by Tracy Sumner
With a swift inhalation, he caught her hand before it reached its destination. Lifting their arms high, he pointed to the heavens. “See that one?” he asked, his voice a rough cut through the still night. “Next to Orion.”
Piper trained her eyes on the sky, where stars had begun to gather like shiny pearls nestled in black silk. The night was brilliant, cloudless, a breathtaking portrait.
“The brightest star is part of Canis Minor.”
“The smaller dog,” she whispered.
His gaze shifted from the constellation to her as a bemused expression crossed his face, gone so swiftly she almost missed it.
“Latin was on the agenda, you know.”
He lowered their arms, pressing her hand flat over his stomach, the warm hollow rising and falling with his breaths. “I didn’t know you kept a tutor around long enough to have an agenda.”
“See, look how much you’re coming to learn about me.” She turned, pressing her face against his chest. “Latin is not my only talent, I should hope.” At her teasing words, his pulse skipped beneath her cheek, matching the one tapping beneath the hand he held trapped on his belly. She was caught between blood and breath, owning those parts of him. His thoughts would complete the circle. Choosing her words carefully, she cracked the box open. “You’ve never talked about it. Your time before my grandfather brought you to me.”
He released a gusty exhalation, his hand tensing around hers. “The stars were of great comfort because they were steady, no matter if viewed from the window of a richly furnished bedchamber or the alley of a filthy warren. There was safety in the clouds. A refuge. Something I could touch without the curse of haunting, damning visions.”
Tears sparked her vision, but she swallowed past the sting. She wouldn’t embarrass him with senseless emotion when he was finally sharing painful memories. “Your father…”
Another exhale and a charged silence before he spoke. “He was exacting. And unkind, as I look at his actions from a man’s perspective. He brought out the worst in everyone. Servants, estate managers, family. The house was run on and largely by fear. When I began to touch things and tell stories, at a very young age, mind you, oh”—Julian huffed a sound somewhere between a laugh and growl—“his tolerance was not merely low, it was nonexistent. Somehow, he believed regular beatings would keep the visions at bay.” His lids dropped, lashes sweeping the shadowed skin beneath his eyes. “I’d have gladly accepted the abuse if it held them at bay. If the bruises cured me. But both, his loathing and my own”—he brought her hand to his lips and placed a soft kiss on her fingers—“was too much to bear. The visions were staying in my life. My father was the removable part. He was sick by then, though dying none too quickly.”
She tucked herself into him, shoulder to knee, an instinctive compulsion to protect.
“So, I ran. A young boy, a titled fool. My pockets crammed with enough objects to pawn and keep me afloat for a time. A baron as a courtesy, the viscountcy sitting in the wings, I chose to wait my father out. Away from the reach of his fists. He looked for me as I was not only his heir but, most unfortunately, his only child. Except, rookeries are rather fine places in which to disappear, grimy alleys and gutters hiding many rats. I was just a well-educated one. When Shelley wrote, hell is a city much like London, damned if he didn’t know what he was about.”
For a moment, the faint rumble of the festival and their shallow breaths were the only sounds. “I tortured him as best I could, letting him know through his solicitor that I was indeed alive—and would return when he was in his grave.”
“And the earl?” She’d never been entirely sure how her grandfather found Julian, only that he had.
Again, he placed a kiss to her fingertips, silent.
She tried to shy away from reading his aura or allowing herself to absorb his chaotic emotions and secondarily soothe. She wanted to comfort without her gift involved, so he understood a normal exchange between them was possible.
“As much as I tried to keep it quiet, there were, I don’t know”—he shook his head, a frown denting his cheek—“episodes. One in a public house when I was fourteen. Another on the street later that year. Humphrey was there for both, thank God, and I wasn’t using my real name, of course, but I gained a reputation for having the touch. People sidestepped me in the street like I held magic in my hands. The earl had established deep connections in the very communities where we sought to hide. Participants for his research complied more readily when circumstances were desperate.” His eyes met hers, silver and amber sparking in the moonlight. Her heart gained speed as his emotions flowed in, against her will, drawn in by her vulnerability. “Look how long it took Ashcroft, a man with means, to come out of the woodwork. Until he had nowhere else to turn. Needier ones suffer even more and fail faster.”
