CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"He was ... he was following me. Saying my name." Her already pale complexion went ashen as she recalled the event. "He was right behind me."

I pushed back a strip of hair caught across her face, plastered to her cheek. "He's not getting anywhere near you. I promise you that."

There was more to the story. I could see the hesitation in her eyes before she blinked and glanced up at the shore. "Did you jump in after me?"

"I wasn't letting you go in without me."

A quiet softness settled over her face. The kind that made me painfully conscious of her mouth and my own hunger to taste her. She was close enough that it wouldn't have been hard to do, except she was shivering hard enough to take a chunk out of my lip if I tried.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, sweetheart." I pulled her closer. "But we're going to get you home and dry first."

Hold on her secure, I propelled us to the rocky edge where Cyrus stood waiting for us with his men. I hoisted Blue up, propping her on the nearest rock for them to pull her up first. I ignored the second set of hands waiting for me until she was securely on solid ground.

There were a lot of things that needed to be addressed, a lot of questions crowding my thoughts, but it all took a backseat until I had Blue safely back to the house, away from the frigid temperatures clawing at exposed, wet flesh.

Vance was waiting in the foyer when we arrived. He glanced from Blue to me and frowned. "What happened?"

"Blue fell into the lake," I said as I maneuvered Blue towards the stairs.

His dark brows lifted. "The lake? Thank goodness you both missed the rocks. A miracle for sure." He rubbed a hand across his brow. "I will let Oliver know you both arrived safely. He went to check the conservatory."

I stopped listening as I took Blue to my room and sealed us in.

"My clothes..." she began as I guided her to the bathroom.

"You won't be needing them." I let that promise sink in and knew the moment it did when her eyes widened, and her lips made a small O of surprise.

I concealed my grin by turning away to the wall of dark glass built into the far wall.

That wasn't my meaning at all. My entire intentions were to clean her up, get her warmed and fed, and tucked in my bed where I could periodically make sure she was okay throughout the night. But her way of thinking opened my mind up to a few interesting ideas.

I turned the shower on.

She stood where I'd left her, dripping lake water on the black marble. She was still shivering violently, but her focus was trailing down the domed ceiling to the gothic windows framed in black across the curve of a whole wall. She traced the warming benches built between two of the bays, settled between a set of doors that opened on a veranda hovering over the lake. Finally, she eyed the circular tub coming out of the center of the room, perched on a platform the same black marble as the floor.

"It's magical when it's raining," I said, going to her. "Watching it hit the ceiling and run down the sides. It's like being in a bubble."

She said nothing but watched me as I came to stand before her. My fingers lifted to the collar of her coat. I eased the heavy fabric down her arms. It hit the floor behind her with a soggy plop.

"You could sleep to the sound of it on the glass." My hands drifted to her hips, fingers slipping beneath the hem of her dripping sweater to freezing, clammy skin.

Blue shivered at the touch. Her lashes fluttered but remained open, exposing dark, hungry eyes.

"In the summer, you can watch the rain through the open terrace," I went in, easing my palms over the curve of her ass to the silver tongue of the skirt's zipper.

She sucked in a breath as I eased the teeth down, widening the fabric until it slid in a wet heap around her ankles.

Her sweater followed.

She stood before me in soft, damp skin and lacy undergarments. A light kiss of pink highlighted her cheeks, a good sign given that her lips were still slightly blue.

I didn't undress the rest of her.

I took a step back and started on the white buttons running down the front of my dress shirt. I pressed each one through the opening. Carefully. Methodically. Eyes never wavering off Blue as she watched my hands. Her full lips parted as the material fell open, exposing the full plains of my chest. I shrugged free and let it hit the ground.

She sucked in a breath when my attention finally dropped to the front of my trousers. I worked the leather strap holding them in place, yanked it free of the loops in a single, fluid jerk.

Blue made a soft, "Oh," sound that would have been amusing if she didn't also look terrified.

"Don't you want to see him?" I only partially teased, index finger circling the button before forcing it through the fabric.

Her mouth opened and closed, eyes bouncing between my face and the wide V revealing my black boxers. "I ... I ... yes, I..."

I raised an eyebrow at her incoherent mumbling. "Would you like me to stop?"

Each shoe was toed off, the Italian leather ruined beyond repair. The waistband of my trousers slid down around my thighs.

"No, please," she murmured, transfixed by the hard bulge pushing against the cotton of my boxers.

I stepped out of my pants and stood before her with a throbbing erection begging to be set free.

"Take your bra off," I said, my own attention riveted on her firm, gorgeous breasts practically spilling over the lace cups. They rose and fell in time to her ragged breaths, giving me hints of her dusky nipples.

Blue hesitated. She flicked a glance up at me once before reaching up and around for the clasp. Her tits bounced free with the flick of her wrist. The undergarment was dropped on top of the other discarded items.

