Autumn Sage

by Genevieve Turner

  His penis appeared rude, nearly obscene, standing straight at attention, red and thick against the dark of his clothes. She ran her hand from head to root and the slide of her palm against him made him close his eyes.

  “Sebastian.”

  His eyes snapped open.

  “You will watch me.” Her hand moved along his length, and the pleasure that flowed nearly forced his eyes closed again, but he kept them open. For her. Because giving her pleasure was his only reason for being in this moment.

  She lowered her mouth. The first touch of her tongue against him pulled a moan from deep in his chest. Her mouth was so hot, so wet along his skin. Her hair caught on his trousers, onyx on midnight, as she took him deeper. He settled his hands on her shoulders to keep himself upright under the sweet slide of her tongue along his length.

  His belly clenched and his thighs went tight as he kept his eyes open and on her, the rose of her lips against the crimson of his skin almost more than he could bear. Against his will, he thrust forward, once, the painful ache of his desire too much to bear any longer.

  Her eyes flicked up toward his, the depths of them fathomless. Never looking away, she cupped his scrotum and took him as deeply as she could.

  He did close his eyes at that, lest they roll back in his head.

  Just as he was about to warn her of his imminent climax, she pulled away, clutching at his arms to drag him to the bed and over her.

  “I’ll crush you,” he protested.

  “Yes.” She writhed against him. “Exactly.”

  At those words, he realized that was what he wanted to do: crush her into that bed with the weight of him, abrade her skin with the rasp of his clothes, have his buttons bite into her as he drove her right into the headboard with his urgency.

  Some last stutter of rational thought had him reaching into his jacket, pulling out the preventatives—the events of the day hadn’t been enough to completely obliterate that green shoot of hope—and sliding one down his penis.

  With one fierce thrust, he buried himself within her to the hilt. Her eyes closed, her breasts rising to meet his chest as her back bowed. He thrust again and her legs came up to twine round his hips.

  He was a beast now, pure feral impulse, as he thrust again and again, the jiggle of her flesh and her inchoate murmurs maddening him until all that was left was instinct and sensation. Then the sensation burst, drowning out even instinct, as his climax hit and he poured himself into her.

  He fell onto her, her legs still locked around him, her body shuddering in time with his.

  “I’ve hurt you,” he muttered as he rolled over, pulling her atop him.

  “No. Never.” Her eyes were closed, her head against his shoulder, peacefully curled against him as she swept a hand along his jaw.

  His body had stopped shaking, but his mind was shuddering in the aftermath, his heart quivering with every beat. If only he could keep her here, stop time and have her always next to him in his bed. In his life.

  But tomorrow was still coming, bringing with it potential injustice and certain scandal. She would leave tomorrow and there was no way to keep her.

  Only there was a way.

  It was a path through a dark wood, choked with the specters of everything he feared most in this world, but it existed. She could be his.

  He wet his dry lips. “Isabel, after last night you could… you could be with child.”

  His blood went as slow and cold as an Arctic river, but he kept his expression blank, his voice steady. She didn’t need to know how he dreaded that very prospect.

  For her part, she raised her head and merely blinked. “It was only the once.”

  “It only takes the once. Do you understand? We would have to marry then.” God, to have her forever… but not like that. Not snared like prey. “No matter what happens tomorrow.”

  She turned away, reaching for her nightgown.

  “The chance is small.” She’d put on her schoolmarm tone once more. “We can discuss that if it actually happens.”

  She tugged the gown over her head, covering all her loveliness, then wrapped her dressing gown around herself.

  He pulled her back down to him, unable to release her just yet. If this was their only night together, she could stay until the dawn. He could have at least that many more hours to hold her.

  “At least we used a preventative tonight,” she mused.

  He cocked his head. “Preventative?” What did she, a virgin as of yesterday, know of preventatives? Come to think of it, she hadn’t asked any questions when he’d pulled out the tin and covered himself…

  The realization hit him in a horrifying rush of nausea and bitterness and his hand went tight against her thigh, his fingers sinking into the soft flesh.

  Obregon.

  She had been intimate with Obregon.

  Sebastian, who’d been by her side through this entire ordeal, wanted to be by her side always, got only two nights with her, while Obregon, that unworthy…

  How many nights had he gotten?

  A black cloud of rage surrounded Sebastian’s heart, filled his mouth, clouded his mind. The taste of it was sharp, metallic, like a dagger against his tongue and as familiar as the give of flesh under his fist. He pushed himself off the bed to stand over her.

  “Where did you learn about preventatives?”

  She sat up then, no fear at all on her lovely face, only annoyance. It enraged him, his blood going to flame as it roared along his veins.

  “Did you learn about them from Obregon?” he growled, his voice low enough to crawl upon the floor.

  Isabel stared at him for a moment with wide eyes… and then her lip curled.

  “This is about Joaquin?” she asked scornfully.

  When he couldn’t answer, she scrambled off the bed, clutching the dressing gown about her, glaring at him as she did.

