by A. Faris
He looked up, a lock of hair falling over his eye, and gave her a careless smile. Having shoved his feet into his shoes, he stood in a smooth motion.
“I had a really good time.” He kissed her cheek. “And who knows, maybe we will meet again.”
His clear gray eyes held friendliness, nothing more. There was no hidden meaning to his sincere words. He had meant precisely what he said. A fond farewell, for a possible mate with whom he did—they did—spend a wonderful evening.
At least he did not pretend otherwise.
No declarations of love, furtive embraces that advertised indiscretion despite convincing attempts at concealment. Damien lived in the present and laid his philosophy in life bare. No pretensions, nor false promises. And for all his blitheness, she trusted him not to hurt her. He had no ambition, nor the cruelty necessary to achieve it.
She caught his wrist and tugged him down. His eyes widened in startlement, but he did not resist. He let her pull him close, bracing himself on his forearms.
“Something to remember you by, Lisbeth? I do not need any—”
She put a finger over his mouth. “Be quiet.” For some blessed reason, he acceded to her demand. They kept a watchful gaze on the other for a tense minute while she reconsidered her impulse.
Did she want to spend one night with Damien only to leave him in the morn? Would it be enough to fill the emptiness of her heart?
It will have to be.
Giving in to her instincts, she replaced her finger with her teeth and nibbled on his lip. He remained so very still, allowing her to take liberties with his body. The heady power of being the aggressor in her own seduction made her bold. She pushed aside the remembrance of disinterest from one man and hidden motivations from another. She ran a hand down Damien's torso, the solidity of his frame a powerful reminder of present pleasures. At the hem of his T-shirt, she paused. Then, determined to continue on this course, she grasped the fabric and pulled it off him.
Smooth, bronze skin for her delectation. Sleek muscles, lines of absolute masculine beauty.
She curved her hand around his nape and, feeling impish, said, “Michelangelo’s David might be perfect—I prefer a real male form.”
“Any male form will do? Or will you just do mine?”
“What was it you said about emotional resonance?”
His eyes twinkled. “I don't know. Don't expect me to remember the bullshit I came up with trying to pick up my mate.”
His hands smoothed over her shoulders, pushing aside the shoulders of her dress. He bent to kiss, surprising her when he went at the side of her neck, his tongue rough against tender skin. Her breath hissed out when he caught an earlobe between his teeth. He released it with a final pass of his tongue only to take her mouth in a carnal kiss.
Elizabeth thought she had stopped breathing when his bold hand swept up her thigh, to touch her between her legs. Through the silk of her drawers, his fingers were strong and sure. She shifted under him, uncertain whether to press against his hand or move away.
He lifted his head, but his hand continued petting. His eyes had lightened to silver and she wondered what his wolf would look like.
“Too much too soon?”
Remarkable how he could maintain the even tone. But for the dark flush high on his cheekbones, and the unmistakable evidence of his desire, which he paid no mind at all, he seemed unaffected.
“Damien.” Elizabeth hesitated. “I'd prefer not to be get with child, and I am given to understand that there is a....” The contemporary word escaped her at the crucial moment. “Some way for you to sheathe yourself.”
He burst out laughing. “Seriously?”
“It is a perfectly legitimate concern. Especially for a...casual relationship as this.”
He calmed in the face of her indignation and sat up. She went on an elbow to watch him. Patting her knee, he still trembled with suppressed amusement.
“I'll sheathe my sword, do not worry, my lady.” He chortled. “I came prepared.” He took out some square foils from the side-pocket of his trousers and put them in her hand. “Or you can do it for me.”
Elizabeth pushed them back to him. She did not know how.
“Or not.” He took the little squares back and put them aside. He turned serious. “Lisbeth? Are you a virgin?”
She shook her head. “I was mated.” She lay back on the couch with a sigh. It was the simplest explanation she could provide.
“Messy separation?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She grimaced at the blank television screen. Robert had been a mess when Pierre was done.
“He's an idiot to let you go.”
“He's dead.”
“Oh. I'm sorry.”
“It was a ritual mating.” Elizabeth was uncertain why she was telling him everything. Perhaps because he made it easy for her to talk. “He was not my true mate. But it was....” She shook her head. “I'd prefer not to speak of it.”
“I understand.” His light touch on her collarbone made her look up. Sombreness did not suit his face, accustomed as Elizabeth was to his smiles. “Was that why you signed up for this?”
“In part.”
“Hmm.” He gave her a cheeky smile. “Then, I must make you forget him, mustn't I?”
It was not her fallen mate whom she needed to forget. “Could you?” Please.
She knew he heard her unspoken plea. It should shame her to be so needful, but somehow she rather thought she could ask of him anything, and he would do his utmost to comply, with no judgment nor sneering. He might laugh but it would not be a hurtful jeer.
He tickled her under her chin, bringing her back to the present. “Of course I can. I am the big, bad wolf.”
She had to laugh at his comical expression. “Do you not take anything in earnest?”
He picked her up and brought her to the adjoining room. “Life's too damned short to take seriously.” He tossed her on the bed with carelessness and pounced over her. “Now. Darling mate. Where shall we begin? Hmm, I think the zipper was here.” He eased the side fastening of the dress at a leisurely pace. His eyes brightened.