"Panties," I all but growled.

Slim fingers hooked into the waistband of the only thing keeping her safe from me. Her hands shook, but she peeled the translucent scrap of fabric over her hips. They rolled against her wet thighs and caught around her knees, but she peeled them off and slipped free.

Beautifully, perfectly naked, Blue stood before me with pink cheeks and miles of sweet, delicious skin. Her pussy lips were smoothly shaven, except a small patch of soft, golden curls trimmed close. I had a vivid memory of my fingers sliding between her folds to the swollen button waiting to be teased on the way before sinking into all that dripping heat.

Fuck!

My dick jerked, making my boxers tighter.

"My turn." I captured her delicate wrist and jerked her forward. Her breathless gasp was silenced by the secondary hand I closed around her jaw. I forced her face up to mine. "Take them off me."

I thrived on the eruption of lava burning beneath her skin as I flattened her hand against the center of my chest where two pistols crossed just below a pair of yellow, demon eyes. It connected to a spiral of other images, but she stared into the monster's eyes unflinching.

I relinquished my hold and left her to make her own path down the hollow valley to where the dark elastic started.

I expected her to be quick. To hook the band and yank it down. I had not expected her to trace the markings etched into my flesh with the tip of a finger. I wasn't expecting her to follow the lines from one side to the other in feather light strokes. Every brush sent fire beneath my skin, straight into my veins.

"Blue." I was mortified to hear the plea in my own voice.

Wide, innocent eyes rose to mine. "They're so beautiful," she whispered. "I've never seen this many on anyone before. I never thought it could be this lovely."

My jaw grinded. Molars creaking as she moved down my left arm to the roses.

The five, mirroring roses carved into my memory and soul.

I waited to hear the questions, but she continued without pausing and glided over to my boxers. Her index finger caught and tugged.

The garments trailed over my hips and down.

Down.

I was no longer breathing by the time it snagged on my cock. My mouth opened to guide her, to offer her assistance, but she was reaching inside and taking me in her palm before I could even function. My world shuttered for a heartbeat, and I almost embarrassed myself right there.

"Blue!"

My dick a solid weight of rigid need panged in her grip. The thick head leaked in anticipation, and Blue merely blinked up at me, expression startled.

"Did I hurt you?"

Done.

Done with the waiting, I kicked out of the underwear, grabbed the object of my madness, and stalked with her clasped to my chest straight into the shower.

The steam enveloped us in a blanket of heat against the chill soaked into our skin. I would have groaned, but Blue's opening was right over my reaching cock, begging me to just nudge my way in.

I could.

I could pin her to the glass like some exotic butterfly, hook my arms under her knees and fuck her right there until she was screaming, and I was roaring, and our mixed cum was leaking out of her cunt and washing down the drain.

It was such a beautiful fucking thought I almost forgot why we were there.

Gingerly, I set her down onto her feet and backed her under the pressure spray.

"Wash your hair," I told her, pressing my shampoo bottle into her hand.

I stood back against the opposite wall, watching her as she did as she was told. As she drizzled my scent into her palm and lathered it into all that gorgeous main. Head back. Spine arched. Eyes closed. Her breasts strained forward in offering. Plump, mouthwatering globes begging for my hands. Suds trickled across the rosy buds and down the smooth plain of her belly to drip off her pussy.

I took my cock in hand and pumped in slow, leisurely strokes. Not hard, just enough pressure to keep myself on edge.

Blue rinsed the shampoo from her hair, combing her fingers across her scalp until the water pouring off her ran clear. She rubbed the water from her eyes and opened them to mine.

"Washed," she announced proudly, and I felt my mouth curl up at just how unaware she was of the danger she was in.

"Good girl," I murmured, still stroking my cock. "Come here, Little Blue. I have something for you."

Her eyes were on my hand. On the thick weight gliding between my palm. I saw her throat muscles bob once before she took the first step. The process seemed unsteady as she made her way to where I waited.

"Thoran..." she began, but my hands were already on her, grabbing and yanking her to me. I shoved her back up against the cold tiles. Her yelp of surprise only made it that much better.

"What happened today, Blue?" I coaxed, lips sipping the drops of water rolling over her collarbone. "Where did you go?"

Her breathless little gasp tickled my ear. "I ... I went outside to read. I got lost."

I hummed contemplatively, tongue momentarily preoccupied connecting the stitch of skin connecting her jawline to her earlobe. The index finger on my right hand dipped along the arch making up her hipbone. I dragged the digit down and in.

"Why were you in the garden, Little Blue? After I warned you it was off limits."

Her head rolled from side to side. "I didn't know. I promise. I was just trying to find a place to sit."

I cupped her sex. Slipped my fingers between her slick folds. Watched her eyes roll back. Her head slammed into the tiles as she sobbed my name. Her nails cut into the flesh of my shoulders as she used me to anchor herself up while pressing down into my grasp.

