Painted Trust

by Elsa Holland

  There were, however, clues pointing toward the questions of how and whom. The biggest indicator was that there were no signs that the boy had struggled against the ingestion such as new bruises or skin under his fingernails from defensive action or resistance. There were no small cuts on his lips or chin that the glass may have left if forced into the mouth. From this Vaughn could make the assumption that the child had undertaken the action himself. But these facts were thin, perhaps too thin from a criminal perspective.

  Vaughn pressed his forehead harder against the wall, welcoming the discomfort as his mind jogged down all the options. If he presented his best medical assessment—that it was suicide—there was then no crime. But what of the boy’s justice? What of the person Felix held, what of the other horrors they may inflict if they were in fact guilty of the child’s abusive past and if they were let loose? He could give cause of death and not comment on how he thought it had happened. The assumption would then be that the child had been force-fed the glass; the suspect would be charged, may even hang. But then again, what if Felix held the wrong suspect?

  “Hello?”

  A raw tremor moved through him at the sound. At the promise of heat, warmth, comfort.

  “Dr Vaughn?”

  It was the handkerchief dove. Of course it was. The rest of his residential staff knew that hell would open up and engulf them if they came down and disturbed him at this early hour of the morning.

  “Dr Vaughn is that you? Are you alright? I saw a light.” Her voice was a wary combination of perfunctory enquiry and concern.

  “Go back to bed.” He didn’t look at her, didn’t trust himself.

  “There are men waiting out the back.”

  He said nothing, just faced the wall pressing his forehead to its cool surface. If she had any instinct, she would back away and leave.

  Steps clipped closer, then silence.

  His ears strained. Her skirts rustled then stopped.

  She wasn’t leaving then.

  Vaughn pivoted his head, leaving his forehead pressed against the cool.

  She glowed.

  The light behind her made her radiate in the dimness. Her hair was hastily tied back, leaving stray shiny locks. There would be no corset under her dress, not if she had hurried down.

  His Apple stepped closer, still encased in the shaft of light as if it were a protection. She stepped deeper into the hole he had burrowed himself into, a black, narrow womb of space that wrapped around the hollowness in his chest.

  “I saw the body,” his Apple whispered, an arms breadth away from him.

  Whispers were dangerous.

  Not for him. For her.

  She should know better. You didn’t come to a man’s gloomy nest and whisper to him from a blaze of light.

  “And?” There was nothing to tell the tale of the boy now. He was stitched back up and wrapped in cloth, the report sealed and on the foyer sideboard.

  A small hesitation, then, “I read your notes.”

  Ah, well there were those. They were perfunctory yet graphic enough in their description and assessment to place the violated images into her fresh mind.

  His gaze moved over her features. They showed concern, seriousness. Small dark stains sat under her eyes, but they had already been evident during the day. His Apple didn’t sleep well. He saw nothing in her countenance to give him a clue about what she thought of the boy’s fate. His eyes traveled over her person, over a perfunctory dress that was cut to wrap around the base of her neck and wrists, cut to encase her, almost as if it was intentionally cloaking from view all of her soft, pale flesh. Refreshingly alluring, although he had no doubt that wasn’t the intention of the design.

  Her right hand was a tight little fist. The moment she registered his gaze on it she released the grip.

  Vaughn sighed. “Come here.”

  She stepped into the corridor, there was only a small shaft of light on her now.

  He patted the wall next to him.

  She moved closer, left the safety of light and entered his world.

  His hand snaked out and wrapped around her arm, drew her nearer, pressed her back against the wall and slid them both towards the shaft of light that fell against the wall further down.

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  “Shhh.” He murmured as the tips of his fingers followed the contours of her face and his touch disrupted the rhythm of her breath making it uneven. The gentle, ragged sound already a balm on the freezing darkness inside him.

  He pressed her head back with his thumb under her chin, palm wrapped around a fragile neck. The light spilled over her even features, the inky blackness of her glossy hair and the impossibly milk-pale skin. He vaguely felt her hand pressed hard against his chest while her sweet breath panted out and her eyes widened like a doe’s.

  He changed his grip allowing his thumb to rub back and forth over her lips.

  The heat in her breath washed his thumb. His mind fixated on how the warm pocket of her mouth would feel under his. When he pressed his tongue inside her, she would scald him. It would be a burning ember to huddle around, to banish the cold.

  Vaughn drew her closer even as she strained back. Strained but did not lurch from him, didn’t wriggle out of his hold nor flare with indignation or fear. No, there was none of that, her pupils were dilated into large black orbs. The only thing she may be struggling with was herself . . . as was he.

  Vaughn leaned in and she stilled, again made no move to pull away, not an invitation but nor was it a signal to stop. He bent closer, then slowly, so as not to scare her off, pressed his face and nose into her hair.

  “I’m cold.” The soft strands slid over his nose and lips as he spoke, spoke in a voice that even to his own ears sounded pained.

  As if she were listening, the heat from his breath washed back through her hair and onto his face. It was already working; he was thawing.

