He didn’t miss the way her eyes flew to the hourglass. The sand was almost gone. She could wait it out—punish him with silence and not answer the question. He deserved it, of course, the subject of desire decidedly unPrincely—
“My skin feels overwarm. Especially here,” Ione said, running her thumb down the center of her mouth. “And here.” Her fingers trailed over ripped fabric below her collarbone. “Here.” She lowered her hand, pressing it into her dress, just below her navel. Her eyes lifted, crashing into Elm’s. “Between my legs. A thrumming, unquiet ache. A cruel trick of the Maiden, I think. My body is the same as it ever was. I can feel all the physical sensations of attraction. But my heart remains...locked.”
Elm’s mouth went dry, the hazy edges of his vision hurtling into sharp focus. He’d watched her hand go down her body—felt his own body respond. Wherever that unquiet ache was, he wanted to find it. Touch it. Put his mouth on it.
He swallowed, his words so rough they scraped out of him. “Do you feel it now?”
When her eyes stayed on his, he knew the answer.
Elm dropped his gaze to the hourglass. Empty. He ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip. “It’s time, Hawthorn. Our wager.”
Ione folded her arms in front of her. “Where’s your Scythe?”
Elm retrieved it from his pocket, twirling it between his middle and index fingers.
“All right then, Prince,” she said, the needle returning to her voice. “Make your case. Prove you remember me before Equinox.”
He smiled. “Let’s see—which memory of Ione Hawthorn shall I pull from...” He took a long sip of wine, savoring the moment like he did before crushing Ravyn in chess. “How about when you were a girl and rode your father’s horse on the forest road without shoes, yellow hair in the wind, mud caked up to your ankles? Or perhaps a more recent time. Equinox, two years ago. No one asked you to dance, so you simply danced alone—rather well, I might add.”
Elm set the wine down and leaned forward. Even seated, he towered over her. “The smile lines, I was fond of.” His gaze traced the corners of her mouth, her eyes. “Your eyelashes were blonder. You had freckles and red patches of skin. A gap between your front teeth. Your eyes are the only thing the Maiden hasn’t altered too much. Only, before Equinox, they were happy.”
He dipped his chin. A sharp floral scent filled his nose. “You were the strangest girl I’d ever seen. Because no one at Stone is happy. They pretend at it, or drink, but the performance has its tells. But not you. You were...painfully real.”
Ione was frozen. Elm pulled back and slid the Chalice Card off the floor, holding it up between them. He wouldn’t gloat. But it would be very, very easy. “Game’s over, Hawthorn. Any last words?”
It seemed to hit her at once. What he’d said. That she’d lost their wager. “Go to hell, Prince.”
Elm laughed, deep and loud enough to shake the barbs in him. “You have a wonderful mouth.” He tapped the Chalice three times, severing its hold. “And now, it’s all mine.”
He hooked Ione’s chin between his thumb and index finger, the same way she’d held his in the dungeon, and leaned in, halting just before their lips grazed. When Elm whispered into her mouth, he made sure to touch her bottom lip with his thumb, where he knew she’d be warm. “You really thought I wouldn’t remember you?”
She had. He could tell by the flare in her eyes.
“All that talk of pleasure and warmth and that terrible, unquiet ache between your legs,” he murmured. “You painted such a pretty picture for me. And wouldn’t it be fun, denying me a kiss, had I lost our bet? To take my Scythe and render me helpless?” His top lip brushed hers. “Tell me, Hawthorn—does it make you feel something, toying with me like this?”
Her breath came in sharp, quick inhales. Her lips parted, and Elm’s thumb slipped over her wet inner lip. When she looked up at him, there was enough honesty in her eyes to render a Chalice useless. “Yes.”
“Then do it,” he whispered, gliding a hand up her spine. “Use me. Toy with me. Feel something, Ione.”
She lost a breath, and Elm sucked it into his mouth. That hazel gaze hardened a moment, cold and distrusting, but whatever Ione saw in his face was enough to make them thaw. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing her lips against Elm’s in a hard, punishing kiss.
The cup clattered against stone. Elm reared forward, sweeping Ione onto the floor, her hair soaking up spilled wine. His mouth found her jaw. He dragged kisses across it, then down the column of her neck, breathing her in with unsteady gasps.
A hungry flutter of noise scraped up Ione’s throat, her hands frenzied. They grabbed at Elm’s face, his hair, the muscles along his arms. She caught his wrist on an inhale, paused a beat, then shoved his hand against her breast.
Elm moaned, his palm filled with her. He kneaded with unrestrained fingers, spurred by the quickening breaths that bloomed from Ione’s parted lips. She clearly wanted him to be rough with her. And he could. It was what he was most familiar with.
But if he was rough, it wouldn’t last. And for a reason he had no time to work out, Elm wanted it to last with Ione Hawthorn. He softened his grip and slowed his hands, trailing them down to the undersides of her breasts, feeling the weight of them.
Then, so quick all Ione could do was gasp, he pushed them upward, meeting the pearl-soft skin with a kiss.
Her nails scraped through his hair and she arched her back, impatient. Her scent filled Elm’s nose, sharpest in the line between her breasts. He ran his mouth slowly over them, between them. She smelled of magnolia trees and fields during the first summer rain. Heady, sweet, wistful.
It undid him. For a moment, he lost focus, every thought bowing to Ione and her smell and her thrumming ache which, sometime between collecting her at Hawthorn House and there, on the floor of the cellar, had become Elm’s ache as well.
He tried to kiss more of her, but her dress—that stupid fucking dress—was in the way. He reached for her torn collar, gripping the fabric with both hands.
Their eyes met, bleary and wild.
Ione seemed to understand. “Tear it off,” she said. “Now.”
Elm brought her bottom lip into his mouth. Pressed it with the tips of his teeth. “Beg me to.”
She inhaled, to kiss or curse him—
A noise in the room pulled Ione’s focus, her eyes darting to the cellar door. Which was now open.
Filick Willow, with his hounds and books, stood, wide-eyed, arrested at the threshold.
Elm dragged his hands off Ione and shot the Physician a murderous glare. “Are we no longer knocking, Filick?”
“I—I did knock.” Filick’s gaze flew to Ione. “Apologies, Miss Hawthorn, I’ll just—” He hurried out of the room, leaving his dogs behind. One of them settled into his bed of hay in the corner. The other came over, tail wagging, and licked Elm across the face.
He reached for Ione, but she was already off the floor and on her feet, wine in her hair. “He’s not going to say anything,” Elm said, adjusting himself in his pants.
She hurried toward the door. “Wait, Hawthorn,” Elm called after her. “Ione. Wait.”
She didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-One
Elspeth