“But…the earl said, you weren’t desperate.” She wondered how long she could continue this conversation before she began healing. His open heart had, in turn, opened hers, weakening her resolve.
He blinked, his words coming out as if sliced from his mind with a razor. “Oh, but I was. Not for myself. It was clear Finn wouldn’t survive the rookery. He couldn’t control his readings, the dreams. Couldn’t control much of anything. And I wasn’t much better. Humphrey was doing his best to keep us out of trouble…but it was a disaster. Going back to my family was out of the question, so I accepted the earl’s offer when he made it.” Julian shrugged a broad shoulder, a brush against the blanket. “I agreed to every request, giving your grandfather pages and pages of detail for his chronology, assisting with research, anything, as long as Finn was safe. My father conveniently passed a year or so into my time with the earl, allowing me to step back into this world, even if I didn’t truly want to.”
Her blood rushed through her veins at a dizzying speed. Sharing his life in this way was the most treacherous act of seduction when he did not aim to seduce.
Revealing his heart, his mind, his soul.
Pieces of himself he would leave her with.
All he would leave her with.
As if he sensed her distress, he grasped her chin and pulled her lips to his. The kiss bled into chaos in seconds. Her arms flowed over his broad shoulders and into his hair, where she tilted his head and dove deeper. Their bodies locked into place until she couldn’t have said where hers left off and his started. He tasted of mint, brandy, and something uniquely Julian. Nothing she could define in this lifetime.
She didn’t know how to measure the taste of home, but this might be the classification she searched for.
When it was now or never, their hands releasing ties and buttons, their clothing a damp, unnecessary tangle between their writhing bodies, his breath hitched as he paused, his sigh batting her cheek. When he had himself under control, as graceful as one could, he rose to his feet. The midnight sky a glorious canvas at his back, he stood highlighted against the darkness; there were no bounds to his beauty or the depth of her feelings.
I’m scared of you, of this, she thought in sudden desperation.
Then he extended his hand and said the words that somehow found their way to her heart, “I’ve dreamed of you for so long.”
With this sincere declaration easing her fear, she accepted his offer.
Sidonie lay puddled before the oak door she had bloodied her fists against. Her men had followed orders and kept her from leaving the monstrous country dwelling during one of her episodes. They had learned in Lyon the calamity going into public during one could bring.
Sidonie screamed and thumped her hands against the scarred wooden planks beneath her.
The healer was near. So near Sidonie could feel the heat of the girl’s skin burning into her own. Her men had seen her in the village, too protected to capture, just this morn.
Piper. Piper. Piper. The name was a chant, a refrain, a prayer. Campfire and twilight and friendship. Love. Through the boy, she had seen this and more—before he thrust her from his mind. Finn. She could not wait to seize
his last breath, compensation for keeping her from the answer to her invocation.
She would enjoy watching him die.
Sidonie stumbled to the window and pressed her cheek against the beveled pane. The healer was out there somewhere, beneath the stars.
Her deliverance.
Shielded, but not forever. Rebellious women never followed instructions for long. She should know.
And this one dared much.
When she made a false move, Sidonie would be waiting.
Chapter 16
My heart would hear her and beat.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson
The door to the lodge closed behind them, and Julian pressed his back to the pitted wood, watching Piper cross the room, stepping over paints and a canvas he had completed but had yet to store, heading without deliberation toward his bedchamber. A bedchamber he’d never shared with another. Never considered sharing until she stumbled back into his life.
In that space, he tossed and turned night after agonizing night as reflections of her tormented. He kicked off his boots, telling himself to go slowly.
