Grace wanted to be with him. Her sweet face had lit up and her smile had glowed, made happy by his grudging acceptance. He had almost glowed back, turning away and grimacing at the last instant. Her story of angels and age-old friendship could not be true. Christian might not live up to the name his mother gave him, but he knew the concept of other lives was a heresy. In any case,
nothing
lasted forever, not in the world of men. His reaction to the apparition was only lust—and a rather twisted lust at that. He had refrained from easing himself again that morning, but only just. It seemed that nothing could damp the effect of waking up with Grace next to him, especially when she looked so very real and tousled and warm.
“What are those doors?” she asked now, pointing.
Christian had been taking inventory of their stores, a duty his healing back allowed. The task had brought them to the rear of the house, which was dim and empty at present. Thankfully, Grace had been quiet while others were about. Christian was not a garrulous man, but it was strangely difficult to restrain his impulse to speak to her. Doing so now was an equally odd relief.
“Those are the garderobes,” he said in answer. “They empty into a trench below.”
“Garderobes,”
she repeated as if the word did not fit her mouth.
Arrested by her manner, Christian stopped walking to look at her. “Where
did
you reside when you were alive?”
“Um,” she said, her hands twisting together in front of her.
Her nervousness spurred his interest. “That is not a hard question.”
“I know. It’s just, you didn’t believe me about the angel, and I don’t think you’ll believe this.”
Christian crossed his arms and lifted his brows at her. His challenge should have intimidated her, but the light from a nearby arrow slit revealed more ruefulness than fear on her pretty face. Neither emotion mattered. If he was fated to be haunted, he deserved answers.
“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms to match his. “Have you ever heard of Christopher Columbus?”
“No. Was he the mayor of your town?”
For some reason, this made her laugh. “Sure,” she said. “Christopher Columbus was our mayor, and my town was really, really far from here.”
“If you do not wish to tell me, you should simply refuse. I do not like when people lie to me.”
Her laughter died at his frown, and a tiny part of him regretted this—a part he squashed as ruthlessly as he could.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her arms unfolding. “Please trust me when I say you’d like the truth even less.”
“You should trust
me
,” he countered. “I could have tried to have you exorcized.”
Her face grew sad then, which caused an unpleasant tightening in his chest.
She
thought he was her friend. Even if she was deluded, even if a sane man would keep his distance from her, it was unmanly to kick at her.
“I suppose you could have.” She gazed up at him, then squared her shoulders. “I keep forgetting to look at this from your perspective. Even someone from my ... town wouldn’t relish being trotted after by a ghost.”
“Was your town known for specters?”
She grinned at his wide-eyed response. His question must have been as dull-witted as not recognizing the name of her region’s mayor. Seeing she had pricked his pride, she reached out to pat his forearm, where his sleeves were pushed up. Christian did not have time to gird himself. The weight of her hand was no more than a feather against his skin, despite which it sent a strong rush of feeling straight to his groin. If she did not release him, he was going to harden, maybe worse than he had that morn.
“It was just a town,” she said softly. “Chances are its people weren’t so different from the people here.”
She was coddling him as if he were a child
and
evading a straight answer. Though he did not wish to as much as he ought, he shook free of her humoring hand.
“Grace,” he said, a warning growl in it.
“Christian?” The voice was male and unwelcome. William had come up the stairwell. No doubt he, like Michael before him, thought Christian was talking to himself. On the battlefield William was a lion, with a natural genius for strategy. In other arenas, he was not the sharpest of knives. The expression on his big bluff face at that moment was confused. “Your father wants to see you in his office.”
Christian tensed but tried to hide it. A summons from his father was never good.
“You stay here,” he hissed to Grace beneath his breath—alas, not quietly enough.
“As you like,” William said, sounding surprised. “Might as well take a piss.”
Grace’s green eyes went big, her suddenly intrigued gaze following William’s strides to the garderobe.
“No,” Christian growled, easily guessing where her thoughts had traveled.
