When Ash Falls (London Fairy Tales #4)(7)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

“We’ll share.” She fought to keep the patience in her voice.

“Right, well…” Serafano peeked behind his shoulder. “…just one taste then.”

Minutes later, she was happily sipping her warm milk while Serafano was snoring on the table.

“I’m torn between applauding your brilliance and notifying your cousin of the lack of ability your guard brings to the table,” came a male voice from behind her.

Startled, Sofia dropped the cup of warm milk. It hit the floor with a clatter and scattered sharp pieces of china across the hard stone. She took a step to clean it and yelped in pain as something sliced through her bare foot.

“Stay still,” Ash said in a commanding voice. With ease, he walked across the glass and knelt before her. He pulled her foot onto his knee.

She tried to jerk away but he held her firm.

“If you wish to fall on your bum, by all means, keep pulling. It will only mean I’ll have to pull porcelain from your backside. Your choice.”

She stilled.

“Good girl.”

After nineteen years of being a princess and training under only the best instructors, and she was ready to throw everything she had ever learned out of the window and smack the man across his chiseled jaw.

“It’s deep.” His brows furrowed for a second, and then his mouth was on her foot.

Sofia gasped and gripped the table behind her as Ash’s hot mouth worked over the flesh of her foot.

“I do not think that—”

He interrupted her by putting his finger up. Had he just silenced her with his hand?

Crossing her arms, she fought with desperation to keep the tingling sensation his tongue was bringing in the lower part of her body. It was irritation. Nothing more.

And then he sucked.

Her hands slipped on the table just slightly as she exhaled a breath and focused on the pain, rather than the man relieving her of it.

She clenched her eyes shut, but when he sucked a second time, she cursed him fluently in her mind and then watched his bent head.

Too angry to truly look at the man earlier in the evening, and embarrassed that she’d been looking in the first place, she hadn’t a chance to admire him fully. Until now.

His dark hair was cut quite short, shorter than what was fashionable. A small black marking was visible behind his ear. His skin was dark, but every inch of him was covered in muscle, even his tongue.

Not that she was paying attention to his tongue.

He sucked again.

She whimpered.

“Sorry, Princess,” Ash’s lips mumbled against her foot. “Almost finished.”

Did he have to be?

Where had that errant thought come from?

Sofia, he is merely a hired man!

Not even a titled gentleman or anyone of importance! If anyone found out she was alone with her guard, she would be ruined, let alone that she had allowed a strange man to suck glass from her foot.

“Done.” He gently pulled away and gazed up at her, slowly placing the shard of glass onto the table.

Sucking in a breath, she stared right back. His eyes were a deep green, with yellow outlining his pupils. They hypnotized her in a way that made her stomach clench.

Or maybe she was still hungry.

Yes, that was it.

“My thanks,” she said, forcing her most detached voice.

With a smile, he rose to his full height and then gave her a mocking bow. “My pleasure, Princess.”

“Do not call me that,” she snapped, irritated that he’d brought out foreign feelings and thoughts she had no right to have about a man who was merely a messenger, a bridge to her new life in London.

Ash leaned in, placing his hands on either side of the table so her body was trapped by his. “And what, pray tell, would you like me to call you, Princess? Is that not your name?”

Her eyes fell to his full lips. On instinct, she licked hers and answered in a whisper, “Sofia, my name is… Sofia.”

His lips pulled tight over straight, white teeth as his blinding smile made itself known. Good heavens! No man should be that attractive.

“Sorry, Princess. But I cannot find the heart to call you by your Christian name when our acquaintance will be so short. Besides, I have it on good authority your cousin would rip my throat directly from my body should I disrespect you in such a manner.”

Irritated and perhaps a bit rejected, Sofia lifted her eyes to his. “I take it he won’t like the fact that your desire was for me to aid you in your bathing.”

His eyes went cold. The yellow around his pupils all but disappeared as he leaned in, his breathing ragged. “I would like your aid in all sorts of things, Princess. That doesn’t mean you have to give it.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“Don’t tempt me to,” he countered. His eyes had gone nearly black.

Ash gripped the table so hard he was certain it was going to snap in two. The woman had no sense whatsoever! The ton was going to eat her alive. He had to warn Maskylov, after all. Ash could wash his hands of the princess once he’d delivered her.

If he made it that far.

He heard a noise in the kitchen and had half-a-mind to throw the girl over his shoulder when he noticed her state of undress. Had she no care for the seven men guarding her? Or the other two strangers roaming through the small cottage?

And then she’d drugged him.

Literally.

Had given the old man some warm milk and sung him a lullaby. The very devil possessed that woman. What? Was her plan to sweet-talk every single man under her employ?

Not him.

Never him.

He would deliver her if it was the last thing he did. He owed his brother, Hunter, Duke of Haverstone, that much. Guilt nestled comfortably onto his shoulders. As long as he felt the guilt, he would not get sidetracked with a beautiful princess who walked around barefoot and sang to her protectors.

“I tempt you?” she answered back, snapping him out of his fury.

How to answer?

She leaned forward.

Her second lesson of the night would soon be learned. “It appears I am going to have to do some teaching as well as delivering.”

“Teaching?” she repeated. “What could you possibly teach me?”

Ash licked his lips and smiled, as the princess’s gaze went exactly where he had commanded it to: his mouth.

“Princess.”

“Yes?” She sighed.

“I am going to teach you how to fight off a man’s advances.”

“A man’s advances—”

His mouth claimed hers before his brain registered that it was most likely the worst idea he’d ever had in his lifetime. Kissing someone who did not belong to him. Apparently, he had made a terrible habit of doing that in his existence. Wanting what was not his.