“Oh, Goldfinch.”
Oh, Goldfinch.
My toes curl. My head turns as much as his hold on my throat will allow.
“You haven’t been paying attention. Not at all.”
I suck in a breath at both his words and the way his teeth come down to clamp on the skin beneath my ear. The nibble of his teeth, the slip of his hot tongue, it makes my eyes flutter closed, makes my breath flutter, too.
He bites down harder than I expect him to—not enough to break the skin, but enough for my eyes to spring back open, for my breath to suck in a gasp. Outside, the carriage wheels bump over the choppy road, our weight shifting with a slight turn. People’s voices are just a backdrop cacophony.
His fingers tighten, thumb lifting my jaw as he leans back to look at me, and then he shifts his hold so his hand is wrapped around the back of my neck instead. “This isn’t going to be some casual dalliance. This isn’t going to be temporary,” he purrs, reciting his previous words back to me. “I get your soul.”
A kiss pressed to my cheek.
“Your mind.”
Another pressed to my forehead.
“Your body.”
His hold tilts my body back, making me arch, making my head fall against his hand as he presses a third kiss to my chest. His lips close around the button just below my collarbone.
I don’t know how he does it, but his mouth slips the button out of its gap, makes the fabric flare out an inch. The smallest amount of skin is bared, and yet my entire body tingles as if he’s just stripped me nude.
“I get your past.”
Another button.
“Your present.”
Another inch.
I’m panting now, three buttons undone. Only the thinnest bandeau trimmed with dainty black lace covers my breasts.
“Your future.”
The hand from my neck glides down my back. Pinning my spine. Arching me up even more. The solid line of him digging into my ass.
“That’s what you promised me, isn’t it, Goldfinch?”
My entire upper body is balanced on his hand, my knees bent, thighs on either side of his waist. A scorch of his breath presses right over the curve of my breasts, the hook of his teeth dragging down the front fabric. The friction makes me want to catch fire.
When I don’t answer, too caught up in what he’s doing, reveling in this lust of heat, he nips me right there on my breast, making me jump. His grip on my waist keeps me locked down on his lap—on the stiffness of his cock. “Isn’t it?” he demands.
“Yes.”
He soothes the spot with a kiss, leaning back up. “That’s right,” he tells me. “Now reach up.”
“What?”
His chin jerks upward. “See that wooden loop there? It’s meant as a knocker for the driver, but I want you to grab hold of it.”
I follow this gaze to the ceiling, to the hinged circlet just above my head. “Slade—”
“Do it.”
His instruction tightens my stomach with arousal, and I swallow hard. “Bossy.”