“But I’ve never seen one,” she pleaded, laughingly.
“No?” William said, his hand already on the privy door handle. “You have some reason why I should not empty my bladder?”
“Talking to myself again,” Christian huffed, narrowing his eyes at Grace. “Reminding myself how much I dislike spies.”
“Assuredly,” William said, not sounding sure at all. “Not too fond of them, either.”
“If you took me with you,” Grace suggested, her smile truly wicked now, “I’d have no chance to spy on your large friend—or his, ahem, presumably gargantuan equipment.”
Christian blew out an outraged breath. Did Grace honestly believe he would fall for this flimsy ploy? Her baiting manner and bold claims aside, she was blushing as bright as a rose.
“You would not dare,” he declared.
“You’ll never know,” Grace teased back with a toss of her dark red hair.
He could not credit her behavior. She was enjoying crossing swords with him! Worse, some small part of him enjoyed it, too. She
did
trust him if she could show this much spirit. She was not frightened by his anger.
“What would I not dare?” William asked, perplexed.
“Nothing,” Christian snapped as Grace bent double with amusement.
He reached for her wrist without thinking, meaning to tug her away from temptation. They both gasped when his fingers wrapped solid flesh. Her wrist was delicate, her skin as smooth as silk from the Orient. It was warm, as well, though not as warm as his abruptly sweating palm. He was touching her. Christian was
feeling
his apparition as real as day. Tiny but intense shivers rolled down his spine. Grace’s gaze was chained to his as he slid his hold up her slender arm.
She was solid all over, it seemed.
She
shivered when he fanned his thumb across the inner bend of her elbow. She was breathing shallowly, her full lips parted to draw in air. Between her small white teeth, he could see the glistening tip of her tongue. The longing that stabbed through him was unbearable. Had his prick been any harder, it would have split.
“Christian,” William said, still lingering outside the privy. “What
are
you doing? You look brainsick.”
Christian jerked his head to William. His heart was thumping in a panic, his fingers contracting ungently on Grace’s arm. Obviously, William could not see Grace any more than before, but if she continued to be corporeal, would that change?
Christian was not certain he could stand to share the sight of her with William.
“I am leaving,” he said as steadily as he was able. “My father will grow impatient if I delay.”
He kept his grip on Grace as he walked rapidly to the stairwell, pulling her after him.
“Christian,” she gasped.
What she was protesting, he did not know—perhaps the way he was hurrying her. Unable to stop, he hastened down to the next turning of the spiral stairs. Once he reached it, he backed her tight against the stone wall.
The moan that broke from him was low and rough. Her body was firm beneath his, giving and rounded but also slim as a girl. Her warmth caused a conflagration inside his veins, one that worsened as she grew warmer herself. The hands she placed on his waist were deliciously tentative. Set amongst all that heat, her maidenly shyness made him feel ten times the man he normally was. It was his nature to plunder, and she was a prize no marauder could have passed by.
“Christian,” she whispered as his head sank toward hers.
“I
have
to kiss you,” he said.
He was almost afraid to do it. Would she return to mist if he broke this spell? Would he be left with a ghost again? Her breath wafted over him, her lips trembling palpably. He cupped the back of her silky head, his fingers spreading, her gorgeous hair spilling down his arm. The scarlet locks fell to the center of her back, thick and cool and gleaming as if they recently had been combed. With the sense that he was changing his life forever, he pressed his mouth over hers.
Such a tiny sound issued from her throat that only his ears could have caught it.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised, drawing back from paradise just far enough to speak.
Tears glistened in her eyes, beautiful but unshed. “I believe you, Christian.”
She rose on her toes, her soft, full breasts sliding up his chest. Her hands branded him with fire as they shifted onto the back of his brown doublet. It took one galvanic heartbeat for him to sweat through his shirt. Needing to hold her more than he needed breath, he wound his arms around her, between her back and the wall. Helpless not to, he wrapped one hand around the curve of her bottom and lifted her.