  “I’m desolate,” he whispered into the soft shell of her ear near his lips; her hands tightened on his chest. “Lure me out of here Apple, lure me with your warmth.” He stayed perfectly still and waited for her response.

  The stiffness in her eased, eased and left.

  His arms wrapped all the way around her and he held her, let the shape and sense of her call him back from that dark place.

  Soft, tentative hands wrapped around his waist and an involuntary tremor ran through him. He lifted his head, hovered over her lips. Her gaze met his, eyes clouded with uncertainty, the look of a woman who was out of her depth with a man. Yet behind that vulnerability was a profundity, a knowing that people who faced death possess. She was a kindred spirit who, despite the horror she had seen inflicted on the sick and the needy, somehow still managed to shine. For a fleeting moment he sensed she might need this as much as he, but surely that was wishful thinking.

  His lips moved down closer to hers.

  Her cheeks pinked.

  The air thickened.

  “Just a taste,” he whispered over her mouth as his lips touched hers.

  His thumb drew her jaw open and he pressed his tongue between the soft full lips of her wonderful oversized mouth.

  Sweetness filled his palate, sweetness and a hint of toothpowder as she opened an untried mouth and let him in.

  He pulled her closer, the press of her breasts, soft and plump against his chest. His tongue explored, tasted, and probed.

  She had never kissed. It was endearingly obvious in her uncertain movements. His hands came to either side of her face, held her as he pressed his tongue in deeper, took advantage of her innocence to demand a lover’s kiss, a kiss that urged her to suck at his tongue and meet his movements.

  She made soft sounds, pressed closer. Her hands moved over him, a tentative exploration that inflamed him.

  “Just a little more,” he breathed against her lips before his tongue slid back into her warmth. His hand dropped down to her breast, she wriggled but didn’t break the kiss. Vaughn kneaded the fullness in his palm, sque
ezed it firmly and the wriggling stopped and was replaced with a subtle press forward into his hand.

  “More?” He asked, his hand stilled.

  Her eyes lifted to his, her lids heavy, her pupils large and dark. Her expression was hard to read; she was flushed with pleasure, but her thoughts were hidden.

  She nodded and looked at his lips, before the soft tips of her fingers ran over them. A light, tantalizing touch. Then her hand dropped to his shirt and curled into it as she moved forward and pulled him to meet her.

  The press of her lips, and the heat of her tongue as she sought entry into his mouth hardened him in moments. With every stroke she tested her skills on him, she learned his mouth, his taste. He shifted, and she tightened her hold on his shirt, made a sound in her throat that said she wasn’t ready to stop. Whatever limit he had set when he said he would just take a taste slipped and he pressed her against the wall. Pressed his want against her, grinding a promise to them both of what could unfold.

  His hand moved over her shape feeling the fullness of breasts, the inward dip of her waist, and the gentle flare of her hip. She was so small, so delicate under his palm. There was no hesitation when his hand moved down, down to press between her legs.

  The light she ignited in him flared brighter, coursed through his arteries leaving a trail of yearning in every cell as he cupped her sex. Her mouth gasped open as he pushed the fabric there against her, moved the bunched fabric in knowing circles. Her breathing held mews and achy groans, sounds of sunlight, of promised warmth and redemption. His knee pressed her leg wider and he set to work in earnest, pressing, pulsing, circling that delicate nub deep under worsted wool.

  She molded into him, made sounds that drew him further and further into her blazing light. Her hand bumped against his, pressed inadvertently against his cock. He groaned, then she moved again knocking his hand and—heaven help him—his cock again. It was clear she wasn’t fondling him, there was no palming him in her hands, no squeezing or rubbing, nothing to say it was intentional.

  He caught her hand, there was no telling where he would take them if he didn’t stop her, and raised it with his into a safe zone guiding it over his shoulder, wanting her to clasp at him.

  “Hold me.”

  Her lips caught his in answer as her fingers curled on his shoulders. Vaughn moved his thigh to press between her legs, she pressed against it yet too shy or too inexperienced to ride it and take what she wanted. He clasped her hip and rocked it, showed her the motion and a soft very feminine growl rumbled out of her as she took up the rhythm.

  The bleakness of moments before was gone. In its place was an angel burning so bright she blinded him, filling him with hunger, making the next second of life an imperative to live.

  He’d never felt this way with Henrietta, never felt this mindless need for a woman. It was more than physical; it was something else, like she really was able to lift him out of the bleakness, that she really had the ability to save him from the abyss. Right now, as his soul sang at her touch and the dark desolation fell away, he believed it.

  He palmed her breast as his hungry saviour devoured him with kisses, she drew out his despair with each touch, each kiss and filled him with heat.

  Her nipple was impossible to find under the thick wool of her dress, so he moved to her buttons and undid the first one. They were impossibly small. He started on the second, then the third. Impatient he slipped his fingers under the wool and touched flesh and the top of a chemise.

  She froze.

  Her hand moved to suddenly push against his chest.

  His Apple pulled away; pushed him off her firmly.

  “Enough.” Her voice was panicked.

  “Apple?”

  “Enough!” She frantically closed the small buttons he’d undone, shielding the opening with her other hand.