In the doorway, she hesitated, glancing over her shoulder with a smoldering green gaze, the look a blatant invitation. Then she disappeared inside.
Piper Scott in full, glowing arousal.
He expected no less as he’d never met a more determined woman in his life.
While reiterating the internal agreement he’d made with himself in Ashcroft’s medieval chamber, he followed with a resolute stride.
Show her what she wants to know.
Overcome your fixation.
And the last, so he did not lose himself in her: nothing is as good as imagined.
Yet, when he entered the bedchamber to find Piper standing by the bed—feet bare, hair unbound and flowing loosely over her shoulders, hands toying with the buttons of her bodice—the feeling that moved through him with a sharp primal thrust was so distinct he almost sank to his knees with the force of it.
Love.
He had no experience, certainly no practice. His examples of romantic love were nonexistent as his childhood had provided nothing representative. All he’d learned was survival. And the connections he considered his closest had been created not through love, but under duress.
An abnormal collection of people who fit nowhere in society were his family now.
Piper is your family, his mind threw out as justification.
Yes, he decided with an inward sigh of relief. He was not in love. Love and in love were very, very different things.
He could never let her go if he was in love.
He watched as she struggled with the buttons, her hands shaking and making slow work of it. A smile curved his lips, and he thanked God the delightful woman showed some trepidation in this thing.
Two strides and he had his arm around her waist, his hand plowing into the dark tangle of hair and bringing her mouth to his. Her lashes fluttered as she complied with a mewling sound that tore through him. Bouncing to her tiptoes, she struggled for better reach, her fingers circling his shoulders, grasping his shirt, scraping the skin beneath crisp linen. She revealed no reluctance, no fear. A greedy response, one he answered.
The kiss was flawless, like they’d practiced a thousand times to arrive at this level of perfection. He had known, with that one, much more innocent kiss, oh, he had known she was his missing piece. Call him a romantic fool, but he believed there was one person who matched you, wit for wit, passion for passion.
A blistering fever swept him, settling in his groin, sending restraint and reason charging from him. The scent of lavender and crisp, warm earth, as if she’d been gardening and just come in from the sun, clung to her skin. There was desire, but also a powerful thread of affection stitching this experience together. A years-long bond strengthening everything he felt for her. Impatient, he deepened the kiss, hand trembling where he held her securely against his body. He angled lower, wishing he’d not grown so tall the summer after his seventeenth birthday.
The boy’s height would have better suited the man’s craving.
With an aggrieved sound, she placed kisses along his jaw while shoving him back a step. He stumbled, not realizing what she was about until she’d backed him into the wall. Her hands went to the buttons of his waistcoat, her fingers slick, slipping. Her need battered him like a fierce, unrelenting wind.
Stunned, he lifted his head, his gaze landing on the mirror opposite him.
The ravenous expression on his face was not one he recognized. He’d never exposed himself in such an intimate way; of this, he was sure. Emotion flooded him, admittedly some unwanted.
Longing, doubt, eagerness, compassion.
She shook her head—no thinking—and brought his mouth back to hers.
There were no words to describe his obsession with the woman standing before him, though he spoke nonsensical ones against her lips, her cheek, the curve of her neck where it swept like silk to her shoulder. Urgent commands and avowals bounced between them as he unsteadily loosened buttons, ties, hooks, her clothing pooling about her in a twist of watery blue silk, boned stays, and cotton.
“Goddamn all these layers,” he growled and kicked her corset aside. Without a breath of hesitancy, she removed her garters and stockings, her movements languid, teasing, as she darted gazes at him throughout the unveiling until she stood naked before him.
His mind cataloged her beauty in separate dimensions.
