“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed.

“Shut up, Chass.” My own voice came out a gasp. Locking my arms behind his neck, I rolled my hips against him. His own hips bucked up to meet mine in response, and he groaned. I gripped his shoulders to still him. “Like this.” Leaning back, I motioned to where our bodies met. We watched in unison as I rocked against him—slowly, deliberately, rubbing up and down at an agonizing pace.

He tried to increase my speed—his hands desperate, insistent—but I resisted, pressing myself flush against his chest and biting the sensitive spot where his neck met his shoulder. He jerked, and another low groan escaped his lips.

“This is how you touch a woman.” I pressed into him harder for emphasis, grabbing his hand and bringing it between my legs. “This is how you touch me.”

“Lou,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Right there.” I directed his fingers, my breath turning ragged at his touch. My chest heaving as he continued the movement I’d shown him. He bent forward abruptly and took my breast in his mouth, and I gasped. His tongue was hot, demanding. A deep, delicious ache built too quickly in my belly. “God, Reid—”

At the sound of his name, he bit down lightly.

I shattered completely, lost in the pleasure and pain. His arms tightened around me as I came, his lips crashing down upon mine as if to devour my cries.

It wasn’t enough.

“Your pants.” I fumbled at his laces, crushing my lips against his between breaths. “Take them off. Now.”

Reid was only too happy to oblige, lifting me awkwardly to strip them down his legs. Tossing them aside, he watched me anxiously, face still pale, as I straddled him once more. I grinned in response, tracing a salacious finger down the length of him, savoring the feel of him pressed against me. He trembled at the contact, eyes shining with need.

“Another time,” I said, pushing him gently against the rooftop, “I’ll show you just how foul my mouth can be.”

“Lou,” he repeated, pleading.

In a single, fluid movement, I sank down, burying him inside me.

His eyes screwed shut, and his entire body jerked upward as he plunged himself deeper, right to the hilt. I would’ve cried out—it was too deep—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. There was pain, but—as he receded and thrust again—the pain intensified into something else, something sharp and deep and aching. Something needy. He filled me completely, and the way he moved . . . I threw my head back and lost myself in the sensation. In him.

The ache spiraled upward, and I couldn’t stop from kissing him, from tangling my fingers in his hair, from raking my nails down his arms. It hurt, this throbbing, yearning feeling in my chest. It consumed and obliterated and overwhelmed everything I’d ever known.

His arm snaked around my waist, and he spun, pinning me beneath him. I arched upward—desperate to be closer, desperate to relieve the building ache—and hooked my legs around his sweat-slicked back. His hand came down between us as he increased his pace, and my legs began to stiffen. He touched me exactly the way I’d shown him, stroking me determinedly, relentlessly. A low growl escaped his throat.

“Lou—”

Everything inside me tightened, and I clung to him as he pushed me over the edge. With one final, shuddering thrust, he collapsed on top of me, unable to catch his breath.

We lay like that for several moments, oblivious to the cold. Staring helplessly at each other. For the first time in my life, I had no words. The heady ache in my chest was still there—stronger now, more painful than ever before—but I found myself defenseless against it. Utterly and completely defenseless.

And yet . . . I’d never felt more safe.

When Reid finally withdrew, I winced despite myself.

He didn’t miss the movement. His hand shot to my chin, lifting it, and his eyes grew wide and anxious. “Did I hurt you?”

I attempted to shimmy out from beneath him, but he was too heavy. Realizing what I wanted, he pushed up on his elbows to accommodate me before rolling to his back. He dragged me on top of him as he went.

“There’s a fine line between pleasure and pain.” Trailing kisses down his chest, I grazed my teeth against his skin—then bit down abruptly. A hiss escaped his lips, and his arms clenched around me. When I leaned back to meet his gaze, however, it wasn’t pain in his eyes, but longing. My own chest throbbed in response. “It’s a good hurt.” I smiled and flicked his nose. “Well done, you.”