“Lace bra. Silk panties. Elizabeth, is it a habit of yours to hide your passion, too?” He tugged the dress off and tossed it aside.
“No.” She unhooked the brassiere and threw it to his face, to distract him from his uncanny musing.
He caught it midair. “I'm keeping this, you know.”
She shrugged with a nonchalance she did not feel, could not feel when his eyes devoured the sight of her unbound breasts.
“So, keep it.” She had no use for it after this night.
He lunged, startling a shriek from her. Elizabeth pushed back, and he pinned her wrists to the bed with one hand. He was stronger than she had anticipated. Uncontainable giggles did not help her cause either.
Holding her down, he wrestled her underwear off. “I'll take these, too.”
He let her up only to dangle them from a finger, just out of her reach.
“Damien, do not be ridiculous.” She reached out and unfastened his trousers when he continued waving the thing around. “Fine.”
And took him firmly in her grasp.
“Oh, you fight dirty.” His breath stuttered. His hand lowered, and with sound of irritation he flicked the scrap of silk away when it got in his way. The large hand covered hers. Instead of pulling her hand off, he showed her the way he liked to be stroked.
“All the way up, darling. Use your other hand, too.” Such unabashed sensuality. “Good girl.”
It was preferable to critical words and an overwhelming sense of failure.
He took his hand off the both of hers and slid his fingers into her. She let go of him reflexively.
“Don't mind me, just keep going.”
With a shaky laugh, she returned her hands to him. He stroked her languid and deep, and kissed her in the same manner. After long minutes of increasing desperation on her part, he called a stop to their playing, his voice rough.
He took her hands and pressed kisses to her palms. “Soft hands.” His appreciation made her sigh with relief.
He took off his trousers and retrieved a square foil. Elizabeth averted her eyes, feeling as if to watch him would be too intimate. But curiosity and a sense of ridiculousness for her shyness compelled her to return her gaze.
He glanced up and smiled, not minding her looking on.
She let him nudge her onto her back, and received his kiss with gladness. Their pleasure was shared and only then did she realize how much that mattered.
She shut her eyes, concentrating on the rightness of their coupling, the smooth slide of his entrance.
My capitulation was rewarded by betrayal.
The stray thought disrupted the moment, and she squeezed her eyes tighter, trying to dislodge that unpleasant memory.
“Lisbeth, honey. Look at me.”
Elizabeth forced her eyes open. “Damien.” His face held only warmth and fondness even as he remained hard and heavy in her, in no apparent hurry to slake his lust.
“That's right. Just checking you're still with me, mon ange.” He cupped her cheek with a hand. “Deep thoughts and sex don't do so well together.”
“I'm sorry.”
His hand trailed down, to her breast, palming and shaping, but his eyes remained on hers. He kept his strokes slow, tender. Soothing. She relaxed under him.
“It's okay, ma bichette.”
Elizabeth caught the wicked look in his eyes. Tease her, would he? She rose up on her elbows and bit down on his lip, hard. He lost his rhythm, jerking into her hard. Their moans mingled. She drew back, her own breath shortened. “Do not provoke me.”
Damien pressed her into the mattress with his body, his own eyes lightening to silver-gray. His smile promised revenge. He pried her legs from around his hips and draped them over his shoulders.
“Cross your ankles.”
She complied. “What are you doing?”
He leaned towards her, his hands holding her hips in an unbreakable hold. The light in his eyes was dangerous but his tone pleasant. “Fucking you so hard, you'll only remember your true mate.”
Elizabeth's indrawn breath of shock turned into an exhalation of pleasure. Her mind flitted to the impossibility of this mating. Then, all thoughts fled under the sensual onslaught.
***
Her mate had no shame. Elizabeth grinned, amused by the personal display of his ablutions the open bathroom door afforded.
Finished, he flopped onto the bed, next to her, his arm going around her waist. Despite his earlier possessive—and vulgar—words, he retained his air of insouciance now. She received, with surprise, the lazy kiss he bestowed her lips. Kisses after intercourse? How novel.
He drew away and nuzzled into her hair. His breaths, deep and even, tickled the side of her neck. The silence might have been unnerving, had it not been for his gentle caressing.
Tempting as it was to remain like that, curiosity nagged at her. She sat up to study more closely his shoulder blade. Damien opened one eye, read her intent, and settled on his stomach to let her explore as she wished.
Elizabeth traced the picture he had marked his skin with, envying the unknown woman that decorated him. She lay on a scarlet cloak, naked, coy, and utterly ravished. It was too intimate a picture and her wolf—and the woman, she admitted to herself—wanted to claw at the golden-haired, green-eyed vixen on his back.
“Damien.”
He roused. “Sorry, fell asleep for a moment.”
“Who is the woman? Your human?”
He turned his face, mouth curved in amusement. “No. That is the product of the dubious humour of a juvenile. The woman, I drew. She is no one in particular, just my fevered imagining.” His voice turned reflective. “I should have her hair darkened. Then, I'll have you with me always.”
