She stared at it, the roughly drawn picture that was unmistakably Noble, the words that her mind refused to register:
WANTED LUKE LASSITER
FOR ARMED ROBBERY AND MURDER
$5000 REWARD
DEAD OR ALIVE
Lori wanted to throw it down, throw her head back and laugh, accuse him of a really sick joke, and tell him that she loved him anyway, that both of them knew he was Noble Zhivago, barrister, not some Luke character who robbed banks and killed people.
"It's strange, but I get the feeling you're two different people in one."
"But of course I am. I assumed Attu told you."
"I only knew you needed help and you're lucky—"
"Lucky Luke." A chuckle. "So, Attu failed to mention my real name? Allow me to introduce myself..."
Their first meeting replayed itself without mercy, flashed before her the way people's lives supposedly did just before they died. Lori heard the sound of sloshing water, felt the consoling sweep of his embrace while he tasted her tears, and she claimed a personal victory so transcending she could smell its sweetness even now.
She stared in disbelief at the truth that made everything they had shared a lie.
Numb, she felt so numb. It was the way she'd felt when she had touched Mick's cold, still hand in the coffin, unable to believe she was really there and he was gone.
It had seemed so horribly unreal. Shock had a way of getting people by until they could handle the trauma. A part of her knew she was in shock now, but this was one trauma she couldn't imagine ever being able to get over. She was trapped in a nightmare and she was desperate to wake up from it.
"I love you, Lori."
It was a man's voice filled with passion and conviction. But it wasn't Mick's voice saying that he loved her. Neither was it Noble's. It was the voice of a stranger she heard, one belonging to a robber and a murderer. The same breed of low-life who'd crawled out from under some slimy rock to demand money with a gun before turning it on her good, decent husband. Drowning in his own blood, killed with a bullet in his heart, another in his face.
"I love... you. Lori... sweetheart... sorry, so... sorry."
Mick had begged her to forgive him for dying. And now she begged him to forgive her for living. For coming back to life again, thrilling to the touch of a man who had pulled a trigger of his own.
"I love you, Lori."
There were the words again, suffused with truth and longing and every gut-deep emotion a human could feel. But she didn't want them. She didn't want them any more than she could stand to feel his hands gripping her arms.
"Don't touch me," she snapped, jerking away from his fierce grip. She thrust the wanted poster at him, as if it were contaminated. Unable to bear even looking at him, she gave him her back.
"Lori, please—"
"Don't touch me." She shrank from his beseeching whisper, slapped off the palm he gently laid on her shoulder. "Don't ever touch me again. You're tainted."
Chapter 18
Don't ever touch me again. You're tainted.
The words rolled over and over, uncountable times, lashing him more cruelly than his grandfather's cane, seared into him with a pain more severe than a scalding iron.
He had braced himself for the worst, but this was immeasurably worse than he'd allowed himself to imagine.
His hands balled into fists and it was all Noble could do not to shake her until every memory fell from her head and onto the floor so he might stomp upon each one until Lori's mind, her heart, was left blank and unscarred, able to accept the man who loved her now.
"All that is truly tainted is your past and mine," he said to her rigid back, desperate to make her understand. "For the love of God, Lori, don't throw our future away for the sake of what can't be undone and is better forgotten."
She whirled on him, eyes snapping cold fire. "You're right, it can't be undone. For the rest of my life I'll never be able to wash away the guilt for letting you put your bloodstained hands on me. Get your things, Noble. Just get them and get out."
For a while he could only stare at her, disbelieving that her love could turn so quickly into this vicious rebuke, which bordered on hatred.
Get his things? He'd get them, all right. He got his gun from beneath the mattress and held it out to her.
"Go ahead, Lori. Take it. Fill it with the bullets you hid in your lingerie drawer. I'll wait while you do."
Her chin slightly trembled and then she lifted it. "That's your brand of justice, not mine. Keep the pistol. It's not worth it."
