Was this a divine punishment? Had she somehow offended … everything? She had missed some Sunday services in her life, true, but she couldn’t think of anything she’d done that would make her deservethis.
“Yes?” she ventured. She didn’t sound certain. She wasn’t certain of much of anything at this point. Her mind felt as though it had been buried in mud.
“Clio.” He sounded angry. “Tell meexactlywhat you think I meant.”
Oh, thiswasa punishment, albeit a mortal one. She still didn’t knowwhy,though.
She let out a wretched sound.
“Don’t make me say it,” she said. “It’s humiliating enough to know that you don’t want me, that you let me drag you into a scandal—into a marriage—over something that didn’t appeal to you in the least. It’s fine. I mean, it isn’t fine at all, it is completely awful, and I probably will never be able to show my face to anyone, anywhere ever again, because I shall nevernotbe mortified, but that’s not your problem. It’s my problem. Andeven with everything, I agreed to give you an heir, and I will. I will, I just need to—to find a way that makes it not horrible for you, because I couldn’t bear it if you were just, oh, I don’t know, gritting your teeth to get through it and?—"
Hector’s hand came over her mouth, cutting off her deluge of words. That was a mercy.
There was fire and fury in his face now; his brows were drawn low, his eyes burning like embers.
“Clio,” he said again. “Do you think that Idon’t want you?”
His hand was still on her mouth, his other fingers still wrapped around her wrist. Without any other means of communication, she let out a helpless, whimpering sound.
Which, really, just about covered things.
With a snarl that Clio felt all the way down to her bones, damn her, Hector used the hold on her arm to pull her forward. She overbalanced, toppled, and caught herself against his chest.
Before she could pull away, he removed his hand from her mouth and planted it on her behind. Her eyes went wide as he usedthatgrip to pull her hips flush against his.
“Do you feel what you do to me?” he asked, his voice low and furious, and yes, yes, she could. She could feel the hardness of him like a brand against her lower belly.
Except she couldn’t bear to believe what he was implying, because he’dtoldher otherwise, and anything resembling hope might truly be the end of her.
“A … a physical reaction,” she stammered. “It doesn’t mean that you … That I …”
Hector let out another growl, and this time he reversed his hold on her hand, pulling it down until her palm cupped him in that hard place. She gasped, and he sucked in a breath like he was the one dying, his hips bucking against her fingers like he couldn’t control himself.
He moved his hand on her rear up to her hair and tipped their foreheads together. He wasn’t holding her nearly as securely now, but Clio was practically hypnotized, dizzy with something that might have been hope, and she couldn’t have moved away if she tried.
“I don’t have as much practice with pretty words as you do, princess,” he told her, gently rocking his brow against hers as if he hoped to transmit the thoughts directly between their two minds. “But let me be as clear as possible, no fancy words to muddle me.”
“Please,” she said, the word a sigh.
He let out a grunt, and it was so unpolished, so raw that she shivered.
“I want ye like you cannot believe,” he told her, his accent growing thicker with emotion. “Every time that I am with you, I want to rip you out of those pretty clothes and take you until you cannot remember anything but my name. I want to trap you in my bed until you are so wrung out with pleasure that your limbs don’t work. I want toravishyou. I don’t want to be gentle or sweet. I want you to walk away still feeling the imprint that I’ve left upon you.”
Clio could barely breathe. But he wasn’t yet done.
“Seeing you fall apart aroused me so desperately that I nearly spilled in my trousers like some untried boy. But I want to do it again. I want to do it until you scream, until you sob for me to stop because you can’t take any more pleasure. And then I want to take just a little bit more from ye, because I am a greedy, greedy man, and you aremine. You are mine, and I want tomake you mine.”
Clio opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—and saw the intensity of his blue gaze boring into her.
“I only held back,” he told her, a tendril of reassurance beneath the harshness of his words, “because I didn’t want you to misunderstand, or be afraid, not while we were arguing. But it seems that you misunderstood anyway, so now, let me tell you straight: if you agree, I am going to show you everything I just promised. And I am going to do it right now.”
Clio didn’t even hesitate.
“Yes, please, Hector,” she said.
And his mouth crashed down on hers.
CHAPTER 24
