The door swung open with a bang, hitting the wall behind it, and Callum started, realizing too late that in his distraction, he’d leaned against it.
The laughter stopped, the music stopped, and Constantine, Peter, and White all looked at him as one. In that heartbeat of silence, Constantine exclaimed and ran toward him, worry on her face. Her hands were upon him before he could stop her, and the moment he felt her touch, he knew he was in trouble. He breathed in her scent as if it was a deep, soul-drenching draft, and her fingers on his face, upon the wounds he’d sustained in the ring, caused him exquisite pleasure and pain at once.
A raw moan of need filled his ears, and he realized it had come from him. She touched the cut on his right cheek, but the pain of the cut was nothing compared with the pain of wanting her so much and trying to fight it. He couldn’t do it. He’d known he couldn’t, was not yet strong enough to resist her, to withstand his own longing for her. It was why he had stayed away.
“Does my touch hurt you?” she asked, the concern in her voice and in her eyes undoing him further.
He couldn’t speak. If he did, he was afraid he’d confess everything to her, here and now. Instead, he captured her hand and tugged her against the full length of his body. He knew it was the last thing he should do, but when utter relief and desire flared in her eyes, he could not deny her, or himself, this moment.
He tore his gaze from hers to sweep it over White and Peter. “I got your missive,” he said, allowing his accusatory tone to do the work of an unspoken chastisement. They both looked guilty and appropriately worried.Good.He’d deal with the two of them later. Though he understood they’d thought to help in the only way they could come up with.
“Leave us,” he commanded, and before the pair of them were all the way out the door, Callum slid his hand around her waist and to her back. His mind shouted at him to stop, but his body and his heart drowned out all logic and left an endless ocean of yearning for her. There was no turning back.After.He would deal with the repercussions of his folly, his weakness, after. Now…now he was lost to her.
He splayed his fingers against the curve of her back, his craving for her pounding his blood through his heart to his chest, his arms, his hands. He used gentle pressure to fit her to him, and he released a guttural moan that no will on Earth could have held back.
His gaze collided with hers, and his chest squeezed. “Every time I see you, it hurts,” he said, unable to stop the confession. It was as if his mouth and mind were now in full revolt. Her brow furrowed, but she did not ask him questions. Instead, she silently pressed her sweet lips to his. When she pulled back, he buried his head against her neck to try to stop the onslaught of words that wanted to come. He had to keep them in, had to keep her safe from him.
Her fingers brushed the stubble of his beard, and she whispered, “I have missed you so very much.”
It gutted him and robbed him of further resistance. He felt his weight settle slightly on her, as if his body had no more will to keep apart from her, and then he relented even more and threaded his fingers into her hair, bringing a lock up to his nose. He inhaled a long, deep breath before dropping it. “Every time I smell your scent, it hurts, and by God, it hurts every time I touch you. It’s a pain worse than any I suffered in the asylum, and believe me, I suffered a great deal of pain.” His will to stop the words was strained beyond what he could control or command.
She gave him a look of such breathless hope it was like a mighty blow to the wall he had struggled to erect between them. “I have tried,” he said, swaying against her, his voice ragged in his own ears.
“Tried what?” she asked, sliding her hands around his waist, making his skin burn for more of her touch. His body jerked in recognition of what it wanted, what it needed.
“I have tried to resist my own need, but I’m weak.”
“Give in,” she whispered, and there was no way he could do anything else.
Callum’s lips brushed her neck once, twice, and then he sucked her skin into his mouth in hard, wet pulls that made her legs wobble. Her heart pounded with longing. “I don’t know what else to do,” he mumbled, the weight of him shifting onto her even more so that she had to lock her knees to keep from falling.
“What have you tried?” she asked, desperate to keep him close and unlock the chamber of his heart.
“I haven’t slept in three days,” he admitted, his breath warm and moist against her neck, sending shivers through her entire body. “I’m trying to beat back the need.” His lips grazed hers with each word he formed.
Her mind raced over each confessed syllable, analyzing what he might mean, what he could not reveal. Was the fighting so he’d be too physically weak to want her? She didn’t know whether to feel glad that he did want her so much or horrified that he was so determined not to. Yet, she had to cling to hope, because the possibility that they would not find happiness was unthinkable.
