'Don't look, Lillian. Never look into the eyes of a Sin-Eater, you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'
Lillian Elmes remembers the warning her mother gave her about the town's Sin-Eater only too well.
How could she n...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
'Lean any closer and you will singe your hair.'
I smile and rest back in the armchair. My face is warm, and no doubt my cheek is as a scarlet as the ribbon which runs almost to his door, but I do not mind. There is something about sitting here in front of the hearth, wrapped in a blanket, that feels so utterly delicious, my whole body relishes the warmth of it. It is a sharp contrast to the cold touch of the lake upon my skin, but not so different to the way his body felt pressed against mine in the water.
He sits on the floor, his back against the front of the chair, languidly stroking one of my legs which hangs over his shoulder, the other curled up beneath me. His fingers dance over my ankle bone, to the tips of my toes, then back up, tracing the delicate curve of my calf through my silk stockings.
I am not sure I have ever felt as content as this. So utterly free from constraint and rules and everything else that governs my life and what I am told I must do with it. It is strange that just days ago, I was fearful of this room, this house, this man. Everything about this place and him seemed so dreadfully alien to me. This, as he quite rightly said at the time, was not my place. And yet, curled up here, drying off in front of the crackling flames, I feel oddly at peace. Calm, when I should feel anything but. Heated, not just from the fire, but from his presence, his touch.
I reach for his hair, entangling my fingers in his soft, wild curls, enjoying the way he closes his eyes and leans his head back into my touch.
'You know, when I was a girl, that is exactly what my mother used to say to me. After I bathed, she would insist on seating me in front of the hearth and brushing my hair. She had such a gentle touch and would refuse to let the governess do it. I was glad because our governess was such a beast. But Mama would take the brush and tease out the knots so very carefully, spending an age on each one, until my hair was fully brushed out. Sometimes, as she did it, we would tell each other stories. Hers were always far better than mine, of course, but she would praise every one of my tales as if they were better than the Brontës themselves.'
Daniel's eyes are open now, staring upwards. 'That is a beautiful memory, but must we talk of your mother in this moment?'
Twisting his body and shrugging my leg from his shoulder, he turns, pressing his mouth just above my knee, looking at me as he does so. The intensity of his stare enflames me more than the kiss. My body snaps from a state of lazy, fuzzy calm to being awakened in a second. Each nerve-ending sparks sensations I know I should not have. Images of him continuing that kiss, trailing his lips up my thighs to my stocking tops and brushing that mouth against my exposed skin. He doesn't, of course, but the thought of it is there nevertheless and the heat of it stokes a fire in the place I wish he would touch me the most.
