His attentive gaze flicked away from the speakers on the platform and down to her. Amma squeezed her thighs together, glad he didn’t know they’d grown slick while she had been staring up at him, contemplating her position on her knees and all of the things he might do to her if she pushed him just a littlemore. He leaned forward, face close to her own, and detangled his fingers from her hair. Tipping her head up by her chin, he murmured with knit brows, “Are you comfortable?”
Well, that depended. Amma’s mouth twitched, but she nodded. Damien guided her head to lean on his thigh, and he stroked the spot he’d snagged on her head as he sat back again. Amma wrapped her arms around his leg, resting fully against him and closing her eyes. Maybe it was dark, this thing inside her, but that didn’t mean it was bad.
Amma was roused from her nap when Damien reached down and tugged at her arm, which was almost as good as her hair, but not quite.
She pouted and groused back, “Five more minutes.”
Damien chuckled but gave her a shake. “Has half-assing all of my commands and giggling when you’re meant to be silent truly exhausted you so?”
Amma only yawned in his face when he finally managed to pull her to her feet. They left the darkened chamber for the main, slightly-less-dark hall where it was busiest, the voices of the assembled all harsh whispers as if they knew no other way to speak other than ominously. She blinked at the passing cloaks and scaled limbs and rubbed sleep from her eyes. “You know, I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice low. “Everyone here has been pretty nice.”
Damien grimaced, leading her to a less-populated corner of the room. “If you were on your own, you would believe otherwise. They’ve only been respectful because you belong to me, and I am one of them.”
She started at that word,belong, but shook her head. “Oh, Damien, you’re really not.” She leaned in close and tapped the end of his long nose. “And nobody here is as sweet as you.”
He caught her hand, looking about in a panic. “Don’t do that.”
Amma rolled her eyes and dropped her voice to mimic his huffy growl. “I can do whatever I want, Damien; this is Yvlcon, and you’re only pretending.”
His flustered survey of the hall slowly turned back to her, features going cold. “Oh, am I?”
There,thatwas the look, the one that made her pulse race and her muscles jump. The one that said she was in danger.
“We need one more, Lord Bloodthorne,” a voice called from a dark corner of the hall. There, three men were seated around a table with an additional, empty chair.
Damien’s hand came to the back of her neck again, jerking her toward him. “We’ll see about that,” he whispered in her ear then turned her sharply.
Amma’s stomach flipped as she was marched toward the table. Of the three there, each man lounged like a king on his throne, menacing in their own ways though starkly different from one another—a scaled creature with thin limbs who looked like he belonged underwater, a dwarf with a red beard so bushy his features were almost completely obscured, and directly across from the empty chair sat a man Amma had to assume was a vampire by his golden eyes, fanged teeth, and the way he sniffed the air, commenting on the “new blood” Damien was bringing over. A thin man came to join them, draping himself over the vampire’s shoulders and nibbling at his ear, marks on his neck suggesting he’d been nibbled on himself earlier.
Damien dropped into the free seat, and the vampire began shuffling a deck of cards, the others watching as if expecting an extra to come out of his sleeve at any moment. Damien, however, was not watching the cards but Amma. He crooked a finger, leaning against the armrest. “Sit,” he said with a sharpness, eyes flicking down to his knee then back up.
It wasn’t a complicated command, but before she could begin to puzzle it out, Damien wrapped an arm around hermiddle and pulled her down onto his lap. Amma froze, stiff and awkward perched on his knee, and then his hand snaked around her stomach, sliding over her lower ribs until his thumb slipped under her banded top and nestled itself between her breasts—the perfect lever to get her to do exactly as he wanted, talisman or not.
Even with eyes held open wide, Amma saw nothing, her other senses blotted out as touch took over. The hand pressing into her ribs cupped under her breast, warm and firm, and it slid her up his thigh until she was nestled against his back. Damien breathed a satisfied sigh into her ear. “You took too long,” he said, lips tickling her jaw.
Amma’s body melted against the heat of his, tingles crawling over the bare skin of her back. She didn’t notice how her legs fell away from one another as his knee parted them from beneath until there were fingertips skimming across her thigh, and she gasped.
“I’d suggest following my commands with a bit more eagerness,” he husked, the vibration of his words rumbling through her, their intention lighting a fire between her legs.
“Or what?” she heard herself saying, tone sultry as if spoken from some stranger’s mouth who was not in such a delicate position.
Damien’s hand fell fully against her skin, squeezing. “Oh, you’d like consequences? Because I would be delighted to give them to you.”
Amma’s mouth went dry, her body erupting into goosebumps under the place he touched. And then, painfully, torturously, hatefully, Damien removed his hand from her thigh to pick up the cards he’d been dealt.
It should have been a relief—she didn’t think she was going to be able to breathe much longer with it there—but desire for its return clawed at her stomach. She focused on his otherhand instead, tickling absently below her breast, and her nipples tightened as he perused the cards.
The game at the table began, voices speaking to one another, but the words were a muffled cacophony, background to the sensations dancing across her skin. Damien threw in a card, his hand leaving her for only a moment, returning lower on her stomach. She twitched under the new touch, and he chuckled, his response to something said at the table rumbling through her as fingers roved even lower on her belly.
Amma sucked in a sharp breath, catching the eyes of the thin man across the table. He grinned as if he knew, and she was glad the table hid how her legs were spread over Damien’s thigh. But if that was covered, then perhaps she could do a little touching herself. She boldly slid her hand between his legs, fingers just barely grazing him.
“I don’t think this is punishment enough,” Damien’s voice rumbled too low for anyone else to hear as he snatched her wandering hand. His cards were slipped into her curious fingers, and he scooped her up. Sweeping one of her legs over the arm of the chair, she was swiveled sideways on his lap, and he dropped a hand to her inner thigh to keep her there.
She gasped again, squeezing her arms and legs in as his fingers came dangerously close to the place she wanted them.
“Ah, ah.” Damien clicked his tongue, other hand sliding up to the back of her neck. “Squirm all you like, but you better keep those up where I can see them.”
Amma’s heart raced as she extended her arm to hold the cards high enough, but the look on his face was completely disinterested. He languidly stared at the table, and when it was his turn to play, he grazed her ever so slightly as he moved to choose a card.