Monsieur Bernard

Lou

The Saint Nicolas Festival bustled around me and Reid as we left Pan’s the next morning. He’d bought me yet another new cloak—red this time instead of white. Appropriate. But I refused to let the events at the smithy poison my good mood today. Grinning, I glanced up at him and remembered the feel of snow on my bare skin. Of icy wind in my hair.

The rest of the evening had proved just as memorable. At my request, he’d agreed to stay with me in the attic, and I’d made the most of my last night there. I wouldn’t be returning to Soleil et Lune again.

I’d found a new home.

And the way he was currently licking the icing off his fingers . . . My stomach contracted deliciously.

His eyes cut to mine, the corner of his mouth quirking. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Crooking an eyebrow, I brought his pointer finger to my mouth and licked the rest of the icing off with slow, deliberate strokes. I’d expected his eyes to boggle and dart around us, his cheeks to flush and his jaw to clench, but again, he remained unfazed. This time he actually had the gall to chuckle.

“You are insatiable, Madame Diggory.”

Delighted, I stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to his nose—then flicked it for good measure. “You don’t know the half of it. I still have lots to teach you, Chass.”

He grinned at the endearment, pressing my fingers to his lips before tucking my arm firmly beneath his. “You really are a heathen.”

“A what?”

His cheeks flamed, and he looked away sheepishly. “I used to call you that. In my head.”

I laughed out loud, oblivious to passersby. “Why does that not surprise me? Of course you wouldn’t have called me by, you know, my name—”

“You didn’t call me by my name!”

“That’s because you’re a prig!” The breeze kicked up a muddy Ye Olde Sisters flyer before sending it spiraling back to the snow. I stomped it beneath my boot, still laughing. “Come on. We need to hurry if we want to catch the Archbishop’s special performan—” His eyes sharpened on something behind me, and the word died in my throat. Turning, I followed his gaze and saw Madame Labelle striding purposefully toward us.

“Shit.”

He shot me an aggrieved look. “Don’t.”

“I sincerely doubt curse words will offend her. She’s a madam. Believe me, she’s seen and heard much worse.”

She wore another gown that set off the magnificent blue of her eyes, and her fiery red hair had been swept back with a pearl comb. A small, nagging sensation buzzed at the back of my skull at the sight of her. Like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

“Louise, darling! How marvelous it is to see you again.” She clasped my free hand in both of her own. “I had hoped we might run into one another—”

She stopped short, eyes falling on the mother-of-pearl ring on my finger. I tightened my grip on Reid’s arm. The movement didn’t go unnoticed.

She stared at the ring—then between the two of us—her eyes widening and mouth parting as she took in Reid’s face. He shifted under her scrutiny, clearly uncomfortable. “May we help you, madame?”

“Captain Reid Diggory.” She said the words slowly, as if tasting them for the first time. Her blue eyes were still alight with astonishment. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. My name is Madame Helene Labelle.”

He scowled at her. “I remember you, madame. You attempted to purchase my wife for your brothel.”

She stared at him raptly, not seeming to notice his hostility. “Your surname means ‘lost one,’ yes?”

I glanced between them, the buzzing at the back of my head growing louder. More insistent. It was an odd, unexpected question. Reid didn’t seem sure how to answer it.

“I believe so,” he finally muttered.

“What do you want, madame?” I asked suspiciously. Everything I knew about this woman warned me she wasn’t here for polite conversation.

Her eyes grew almost desperate as they bored into mine—and held a startlingly familiar intensity. “Is he a good man, Lou? A kind one?”

Reid stiffened at the offensively personal question, but the buzzing in my head began to take shape. I looked between the two of them again, noting the identical shade of their blue eyes.

Holy hell.

My heart sank to somewhere below my ankles. I’d stared into Reid’s eyes long enough now to recognize them in another’s face.

Madame Labelle was Reid’s mother.