Bitter Spirits

TWENTY-SIX

AIDA GAVE WINTER SOME TIME TO CALM DOWN. QUIET FURY HAD transformed his face into something she barely recognized. She’d overstepped and pushed him too far. God only knew what was going on in that mind of his right now. He might be thinking of the accident. She probably made the memory fresh for him again and could only imagine how painful it could be.

Maybe she was wrong to think his life could be changed with a simple push, and maybe this wasn’t the right way to go about it. Too much at once. She should’ve thought it through instead of acting on impulse.

Night fell, and the temperature on the porch dropped as the fog began rolling off the bay. Leaving Astrid chatting with Bo, Aida struck out into the house to find Winter. He wasn’t in the kitchen. Wasn’t downstairs. Wasn’t inside his study.

The mirrors.

God, she hoped the staff hadn’t already seen to her request. Hopefully Greta had sense enough not to listen to her. She approached his bedroom door, heart hammering with dread. It was closed. She rapped lightly, and hearing no reply, almost walked away. But considering that she hadn’t heard one word from him all day, if she didn’t at least try to talk to him, she might be sleeping on the sofa in his study.

She opened the door. Winter was standing in his shirtsleeves on the opposite side of his bed, staring into the corner. The dressing mirror had been moved there. He wasn’t looking in it, but rather looking at it. As if it were an alien enemy breeching the safety of his room.

Aida closed the door behind her. “That was my doing, too, I’m afraid. I didn’t do it to hurt you. I just . . .”

He didn’t turn around to look at her. “You just what?”

“I just wanted you to see yourself as I did.”

“And how is that, Aida?” He sounded weary or sad. Maybe angry. She wasn’t sure which.

She stood behind him, catching both their reflections in the long mirror. The planes and contours of his long face were changed by shadows, his eyes downcast, feelings shrouded. “I see someone strong and resilient. Someone who pushes himself hard and expects others to do the same. Someone smart and fair. Decisive. Protective. I see a good man.”

“You see a mirage.”

“Better to use my sight for hope than remain blinded by guilt.” She put a hand on his arm. “And if you’re a mirage, how is it that you feel solid to me?”

His head turned. He looked down at her hand as if he could will it away. She gripped him harder. When his eyes met hers, she saw nothing but cold outrage and a barely checked rancor that made goose bumps swell across her arms. It was as though he was daring her—just daring her to look away.

She dared him right back.

An explosion of fire leapt behind all that coldness. His big arm shot out, snagged her around the waist, and lifted her right off the floor.

He meant to punish her, but she met him halfway, wrapping her legs around his waist and digging her nails into the back of his neck.

How do you punish someone who wants to be punished?

The kiss was angry. Aggressive. Searing. His cock hardened immediately. Christ, she felt good, and he was starved for her. Had it been two days since he’d had her? It seemed like years. He pulled her hips against him and slid his tongue into her mouth, teasing a tortured moan out of her. Yes, that’s the sound he’d been missing. Her capitulation. Her pleasure.

She wrenched herself away from the kiss, gasping for breath, breasts heaving. “We were supposed to be lovers, nothing more.” She was practically shouting in his face. “That was the agreement. You didn’t want anything permanent—that’s what you said.”

“Nothing’s changed.” A lie. The biggest lie in the world.

She slid down his body until she was on her feet again. Fingers fumbled at his fly, freeing his cock, heavy and aching for her. His balls tightened while she gazed at it, watching it bob between them.

And she dropped to her knees.

One warm hand wrapped around his cock—the sensation of her soft skin on him nearly enough to rocket him through the roof—as she gave the head a few tentative kisses that sent a dark shudder through him. Big, brown eyes looked to him for approval. He urged her on with a hand on the back of her fine, straight hair. Soft kisses gave way to a testing lick, then another—oh please, oh please, oh please—then she took him inside her mouth.

He nearly died with pleasure.

Were they fighting? He forgot instantly. Forgot everything but her mouth, wet and warm and doing her best to take as much of him as she could. He made desperate, uncontrollable noises, completely at her mercy. Unable to reason out the why behind what she was doing, only astonished and grateful that she was. Gaining confidence, she took him in deeper, another inch, cheeks becoming concave as she suckled.

He glanced to the side and saw her from a different angle . . . their reflection in the dressing mirror. Mother of God. Aida on her knees servicing him. He’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

Was this on purpose? Damn her, and damn her again.

His hips bucked. Her fingernails dug into his legs. She pulled back to get a breath, continuing to pump at him with one hand, then gave him a smile, an exhaled single delirious laugh of joy, before going at him again. She’s enjoying it, he thought madly as he looked in the mirror. But why wouldn’t she? He enjoyed burying his tongue between her thighs.

