Marissa Day (17 page)

“And more than that, I expect.”

He nodded. “You are a very quick study, Miranda.”

“What are we to do, then?” She gestured helplessly.

Darius sighed and looked around. He spotted the book lying discarded on her table. “Do you want to read?”

Miranda thought of attempting to compose herself to concentrate on the book while he watched her with his brooding blue eyes. She shook her head.

Darius sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, and looked out the window again.

“If I had known I was receiving guests this afternoon, I might have thought to acquire a deck of cards, or a chessboard,” murmured Miranda.

Darius arched his brows. “Do you play chess?”

“Yes. Although it has been a while.”

“For me as well, but perhaps we can make do.” He moved a decorative round table from by the window and positioned it between the two chairs.

“Do you remember your lesson in channeling from this afternoon?”

“I think so.”

“I’m going to ask you to repeat it, then, but this time, try to modulate the amount of power you draw.” He held out his hand.

Miranda took a deep breath. “I will try.”

She took his hand. His palm was broad, warm and hard. The touch of it at once brought memories of his hands sliding along her heated skin, of his mouth on her, of his sighs and his fingers wrapped around hers, teaching her how to stroke his cock. Which reminded her forcibly of when Corwin had offered to teach her how to use her mouth on him. To her stunned embarrassment she felt her mouth begin to water, as if she stared at a confectioner’s window.

She closed her eyes before she could look into his. She did not want to see evidence of his disdain right now. She had to get herself under control. She had to concentrate.

Her eyes flew open. Darius was looking down at her, his blue eyes wide with a mixture of astonishment and fear. His cheeks had flushed deeply and she was aware her own face burned.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I did not mean for that to reach you.”

“It’s all right.” She swallowed. “We are both still learning.” Then another dreadfully mortifying thought came to her. “Did you ... Did I ... Could you tell what I was thinking?”

“Yes.” He reached out with his free hand and stroked the line of her jaw. His gentle touch set her skin tingling from her throat to her breasts, and her nipples began to tighten.

“Miranda.”

He leaned down and tentatively kissed her. His mouth was so soft against hers it almost brought tears to Miranda’s eyes. He released her hand so he could cradle her head, holding her in place while his tongue stroked her, tasting her lips, then parting them gently. He reached inside, slowly exploring. She could tell he was almost afraid to continue but, like her, he had no wish to stop. His emotion touched her as tenderly as his lips and she strove to open herself, to show him her feeling as he showed her his. He reached deeper. His tongue stroked the side of hers and a shiver of delicious longing ran through her.

Where she found the strength, she did not know, but Miranda wrapped her hands around his wrists and pulled away. He stared at her, and his worry brushed against her mind.
I’ve gone too far, assumed too much
...

“No,” she said in answer to the unspoken thought. “But, are you sure, Darius?” she asked softly. “Are you really sure?”

She stared into the depths of his blue eyes and saw the storms there, the scars of old wars waged in his proud and stubborn heart.

“Corwin would say I should ask you if you are sure.” He tried to make a jest of it, but Miranda refused to rise to the bait.

“This is not about Corwin,” she reminded him. “This is about you and me.”

Darius ran the back of his hand down her temple, and the side of her throat. At no time did he cease looking into her eyes. She felt her breath catch.
Say something. Say something, Darius. I cannot bear it much longer.

“Yes,” he said. “I am sure, Miranda.”

He pulled her to her feet and once again his mouth claimed hers. But this time was different. This time his kiss was frenzied. His tongue pressed deep inside her, stroking, plundering. She moaned and moved close, her tightly furled nipples rubbing against his hard chest. She was on fire. She could feel his rigid cock against her belly, despite all the layers of fabric and buckskin between them, and she wanted it, wanted him. Now, at once.

The touch of his voice in her mind lit an entirely new level of desire within her. The fires of her need blazed painfully bright. She felt hot moisture pooling between her legs as her pussy strained open. She ran her hands down his shoulders, his back, his tautly muscled ass and thighs, around to his bulging cock. He was so hard, so tightly confined. How could he stand it?

“Turn around,” Darius ordered.

Miranda obeyed, and turned in the circle of his arms. He laved her neck with his tongue and she groaned and almost lost her balance. He rested both hands on her shoulders for a moment, then ran them down her back, hard and swift, all the way to her ass. Miranda felt the tingling she now recognized as magic, and in a single instant, every hook and lace of her dress came undone. She gasped. Darius’s hands shoved underneath the muslin and cambric, finding her breasts and engulfing them. She groaned and leaned back against him, rubbing her now-bare ass against the ridge of his erection.

“It is good?” he whispered in her ear as he drew one hand down her belly to cup her damp curls. “Do you want more, Miranda? Do you want me?” He turned his hand so the side of it fit into her slit and began to stroke her folds back and forth. The pleasure of it made her tremble.

“Yes! Oh, yes, Darius!”

“I like that you’re wet and so hot.” His hand moved faster, pressed harder. He bent her forward over the arm he’d wrapped around her waist, so his cock could circle more firmly against her buttocks. “I like it very much. I like that I do this to you.”

“Yes,” she moaned, letting her knees buckle so she was truly riding his hard, hot hand. It was so good to have him stroking her folds roughly, while his cock sought to nestle itself between the halves of her ass. But it was not enough. It could never be enough just like this.

