“You will not evade me again. Tell me, love. Do you like the feel of my hand here? Did you want this even when you left me after refusing my vow?”
“Perhaps,” I confess in a trembling voice.
“I’ve only just begun to show you how much you mean to me. It will take a lifetime to fully explain, love. A woman requires time, attention, patience,” Isabeau explains, before leaning in to tease first one and then the other nipple with her teeth and tongue again. At the same time, she presses her soaking fingers against the spot that made me whimper when we were together in the city. Slowly at first and then faster, she circles until I bite my lip to hold in noises.
Then Isabeau stops.
I whimper, leaning toward her.
Isabeau brushes a tender kiss over my mouth, and I release my grip on the straps overhead. As soon as I lower my arms, she stops kissing me.
“These hands are to stay where I put them.” She takes my wrists in her hands and raises my arms.
Once I grip the leather armor again, Isabeau’s hands trail over my arms, my breasts, my sides, and she orders, “Tell me that you will marry me, love. Admit you are mine.”
“You are rushing me.”
“I’ve waited adecade, thinking you rejected me,” Isabeau reminds me. “Yet you were always mine, weren’t you?”
“I am no one’s possession.” A part of mewantsto belong to Isabeau. A part of me has always wanted that, from our first meeting to our dance at the ball, to the moment I held her letter to the Hunter in hand.
“Mine,” she repeats.
“I am only possessed by someone I can possess in return,” I whisper in a voice that’s barely there. I want this. I want forever. I am afraid, though, and she knows it.
“There has never been a time I was not yours,” Isabeau swears. Then after a wicked smirk, the Duke of Maudite leans in and sniffs my body,like a hunting dog savoring a scent. In the next moment, her mouth is pressed to that already sensitive place, and her tongue, chin, and whole mouth seem intent on making me feel like I am racing toward a cliff inside my own body, as if a pressure is building, and then ... stops.
Isabeau stops.
She waits until my breathing calms, and then she leans in again.
Over and over, she urges me toward the joy that follows that precipice, and each time, she stops.
I am trembling, whimpering, and she is relentless.
“Promise me, love.” Isabeau’s tongue lashes out against me. “That’s all you need to do to keep me from stopping the next time. Admit you want to be my wife as much as I want to be yours.”
“Please, Maudite. Please don’t stop,” I gasp. “Not this time.”
Isabeau looks up at me questioningly. Her fingers are curled inside me, and her face is glistening with wetness.
“Damn you.Please.Please don’t stop, Isabeau. I will agree to court you.” I know that a courtship with the duke is the same as a promise of marriage, but I cannot start planning a future until I know if I can survive the hunt for the Beast of Brimmond.
The already fast pace of Isabeau’s tongue and hand speed to a frenetic one, and when I reach that precipice this time, the world explodes inside me. Every muscle in my legs gives out, and if not for the straps that I clutch like a lifeline, I would surely crush Isabeau under my falling body.
“Let go of the straps, love. I have you.” Isabeau wraps her arms around me.
I do so, unsure if I can hold on longer anyhow. I feel boneless. As I curl into Isabeau’s arms, I am surprised to hear a deep noise, like a particularly content cat.
“Are youpurring?”
“It happens occasionally,” Isabeau says gruffly.
“Do you like when people—”
“Women. Only women,” Isabeau corrects. “Now, though, only you.”
“Whenwomendo that to you?” I stretch, feeling like I need to either nap or touch Isabeau. “Could I do that to—”
