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Elisa remembered that throaty ruht she’d ed her own fancy with the house cats she’d seen earlier, and ar did purr
He ain, this time toward her It was instinct to step back, to clutch the sheets tighter She was in his bedroom, alone with hi unsees He would have seen it
"I didn’tto step around hiet back to Kohana, get these sheets to him"
Mal shook his head, took the sheets fro his hands to her waist, he boosted her onto the highShe wouldn’t ," he said quietly, a firm rebuke that perversely reassured her because of the fa, and apparently a regular feature of their conversations Not really the sound of a ht
"The thought was mine, not yours, Elisa I let it slide into your head It was a picture too pretty not to share" He gave her an absent smile that made the bottom of her world drop about two feet, her sto her left foot, the one she’d stubbed, he studied the toe, which had an extra pink tone froitated blood vessels There was also a small cut in the cuticle, since the bedposts were unfinished wood
He squatted onto his heels, which drew the fabric of his trousers taut along his haunches, and bent his head over her toes His hair fell forward, teasing the top of her foot, and he flipped it back i to see
She was going to protest, tell him it was fine and pull her foot away, but instead, maybe because the natural impulse that had taken her over in that drea her body over her knees, and reached toward his face He stilled but didn’t glance up, and she wondered if he’d learned that fro with shy, uncertain ani was unreh with it It worked for her
Gathering up his hair on both sides, she handed it off to her other hand so she could pull thethere as she held the shoulder-length locks out of his way Like all vampires, his hair was a treasure of thick silk that ers in it, like those pelts There was so a wild creature so intimately, wasn’t there? Only this one still inhabited his skin Of course, after her dreaical notion
He looked up at her then It increased tension on the strands, tightening the," shehelpful, because that hat she did It didn’tht her foot to his mouth and she drew in a breath as the heat of his ue swirled over the cut, tasting the tiny revelation of blood, and soothing the pain at once Since the capacity of his reater than her littlest toe, he was able to include the pad of her sole and the toes next to the injured one in that sensation of heat and h he kept his focus on the one that needed his attention
Her fingers had curled inward, holding the hair tighter She was also conscious of his hand supporting her ankle and heel, holding her fast As he licked the cut and teased her flesh, his own grip increased, so that sensation rippled up her leg, toward the inner thigh and higher
Just like the i but one of those skins, now she saw hi her to lie back on her elbows, the skirt of her dress slipping back to her thighs because he would rise, lifting her leg higher, continuing to hold it Only now his heated palers caressing that sensitive part His gaze would travel down the length of the leg to the shadowed folds of the dress, pulled back enough to reveal her undergarments, the panel of her panties, which wereShe sed They were actually, truly da this to her, with nothing but his ination or hers
"Does it matter?" He lifted his head at last "You’re cal to fear from pleasure, Elisa Your body still responds to arousal, as it should"
It o of his hair so it fell back down over his shoulders Slowly, she exerted pressure to bring her foot back into her own care Sitting back on his heels again, he let her go She didn’t look at him as she slid off the bed, somewhat aardly since she had to ain
Once she did, she faced hih on the bedpost "Mr Malachi, sir, I don’t want you to play such games with me That’s not why I’m here What happened to methat’s mine to deal with, and Lady Danny sent s, and your household, when they aren’t occupying me"
"I don’t need a house servant"
"Kohana is a s that are harder for hiht as well let me be useful while I’m here I can’t keep you out ofa hole in his chest "But I’ here"