The Marquess Who Loved Me

Chapter FOURTEEN


They were the words she’d used a lifetime ago, just before his control had finally broken — before he’d lost himself in her, in a fit of what he’d thought was momentary madness but he later learned was permanent affliction. He couldn’t deny her then, all that fragile hope in her voice and unwavering yearning in her eyes.

Now, with her delicate jasmine perfume and oil paints mingling again in the air, he was just as lost. When she nudged him toward the bench, he sat on the edge of it, oddly uncomfortable to be seated while she still stood. But she put her hands on his shoulders, keeping him there.

“You always worshipped me, didn’t you?” she asked.

The candles from the other side of the room lit her from behind. Her hair was a corona of flame brighter than any golden-haloed icons he’d seen in his travels. She untied her sash and let her peignoir slip to her feet. Her white nightgown, primly diaphanous, was nearly transparent in the light. He ached for her already, even though worshipping her was madness, even though taking her again — without revenge as a cloak over his desires — would ultimately drive another dagger through his heart.

He should say that he hadn’t worshipped her. The lie was tripping its way down his tongue, ready to part his lips so it could slip out and slap her. But the memory of her bloodied skirts stopped him.

What if this was the last night they ever had? He’d thought they had already had their last real night, without threats or regrets, a lifetime ago, but now that another presented itself…what if they never had another? If the man who wanted him dead found them — if Nick survived and she did not — could he forgive himself if their last moments were tainted by lies?

That thought was enough to overcome all the times he’d told himself, on the rickshaws, ships, and horses between his faraway life and her present beauty, that he would resist her. Need and memory flooded into the empty places in his heart where all his resolve had vanished.

“Yes,” he said. “I always worshipped you.”

Ellie sighed. Then she kissed him on the forehead, a sweet benediction. “Did you know I worshipped you, too?”

He clasped her hands in his. “You thought you worshipped me. It happens, the first time…”

She curled her fingers into fists within his grasp. “Let me show you how I felt. Then tell me whether you’d call it worship or something else.”

“I don’t want your worship. I never did.”

She sighed. There was something fragile in that sound, like a hidden flaw in a stone — outwardly unbreakable, but easy to crack with just a touch in the wrong place.

“I never wanted your worship either,” she said. She stepped into the space between his feet and cradled his face in her hands, her thumbs brushing his temples. “But I can’t stop wanting you, even if I know it’s suicide.”

They’d both feinted, hesitated, tried to give the other the chance to leave — but when her mouth met his, their kiss sealed all the exits, burnt all the bridges between what they should have done and what they chose to do instead. Or maybe it wasn’t a choice. Nick didn’t think he believed in reincarnation, but if he did, he knew he was born to love Ellie over and over again…

…and born to lose her. He put a hand on the back of her head, leaned up to kiss her more thoroughly, let her soft moan drown out his dark thoughts of loss. He knew what they were destined for — but tonight he could pretend otherwise.

Once that decision was made, it was easy to kiss her, to want her, to worship her. Her hair tumbled through his fingers, a blissful tangle of silk. Her lips molded to his. Her jasmine perfume enveloped him. In the thousands of days he’d spent in Indian marketplaces, she’d haunted him — one whiff of the flower and he’d half expect to see her.

Now that he had her, he broke away from the kiss and pulled her down into his lap. She wrapped her arms around him, tried to kiss him again, but he pulled away and inhaled.

“God, Ellie, I still want you,” he said. “Even after everything you’ve done.”

Her eager hands, which had been burning a path down his sides to the waistband of his trousers, came up to his face. When he retreated from her hair to look into her eyes, he was struck by the ferocity there — a depth of resolve that gave the lie to proclamations that women were the weaker sex.

“You can do anything you want with your anger tomorrow,” she said. “You bought that right with your financial games. But tonight — if you want tonight — we don’t talk of the past.”

The past. Ellie was the past, a past that obsessed him and consumed him. He couldn’t forgive her.

But she wasn’t asking for a future, or even a better tomorrow than the one he threatened to give her. She was asking for the present.

And his body was more than ready to oblige.

Ellie felt the moment when he honored her request, even before he voiced it. Some desire in his blue eyes flared, a hunger that matched her own. But there was strain, too — as though the idea of ignoring the past, even for a night, was so foreign to him that he didn’t know how to start.

