Chapter 62 Stuck between two men (6)
Third person POV:
The final cascade of gold rained down. The orchestra struck up a triumphant flourish. Cheers rose from the ballroom.
Edmund withdrew slowly, righting Arabella’s skirts with shaking hands.
She turned in his arms, pressed her masked face to his shoulder. Sebastian saw her shoulders shake with silent sobs.
He stepped back into the shadows before they could see him.
When Arabella returned to the ballroom ten minutes later, cheeks flushed beneath her face powder, lips swollen, eyes too bright, Sebastian was waiting at the foot of the grand staircase.
He offered his arm with perfect courtesy.
“Dance with me, wife.”
It was not a request.
She placed her trembling fingers on his sleeve.
The orchestra had struck up a waltz scandalously modern, deliciously intimate.
Sebastian swept her into it without a word, one hand splayed possessively across the bare skin of her back, the other gripping her waist hard enough to bruise.
They moved like duelists, circling, testing.
“You disappeared,” he said softly, mouth brushing the curls at her temple.
“I needed air.”
“So I observed.”
Her step faltered. His grip tightened, steadying her, guiding her inexorably through the turn.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She did. Even through the mask he saw the terror flash across her face.
Sebastian smiled slowly, lethal, heartbreakingly tender.
“Later,” he murmured, spinning her so violently her skirts flared like silver flame, “when the house is asleep, you will come to the library. You will wear nothing but those pearls and the scent of another man’s fucking still on your skin. And I will take back every inch he touched.”
The music increased. Around them the ton whirled in a kaleidoscope of silk and diamonds, oblivious.
“And Arabella,” he whispered against her ear, “this time I will not stop until you beg me to keep you.”
The waltz ended. He bowed over her hand with exquisite grace, pressed a kiss to her knuckles that felt like a brand.
Then he released her and walked away, leaving her swaying in the middle of the floor, heart hammering so loudly she was certain the entire ballroom could hear.
The fireworks were over.
The real storm was only beginning.
Fucking her in his library
The house slept, or pretended to.
Corridors that had rung with laughter and scandal only hours ago now lay hushed beneath moonlight and the distant hoot of an owl.
Arabella walked them barefoot, the cold marble kissing her soles like a warning.
She wore only the rope of Ashford pearls and a silk robe the colour of spilled claret, belted loosely so that every breath threatened to bare her breasts.
Between her thighs she still felt the ghost of Edmund’s possession, and the darker, more deliberate ache Sebastian had left in London.
She had not been summoned.
She had been commanded.
The library doors stood ajar. A single branch of candles burned on the long table, gilding mountains of leather-bound books and the tall, silent figure waiting beside the hearth.
Sebastian had discarded coat and cravat. His white shirt was open at the throat, sleeves rolled to the elbow, revealing strong forearms corded with tension.
Firelight licked across the hard planes of his face and turned his eyes to molten silver.
He did not speak when she entered. He simply watched her approach, predator-still, until she stood an arm’s length away.
Then he reached out, hooked one finger into the belt of her robe, and drew her slowly forward until her breasts brushed his chest.
“You came,” he said at last, voice low enough to vibrate through her bones.
“I had little choice.”
A faint smile, “You always have a choice, Arabella. Tonight you will make one that matters.”
He released the belt. The robe parted and slipped from her shoulders.
She stood naked save for the pearls, nipples tightening in the cool air, skin prickling beneath his gaze.
Sebastian circled her slowly, the way one might inspect a sculpture newly acquired at ruinous price.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “And treacherous.”
His fingertips traced the faint bruises Edmund had left on her hips. When he reached the tender skin of her inner thigh, he paused.
“Still wet with him,” he said, almost wonderingly. He brought his fingers to his mouth and tasted, eyes never leaving hers. “I should kill him for this.”
Arabella’s breath trembled. “You said you would.”
“I said many things.” He stepped closer, until she felt the heat of his body through linen.
“I find rage and lust make poor counsellors. I want something else from you now.”
“Name it.”
He caught her chin, tilting it so the candlelight caught the tears she refused to let fall.
“Your honesty. Your body. And, in time, the heart you guard like a miser with his last coin.” His thumb brushed her lower lip.
“In return I offer you a bargain the devil himself would envy.”
He released her and moved to the table, where a crystal decanter and two glasses waited. He poured deep red wine, handed her one.
“Drink.”
She obeyed. The wine was rich, dark, and intoxicating.
Sebastian drank as well, then set his glass aside.
“Here are my terms,” he said. “You may have your golden boy. Fuck him in the stables, the conservatory, the goddamn rose garden for all I care. Whisper your pretty vows beneath the stars. But every time you let him inside this body, every time you come on his cock or his tongue, you will come to me immediately after. Still dripping with him. And you will let me take you harder, longer, until his name is erased and only mine remains on your lips.”
Arabella’s glass trembled in her hand. “You would… share me?”
“I would possess you utterly,” he corrected. “There is a difference.”
He stepped close again, took the glass from her nerveless fingers, and set it aside.
Then he lifted her onto the library table, parting her thighs with deliberate hands.
“Tonight is the first payment,” he said.
He did not undress. He simply opened his breeches, drew out his cock and pressed it through her folds.
She was slick with Edmund and with her own helpless want; he slid into the hilt in one slow, merciless thrust.