Silence Breaking (Storm and Silence 4)

Lilly, have you met yourself?

There was a tidal wave building inside me, one strong enough to sweep away the greatest of rocks and the most monumental icebergs. And my heart danced atop the waves, lost in the storm. All I could do was be pulled along as he drew me down the corridor faster and faster, towards the inevitable end. Halfway to my room we slid around a corner, bumped into a wall and slammed into each other. His arms came up around me to catch me, and suddenly we were kissing, and just for a second, I didn’t care where we were or what we were doing, or who might walk in on us.

Even his mother?

All right, maybe I did care.

‘We…we can’t do this,’ I whispered against his lips. ‘Not here.’

‘Agreed,’ he told me, and kissed me so hard I saw stars.

‘We have to stop,’ I told him, and kissed him back so hard he probably saw £ signs.

‘Indeed.’

‘Then why aren’t you stopping?’

‘Why aren’t you?’ he asked, and kissed me again. Damn him! And damn me, too, for letting him! For desperately wanting more!

In dire need, I reached for a special weapon—the magic word.

‘Please,’ I whispered.

I felt his body shudder.

‘Miss Linton…!’

‘Please. I need more. But…not here.’

A growl erupted from his chest, and his grip on me tightened. But even that didn’t work. Okay. Time for my last resort. Time for the real magic word.

‘Now!’

He growled, and suddenly, I was moving again. I did my best to control my grin as he swept me through the dark hallways of Battlewood, but I didn’t have much success. The magic word had worked! We moved faster than ever, Mr Ambrose pulling me along, arm in an iron grip around my waist. I was more than eager to keep up, but with his long strides eating up the ground as if it were nothing, it wasn’t easy. Finally, he simply swept me up in his arms and carried me along. I gave a half-yelp, half-sigh of pleasure. I didn’t even think of protesting, that’s how far gone I was.

‘Impatient, Sir?’ I murmured against his chest.

‘You know what they say.’ Penetrating the darkness, cold, dark, sea-coloured eyes met mine. ‘Knowledge is Power is Time is Money.’

How was it possible that those words made my insides heat? They were the coldest, most callous, calculating words that had ever been invented in the history of humankind, and yet, and yet…

It was him. It was Mr Ambrose, and the fact that the words came from his lips. That tidal wave inside me rose up again, ready to swallow me whole.

Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of dark brown through the shadows - and Mr Ambrose stopped.

‘We’re here.’

Here? Where?

Oh, right. My room. I had been so captivated by his eyes that for the moment I had completely forgotten where we were going.

Slowly, he set me down. I reached behind me and felt the smooth wood of the door at my back. The logical part of my brain screamed at me to find the damn doorknob, get inside and lock the door, but I couldn’t. Mr Ambrose stood so close…I could feel his icy energy radiating off him, could feel his arctic gaze burning into me. If only I could see his eyes. If only I could read his expression. But it was far too dark for that.

Something thudded against the wood to my left, and a second later to my right. I couldn’t see, but I knew: they were Mr Ambrose’s arms, caging me in with his hands on either side of the doorframe. There was nowhere for me to run, no way for me to escape him.

As if I really wanted to.

‘Now…where were we, Miss Linton?’