The man captivated versus the artist. Her hair a dream-filled cloud about her face and shoulders; her breasts high, plump but not too, perfectly balanced to her slight frame; her nipples the wondrous pink of the delphinium that littered the banks of Harbingdon’s lake during summer. Her hips were gently rounded, her legs lithe. And the curls nestled at the delta of her thighs brought new meaning to exquisite. So petite, facing him calmly, arms by her side, not reaching to cover any part of her body from his interpretation.
He marveled at her composure when he was shaken to his core. But she allowed his study, so he took his time, his gaze drinking her in as if the view presented water to a man done crossing a barren wasteland.
Her frank review in return sent a bolt of awareness pinging right through him. “Piper, love,” he said, his voice gone thick, “you are stunning.”
But when he moved to guide her to the bed, make her his in every way he’d dreamed, she raised her hand, staying his approach. Stepping in with a knowing smile, she trailed her finger over the notched lapel of his half-buttoned waistcoat, across his belly, following a direct path to his erection. She covered his length with her palm while he struggled to maintain control and keep his gaze trained on her. Her touch was tentative and untried—devastating.
“My,” she whispered with a playful glance shot through incredibly long lashes, “that is impressive. I always”—her cheeks flushed a becoming pink—“imagined.”
A spurt of laughter left his lips, joy he had never, not once in his life, experienced at such a moment. The way she looked at him then was a more exhaustive study than standing nude before her would be. He knew not how to reply, discomfited to feel his cheeks go hot. “I’m happy you think so,” he finally came up with while his brain was trying to communicate the fact that her hand caressed, none too gently, his throbbing cock.
He allowed her exploration as she undressed him. Cravat, waistcoat, and shirt fluttered to the floor before she shifted her attention lower. He dropped his head back, his forearms going to the wall to hold him up. Another minute, maybe two, was the most he could take of this. Seconds if she caressed certain areas again, which with a hesitant move, she did. Already he couldn’t catch a sure breath, and he was certain, dead-certain, he’d never wanted another woman this much.
And he never would.
Humming beneath her breath, Piper enchanted, ostensibly delighted by the entire deed, even the awkward parts he usually tried to move quickly past. Like the trouser button that wouldn’t come loose, one she sent bouncing to the floor
. “Help me,” she finally whispered, her mouth going to his chest and nipping a patch of skin beneath his collarbone. She went up on her toes to further encourage his assistance, her nipple scraping his, and he thought: enough.
His hands covered hers, making quick work of his trousers and drawers. Then he walked her back, back, until the high mattress met her thighs and gravity took her down. He scooted her across the counterpane, resolving for their difference in height before gently flowing over her, their hips brushing, shifting, melding in an absolute, hot, slick seal.
Her hushed groan echoed as he rocked against her, once, then again, her body readying, moisture coating his cock. So wet so quickly, he marveled as a surge of animalistic lust tightened his scrotum to an almost painful degree. Desiring everything, he captured her lips, his hands on a quest for hidden treasure.
He wanted to know what she liked, what made her cry out and arch beneath him.
His aim: memorize how to drive Piper Scott mad.
Circling her nipple between finger and thumb, he twisted gently. Then he followed with his breath, lips, tongue, teeth. Sucking one pebbled nub, then the other, as she moaned. A band of creamy-silver moonlight poured in the open window and across her body. One hand fisted in the counterpane, the other trapped in his hair, she curved into him, seemingly lost to sensation.
Lost to him.
No artist had fashioned any woman more remarkable. There could be no more magnificent splendor.
“Here,” she demanded on a whimper, her hand falling from his hair to slide between her legs. Trapping it beneath his, he raised her arm above her head and pinned it to the mattress.
“Oh, no,” he said and blew air across the damp nipple he’d just released, “that is all mine.”
He followed moonlight down her body, over every sleek rise and dip as she murmured nonsensical bits of encouragement. His gaze skated up as his teeth nipped her hip, lips gliding over smooth skin and bone. Piper’s head was back, her hair a dark twist beneath her. Her hands were again caught in the counterpane, so forcefully, he questioned it surviving the night.
