She had entered his lair, frightened; that fear had swiftly been replaced by a burning desire—a fire deep in her belly.
“You requested my presence,” she said coolly. “I am here.”
“To save Lucy’s reputation?” he asked while watching her closely. “Or because you wanted to?”
“What does it matter? I am here now.”
“It matters a great deal to me,” he murmured as his gaze slid from her and over to the hearth. “I was rash last night. I should not have coerced you. It was wrong of me. I release you from this bargain. Lucy’s reputation is safe, Isabella. You needn’t barter your soul to save her.”
“Was that to be the cost, then?”
“Very likely,” he muttered.
Her gaze flickered along his body, over his chest, and she felt her insides begin to melt—to churn. She wanted to run her fingers through the black fleece, to press her lips to his chest, which looked so hard. Would he like her mouth on his nipples as much as she loved having his mouth on hers?
Would he moan? Cry out her name? Plead for more?
“You are still here,” he said quietly as he pinned her once more with his unreadable gaze. “I am.”
She could not seem to make her feet move. She wanted to stay, she realized.
“What of your Mr. Knighton?” he quipped. “You are standing in the middle of my study at the hour of midnight.”
“Black,” she pleaded, but he was ruthless, his eyes narrowed and penetrating.
“Quid pro quo, Isabella? It seems the only way we can converse. A question for an answer. It’s the only way we can let each other in.”
She stiffened but held his gaze steady. “Very well.”
“Do you fear me?”
“Yes.” He flinched as if he had been struck.
“And yet you are here. In the devil’s lair.”
“I fear my reaction to you. The feelings you create inside me.”
“And do you not think that I am also afraid?” He rose, and came to her, reached for her hand and lifted it into his. “I am well acquainted with passion. With base desires. But I am not familiar with this…these feelings I have for you.”
“You said last night,” she began, then paused, swallowed hard. “You said that you loved me.”
His gaze flickered, yet he said nothing, but instead brought her to the middle of the floor and helped her to sit on the rug. He came down beside her, took her journal from her hand and tossed it aside. Slowly he leaned over, pressed her back until she was lying on the floor, and his hand was cupping her nape, his finger was tracing her lips.
“Lust I know, but this overwhelming need to have you, to make love to you, to keep you with me forever is something I’ve never felt. Pleasure I’ve experienced, but never with one I love.”
“Jude,” she whispered as she touched his face. “I’m so frightened of this. This bind that links us. It whispers to me to take what you’re offering, but I fear the consequences. I have lived the consequences.”
His fingertips traced the column of her throat down over the swells of her breasts where they lingered until her breath caught. “I am not your father, Isabella, and you are not your mother.”
“I know, but—”
“There are no certainties in life,” he murmured as he lowered his head and kissed the apex of her breast where her heart hammered so hard. “But I can give you this certainty. I love you. And I want you. I have wanted you for so long, and that feeling has only grown. There must be trust between us, Isabella. Passion is not enough for me. I want more from you.”
“You ask for so much,” she said, then trailed off.
“Not any more than I am offering you.”
He slipped the necklace he wore around his neck over his head and placed it around hers, where the black stone nestled between her breasts. “The Sheldon diamonds. They belong to you. I cannot imagine another woman wearing them.”
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
His lips, brushing against hers, cut her off. “Think about it, Isabella. Trust me enough to just think of what I’m offering. Marriage. Security and passion that I know won’t fade over time. Little love,” he murmured as he kissed her lips, the notch of her collarbone, “I didn’t save you so that you could hide away from the world and slowly die. I risked my life so you could live. Love.”
He was leaning over her, a lock of his hair had fallen forward and she brushed it back. When he looked down at her, his gaze boring into her face, she was transported back in time, to a memory that hadn’t faded. Clutching his face, she peered up into his eyes, those gorgeous sea-tossed eyes, and imagined him looming over her with wet hair hanging down over his face. His body hard, reassuring her with his strength as his arms caged her.
She had opened her eyes, saw him as his mouth lifted from hers. Heard his voice above the din of the roaring waves and the howling wind.
“It was you,” she murmured. “All along I thought it was Death I saw, but it was you.”
His eyes closed, only to slowly open. He touched her, his fingers skimming shakily over her skin, but he said nothing, just let her talk. But there was worry in his eyes.
“You…you called to me. Your words—I heard them, as if in the distance. Your voice—it brought me back.”
It is not your time, love. You will not die tonight.
All this time she thought herself in love with the notion of Death. His gallantry, his beautiful soul. She believed he loved her because he had spared her from his grip. But it had not been Death, but Black.
“Why?” she asked, and her body shook, knowing his sacrifice, knowing he knew her most guarded secret.
“Because I loved you,” he murmured. “I couldn’t let you go, because I knew I could no longer see you, I couldn’t live, either.”
Black had risked his life to save her from taking her own.
He rose, helped her up and clutched her in his arms. “It is too soon for you to make your decision,” he said. “Come to me when you know what you want. My wishes will remain unchanged.”
“What do you want?”
