I close my eyes, swept by longing so intense that it robs me of breath. When I open them again, Ian is staring down at me. His gaze is darkened by concern.
“Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to assure him that I’m fine when I stop myself. Treacherous longing uncurls deep inside me. I have so little time with him…
“I’m still a little dizzy. I could use some fresh air.”
My cheeks flame at the bold-faced lie. Apparently there’s nothing I won’t stoop to in order to be alone with Ian. Just for a few minutes. Where’s the harm in that? Hundreds of people surround us. More than a few of their eyes are on us. With such diligent chaperones, we can’t possibly get into any trouble. Can we?
“Let’s step outside,” Ian says. Holding my hand, he leads me from the dance floor. I go with him gladly, only hoping that I can control my unease near the reflecting pool. I’m fully aware that the problem I have with standing bodies of water is directly related to the torturous years of intermittent consciousness in the gestation chamber. But recognizing that and being able to control it are two very different things.
When I realize that Ian is leading me onto a stone terrace that extends from the opposite side of the Crystal Palace, out of sight of the pool, I all but sag with relief. We are on the western edge of the park, facing a broad swath of lawn studded with gnarled trees. Beyond it lies a low wall of gray stone covered in lichen. On the far side of the wall is an avenue lined with tall, stone-faced buildings, many dating from the previous century. They are home to some of the cities wealthiest and most powerful.
The air is cool and slightly moist. Before I can stop him, Ian takes off his jacket and lays it over my shoulders. I breathe in the scent of the fabric that still holds the heat of his body. The sensation of comfort and protectiveness is all but overwhelming but I don’t dare yield to it.
Instead, I say, “You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?” he asks, his voice low and deep, close to my ear.
My hands clutch the lapels, holding onto them as though I am holding onto him. I stare out at the twinkling lights that fill the trees. “You don’t have to take care of me. We aren’t together anymore.”
I’m reminding myself more than him. The world in which I find myself is too full of danger. I can’t afford to indulge in any fantasies about the two of us.
He stiffens beside me. With surprise? Displeasure? I can’t be sure which.
“Maybe I’m just being chivalrous.”
I turn, forcing myself to face him. “You feel responsible for me but you shouldn’t. We both know that you never asked for me to be in your life.”
He frowns as though he isn’t following me. “I didn’t know to ask. I could never have imagined you. You were a gift, in every sense of the word. The most amazing, remarkable, and--” His mouth quirks slightly. “--challenging gift that I would never even have thought to dream of.”
His words and the warmth with which he speaks them bring a sudden rush of tears to my eyes. I blink it back fiercely, struggling for control. No matter how much I want to believe his version of us, we can’t deny what my existence has done to him.
“A gift?” I scoff. “One that’s forced you to relive the past and confront demons you thought had been put to rest a long time ago. Who would ever ask for that?”
He shrugs. “No one, probably. But knowing you, being with you has made me realize that not dealing with the past doesn’t resolve anything. Old sins just fester and become even more destructive.”
“They aren’t your sins.” At the very thought, anger rises in me. “You were only fifteen years old. The guilt was your father’s, not yours. He involved you in that terrible place.”
Ian is silent for a moment, gazing at me intently. Slowly, he strokes the backs of his knuckles along my cheek. The pad of his thumb finds and tugs lightly at my lower lip. At his touch, my whole body ignites. I can barely suppress a moan.
His eyes darken. I have the sense that he is struggling inwardly, weighing how much and what to say. Even so, his next words surprise me.
“What about the pleasure, Amelia?” he asks softly. “Do you imagine that wasn’t mine, as well?”
I stare at him, unsure what he is telling me. He was an adolescent, in the throes of puberty. Of course, having sex would be physically pleasurable but that doesn’t mean--
A faint, sad smile flicks across his face. “There were aspects of it--the dominance, the possession, the control--that appealed to me.” He turns serious, somber even, as though he wants to be sure that I understand the full import of what he is revealing. “They still do.”
