Prince of Hearts (25 page)

It was the vodka. He was drunk, and so was she. She could not possibly mean anything she was saying. But his heart was racing now, as if he stood at the edge of a very tall cliff, poised to jump.

"Aline..." he began. It came out as a low growl. A low, pleading growl. He needed her to leave, or he needed to leave this room and escape the madness that gripped him. Before he said something ... or did something ... he'd regret. But he couldn't seem to move.

"You've only been here a few years. Surely there is no need to leave,” she persisted.

He shook his head. "I've lived for too long in this life. I never meant to stay here in the first place. But you came along..." he broke off. There. He'd said too much already. The vodka had claimed the last of his discretion.

Her eyes went wide. Something like disbelief crossed her face.

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. Perhaps if he stayed like this long enough, she'd disappear.

"Sasha," she said when the silence had become unbearable. "You needn't leave because of what happened. Because of me...”

He laughed darkly and tugged at the ends of his hair. "It is precisely because of you I must leave. You really have no idea, do you?"

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

He lifted his head and met her perplexed, anguished eyes. He'd tell her the truth, then. Or most of it, anyway. That would scare her away, as nothing else could.

Or so he reasoned in his inebriation.

"I want you,” he said frankly. “It was never an act for me,
milaya
. I think I've wanted you for years, but lately ... I've taken to dreaming of you at night, wondering if you have freckles hidden beneath your clothes. I wonder if all of your skin is as soft as I suspect, if you taste as sweet as you smell ... all over. I want
inside you
. Do you understand?"

She just stared at him, speechless. She licked her lips, and there was something in her dazed expression that fired his blood even more than his own wicked words. Made him grow hard as a rock.

God
.

He should stop. The small voice of reason that remained lucid in his head told him to stop. But he couldn't.

"I want to do unspeakable things to you until you scream with pleasure. In the last five minutes, I've imagined a hundred ways to take you on that divan. Fully clothed. Naked. With nothing but your spectacles on."

She made a strangled sound in her throat, her cheeks growing rosy. She couldn't seem to look away from him any more than he could look away from her. He could hear her harsh breathing from across the distance that separated them, second only to his own.

He gripped the arms of his chair even harder, willing himself not to move. "So this is why I'm leaving. Being near you has become unbearable. I have no control left where you are concerned,
milaya
."

Nothing but the sound of their breathing broke the stillness that followed. How close he was to crossing the distance separating them and demonstrating his words.

"You ... you mock me!" she breathed at last with quiet devastation, dropping her gaze.

His heart sank with disappointment and anger. Why was it so unbelievable to her? He wanted her madly. It was as if he'd woken up one day to find that his parochial little secretary had been replaced by some alluring she-demon determined to make his life a torment. But he supposed Finch had not changed so much as he'd been forced to take the blinders off and see the truth. He was smitten. He'd spent the last five years constantly thinking about what he could say to irritate her, what he now realized was just an elaborate act of foreplay on his part.

Now he couldn’t stop thinking about what he wanted to
do
to her.

She only had to look at his arousal pressing against the front of his trousers to see the truth for herself, but she was too innocent, too oblivious, to even contemplate such an idea. Which made him want her even more. But maybe it was for the best she held onto her illusions.

He gave her a bitter smile. "You may believe as you like. But if you don't wish to discover the truth, I would suggest you leave. Immediately. Fyodor can escort you back to Llewellyn House."

Whatever spell his confessions had woven finally snapped. She gave him a sidelong glance as she finally stood up, a bit unsteadily. She looked like she wanted to say something, then thought better of it and started for the door.

He wondered if this was the last time he'd see her, walking away from him, slightly drunk, without ever knowing how much he craved her.

It hurt.

He squeezed his eyes shut and settled back into his chair. When he heard the study door open and shut, he released a breath he'd not even known he was holding. He pounded his head against the headrest. He cursed in Russian, then in French for good measure.

