Page 16 of The Traitor's Curse
I’d disliked Fabian intensely, but walking into my rooms and finding him absent would be a shock for a long time. Every night and every morning I’d be waiting for him, and I’d have that jolt of surprise and horror.
The thought of baring those feelings to anyone, let alone to Benedict, made me even sicker than his apparent confidence that everyone in Calatria hated me and thought I’d committed patricide—not only the ones who’d told me so to my face or tried to kill me.
Better to tackle the far less dangerous matter of Benedict’s curse. Standing here in the light of day, with thenightmarish quality of the previous evening beginning to fade, I could face this bargain of his head-on without flinching.
Relieve his curse. That was all. His talk of pleasure was just that, so much arrogant braggingtalk.If he hoped I’d degrade myself by enjoying his use of me, he’d have to live with disappointment. And if I needed something to distract myself from my inevitable discomfort and disgust during the act, I could savor his thwarted annoyance.
How long had it been since anyone…Benedict’s voice rang through my mind:turned you inside out the way you probably don’t deserve?
Years. It had been three years, in fact, since a visit I’d made to my cousin Tavius’s estate in the north of Calatria, only a few months before my father’s death. We’d spent the days hunting with his friends, and the nights carousing, and Tavius had thrown me together with one friend in particular, a tall, handsome gentleman with wicked eyes and black hair. Actually, he bore a passing resemblance to Benedict. We’d spent a night together, and he’d fucked me drunkenly but thoroughly enough, leaving me sore but not quite sated.
Tavius had seemed disappointed that I didn’t want a more lasting arrangement with his friend, whom he’d tried to persuade me was just the man to make me happy, but causing a court scandal by coming home with a not-high-born-enough lover would hardly have been worth it for a man who hadn’t even finished me with his hand after he spent inside me.
Three years.
And now I stood cornered between Benedict and his bed.
He might be much more of an asshole than Tavius’s friend, but at least this time I’d be tryingnotto enjoy it, which might make succeeding a whole lot easier.
I lifted my chin. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll take the morning off. Or at least a small part of it. I can’t imagine you’d need morethan a few minutes to do what you need to do.”
Benedict shook his head at me, eyes glittering. “Lucian, you really never learn, do you?”
And with that, he whipped his shirt over his head, tossing it carelessly aside onto the floor. His hands were busy with his trouser buttons before I could do more than blink. After all of his talk, I’d expected him to have a more practiced seduction routine. But he simply shoved the trousers down, kicking them off of his bare feet, and tugged the string of his drawers.
Those fell to the floor too.
My mouth dropped open, and I snapped it shut again.
No, he would definitely have made Clothurn squeal. I didn’t like my own odds, actually. Benedict’s broad torso tapered to narrow hips and a curly black thatch of hair surrounding a cock that explained his notoriety in the city’s brothels and perhaps made an additional seduction routine redundant. It had already begun to harden, and the thick head had taken on a purplish-rosy flush. Heavy balls hung beneath it. As he took a step toward me, they swayed and swung, almost hypnotizing. What would he do if I reached out and cupped them in my palm, tested their weight, tugged gently the way I liked when someone handled me?
Another step brought him close enough that I could have, if I’d had the courage. Or the desire to, gods damn it, I didn’t really want to touch him.
His cock grew under my scrutiny, filling out its length, growing thicker, the head darkening and lifting toward me as if seeking a target.
“My face is up here,” Benedict said, his voice low and amused—but with an underlying current of heat that lit me up on the inside, kindling a warmth in my belly that I didn’t want and didn’t know what to do with. “Or you can touch me. Do anything you want, Lucian.”
That startled me enough that I was able to tear my eyes away from the scourge of the dockside whores and look up to meet his.
Anything I wanted? “I don’t want to do anything,” I said, although my voice lacked a certain degree of conviction. I cleared my throat and tried again with, “You don’t seem like the kind of man to lie back and let someone else take charge in bed.”
Too late, I realized my mistake. Benedict grinned and took one last step, his cock almost brushing against my tunic. I fought the urge to shrink back. Our several inches of height difference didn’t matter nearly as much as his several inches of additional breadth, the way he loomed not only over me but to both sides.
“How much have you thought about what I’d be like in bed, hmm? And you cast me in the role of the aggressor, apparently. I can oblige. Tell me what you’ve thought ab—”
“I haven’t thought about anything!” I said, sounding only about half as harassed as I felt.
My whole body had flushed with heat, and I had nowhere to go, and my hands twitched restlessly because I couldn’t possibly touch him. And it didn’t matter how I tried to turn my head. If I looked down, there was that massive cock. If I looked up, Benedict’s mocking smile and gleaming gray eyes and chiseled jaw. Side to side, there were huge bare shoulders, biceps, a body that would effortlessly dominate mine when Benedict chose to use it.
“You’re probably always the aggressor because you’re more brawn than brain,” I added, hoping it would annoy him enough to make him stop fucking toying with me. “That’s nothing to do with me.”
A glance up through my lashes showed me raised eyebrows and lips pressed into a line.
Perfect.
When he caught me by the hips and spun me around to face the bed, I nearly fainted with relief. He’d pull my trousers down and fuck me hard and fast, and he’d stop…accusing me of things and trying to ferret out my secrets.
Benedict pressed up behind me, his cock digging into the small of my back. I let out a soft, betraying sound, my lungs hitching with each of my ragged breaths.
