It was a lovely line, sardonic and detached and composed, and the look on his face—surprise, joy, affront—was one she’d treasure for a long time. In the next second, though, she spoiled it by flinging herself off the floor and into his arms.
Twenty-one
This time Cathal wasn’t gentle: couldn’t be, not with recent danger still setting his blood afire in ways he hadn’t felt in months, nor with Sophia’s rounded body suddenly flush against his, impelled there with a speed and force that had surprised even him. Her breasts rose and fell against his chest, and their steady movement was a delight both to his quickening body and to the mind that remembered how still she’d been when he’d rushed into the room. His arms closed around her almost at once, and he was kissing her only a moment afterward.
He shouldn’t do this, Cathal knew. Oh, he knew it was unwise, and he knew it was probably unchivalrous, even for the very flawed version of those rules that he’d ever bothered to follow, and he knew she might pull away and slap his face in the next instant, but he held her close and took her mouth, his tongue urging it open with very little effort. The last thing on his mind was regret; the next-to-last was stopping.
And she wasn’t stopping him, this beautiful girl in his arms. No, she was wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him down and herself upward so that she could kiss him back, her lips sweet and soft beneath his. At first there was a slight clumsiness about her motions, whether from inexperience or because she was still disoriented from her struggle, but that vanished quickly, and she seemed eager to pick up where they’d left off in the grove.
Cathal had will enough to remember that shehadbeen in a fight, that she might have injuries other than the bruises on her neck. When he slid his hand down her back, he kept his touch light, ready to stop if she flinched or made any sound of pain. She did gasp, when he cupped her arse and pressed her against the swollen length of him, but there was no discomfort there. No, she circled her hips against him and then made a—sound.
It was low in her throat. It was curious and eager at the same time. And it made Cathal’s whole body clench with lust. If he heard nothing else in his life, if he went deaf the second afterward, he needed to hear her make that noise again.
He left her mouth for her neck, that long golden column he’d admired across the table on too many nights. He brushed over it with his lips, felt Sophia shiver, heard her catch her breath, then returned to kiss with more strength, to suck and then nibble, careful always of the bruises. Her buttocks were firm beneath his hand, muscles tensed as she pressed herself to him. She was continuing her earlier motions too, little jerks of her hips that brought her sex against his thigh, her stomach against his cock, and then away, driving him mad, and he didn’t know whether she knew it.
Another swift motion and his hand cupped the curve of one breast, feeling its shape and weight through the wool of her gown. Cathal circled his thumb lightly upward, rubbing over Sophia’s nipple. He longed to feel it better, would have sold his soul for magic to banish her layers of clothing in an instant, but there was still no mistaking the stiffness there, nor the way Sophia thrust her breasts forward at his touch, nor yet the whimper that came from her throat this time. He hadn’t known it was possible for her to make a more arousing sound than the last one, and yet there it was.
He bucked against her, feeling her soft and yielding against his aching cock. The drag of fabric and the imperfect angle were a sweet kind of torture, the motion a desperate, almost unthinking attempt at his true goal. The wool beneath his caressing hands became a more frustrating barrier with every second, every sensation, every desperate little wriggle the lady gave. If it had been summer, Cathal thought, if she’d been less respectable—more practically, if there’d been a bed anywhere to hand… There was a table, but even for his lust he couldn’t destroy its contents.
He, or what remained of his mind, was seriously considering the floor when Sophia pulled back.
For a second Cathal thought that he’d offended her, or that she’d remembered her virtue, but no. She only stepped back a little, enough to put her hands on his shoulders and, by coincidence, to give him a look at her face, all reddened lips and cheeks, dark eyes dazed with sensation. Her wimple was crooked, half off, and dark curls straggled out and wound down around her face and her neck.
“Yes?” Cathal murmured.
“I should… I want to touch you,” she said, and her hands were sliding down over his chest, twin flames through his shirt. Her tongue crept out of her mouth and circled her lips. “You’re very hard,” she said, and then laughed and blushed, not too innocent for the innuendo. “Not… I didn’t mean like that.”
“Like that,” he said and shifted forward to brush himself against her again, teasing them both. “Too. But not as constant as the other, no.”
“It cannot be comfortable,” she said and then glanced down at herself, her breasts heaving. “But then, desire never is.” Guessing well, despite his clothing, she traced her fingers over his nipples, and smiled at his indrawn breath. “Similar, then.”
“Aye. Come here.”
She stepped forward, though only a little this time, unwilling to lift her hands from his chest. Cathal couldn’t say he objected. Her fingers were brushing lower now, down and then back up again, and his body felt every inch of their journey. Less graceful than he would have liked to be, he plucked the pins from her hair and brushed the wimple onto the floor.
Then he stopped. Lust, strong as it was, stepped aside for a different and far less pleasant sensation.
The white cloth was spotted with crimson.
Sophia had gone still when he had. Now, frowning, she followed his gaze to the bloodstained cloth. “Oh,” she said faintly, and stepping back, she put a hand up to the back of her head. “I didn’t realize… It hurt when I hit the floor, but I didn’t know.”
“And now?”
“A little.” She flushed. “I hadn’t noticed, which I think bodes well. I think a serious injury would hurt more.”
“Likely,” said Cathal, whose experience with mortals and head wounds was cursedly scarce. Men went into battle with him, were injured when he couldn’t prevent it, and whether they lived or died afterward was the realm of God and physicians. He wished he’d paid more attention.
He could hear footsteps on the stairs. His first thought was anger, that the men should be so late, but then he realized that far less time had passed than he’d thought, common enough when both battle and lust clouded his mind.
She probed gingerly through her hair, then winced. “There’s a great lump back here, yes, and I think it’s bleeding, but…it doesn’t feel as though I broke my skull. Although I’m not at all certain how that would feel.” Drawing back her hand, she inspected the reddened fingertips. “But I’m awake, and I’m sensible.” Here she stopped and bit her lip, then went on without saying whatever had come to her mind. “So I believe that to be a good sign too.”
“Better than otherwise.”
Footsteps reached the landing door, and Cathal swung around to meet the new arrivals. Munro and Edan, two of the most experienced of the remaining men, were there, blades in hand, and a square young man named Roger. All slowed as they came within sight of the doorway and presumably saw both people within whole and in no visible distress.
“Sir?” Munro asked, flushed from the long run up the narrow stairway, “Lady? There was screaming, and—”
He fell silent, mouth opening. Clearly he’d caught sight of the demon’s corpse, lying in a corner of the room where Cathal had flung both it and its severed head in the seconds after its death. Nobody could have mistaken it for human, even for a second.