This time, when their lips sealed together, he was the one who moaned.
God bless her, she gave him entry, letting him lick her, letting him stroke and suckle the small, sharp tongue that had been inciting his worst cravings. He tried to be gentle, even tender, but when her fingers curled around his shoulders from behind, her surprisingly strong arms tightening, he could no longer take the care her innocence deserved.
His hips surged against her, his friction-greedy prick rubbing and thrusting against her mons. She was a maid. His aggression must have alarmed her, but rather than object, she changed the angle of her head and pushed her own sleek tongue deep into his mouth.
Christian’s knees threatened to buckle. Her kiss was eager, and not without natural skill. Unbelievably aroused by both, his hand clenched in a spasm on her hindquarters, crushing her closer to his groin. Grace cried out and kissed him harder, the movements of her hips beginning to answer his. Christian’s breath came like a bellows. With a choking sound he could not repress, he yanked her smooth legs up to his waist level. Her linen kirtle was loose enough to allow this, though the folds and gathers that bunched between them maddened him sorely.
“
Merde
,” he cursed, breaking free of their last kiss to begin another impatient one. Their tongues engaged in a battle he could not get enough of, though his excitement was already at fever pitch. He felt the pressure of impending climax build in his testicles.
Grace seemed disinclined to slow him. She clutched his head as they kissed, her fingers kneading the most tantalizing sensations into his scalp. Her touch felt so good chills chased each other across his skin. Grunting very much like a bull in rut, he heaved his body against hers. Her gown was damp where it met the bulge thrusting out his braies. Wanting to feel her responses better, he yanked some of the gathers in her gown away. By luck as much as intention, his rhythmic shoves had parted her nether lips. Her swollen pearl was a hotter bump on his under-ridge. Struggling against the inclination of his eyes to roll back with bliss, he tried to aim the strongest pressure of his erection there.
He would not enter an innocent so hastily, but he wanted her to break with pleasure, wanted her to explode and gush. She had not done so the other day, and the omission had been wearing on him since. If the needs that drove him would have permitted it, he would have dropped to his knees and ravished her with his tongue.
“Go,” he groaned into her mouth, his muscles trembling with how close he was. He thrust more rapidly against her mons, desperate to bring her apace with him. “I pray you, beloved, go.”
Something cupped his suffering prick. Her hand had squeezed between them where they were so determinedly rubbing their mutual itches over each other. When her fingers curled around the shaft, the sensitive crest of his organ drove straight into the mound underneath her thumb. With all their writhing, he had broken loose of his braies, and the contact was skin to skin, his bare tip against her bare palm. The most unholy ache swelled like gunpowder in his groin. He peaked before he could stop it, before he could gasp for air. Pleasure blinded him as his seed burst free in a fusillade, shooting into and over her hot, damp hand.
Even in his throes, some part of him knew she had not joined him. Trickles of perspiration rolled down his temples as his body calmed. He was spent then, but bereft of his full reward.
He knew this failure to bring her to climax could easily obsess him.
“Perdition take you, Grace,” he swore once his lungs agreed to function. “Why did you do that?”
She was looking nervously up at him, standing on her own two feet with her pretty teeth digging into her lower lip. Immediately contrite, he cupped her cheeks in both hands.
“Forgive my harsh words,” he said. “You did not know you would push me so quickly over the edge.”
“I liked doing that,” Grace insisted, a trifle rebelliously.
Christian let his hands slide to her slim, straight shoulders, his thumbs caressing her collarbones. “I am not angry. I simply wished to share that delight. You are young, and perhaps you are not aware, but women are as capable of enjoying the carnal act as men—more so, some philosophers say.”
Grace squirmed slightly in his hold. “I know that,” she mumbled. “I’d just rather try things on you.”
He laughed, surprised by the relish he took in making the sound. He cradled her face again, bending to kiss one fiery cheekbone.