, even as he explored her skin. Water soaked their hair, and the lingering aroma of smoke vanished into the steam.

“Would you like to stay in the shower?” he asked huskily.

“Unless you have ulterior motives,” she said.

“My motives should be very—” His hands tightened on her buttocks. “—
very
obvious.”

Ardis glanced down at him. “Oh?” she teased. “I hadn’t noticed…”

“This is not a joking matter,” he said, grinning.

Wendel backed her against the wall in a way that made it impossible for her to ignore how hard he was. She stroked him with her hand. He thrust against her, almost involuntarily, and growled in the back of his throat.

Panting, she breathed into his ear. “Maybe you should—”

“A preventive?”

“Yes.”

He lunged from the shower and disappeared for a minute. She leaned against the wall and let her fingers wander over herself. When Wendel returned, he wasted no time in flinging her back against the wall and grabbing her hips. She splayed her hands on the tiles, the muscles in her legs tight, and struggled for her footing.

He halted, tantalizingly close, and stared into her eyes.

“Let go, Ardis,” he said. “Let me hold you.”

She had never done this before, and it seemed so precarious. “But—”

“Trust me.”

So she nodded, and did.

He lifted her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist and hooked her arms behind his neck, completely at his mercy. The muscles in his back tightened as he shifted his stance, and then he thrust into her.

A little involuntary cry left her throat. He made her feel so full and yet so empty. The hollowness of lust ached inside her. When he withdrew, she clung to him and bit his shoulder, hard enough to make him gasp.

“You aren’t allowed to stop,” she said.

“Oh?” he said. “Is that an order?”

“Yes.”

His eyes glittering, he did as he was told. He found a hard and fast rhythm, and she followed his lead. She angled her hips so that he plunged even deeper, and he uttered an incomprehensible moan. He clutched her to himself, breathing against her neck, and slowed down to grind against her with delicious deliberation.

“I have to tell you the truth,” he said.

She tensed. “What?”

“I won’t last much longer like this.”

She arched against him to make him moan. Smiling, she traced her fingernails down his spine and clutched his buttocks.

“Ardis,” he warned.

“I already gave you an order,” she said, enjoying her power over him. “You can’t stop.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What was it you once said? Prisoners don’t give orders.”

“Who said I’m your prisoner?”

“Who said I’m letting you go?”

Ardis took that as a challenge. She stared into his smoldering eyes. Her staccato heartbeat drummed inside her chest. She kissed him, savagely, and yanked him closer to her. He stiffened, the muscles in his arms taut, and she could feel him teetering on the brink of surrendering to pleasure. She wanted to make him fall.

He dragged in a shaky breath and started to withdraw, then groaned.

“I can’t—”

“Wendel,” she whispered in his ear. “I need you.”

He abandoned himself to his desires, one hand tangled in her hair, the other clutching her hip crushingly close. She savored the way he shuddered. Gasping, he lowered her from the wall. Her legs trembled beneath her when she stood.

She waited for him to look into her eyes. “Better? Or best?”

His eyebrows shot skyward. He seemed to be having trouble speaking, until finally he shook his head and dragged her out of the shower.

“The bed,” he rasped, and he cleared his throat. “Might be more comfortable.”

She nodded and bent over to turn off the water. He made a satisfied murmur, and she glanced back to see him staring.

“Distracted by my derriere?” she said.

He narrowed his eyes with a devilish smile. “Come to bed with me. You shouldn’t be nearly so articulate right now.”

“And you are?”

He yanked a towel from its rack and wrapped it around her, then hauled her toward the bedroom. She stumbled and nearly fell, laughing, and he helped her by sweeping her off her feet and dropping her on the bed.

“There’s no point in hiding yourself,” he said.

A blush crept over her cheeks when she realized she was clutching the towel to herself. Emboldened by the satisfaction in his eyes, she tore the towel away and stretched on the bed, letting him stare at her nakedness. He climbed over her on the bed and kissed her tenderly. She let herself relax beneath him.

When he withdrew, he looked into her eyes, a questioning vulnerability in his own. She wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

She did, but peeked through her eyelashes. He kissed a path from her neck to her breasts. Water trickled from his hair onto her skin. His hand strayed lower, lingering on her thigh, and he distracted her by licking her nipple.

“That feels good,” she whispered.

He laughed, and the vibration of his voice on her skin made her shiver. She did more than shiver when he touched her between her legs. She arched her back, already aching for more, but he tormented her with his slow caresses.

“You like that?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He glanced at her with a wicked glint in his eyes, and she realized he knew perfectly well how he was torturing her with his touch.

“You are so
evil
,” she said. “You—”

He slipped his finger inside her, and she gasped.

“You were saying?” he said.

She glowered at him, then threw back her head as he touched her deeper, harder, quicker. Panting, she tilted her hips to urge him on. He discovered what pleased her most and stroked her unrelentingly. White-hot tension pooled inside her, then washed over her in waves of ecstasy. He held her close as she trembled.

“I want to hear you,” he murmured in her ear, “when you come again.”

She sucked in air to speak, but he resumed touching her, and her words became a gasp. She moaned against his shoulder while the tension built until it was almost intolerable, then cried out and lost herself to passion.

After she could catch her breath, she kissed him, and his lips felt like heaven.

“Wendel,” she sighed.

He smiled, then swung his legs over the bed. She propped herself on her elbows and watched him walk from the bedroom.

“Wendel?” she said. “Where are you…?”

He returned from the bathroom with the tin of preventives, shaking his head.

“Never can remember to keep these around,” he muttered.

Ardis wanted to tease him for being forgetful, but she was equally guilty. She sprawled languidly on the bed and stared at his nakedness. Sweat glittered over the lean length of his body. He was clearly ready for more.

“Tonight,” he said, “you belong to me.”

He held himself over her and slid inside, slowly, so that she could feel every inch of him. She pressed her face to his chest. He breathed in the scent of her wet hair, then let instinct take over. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t halt, thrusting and clutching her close until he groaned and shuddered in sweet release.

Spent, he sank down beside her on the bed and kissed her on the neck.

Ardis sighed. “That was amazing.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Laughing, she swatted him on the shoulder. “Don’t take all the credit.”

He arched an eyebrow, but seemed too satisfied with himself to protest. She rested in the curve of his arm and closed her eyes. Bliss sang through her blood. As she drifted into sleep, a single thought surfaced in her mind.