Page 54 of The Assassin and the Libertine
“Nothing,” she lied. “You were right, is all I’m saying. But we can’t just give up on this investigation now. Especially not with…with Henri emerging. I’ve given almost everything to come this far and I won’t stop until it’s finished. If I do, I will have betrayed my friends, The Order, Michel’s memory, and myself, in vain.”
She turned her back to me and her shoulders slumped in fatigue.
“I don’t know why you came tonight, Étienne. After everything I gave you, I left you to your solitude. I came here to finish things on my own. But you are back, wanting me to let you in again and to just pick up where we left off. I don’t know if it’s out of guilt, or self-preservation, or morbid curiosity, or perhaps so you can feel like you have some kind of strange sexual power over me. Whatever it is,I do not know,”she stressed. “But…”
She faced me, tears gone, her face a study in fierce determination and exquisite beauty. Whether it was her pearlescent gown or the force of her will alone, she seemed to glow with an unnatural light.She was magnificent.
“What I do know, Étienne, is that I do not need your blessing or your approval to finish what we started. I will do it on my own—for Jeanne, for Michel, for the people of Paris, and most importantly, for me. Your involvement, or the lack of it, will not stand in my way. And if it becomes necessary, I will go through you.”
She stepped toward me, eyes narrowed and chin raised in defiance. She squared her shoulders and crowded me back against the desk.
“Now, tell me, Étienne. Why are you here? Why did you come tonight? What doyouwant fromme?”
Everything, Daphne. I want everything. I want your body, your mind, your heart. I want to make love to you every dawn before I sleep so that I will dream of you every day. I want to spend my nights finding ways to challenge your incomparable wit and trying to draw forth that small smile that makes my dead heart beat anew. I want to give you pleasure and happiness and all that my wretched body and damned soul has to offer. I came here tonight for you—to see you safe and toprotect you so that I can let you go, but God help me, I don’t think I’m strong enough.
I briefly considered prevaricating, but the bold frankness on her face prevented me from lying to her outright. I met her gaze unflinchingly, a cool smile on my lips. It was becoming harder for me to affect an air of detachment when every part of me felt like it was reaching for her. She waited for my answer, but because I couldn’t lie and I wouldn’t tell her the truth, I had no other alternative.
I pulled her to me and kissed her.
I could taste her conflict—torn between her body’s desire for me and her mind’s recoil at that need. I didn’t give her time to think—to object. I licked her lips and she opened to me on a resigned sigh, meeting my tongue stroke for stroke. She tasted like brandy and fire, igniting every nerve in my body. I tugged at the neckline of her bodice, gently lifting her breast from the satin. I lightly caressed her pretty, pink nipple until it hardened beneath my touch. Breaking from the kiss, I bent and put my lips to it, sucking at it delicately until Daphne threw her head back and moaned in a rough tremor. I scraped my teeth across it and lifted her other breast from her gown, kneading it softly in my hand. She gasped and the sound went straight to my cock, already stiff and straining in my breeches. Mindless with want, I almost didn’t hear her tortured, soft-spoken words.
“So, this is what you want from me. I hate you for it, Étienne, because—damn us both—I want it, too.”
I ignored the guilt snaking through me, resolving to devote myself solely to her pleasure in this moment. I lowered my hands to her waist and pushed her back against the wall of bookshelves in the darkest corner of the library, then dropped to my knees. For once, it felt right for me to be here, kneeling before this powerful, luminous goddess.
“Étienne, what are you?—?”
I bunched her gown and lifted it, gazing upon pale blue stockings and the leather garter that strapped her flintlock pistol to her upper thigh. A growl of desperate lust issued from my chest at the sight of the contrast. Delicate, proper undergarments topped with lethal practicality. If that didn’t sum up Daphne as a woman, I didn’t know what did.
Her hands had threaded their way through my hair, and I took them in my own. I handed her the bundle of skirts.
“Keep it there, Duchesse,” I purred, sliding my hands up her legs. “I’m going to need both of my hands for this.”
Her eyes danced with excitement, but her mouth was a tight line.
“You say I have some kind of sexual power over you?” I blew a stream of cool air against the thatch of blonde curls at the apex of her thighs. Her knees trembled.
“Perhaps you do,” she gasped. “Perhaps it is this way for all of your women.”
Pleasure thrummed through me at her ill-disguised jealously and I slid my hands further up her thighs, caressing her curls with my thumbs.
“Perhaps you are afraid to admit that you desire me, Duchesse,” I said, lightly rubbing my index fingers along the outer folds of her sex.
“I am not afraid.” I watched a blush creep across her chest and cheeks.
“Then say it.” The command was as much of a challenge to her pride as it was a need for me. I looked up at her, meeting her eyes above her gathered skirts. One long, languid stroke of my finger through the wet seam of her entrance and her eyes snapped shut, her mouth falling open on a whimper.
“I desire you,” she breathed.
“Brave girl,” I chuckled, rewarding her by finally setting my tongue to her, licking every sweet, perfect inch of her. I circledthe peak of her pleasure and her soft cries became louder, more insistent. She fell back against the books and I held her hips to my face, worshipping her feminine perfection with lips and teeth and tongue. One of her hands dropped the bundle of satin and I felt her fingers wind through my hair again. She bucked against my mouth, driving for the friction against the places where her pleasure grew. Her instinctive pursuit of her own bliss made me wild.
“Am I the first man to touch you like this?” I panted, sliding a finger into her soft, wet heat.
“Oh, yes. Yes.” She fisted her hand in my hair, pulling my lips back to her sex.
A primal sense of possessive triumph coursed through me as I pulled one of her legs over my shoulder. I dropped an airy kiss to her tight bud, then sucked it between my lips and worked it with firm strokes of my tongue.
“Oh, mon Dieu. Putain de merde,” Daphne swore, guttural and lewd. I nearly spent in my breeches.
