Page 140 of The Poison Daughter
I shake my head. “This room was blessed by Holly with unique and powerful protection magic. It’s a safe room, and its protection can be transferred to the person of my choosing. I’ve made it so that you are the only one who can get into it.”
She eyes the space with the kind of skepticism that suggests she’d never trustanyspace to be safe. Her mouth twitches in a hint of a smile. “I noticed the door the other day. I was wondering what was in here.”
“I bet you were.” A locked door inside my bedroom closet would have been impossible for her to ignore. I knew she’d poke around the first chance she had.
Blood drips from her finger onto the floor. I snatch her wrist and curl my hand around the wound. The cut from the lock on the door isn’tdeep. It only takes a moment before it’s healed. She looks at me expectantly until I pull out a handkerchief and wipe her skin clean.
“If this is something she could do, why not do the entire house—the entire fort, for that matter?” Harlow asks.
It’s a clever question. Truthfully, Holly did protect the front gate as well as the central gates of each level of the fort.
“It took her a tremendous amount of magic just to protect this small room. There are a few other spaces in the fort she protected this way. She would have done more if she’d had the time, but as you know, anyone with holy fire spends a good deal of their magic on that.”
She hums in agreement, then places a hand on my back. “Thank you.”
She sounds so sincere that my guard is immediately up.
She shoves me toward the door. I slam into the invisible magic boundary, like I’ve been shoved into a brick wall. My teeth sink into my lip.
When I turn to face her, she grins and reaches up to swipe her thumb over the wetness there.
Her hand comes away from my mouth bloody, and she holds my gaze as she licks the stain from her finger. The look in her eyes is a dare, same as the one I saw in them yesterday during communion. She doesn’t understand that the more she shows me her claws, the more I want to feel them.
“Just testing for a lie,” she says, bumping my shoulder as she steps across the threshold into the one place in Mountain Haven where I can’t follow her.
The silk clings to her ass as she adds an extra sway to her hips. The draping in the back dips low enough to show off the lace bustier she’s wearing beneath. The dress is sinful. It was stupid of me to make her wear it.
She lowers herself into the chair, and I don’t miss the way she sits gingerly.
“A bit sore, wife?”
She leans back, her knees parting, and her lips tug into a wicked smile. “That would please you, wouldn’t it? To know you’ve left me aching.”
Deep animal satisfaction surges through me.
Her fingers scrunch the silk until the slit over her right thigh is high enough for me to see the little ribbon stays attaching her thigh-highs to the lingerie I picked for her. I close my eyes for a moment, imagining the red against her pale skin. When I blink my eyes open, her hand has migrated higher, moving lazily under the thin silk.
“What are you?—”
“Enjoying my new private space, husband.” She sighs and pushes her lips into a pout. “Are you sure you don’t want to help?”
This is the real test. She didn’t believe me crashing into the magical boundary, so now she’s trying to push me. I loathe that it’s working.
Harlow places her heels on opposite arms of the chair and pulls her undergarments to the side, baring herself to me obscenely. My mouth goes dry as I watch two of her slick fingers circle her clit and then push inside her pussy.
My cursed sharper senses call up the taste of her and the feel of her soft skin effortlessly.
She moans. She’s throwing down a challenge, and I want to punish her so badly. Last night was a soft thing. Sitting gingerly isn’t enough. I want to slap her fine ass and fuck her until she’s too sore to sit for a week.
I pace the closet a few times and then press my hands against the doorframe. “Come here,” I snap.
“Make me.”
I freeze. But her face is fixed in defiance. She’s just playing games to see if I can get to her. It’s tempting to try to find some way around the boundary, but there’s only one I know of, and it would require manipulation magic.
I look around the closet for anything that might lure her out, and my gaze falls on the box wrapped in a large ribbon. The other part of her wedding gift.
“We have toys, you know? Books to get you in the mood as well.”