She was so fucking responsive. I'd barely touched her and her opening was already soaked.

"How did you find the entrance?" I pressed, circling her tight rim twice before letting her body pull me in. "How did you get in?"

Blue gasped, eyes locked on mine as I sank deep, deep enough to flatten the heel of my hand against her mound. "Thoran!"

"How?"

Her inhale was sharp, jagged pants as I pumped my wrist, strategically slapping her clit with every plunge. "I ... I don't ... there was a door." She bit her lip and moaned, and I felt it wrap like a velvet glove around my dick.

"Focus!" I growled at both of us.

Eyes barely open tried to find my face only to roll back as she reached her peak.

I should have stopped.

Should have kept her on edge until she told me, but God, I was fucking weak and desperate to see her come undone for me. It had been too long.

Carefully, I added a second finger.

Blue sobbed. A deep, guttural growl of a feral woman on the cusp of her pleasure. Her eyes flew open and hooked to mine with a savage glint promising my end if I even thought about stopping.

But I was fucking in charge here. This was my punishment.

"Like that, love?" I taunted, adding just the hint of a curve to my fingers.

"Oh my God!" she hissed through her teeth.

One of her hands detached from my shoulder to cup over the back of mine. Plunging me in deeper, harder than I would have. It was on the tip of my tongue to warn her to take it easy, but she was lost in a sea of her own pleasure and wasn't going to listen to me.

I supposed it was inevitable anyway. The film of skin I knew was securely keeping her virtue intact would be meeting my cock sooner or later but hurting her was my biggest concern. I hadn't had a virgin in years, but I remembered the process.

Blue seemed oblivious. She rode my hand with a single-minded hunger of someone whose only desire in life was to cum. The world could crash down around us, and she would beg me not to stop.

I didn't stop her, nor did I help. I let her use me to get herself off. I let her finger fuck herself with my hand. I watched the dance of euphoric bliss sway across her face as she brought herself close. The vicious hold of her teeth on her bottom lip.

Christ, she was fucking breathtaking. I could have watched her for the rest of my life. I could have dedicated the rest of my existence to standing in that shower, the hot water warm against our bodies, letting her claim her orgasm.

When her back arched off the tile and my name was a whimpering plea on her lips, I hooked an arm around her middle and dragged her into me. I dug my cock into her hip and buried my face into the side of her cheek.

"That's it. Cum for me, Blue," I groaned into her ear.

With a moan that sent her head back, exposing her throat to my teeth, Blue came with a series of incoherent mumbles I didn't understand. Her pussy seized around the fingers she held deep within the hot confines of her body. Her walls milked them the way I was dying to feel around my dick.

Shuddering and making helpless little whines that made my control waver, Blue opened her eyes and peered at me with the most sated expression of a smug feline.

"I missed that," she breathed.

I thought of her needing me the last two weeks and me being too preoccupied by work to give her what she needed and felt a spear of annoyance at myself.

"I won't let that happen again," I promised her.

She gave me a lazy smile that tightened the noose around my chest. "You were working."

It surprised me how quickly I was about to tell her nothing was more important than her. But sense prevailed and focused instead on maneuvering her deeper under the spray. I held her gaze as I discreetly rinsed the smear of blood on my finger and across my palm.

I didn't know if she knew what she's done, but I wasn't about to gamble her soft glow on a patch of skin that I was going to dislodge eventually.

So, I rinsed away the evidence. I poured body wash into my palm and ran my soapy hands across her sensitive body, paying extra care to wash the blood from between her thighs.

Then I did myself. I shampooed my hair and scrubbed lake water off my skin. Blue watched me with the familiar scrutiny of someone definitely enjoying the show.

"Like what you see?" I teased her.

I expected her to blush and look away, but she stared right into my eyes when she said, "Yes."

Biting back a groan, I shut off the water. I faced her, both of us dripping.

"I want you on the bed." I pulled the glass back on its rollers and reached for the nearest towel. I shook it and twisted it around her. "Without the towel."

Blue's eyes widened, but she didn't refuse. She wouldn't. She may not have known the things I was about to do to her, but she wanted them as badly as I did.

Securely bundled in the towel, she hurried out of the bathroom.

I took a moment longer getting my own towel. I rubbed it across my arms and chest, gathering the beads of water off my skin. My gaze searched the steam filming the mirror, tracing my blurry outline, glad I couldn't see the terror in my eyes.

I almost lost her.

No matter how I tried to remind the gnawing turmoil in my chest that she was just in the next room, that she was fine, only I knew what was wrong.

She'd been in the gardens.

I didn't even know for how long, but every second ... every fucking second could have been her last.

I rubbed a hand over my face and back through my damp hair. Not at all surprised the thing actually shook.

She was going to be the death of me, and she had no fucking idea.