What had he been thinking, saying those ridiculous things? He'd poured out his worst fantasies, and she hadn't even believed him. If she didn't despise him enough already, that should tip the scales. When he thought his life couldn't get any worse, it did.

He needed more vodka.

When he opened his eyes, however, he saw Finch standing in front of him with a lost expression on her face. His heart lurched. Surely the vodka had conjured her up. Surely...

"Five minutes," she said, all too real.

He tried, but couldn't even manage to stand. He fell back to his chair and gaped at her. "Why are you still here?"

She approached him until she hovered inches from his knees, not meeting his eyes. "Just sit there, please, for five minutes, without moving. I must see...”

He shut his eyes again, not daring to believe what was happening. "What must you see…”

His remaining words strangled in his throat as he felt her hand touch the skin just above his false Necklace. The raging lust that reared up inside of him at her touch sobered him immediately. His breath caught in his throat, and his hand shot out to cover her own, to bring it high, to his lips ... or lower, to where his painful erection now strained against his trousers. He couldn't decide which he wanted more.

"No moving. Five minutes," she said, near his ear now. Her breath caressed his skin, causing gooseflesh to rise. He froze and dropped his hands to the chair arms and gripped them tight. He was afraid if he touched her now, he would not be able to stop himself from devouring her whole. He didn't even dare open his eyes.

She brought her other hand up to join the first, and they felt around the edge of the Iron Necklace to the secret clasp in the back. Every brush of her skin against his own was a torture. At last, she worked the clasp free, and she removed the disguise from around his neck. She sucked in her breath as she touched her fingers to his bare, unmarked neck. She stroked his skin as lightly as a feather against silk, and he couldn't help it. He shuddered.

When at last he looked into her eyes, now level with his own, he tried to fathom what was in them. They were chocolate now, dark and secretive, and filled with uncertainty. And desire.

He could not be mistaken. But what did she want? Did she even know? He groaned in agony. "What do you want, Aline? What in hell's name do you want?"

Confusion darkened her brow, clouded her eyes. She bit her lip. "I ... I don't know. Just five minutes to see..."

"See what?"

She shook her head. "Neverfeel ... Nether ...
Charlie
never made me feel as you did. As you do."

He growled at the mention of that loathed name.

"I just want to see..." She stared at him, lost. At length, she glanced down, where her fingers still caressed his neck. Then she trailed them down his shirtfront, pausing over the area of his heart, which had begun to pound against his ribcage, as if it wanted to burst free. "I want to see your heart," she said, placing her whole palm over it.

Her tender touch nearly unmanned him. He wanted desperately to hold her, to assuage this pounding hunger eating away at his battered soul, but he could do nothing but sit there in disbelief as she tortured him with those warm, stroking fingers. She stared down at him, bafflement clouding her features, as if she couldn't believe what she was doing any more than he could.

"Yes, yes, God," he tore out. "Anything."

His words seemed to startle her out of her distant reverie. She shook her head and leaned in closer until he was drowning in her once more. She began unfastening the buttons of his shirt and waistcoat with shaking fingers. She peeled back the edges, exposing his chest to his navel. She stroked her hands tentatively through the dusting of dark, curling hair, as if surprised by the sight of it.

Then she found the raised, jagged scar, running down the length of his sternum. She traced it with her fingertip, and he sucked in his breath, afraid to move. No one had ever touched him there.

It had never been like this before. She barely touched him, and all of his resolve began to crumble. It was all he could do to keep his hands at his sides. It had gone far enough. Too far. They were drunk. She was drunk. He should have walked away long ago, before he found himself in this untenable position. But it was the last thing his body wanted, the last thing his soul wanted.

"How painful it must have been," she murmured. "But why did it not heal?"

It took him a few moments to focus his brain away from her caresses enough to answer her. "Something went wrong. The man who ... turned me broke something."

"A broken heart," she said with a wry quirk of her lips, "that never quite healed."

He looked away from her fingers on his heaving chest to her face. She was watching him with such
tenderness
that he truly began to panic.

