The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(28)
“Violence has kept me alive these twenty years. It’s all I know. All I remember. In fact, the second I walk out of this room, I’m going to war.”
“Then go,” she spat. “And the devil take you.”
“He might do. Someday.” He pried her white fingers from his throne and drew her toward him. He was a man aware of his power, physical and otherwise, and could wield or temper it with astounding control. “But tonight, I’m allowed this.”
When his gaze dropped to her lips, Lorelai panicked.
Oh God.
After a wedding, came a wedding night, and the Rook was about to claim his.
CHAPTER SEVEN
How long had she dreamed of this? How many times had she imagined Ash galloping toward her on his white steed, whisking her off the moors, and the two of them disappearing together into the mist? In her fantasies, they’d married. He’d kissed her gently, tenderly, with as much reverence as he had the day they’d parted.
The day he’d disappeared.
How could she have known that his fervent promise to come for her, all those years ago, had really been a threat?
When the Rook’s fingers brushed her neck beneath her veil, Lorelai trembled, but she held straight and still as a mooring post as he explored the delicate skin of her nape. His fingers threaded in her hair, tangling into the ruined coiffure until he cupped the back of her head.
“What a-are you doing?”
“You always wore your hair loose when we were young.” He extracted pins as he discovered them.
“I—I am no longer young,” she stammered. “Conven tion dictates that I wear it up.” Dear God, how could she be arguing about her hair at a time like this? “I cannot simply—”
“Convention holds no place here,” he interrupted, brushing her hair over her shoulder, so it spilled down her bodice. “You may do as you like.”
“Then I’d like to leave. I’d like to go home.”
A sharp breath escaped him. Not a chuckle, but perhaps a sign of amusement.
“Allow me to rephrase.” His head dropped until his lips grazed her shoulder exposed by the wide neckline of the gilded gown. Chills speared her, thrilling up from some deep and forgotten place with such force her belly clenched, before they exploded onto her skin in a wash of tiny shivers. “You may do as I like.”
The Rook eased her closer, and Lorelai remained so paralyzed, she couldn’t even find the wits to resist. His full lower lip curled slightly into his mouth, emerging with a sheen of moisture, then parting in preparation—
No.
Lorelai rejected the notion of this pirate ruining what she considered her loveliest memory. Should he kiss her now, it would be nothing like what she shared with Ash once upon a time.
What if it was terrible?
Or worse, what if she liked it? What if he made her want it? What if this new demonic incarnation of Ash stirred in her the same awakenings she’d experienced as a girl in his arms?
Because, Lord help her, the Rook was possessed of a dark charisma she’d never before encountered, and it was wreaking havoc with her senses already.
Ducking her chin against her chest, she turned her tiara into a weapon.
A less dexterous man would have taken a Weatherstoke sapphire right to the eye.
Before she could process what was happening, he spun her to face the bed.
He stood behind her now, one arm clamped around her, just above her breasts, as he relieved her of her tiara and veil and tossed it to the ground, heedless of the glittering precious heirlooms.
She barely noted the tug as the bulk of her awareness was completely focused on the bed in front of her. A decadent, cavernous thing, the canopy strung with enough vibrant silk to shame Salome. The coverlet belonged in a sultan’s harem, stitched with a riot of silver thread into sensual patterns across a vivid blend of fabrics.
She couldn’t have conjured a more dissimilar wedding bower to the one she’d expected to endure this night.
They stood like that for several silent, heaving breaths as the storm raged outside, tossing the boat this way and that. His powerful legs stabilized them both. His thighs flexed against the curve of her rump in a disquieting dance with the unstable ground beneath them.
Rather than bother with a bustle, Lorelai had favored gathers and ruffles for a train, and she regretted that now, as every swell and sinew of his well-hewn body pressed against her back with naught but a fabric barrier.
The short but heavy breaths pressing his chest against her contradicted his inscrutability.
“Where are you taking us?” she ventured, frantically trying to distract them both from the bed looming right before them.
“Wherever I desire.” His arm kept her prisoner against his unyielding bulk, as the questing fingers of his free hand continued to delve into her hair. He whispered something against her skin, but her heart beat too loudly in her ears for her to correctly perceive it. Questing lips trailed over her skin. He paused at heart-stopping intervals to drag in deep lungfuls of air as though he could store her essence inside of him.
“After everything…” He released a harsh breath. “After twenty years. You are mine.”
A note in his voice froze Lorelai in place. Not with fear, but something adjacent to it. For the first time, humanity seeped into his timbre, and along with it some terrible mélange of bleak rage and awestruck anticipation. It was as though he were as astonished as she to have found themselves here.