His hurt and desperation blended with a familiar rage, one he clung to as fiercely as he would make her cling to him before he took his leave.
With a hurtling, savage throw he heard the shatter of a mirror. It echoed the shattering of his hope, the shards his dreams.
The ensuing silence crackled with livid emotion. Then Noble tore off his shirt, throwing it toward the broken glass.
Lori backed away, hands raised to ward him off.
Noble seized her, laughed darkly as she slapped at him, beat at his chest. "Let go of me!"
"All in good time. But first, you'll hear what I have endured. And once I am done, I'll hear you beg for my touch."
"Never. Touch me, and so help me, I—"
Noble crushed her mouth with his. He assaulted her lips with the force of his rage, the unbearable pain she had inflicted as if she had bitten into his very soul. Suddenly her teeth sank into his bottom lip. Though it stung sharply, he reveled in covering his mouth over hers, painting her lips with his blood. He made her taste what she had drawn. The very life of him, of his ancestors, even of those children they might have had.
But he would make her want him, him, just as he was, dammit, and he'd take a bittersweet victory with him when he left.
Hauling her into his arms, Noble took a savage pleasure in her struggles, and then the feel of her body pinned beneath his on the bed, where he would have his say before exacting his vengeance. Great as his urge was to rip aside the flimsy bodice, he gently cupped a barely covered breast and squeezed it as if it were her heart he held in his hand.
At her whimper, which she surely detested as much as he prized it, he assured her, "I would never rape you, Lori. Rape is a violent, evil thing. Not only for the victim but for those who love them, who would gladly die to keep such an atrocity from happening to their loved ones. This I know because I have witnessed it—"
"I don't want to hear this." Her voice was as frantic as the shake of her head. He stilled both with a hard palm to her mouth.
"This is how I was rendered silent while I watched from my mother's large, deep wardrobe. She had pushed me in, with Attu. She gave me a last kiss, commanded Attu to hold me fast and keep me silent. I struggled to break free and opened the door a crack before Attu subdued me. I saw my mother being thrown to the floor, her clothes ripped with a knife. And all around me I could smell her, the perfume she wore that clung to the folds of her dresses, silky, soft, hugging me as she never would again."
Noble drew a harsh, ragged breath and forced himself to go on, forced Lori to go where he had been, where he was each day of his life.
"She was brutally raped by three men while she cried for mercy, cried to my father, who was held with a gun to his head. Attu commanded me not to look. I commanded myself not to look. But I couldn't tear my eyes from this unspeakable thing being done to my mother, my father. I couldn't stop hearing her prayers, my father's pleas to kill him and spare his wife. I'll never stop hearing them. No more than I will the sound of two bullets. One to my mother's head. And then my father's."
Noble took his hand away from Lori's mouth.
"I don't want to hear any more," she choked out. "Enough, Noble. Enough."
"Pray God hears you better than He did my mother, because you'll get no pardon from me." Despite his warning, Lori no longer struggled against him. Not even when he slid up the tiny skirt of her nightgown and put his hand between her thighs.
It was retribution he was after, seeking it and claiming it with a single, caressing finger between her intimate folds.
"For a truth, I am tainted," he whispered while sweeping his lips over hers. "For a truth, blood is on my hands. The very hands which I lay on you now. Would you have me remove them?"
"After—after what those men did to your parents, and then, later, to—to you, it drove you over the edge, that's all. You weren't responsible for what you did."
How easy it would be to play upon the welling sympathy in her watery gaze. How easy it would be to agree to Lori's flimsy excuses for what he had done. She needed those excuses to accept him, but even more he needed her to accept him as the man he really was.
Noble laughed once, grimly, refuting her desperate attempt to still love him.
"Oh, but I was, Lori. I was fully responsible for stealing back the gold which was stolen from my family. Just as I claim full responsibility for shedding blood so vile that I delighted in the taking of it. I have no more remorse for what I have done than they had for their own acts. My only regret is that the last living bastard, the one who first raped my mother and planted a bullet in my father's head, met his end by some means other than my own hand."