"Aline ..." he began. But then she flattened her palm against his racing heart, and he groaned.

"How quickly it beats," she murmured. Then she melted into him. That was the only word to describe it. Her legs bumped against his knees, her head tilted forward. Their faces hovered inches apart, and he could feel the hot, sweet breath of her against his lips. She trembled all over. "You feel it too. Do you not? You weren't mocking me...”

"Never," he whispered.

"Do you want me to kiss you, Sasha?"

His heart thrummed in gratitude and fear. "Yes, kiss me. Kiss me...”

She closed her eyes and leaned forward, touching her mouth to his. He made himself sit there as her lips, soft and tentative, brushed against his. Then her lips touched his cheek, his chin, his eyelids, his forehead. He'd never experience anything so sweet, so tender and so terrifying. It shook him to his toes. Kissing Finch was harrowing.

She stopped, shifted back, studying him like some unsolvable equation. "Even when you don't kiss me back, it's nothing like...”

He surged forward and captured her lips again. If she mentioned the bone-hunter's name one more time, he didn't know what he would do. With a little gasp, she slid her arms around his shoulders, pressing close. When her lips parted, he seized the opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue, tasting her, savoring her. God, she was so sweet. Every nerve ending in his body clamored for more.

She seemed to feel the same, for her arms tightened their hold, and her mouth widened. Her tongue tangled with his, meeting his onslaught head-on. Their kiss deepened, became nearly brutal in its intensity. He felt her arms slipping from his shoulders, her fingers running over his face, through his hair, drawing him closer. He clung to the arms of his chair, afraid to unmoor himself. He was hanging onto his restraint by a hair's breadth.

Then he felt her shift, and suddenly she was sitting in his lap, straddling him. He could feel the warm weight of her legs across his thighs. He could feel her breasts crushed against his chest. She broke their kiss, and her head went down, her hair tickling his nose. He gasped at the feel of her lips against his throat, the feel of her hands sliding over his bare chest again.

His vision went black. His body lurched with desire. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since that first kiss, yet it felt like a lifetime, as if he'd never known anything but this exquisite torture. He let out a ragged sob and threw his head back.

"Oh, God. Aline ... Aline ... You'd better be
sure
. I won't stop, if you stay another moment."

She stilled, shifted her weight on top of him, and raised her head. She was cherry red and panting. Clearly, she’d felt the very large evidence of his arousal at last, and she’d understood his warning. She’d come to her senses. He nearly cried out in his despair. He didn't know what he'd do if she attempted to leave him now, so bloody unfulfilled.

He dug his nails into the chair arms until the fabric ripped and the upholstery popped out, preparing himself to let her go without a struggle.

But then he nearly jumped out of his skin at what Finch did to him next. He hissed as he felt one of her hands reach down between their bodies, caressing the outline of his cock, her eyes wide.

So much for scaring her off.

She stroked him again. And again, and he moaned, burying his face against her shoulder. She had no idea what she was doing to him.

"Stop, Aline. Stop."

"I'm hurting you?" she asked, pausing, her breathing as ragged as his own, her eyes behind her crooked spectacles bright with vodka and trepidation and a healthy dose of lust. God, she was spectacular at the moment, incandescent to his eyes. A true miniature goddess.

He laughed darkly. "No,
milaya
. You're not hurting me."
But I'm afraid I'll hurt you.
She was so fragile, so dear. And he loved her, God help them both.

She gave him a shaky smile and ran her finger along his jaw, angled his face upwards once more, and began to kiss him again, hard and fierce and hungry. He could feel the warm, hidden place between her legs gliding against the fall of his breeches. Three layers of fabric at the very least separated them, yet he felt the heat of her, the softness of her, as if they were skin to skin.

She rubbed against him, so innocent in her ardor, and the world seemed to shift around him, knocking the air from his body. He couldn't breathe any more. He couldn't seem to do anything but feel her, wrapped around him so eagerly, so earnestly.