The Queen's Bastard (18 page)

Belinda turned back to Javier, catching the prince standing still in a shaft of pale light. The moon was a harsh mistress to him; her blue tones made lilac shadows in his hair and hollowed his cheekbones. She took blood from his lips and made his skin seem fragile over the bones, too pale for life.

But she brought out the lightness of his eyes and named their true color grey. In her light he looked like a creature from another world, perhaps one of the underhill dwelling
shee
the Hibernian island west of Aulun had legends of. Belinda gazed at him, entranced, then shivered, trying to cast off his spell as she lifted her chin. “My lord?”

Javier shook himself, as she had just done. “Forgive me. I was only admiring how well the moonlight suits you.” He made a moue and brushed the words away disparagingly. “For though it sounds like it,” he said, and Belinda started to smile, “that is not a line I try on most women. Forgive me; it sounded absurd.”

“It sounded charming,” Belinda corrected with amusement, then extended her hands a little as she turned to encompass the gardens with her embrace. “This is all yours.”

“Yes.”

“And we’re alone here. Without guards or spies.”

“Yes.” Javier’s voice lowered as he came closer. “No, my lady Irvine. There is nowhere in a palace without guards or spies. Your country estates may be more forgiving, but here there is nothing that cannot be bought and paid for, and so there is nothing that goes unwatched.” His hands came around in front of her throat, unfastening the clasp of her cloak with an easy twitch of his fingers. The cloak fell away and Javier put his hands on her hips, stepping closer. The freedom Belinda had felt in donning the gown that Eliza had sent was compounded by shock: through thin silk, without the weight of petticoats between the fabric and her skin, she could feel the heat of Javier’s hands with far more intensity than she was accustomed to. His lips brushed her shoulder and she shivered, letting go a soft laugh that had more in common with desire than amusement. Javier pulled her hips back against his, mouth brushing her shoulder a second time.

“There is one sort of assignation that is hardly unexpected.” His breath spilled over her skin, warm compared to the surrounding air. Belinda’s stomach tightened, knots of responding need making bright aching points in her breasts.

“My lord,” she whispered, then wondered what she thought she might say next. A token protest? A refusal? Javier chuckled as his hand lifted from her hip and found, unerringly, the pins that held her hair up. He tugged them loose, dropping them to the ground as her hair loosened and fell around her shoulders. He inhaled the scent, then brushed it out of the way and slid his arm around her waist, mouth against her shoulder again.

“My lord?” Mocking words, although gentle. “Do Lanyarchan men not bring their women to lovely places for seduction, Beatrice? Surely you didn’t think we would have an innocent walk in the gardens, a quiet talk about the
witchbreed
—!” The final word was no louder than the others, but with it he pulled loose the laces that held her gown in place. It fell away more easily than Belinda expected it to, Javier pushing the sleeves from her shoulders and letting the fabric rumple to the ground around her ankles. Belinda could feel her tiny dagger pressing itself into the small of her back, bound in place by the corset that was all she wore now. Javier ran his fingertips along the lower edge of the corset, over her hips. She could feel his smile against her shoulder and the hardness of his desire pressed against her bottom.

“I believe I approve of this new fashion, Beatrice. One single piece of outerwear is far easier to overcome than the dozens of petticoats and layers women usually wear. Did you do this for me?” He traced the corset to its lowest point, ghosting his fingers over curls. Belinda shivered, tilting her head back against the prince’s shoulder and making him breathe laughter. He pressed his palm over the thatch of curls, holding her hips against his as his other hand wandered free, following the stiff lines of the corset up to where skin was bared again. He brushed his fingers over rounded flesh, then delved into the scant space afforded by the bindings and forced her breast free of the corset, scraping her nipple against the hard edges of the stay. Belinda whimpered and Javier growled, a hungry sound of triumph as he pinched the nipple and slid his fingers between her thighs.

