Page 48 of A Steeping of Blood
She yanked her fingers from his and pulled out her pocket watch, flustered yet again. “The captain says we’ll arrive any moment now.”
“Oh really?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s already—”
He snatched her watch from her hand, using the chain secured toher vest to pull her close. Arthie was not proud of the yelp that ripped out of her.
“Don’t rush me,” he whispered, catching her by the waist and cinching the remaining distance between them. She gasped, grabbing ahold of him to halt her fall.
His green eyes were hooded, bleeding to inky darkness as they traced her face, settling on her mouth and lighting her aflame. She might not have a pulse on a regular day anymore, but in that moment, she felt it all over. Pounding through her, an incessant drumming she couldn’t tame.
“Arthie, Arthie, Arthie,” he whispered, and she followed the sensuous curve of his mouth. “Go on now, tell me what time it is.”
Her watch was swinging back and forth against her leg, but she made no move to obey. He ran his hands up her sides, one settling at the nape of her neck, the other brushing the hair from her face.
He lifted a brow in question.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said.
“I believe I will,” he said darkly, leaning closer. “What time is it, Arthie?”
She gritted her teeth. He smiled as lazily as a lion regarding a mouse. He wasn’t going to let her be until she told him. She reached for her watch, shakily, and when she leaned to her side, exposing her throat, she felt the brush of his hair against her skin.
And then his lips.
He kissed her neck, pulling away and dropping another an inch higher, then another. Arthie thought she would combust.
“Well?” he asked on a scraping exhale she felt more than heard.
She struggled to thumb the latch. He watched her, drinking it in, enjoying every second of this torture. She needed only to turn her cheek and she could kiss him.
What’s stopping you?
Nothing. Nothing was stopping her. She was Arthie Casimir, and she seized what she wanted, no matter what was in her way.
Arthie turned her cheek. The warm lacquered wood framed him in opulence. She dropped her watch, threaded her fingers in his hair, pulled him to her.
And then she kissed him.
The most glorious groan escaped him, and she swallowed every morsel of the sound before he kissed her back. It was as intoxicating as the moment he turned her, as decadent as sipping blood, as victorious as pulling off a job.
His lips were soft, his kiss firm. He was cool to the touch, as vampires were wont to be, but he smelled the opposite, sending warm shivers down her spine.
He took command of her the way she imagined he commanded a canvas before him, painting a portrait of lust in shades of red and crimson, deep strokes of violet and amaranth. He bit down on her lip, drawing blood. He rasped at the taste and she wove her fingers tighter in his hair at the sound.
He gripped her waist, just one of his hands wide enough to span the width of her back, then he dropped his hold even lower to her thighs, igniting her. She released his hair and reached for his shirt, doing away with the few buttons he’d bothered to fasten. He lifted her up, grinning against her mouth until she kissed him into another groan. She kissed him passionately, ardently, hard enough to bruise so that he would remember her forever. She wrapped her legs around him, belatedly realizing the position that put her in.
She ground her hips against him with a gasp.
“Praecantrix,” he moaned against her mouth, as she shoved her hands into his shirt and traced the lean lines of his chest.
Shouts echoed above deck. He set her on a crate and every inch of her protested, but he pushed closer again, capturing her lips in another kiss until Arthie pulled away with great reluctance. He pressed his brow to hers. His eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them.
Land ho!the watch called.
It took Arthie a long, drunken moment to make sense of the words: They had arrived. Footsteps pounded up above, in time with her roiling, burning need.
“Who knew Arthie Casimir was such an expert in matters of kissing,” Matteo said, his voice hoarse.
