“No.” Straining against his arm, she moaned, “I’m not a deer.No.”
He covered her mouth with his hand and felt sharp pain as her teeth sank into the fleshy web between his thumb and forefinger. “No,” she wept, muffled now. “Please.”
“Go back to sleep.” He took his hand off her mouth, rubbing his cheek against her face. “It’s just a dream, little sparrow.”Nothing can hurt you here.
She let out a rough breath, heart throbbing against his hand.
“Just a dream,” he repeated. “Daddy’s here.”
Her body, which had begun to relax, tautened with apprehension as he brushed her bare thighs, skin burning against skin. “I hate you,” she said, sounding more like herself.
Cal paused. “That doesn’t matter. Sleep, my sparrow. Sleep with me.”
Come, bear the burden of my cruel and vicious love.
The sound that escaped her wasn’t quite protest as he reached down to explore her folds. “No,” she said, but there was a hitch in it, and when he increased the strumming pressure of his touch to a hard stroke and pressed his mouth to her neck, her thighs parted to give him access and she surrendered with a soft moan, sinking back against his chest.
He caressed her cheek in approval as her cunt stopped fluttering around his fingers, the muscles relaxing as her breathing hitched and slowed. He wiped his fingers on her thigh and tugged down the hem of her shirt demurely before hugging her more firmly against him.
“Good girl,” he told her.
???????
The shift in the air was palpable, the festival drawing nearer. Nadine seemed to feel it, too. He caught her slinking through the halls, hovering near the doors. She jumped when he approached her in the foyer, stepping out of the portrait hall like a wolf cornering his prey.
“I know what you’re thinking and it won’t work. You can’t leave now, little sparrow, and you’ll be killed if you try. The sheriff’s keeping an eye out for you now and trust me, he’s all over. One misstep, and that pretty white throat will belong to my father.”
As it always did, the reminder of her situation caused her to draw back from him in retreat.
Shewassoftening towards him. By very faint degrees, she allowed more and more of his trespasses. Sometimes he woke up with her wrapped around him like clinging moss, her long limbs entangled with his own, her cheek resting against his chest, over his heart.
He could not quite admit how much he longed for these moments, or how much they meant to him. In a house starved of warmth, they both craved the flame of each other’s tenderness.
He was just not certain it was enough.
A knock sounded on the door. Cal looked up, and his first thought was impatience—which shifted to anticipation when he realized the sound had come from the tapestry door.
“Enter.”
Nadine pushed the door open. She was wearing another one of his sister’s confections. This one tied at the waist, clinging to her ample frame, her round, soft belly. His eyes lingered there, imagining her heavy with child.
She could be with child already.
“There’s no need to knock, you know.” Cal lowered the highlighter. “That rule is mostly for my sister. I leave the door unlocked for you.”
“Why?” She strode forward, rigid and angry. “It’s your brother who likes to watch.”
Fuck. Ben. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out about that. I knew it would upset you.”
“Do youthink?” She folded her arms in that damnably distracting way of hers. “He saw you—takeeverything.”
“Iamsorry for that. I guard that memory rather jealousy, you know.” He could almost see it now, desire unencumbered by terror. “A breathless Nadine surrendering to me by candlelight, wearing nothing but the night itself—glorious. If I could make him unsee it,” he said, “I would.”
“I think he saw us outside the civic center, as well.”
“Possibly.” Cal straightened from his casual slouch. “Has he touched you?”
“N-no.”