“I don’t know how much more I can do, Constantine. I thought it was enough—the fights, the lack of sleep.” He pulled back suddenly, his gaze burning with agony and need that twisted into her, wrapped around her heart, and squeezed. “I would not have returned home, but that damned missive…” She didn’t know what missive he spoke of, and she was certainly not going to ask now, and interrupt him finally revealing a bit of his heart to her. “I should have left,” he continued. “I knew it, but then I heard your merry laughter and it drew me to this damn room like a drunkard to liquor. And there you were, face flushed, hair in wild disarray, and this bloody gown—” His gaze raked over her from head to toe, then inched back up her body, lingering on the small expanse of skin shown by the modest white gown she wore each day for the portrait. “You look bloody virginal in it. Beguiling,” he murmured. “I want to plunder you.”
“Then plunder me, you fool,” she said, gripping him tighter, willing him to let down the defenses he’d erected.
His mouth slanted over hers, hungry, searching, and frantic. Her own desperation rose to match the tide that was his, and in a flurry of chaos and movement, the door to the drawing room was somehow kicked shut by him, and she found herself twirled to face the table, skirts being lifted with impatient grunts, necessary underlayers tugged and tossed, and then his arm slid around her, bare skin to bare skin. He secured her at her waist while his other forearm made a clean sweep of the contents on the table, sending a book and a vase thudding against the rug. Water spilled, spreading a dark stain across the light rug, even as Callum spread her thighs and wet, aching, throbbing folds.
His fingers parted, sought, and slid against the peak of her sex, making her cry out as unspeakable pleasure spiraled from the point of contact to her head to temporarily shut off the noise of her thoughts. He slipped one finger into her, rubbing the throbbing button while the hand that had been around her waist moved up between her breasts. He rent open her gown, and those fingers found her nipple to squeeze it.
“Oh God,” she moaned, throwing her head back and trailing her hands toward his thighs, coarse hair brushing against her fingertips. Shock flew through her that he’d somehow managed to undo and lower his breeches. But then extreme gladness that Callum was so adept with his hands followed that initial shock.
“I want to fill you,” he groaned, his words tickling her eardrum with promise while the heat of them tickled her skin.
“Yes, please, please,” she begged, nearly mindless from the magic his fingers were working between her thighs. “Fill me.”
His hands cupped either side of her hips, and then he was entering her, pumping in vigorous strokes, hitting something within her that screamed with delight. Tension built every time he withdrew almost to his tip, only to enter her to the hilt once more. Need raced through her in dizzying currents as she clung to him, hands secured to his sides, head thrown back against his chest and eyes closed. The need built and built until every sense she possessed sizzled and every part of her body thrummed. She was taut, and when his right hand left her hip, and his fingers delved through her crisp curls to touch her throbbing sex once more, she screamed out, her body singing as heat washed over her and spasms of pleasure coursed through her.
“God,” he groaned from behind her, his grip growing tighter, his thrusts becoming faster. “You are so tight. So hot. So wet for me. I—” His words cut off as his arms came around her waist like bands of steel and his seed filled her. His body melted into hers, and she found herself pushed forward, her palms coming to the table, one of his arms around her still, holding her up, but the other arm bracing him as he breathed heavily in her ear.
“I have to lie down, Constantine,” he mumbled, and the weariness in his voice set a chill in her heart. She nodded, even as he was already releasing her, lowering himself to the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick and low, eyelids half-shut.
The dark bruises, which she could see on the upper part of his chest where his shirt hung open, scared her for him. What was he doing to himself not to want her? This had to cease. She dressed quickly, then lowered herself to her knees to speak to him, to demand he stop, to offer to move out if it would make him stop, but as she looked at his face, she realized with shock that he was sound asleep. His chest rose and fell in heavy, deep breaths, and his lips were parted ever so slightly. She set a light hand to his chest, his heart beating steadily under her fingers. He didn’t even stir. Callum was so big, so strong and strapping, that it was hard to imagine anything taking him down, but he was destroying himself to keep distance between them.