But where he had mastered the art of obsession, Ellie had become an expert at oblivion.

“Close your eyes, Nick. Pretend we met at a masquerade, both masked. Not everything has to be about us.”

He didn’t respond. But even though he didn’t throw the past in her face and say that it was all about them, she sensed his disagreement.

Stubborn man. “Stop thinking,” she urged. “I promise you, it works.”

She kissed him again before she could take back the lie. She’d never learned how to put away her memories and regrets forever, just ways to silence them. Endless painting sessions, extravagant parties, a handful of lovers — nothing had healed her, but she’d taken the snippets of peace they’d offered.

He growled as he pulled away. “You’re thinking too. I know when you’re distracted.”

That surprised a laugh out of her. “I’ll stop if you kiss me again.”

He reached down to the floor, groping for something. She realized what he wanted the instant before he found it — the long, wide green sash from her peignoir.

She arched a brow. “Want to play Odysseus to my Circe?”

Nick snorted. “Some other lifetime, darling.” He pulled the sash tight, testing its strength. “There’s only one way this will work.”

“Death by strangulation is not how I envisioned my end.”

“If I strangle you, I’ll use my hands. But we can’t look into each other’s eyes without remembering who we are.”

She reached for the sash. “I wanted to show you how I worshipped you — even easier if I make you feel it rather than seeing it.”

He dodged her and had the first length wrapped around her eyes before she could stop him. “Not tonight. You have four months to pleasure me. Take my generosity tonight and let me pleasure you.”

Four months to pleasure him. Those words left her part ashamed, part enthralled. Not ashamed that he’d tricked her into it — ashamed that, for all that she was looking to save her soul from him, her body wanted to stay.

“You’re right,” she said, her fingers scrabbling to pull the sash away from her face. “This won’t work.”

“Shh,” he said, pulling the silk tight and tying it behind her head. “Don’t think. It’s good advice, even if you lied about the ease of taking it.”

The darkness heightened her hearing. She detected a note of humor in his voice, like a secret spice in a rich sauce, adding balance to something that might otherwise have overwhelmed her. It wasn’t lost on her that she would look something like Lady Justice — another painting she’d done, on another night when her will had failed. Did Nick see her as a judge? Or a supplicant for his favor?

He’d have four months to treat her as a supplicant. She crossed her arms and wished she could stare him down. “Make this good, Claiborne.”

He laughed. “Always.”

His breath grazed her ear. His lips pressed against her throat. She arched away, her usual sensitivity enhanced by the imbalance of not knowing what he planned. His hands slid down her arms and his calluses caught on her gooseflesh. But she wasn’t cold, despite the chilled air. She was a fire he had stoked, suddenly, to life — all the coals she had banked when he’d left her suddenly flared, ready to ignite them both.

His leg swung out from under her and he shifted her off his lap. “On your knees, darling.”

She felt the chaise shift as he moved away, heard the creak of floorboards as he stood beside her. The image her mind painted, replacing what she couldn’t see, was dark and erotic — a harem girl kneeling, serving a sultan who stood before her like a god.

She shivered as she came to her knees on the bench. These weren’t the games she played with her lovers. She was always the goddess, and they were always the mortals she deigned to spend an evening with.

“Cold?” he asked, his voice losing that erotic thread as concern replaced it.

She clenched her hands into fists. “No, not cold. Are you going to do this, or should I go to bed alone?”

Another creak of ancient wood. His hand took her fist and brought her fingers up to his mouth. They uncurled reflexively as he kissed her knuckles. “Patience,” he murmured.

Oblivion didn’t allow for patience. Her fist curled again, but with his fingers still holding hers, it became a gesture of tenderness instead of aggression.

His free hand brushed her hair to the side. He kissed her neck, right where it met her shoulder. She heard him inhale, and there was something sharp about the way he breathed her in. He dropped her hand, then slid the sleeve of her nightrail down her arm, as far as it would go without removing it entirely. He trailed kisses across the newly revealed expanse of skin, wrapping her hair around his fist to hold her still as his mouth explored. He was slow — achingly, frustratingly slow. She wanted everything, but his pace made it too easy to remember.

