“Mine,” she repeats, lifting my hand off her hip and coaxing it down the slope of her belly.
Farther.
Easing me toward her wet, swollen entrance.
I groan, running my fingers through her, swirling around that nub that makes her jolt against me.
Her lids flutter closed as she squirms, arching her neck, baring a stretch of beautiful sun-kissed skin to my hungry mouth. I lave at her, feeling her skin burst with goosebumps beneath my lips, grazing my teeth along her delicate flesh.
“Mine,” she cries, tilting her hips so she’s splayed against my hardening cock, rocking, lifting her leg and draping it over my thigh—telling me exactly what she wants.
I raise my left leg and split hers apart. “Yours, Vicious,” I whisper upon her throat as I open her with my fingers, coaxing the head of my thick, aching cock against her entrance. “Yours,” I growl, and drive up into her clamping depths with a spear of my hips—wishing this could fix everything. Wishing this could shift the heavy guilt from my shoulders.
Devastated by thoughts that she won’t understand.
Islip down the stairwell, checking over my shoulder as I spill into the lobby on silent steps, my chisel tucked in the back pocket of my leather pants. Dashing toward Old Hattie’s room, I frown when I poke my head in and find her stool empty, her weft stick still lodged at an odd angle in her half-finished tapestry.
An uneasy sense of dread roosts upon my chest.
I force myself to continue, dodging from shadow to shadow in case anybody else is roaming the palace at this late hour. But it’s quiet.
Empty.
It’s not until I’m charging down the stairway that leads to the hall of tapestries that I hear the first sounds of life: a faintping-ping-pingcoming from the direction of my hole.
My pulse scatters.
Slipping my hand in my pocket to grip hold of my chisel, I peek over my shoulder, then ensure my wet hair is plastered against my wound as I tiptoe along the dark hall, edging toward frail slivers of fiery light spilling from behind the tapestry that hides my hole-in-progress.
It bumps and swells like somebody’s bunched behind it, that muffledping-ping—pingchipping apart the silence with relentless force.
Approaching with slow, cautious ease, I keep my steps soft until I hear a muted whimper. Goosebumps burst across my skin.
I know that sound …
I lift the tapestry and release a flood of lantern light, seeing Old Hattie tucked in my hole in her soiled nightgown, her knobbled limbs all torn and grazed.
I gasp.
Startling, she spins. Cheeks tracked with tears, her wide, bloodshot eyes almost spear straight through me. The potent punch of her fear clogs the back of my throat and nearly brings me to my knees, but then her face crumbles with what looks like relief.
Her entire body jerks with deep, silent sobs—her sound somehow managing to stay locked in her chest, more fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. Her beautiful, talented hands are lumped in her lap, gnarled and blistered, one still clutching the hilt of a worn kitchen knife and a scrunched rag she must have been using to muffle the sound.
A bloody bandage covers her right hand, though the shape is … different. Like her middle finger’s—
My other hand slams against the wall to steady myself.
Her finger’s gone.
She continues to convulse, soundless sobs racking her frail form.
I find it hard to believe Cainon would let something like this happen to his governess. Not under his roof.
Unless …
A hideous thought worms to the forefront of my mind, gnashing flesh and bone to get there. “DidCainondo this to you, Hattie?”
The crush of her face, the silent heave of her chest … It’s all the answer I need.