She closed her eyes to him, moaned softy. It was a mournful sound, like the whistle of a chill wind rattling brittle, leafless branches. A lonely sound filled with yearning for a beloved, lost companion.
Noble knew that companion was he.
"Do you wish me to leave?"
"No," she whispered.
"Then do you wish me to stay?"
She opened her eyes and he saw a terrible sadness, confusion, the flicker of a reluctant arousal. Lori shook her head, nodded, then covered her face with her hands.
"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore, Noble. I don't want you to leave, I don't want you to stay. I love who you are now, but I can't stand who you were. I don't know who you really are. I have no idea who I am. All I know is that I still want you and I wish to God that I didn't."
"Because my touch disgusts you?" He swept at his lip and put a single, bloodstained finger inside her. Her body grasped it, then her hips arched to deepen his delving.
"What disgusts me is me." she sobbed out. "Me, needing what you're doing when I know that very finger pulled the trigger of a gun. It makes me as sick with myself as I am with you. If—if only you regretted—"
"But I don't," he said hotly. "On my mother's grave, I swear to you that I regret none of it. I'll have no more lies between us, Lori. Therefore, should your need transcend your disgust, then open your eyes and look at the truth."
"But I don't want to look."
"Either you look or I'll be gone."
She looked then, from his hand that dipped inside the skimpy bodice and palmed her breast, to his gathered fingers entering her body again and again with an inexorable slowness.
He felt her internal walls grip him, then reluctantly give him up. It was almost as wonderfully satisfying as her little whimpers, the sight of her gaze turning from disgust to desire.
He withdrew his hand. She grabbed it back.
"No. Don't leave. Don't leave me like this."
"Then how shall I leave you? And leave you I shall, Lori. I can no more live with your guilt and uncertainty than you can live with my past crimes. Any future we might have is up to you since I can't change what I have done. All that can change is your inability to accept me for who I am. Would you accept the whole of me now? Or simply that part of me which feeds your need?"
She hesitated, then parted her thighs. "You're right, Noble. You have to leave. Maybe for an hour, a day, a lifetime—however long it takes me to come to terms with this horrible thing. But make love to me now. Make love to me and make it all go away. And then... then, after you're gone, I'll think."
He respected her honesty. And much as he detested this piercing farewell, Noble was grateful for the truthfulness of it. The truth, the whole of it, was finally out and any touch they shared from here on was honest, not shadowed by deceit.
He sent a prayer to heaven that she might love him still, more fully than before. And perhaps heaven was listening, for he saw in Lori's eyes that she didn't despise him anymore. He rendered her naked with haste, little gentleness to be had from his hands, which stroked her again and again, so mercilessly, she could barely draw air.
Her frantic jerks at his pants were an echo of the rawness of their emotions, their sad, desperate need. Within seconds he was poised to fill her with that part of himself she begged for. Beg for all of me, my name, my blood joined with yours in our progeny, he silently pleaded, but Noble commanded himself not to enter the comfort of her body.
"Please, Noble. Please. Be inside me."
"But only to visit, not to stay." He ravaged her mouth with his until, by force of sheer will, of pride, he made himself utter the ultimate truth.
"Whatever is between us is only what remains between you and your past, not mine, I have laid myself bare. You trampled upon my remains and yet here I am demanding that you take all that is brutal and ugly along with the best of me. If you would have me inside you now, have all of me, man that I am."
"Make love to me," she begged.
"Men like me don't make love. They're driven by demons and the darkness inside them. The darkness, it's hideous, so hideous and vile. I am that darkness, Lori. But when I'm inside you, you cleanse me. Dear God, how I want that from you, to take it with me when I go. But I'll leave now if you don't take all of me at least this once."
"All right," she sobbed. "All right! I want all of you."
