Lucien leaned closer. "I think this is important. For us. For our bond. For you. You've been carrying a weight around on your shoulders. It's not good for you."
Her hands quivered on his thighs. "Thank you."
"It's my pleasure." At the flash of budding emotion on her face, he forestalled her. "No, really. It is. Use me to please yourself. Do as you please. I will not utter one word of protest."
That earned a smile, followed closely by a look of determination that took his breath away. "Then I shall."
His cock strained behind the fabric of his breeches as her breath whispered soft entreaty there. His skin heated as her hands slid higher, so lightly that they almost trembled over the buckskin of his breeches. Every muscle in his abdomen tightened in sensual anticipation.
And she was barely even touching him.
"Tell me what you want," he whispered.
"I want to be under your hands." Another sensual whisper from those rosy lips. "Under your mouth. Under your command. I want. That's the truth. I wanted this. It's very simple, really, and yet, not at all."
One delicate finger traced the firm bulge of his erection, like a lit spark set to flesh. A button parted under her careful ministrations, then another... She was seducing him in slow measures, wrapping him around her little finger, stealing the very breath in his lungs and taking command of the rapid thump of his heart.
And all the while, she watched him with those dangerous, dangerous eyes.
Lucien was fairly certain, in that instant, that he wasn't going to survive Miss Martin. Not intact. Not whole.
"Do you know what I want?" he whispered, curling his finger around that one strand of hair that always refused to obey her careful ministrations and rubbing his fingers down its black length. Soft. So soft.
"What?"
The devil knew it. He could see it in her eyes as she leaned closer and rubbed her cheek against the engorged length of his cock.
Lucien sucked in a sharp breath and thrust his hand back for support, knocking a pair of books off the desk. "I want that pretty little mouth—"
Something shifted in the air in the room. It stole his attention.
"Yes?" she asked in a taunting whisper as her tongue darted out, caressing his molten skin. Lucien froze, one hand clenched in her curls, as she pressed forward and bestowed a chaste kiss against the buckskin barely covering his cock. Breathing seemed dangerous in this moment. Not now. Not bloody now. But he looked up, alerted by some instinct, some tremble along his skin, that something wasn't right.
"Do you feel that?"
"Is that supposed to be some sort of innuendo?" Ianthe teased, and her hand brushed against his cock.
Lucien caught her wrist. In the darkness, something red gleamed.
Eyes. A set of glowing, red eyes.
"Ianthe," he whispered. His cock flagged.
Some sense of his concern must have betrayed him. She looked up, her voice as quiet as his. "What?"
"I think we just tripped one of the wards in the room," he told her, not daring to take his eyes off the creature shuddering free of its stone trappings with a cracking sound. "Lord Rathbourne must have put it over one of the books on his desk."
Ianthe froze, her back to the threat, and her pale face tilted up to his. Her previous languidness melted off her. "What is it?"
"A stone construct. The gargoyle, I think."
Another low groan tore itself through the room, and he had the sudden realization that there'd been two of them guarding the entrance. "Fuck."
"Good thing we weren't caught with your breeches entirely down."
Lucien stepped slowly to the side. His flagging erection couldn't have felt more vulnerable as he swiftly rebuttoned himself. "Not the time for a jest, Miss Martin. I'm fairly certain I'm never going to have you on your knees without the hairs on the back of my neck rising."
"Yes, this wasn't entirely what I meant when I said 'let's create new memories'."
