My Demon's Kiss

“Aye, you might be right.” He turned her in a circle again, a slow, sweet lover’s dance. “So you only mean to take back what is yours.”

“Just so.” He took her hands and turned her in a figure before him with such grace, she could almost hear the music. “Tell me more about those Irish dances.”

“As you will, my lady.” She couldn’t know how beautiful she seemed to him, he thought, a nymph crowned with flowers, dancing in his arms. His frozen heart ached just to see her. “My father was a bard as well as the duke’s castellan, so he always sang and played the harp.”

“Your father was a musician?” she said with a laugh.

“Aye, he was.” He lifted her off of her feet again, making her laugh again as he kissed her. “And a poet as well.”

“A poet?” she echoed, touching his cheek. “In faith, I am impressed, sir knight.” She rose up on tiptoe to kiss his lightly stubbled jaw. “And is your father’s son a poet, too?”

“I was.” He stopped dancing to caress her face, thinking of the lays he could sing on the beauty of her eyes if he only had the freedom. “I was a great many things, love, once upon a time.” He kissed her now in earnest, and she seemed to understand, enfolding him in her embrace as she opened her mouth to his. He pressed her closer then turned her around in a figure. “You’re a good dancer,” he teased with a smile as she laughed.

“Am I, in faith?” She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his bare, thick-muscled arms. And to think, the first time she had seen him, she’d thought he might be a monk. “’Tis a wonder, since I’ve never danced before.”

“In faith, I can hardly believe it.” His hands encircled her waist, admiring the softness of her curves, and she giggled, flinching away, ticklish.

“I’ve never done a lot of things.” She lay her hands against his chest, the sheer power of him frightening and beautiful at once. “As you could tell, no doubt.”

“I had a slight suspicion.” He touched her chin as she looked down, turning her face back to his. “I should tell you that I’m sorry.” Her eyes widened, and he smiled. “But I am not.”

Her frown melted into a smile. “Thank God.” He laughed, and she kissed him, her hands sliding over his shoulders. He bent and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off of her feet. “I am not sorry, either.” She brushed back the dark silk of his still-damp hair to press a warm kiss to his cheek.

“Darling…” He carried her to the high bed, kissing her mouth as they went, but rather than laying her back on the coverlet, he turned and sat down himself, holding her over him. She framed his beautiful face in her hands, finally able to reach him, to touch him asshe’d longed to do for so long. She kissed his forehead, the pale white curve of his high-arched cheek, the dark shadow of his lashes as his hands moved under the shirt she still wore to cradle the curve of her behind. She pulled the shirt off over her head, dragging the flowers from her hair in the process, then kissed him, holding his face to her own as he lifted her onto him, moaning into his mouth as he slid into her.

Their love was softer this time, less desperate, a delicious tension building slowly inside her like scratching an exquisitely torturous itch. She bent her forehead to his shoulder, using the strength of her thighs to rock over him, and he gasped, all but panting as his hands caressed her back.

He kissed her throat, the throb of her pulse no more than a delicate goad to his passion after his orgy of feeding. Her hair fell like a curtain all around them, and he gathered it up in his hand, inhaling her scent as he drew her head back, arching her throat up to his mouth. She moved faster over him, and he wrapped her in his arms, shifting her closer on his lap, driving deeper inside of her with every stroke, and she cried out his name, plaintive and sweet. “It’s all right,” he promised, a kiss against her ear. “I have you… I won’t let you fall.”

“No…” She twined her arms around his back, molding her body to his, waves of pleasure making her feel dizzy as he filled her up, the two of them now one. “I trust you.” She clung to him with all the strength her melting limbs could muster as he rolled over her, pressing her into the soft mattress, their bodies still joined. Only when he drove in harder did she let him go, her hands clutching the coverlet, her hips arched up to his. Her climax came slowly this time, rolling through her with such violence, she was blind, the whole world going black. But Simon was there, still holding her, kissing her cheek, and even in the void she felt protected and safe. I love you, she thought, feeling him erupt inside her, his own rolling shudder as he fell into her arms. But even in her innocence, she knew better than to say the words aloud. Nothing had changed; he still thought he was cursed. She could so easily drive him away.

Simon kissed her shoulder, then nuzzled her breast, drunk on the warmth of her flesh even now. He raised up to kiss her mouth, then pulled the heavy bedrug over them. “Come here.” He drew her to him, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulders.

“That was nice,” she said, and he smiled as she yawned, as unaffected as a child.

“I’m glad you thought so.” He kissed the back of her hand. “As the cad who has ruined you, I feel obliged to please.”

“Stop it,” she said with an uncharacteristic giggle as she snuggled against his shoulder. “I am not ruined, and you are not a cad.”

“Is that so, my lady?” He stroked her hair. “What would you call it?”

“Never you mind.” She turned her head to kiss his throat, feeling very drowsy and comfortable. “I should thank you.” She laced her fingers with his. “Whatever it’s called, I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to do it.”

“Dancing,” he said, making her laugh. “It’s called dancing.”

“Ooh, so that’s what dancing is like.” The moon had begun to set outside her window, a glowing orange ball. The morning would be coming soon. “I didn’t realize.” She ran a possessive hand along his arm, trying not to think about the moment he would have to leave her. “No wonder everyone gets so excited about it.”

“Exactly.” He kissed her brow. “What made you think you’d never get to dance, my lady? Didn’t you expect to marry?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “I could never really imagine it. My father always expected that I would, of course. He used to talk about it all the time, the man who would protect Charmot when he was gone.” Her hand closed half-consciously around his wrist. “But I never thought… it never seemed to have much to do with me, really. Do you see what I mean?”

“I think so,” he answered, watching her face. In truth, he had never thought about what it would be like to be a woman, treated as chattel. The number of his own choices in life had gone from one to a hundred when Francis, the duke of Lyan, had made him a knight, but Isabel, born noble as she was, had never had but one destiny before her at which she could fail or succeed. His fate was at least partly of his own making, cursed or not, but what could she have done to change her path?

“Then when Papa died… it just seemed so sudden and so wrong, as if someone had made a mistake. I kept thinking that I must be dreaming, that soon I would wake up, and he would be there to take care of me again.” His arm tightened around her, and she smiled. “But I didn’t wake up, of course, and the king sent a stranger to be my husband. I should have let him, I suppose…” She let her voice trail off for a moment, hoping he would disagree, but he said nothing. “It just seemed so ridiculous that I should marry someone my father had never met, that his castle should go to some stranger,” she went on instead. “So Brautus helped me.”

He shifted on the pillow, cuddling her close. “Did you miss your mother?”

“I didn’t,” she admitted with a hollow laugh. “I didn’t know her well enough to miss her; I had never known her. Only Papa. She was like a ghost he could see that I could not, this dead peasant girl haunting the castle. Sometimes I miss her now.” She turned to face him, pillowing her head on her own arm. “What about your mother and father? Are they still in Ireland?”