#lilly linton

He led her onto the dance floor to a place between the other couples. Most of them stood there, awkward, fidgeting, not knowing where to look. Edmund and Ella knew exactly where to look, and it wasn't at their feet. They stared at each other's faces as if beholding an angel from heaven. I had slight worries that they might trip during the first turn, considering how they couldn't take their eyes off each other – but somehow, they managed not to. As the music began in earnest, they seemed to sink into each other's arms. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, fluid, and graceful.

He didn't look like the average man, exactly. For starters, he wasn't wearing uniform—very strange for military men who generally used their shiny red coats to attract silly girls like flies. Instead he was wearing a dark blue tailcoat and beneath it a waistcoat decorated with... Wait a minute! "Your waistcoat has tigers on it," I said. "Golden tigers." "Ah, yes!" His smile widened, as if I could not have hit upon a subject that suited him more. "Do you like it?" "Um... it's nice. The tigers look very... shiny." He thrust out his chest. "Fabulous, aren't they. I've had a French dressmaker stitch one on for every tiger I killed on Safari." My eyes snapped up to his face again, narrowed. "Really?" "No, not really. It's just some story I tell people when I meet them first to see whether they fall for it."

Mist came, flooding in from the edges of my sight, and I slowly sank into the darkness. From very far away I heard a voice calling out: "Miss Linton! Miss Linton!" Now who could that be? I wondered. Mr Ambrose never calls me Miss. Then the darkness swallowed me.

He had his fingers on my face, stroking my cheeks. Dear God! How could I have ever thought him cold? The tips of his fingers on my face were like torches, sending sparks racing down my spine to somewhere deep, deep inside me, a place I had never known about before. A place that only waited to be kindled.

Well, our lips didn't melt. They collided. They collided like a ship and an iceberg. They collided like two stars, one red hot, one icy blue. They collided like two wolfs, bent on devouring each other. And so did we.

He stepped closer, his cold eyes raking up and down my body in a way for which any man deserved a slap in the face. Yet, strangely, I felt no urge to slap him. I felt an urge to draw him closer. Maybe then the cold water would be easier to bear. Heat already began to simmer in my belly... "Mr Ambrose, Sir..." My words were cut off as he took another step forward and reached out for me.

Somebody cleared his throat above me. I looked up to see Mr Ambrose extending his hand towards me. "Do you need a hand?" Reluctantly I reached out and grasped his hand. Don't ask me why – but for some reason I had expected his hand to be cold and hard, just like his personality. It wasn't. Oh, don't get me wrong, it was hard all right. But it also was warm and full of life. It felt strangely... good. Considering the rest of him was so undoubtedly bad. With a sharp tug, he pulled me to my feet, and for a moment we stood very, very close to one another. I was standing again. And yet, he didn't let go of my hand, and I didn't let go of his.

Mr Ambrose was standing over a deathly pale Simmons, who lay on his back on the carpet. Taking an empty wine glass from a table beside him, Mr Ambrose raised it to the man on the floor in a mock toast. "Bottoms up. I'm afraid I haven't brought any wine. But I have brought a few of my friends."