Page 56 of Hexbound
"Why not?" she whispered, sliding into his lap, the rounded press of her arse settling tauntingly close to his aching cock. Clever hands began to toy with his collar. "You want it. I want it."
Somehow he caught her wrist. His mind was scalded blank with the sheer sensation of her body pressed against his. "I w-would be taking advantage of you."
A mysterious smile curled over her mouth, and then she turned and straddled him, pressing him back into the sofa. His traitorous body went willingly enough.
Leaning close to him, she whispered in his ear. "Maybe it is I who would be taking advantage of you?"
Bishop's mouth went dry. Her robe gaped, revealing a hint of her nightgown beneath it and the shallow valley of her small breasts. Hell. He could almost make out the indentation of her nipple, and her hand was making small strokes up his thigh now, almost like a cat flexing the pads of its feet against his skin.
He was lost. Balanced on a fine edge of pure need that knotted him up tight. His cock hardened again, flooding with heat and blood until he couldn't think straight.
"You want me," Verity whispered, and leaned her weight on his thigh as she reached up to brush those damning lips against his. She had the sweetest mouth in all creation.
Verity teased his lips open with her own, her tongue darting against his. Bishop's hand slid up her back and he pressed her against him, his erection riding against the smooth slope of her inner thigh. Good God. His eyes widened, and some sort of noise came from his throat, then she was parting his shirt collar, pushing her hands inside. Skin on skin. There was no teasing now. No gentle seduction. Verity plundered his mouth, and fuck it, but he didn't even remember why he'd thought to deny them both anymore.
It felt so good.
Verity sucked his tongue into her mouth, and Bishop nearly lost all of his composure. He curled his arms around her lithe body, grinding her against him. The silk robe slipped and slid around her, and suddenly it wasn't enough to merely hold her like this. He wanted more. He wanted skin.
Hands delving beneath her robe, he parted it, and she gave a soft sigh, tilting her head back to allow him access to her throat. "Yes."
Bishop tasted her jaw, then lower, his lips brushing over her pulse as his hands explored beneath her robe. Up her thighs, so smooth and soft. His thumbs dug in a little as his breathing harshened. What would it feel like to part her thighs and touch the wetness there?Yes.Every single inch of his body came alive in a way he'd never felt before. "Verity. Verity." The words came in harsh, ragged whispers as he kissed her collarbone and slid the robe from her shoulder.
Something pounded in his ears. Verity's heartbeat. He bit her throat, felt her pulse kick there, and suddenly he wasn't in the room anymore. A flash of Mya's face sprang to mind, her eyes wide with shock after he finally got her heart beating again, begging her for forgiveness, telling her that he hadn't meant to.... She'd looked at him as though he was a monster, and she was right to do so—
Bishop spilled out from under Verity, taking three long strides across the room as he tried to push the past away. Mya.Jesus. Verity. He couldn't allow what had happened before to happen again. It was long moments before he thought himself contained enough to face her.
Verity had tumbled onto his recently vacated cushions with a small squeak, her robe slipping off her shoulder.
He was wrong. He was nowhere near contained enough.
"It's been a long day." He meant the words as an explanation. Instead they came out hard and curt, and he knew it. Bishop winced. "Perhaps some sleep will serve to clear our heads so we can focus on this problem?"
From the look on her face, he was only digging himself deeper. Bishop stared at her helplessly. He had nothing to say. Nothing that could satisfactorily explain his problem. How to tell her he worried that he would kill her? That he'd lose control in the moment again, and start listening to her heartbeat the way he had before? Start stealing little pieces of her breath as his magic called at him.
"Good night," he said, and turned to flee.
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Chapter 13
"WHAT'S WRONG?"
Bishop looked up from the map table he was toying with, one brow lifted as though in enquiry. "Wrong?"
No sign of the disheveled man who'd fled from her in the sitting room. There had been secrets in his eyes then, and something terrified, but he hadn't told her the truth. Bishop was keeping secrets, and it vexed her.
The way he'd leapt away from her earlier still smarted, but he was no longer stiff and tense with distaste. An hour's grace had given him his composure back. "I thought you went to bed after dinner." That disastrous dinner—or the end of it, at least. "What are you doing?"
"I did go to bed," he said, his chest straining beneath his shirt as he tried to lift the map table and shift it slightly to the left. "Then I got up again." He sighed. "I couldn't stop my mind from working."
"I know the feeling," Verity muttered.
"Can't sleep?" he asked, tracing another golden sigil into the map table's silver casing with his finger. It flared bright, then sank into the metal, etching the rune as he withdrew his finger—and his sorcery.
"Not really." The sight distracted her. Power and the use of it were instinct to her; a gathering of that rush of power that bled through her, a simple thought, or a flick of her wrist, and then she was leaping through space and time. Other skills came harder to her: she could barely light a candle flame out of thin air, even as she could touch an object and track its owner across London.
What he did was another thing altogether. So complicated, with clearly defined rituals and runes to force its user into controlling their magic, rather than emoting it. It fascinated her, the things he could do.
