As of this last week I've finally got this reprint project up on sale: Bound in Skin: two dark romances contains two longish stories that reverted to me after their original anthologies went out of print. The eponymous Bound in Skin originally appeared in a Catscratch Press anthology, but it's been reworked (and expanded slightly) for this version which is now available from a range of online outlets.
"You came to my house of your own will, alone. Don't you think you've left it a little late to decide that I am not to be trusted?"
Two stories of magic, shape-shifting and passionate romance with historical settings.
Bound in Skin: When her father dies, Cassandra Otley travels alone to the mountainous heart of Europe, to take up his position cataloguing the library of a reclusive nobleman with a dire reputation. Cassandra has learned rather more from books than a proper young Victiorian lady ought - yet some things have to be encountered in the flesh to be believed.
The Grief of the Bond-Maid: When the Viking wizard Vegtamr begins a necromantic ritual to sieze the power of the Runes, his slave-girl Sjofn takes the terrifying decision to thwart him. She recruits two handsome Norse strangers to help her in this desperate shamanic quest across the Nine Worlds. But Thorkell and Bjarni have their own secrets...
So very late one evening I stole back down from my room to the library. The servants had retired to bed as early as ever and I had not seen Margraf Goran for two days. I had stripped down to my undergarments while preparing for my unwelcoming bed, but now had thrown over those a dressing gown in broderie anglaise, and my stockinged feet were silent on the castle’s ancient floorboards.
Lighting a single oil-lamp, I brought to my desk a volume I had uncovered that morning and wanted to peruse again. It was handwritten on fine paper in a script that I judged was Hindustani, but the interest of the book was not in the text but in the illustrations on almost every page; delicately detailed paintings in jewel-bright colours of couples — and not just couples but entire parties — engaged in copulation in the most perfectly maintained gardens and pavilions. The men depicted were unprepossessing to my eye; plump, unshaven and rather grumpy-looking, their virile members as curved as scimitars. The women were equally sullen in appearance but made up for it with extravagantly feminine figures and a litheness that bordered on contortionism. I tilted my head this way and that as I scanned the pages, trying to decipher the knotted positions of the participants and wondering if they were possible for a woman of English frame; wondering if I would ever be inducted into such practices. My heart beat swiftly. My hand crept down between my hot thighs. I was completely absorbed.
I don’t know what it was that made me look up, but the Margraf was in the library doorway, leaning against the frame and watching me, his arms folded. I could have leapt out of my skin. I jumped to my feet instead, without thinking how guilty this made me look, and slammed a folio of innocent architectural sketches over the pornographic book.
Margraf Goran took that as a cue to approach from the shadows. He was dressed with the minimum of decency in shirt and trousers, but he was barefoot, which explained why I hadn’t heard him enter the room. His paces were long and measured, without hurry. I think he was savouring the moment. A dark smile played about his lips. As for myself, I stared and panted with all the wit of a deer cornered against a fence. I had no skill at dissembling, even if my state of semi-dress hadn’t rendered this encounter entirely beyond the pale of decorum.
‘What are you reading, Miss Otley?’ he asked, with an interest that was far from polite. ‘Something quite gripping, I have to assume? It’s very late.’
I didn’t answer. I knew without doubt that I had just lost my position of employment here and I was so panicked I could not move. If I hadn’t been so frightened I might have combusted with shame, but in fact I felt wan and dizzy.
‘Hm?’ He looked down at the sketchbook, eyebrows raised in enquiry. ‘Go on. What is it?’
I pressed my hands flat onto the cover, determined that he’d have to use force to take a look at what lay beneath. I didn’t move even when he walked round the desk and round me, stopping to look down over my shoulder. Quietly he reached forward and laid his left hand over mine. He had long, strong fingers. The movement brought his body into contact with my own, all along my arm and shoulder and back.
‘Please,’ I whispered.
The Margraf slid his fingers between mine, splaying them wider. His hand felt warm and dry. He waited a moment for me to yield, but my arms stayed locked. I heard him smile, though I could see nothing of his expression. With his other hand he very gently lifted the locks of my undressed hair from my neck and bent his head to breathe the scent of my skin. ‘It must be something quite exciting,’ he murmured. ‘You are quite warm, Miss Otley … and damp.’
I shut my eyes. My heart was pounding so hard my tense arms were jumping with each beat. ‘Sir,’ I entreated.
I think he’d lost interest in the actual book some moments previously. Releasing my hand, he scooped my chin up and drew my head back and away, exposing my throat. His lips brushed the sensitive skin in a slow sweep, his breath warm. With the other hand he traced the edge of my dressing gown around the scoop of my neck, his fingertips igniting my skin, and slipped the cotton back from my shoulder. What really horrified me was how gentle he was. There was no force involved at all, and with that he made me complicit in my own ruin. Even when I felt his teeth graze my ear I did not fight him. My eyes flew open again but I could not even focus them. The room seemed to spin.
‘Your skin is so soft,’ he whispered, and I heard an edge of unmistakable hunger in his voice. I shuddered in his hands.
Slowly he tugged free the fastenings of my gown and smoothed it off my shoulders, down to my elbows. Underneath I was wearing only long drawers and a sleeveless camisole top, its wide-scooped neckline decorated with a surf of lace and little blue bows, so that looking down over my shoulder he found a great deal of skin to admire. His chest was pressed lightly to my back. He traced the line of my collarbone. His touch — all fingertips and lips — was almost tender, but I knew without seeing it the pale wolf-light that would be burning in his eyes. He found the loose lace directly over my right breast and played with the folds, making me gasp as my nipple tightened to an eager point.
‘Shall I?’ he whispered hot in my ear, moving to finger the row of tiny buttons directly down my breastbone. ‘Or what about … this?’ Without warning his other hand slid round the waistband of my drawers, found the bow there and pulled it out in one long exquisite movement. Biting my lip, I pressed my mons against the desk edge, trying to keep those knickers in place. It didn’t stop him. Reaching under my dressing gown, he found the first sliver of bare skin between upper and lower garments and smoothed his palm down my hip and flank. My drawers, held up at the front by the hard line of wood, had no defence elsewhere and slipped to bare the curve of my bottom.
I was melting for him.
‘Wonderful,’ he growled in my ear, one hand on the satin swell of my buttock cheek, the other finally swooping to cup my right breast through the thin cotton. I felt like he was holding my whole being in his hands. Then he was pressed against me properly, lifting me up on my toes with the length of his body hard against my softness, my round bottom tucked up into his thighs and crotch, his hand squeezing my breast, his mouth on my throat, teeth bared over my pulse. Through a few thin layers of cloth I could feel exactly how much he wanted me. My legs and arms were so rigid that they could take the strain no more. My mind whirled with the pictures from the book. Suddenly I was shaking and tears were spilling down my cheeks.
‘Sir, please,’ I sobbed.
All buy-links for Bound in Skin are HERE
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