  Vaughn released her, though his body screamed to cage her in, to demand she express her concerns and then ask for what she really wanted. They both wanted more, it was in every sweep her sweet, bold tongue had given him. Yet he took a step back, honoring her request, if not the combination of want and confusion in her eyes; there was no indignation.

  He ran his hands down to adjust himself, finding the buttons on his trousers undone. Had he gone that far?

  Her eyes flickered to his open fly and she went scarlet. He hadn’t unbuttoned them . . . she had. Before it moved to his shoulder, her hand had bumped his because she had been releasing him.

  His Apple coughed and stepped back, her gaze averted as he did up his pants. Her hands, as if doing an automated task, checked all of her buttons several times, and her face returned to its pale, luminescent shade.

  Vaughn straightened, ran his hand through his hair. “I forgot myself.” He ground out.

  “I am not in the habit . . .” her face pinked again as she spoke. Heaven help him he needed to get out of her company. “I’d rather it didn’t happen again.” Her pupils said otherwise; they were fully blown.

  The air between them was drenched in stunted lust . . . from both of them. Hell, she had unbuttoned him! Her denial of that reality and her own need irked him.

  Her reaction was of course, highly appropriate; she should in fact be furious. His face should be stinging with her slap, yet it wasn’t. He may have instigated their dalliance, but she was complicit.

  Her jaw tilted fractionally higher.

  Vaughn stepped forward to pass her, then stopped to bend down toward her, the promise of her filling his lungs again. “Are you sure? You don’t look sure, Apple.”

  The air stiffened, and her hands went into her oddly endearing button-checking ritual.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I . . .” Her thoughts collided, broke apart. Edith could still feel him, the pressure of his lips, the taste of him in her mouth. Phantom hands still moved over her body, the slide of his palms down her sides, over her hip, the curve of her back. The shock of that more intimate touch, the one over her sex; she was on fire, burning against the cotton of her pantaloons.

  “I . . .” She floundered again, face burning as she realized that her hands had worked his buttons loose, that another few moments and she would have wanted him to hitch up her skirt, open her legs and thrust into her. How was it that a virginal body ached for something it had never experienced?

  Vaughn’s expression hadn’t changed yet the air between them did, it rolled back into the thick and sticky need of moments before. His gaze moved to her lips and he moved toward her again, a sound coming from deep in his throat.

  Images of what a second exchange between them might result in; hands under clothing, buttons unclasped, flesh on display.

  “No.” Her hand came out and pressed against his chest. He held still but leaned against her palm momentarily. A longing ached through her; that she was someone else, that she could simply be a woman who wanted a man and that using him wasn’t so inextricably linked to her plan.

  Her throat tightened, and she shook her head.

  Vaughn stepped back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his fob, checked the time and placed it back. An action of indifference if it weren’t for the slight tremor in his hand.

  Guilt warred with desire, she’d seen the light and then the men outside, had thought it excuse enough to come down, to open some doors on the way down to look for the place he kept his medical degrees. Instead she’d found a man dangerously capable of burning his way deep into her very unavailable heart.

  “What are you doing down here Appleby?”

  Edith drew herself up and motioned to the theater behind them. “I was checking on the overnight patient.” The amputee, his mind cloaked in morphine was in the post ops room. “You have a cadaver in there.” She sounded breathless. She was breathless. Her mind was light, the world around them unreal. And, she needed a good answer to his question.

  “The boy?” He sounded indignant as he straightened his clothes. The whispering man from a moment earlier gone, that face that showed despair…gone. Replace
d with the closed professionalism of a man who ruled worlds.

  “The cadaver…” Her breath hitched as she clung to something mundane, something real, something to create distance between them before she leaned over to him, before she reached out and tugged him back into the shadowy corridor.

  Something to hide her snooping.

  “They bring dirt with them, it will endanger the patients.”

  His eyebrows rose and the man she had kissed was totally eradicated as the Butcher stepped forward.

  “Are you suggesting I am cavalier with the surgery’s hygiene? That I would put patients at risk? That I don’t know of the findings on cleanliness?”

  “Is this why other staff have left?” She accused.

  He moved closer and seemed to rise in height. Her body flushed hot and not from anything pleasurable.

  “Is this why my staff left?” He repeated after her in disbelief. “The occasional need to clean up after a cadaver?” He boomed. “Where I conduct MY affairs of business is none of your concern.” He looked over her shoulder to the double doors that led out of the surgery.

  The breath tightened in her chest.

  “None of my concern? I’m your theater nurse.” Her voice rose, and he gave her a scowling face in response.

  “That’s yet to be confirmed.” He stepped out to move past her, but she read his intention and she moved into his path.

  “I would think very carefully, Appleby. Don’t for a minute think what transpired between us just now has any bearing on how things will stand between us. Employer.” He pointed to himself. “Employee.” He pointed to her. “I give the order and you follow it.”

  Indignation spiked, despite having been scouting. Edith drew herself up to her full five foot, five inches. “I am talking about the work. And I most certainly know how to keep my work and pleasure separate.”