Soft, pink folds held secrets as delicately as a rose bud. He remembered her honey-blonde curls. Blood rushed to his cock with such violent speed that his vision tunneled with crystalline focus.
The cleft of her sex. Her hidden pearl nestled in those soft folds. The shadows that led deeper. Would she be warm there?
His cock strained against his trousers with aching urgency that bordered on agony. Every rapid heartbeat throbbed between his legs, demanding attention, demanding release, demanding…
She cleared her throat.
Heat flooded his face, as hard as it flooded his groin, and he dropped his gaze. “Sorry.” The word scraped like gravel over glass.
He returned to her feet with ferocious concentration. Anything to keep from looking up again. Anything to distract from the image now seared into his memory.
Wet heat. Tender flesh. Delicate flower. One whiff. One touch. So soft…
His erection refused to subside. He shifted his weight and prayed she couldn’t see the evidence of his disgrace.
“I’ll find you a pair of socks.” He escaped to the dressing room, quickly adjusting himself.
His gaze caught his reflection, and he glared.
You are not some rutting animal driven by your baser instincts.
He returned to the bed, hands trembling as he unrolled the black cashmere, working the fabric up past her ankle with exquisite care. The sock swallowed her tiny foot.
She looked ridiculous.
She looked beautiful.
She looked like she belonged to him.
The thought lodged in his chest like a splinter, sharp and impossible to ignore.
“That should help.”
“Why did you have that list of names?” Her voice came soft, but her question stunned him all the same.
He reached for her other foot, deliberately focusing on anything except the heat burning under his skin. “They are bad men.” He rolled the sock over her calf.
“What happened to your knuckles?”
Jack glanced down at his own injured hand. The skin had split across two knuckles, dried blood crusting in the creases, the flesh already purpling toward a bruise. He thought of Hadrian’s face. The satisfying crunch of cartilage giving way as he beat him bloody, teeth scattered across stone like thrown dice.
“A bad man bumped into my hand.”
He smoothed the sock and his eyes fixed on the task because looking at the judgment that undoubtedly filled her eyes felt too dangerous.
“Hadrian?”
The name stabbed like a blade shoved between his ribs.
His name was vulgar in her mouth. Hearing her say it—hearing her lips shape those three syllables—made something ugly and possessive rear up in his chest.
“Why do you care?” The question came out sharper than intended, a snarl barely leashed. “He hurt you.”
“I didn’t say I cared.”
He stilled. A bubble of amusement rising in his chest—sudden, inappropriate, and real in a way nothing had felt real in years. He scowled. “He’ll never look at you or come near you again.”
Silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the fire and the distant sounds of revelry drifting up from the grounds below. Another bell crashed. Another capture. Another body surrendered to the game Jack had built, the game that had somehow spiraled so far beyond his control.
