“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Jesus, what you do to me.”

She took a turn on his other pec and by the time she was done, she was satisfied at how red the skin was, at the various bite marks she’d left, and how stiff and puckered his nipples were. She looked up at him. His hazel eyes were dark and seemed to flash in the dim hallway.

He stroked the back of her neck in quick rubs, up and down. She didn’t dare touch him low right now, or he’d come.

You work me up.

She smiled. You need to settle down, Thorne. We’re just getting started and I want you to last for me.

He narrowed his eyes. I’ll fucking last for you.

Oh, looked like she’d touched a sore spot, so she slid her hand low after all and stroked the length of his erection through his jeans, up and up, dipping her fingertips just below the crown before sliding off.

He arched forward and hissed.

She laughed. “I want my bath, Thorne. You said you’d suck me. You going to keep that promise or are you all talk?”

But he leaned down a little more, twisted sideways, and kissed her hard on the lips.

The thing was, she’d always loved his mouth. This time she put her hand on his nape and did some stroking of her own as he thrust his tongue against hers.

He sent, Sex with you has been one of the finest experiences of my life. He drew back and held her gaze.

She got that wiggly feeling again, the sense that she needed to run, that Thorne was asking things of her she couldn’t give. At the same time, her eyes burned. Sex with you kept me sane.

He nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment, then in the distance she heard water running. No, not running, gushing.

“What the hell is that?”

“I don’t like to wait long for the bathing pool to fill. I had it done special.”

He turned and headed back up the stairs. He still wore his jeans, but his bare back had a gorgeous flare, angling to a narrow waist. She shivered watching him move up the stairs.

She followed, hopeless to do anything else.

The sound came from an arched doorway beyond the bedroom. In the meantime, as he crossed to the bathroom, her gaze fell on the room and she drew in a deep breath. The entire wall behind the very large warrior-sized bed was made of slabs of rough gray stone. The bed had four massive posters of a dark rich-looking wood, maybe mahogany, and all she could think was that she’d like some rope looped around every post and around every one of Thorne’s limbs. She’d like to tie him to the bed and keep him there to devour for a very long time.

Her tongue made an appearance.

“You have something else in mind?” he asked.

She shifted her gaze to the bathroom doorway, and her eyes almost popped from head. Thorne had lost his jeans and now stood completely naked, profile view, supporting a very firm cock in his hand. He thumbed the tip and smiled.

Marguerite began to tremble. Really tremble, and her body was on fire. What this man could do to her. She began to wonder how she could ever think of taking her pleasure anywhere but here.

She blurred the distance to him and before he could move, she slid between him and the doorjamb and dropped to her knees to take that beautiful head in her mouth and suck. It was a lot of head to enjoy. She pulled back and just let his cock float over her lips, her cheeks, her chin.

She looked up at him and saw pain in his eyes.

“What?” she asked, using her hand to support and steady him. She licked the tip.

He shook his head. “You please me so much, like you were made for me somehow. You couldn’t have done anything else in this moment that I would have enjoyed more than to have seen you appreciate all of me.”

She rose up. She could feel his distress. It matched her own. She leaned into him, pressing his cock straight up against his abdomen. “Back atcha, Thorne. But I’m scared.”

He nodded. “I may have made a break with Endelle today, but you need to know that my job just got a helluva lot harder, not easier, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“You carry the load.”

He nodded. “It’s on me. It’s been on me since I can remember.”

He ran his hands down her wing-locks, which brought shivers streaking everywhere. “You’re very wet,” he said softly, his fingers playing with the moist apertures. “How about I give you that much-promised bath and we forget about all this shit for a while.”

“Sounds like a plan.” And right now she’d do just about anything to take that haunted look from his eyes. But she did know one thing that would help. She thought the thought and got rid of her clothes.

Water.

Take me to your bathing pool.

Keep me there until I am made anew.

—Collected Poems, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 17

Thorne growled at the sight of Marguerite all nice and naked, then did one of his favorite things: He slid his arm low behind her knees and picked her up to carry her. He took her to the side of the bath, which was really just one big-ass bathing pool. But hell, he was a big man and sometimes, after he’d been to the Convent, he’d just float and stare up at the lightening sky.