He turned her again, claiming her mouth for another searing kiss while he shoved back the loosened dress and the shift beneath, exposing her skin to him. Miranda found his erection, fumbled with the buttons on his fly, almost weeping in her need to hold his throbbing cock in her hands.

Darius seized her hands, pressing both palms flat against his cock. She felt a wave of pure, heated sensuality pass through her, coming unmistakably and undeniably from him, and the buttons sprang open. She gasped and sighed and reached into his breeches to wrap her fingers around his huge, hard cock.

She stroked him once, and he groaned against her mouth. Delight filled her as she handled him, stroking his shaft with one hand, fondling his tight balls with the other. Boldly she thrust her tongue into his mouth, taking charge of the trembling, shivering kiss.

Oh, no, Miss Prosper. Not yet.
He grabbed her hands again and pinned them behind her back with both of his so she was trapped in the circle of his hard arms.
Not until you beg for it.

With one sudden motion he scooped her into his arms and tossed her down onto the bed. Miranda’s breath left her and she gasped, struggling to sit up. By the time she did, Darius was stripping off coat, waistcoat and shirt, and tossing them on top of his boots and breeches. He was magnificent in the daylight, even more so than he had been in the darkness. His eyes glowed with desire, and the head of his massively erect cock gleamed in the sunlight that seeped in around the heavy curtains. She stared at him, utterly mesmerized.

Darius was on top of her in an instant. He spared her none of his weight, but pressed down hard, trapping her beneath him as he claimed more kisses. He felt so good, so hard against her. Miranda moaned and struggled, not to get free, but to rub herself against every inch of him. She could not get enough. The heat of his skin against hers was intoxicating. His cock against her stomach, her thighs, was maddening.

His mouth moved down her throat, to her breasts. He opened wide and licked one ruched nipple before he took her in deeply. Miranda cried out and knotted her fingers in his golden hair. He was merciless, licking and sucking roughly. Then, as if one was not enough, he pushed her breasts together and captured both nipples between his lips at once, dabbing his tongue against each of them.

“Oh, yes!” cried Miranda as he plumped and sipped and sucked. “Yes!”

How hot are you now?
He withdrew one of his hands, setting her breasts free, and thrust two fingers into her.
Hot enough to beg?

Yes. Please. Please.
She imagined him inside her, thrusting all the way in with his huge cock. He liked it hard and fast, and he wanted it now. She knew he did; she could feel his desire invading her mind, twining with her own need.
I want you. I want you just like this. Please, Darius.

For a single heartbeat he reared back. Then he thrust inside her, hard and deep, right up to the hilt so she felt his balls brush her folds. She cried and wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him right down on top of her again so she could thrust her tongue inside his mouth. He opened for her, as hot and willingly as she opened for him.

He began to thrust hard and fast, just as she had imagined, just as she had so desperately desired. Darius filled her, stretched her, gave her no time to draw breath. She could only cling to him, helpless, while his hands cradled her ass, holding her in position while he rode her. She could do nothing but feel him, all of him. Her body was beyond her control. Her pussy tightened and strained open and tightened again in time with his maddening rhythm. Her hips struggled against his hands but that only intensified her pleasure, which only made her writhe harder, kiss harder, cry out.

“Darius!” she cried out. “Darius!”

And he thrust in once more and she did come. Unbearable waves of pleasure poured through her, racking her whole body, but even then Darius did not stop, but fucked her harder and faster, his hips spanking hers, and even that only added to their pleasure. After a searing eternity she felt him tighten inside her and she called his name again and he slammed into her and she arched her hips.

And as he cried her name into her mind she felt his pleasure pour through her, felt the liquid heat of her own body surrounding his cock, felt the power and pleasure of the wild rhythm of his climax and how it drove him mad. That divine madness filled her and she was coming again, soaring on the storm of Darius’s pleasure mixed and redoubled with her own pure pleasure of mind, burning pleasure of body, locked in a single ecstatic embrace.

“Where is your wife,Sinjohn?”

Sinjohn Thayer bowed, keeping his eyes averted from the shining figure in front of him. In the darkness the greensward of Hyde Park was a place of shadows and mystery. In the heart of London the unwary could be lost if they trod here at the wrong time. This was one of the thin places of the world, one of the ancient places where the Fae could walk easily because Smith and his fools did not believe that such a place could exist right under their noses.

“Lady Thayer is leading one of Smith’s fools through a dance,” he said. “It will end with him dead and another Catalyst in our hands as part of our gift to Their Glorious Majesties.”

“Well-done.” The voice poured into him sweet and strong as heady wine. The figure in front of him was slender and suffused with a beauty that went beyond the merely human. He knew not whether it was male or female, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had done well, that he proved himself to be a true servant of Their Glorious Majesties, unlike his traitorous father.

For generations the Thayers had secretly served the Fae court and held Hallowgate in trust for them. But his father, the previous Lord Sinjohn Thayer, had broken that faith. Sinjohn would never forget the day his father had brought him into the study and tried to tell him that he’d been wrong. The Fae were not worthy of their worship and loyalty. Their immortality, their beauty, their power, were but disguises. He had gone so far as to blame the deaths of Sinjohn’s mother and sister on the attentions the Fae knights had condescended to show them.

Sinjohn had not been glad to kill his father. Indeed, had it not been an order from the Fae Queen Herself, he might not have found the nerve. But so severe had been the treason that even kneeling before her with his hands still red with his father’s blood had not been enough. She had demanded sacrifice.