“No, I don’t have to. I want to. And if it took half a cask of the best wine in Paris, so be it. Bébé, I’m not just your errand boy. I want more.”
Maybe it was the absinthe still bubbling in my blood, or maybe I was just sick of being an object of lust who never gave in to her own passions. Hell, maybe I felt the same way, not that I was about to admit it. But I bent my head and pressed my lips against the gold rings set in the curve of his ear.
“More what?” I let my breath play over his scalp. “Eh, bébé?”
He drew a deep breath and buried his face between my breasts. I gasped, caught entirely by surprise. The hot, wet touch of his tongue would have sent me flipping over backward had his strong arms not held me firmly down.
It was insane, the way he devoured me with lips and teeth, and all I could do was hold on for dear life, feeling as if I was floating a million miles over the ground.
“Ouch!”
His teeth had nipped too hard, and I drew back with a hiss.
“What the hell?”
Vale’s lips didn’t budge, and I realized exactly what he was doing. Bludmen tended to smell and taste of hot pennies and old meat to humans and, I suppose, half-human, half-Abyssinian brigands. But once someone had ingested a certain Bludman’s blud, even one drop, that changed completely for them both. If what I knew of Crim and Tish applied, I would now smell delicious to him, and were he human, I wouldn’t be rabid for his blood. He had always smelled strange to me before, but I suspected the hunger I felt for his body, mouth, and mind wouldn’t lessen a bit.
He sighed and pulled me closer. “Oh, dieu. Now you’re like butterscotch. Mignon, I could eat you alive.”
Arm by arm, I slipped off my jacket, revealing the snowy chemise underneath. He ran his tongue along the edge of the deep neckline until he found my nipple, held high and trapped by the built-in cups of the lingerie. Other girls in my position wouldn’t be able to breathe, thanks to their corsets. But with the barely-boned stays Blue had crafted to enhance my shape but allow me to contort, I could feel the press of his hands at my waist, and the way his fingers grasped tighter told me he found it just as hot as I did.
I let my head fall back and held on for dear life as he pulled my nipple into his mouth. The sensation was so deeply sensual that I wrapped my legs around him just to keep him there. With his arms holding me in place, he couldn’t use his hands, but there was a primal hunger in the way he licked and sucked his way across my skin, eager to find the other nipple and bring my breast to float above the chemise, the nipple peaked and eager for his mouth.
“Let me down. I can’t . . . I can’t do anything.”
I wanted to touch him, to run my hands over the rasp of his head and cheek, the smooth line of his throat. I wanted to trace fingers along his hipbones and cup his ass and trace the firm ridge pressing against my legs. But I couldn’t let go of the ropes.
“No, bébé. I like you where you are. And I can make it worth your while.” He let go of my waist and wrapped his fingers hotly, briefly, around mine, around the ropes. “Remember to hold on, yes?”
“Vale . . .”
His hands were already on my thighs, pressing them gently apart and pushing the layers of ruffled skirts and petticoats back over my hips. I sucked in a breath, knowing what he was doing, half mortified and half aching and fully expectant. His fingers danced up the insides of my legs, drawing lines up the ribbon ties of my stockings. Flat palms spread over the brief, lacy bloomers.
“That’s different,” he murmured, curling a finger under the hem, up and down.
As if his touch had been a question, I spread my legs wide to give him better access. He murmured appreciatively and let his finger rove deeper, just under the lacy edge. I quivered and closed my eyes as his fingertip slipped all the way under, stroking me softly. When I moaned, he set his mouth to my breast and murmured, “So wet,” with his lips wrapped hotly around my nipple.
His fingers curled possessively over my knees, holding them apart as he nibbled along my inner thigh, slipping his tongue under my bloomers. He could just barely reach the core of me, and he teased me like that, barely licking, barely tasting, until I whimpered and bucked against his hands.
“Dance for me, bébé,” he murmured. One hand stroked down my thigh and gently moved the bloomers aside to give him full access. I felt the caress of a breeze before I felt his mouth, and it nearly undid me.
He alternated light, breathy, teasing caresses with more aggressive tastes, and it was all I could do to hold on and not scream. I was molten inside, a pool of lava and hunger and need, and I hadn’t been touched this way ever, not even on Earth, with passion and confidence and pure, unselfish finesse. The combination of the taut trapeze and the possibility of getting caught and my pent-up need and his perfectly timed licks were too much, and I shuddered and flew apart, my fingers twitching around the ropes as he kept licking in perfect rhythm, sustaining la petite mort for longer than seemed possible.