His kiss was not like the starved, needy ones she’d been giving him or the forceful, voracious ones he used to answer her back; it was restrained and sweet and made her stomach flutter with a whole host of butterflies. Like he were doing it for the first time, unsure and curious, his lips lightly skimmed hers and then came together with a soft press before pulling back.
Damien’s throat bobbed, sitting back with another long look at her, and then he swung himself off of her, climbed off the bed entirely, and headed for the door.
“Wait!” she squeaked. “Are you leaving? Don’t go, Damien, not afterthat.”
He cleared his throat, and his voice rumbled through the room. “You think your misbehavior earlier tonight has earned you something else?”
Stranded on her back, Amma had to press her shoulders back and crane her neck to see that he wasn’t leaving but instead was gathering up the black dress she’d shucked off. “Well, I…I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“You didn’t have todoanything,” he mumbled, crossing the chamber again as he went to the open wardrobe and hung the dress back up. Gods, he looked so good—wasn’t striding around half naked in the dying firelight enough torture?
Confidence waning, Amma whined, “Do you…do you want me to beg?”
He paused as he shut the wardrobe, smirking as he gazed back over at her. “If you’d like to,” he said, chuckling again as he came nearer to the bed only to pick up her normal clothes and rummage through them.
“Please, Lord Bloodthorne?” Amma made a valiant effort to put on a sultry voice, but it cracked as she struggled for the words. “I promise, um…I’ll be good for you?” Her heartbeat was quickening in a less-than-enticing way, panic setting in that this had all gone very, very wrong.
“Ah, there it is.” Damien held up the tiny vial between two fingers. He inspected it closely, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Got this from that Ivory woman, you said? No wonder it’s made you this way; she’s built up a tolerance over many hundreds of years. It was only a small dose, though—should be wearing off right about now. Bloody Abyss, you are going to be quite embarrassed by all this, not to mention exhausted.”
Amma swallowed, glancing down at herself so scantily clad. Embarrassed? No, she wouldn’t, she refused. But shewasgoing to be inconsolable that her attempt to seduce him had failed. Heart sinking, she watched him wander across the room again and pluck something off one of the shelves in a dark corner. “Will you at least stoke the fire before you leave me here all alone?”
“Leave you? Why would I do a thing like that?” Damien returned, a book in hand, and actually climbed up beside her on the bed. With a flick of his hand, the candle on the side table lit itself again, and he sat back as if he were not reclining next to a nearly nude woman, tied up and helpless and begging him to do whatever he wanted with her. He opened the book and began to read.
“Well, I just rubbed myself all over you,” she groaned, face flushing in a way that definitely wasn’t embarrassment, but could be interpreted as such by incorrect blood mages. “And you clearly don’t want to be with me.”
Damien was quiet, and she chanced a glance up at him, difficult from her tethered spot, but the candlelight made his features much more readable. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Oh, why the fuck not—you won’t be allowed to remember this anyway,” he mumbled with a snort and placed the book down to turn to her. “Amma, the only thing that is clear is that I prefer your company, even when you are infuriating, to an entire cave full of vampires. I’d like nothing more than to be with you, but not when you’ve had to coerce yourself into it by way of magic. I do want you, but not likethis.”
His face had gone very soft, and in it, Amma saw all of the sweetness she’d always known was there, which should have been endearing, but unfortunately learning that Damien, indeed, wanted her, was a natural boost of confidence which made the waning potion inside her flare up in one last death rattle.
She thrashed against the bindings around her wrists in a useless effort to escape them and cried out, “Gods, Damien, for goodness’s sake, that’s so stupid and noble!Pleasejust take advantage of me!”
“Basest beasts, Amma, no!” He leaned down, bringing his face to hers as it twisted with frustration. “And it’s your own bloody fault. I’m a villain, I shouldn’t care about potions or talismans orfeelings, but your presence in, what,a moon? Injusta moon, your painfully sweet voice has challenged all of my darkest thoughts, your wildly inaccurate yet optimistic outlook has clouded my sight, and your incessant kindness to me—to someone who deserves not a drop of your patience and affection and good will—has undone twenty-seven years of training to be evil. For darkness’s sake, woman, you’ve made megood, and believe when I say that it feels like falling interminably through the Abyss every moment I am not burying my cock in you, but I could not bear it if you woke tomorrow and thought I had hurt you.”
Amma’s eyes went wide, breath refusing to come. And then a giggle broke out of her without permission.
Damien’s features turned to utter distress. “I am trying to be quite sincere, here, Amma, so why, on all the planes and beyond, are you laughing?”
She gasped. “Oh, no, Damien, it’s just because you saidcockand not, you know, something more you, like pulsing manhood or rigid pleasure spear or—”
“All right, all right, don’t remind me.” He grunted and readjusted himself before dropping back against the bed, arms crossed, scowling out at the room.
Amma bit her lip. “Oh, Damien, I—”
He grunted loudly, scowling harder.
She clicked her tongue but shifted her knee to rub it up against his leg. “Don’t be grumpy—I wasn’t laughing at you. I would never laugh at those things, and you already know I think that you’re very,verysweet, deep down.”
“I amnot,” he barked, waving his hand into the air. “I would just gladly be swallowed by endless darkness upon endless darkness if it meant not hurting you because I have never cared so deeply for another being. I cannot explain or understand how you have broken me in this way, but you have made me feel…thingsthat are maddening.”
Though his words had been said with a bite and he was glowering into the darkness like his nemesis stood there, Amma’s whole chest heaved with the admittance. “What kinds of things?”
He whipped back to her and stuck a finger in her face. “Ah, no, this isnota discussion, and I will not be answering any further questions.”
She snapped her mouth shut but smiled up at him, tight-lipped.
Damien grimaced, and in the low candlelight she could see how red he had gone. He cleared his throat and sat back again, reopening the book. “Also,” he said with a hitch, “engaging in such intimate activities would be unwise when the horses likely will not be waiting for us when we emerge from the karsts.”
Amma’s body sank into the blankets, exhaustion sweeping over her. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