He gave her all of himself. Body and soul. She writhed and moaned and cried all at once while he pumped into her, ridding himself of the demons that tarnished his past, their present. He spilled their future onto the sheets between her thighs.
Lori was still racked with her own release when he got up.
He dared not hold her, console her in the aftermath. Should he do that, he would never be able to leave.
While she lay sobbing on the bed, her eyes closed to him, Noble gathered those things that had seen him from a glacial crevasse and into her house. Hers, not theirs. There were too many ghosts here; if they ever survived this destruction, they would have to start anew, pick up where their separate pasts ended, and forge a future together that was strengthened by understanding and unconditional love.
Buckskin pants on, Noble donned a simple white shirt. He shoved the empty pistol into the holster riding his hips. Not that the impotent weapon would do him any good when facing an enemy.
He confronted his greatest enemy now, Lori's rejection and uncertainty filling his chest as he stuffed his feet into his boots. The click of his heels on the floor and Lori's jagged sobs were the only sounds to be heard as he went to the door.
He swallowed against a burning tightness and said as evenly as he was able, "tainted though my touch might be, my heart is pure. It has killed purely. It has loved purely. Please know that I do love you, Lori. I would have you for a friend beyond measure, the mother of my children, a mate who transcends the title of wife. But this is as I would have you, not as you are willing to be or wish to have me in equal measure. I'll wait for you, even if it's in another lifetime that we meet to settle the score. Until your own demons are laid to rest, fare thee well, my lady."
He left then, but paused in the hallway, hoping against hope she would race after him, call him back. But Noble did not even hear a whisper of his name while his heart thudded dully in his chest, echoed from ear to ear.
His eyes were dry, so dry they stung from the moisture dammed behind them as he walked with resignation down the stairs and whispered to no one but himself, "fare thee well."
Chapter 19
How long she lay there, Lori couldn't say. Time had no meaning while she stroked the sheets that carried his scent and she breathed him in as if she were drowning, gasping for a sustaining wisp of air. And all the while she tried to hate Noble for putting her through hell and back,
making her live his nightmarish memories.
For killing her softly with his tainted touch.
But is it really tainted, Lori? Of course it is, she answered herself. He's robbed and done murder. Then why aren't you taking your damn bath, washing away the last traces of his filthy hands on you? Because... because—all right I don't feel dirty. But I should. I should feel like I've wallowed in mud instead of feeling loved inside and out.
But what about your heart that you gave to him, no holds barred, then took back in the most hateful way possible?
Lori thought long and hard about that. Battling her conscience, she rallied her weakening defenses. She couldn't be blamed for reacting the way she had. After all, Noble had kept the truth from her until she fell in love with him. And that just wasn't fair.
Not fair, but you've got it admit it, smart. Real smart. After all, you wouldn't have given him a chance if you'd known.
True.
And so now that you know, you don't love him anymore.
Didn't she wish.
But hey, he's a thief and a murderer, the same sort of low-life that killed Mick.
"No!" Lori sat upright, her shout filling up the empty room. So empty, so damn empty. Just her, alone with her conscience and a mother lode of hindsight.
The past, the present, the future she had thrown away came into pinpoint focus. Noble hadn't murdered Mick. Noble was not an indiscriminate killer. And as for the robberies, Noble would never take anything that wasn't rightfully his. Lori stared at the empty doorway.
"You screwed up," she whispered. "You really screwed up, lady. The best thing that ever happened in your life is gone because you threw him out. Noble was right—dammit, he was right. His heart is pure. He killed purely, he loves just as purely. And that's a helluva lot more than you can say for yourself."
On unsteady legs, she got out of bed and grabbed the wanted poster she'd flung at Noble's face from the floor. Nobody but Noble had any reason to show it to her. How many men would have had the courage, the character and sterling principles it had taken to do such a thing? Only one that she knew of, and now he was gone. All that was left of Noble was a heap of shattered glass, his discarded clothes, and the wanted poster she held.
Mallory Rush - [Outlawsand Heroes 02] Page 16
