Page 169 of Immortal Rose

Watching her, Hugh felt his hunger sharpen acutely, its fangs lengthening.

“His office and apartments are upstairs,” he said, keeping his voice low.

Viola seemed to startle awake from a dream, looking back at him through that mask, identical to his own. Her eyes were feverishly bright as she nodded, her tongue darting out to lick at her bottom lip.

The linen of Hugh’s shirt rasped against his skin like sand as he moved—stalked—toward her. His entire body came alive to every sensation, as if his nerves were scattered cinders. The cool smoke stroked his face. The shift of his cloak against his shoulders, the tightening of his breeches with each long stride, nearly sent him into a state of mindless bliss.

Hugh’s eyes fell on her silky gloves, and his mind could think of nothing else but how they would feel against his face. His chest. His aching cock.

The air itself bloomed sweeter in his lungs, until his mind swam with it. It swamped his every thought, desire carving away the rest of the world until only they existed in it.

The smoke drifted idly between them, swirling around her shadowed figure, hugging her swaying hips as she followed the curve of the hallway. The scent drew out a slow, drugging heat from the center of his chest as he followed a step behind her. He heard her breath hitch, as if she, too, had felt what this had become.

A hunt. A chase.

The first door appeared at her left, the candle on the sconce extinguished. Occupied. The next as well. The sounds of lovemaking sighed through the lilting song of a distant quartet, of clinking glasses, merriment. Moans. Reverent pleas. Flesh on flesh . . .

The gentle whisking of her dress against her legs, the rattle of the beads, the catch of her breath, that trail of perfume—every one of his senses heightened to absorb her into him.

Viola slowed once more as she stepped into a pool of flickering candlelight. Above her, the painted constellations on the coved ceiling danced with unnatural light, the silver paint turning the moody silk iridescent. She had never looked more like a fairy to him than she did as she turned, her body lined with that same pearlescent light, to meet his gaze. Her red lips parted on her panting breath, begging to be claimed.

Consenting, at last, to be caught.

Her body trembled with the same need that racked his own. A bolt of lust cleaved him as her hand skimmed down the front of her chest again, down over the thin fabric barely containing her straining breasts, exactly as he had imagined himself doing. She shuddered at the sensation, and he lost the last piece of his rational mind.

Hugh could not remember why he had ever denied himself. None of it mattered now. Nothing mattered but having her, loving her, driving himself deep into her body until his yearning soul met hers.

He could not say if he crossed that distance or she, only that one moment they were apart, and the next, whole.

Hugh kissed her with the hunger of a starving man, the sensation of her soft lips sending a rush of euphoric pleasure rippling through his body. Everywhere she touched seared him to his bones, the sensations so heady, so very intense, he disappeared into them, became them.

He ripped away his gloves, needing to touch the soft skin of her face, to bury his fingers in that tousled hair. She opened her lips on a gasp, her tongue seeking the stroke of his with such innocent ardor it set his blood on fire.

Desperate, undone, the last grip he’d had on his control burned away as Viola’s hands slid beneath his cloak, skimming over the ridges of his stomach, along the edge of his breeches.

His lips trailed over her cheeks, her jaw, her throat, and she shivered at each touch, murmuring little pleas that drew a growl from his throat—“yes,” “please,” “Hugh.”

Without realizing it, he had walked them toward the nearest door, where a candle still burned. She reached back blindly for the handle, as if she couldn’t stand to tear her mouth away from his ravening kisses.

Inside the dark chamber, he spun her back against the door, pressing her to it, giving her writhing body the friction it was seeking. Her head fell back as she urged her own hips forward. Her little hands ripped at the clasp of his cloak until it fluttered to the ground. His stomach tightened, jumping as she skimmed her hands over it. God, he wanted to do the same to her, to touch her, to know her, everywhere.

Closer, came his desperate thought, need to get closer.

He lifted her onto the small chest of drawers beside the door, the new angle allowing him to kiss her deeper still. And then he had what he’d so badly wanted, the gorgeous reality of it beyond imagining. He tugged at her bodice, wild and aching for her, freeing her breasts.

Viola moaned, shaking as his lips descended to the soft skin of her throat, his tongue skimming along the hollows, teasing the hard points of her nipples with his fingers until, finally, he replaced them with his worshipping mouth.

She arched into the touch with a cry, and it was the most beautiful, shattering thing he’d ever seen. Her pale skin flushed, her heavy-lidded gaze overcome with the same wonder and desire he felt. He wanted her, craved her, and that desire was gentle and shocking and demanding and hopeful beyond any hope he’d ever allowed himself.

One of her hot hands tightened at the nape of his neck as the other finally found his cock. Hugh nearly spent then, his vision flashing white with a complete, obliterating lust as she clawed open the buttons of his fall and her gloved hand closed around his length.

Hugh’s heart thundered throughout his entire body, frantic with need, as if she could disappear at any moment, vanish into the incense smoke slipping beneath the door from the hallway.

He gripped her hand, holding her there, showing her how to please him, breaking their kiss only to rest his cheek against hers. His groan was an accusation, a plea: This is what you’ve done to me, this is how I need you. And when her clever hand had the way of it, the pressure, the long, delicious stroke, he drew her skirt and petticoat up over her legs as if revealing art, over her stockings, her garters, and the soft, sensitive skin of her thighs.

He parted them, stepping closer—not close enough, not close enough—and trailed his knuckles softly over the exposed skin, up, as she had teased him in the coach, up, already feeling her wetness for him on her thighs. He caught her swollen bottom lip between his teeth, nipping it, his body humming with purely male satisfaction at the evidence of her desire.

You’re mine, he thought, only mine—