A tremor runs through me. My own nature isn’t remotely submissive. On the contrary, it’s a good thing that I’m inclined to defiance or I would never have survived. And yet, when I’m with Ian, something dark and primal deep within me stirs to life. I become a being of pure sensuality, craving his possession more even than light or air. Too easily I remember how it felt to be beneath him, controlled by him, his cock thrusting into me, driving us both to ecstatic release.
Ian is staring at my mouth. “Don’t do that,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Wet your lips.”
I didn’t realize I was doing so. I stop at once but it’s too late. Heat flares in his eyes. Passion? Anger? I can’t tell. Starkly, as though to discomfit me as much as I just have him, he says, “It reminds me of how good it feels to be in your mouth.”
The muscles at my core clench. We’re in the midst of an ultra-elegant event attended by hundreds of the city’s elite. But suddenly all I can think of the wetness pooling between my thighs.
“We should go back inside.” My voice lacks even a hint of conviction.
“We could do that,” Ian agrees. He takes my elbow but instead of guiding me back into the Crystal Palace, we go in the opposite direction, down a short flight of stone steps and out across the lawn. My heels sink into the soft ground. Excitement flares in me as I wonder what he is contemplating.
He slows his pace to accommodate mine but doesn’t halt until we are twenty yards or more from the terrace, looking back at the ball. Light, music, and laughter spill from the glittering pleasure dome. But it is surrounded by deepening shadows and appears to be floating on a sea of impenetrable darkness.
“I used to come here when I was a kid,” Ian says quietly. “There was an old restaurant at this location. Tavern on the Green, I think it was called. It was torn down the winter I turned eight and the Crystal Palace was built in its place. I found the whole process fascinating.”
My throat tightens as I think of the innocent child he was before his father drew him into his own twisted nightmare and tried to make him nothing more an extension of himself. A part of me is fiercely glad that Marcus Slade ultimately drove his high-powered sports car off the side of a cliff. The world is a better place by far without him.
We are standing beside an ancient, gnarled oak tree. Its branches spread out above us, filled with new leaves unfurling from spring buds. I breathe in the scents of the night and try to find solace in the simple act of being close to Ian. It works, to a degree.
Even so, I start when he lifts my hand and lays it, palm down, against the rough bark. Quietly, he says, “I carved my initials into this tree. Right about…there. Feel them?”
Gradually, my fingertips find and trace the shape of an ‘I’ followed by an ‘S’. Two decades have passed since an eight year-old boy stood here. The evidence of his presence has become blurred but I can still detect it.
“Why did you do that?” I ask.
He hesitates, long enough for me to wonder if he’s going to answer. Finally, he say, “That was the winter when I realized how bad things really were between my parents.” His mouth tightens with old, remembered pain. “My mother had bruises. I knew how she was getting them but I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
He shakes his
head. “Even then I had a sense of how powerful my father was. I knew that no one would take her side against him. When I tried to talk to her, my mother insisted that everything was fine. I realize now that she was doing what she thought she had to do in order to protect her children.”
“She loves you very much.” I haven’t spent a great deal of time with Helene Slade but I have gotten to know her well enough to be certain that she was and still is a devoted mother. One who did find the courage to leave her abusive husband once she was certain that Ian had escaped him.
He nods. “She’s a wonderful woman but nothing could change the fact that I felt completely helpless. That scared the shit out of me and made me really angry. I started ditching school, roaming all over the city, looking for something, anything that could help. In a weird way, watching a building being torn down and something new going up in its place was a reminder that nothing’s forever, things can be changed, made better.”
As the significance of what this place means to him settles over me, I ask, “That’s why you carved your initials here?”
He shrugs. “I guess. I think that I wanted to leave some evidence that even though I couldn’t do anything to help my mother, I was still real. I existed.”
