Silas scowled down. “No, notlike a lizard. It is a very large egg, granted. I’m told the birthing process is horribly painful. Our mother died in childbirth from a bleed that could not be stopped. And it’s less of an egg and more of . . . a membrane, I suppose. It’s placed in a warm, sunny spot until it hardens to stone. Marble, in our case, obviously. My best friend, when we were children, was made of jade, a stunning green color. I was always jealous. But that is essentially our infanthood. Once we hatch, we are self-sufficient, unlike human infants.”
“I don’t know if I’m fascinated or horrified,” she admitted with another laugh, and this time his icy tone melted with her crystal bell, the golden tone from her throat softening his sharper edges into a beautiful melody, and a giddy warmth suffused him. “Well, I suppose if I meet a gargoyle at the ball, I won’t have to worry about laying any eggs, right, my lord?”
The warm feeling faded, a cold stone turning over in his stomach. “Quite right, Miss Eastwick. And a lucky lord he would be.”
It was his second favorite place in the world to be. The first place position was occupied by the space between her breasts. Her skin there was as soft as a cloud, as fragrant as lying naked with her beneath the lilac grove, which he had done, as warm as a hearth, and as comfortable as his perch. He did not know what it was to sleep in his living form, but had to imagine the soft serenity of laying his head at her breast and breathing her in was just as peaceful.
His second place in the world was where he currently was, with his head nestled betwixt her thighs and his mouth on her cunt. She was ready to come for him, he could tell by the way her thigh trembled as he licked and sucked on her clit, sweet nectar streaming from her. He loved having her this way. That swollen little pearl would throb against his tongue as she climaxed, flooding his mouth with her sweet honey until his cheeks glistened and he was replete, like the fattest, most satisfied butterfly in the field.
They had repaired to the library after dinner, as it was sheeting rain that night. She had dropped to her knees before him, asking for a lesson on pleasuring him with her mouth, and while his head had seen warning in her request, his cock had been only too happy to oblige, perking right up the instant she’d licked a tentative stripe over his head.
It seemed bizarre to him how responsive his body was to her every clumsy, unpracticed overture. He like a firm grip, a deep suck, and a good, hard fuck. He’d cultivated the skill of being an excellent lover, but what he personally needed to be satisfied was rather straightforward . . . so why, then, did he feel his balls quivering, already eager to spill at the first tentative, shallow suction of Eleanor Eatwick’s lovely rosebud mouth? His knees were trembling with the effort of holding himself up as she bobbed inexpertly on his shaft, his wings spread, hips rocking ever-so-slightly, spine rippling with the need to fill her mouth.
“What will I need to do differently,” she gasped, drool connecting her mouth to his glistening cockhead, “with an orc or a minotaur? Will those lords be pleased with the same technique?”
It was a wonder he hadn’t lost his erection immediately. Instead, he’d hauled her up to her feet, placing her on the table and spreading her legs wide. Dropping into the chair before her, Silas ignored the question entirely as he pushed up her skirts, and focused on the way she gasped under the ministrations of his tongue. He was positive she was doing it intentionally.
She had been there for more than a week at that point, and everything was going exactly to plan. He had made love to Eleanor Eastwick nearly every day since her arrival, exactly as he had planned. Sometimes, several times a day. Her time at Basingstone was drawing to a close, which meant her time with him would be similarly ending, and every time they were together, she made a point of reminding him of the way she would be applying her lessons on someone else.
It was silly to be upset. Outrageously unfair, in fact. That was the whole point, after all, and she wasmeantto be looking ahead to her time at the ball, and the husband that would follow. It didn’t make sense that every mention of another lord and the way she might pleasure them was a lance to his heart, particularly when bringing her here had been his bloody idea in the first place. At least he’d managed to turn her attention away from those unnamed and unknown lords for the moment, distracting her with the talent of his tongue, and quietly mourning that it was likely one of the last times he’d do so.
When she came, it was with a tiny mewl, the lusty moan he knew she was capable of swallowed down, as she always did when they were indoors. Outdoors she was not afraid to open her throat and shower him in the glory of her beautiful voice, but in the manor she was too embarrassed at the thought of being overheard by a servant. Her fingers wrapped around the base of his horns and her hips canted against his mouth, spreading boneless across the desk when she was finished.
He could make her come again if he acted quickly enough, he had discovered. Her clit was wonderfully sensitive and receptive, and although she shied away from any further attention from his tongue, he’d learned the pressure of his cock immediately within her and his fingers circling over her hood would have her clenching and moaning again in short order. His balls were tight and he needed to spill, and then perhaps after, she would allow him to sink into that heavenly spot between her breasts.
