This…yes. Yes.
This was what she’d felt, she’d wanted. This was what his hot eyes had promised, this sort of deep, tingling pleasure that shot into her belly and tightened her ni**les and spiraled lower. Lower, to where his leg pressed, hard and strong beneath her skirts. The pressure, the shift there in that most private of places. She swelled and filled and a soft little gasp escaped, just against his mouth.
Angelica closed her eyes and flattened her hands against his chest, her fingers just over the tops of his shoulders, sliding beneath his coat. The chair bumped behind her legs. She half stumbled, half fell into it, lost in the whirl of sensation. The whiskey and Voss were a potent combination, but she knew what she wanted.
He moved away, surprising her, leaving her in the chair and she sat up, dizzy and confused, and then felt his hands on her. He was standing behind the chair now, his palms sliding down the sides of her face…warm, strong, deliberate.
She tipped her head onto the back of the chair, and found that she looked up at him and the smoke-blackened ceiling. She saw the underside of his chin, long and curving and just becoming dark gold with stubble. A hint of his nose, and the tips of his thick hair, gilded by the low lamplight. He stood behind her, his hands easing to her shoulders, his fingers curving under her chin, his thumbs on the sides of her neck, his face, too, turned to the ceiling.
“Voss,” she murmured, wondering why he’d moved away. The kissing had been delicious…but she wanted more. She was cold and bereft and curious about what lay beneath his shirt.
His fingers tightened over her skin and she felt each one of them imprinting on her throat, then they slid down…down over her collarbones and the hollow of her throat…into the bodice of her gown. Angelica gasped and tensed, but she found herself arching her shoulders back, the base of her skull resting on the top of the chair as she pushed up into his elegant hands.
He gave a soft, surprised laugh and bent to her temple, his lips warm and moist, intermingling with her hair as his fingers slipped down inside her corset and shift. They curved around her br**sts, the corset tightening around her from behind, a gust of cooler air slipping over her encased flesh. Angelica closed her eyes against the revolving room and let herself feel.
One thumb shifted, brushing over a tight nipple and she gasped and her eyes flew open, but his other hand moved and he gently squeezed her br**sts. His fingers, long and sure, slid and caressed, and his thumbs…they moved around and over the very tops of her ni**les. Her body tightened beneath his touch, tightened so hard it was nearly painful…yet she couldn’t deny the ripples of pleasure that streaked down to her belly, over and over again until she realized she was moaning and sighing there in the chair.
“Voss,” she muttered, reaching up to close her hands around his wrists, pressing them against her br**sts, wanting something else…something more.…
His mouth was hot against her cheek and she felt him change, something shift. He muttered something she couldn’t understand, something like a curse.
Then, a soft groan, his fingers tightening too much over her flesh, and then swiftly he moved again, yanking free. Suddenly he loomed in front of the chair, over her, dark and wild, his knee shoving into the seat next to her hip.
She looked up at him, saw his beautiful face dark and taut with pain. His hair, rich golden-brown, falling in his face, his lips parted, his eyes…burning.
Glowing.
Angelica gasped, but he surged down, gathering her close, burying his face in her neck, pulling her up by the shoulders with desperate hands. His mouth was hot and insistent, his lips hard, drawing on her flesh in that sensitive spot that made her shift and shudder as waves and ripples of sensation flooded her limbs. She clutched at him, feeling the strength of his leg next to hers, crowding her into the chair, let herself spiral into the lull of intense pleasure and then suddenly…pain.
She froze, tightening and bowing beneath him, her hands landing futilely on his powerful shoulders as she tried to twist away.
Like a prick, a smooth slide, and then the burst of heat.… Hot liquid surged from her skin, exploded from her vein. She felt him sigh and settle against her even as she froze, unable to move as he drank from her. A scream strangled in the back of her throat.
No.
She pushed at him, even as the warmth drained from her, tears filling her eyes, horror paralyzing her. Betrayal. Fear.
Not Voss was all she could think. No. Dimly she let herself go and prayed he wouldn’t kill her.
9
A TRUST IS BETRAYED
Voss hardly knew what he was doing until his incisors slid into her sweet, warm skin. And then…a burst of heat and pleasure like the shock of lightning. She flooded his mouth, filled him when he swallowed, and his body loosened.
The agony in his shoulder eased, and he could breathe again. He could almost think.
Relief. Oh, Luce, oh, God, relief.
He breathed Angelica, tasted her, touched and smelled the deepest, most intimate essence of her.
She convulsed beneath him, twitched in that way they did, and he felt the shock and horror as it shuttled through her. His eyes closed and he tasted, gulped the thick ambrosia and felt the resistance leave her. She sagged.
He trembled.
Stop.
No.
Enough.
The pain was gone, now that he’d given in, but because he’d begun, he wanted more. Not to feed…but all. He needed her, all of her. His vision still blazed red, his hands shook as they imprinted on her skin…but he turned his head away. Pulled free.
Somehow, somehow he released her, stumbled back, swiping at his mouth as if he were a child.
Blood streaked the back of his hand, the smell filled his nose, and he looked at her, fighting the pull, the tempting urge that threatened to draw him back.
Their eyes met: hers dull with shock and pain.
Voss wiped his mouth again, swallowed the last bit of her that remained on his tongue. He trembled, his knees weak. But he could breathe.
Blood streamed from the four bites on her shoulder, in that delicate, soft spot just above her collarbone. It trailed in two crooked lines down into the pink bodice of her gown.
Voss struggled to clear his thoughts, but the blood—the smell—it filled his mind. Her taste, the soft, smooth flesh under his.
He turned away. The pain in his Mark had eased, but he wanted more.
Silence, and then soft gasping sounds drew his attention. Her unsteady breath, not quite sobs. Holding on to the other chair, Voss turned back to see Angelica unmoving. Sitting, ravaged, her hair yanked to one side, cascading over her unwounded shoulder.