will not try to kill you this day, Nicolai,” she said. “I give you my word. Now, will you kiss me again?”
In answer, Nicolai gave a low growl, and lunged forward to catch her around her waist. As their lips met again, he lifted her high, twirling her around to press her up against the wall. Marguerite wrapped her legs tightly about his hips, drawing him into the curve of her body. His hose abraded the soft skin of her thighs, but she didn’t care or even notice. She just wanted him closer, closer.
He trailed a ribbon of kisses to her throat, biting and licking at the curve where her neck met her shoulder, the hollow where her pulse pounded. She let her head fall back against the wall, offering him all she had, all she was.
He tugged her low-cut French bodice down to bare her breasts. Her nipples strained for his kiss, aching.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “So very beautiful.”
She had heard those words so often, but never, not until this moment, had she believed them to be true. Perhaps she was beautiful—in his eyes.
He could not see her black-spotted soul. “Not as lovely as you, mon ange,” she whispered.
He captured her nipple between his lips, rolling it, biting gently, teasingly, before he at last gave her what she craved, longed for, and drew it deep into his mouth.
Marguerite found she could stand the intense need, the fire, no longer. She pushed him back until her breast was free of his kiss, until she could touch her feet to the earth. Then she clasped him by the shoulders, moving his unresisting body to the floor.
He watched her closely in the dim light as she straddled him, reaching out with desperate hands to strip him of his doublet and shirt, to tug at the lacings of his hose.
“Marguerite…” he said roughly.
“Non!” she answered. “Don’t say anything, Nicolai, not now.” Words would just break the witch’s spell, and she did not want to awaken. Not yet.
He lay back, his hair pooling around him like the golden allure of the sun. His eyes glowed as he stared up at her, wary and lustful in equal measure.
Marguerite wanted to erase that wariness, to find only passion, a deep need to match her own. She swooped down on him, like a little, lethal kestrel after her prey, trailing her mouth over his throat and naked chest, tasting the clean salt of his skin. Breathing in all his heat and life until she found her own soul stir.
As she kissed him, his fingers moved through her hair, wrapping the strands over his chest, binding them together. Marguerite smiled against his shoulder, and reached down to free the heavy, throbbing length of his erect penis into her hand. It was weighty under her gentle touch, and he shuddered as she ran her fingers up and down its iron-satin, veined shaft. She carefully balanced his balls on her palm, her embrace tightening with a threat—or promise.
In answer, Nicolai grasped her waist, rolling her beneath him in one quick, smooth movement. He pulled her skirts out of his way, parting her legs as his thumb slipped inside her wet, welcoming folds.
“Oui, oui,” she groaned. She would surely burst into flame at his touch! She spread her legs farther, urging him over her, into her, urging him to make her his. Her eyes closed as her head fell back, her body tense as a bowstring as he eased himself into the very core of her.
Their joining was not slow or gentle. They came together with the force of a summer storm, fast, violent, desperate. He thrust into her, and Marguerite wrapped her legs about his back, keeping him inside her as the delicious friction, the heat, built and built. The world turned red and bright orange around her, and a high-pitched sound grew in her ears. Greater and greater, higher and higher.
She exploded in climax, a shower of bits of the sun and stars, too bright. Too much.
Above her, around her, Nicolai shouted out, “Moya dorogaya!” Marguerite grasped his hair, clutching at the tangled strands as his back arched. At the very last instant, he drew out of her body, spilling his seed on the floor. Then he collapsed beside her, their limbs entwined.
Marguerite still held on to him, running her trembling fingers through the bright strands of his hair, smoothing them, spreading them over her breasts and throat. How heavy she felt, as if she could sink down into the earth itself and never be seen again. She was weighted, replete.
And not at all sorry. Remorse would surely come later. At this moment, she felt something she had never known before.
Contentment.
Chapter Eleven
Nicolai slammed the leather ball against the curved wall of the tennis court, his racket arcing through the air with a sharp, swift whine. Again and again he swung, practising his serve, his arm twisting back and overhand, until his shoulder muscles shrieked with the ache and sweat poured down his back. His shirt clung to his damp skin, yet still he swung, beating at the helpless ball in the empty, echoing court.
When he came here, he was sure this would be the one place at Greenwich he could be alone, could sweat out his anger and frustration. Everyone else was in the banquet hall, feasting and drinking yet again. Including Marguerite.
At the thought of her, the mere breath of her name, Nicolai swung the racket harder, the “crack” as loud as a cannon. Yet still she would not be banished. That image of her, sprawled out on the theatre floor with her breasts bare, her hair spread around her, her legs open to him, smiling up at him as she welcomed him into her body—it was all still there. Burned into his memory, his senses. The way she smelled, of lilies and clean water. The smooth feel of her skin, satiny and warm.
The way her green eyes glittered, like the emerald she was named for, as she whispered his name.
Chert poberi! He did not trust her. What was the woman about? Did she try to kill him with sex now, as she could not with her dagger? If so, she was doing wondrously well.
He still hardly knew what had come over them there in the theatre. He had lusted for women before, of course, desired them with what he thought was overwhelming passion. He loved women, loved their laughter, their soft voices, the clean sweetness of them, the complex, mysterious ways their minds worked. And often they loved him back.
But never in his life had he felt anything like what happened with Marguerite Dumas. One moment he sparred with her, his muscles moving in the practised way he employed in so many fights before. To give in to anger was the kiss of death in swordplay, especially with an icy, untrustworthy opponent like the Emerald Lily.
But then the next minute it was as if his body was consumed by a great sun flare, his mind drugged, full of only her. Desperate need. Fully dressed, they copulated on the floor, their bodies bound together in a lust gone unfulfilled since Venice.
Yet why, then, did he still feel so very frustrated? So tied up in anger, tension?
He swooped up another hard leather ball from the bucket and slammed it against the wall. He imagined it was Marc Velazquez’s head, cursing his friend for sending him into this snakepit of a palace. A snakepit ruled by an emerald-eyed viper, as alluring as she was dangerous.
“I am too old for this,” he muttered.
“Oh, on the contrary,” Marguerite’s voice said from behind him, “only