“Damn your patience, Nick,” she said, reaching for the sash that blinded her. “You don’t have to take your time anymore. I know what comes next now.”

His grip on her hair tightened, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “If you take it off, we are done.”

She hesitated. He dropped a hand to her breast, a sudden assault that made her suck in a breath. She fit perfectly in his palm. Her nipple tightened and she squirmed beneath him, wanting him to drop her hair and take her other breast, wanting the perfect symmetry of his touch to envelop her.

But he denied her. His other hand stayed firmly in her hair, a treasure he couldn’t part with. The hand that roved, seeking more, abandoned her bosom and skimmed over her ribs. His arm wrapped around her waist, catching her firmly up against him.

This time, he angled her head and his lips found her mouth — another move she hadn’t anticipated. It was a kiss she could drown in, a kiss that awoke her body and the fast-beating, treacherous heart she’d locked away so well. His lips knew her. His hands, in her hair, on her body, sculpted the contours of her soul rather than mere bits of flesh. With others, she was cool, remote — a guarded citadel. With him, every touch was lightning, every stroke of his tongue bringing the thunder of her own heart as her walls tumbled down.

“Nick,” she murmured as he pulled away.

“Still want to stop?”

She’d forgotten his ultimatum. “No. Just…don’t make me wait forever.”

He chuckled as he smoothed a bit of hair away from her face. “I can’t even if I wanted to.”

His hands had left her as he said this. She mourned the fading imprint of his hand on her torso and the disappearing sensation of his fingers pulling through her hair.

But he didn’t leave her alone in the dark. Something unfurled in her belly as he caught her up, his arm snaking under her derriere to lift her slightly off the bench. He dropped her again an instant later, but he had rearranged her nightgown, and her bare knees made direct contact with the subtly textured cushion.

She groped for his waist, tracing her fingers along his skin until she found the fastenings of his trousers. But as before, he stopped her. “Stop rushing, darling,” he said.

Then he dropped to his knees. Her hands, which moments before had nearly grazed his erection, came to rest on his shoulders instead. His palms slid up her thighs, pulling her nightgown up.

The painting in her mind remade itself. The serving girl became a queen; the sultan, a captive king, brought in to pay obeisance.

“Are you sure you aren’t Odysseus?” she asked, her voice shaky as his hands reached her waist. He could see all of her, laid bare before him, while she could see nothing of the thoughts on his face.

His thumbs caressed her, tracing a path to her navel. “Only if you’re Penelope, not Circe. Now hush, or you’ll miss the best part.”

She wanted to be his Penelope, the woman he’d fought the world to come home to. But she was no faithful wife. And his craftiness was Odyssean in its brilliance — but aimed toward revenge, not love.

He kissed her belly. “Stop thinking.” Then he kissed her inner thigh. The shadowed stubble of his cheek rubbed against her skin and made her shiver.

He kissed her other thigh. “Give in, Ellie. For five minutes, if you can’t give me an entire night.”

His words bound her to him, to the moment — to a world of darkness and brocade and his clever, clever mouth.

“Yes,” she whispered. She bowed her head as though to look at him, and her hair fell over her breasts. “Always yes.”

His mouth found her most private place, a dark echo of every kiss he’d given her in every lifetime that had come before. She pressed against him, wanting it, wanting him — wanting to see the contrast of his black hair against her pale skin. But in the dark, all she could have was the feel of his tongue and the heat of his mouth.

Surely he would burn her with it. He’d never done this to her before, not all those years ago when he treated her like a fragile statue he feared breaking. She gasped as he licked her — gasped again as he sucked the bud where all her pleasure was centered. Her hands found his head, burying themselves in his hair — part demand, part plea.

He responded in kind, wrapping an arm around her thighs, trapping her against him so she couldn’t move away. Every stroke of his tongue was a welcome torture. She throbbed as though her heart beat for him between her legs. She leaned back, not to escape — to admit that here, now, all that mattered was the point where their hungers fused them together.

Nick knew, somehow, what she needed — remembered the tempo she craved, even if he’d used his hands instead of his tongue when he’d taken her in the past. His strokes were sure, slowly building in speed; his arm was an iron band, as inescapable as any dream she’d had of him. She leaned even further back, until the strain in her thighs added to her need, until her hair fell free behind her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t analyze light and shadow and color.