She looked first down then up. “If it was nighttime, we’d see the stars.”

“I’ve never done that.”

“Not once?”

“I’m always out battling at night, and this pool is only about sixty years old.”

She looked down again. “Mind my head, but I’d love it if you just dropped me in there.”

“You would, huh?” The pool had a shallow end and a nice platform for doing things he’d only imagined until now. But this part was five feet deep and eight feet across.

“Yeah, I would.”

“Hold your arms next to your sides then. I don’t want you breaking a wrist.”

“Got it.”

He tossed her in the air, watched her smile, then laughed as she crashed through the surface. A lot of that water cascaded over the sides, but like hell he cared. This was a day he never thought to have: his woman in his bathing pool.

She came up sputtering. He sat on the edge, swung his legs over, and dropped in. Because the water was deep enough, he let his knees go and went under. It was heaven. He came up and she was already on him, her arms around his neck, her small tongue in his mouth, her legs scissored around his stiffening cock.

Maybe it was the recent exchange about how this really couldn’t work for either of them, but when he kissed her this time, his chest hurt, like maybe this would be the last time he would ever be with her. How strange to think that for a sudden strong moment, he wished her back at that hellhole of a Convent, safe inside her cell so that he could just keep visiting her in the morning. Now her safety was on his mind all the time, especially given her emerging obsidian flame power. But more than that, he feared she would just take off again.

He cupped her face in his hand and stared into her eyes. He wanted to memorize them, the different shades of brown that created the glitter he so often saw.

She caught his hand and pressed it against her cheek. “What is it, Thorne? Why are you looking at me like that?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Whatever else this might be, between us, Marguerite, I love you. I have from that first day. I want you to know that.”

“I love you, too. You know, that right? I mean—” She looked down at his chest as though unable to meet his gaze. “—I mean as much as I’m able. I’ve never really known love, real love.”

“And yet somehow you’ve overcome that.”

“What do you mean?”

He thumbed her cheek. She had a beautiful complexion and full high cheekbones. “Because I know you. I know who you are. Grace told me you got her through a bunch of rough patches, helped her to make up her mind about things. And how about all those lashes you took for the other devotiates? And don’t you think for a minute that I don’t know how difficult it was for you to connect with Brynna as the only means of achieving pure vision. I know what you gave up. You gave up your freedom because you love my sister. I see that, sweetheart, and if that isn’t love, then what the fuck is?”

“Thorne, how could I have done anything else?”

“You’ve just made my point. This is who you are. And now I made you a promise, and I’m going to keep it.” He turned her around so that her back faced him. He shoved her gently in the direction of the shallow end until he could drop to his knees with his shoulders just above water level. While she was still standing, he settled his hands on her hips, his thumbs rubbing her ass. In that position, his lips came to the middle of her back. He slid his tongue in a line across one of her wing-locks and began to suck.

Her body arched immediately and she gasped. He reached low to slide a hand between her legs, pushing them apart. He turned slightly to get a good angle and slid two fingers up into her. She groaned heavily.

He worked her slowly, and the air filled with her rose scent. He licked the aperture and tasted the sweet liquid that released from the lock. Tasting her, no matter what part of her body, was like drinking in the essence of who she was, her wild spirit and her generous, sacrificial heart. He moved his fingers faster, wanting her to come, wanting to bring her over and over, to spend this time, this afternoon coaxing her body to a dozen orgasms, as many she could take.

* * *

Marguerite was moved. She didn’t want to be, but she was. Thorne loved her and he valued her, things she wasn’t even sure she felt about herself. There she’d admitted it, the deepest truths of her life and of herself. And how the hell could she ever be worthy of a man like Thorne? Dammit.

And here he was sucking on one of her wing-locks and oh, God, she could hardly keep standing. His fingers always seemed to find the spot in her body that couldn’t get enough. Of course even his fingers were big and kept her satisfied.

The thought that he could put something even bigger inside her caused her to jerk forward. She would have fallen, but he caught her about the waist, held her steady, then searched around until he had a handful of her breast.