Raegan lifts her head. The motion is like the moisture in her eyes. Misty but meaningful.
“Yeah. I really have.”
I draw in a breath. It hurts. I have never savored such perfect pain in my life. “What made it stop?”
Her grip tightens in mine. “You.”
RAEGAN
And here I go again.
Letting the truth tumble out of me before contemplating what it’ll actually mean. About the effect it’s going to have on everyone around me.
This case, in which everyone equates to just this one, is no different.
Because he’s the only one who shouldn’t be hearing confessions like this from me. Not when there are other things I had prepared to tell him. More vital things.
Well, one thing in particular.
Using my hands to sketch always frees my mind for strategic thoughts. To show for it this time, I have a theory about getting him back to Magique—a living, breathing version of her—but also ensuring the two of them will escape the Jacobins’ crosshairs. It all hit me sometime between my second and third sketches, but now it’s like my creativity damn got busted open.
My flair is definitely back. My confidence.
Best of all, I don’t worry about Bastien seeing it all too. He actually seems to enjoy the wild and crazy view. The swirling, bouncing me. The imagination parade that used to drive Justin, and so many like him, so nuts. But like a moth to a hundred flames, I kept craving creative geniuses. Kept thinking they’d be the ones who got me the best.
But they all ran. And they all were fine that I blamed myself for it. They were scared of my light. Intimidated by it.
I do not intimidate Bastien De Leon.
I know it with thorough brilliance. With such awesome completion, I don’t even have to ask him. But the man leans in as if I’ve done just that, already knowing how to halt all my misgivings.
He kisses me.
At the same time, he sweeps over me with his broad warrior’s body. Before I can discern whether to gasp or groan, he drops on his knees in front of my chair. I decide on both. Good plan, since his hands plummet onto my knees—right before he pushes hard and spreads them wide.
Not. Intimidated.
And now, with the new plunge of his tongue, not taking any prisoners either.
He’s just as voracious when continuing his kisses down the front of my throat, scraping my skin with his teeth until the neckline of his big T-shirt won’t stretch any lower. By now, my moan is a frustrated growl. Half an inch more, and the man’s magical lips could be in contact with my aching nipples. It’s beyond time to make that happen…
But the moment I stretch back my hands to go for an over-the-head T-shirt strip, Bastien captures both my wrists between one of his. With another sweep, he pins them over my head, caught atop the chair cushion.
“No,” he orders at last, the growl low and lethal in his throat. “No, Rayonnement. Sometimes it is better…without so much skin.”
He debates his side with incredible effectiveness. The warmth of his mouth over my left nipple, aided in its spread by the abrasion of the cotton fabric, has me already crying out. The next second, I’m bucking against him. And God, it feels good. The wetness. The friction. The pulses that careen through me, not stopping until they curl my toes.
Yes. Oh yesss.
“Oh, my freaking hell.”
“Or heaven?” he teases, still tracing maddening circles around my thimble-hard nub.
“Speak for yourself,” I grouse. “This is officially hell until you fill me up. Please, Bastien. Please, just do it this time. I stashed a rubber in my pocket. I don’t remember which one, but it’s there. Please.”
“Of course, ma chérie. Soon, I promise.”
“Soon?” I retort. “Not good enough. Damn it!”
Here’s the part where I inwardly shoot myself for celebrating the man’s steel nerves. And matching self-control. His cock’s already a ramrod beneath his fly, but he’s as determined as a porn star to draw this all out. To keep caressing my breasts from atop the T-shirt. To free his other hand from my wrists so he can stroke in under the shirt’s hem, tracing soft figure-eights along my ribcage. And at last, to tug my yoga pants all the way off… In the process, he somehow locates the condom.
“Is this what you are after, ma magnifique?”
I manage a grin. “Getting much warmer, Desperado.” And then roll my hips. “But that’s only half the prize. It’s to help you with navigating the…treasure map.”
He angles back over me. His hooded stare is also a collection of bronze lights. “But I already have my treasure. And I thoroughly intend on reveling in the bounty.”
“Oh, my word.” I flourish it with a high sigh. Even arch my head back and bite my lip. I’m acting like a total porn princess, though I should be stifling a mortified snicker about his corny declaration.
But from him, it’s not corny. It’s silky and sexy and heartfelt…
And hot.
Oh, my Technicolor tiger stripes, so hot.
Searing a path up the inside of my right thigh and then my left, his fingertip like a firestarter rod cranked on high.
Enflaming the quivering flesh between that leg and my core, his thumb a ruthless branding iron.
And then igniting me…right there.
The start of the inferno that refuses to be doused. The first decadent shivers, preparing me for the perfect unraveling at my center. The throbs that begin so deep and then spread up and out, pushing against his knowing fingers…and rushing to my parted lips.
“Bastien!” There’s so much more I need to say but so many words that my mind won’t supply. Not when my body is rapidly succumbing to his carnal control…his ravishing mastery. “Monsieur le Duke. Please…”
And that’s what I have go with—but why not, since it’s taking us in the right direction? At least I hope so. Oh damn it, how I pray so. We could be cleared to leave tomorrow, even tonight. Once we’re on our way back to Max and Allie’s, he’ll never be mine again—though technically, he was never truly mine to begin with.
But oh, how I can pretend. At least for now.
Maybe that’s wrong. At best, a gray area. Yeah, just like the pill I’ve conveniently forgotten to take so far, still in its white paper bag back in our room. If he’s never been completely mine, why am I clinging to the one-in-a-million chance that part of him has taken root inside me? Is this fair to either of us?
Yet how—honestly, how—is it fair for the man to keep taunting me with his touch like this?
Taunting.
I can think of no better word as he rolls my trembling clit beneath his circling thumb. As he takes me perilously close to the edge of lust only to back off again. Making me moan and shiver and beg again. Mercilessly answering with that languorous timbre in his throat, thinning my patience to an agonizing nub.
“Hmmm,” he murmurs with a wicked smile. “Such a tantalizing treasure, indeed.”
I gasp again. Lurch my hips again. “It’s much better if your cock gets involved. I promise.”
“And I promise you shall have it, belle chérie. So very soon.”
“Aghhh!” I spew. “Not soon enough! Bâtard!”
He’s driving me so crazy, I don’t have a free brain cell to stress over my new laps de Français. Fortunately, neither does he. His rumble escalates to a snarl. He’s clearly contemplating even more parts of his primal side. Good. If this is our last time for naked fun, I long for it to be fun. Like our first. Dirty and determined. Raw and real. Only this time, with some actual fucking. Oh, yes. A good dose of that, please.