Page 126 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
He deepened the kiss, seeming to sense it. Wanting to taste it as my fingers found their way to his jacket buttons, wanting it gone.
A small growl of pleasure against my lips as he backed me effortlessly to the bookcase, crystals and tomes clattering tothe floor. His hands at either side of my face, tipping it back to demand more from my mouth.
The stinging burn of magic was still against my fingertips as he shuddered in response to it. Something heightened the crazed need between us as his hands slid to my waist, lifting me to rest on the bookcase lip. He fit easily between my spread legs. Clearly annoyed with the mass of my skirts being in his way, he pushed them up, the coolness of the room nipping at my calves.
One hand going beneath, he hitched my leg higher, closer. The rough callous texture of his hands torturous against such soft skin. Pleasure rippled through me as my slippers dropped from my feet.
I gasped, clutching at his hair, head falling back against the shelves as his mouth fell to the curve of my breast, tracing the edge of my bodice, nipping softly at the sensitive flesh.
His thumb discovered the edge of my garter. Wicked and knowing. My nails dug into his back, feeling his muscles tense under my touch, and all I could do was moan his name as his tongue and teeth traced a path up the side of my throat to take my lips once more.
‘Kat?’ he asked, beseeching a command. Perhaps some sanity, but I couldn’t give him any.
‘Yes,’ I begged, desire chasing my fear from me as I kissed him again. I bit his lip, freeing him from the rest of his restraint, and his hand slipped further up my thigh. The warmth and solidness of him caged me in. His magic slipping around me in another phantom embrace, across any bare skin it could find. My back arched in silent command for it to have more.
His lips ran along my jaw, making my head fall to the side, giving him more access, only to open my eyes and see a flash of red curls run past the dark window.
William.
With what I could swear was a tabby cat clutched in his arms.
‘Emrys !’ I snapped, grasping desperately at his shoulders. He stopped instantly, letting me slide down his body until my bare feet were back on the floor, skirts still rumpled between us, breaths unsteady.
Fear streaked through me at the thought that I was seeing things again. That this house was playing awful tricks. I grabbed Emrys’s chin, turning his face to the glass just as the figure darted off the garden path and back into the house.
‘Please tell me that’s not William?’ My breath caught, panic constricting my chest that it wasn’t real. Only for Emrys to go very still, his jaw tense beneath my grasp.
‘Bloody little …’ Emrys began to curse, but I didn’t hear the rest as I ducked out of his hold, grabbing my shoes and racing for the door. Hopping on one foot to get my shoes back on, I darted into the hall that led to the garden passage. I heard a door slam, then a murmur of familiar voices ahead, before another door shut.
I turned around another dilapidated corner to almost run headfirst into Thean Page. Their grin wicked as they leant against the wall, the peeling wallpaper almost brushing the luxurious green velvet of their ostentatious suit.
‘Interesting meeting?’ The voyav raised a brow, those amber eyes taking in the creases in my skirts that I hadn’t slapped out sufficiently enough and the curls of my hair that had slid free. My cheeks were red and my breath was barely steady. My bodice had also slipped down inappropriately.
‘Wonderful,’ I snapped, tugging my bodice up.
Then the voyav’s amusement slid to the large cupboard next to them, as a clatter of movement and a curse came fromwithin. Effortlessly, they pulled the door open and William tumbled out, hands pressed over his eyes as he fell into a startled heap on the floor. Peering up at us through his fingers.
‘Debauchery !’ Thean grinned, eyes gleaming with malicious delight as they draped themself against the doorframe. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you, dear William.’
‘I d-didn’t …’ William stuttered, seemingly struggling to remember how to form sentences as his face went scarlet. ‘I don’t like breasts.’
‘Leave him alone.’ Alma emerged from the crammed cupboard, stepping over William’s prone form to glare up at the voyav as she laced the front of her maid’s dress with military precision. Even as her fingers remained faintly in the shape of claws. Clearly unbothered that her breasts were one deep breath away from being exposed.
Something which only served to heighten Thean’s predatory delight.
‘How …possessive,’ the voyav goaded, leaning closer with a smile so sharp those fangs gleamed. ‘A tumble is supposed to take the edge off, darling. Maybe you weren’t doing it right.’
The responding sound from deep in Alma’s throat could only be described as a growl.
‘Thean,’ Emrys cautioned, arms folded tightly across his chest, dark gaze drifting between a red-faced William and the voyav.
‘We weren’t …’ William struggled to get to his feet, hair tangled around his horns. ‘I didn’t … We went looking through the lord’s chambers while they were distracted …’
William pulled a bag from inside his coat. It rattled and clanked as he pulled out a handful of scrawled papers, dark crystals and dried fey skin totems wrapped with string. ‘Alma helped. It was full of really weird—’
‘Shit,’ Alma finished for him . He winced as she took the papers from him and held them out to me, still glaring at Thean as if imagining her next attack.
‘Rummaging through peoples, bed chambers? I didn’t know you were so … devious,’ Thean teased. Unbothered by the horror William had just exposed.
