To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers #4)(59)

She opened her eyes to see him crawling up her. First his chest and then his hips brushed against newly sensitized flesh, and then he settled his weight on her, flattening her breasts. He nudged her legs apart effortlessly.

“Reynaud,” she breathed.

He looked into her eyes as he slid up a little, the broad head of his penis just kissing her entrance. He flexed his hips and began to breach her. Her eyes narrowed as she felt a pinch. It’d been only a day since she’d lost her virginity.

“Beatrice,” he breathed.

“It hurts,” she said, her voice small.

He nodded. “Keep your eyes on me.”

She widened them, looking into his eyes. He had a tiny indent between his heavy eyebrows.

He shoved a little.

She felt the stretching of her inner muscles. He pressed steadily, widening her, burrowing into her flesh. Then he thrust suddenly and with definite force, and he was seated fully. She felt the pressure of his pubis against hers. His mouth thinned as if he controlled himself by only a tiny thread.

“Now,” he said. “Now, I make love to you.”

He bent and kissed her with his open mouth, his tongue conquering her lips as his penis conquered the quivering flesh between her legs. He withdrew and slid back into her, more easily this time, hitching himself up her body a little. He caught her beneath the knees and widened her legs, settling in, making himself comfortable in her body.

She moaned and moved beneath him. For, unlike the previous night, what he was doing to her now began to feel good. More than good.

She slid her hands to the back of his head, rubbing the bristling hair there. She felt full, heavy, as if waiting for something. He still kissed her, and she nipped at his lip, provoking a growl from him.

He quickened his thrusts.

She grasped his shoulders, slippery from sweat, and hung on, urging him with her mouth and hands. More. More. More.

Until she crested, suddenly and without warning, a blissful, glorious explosion of pleasure. She would’ve shouted had her mouth not been full of his tongue. He stiffened and lifted himself up, and she saw that he had reached his point as well. His nostrils were flared, his teeth gritted and bared. He thrust home one last time, shuddering, and then he let his head hang, his arms straight and holding up his upper body.

He inhaled deeply.

She kneaded the muscles of his back, wanting still to feel this connection.

He raised his head and she saw his face. Stark. Uncompromising. And without a trace of pity.

“You are mine,” he said.

Chapter Twelve

Longsword and the princess entered the castle’s gates together, but the minute their feet touched the ground, a thorny vine leaped up, faster than a bolt of lightning. Higher and thicker it grew until a giant, thorny hedge so entirely surrounded the castle’s keep that not a stone could be seen. Longsword began to hack at the hedge, but as soon as he cut a branch, another one grew in its place.

“It is impossible!” the princess cried.

But Longsword took a deep breath and ran at the hedge, swinging his sword faster than the eye could see. He slashed so quickly that the blade of his sword glowed white-hot, and as it cut, it seared as well so that the branches could not grow again. In a minute more, Longsword had cut a path through the magical hedge….

—from Longsword

“Did you know that Lottie Graham has left her husband?” Adriana asked as she forked up a piece of fish at dinner. She looked at it critically and said, “Do you think he’s taken a mistress? Or two? Because most men do take a mistress at one time or another, and I think the practical wife just doesn’t notice, don’t you?”

Hasselthorpe took a drink of wine, boggling a bit at the thought of Adriana lumping herself together with “practical” wives. They sat in their town-house dining room tonight, a rather overdecorated room featuring gold putti and pink marble. He didn’t bother answering the question, because she rarely needed anyone else’s help in her conversations. This was handy, especially on the rare occasions when they dined just the two of them, for he had no need to follow the conversation.

And indeed she continued after swallowing. “I can’t think of another reason for her to leave Mr. Graham. He is so handsome, and every time I see him, he compliments me on my appearance, and I do like a gentleman who can turn a pretty phrase.”

She poked her fish and frowned. “I don’t see why fish should have so many bones, do you?”

Hasselthorpe, who’d been contemplating Blanchard’s lessening odds of keeping his title, looked up rather irritably. “What are you talking about, Adriana?”

“Fish,” his wife said promptly. “And their bones. They have so many, and I really don’t see why. They live in the water.”

“All creatures have bones.” Hasselthorpe sighed.

“Not worms,” his wife said. “Nor jellyfish nor snails, although they do have shells, which I suppose are very like bones, on their outsides.”

He winced. Why must she always blather about nonsense?

“But I’m not sure a shell is quite the same as a bone on the inside.” She scowled quite adorably down at her haddock. “And, in any case, I still don’t understand why they should have so many and they be always waiting to catch in one’s throat.”

“Quite.” Hasselthorpe gave up trying to follow his wife’s mind and instead drank some more wine. Sometimes it helped get him through these meals. How had Hope survived that second assassination attempt? Dammit, why the man should survive two attempts in as many weeks and not a scratch on him was—