  She seemed entirely unaffected by the smoke filling his vision, the ash piling in his mouth.

  “I’m not going to remain to hear such things,” she sniffed. She swept out as regal as a queen, never once looking back at him.

  And that was it. His last chance to be intimate with her, to feel the press of her against him, to find relief and release with her. Perhaps even his last chance to see her. His temper had driven her out, yet still it ran hot and thick in his blood, this rage, transforming him into nothing more than smoldering wrath.

  His fingers felt no more substantial than smoke, yet somehow they found the edge of the dresser in the corner of the room. His muscles were as hot and formless as lava, yet somehow they flexed.

  The dresser fell right over, shattered glass and splinters spewing from it like poisonous ash from a volcano.

  Isabel froze in the hallway at the terrific crash from Sebastian’s room.

  What on earth had he done?

  She couldn’t move forward and she couldn’t go back, her heart hammering in her ears, her muscles stiff with indecision.

  She ought to check on him, to ensure he was unharmed, but her mother would be awake and out of her room at any moment. Both of their mothers would be. She must not be caught in his room.

  If she wanted not to be caught out of bed, she needed to race to her own room immediately.

  Instead, she remained right where she was, caught in sticky uncertainty.

  Her mother came down the hall first. Wonderful.

  “What was that?” she demanded. “Why are you out of bed?”

  Before Isabel could answer, Señora Vasquez came toward them, Junius at her heels.

  “What has happened?” Her tones were more measured than Isabel’s mother’s. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Isabel answered. “But…”

  She gestured toward Sebastian’s door. All three of them turned to stare at it.

  Señora Vasquez’s face went tight with trepidation—a feeling Isabel shared—even as she squared her shoulders and pushed open the door. Isabel and her mother followed close behind.

&nbs
p; A chest of drawers was tipped over, the shards of the mirror spread in a halo of destruction.

  Had he pulled it over in his anger? Every inch of her skin prickled at the thought.

  Sebastian himself was staring down at the massive piece of furniture, his brow furrowed as if he couldn’t quite discern how it had happened.

  “Sebastian?” his mother asked quietly, seemingly afraid to rouse him.

  He didn’t look up.

  “Sebastian?” she tried again, just as timorously. “What has happened?”

  He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his shoulders slumping.

  His mother crouched down, reached for a shard of mirror. “I’ll just call the maids to come clean this.”

  “No.” The word was harsh, low, and it froze his mother in place. “Don’t call them.”

  Isabel’s mother stepped forward. “What happened here?” Her voice crackled with authority.

  “It was an accident,” Señora Vasquez said. “He didn’t mean it.”

  Isabel closed her eyes as the words echoed, echoed with all the times Señora Vasquez had obviously said the exact same words, only to a different man, in hopes of appeasing him, of limiting the damage.

  If Isabel gave in to that impossible dream in her heart, the dream of her and Sebastian somehow together in the future, would those words be echoing from her mouth one day?

  She shuddered as her lips formed those phantom words against her will.

  No. Her eyes flew open. Señora Vasquez’s fate, her mother’s fate—a violent marriage—that was not her fate.

  “Marshal Espencer,” her mother said, her jaw tight and her fingers clenching in her skirt as if reaching for a pistol that wasn’t there, “I ask you again—what has happened here?”

  He looked up, and her heart stopped at the stricken expression on his face. Never before, not even in the throes of passion, had emotion been written so starkly upon him.

  “I pulled it over. It was no accident,” he confessed.

  Isabel knew that was what had happened, knew before he spoke, but hearing it from his own lips… She caught the sob in her throat before it could escape.

  She’d cracked his reserve and this was what had come out. This senseless destruction.

  A sad sort of triumph passed over her mother’s face at his words, but he missed it as he bent to help his mother up.

  “Please,” he said softly, “I’ll clean it up. It’s my fault.”

  “I ask you then—what are your intentions toward my daughter?”

  Isabel did gasp at that, at the baldness of her mother’s demand.

  Sebastian looked past her mother, straight at her, his eyes as clear and cold as the winter sky. “I wish nothing for your daughter but happiness and a long life.” He released a slow breath and she swore she could see it in the air, so cold was she. “Therefore, I have no intentions toward your daughter. None at all.”

  She stumbled backward under the weight of those words, under the storm of his gaze. She only just kept from clutching at her face to pull off that weight, to allow herself to breathe.

  “No.” His mother rose from the floor, the shard of mirror falling from her hand, a fragment of light released from her fingers. “It was an accident.” She turned to her son, her face nakedly pleading. “Sebastian, you are not like your father.”

  “Of course not,” he said softly, but his eyes said that he lied. “Please, Mother, let me clean this up and you return to bed.” He looked at Isabel and his face was impassive once more. “Please, everyone go back to bed.”

  That was it then. He was finished with her.

  She ought to be grateful, given what he’d just done, but she was… empty.