Silas reversed their positions, bending her over the desk. She keened when he pressed into her, his cock sliding home within her snug confines. She panted he began to pump into her, pulling her hips back to him on every thrust, and shook beneath him when he pressed his fingertips to her, beginning to circle. “Oh, it’s not enough to tremble, little moth.”
The hand that was not otherwise occupied at her breast gripped her leg just above the knee, pulling it a bit higher over his hip. The adjusted angle made her head fall back and her mouth drop open, a wheeze rushing from her mouth as if her lungs were the cracked bellows of an ancient organ, and Silas relished the noise.
“The sounds of your pleasure will spur your betrothed on. There’s no sweeter enticement for a man than the knowledge thatheis the one causing those sounds. Silence is for the temple and the tomb, not the bedroom. If you moan for your husband, his cock will be hard for you every waking moment of his existence.”
Pressed into the juncture of her sex just above where his cock filled her, two of his knuckles trapped that little pearl of pleasure, that spot he’d said he wanted to taste with his tongue, rolling it steadily. His knuckles rolled with the same rhythm as his hips, and her back arched. Eleanor was unable to stopper the wanton moan that left her mouth, echoed by his groan at her neck.
“That’s it, lovely. I want to feel your heat squeeze me tight. Now . . . let me hear you sing.” He increased the tempo of his hips, snapping against her, his knot threatening to breach her on every thrust.
When she clenched around him, her hitching gasps had opened to high-pitched moans, each one punctuating the slap of his balls against her. His spine quivered and his cock jerked, knot throbbing at the lips of her sex as he spurted into her. He’d made the mistake of knotting her already, and although it was the most pleasurable sensation he’d ever known, Silas knew it was unwise, and endeavored to control himself as best he could. When he turned her to face him, he leaned in to claim her lips, soft and sweet, wanting to sink into her warmth. Eleanor turned her head, and his mouth grazed her hair instead.
He could tell himself a pretty lie, that she’d simply not anticipated his kiss and moved unthinkingly, but his heart knew it was intentional. It was the first evening since she’d been in residence that he sought to be free of her company. When she made to follow him down the corridor once their clothes were righted, he stopped her.
“Would you like me to escort you back to your chambers, Miss Eastwick? Or are you capable of managing on your own?”
“Oh. I-I thought we might —“
“I have work to attend to, my dear.”
She shrunk at his sharp tone, and he wanted to bite off his cruel tongue. “Yes. Of course, my lord. I’m quite capable of managing on my own.”
When he stalked out of the house shortly before dawn, it was still raining. She was waiting for him at the side door of the conservatory to walk with him to his perch, as she had done every morning since the first one he’d found her on the moon chapel’s roof, with an oiled silk umbrella, wearing her pelisse.
“There’s no sense in you getting wet, Miss Eastwick. I’ll bid you good day.”
He wanted her with him. He wanted to hold her and have her and love her, but she was going to be leaving that week to marry another. He knew he ought to not take his mood out on her, but he was heavy and sad, and the realization, as he walked, that every blade of grass and fragrant flower at his home would now forever remind her of him only compounded his sadness. Every room of his house would smell like her, every shine of the moon upon the lake would mirror the luminous shine of her eyes. He would need to put his plan into effect as soon as she left, he realized, for he could not stay here when she was absent.
The rain was still torrenting down and he’d only just hardened to smooth marble when he felt it. He’d not heard her following him, too wrapped up in his own melancholy to have heard anything, but he felt her hands on his face. It was impossible to differentiate between her tears and gusting rain, but he felt the shudder of her sobs as she pressed her forehead to his. Her soft lips against his unyielding ones, once, twice, three times as her shoulder shook. He wanted to be able to pull her into his arms, to hold her tightly to him and never yield her to another, wanted to tell her loved her . . . but he could not. She was a creature of the daytime world, and he was a worthless slab of stone.
His sister was already in his study when he pulled the door open, bringing Silas up short. Maris didn’t even bother glancing up from the blotter, her quill moving swiftly across the foolscap. When she finished, she scooped the paper up quickly, waving it back and forth to dry the ink in a hurry.
Two can play at that game, darling sister. He pushed past her, moving behind his desk with his nose in the air. Silas kept the silence as he poured himself a glass of the floral ratafia that had been brewed up for his guests. Much like the rainbow prisms cast by the sun across the floors and those blasted swans, Eleanor’s sweet grandmother and her nurse were creatures of the daytime, and they concerned him very little, although he was gratified to hear that the two were clearly enjoying their time in his home. Ratafia was not his preferred drink of choice, but Celestia had made this batch with a healthy slug of steam-distilled violets and lilac, along with a goodly bit of fine gin, and the heady whiff he got from every sip made his cock jerk against his thigh.