Couldn’t search for darkness in Nick’s eyes.

Her mind gave her what her eyes could not — a swirl of color threaded through with the heat of his mouth and the texture of brocade. Her fingers tightened in his hair as her need approached pain. But he held her just on the edge of the pinnacle he’d built for her, turning all that pleasure he’d offered her into a brand that scorched her soul.

“Nick — please,” she moaned, trying to urge him on.

His arm tightened around her, and for a breathtaking moment she thought he would stop. But even his revenge wasn’t that cold. His free hand found her derriere, caressing her, pulling her closer — tilting her just an inch, just enough to give him a fresh angle.

She came apart then. Everything disintegrated in a violent blast of heat. Her heart shuddered; her legs trembled. Without his arm around her thighs, she might have fallen. Her mouth fell open, but she swallowed her scream as he’d taught her, back when they were young and she still had chaperones.

As she fell from the peak, as her legs stopped quivering and her pulse slowed, the past caught up with her. She reached for her blindfold, wanting to see Nick as he was now — wanting to see whether there was any emotion in his eyes that matched the beat of her damnable heart.

“Not yet,” he murmured, breaking away from her skin to catch her hand.

He swept her off her knees and onto her back. The old Nick would have checked her comfort, touched her softly, kissed her slowly — made sure she was ready.

The new Nick didn’t ask permission. He plunged into her moments later, and she gasped as the force of it rocked her back against the bench. His trousers, softer than the brocade beneath her, brushed against her thighs. He’d waited only long enough to free himself before taking her.

The depth of his need for her shocked her — a depth she couldn’t anticipate when all she’d felt was the deliberate, calculated seduction of his tongue. But he wasn’t deliberate now. He surged again. She slid a hand down his back, under the waistband of his trousers, settling on the firm muscle of his backside to urge him on. He found her breast with a heavy hand, more conquest than caress. She moaned under him as he sank into her — moaned again as he took her free hand in his. She might have found the gesture sweet if their fingers twined together. But he grabbed her wrist instead, pinning her arm above her head as he sunk into her again.

He was claiming her, not loving her.

And she would damn herself later for letting him — but at that moment, she didn’t care.

He leaned in to her ear. His unshaved cheek rasped against hers. “Beg me, Ellie.”

He withdrew his cock as she hesitated, until only the tip remained. “Tell me you want me,” he whispered, flicking his thumb across her linen-covered nipple. “Tell me you’ve always wanted me.”

She arched up to him, wanting him to fill her. “Nick — it was always you. Please…please, Nick. Don’t leave me again.”

His hand crushed her wrist as she said more than he’d asked for — more than she wanted to reveal. Her words fell apart as he rewarded her, driving into her with a force that could make her believe he was just as lost as she was. Three more strokes and she came again, her body rising off the couch like she was possessed. But she couldn’t move far, not when he still held her pinned. The torment of wanting to touch him, to see him, when he denied her, added an edge to her climax, sending her faster and harder into the void.

She sensed, as she slowly returned to her body, that he was about to join her. She felt the tension in his back where she still stroked him — heard his harsh breathing as he fought for control. But he didn’t bury himself — didn’t succumb to temptation as she clenched around him. He withdrew with a groan that went straight to her heart and spent himself on her belly.

Ellie squeezed her eyes shut beneath her sash as he collapsed, half on her, half on the couch. She told herself she didn’t care — he almost always withdrew, a wise precaution. He had only spilled inside her once before — when they’d first made love, before her father denied his proposal. Still, as his seed cooled on her skin, she felt deflated, somehow — like the dream he’d given her in the dark could only turn sordid in the light.

By the time Nick could breathe again, he’d already lost her to her thoughts. He knew it from the way she tensed under him — a small, defenseless thing retracting into its shell. Ellie would skewer anyone who saw her as defenseless, and even among the Amazons she wouldn’t be small. But his old protective instincts rushed forth, wanting to save her, to make things good for her.

Even though it went against all his plans for her. And even though he was the greatest danger she faced.