He kissed her, pressed her body into his hot, hard one. “To be inside you. To lay you out and touch you with my hands, my mouth and tongue. I want to slip deep inside you and never leave. I want to wake up in the morning and open my eyes to find you lying there next to me. I want to look at my children and see you in their little faces.”
“Jude,” she whispered, holding him, weakening.
“But I want you to want that as much as I do, Isabella.”
“We have too many secrets,” she began. “Our pasts…”
“Secrets, like passion, are meant to be spent. I will bear all my sins, all my secrets, when you come to me. It’s all I can offer. You see, little love, I’m afraid, too, but the difference between us is that I believe it’s worth it to face that fear if it means that I’ll have you.”
Death was hovering over me, his stormy eyes full of emotion. There was desire there, but there was fear, too. What would happen this night would be the start of a new world. A new beginning for me. My old life would cease to be, but I would be reborn into a new world; one of love and pleasure.
“I love you,” Death whispered as he took my lips in his. “I love your beautiful, human soul. I want to claim it, to hide it away from the world so that no one can see it.”
Death would smother me, but I did not fear his ardor. I reveled in it. His strength, his passion. His devotion.
“How is it you can love a creature such as me?” he asked. The look in his eyes was naked and exposed and I brushed his hair aside and kissed his lips.
“Trust me,” I whispered, and I felt him tremble in my arms.
“You ask too much,” Death whispered.
“Nothing more than you can give,” I replied.
“I trust you, Isabella,” Death said. “But the question is, do you love me?”
Isabella came awake with a start. The ormolu clock on her desk quietly ticked in the silence
of her room. It was dark outside, and she slipped from the bed and padded to the window. She saw a shape, a flickering of light across the street, and imagined Black standing there, studying her window.
She thought back to her dream, to Death. To trust and desire.
Black would trust her with his secrets. He would protect hers. But did she trust him with her heart? Could she?
She thought of Wendell, and no longer felt any remorse for her feelings. She did not love him. Her heart had been taken two years ago, by a stranger she thought she had conjured up in the atmosphere of her imagination.
He had asked her to trust him—and there was only one way she knew how. She reached into the wardrobe and pulled out the crimson gown.
No regrets. No seduction. No scandal. Only love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BLACK LOOKED UP from the flames flickering in the hearth. The clock had long struck past midnight, and he saw her walking to him, like a ghostly specter. She wore a red gown and he watched as she soundlessly padded across the carpet.
Lamb saw her, too, for she stopped and petted his head, smiling as the dog licked her arm. When she looked up at him, his breath froze.
This was no vision. This was Isabella. In the flesh. Come to him of her own volition. He studied her, just as he had that night two years ago when he had followed her to the water. It had not been fit weather for man nor beast, and he could not help but feel the ominous atmosphere as it surrounded the little harbor. Death was close by, he smelled it, the same lingering essence that haunted him after all these years.
He had walked to the beach, silently tracking her, but he needn’t have tried. The wind was so loud he could barely hear himself think, and Isabella was lost in her thoughts. She stood too close to the water’s edge, but he had thought she wanted to watch the waves, how violently they crashed against the rocks. The surf pounded in a fierce frenzy, and then she had begun to walk…to put her booted feet in the foaming water. And then he had realized with dawning horror that she was walking out, the drag of her gown and her cloak sinking into the water. He had shouted at her, but the wind drowned out his voice. And then a wave crashed over her, and he saw her go under, and then nothing. He had run then, without any thought. And for the first time in more than ten years he had prayed.
“I felt him, you know,” she murmured as she came to stand before him. “He had a hold of me, and then I felt your hand grasping my wrist, tugging, pulling me from the sucking waves, but Death did not want to give up his hold. He dragged me down once more, and you fought him.”
Her eyes were brilliant, shining with tears.
“I couldn’t do it, you see, live alone anymore. I had just received a letter, a refusal of a post. It had been my last hope, that job of governess. And when the rejection came I knew I had no prospects. I could move where no one knew who I was, where they did not know my mother and her pathetic existence. But I would still be alone. Unloved.”
Her breath caught, and she folded her hands before her. “So I did what I thought best. Death had been a part of my life. I was twelve when I saw him, with my grandmother. He came to take the life of a new mother and her infant. He has haunted me from that time. He took my grandmother who was the only comfort I had, and then my mother. He left me alone, and I thought he might as well claim me, too, rather than forcing me to live my meager existence.”
He reached for her hands, parted them, then brought one to his mouth and kissed it, squeezed it as he looked up, encouraging her to talk.
“There was no pain, just a feeling of rightness, until you pulled me out and dragged me to the shore. You forced me to live. You risked your own life so that I might.”
Closing his eyes, he pressed her hand to his mouth and held it there.
“You kissed me, and I opened my eyes and thought you were Death. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I clung to the memory of you because it gave me comfort—the only bit of happiness I had ever had. You were my secret fantasy, my lover. My story… Lord Death is you, and the woman he stalks…is me.”
“Why have you come,” he asked, “when you now know the truth?”
“Because when you saved me, you forged a link between us. I don’t believe it will ever break.”
“Bella,” he whispered, “I couldn’t allow you to take your life. Couldn’t bear the thought of existing in a world that you did not.”