  “Mother,” Isabel called, her voice unnaturally high. “It doesn’t matter. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  Her mother sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Both the Señoras went for the door, Isabel waiting for them to pass before following. She paused, unable to leave without one last glance at Sebastian.

  He might be finished with her, but she wasn’t quite finished with him.

  He was staring at the shattered mirror with that puzzled expression again. When she walked out, he would be completely alone with whatever he was wrestling with.

  This could be the very last time she saw him.

  “Isabel,” her mother prompted, “come along.”

  The shard of mirror in his hand flashed white at her for half a moment, before she saw the red smeared across it and his fingers.

  She shivered at the sight, shivered as the memory of each and every time he’d let his emotions slip their leash rose in her mind, the blood on his fingers, the blood the outlaw had spit from his mouth after being struck, the blood thundering in her ears as he spewed his jealousy at her former fiancé…

  She turned and followed her mother from the room.

  Chapter Twenty

  Isabel walked slowly behind her mother, her feet moving against the weight pulling her heart under.

  The white of her mother’s nightgown disappeared into the gloom, leaving only darkness surrounding her.

  Isabel halted.

  He was all alone now. She imagined him picking up every last piece of that mirror, his brow knit with that strangely puzzled expression of his… and her heart wrenched with it.

  No. She couldn’t let this image of him, deserted, with only his own agitation for company, be her last one.

  “Isabel,” her mother called, nothing more than a voice in the dark, “what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” She couldn’t leave him like this, no matter what her mother insisted. “You go on.”

  “Isabel, I am not leaving you alone with that man.” Her footsteps came toward Isabel.

  “Yes, you are,” she insisted. The footsteps ceased, her mother no doubt shocked by her impertinence. “I’ll be perfectly safe. Give me just five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You said you trusted my judgment. Please trust me now.”

  Silence, as her mother pondered that. “Five minutes only. If I hear anything else—”

  “Of course.”

  She heard her mother move away as she turned back to his room.

  The door was still ajar, allowing her to slip in with little noise. He was crouched by the shattered mirror, looking nothing like the beast he thought he was.

  He looked as vulnerable as he must have been when he’d been a boy and cowering under his father’s rule.

  But he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man, and men of reason did not destroy the furniture when piqued.

  When he finally lifted his head, he looked as though he found her presence as puzzling as the broken mirror.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” He’d said that before, and he was correct—then and now. But here she was.

  “Why?” She gestured to the mess on the floor, but meant so much more. This surely could not have all been for her actions with Joaquin.

  He looked from her to the mirror, then back again. “Because I was… angry.”

  As his words sank into her, dripping to her very bones with the weight of them, she realized he could not handle this—this connection between them. The closed-off, entrapped manner in which he had been living before was the only way he could be without falling back into violence.

  Like Pandora, she’d opened something better left closed.

  The horror and shock on her face was hardening now into something close to contempt, Sebastian saw.

  “Because you weren’t my first? You were angry about that? You were no virgin.”

  When she said it in such a manner, he realized how ridiculous it was, to be jealous of her life before she’d met him. She wasn’t a sweet to be hoarded. His reaction had been madness.

  Yet he couldn’t undo what he’d done.

  It hadn’t done a damn thing to make him feel better. When he’d been seventeen, destroying something in a rage had left at least a hint
of satisfaction when he was finished, but now he only felt ridiculous.

  And a little angry.

  Foolish, but he resented that he would only ever have these few days with her, while Obregon might have had more.

  But it wasn’t only Obregon. You are leaving me. Forever. A ragged cry from his heart, one that he couldn’t allow to pass his lips.

  He must let her go.

  “Yes,” he said heavily. “I was jealous. Jealous of a man who can hardly leave his bed.”

  He shook his head at his pettiness. What a fool he was. That was the problem with emotions—once they were loose, it was damned difficult to lock them away again. Especially the emotions she inspired in him.

  “This is how you react? Like a… like a… a seventeen-year-old boy?” she snapped. She was finding some anger of her own now.

  He had reacted just as he would have at seventeen, yet the aftermath didn’t feel the same at all. He needed her to understand that.

  “Isabel, I… I am sorry for this. It won’t happen again.”

  Her frown went from angry to confused. “We’re leaving tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what you promise.”

  Tomorrow. His heart strained at the word. Why had she come back? Why couldn’t she have stayed away, have left the two of them sundered?

  But she had come back—and he had to let her go once more. Oh God, how could he release her? If she left, he couldn’t return to what he’d been before, not without his entire self irrevocably breaking. He didn’t know how to shove all of these emotions back within himself—and if they continued to run loose like this, more damage would be done.

  Stay, he wanted to tell her. Give me some time to learn to live with these sensations again, more than a few days.

  If he could learn to live with sensation again, he could learn to live with her. But to unbend after only a few days—it was too much. It had taken over a decade to reach this point; it would take some time to reach a new equilibrium.

  Perhaps it was better if she was absent during the process. After a few months, perhaps a year, he would re-master himself, become a new man for her. And then they could be together, and to hell with what the good people of Los Angeles thought.