Page 38 of The Traitor's Curse
Someone applauded, someone else laughed, and I startled and tried to jerk away. My face burned.
Benedict didn’t let me move a single inch.
“Let them,” he breathed, and tightened his arm until my ribs creaked. “Fucking let them. We’re not staying here to listen to them in any case.”
“We’re not?”
“No.” His silvery eyes had gone molten, burning with intent, his tone deep and rough. “And if you give me the slightest bit of trouble, I’m putting you over my shoulder and carrying you. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”
Putting me over his…
He didn’t give me a chance to argue, simply letting go of me enough to turn us both in the direction of the stairs and half-dragging me away, his hand clamped on my hip.
Open-mouthed faces and wide eyes went by in a blur as he pulled me to the stairs, up, and then out of the ballroom, the startled herald and guards bowing as we went by.
The voices of the assembly rose to a crescendo and then cut off suddenly as a pair of footmen swung the doors shutbehind us.
“Benedict,” I gasped, recovering enough at last to try to resist him. “What the hell do you think you’re—”
“What you wanted me to do,” he said, not slowing his stride at all, keeping me moving no matter how I squirmed and stumbled. “What you goaded me into doing by asking me to dance.”
“What I—you’re out of your mind! I didn’t want this! Goaded you—you—”
“Shut up and walk unless you want me to fuck you right here on the floor,” he ground out, and tugged me along at a breakneck pace.
Right there, on the marble floor of the palace’s public corridor, surrounded by oil paintings in gilt frames and elegant vases, reflected in the enormous mirror on the wall, crying out to the ceiling frescoes while Benedict…
Oh, gods.
I shut up and walked.
Chapter Thirteen
Benedict hustled me past the guards at the entrance to the ducal apartments, throwing a quick, “If anyone tries to get past you, stab them,” over his shoulder as he did.
“He doesn’t mean that!” I called back, not reassured at all by one of the guards laughing as soon as we were out of sight, and then we were down the hall and through my bedroom door. Benedict kicked it shut behind us with a crash that made me wince, and then let me go so abruptly I went stumbling into my bed, catching hold of the post and pulling myself upright again.
I turned to find him advancing on me with focused intent, eyes glittering.
“That was entirely unacceptable,” I said. “And I absolutely didnot—”
“Oh, you absolutely did. Get on your knees.”
“—want you to cause the scandal of the century—what?”
He took another step. My spine pressed against the bedpost as I tried, uselessly, to back up. “You wanted to play games with me, Lucian. Fine. I played. I came to the reception, and the moment I saw you—do you know how transparent your eyes are, sometimes?” He reached up and stroked his fingers down my cheek and around my jaw, tipping my chin up. My own fingers ached with the force of my grip on the post behind me. “You wanted me to show everyone I’d come when you called. And I did. You should be grateful I brought you back here before I collected on my part of the bargain.”
“Grateful,” I choked. “Grateful? Come when I—you and I both know that’s not what they saw. What any of them will think.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my tone. It’d really started to sink in, what had happened in that ballroom. How deeply I’d humiliated myself with my delusions of being something I wasn’t—and that no one who mattered would really believe I could be. “I played and lost, Benedict. Don’t mock me by pretending otherwise.”
“Lost?” His voice had an odd note to it, something off. His jaw tightened. “Fine. You didn’t want them to see? All right, I fucking did. Get on your knees or I’ll put you there.”
“Bloody well put me there, then, because I’m not going to kneel for—oh!”
With one hand on my shoulder pressing me down, and the other tugging on my waist, he had me on my knees in two seconds, and then instead of my shoulder he had my hair in his grasp. Benedict pulled my head back. Not violently, but irresistibly, enough that the skin of my neck felt stretched and I had trouble getting a full breath.
“Imagine they’re all watching,” he said. “If I’d done this after the dance. Because they might as well be watching, if you’re right about what they thought.” He tugged at his trousers with his other hand, cursed, and then spread his hand over the bulge of his erection. The buttons whispered out of the buttonholes, the placket falling open.
If I’d had his powerful magic, I’d have liked to think I’d have used it for only the most important, meaningful tasks, not for opening up my pants to get my cock sucked.
