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“Well,” Milady started slowly, moving closer to him, “I’d start by getting him drunk. He’d be more relaxed, less suspicious.” Here her hand snuck out to massage a particularly hard knot in his shoulder. He closed his eyes shortly, but remained tense.
“Then, I’d seduce him. First, little touches, laughing at his jokes, pretending I’m drunk myself.” She changed her voice, swayed, and touched his arm, his chest, his shoulder. “I’d lean closer, give him a peek.” Triumphantly she noted the brief flicker of his eyes towards her cleavage. Men. “And then I’d propose going up to his room…”
She stroked his chest and went down, down, until she brushed two fingers against the front of his robe.
He struck fast, as a snake pounding on its prey. In one fluid movement, he twisted her arms behind her back, pulling hard, making her strain her back to relieve the ache in her shoulders. “ah!” she exclaimed, clear discomfort in that one syllable but he payed it no head, his other hand on her shoulder to pull her fully against him, his front to her back.
“What game are you playing at, Milady? You think yourself clever? You think you are the first one to have attempted to seduce me?”
His hand moved lower, hovering over her corset-clad breast, so close, so close. She pushed more fully against him and whispered “No. I believe myself to be the first to succeed.”
He laughed cruelly, and a flicker of hesitation passed through her. Suddenly he pushed her down to the floor, still holding her arms behind her back, so she was balancing precariously on her knees, doing everything she could to escape the hellish pain. He let go of her so suddenly she fell forward, only just managing to catch herself on her forearms. As she pushed up on the cold cathedral floor, he thrust his hand in front of her. His ring glistened ominously as it caught the last rays of sunlight entering through the stained glass depicting, in a strange twist of fate or an enormously ironical joke, Maria Magdalena.
She pressed her lips against it, and he removed it from her touch with a cruel twist of his hand. She gasped as she felt the burning sting the sharpness left behind and the warm trickle on her face. Carefully, she pressed her hand to her mouth. Her fingers came back stained red. The sun had lowered behind the horizon, leaving only candles illuminating the Cathedral. The warm glow now had faded away to a cold, eerie light.
Richelieu grasped her chin and yanked her up, hard, her body reduced to flailing limps as she scrambled to find her footing. He did not relent in his hold, smashing his lips to hers. Her lips burned from the abuse, the skin raw and tender and broken. All she tasted was the metallic taste of her blood.
He kissed her hard, drawing her lips between his, scraping his teeth against them. His tongue moved into her mouth as soon as she let him. His hold on her was so tight, their bodies pushed together completely, her breasts against his chest, her waist against his hips, legs almost tangled. His hands on her shoulderblade and his arm around her waist kept her there. Not that she particularly wanted to escape.
He released her just as quickly as he had taken hold of her, ripping down her sleeve, baring the fleur-de-lys to his sight. “It would not quite be a victory, would it, Milady?” He twisted her title into a mockery, his voice cold as ice, cutting as steel. The question not quite a question, as he traced the lines with his fingers. "Fucking a whore.”
She slapped him. Caught up in her furry, she saw red, and smacked him across the face. As he slowly turned his gaze back to her, she gasped as she saw the absolute furry in his eyes, as she remembered whom this man in front of her was, as she realised exactly what she had done, and sank to her knees again, kissing the hem of his robe, grasping his hand and begging for forgiveness.
He considered her. There was real fear in her eyes. Not as stupid as her actions, then.
“Enough. Even though you beg so prettily, I have no use for you on your knees—“
Something flashed in her eyes, something dark and fierce. It made him reconsider and he paused, conceded: “yet.”
He raised her to her feet, far gentler than he had done before. “Now. I do believe you have a task to fulfil, no?”
He waved the letter before her tauntingly.
“Your eminence,” she sneered, gripping the letter.
“Milady,” he sneered back, and did not let go.
Their gazes crossed. Neither looked away from the chillingly calculating, lovely eyes they met.
A challenge. A promise. A dare.
A stalemate.