Elizabeth squinted at the image and sniffed. “I do not see the resemblance.” He wound an arm around her waist. “You should look in the mirror, right now.” He turned onto his back, pulling her on top of him in the same motion. He arranged her limbs so that she sat on him intimately. Elizabeth could not hold back her whimper and his smile widened, even, white teeth displayed in male satisfaction.
“You're right. You're way sexier than what my imagination had conjured.” She did not know how he could keep his tone conversational when he was as aroused as she. Casually, he reached out and took a condom from the nightstand. When he had done the necessary, he urged her forward and entered her with a smooth thrust at the same time. His voice going deep and husky, he muttered, “Way better than my imagination.”
“Damien.” Elizabeth stroked his soft curls. “Be quiet.”
He laughed, even while his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her bottom. “Why don't you shut me up?”
She closed the gap between their mouths and kissed him.
***
She had not thought one night would cleave her unto him. It did, and now, she'd have to leave him. She sifted his thick curls with her fingers.
Elizabeth indulged herself by pressing her body closer to his, inhaling. Delightful whispers of cherry and almond, dusted with vanilla sugar, that complemented the musk of his sweat.
She catalogued every facet of him for her memory. The way her own scent had mixed with his, the feel of his hard body against hers. His even breaths of deep sleep.
Her minute up, she eased his hand from her bottom, and his other from her nape. Her gaze lingered on his slumbering face and blurred. She dared not kiss him for fear he would wake.
In her heart, she bid him farewell.
***
The soft click of the door woke Damien. He turned and buried his face in his pillow, suppressing the need to go after his mate.
Then she opened the door outside. And shut it softly.
He’d known she'd bolt. Only the knowledge that he could hunt her down kept him in the bed. He squeezed the pillow, telling himself—and his damned, stubborn wolf—to stay.
Her footsteps, slight, faded as she went down the corridor. He would give her some space. A couple of days for her to cool while he completed the project at Prado. Where the hell was Dunkirk anyway?
He missed her already.
He moved to get up and felt something under his pillow. He pulled out the silk panties, and chuckled. She had rather gone without her underwear than wake him, that determined to avoid him in the morning. Well, she was going to have a shock when he turned up at her home.
He sat up and spied the note on the pillow next to him.
Thank you for a lovely night—EW
Best night of his life and he suspected, hers—and she reduced it to a lukewarm lovely? Did she mean to insult his lovemaking? He debated the relative merits of intent and the lack thereof, then scrunched the note up and tossed it to the far corner of the room in disgust.
The next moment, he leapt out of bed to hunt for it. He smoothed the paper out carefully and scrutinized the words, trying to read into them, since she had eschewed lines for him to read between. He changed his mind. Lovely was good enough. The gratitude, even better.
Woman gone the morning after, not so much. He had hoped she'd leave her number, at least, but the fact she did not only amused him.
He traced the beautiful handwriting, wondering why the note bugged him so much.
It felt too much like a final goodbye.
With a shake of his head, he dismissed the thought. He put the note down. A shower, much as he loathed to wash her scent from his body, then research into the life of his mysterious little mate.
He picked his pants off the floor and went to the suite living room for the rest of his clothes.
Baffled, he searched the room again.
She had taken his T-shirt.
***
25th October 1876
She hated this, the intense longing for someone she'd never see again.
Bennett stabbed her in the heart. Elizabeth made a belated attempt to block.
“Stab to the h
eart. You'll live.” He let down the sword, allowing the metal to drag on her padded clothes. She took a half step away.
“Evisceration. Bloody painful, I do not recommend it.” He swung the sword up and checked the motion. The cool metal rested against her skin. “Beheading, generally fatal to our kind.”
He tapped her hip lightly with the flat of the blunted sword, in remonstrance.
“Attention to your opponent, my dear sister, or you'll end up dead.”
“I'm sorry, Bennett. My mind is elsewhere.”
“What is the matter?”
I’ve fallen in love, again.
“Nothing.” Except a madness that had me breaking the rules to filch a man's shirt so that I can sleep in his scent. She shook her head. “Nothing at all.”
Bennett let his sword down with a sigh, but did not press her.
“We will resume your training tomorrow. I expect your mind to be in attendance.” He softened his tone. “Robert had done you a disservice, keeping you ignorant and defenceless. His failing has cost him his life. Do not let it cost yours.”
Elizabeth was grateful that Bennett misunderstood her abstraction. She resolutely turned her mind from Damien. “My gullibility cost him his life.”
Bennett took her sword from her and placed both with care on their stands.
“He kept you gullible, Lisbeth. Which is not to say that you were not exceedingly foolish. Still, it is easy to make a mistake when you have been kept from the world. I am as guilty in allowing our father to isolate you in the name of love. Robert had done little better, for reasons of his own. You have to cease this perpetual self-reproach.”
As a brother, he would have a partisan view, but in the bias existed an element of truth.
“Even so, I am as guilty in allowing it.” She went on the balls of her feet to kiss Bennett's cheek. “Perhaps the assignation of blame is irrelevant. All that matters is that I have learnt from this.”
Life was too short to live in past regrets.
***