This was something more, though. She was angry . . . wanting control—of him, or of her dismantled life? Of the unseen bond that pulled them together? If she wanted him to admit defeat, he would shout it across the city. She defeated him with far less than this.

After a few more pulls from her warm mouth, he felt an unmistakable pressure at the base of his cock, the urge to thrust. He wouldn’t last much longer if she kept this pace.

“Enough, enough.” He hooked his hands around her shoulders and pulled her up. “Christ, Aida, I want to be inside you. Help me.”

He made quick work of her clothes: dress lifted over head, chemise yanked down over hips. The stockings could stay. Why was she insistent on unbuttoning his shirt? Keyed up and anxious, he slung his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor, excited by her protest, and threw her on the bed.

His brain was barely working. He was in a singular savage mode, racing against his own drive to have her, and couldn’t process anything besides the basic mechanics it would take for his monstrous body to align with her petite one in the simplest way possible. He dropped his suspenders over both shoulders so he could shove his pants lower, struggled with the tin of Merry Widows in the bedside table drawer—nearly dropping it in his haste—and prepared to flip her onto her hands and knees, so he could take her while standing at the edge of the mattress.

“No.” She pressed the heel of one palm between her legs, as if to quench an ache—possibly the single most arousing sight he’d ever seen. “Like the postcard,” she demanded.

He tore his gaze from her hand. It took a moment for his dull brain to catch up. The postcard. She wanted to be on top—there was that damned control of hers. Hell, did she think he’d stop her?

“Yes, yes,” he murmured. “Fine idea. Let’s do that. Come here.”

He sat up on the bed, his back against the headboard, and helped her as she crawled to straddle his lap. Damp curls brushed across his balls, making his cock jump. He slipped fingers between her legs. Unbelievably wet. Warm. Swollen with need. Ready for him. He guided her down, and when she impaled herself on him, taking as much of his length as she could in one fierce movement, gasping loudly, he nearly lost his mind.

“Aida, Aida,” he said, a fervent prayer. A devotion.

She chased a frenetic rhythm, hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. It only made him harder. He helped himself to her body, rolling her nipples between his finger and thumb, tasting the sensitive skin beneath her jaw, memorizing the curve where her hips flared from her waist . . . brailling over her raised scars with his palms.

His eyes lingered over rose-adorned garters biting into her thighs, then followed the lines at the back of her stockings to the lightly scuffed soles of new shoes. Every so often, he slipped a thumb down where their bodies were joined and rubbed her stiff bud until she moaned and clenched around him so tightly he had to stop for fear he’d come before she did.

“That’s it, take me,” he praised. “Punish me.”

She gritted her teeth and cried out in frustration and he loved it. She was a goddess above him, hell-bent on conquering, making him pay with each rocking stroke of her beautiful body. He adored every bit of her: the gleam of sweat on her brow, the sounds of pleasure she was making, the scent of her sex.

It was far better than anything his debauched brain had ever imagined.

Her breath became ragged. Flesh smacked. Freckled breasts quivered and bounced hypnotically. The moment she faltered, thighs shaking with effort, he angled himself farther down on the cushion beneath her and took over, vigorously pounding up into her as she arched over him.

His mind emptied. He was nothing but a body serving to meet her pleasure. And when that pleasure finally gathered strength and crested, her eyes locked with his. The look on her face was so vulnerable and open, and God help him, somewhere in the back of his barbaric, dull mind, he thought: This one. Her. Only her. No one else.

Her eyes closed. A long, soulful wail broke from her mouth. She came so intensely, so ferociously, he was almost jealous. The absurdity of this thought was washed away by his own brutal need. His turn, now—thank God.

She was boneless, weightless, ready to collapse. “Not yet,” he said. “Hold on.” He lifted her up and down on his cock in time with the pumping of his hips, reviving her. She shuddered and squeezed around him again, another orgasm taking them both by surprise. And as she bucked in his arms, sobbing, every muscle in his body tensed in anticipation.

His pleasure crashed through him, surging forward. He held her hips down and came into her endlessly, a glorious, blinding moment of complete surrender that he felt in the base of his spine, the pads of his toes, the tips of his fingers.

When it faded, he was gasping for breath below her, muttering broken Swedish that he knew she couldn’t understand, but damned if he could reach for the words in English. Funny that his mind had trouble making the switch, when it was usually second nature.

Her head lolled against his neck. He stroked her hair as their hearts slowed, finally finding the right words in the right language, which he whispered against her cheek. “Everything I have is yours. My home, my body, my protection . . . my heart. All of me.”

One salty tear slid down her cheek. He captured it with a swipe of his tongue, and this started an avalanche of great, convulsive sobs. He didn’t ask why. Just folded his arms around her, pulling her into the rocky cave of his body, and waited for the crying to stop. And when it did, he held her until she fell asleep in his arms. Somewhere inside his blackened heart, he knew it would be the last time.