The liquid sound of pleasure that escaped her was loud enough to call any nearby guards with an impulse for watching. Javier pressed his thigh between hers, pushing them apart. Belinda’s ankle twisted, the shoes she wore for extra height not intended to be moved sideways while weight bore down on them. She collapsed; Javier caught her with his hand hard on her breast and his fingers curving inside her. For a blissful moment there was relief, pressure against the sweet spot on the bone within, but his fingers left her again when she was steady on her feet. Belinda made a mewl of protest, opening her thighs further and winding an arm back around Javier’s neck, uncertain of her own ability to keep her feet. He smiled again, against her throat.

“Now.” He drew his fingers, wet with her need, up through curls, sifting the coarse hair. Belinda gasped with dismay, pushing her hips forward and squirming her thighs further apart as he chuckled. He thumped a fingernail forward, sending a paralyzing combination of pain and need surging through her body, and she let out a strangled cry.

“Please, my lord. Please!”

“Do they grow all Lanyarchan women so lusty?” Javier murmured, pleased. His fingertip flicked over the centre of her pleasure again, this time light and quick and repetitive. Belinda whimpered, trying to hold still so the touch could build to release. Javier let warm breath spill over her neck again, a quiet sigh, and murmured, “Now. Tell me what you know of the witchbreed.”

Laughter ripped from Belinda’s throat, helpless and gasping. “
Now?
” Remembering her own name was in question; she wanted to give in to sensation, not force thought into coherent words.

“Now,” Javier said for the third time. “Now is the only time listeners don’t hang on every word. Who wants to listen to the soppy, false endearments spoken during lovemaking?” His own voice carried soft amusement and detachment; it was not the first time he’d used love as a guise for secret conversation. His touch glided over her again and Belinda groaned, half laughter, and tightened her fingers in his hair.

It wasn’t that it was impossible. In fact, it was easier than most men’s egos would like to know, detaching the physical from the mental. Calling stillness all around her helped, the use of long years forbidding the body’s reaction to pain and pleasure both. It allowed her to order her thoughts, ignoring her body’s shivers. Javier felt the withdrawal and bit her shoulder, contrary to his own orders, redoubling his efforts to call them to the surface again. Belinda allowed herself a tiny whimper through the distant ache of need, unwilling to divorce herself entirely from the sure touch of his hands and the pleasure they brought. If there were spies on the garden walls it did no good to stand like a stick in the prince’s arms, ignoring the work he did to please her.

“I know very little, my lord.” The words came as a sigh. “I’ve never met anyone else like me.” She shuddered again, tightening her fingers in Javier’s hair. “Like us.” Her voice was low and liquid, a plea in itself as she pressed her hips into his touch.

Even as she spoke, though, realization sparked through her, bringing its own kind of pleasure. Her father had to share the power Javier called witchbreed, or he never would have seen her through the shadows. And if Robert carried that kernel of power inside him, so, too, did Dmitri, whose presence she was now certain had roused her from sleep in the Khazarian north a few months ago. Dmitri, who had been with her father the night he took away Belinda’s memory of how to hide in the shadows. There
were
others, then, but Javier’s fingers had found a quick rhythmic circle that threatened to shatter her concentration. Beyond his touch was the weight of his will, impressed upon her stillness, external force to her internal. One or the other she could withstand; the two together gave her over to abandonment unlike any she’d known. For long moments she shuddered and cried out in Javier’s arms, until her thighs were wet with desire and the only thing that kept her on her feet was his grip on her.

“I call it the stillness,” she finally gasped. Javier chuckled, his hands abandoning her. Belinda locked her knees to keep her feet, swallowing hard. “It was a game. So no one could hurt me.” There was very little sound as the prince disrobed. Belinda turned her head toward him, wetting her lips, but he stayed too close to see: a pale shoulder in moonlight, the play of muscle, nothing more. “I used it to hide in shadows once,” she blurted, abruptly desperate to confess what she knew so she might no longer need to divorce body from soul and could focus wholly on Javier’s touch. “But I—” Her breath caught, his hands on her hips again. She heard the smile in his voice, mouth brushing her shoulder.

“But you what?” His hands weighed heavy on her hips, bringing her down to the grassy earth. Her gown, wrinkled beyond repair, let blades of sharp grass prickle her knees as she whimpered again and pressed them further apart. The corset was too long to let her arch her hips back in offering. Instead she fell forward, but Javier’s hand in her hair stopped her with a forceful jerk. The impulse to submit weakened her and her head rolled back in his grasp, the weight of her body following. “But you what, Beatrice?” Javier asked again. He kept his fist knotted in her hair, pulling the skin of her throat taut. She swallowed against it, yielding to his strength.