“How did you know? Did you just happen upon me?”
He smiled, pulled her down into his lap. “No, love, I had known you quite well, if only in my dreams. The first time I saw you it was amongst the ruins of the abbey. You were writing, and I stood there watching you. I thought you beautiful, and there was something about you that made me think we might be kindred souls. After that, I would see you around the village. I asked about you.”
“There was no end to the people who would talk about me and my mother, I suppose,” she said with a frown.
“That’s true. But I have my own mind, and I haven’t the patience for gossip. I only wanted to know your name. If you were married. You see, I wanted you. But I knew that I couldn’t come to you, not,” he said as he placed his finger over her mouth, “because of your circumstances, but because of mine. Scandal followed me. I wouldn’t allow you to find out.”
“Your mother, your brother and the woman you were to marry.”
He nodded.
“Jude, how awful. The pain of losing everyone you loved.”
“I didn’t love Abigail, Isabella. It was duty, nothing more. I have loved only one woman. You.”
Jude tilted up her chin and peered into her eyes. “I have dreamed of you every night since I first glimpsed you. I thought never to have you, but I could not resist that one dance. I want you, Isabella. Dear God, how I want you.”
The prolonged anticipation, the impatience, only heightened his arousal as he waited for Isabella to say the words he longed to hear. “I want you, too.”
Lifting her from his lap, Black said nothing, but came up on his knees, facing her, and lowered his mouth onto hers. He swept his tongue inside and Isabella, for the first time, allowed herself to stop thinking—to only feel.
Jude took his time exploring her mouth, delighting in the weight of her resting atop him. Slowly he kissed her, savoring her lips, coaxing her into kissing him back. Patiently he waited, entering, retreating, entering, until she mewled softly and let her body go limp against him.
Weeks of suffering were near to consuming him. Her body grew restless against his and, struggling to refrain from ripping the gown from her shoulders, he lay back on the floor, taking her with him, holding her so that she was cradled in his arms. Their eyes met and he grinned when he saw her luminous blue eyes widen in wonder.
Her lips parted on a small smile and she shyly pressed her face into the crook of his neck. He itched to undo the satim buttons of her gown and bare her body to his gaze, but he forced himself to slow—to take it gently and love her as she so needed.
Pressing her back, he slid the bodice from her shoulders, catching his breath as the candlelight illuminated her body beneath the gown that he could tell she wore without a chemise or corset. She had come to him to be seduced.
His finger reached for the first button on her bodice. With a flick he opened it. He reached for the next, and then the next, heard her inhale and hold her breath when the satin gaped teasingly open.
The fourth button came undone and still she held his gaze, her breasts rising and falling, her breathing increasing every time he loosened one. He reached a bow and pulled at the string, unraveling it. The gown was undone to her midriff and it would not take much effort to slide the sleeves down her shoulders, to part the material over her generous breasts to reveal her silken belly.
Without a word, he rose to his knees, straddling her legs before reaching for the sleeves of the gown. Their eyes were locked as he revealed her fully. He let his fingers glide up and around the soft mound of her belly. A fine flush covered her skin,
and he looked up to see her blushing.
“My God, you’re every bit as beautiful as I imagined.”
Her eyes were misty when she looked into his, and her lips trembled a fraction. “Truly?”
“I could not have conjured up such loveliness.” Threading his fingers through hers, he squeezed tightly before straightening from her, letting his hands glide down her throat and breasts. His fingers lingered mere seconds before skating along her belly, to grip the satin and drag the gown along her hips till it rested at his feet. He knew he was staring—devouring her with his gaze, but he was helpless to stop.
Brushing the back of his hand along her downy curls, he delighted in her soft intake of air before he motioned for her to lie on her belly. His gaze traveled down her back; the faint dusting of down on her skin was illuminated by the candle’s glow. He traced the length of her spine with his fingertips and watched as gooseflesh erupted and feathered along her back, down to her rounded bottom.
She stirred restlessly beneath his touch and he watched as the muscles of her derriere clenched and loosened. He couldn’t help but stroke her soft cheeks, cupping them in his hands and stroking his thumb along her supple flesh. She moaned, the sound muffled against the Turkish carpet.
Isabella felt the air stir behind her, saw his corded forearms on either side of her shoulders. She knew he was straddling her, she could feel his muscled thighs riding against hers, could feel the heat of his body cocooning her. Yet he kept himself above her, his arms bearing his weight. Whimpering in anticipation, she sucked in her breath as his chest, the hair crisp and curling, grazed her back. His lips were nuzzling the nape of her neck and she felt her hips move restlessly, trying to ease the ache she felt between her thighs.
His tongue came out and raked her flesh, trailing along her spine, and she curled her fingers into her palms, shivering with the heat of his tongue, then the coolness that was left behind when he moved his mouth lower.
“I want my mouth on you,” he whispered darkly as his tongue licked along her spine.
She could not say a word, only tighten her fists and wait, wait with bated breath to see what he would do next. He pushed away from her and ran his palm along her back and over her bottom. His hand came around her waist, his fingers pressing into her belly as he raised her slowly to her knees.
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