My throat clenches. I know all too well the pain that comes from trying to affirm one’s existence to an uncaring universe. But at the same time, I’m well aware that Ian is opening up to me in a way he has never done before. First admitting to desires he has fought to deny and then revealing how vulnerable he has felt.
I could weep for the child he was but it’s to the man that I turn. My fingers, coming away from the tree, twine around his. I rest my other hand on his chest and lift myself on tiptoe. Softly, I touch my mouth to his, giving him time to draw back should he so choose.
When he doesn’t, I’m emboldened. If there’s any chance that he’s right about it being better not to let the past fester… Like the spring leaves, hope unfurls in me, small and tentative but present all the same.
“I’m not afraid of you, Ian. You have never done anything to harm me, and I don’t believe that you ever could.”
The muscles in his throat ripple. I draw closer, pressing my body against his, needing desperately to give him everything--passion, yes, but also warmth, comfort, and above all, acceptance. Or perhaps what I truly need to share with him is love, that mysterious, elusive emotion that I’m not even sure I’m capable of experiencing.
“You have too much faith in me,” he says. “You need to be free, Amelia. After all the years that were taken from you before you were allowed to awaken, I can’t bear the thought of denying you the opportunity to live to the fullest.”
Passion flares behind his eyes. His hand cups the back of my head. “But at the same time, I want to keep you only for myself, to possess you completely. I want to be in your every breath, your every thought. I really do want to own you in a way that has nothing to do with any paperwork.”
His lips brush mine, once, again, savoring, parting, taking. His tongue thrusts deeply. The spiral of need and pleasure spins upward, wilder by every moment, out of control. My fingers dig into his broad shoulders, my body pliant under his hands.
The taste of him intoxicates me. I want more. My hunger for him is ravenous. He is light, air, hope, promise. He is everything.
I cling to him, my arms wrapped around his waist, my hands savoring the feel of hard, toned muscles just beneath his shirt. He backs me against the trunk of the tree, reaches out to grasp my wrists, and stretches my arms over my head. His big, hard body holds me in place.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs. “More than you can know.”
“Not true. I’ve longed for you every waking moment and at night…” A quickening of remembered pleasure stirs in me. Helplessly, I flush.
“Amelia?” His voice is at once stern and amused.
Reluctantly, I say, “I had dreams…”
“About me?”
“Hmmm, yes.”
His humor deepens but so does the dark fire stirring in his eyes. “Were they arousing?”
“Yes…”
He quirks a brow. “Did you come?”
I look away, my face flaming. Given all that we’ve shared, I can’t imagine why I’m embarrassed but I am all the same. “Sometimes! All right? Can we move on?”
His answer is to thrust against me, making me vividly aware of his erection brushing my hip. His voice is low and hard as he says, “You’ve been in my dreams. I’ve cursed every dawn that’s taken me from you.”
Oh, my! When did Ian develop such a romantic turn of phrase? I’m far more accustomed to the stark, crude words he whispers in my ear as he thrusts deep inside me. They never fail to send me soaring over the edge. But I’m no more immune to this new, tender passion.
My throat thickens with unshed tears. “What are we going to do?” I whisper. I don’t mean just now. How are we ever going to reconcile the seeming impossibility of being together? And what if we can’t?
I don’t think that Ian deliberately chooses to misunderstand me but he isn’t willing to be distracted by so problematic a future.
“This,” he says and takes my mouth with his. His kiss is a wild, primal claiming that robs me of breath and sets my heart to pounding. He gives no quarter, nor do I want any. But with my arms still held above my head, I can’t touch him. The frustration quickly becomes unbearable. I lift a leg, kicking it free of my long skirt, and arch it over his hip. He grunts and slips a hand under my knee, drawing me tight against him. The smooth fabric of his evening trousers can scarcely contain his erection. I arch my pelvis, rubbing my slit over the hard, growing bulge. The pressure through the thin scrap of my wet panties is exquisite. I am desperate to be closer to him, needing him to complete me, longing…
He breaks off the kiss and stares down at me, his gaze wild and raw. I feel as though he is stripping me bare. “I’d like to make you come right here, right now,” he says. His hips thrust, once, again… “You’re close, aren’t you?”