He tried to remind himself to be ruthless, as ruthless as she had been when she broke their engagement. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave her lying there alone. His mouth refused to utter some callous quip meant to wound her. Instead, he pulled the sash away from her eyes.

She looked up at him. All the emotions he’d wanted to wring from her were there, reflected in sapphire. Desperation. Need. Regret. Fathomless pools of regret, so deep that he knew, then, how much she’d missed him — how deep she’d excavated into the core of her own heart, letting the acid of memory eat away everything else.

Did his eyes look the same? Had he given away as much as she had — shown anything beyond the ruthlessness he wanted her to see?

Don’t leave me again. She didn’t repeat the words, but they hung between them as though the sound had turned to resin, trapping them within it like flies in amber. He’d made her beg — and taken a fierce, visceral satisfaction from hearing his name break on her lips — but he hadn’t expected that.

They couldn’t stay preserved in this moment forever, though. If she’d taught him anything, it was that nothing lasted — not promises, not love, and certainly not a perfect half hour of pleasure.

He rolled off the couch and stood beside her. He adjusted himself and refastened his trousers, but she stayed still, unashamed, her gown hiked up to her ribs and her legs splayed as though closing them would prove the moment was over. He wanted her again already — might have damned his revenge and made love to her, slower this time, the way she used to like it — but she shivered. The room was still cold, even though he hadn’t noticed while he was inside her.

“Stay there,” he ordered. He strode across the studio and retrieved her cloak, along with the handkerchief in his coat pocket. She sat up when he returned, looking dazed, but he nudged her back down and used his cloth to clean his seed from her skin.

“Apologies for that,” he said as he dropped his handkerchief and helped her stand. “Next time I’ll be ready with a cloth.”

Her nightgown falling back into place cut the final thread of their dream. Her eyes narrowed and annoyance layered over her regret until he could almost believe she’d never cared for him at all. “Thank you for reminding me of my debt,” she said. “I’m sure my comfort was not part of our agreement.”

If she wanted cold, he’d give it to her. “I’m a man of business. You will perform better if you are well fed, well rested, well groomed, and put through your paces at appropriate intervals.”

She’d been twisting her hair into a messy knot, but she dropped it and glared at him. “I’m not a racehorse, Nick.”

He scooped her peignoir up from the floor and handed it to her. “You cost more than one. Don’t be surprised that I feel a bit proprietary.”

“If I could throw you right now, I vow I would,” she muttered, slipping her arms into her robe and finding her sash to tie it shut.

“I’m sure you’ll be too tame to throw me by the time your debt is repaid.”

Ellie glared at him, but took her cloak from his hand like he was a gentleman rather than a scoundrel. “Thank you for deigning to pleasure me tonight. If no woman will marry you — and really, who would? — I’m sure there’s a whole host of widows who would pay for that tongue of yours.”

She was trying to shock him. He smiled thinly. “If you want to keep paying for it after you’ve settled your debt, I’ll entertain your offer. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, darling.”

She tossed her hair back. “Unlike you, I’ve never had to pay for a bed partner. Now, if you’re quite done insulting me, I shall take my leave. You can show yourself out, if you know your house well enough to find your way.”

She swept out, her slippers dampening the rage he heard in her steps. He waited until he no longer heard her, until the house was silent around him — or as silent as an old house could be, creaking and shuddering as the temperature fell and an icy wind beat against the windowpanes. It was too cold to stay there, when a featherbed and a warming pan waited for him downstairs. His blood no longer found joy in winter, not after an endless summer in India.

But he put on his shirt, shrugged into his jacket, and returned to the paintings that lined the walls. Ellie confused him at every turn — one moment making him think she’d always loved him, the next claiming that she could never love anyone at all. Not that he blamed her; his thoughts were just as confused. Perhaps, in this life, there would never be clarity between them.

But after tonight, he realized there were two places where he might glimpse the real truth, the one she hid even from herself: in her paintings, made when she never expected him to return, and in his arms as she came undone.

He’d have endless time to exploit her weakness for him in bed. But her paintings — she might move or destroy them, especially after he’d recognized himself in her painting of Odysseus.

So in the candlelight, alone, he explored her.

And hoped that somehow, on some canvas, he might discover why she had given him up.