He walked to the fireplace next, and cast another spell to light that.
He stood there, outlined in fire, as he took off his suit jacket, and lay it over the back of a leather armchair. He wore a brocade vest under it, a dark green that was nearly black, and a black, long-sleeved shirt with a mandarin collar. I watched him remove the silver cufflinks with skulls on them, and set them on the mantle, his eyes never leaving me.
He kicked off his shoes next.
I started to wonder, again, what I was doing there.
“Come here,” he said, his voice neutral.
I walked over to him as he rolled up his sleeves.
He started unfastening the front of his vest as I reached him, and by the time I’d gotten close enough to the fire to feel awelcome blast of its heat, he flipped that off his shoulders too, and tossed it at the same chair-back as his jacket.
He faced me then, and I saw that ripple of light flicker through his irises, brighter and more gold than the actual fire near me.
“You should take that off,” he said.
He nodded towards the soaked, hooded jacket I still wore.
I hesitated only a second, then did as he said.
Bones stood there, watching, as I unbuttoned the front, trying to ignore the intensity of his stare as I pulled the hood off my wet hair, then peeled the thin jacket off my arms and shoulders. Once I’d extracted myself from it, I lay the dripping thing on the back of the second chair he had near the fire.
After the slightest hesitation, I unzipped and took off the knee-high boots next, since they were soaked, too.
Smoothing wet, straight, and still-blonde hair out of my face, I cleared my throat.
“How long will they take to dry, do you think?” I asked.
He stepped towards me, and caught hold of my wrist, bringing me nearer to the fire. I was still looking at his face, trying to understand his expression, when he waved a hand past me in a delicate mudra, muttering an incantation under his breath.
The skin of my face immediately grew hot and felt strange, along with the skin along my neck and chest, my scalp, even my teeth and lips. I sucked in a pale breath as my hair cascaded down over my shoulders, now reaching inches further, the black curls somehow still damp and heavy, despite never having come in contact with the snow.
It was strange to realize how much heavier they were than the blonde hair he’d given me for the party.
When I glanced up at him, my vision clearing as my eyes presumably changed colors back to their regular shade of green, his gaze turned heated, nearly hungry.
“That’s fucking better,” he muttered.
Before I could think of what to say to that, his arm wound roughly around my waist. He yanked me up against him. The fingers of his other hand fisted in my hair, hard enough to tilt back my head. I barely had time to take a breath, or to meet his gaze, when his mouth crashed into mine, and then I couldn’t breathe at all.
I kissed him back, without thinking about whether I should, or anything I’d told myself while he’d kissed me in that chair by the bonfire. When he pressed me up against the stone fireplace, right up against the mantle, I let out a low gasp of surprise. He deepened the kiss, leaning his weight into me, right before his fingers clenched in the thin, silky, and now-wet fabric of my blouse, and ripped it open across the front.
I should have been angry, I suppose.
I should have at least lodged some sort of complaint.
Instead, I let out a low moan when he shoved his trouser-clad thigh between my legs. He pressed my back into the stone as his hands massaged my breasts over the lacy bra I wore. Pulling me partly off the fireplace, he started taking the bra off me, too, tugging the straps off my shoulders, along with what remained of the blouse. When he pulled it down far enough that it wasn’t covering me at all, I didn’t fight him that time, either.
My back arched, and his fingers found the clasp at my spine, unhooking it and pulling off the last of it. Once he had me half-naked, he let out a heavier groan.
His tongue and lips dropped down to kiss my throat, and my hand clenched in his hair as I fought to breathe all over again. He was kissing me lower then, sucking and licking as he pressed my legs apart, yanking on my knickers as hard as he had the blouse.I heard the lace rip, felt a bite at my hip, then those were gone, too.
I almost didn’t hear his voice at first.
Or maybe I did hear it, but I was too out of my head to comprehend his words. It hit me suddenly that he was talking though, out loud, his voice low, guttural, but right by my ear.
“Can I go down on you?” he murmured. He kissed my ear, then my neck, his hands back to massaging my breasts. “I’ve wanted to kiss your cunt since that fucking dream… before that, really. Gods, maybe well before that. I wanted to do it in that gods-damned coffee shop in Bonescastle, right in front of Joran and the rest of them.”