I can’t deny it. All the pent-up desire of the past ten days is rushing together into a hot, urgent core of sensual hunger whirling at the center of my being. I’m trembling on the edge, an incandescent nova on the very verge of exploding.
The shadows around the ancient tree protect us. We’re alone in a world of our own making. My need for him is unbearable. But still something holds me back.
“That won’t solve anything.”
The words are wrenched from me. My own body rebels against them, clenching painfully. But the truth is inescapable. The passion we share has never been in doubt. It’s the results of it that we both fear.
Ian hesitates and for a moment, I think he isn’t going to relent. But then a ragged breath escapes him. He rests his forehead against mine.
“What do you think would?”
He’s asking me? The one with almost no experience in the messy, bewildering, sometimes frightening but still exhilarating struggle called life?
“I don’t know…just being together? Taking things moment to moment? Is that even possible? Do people ever manage that?”
I have no way of knowing but Ian seems to think that the idea has merit. He takes a step back, gently lowering me until I’m once again standing on my own two feet. Slowly, he releases my arms and draws them down as well. Holding my gaze, he says, “Let’s try, all right? If nothing else, we can see where it leads us.”
Moment to moment. Each one allowed to unfold without the rush and clamor of expectations. What a difference that would make after the weeks of living between the shadows of both past and future.
A bubble of excitement rises in me. Buoyed by hope, however fragile it may be, I nod.
Chapter Eight
Ian
An hour later, I grin down at Amelia, relishing the excitement in her eyes. She’s practically jumping up and down like a little kid.
“Do you think they’ll be coordinated to music?” she asks as we join the crowd moving o
utside where the fireworks are about to begin.
“Absolutely they will be,” I assure her.
Her smile is radiant. “Something by Mussorgsky, maybe, or Elgar. Dvorak, perhaps, or Mahler?”
She has a nearly encyclopedia knowledge of classical music, thanks to Susannah. But when she plays for herself, she prefers twentieth-century jazz. Just one more way that Amelia is her own person.
“Uh, yeah, any of those would be good.” I’m looking ahead toward the double doors. The crowd is bunching together in front of them. There’s some sort of hang up. Patience runs thin in a group where everyone is accustomed to going first. Already, the grumbling is starting.
From the corner of my eye, I spot Davos leaving through a small side door. He’s maintained his distance from Amelia ever since I warned him off but I’ve kept an eye on him all the same. I don’t trust the slimy bastard as far as I could throw him. Several other sleek men in evening clothes are with him but the vast majority of the guests remain right where Amelia and I are, unable to get out.
The combination of the stuck crowd and Davos slipping away has hit the tripwire that’s always present in my mind. Normal people, suddenly alerted to the possibility of danger, experience an adrenalin rush that either freezes them in place or makes them flee. It’s different for me. Time slows down and everything takes on a heightened clarity, every small detail standing out in stark relief. I become hyper-focused, which is a big part of why I’m good at the darker side of what I do.
I spot Edward, thankfully on the fringe of the crowd. His mother, Marianne, and my mother are with him. Over the heads of the people surrounding us, I shout, “Go!”
I don’t know for certain what’s about to hit us but the strategy of bunching a target set as closely together as possible is classic. Whatever it is, I’m sure of one thing--the situation is about to get butt ugly.
I have to hand it to Edward, he doesn’t hesitate. Nor does Adele. She grabs my mother’s arm as Edward takes hold of Marianne. He lifts her off her feet and moves fast, keeping the two other women beside him, toward the far edge of the room. Anything that hits will be aimed at the center, which makes the margins not a good place to be but the best that’s available.
Anew: Book Two: Hunted Page 7