“But I’ve forgotten how, my lord.” Need parched her throat and she swallowed, raw. “The stillness is all I can do.” Even as she spoke, memory washed over her, the cacophony of emotion in the Maglian pub and the very words she’d plucked from Javier’s mind earlier that evening. “Oh…
oh!
” Thought left her in a rush as Javier claimed her, a hard thrust demanding submission without causing pain. He settled back on his heels, spreading her over his thighs. Her skin rolled at the shoulder blade, pinched between the hard line of the corset and Javier’s chest. She fumbled her hand back, scrabbling for the corset cords, but Javier caught her hand and twisted it further up, until her spine arched despite the stiff boning in the undergarment. Her breath came more shallowly as he curled her fingers into the laces, a wordless command to remain as he arranged her. An ache throbbed through her shoulder joint, made worse as he teased her nipple with a touch so light she thought she might only be imagining it. She arched again, trying to press her breast into his fingers, making the ache in her shoulder worse. She bent her other arm back, half to try to alleviate the ache and more to hear Javier’s low chuckle and the breath of praise that spilled over her skin. He freed her other breast from the corset bindings, the nipple tightening with desperation at the touch of cool air.

There was a deliciousness to being helpless to the prince’s gentle strength. Belinda’s hair tickled her own spine, her head bent back so dark waves were caught between her body and Javier’s. He put his fist into her hair again, pulling her head further back until she arched more sharply into the corset bones than her lungs could bear. Her own fingers tangled in her hair, pulling hard enough for pain that blossomed into the sweet ache of desire, keeping her in the pose he had placed her in. She had had men treat her thus before, but without tenderness; for them pain and discomfort were meant for domination. Under Javier’s touch she felt sculpted, shaped and made beautiful for the pleasure of extremity, her breasts pushed forward and her hips back in an exaggeration of womanhood. She trusted his desire implicitly, knowing without reservation that he might bend and mold her, but he would never deign to break her. That was for lesser men.

“Tell me more.”

That he spoke sent a paroxysm of shock through her, tightening her nipples and her belly again. He pulsed his hips upward, taking what little breath she had away and leaving her unable to catch more, the corset stays pressed too tightly against her. Black fireworks sparked and trailed across her vision, brightening as she closed her eyes and struggled to take a breath. “Can you not tell me more?” he murmured, teasing. Even teasing, his intent to pursue conversation triggered both laughter and offense in Belinda. She strained to lift her head, determined to drag in enough air to make words.

Javier’s fingers slid between her thighs and clasped the swollen nub of flesh there. Her words were taken by a shallow cry, too little air behind it to give it full voice. She shuddered around him, too breathless to struggle violently as orgasm smashed through her. In moments she was boneless in his arms, held there by the stern corset lines rather than any willpower of her own. Her head was fallen so far back the corset pressed painful lines into the flesh of her shoulder blades, her breasts offered up to the moonlight. Javier kissed her throat with a murmur of appreciation, ghosting his hand over her nipples again. When she shivered he laughed and captured her clit between his fingers again, drawing out a whimper of pain brought by too much pleasure.

“Then let me tell you what I know,” he breathed. He lifted his hips into hers, purposeful strength burying himself more deeply in her. Half swooning with breathlessness, Belinda gasped and fell further into his grasp, spreading her thighs another scant inch to afford him greater access. His mark of approval came with another torturous touch around her aching clit, and as she shuddered he whispered secrets of sorcery against her skin.

Dew soaked the green silk of the dress, morning too young to warm the air yet. Belinda shivered under her summer cloak, curling her legs up to move her feet under the comparative warmth beneath the cloak. She found Javier’s shin with her feet and tucked her toes between his legs, making him inhale a sleepy laugh. “Why do women always have cold feet?”

“In this case, because I’ve been sleeping on wet, cold ground for hours.” Belinda rolled onto her back, still keeping her body pressed as closely to Javier’s as possible. “Why are men always warm?”