She didn’t know, but she found that it really annoyed her. Mostly, she supposed, because she hadn’t gotten the knack of the ‘never seen or heard’ part of the job. If he wanted to pretend they were invisible and didn’t exist unless he wanted something, though, she didn’t see why he couldn’t just pretend it without her having to play invisible.
She was breathless by the time she scrambled through the door, but she didn’t delude herself into thinking it was from the rush--not the race upstairs, anyway. It gave her a rush even stepping across the threshold of his suite, as if his aura lingered over the rooms. She stopped dead in her tracks when she’d stepped inside, though, her gaze drawn automatically to the huge portrait hanging over the fireplace at one end of the sitting room.
The woman depicted in the portrait was movie star beautiful, breathtaking--intimidatingly so. It looked like some old world painting, something like one of those famous old painter’s might’ve done, partly because of the colors, and partly because the woman was wearing a style of dress that looked like a historical costume. The long, flowing gown reached all the way to her ankles, covering her feet. She was curled up on her side on some sort of sofa that had one arm, half sitting, half reclining against the arm of the sofa in a position that displayed a nicely rounded hip and deep waist indention despite the flowing gown. The waist of the dress fit just beneath her breasts, and at least half of those bountiful mounds were protruding above the rounded neckline. There was a lacy looking, standing collar sort of thing around the back edge of the neckline that started near the woman’s creamy shoulders and stood up behind her long, graceful neck. Around that beautiful neck was a jewel encrusted collar, not a necklace, but rather a piece that fitted around her throat, making it look even longer and more elegant.
The woman’s inky black hair was swept up close to her perfectly shaped head into some kind of intricate knot that perched directly on her crown, except for a thick, wavy lock that sprouted from the center of the knot and flowed down her shoulder and across one bosom. Freed of the intricate knot, Raina calculated the hair probably reached almost to the woman’s waist.
Which would make it about a yard long, because Raina could see she was a tall woman--unless she was reclining on a really short couch.
A little girl, still with the chubby baby cheeks of a toddler, was perched on the sofa in front of her mother. She looked like a miniature copy of the woman.
Mrs. Higgenbottom had stopped to stare up at the portrait herself, as if she’d never seen it before. Shaking herself, she finally turned and spied Raina gaping at the picture. Her movement had caught Raina’s attention, dragging her gaze from the smiling face of the woman. Higgenbottom, she saw, looked, pale, shaken.
Raina instantly realized this was no classical painting of an unknown subject. Mrs. Higgenbottom knew the woman and child. “Who is it?” she asked in an awed whisper, wondering if, maybe, it was Simon’s mother, although even that seemed improbable because of the clothing the woman was wearing.
“The princ …. Evangeline and Tiera.”
Raina lifted her gaze to the painting again, noticing the background of the portrait for the first time. The couch had been arranged in front of very tall windows, or maybe French doors. Long, semi-transparent drapes fluttered at the openings, as if lifted by a light breeze, and beyond the windows lay a city. Riana could see the shapes of a multitude of buildings and the peaks of dozens of strange roofs that looked sort of like upside down ice cream cones--except they weren’t perfectly conical. The wide base was sort of bubbled outward and the narrow tips twisted. The top of a bright orange, huge ball of a sun peeked from behind one of the strange looking spires, partially hidden by a purplish range of snow capped mountains in the distance.
It reminded her of pictures she’d seen of the ancient buildings in Russia--except not quite. Something about it wasn’t the same and it wasn’t just the fact that there were mountains and she couldn’t remember seeing mountains in any of the pictures she’d looked at.
“Evangeline and Tiera?” she echoed.
“Mr. Draken’s wife and daughter.”
A shockwave rolled over Raina like the concussion of an exploding bomb. For several moments she felt completely divorced of her body, lost awareness of any of her senses. The shock suspended even her thought processes. She stared blankly at Mrs. Higgenbottom as she moved away, creeping like an old woman. She seemed to have shrunken somehow, aged. She looked a little dazed, as if she was wondering where she was, wasn’t certain what she was supposed to be doing.
It clicked in Raina’s mind abruptly that she’d not only not seen the woman or child, she’d not seen any sign that they’d ever been in the mansion. There were no toys, not feminine articles laying around.
Not that she’d been in Mr. Draken’s suite before, but she had been in places where children lived. There were always signs everywhere--grubby little handprints, toys scattered about, things they weren’t supposed to play with hidden behind chairs and under seat cushions.
“They don’t live with him?”
“They don’t live,” Higgenbottom said harshly. “They’ve been dead ….” She stopped, frowned. “Five years,” she said, almost as if to herself. “Can it really have been that long? I haven’t seen the portrait in at least five … Six? It’s so hard to remember the years he ….” She broke off her rambling monologue abruptly as she looked up at Riana. “Cleaning,” she said more briskly, looking around again as if she’d lost something and finally striding briskly toward the double doors at the other end of the room that opened, Riana saw, into a large bedroom.
Riana had to force herself to move. Her mind had taken a vacation and was no longer with her as she set to work cleaning, gaining a little speed as her frozen muscles began to thaw a little. Mrs. Higgenbottom came out of the bedroom a few minutes later, a bundle of bed linens in her arms, and left the room, moving quickly down the hallway to the back stairs.
The room, like the rest of the house, was actually not messy at all. She hadn’t given it a lot of thought before, but with six men in the house and only the housekeeper, she supposed, before she’d arrived, it was almost amazing to realize the place wasn’t a wreck. Her last boyfriend’s apartment had looked like a war zone and he’d only shared the place with one roommate.
Beyond cleaning the floors and polishing the endless furniture and woodwork, and helping Mrs. Higgenbottom with some of the kitchen cleanup, there was very little cleaning or straightening to do. This suite looked the most ‘used’ in the entire mansion.
She didn’t look up when she heard approaching footsteps until they halted just inside the door. A fresh wave of shock went through her when she did. Simon had halted just inside the door, his gaze riveted to the portrait over the fireplace mantel.
She didn’t mean to pry. She stared because he always had that effect on her. Any time he came within her view, she was paralyzed until something broke the spell--a fly trying to fly into her open mouth or up her nose, the house falling down ….
The look on his face as he stared at the portrait crushed the air from her lungs, though, made her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. It was raw, the pain so clear in his eyes that she felt it all the way through her.
She wished, desperately, that she hadn’t seen it.
She must have made some sound, some slight movement. As she stared at him, feeling like crying, wishing she could sink into the floor, trying to make her body work again and at least avert her gaze from the painful sight of his tortured eyes, she drew that gaze. Instantly, all the pain she’d seen there transformed to boiling rage, fury that she’d intruded on something that personal, that painful, she knew, and it sucked every ounce of strength from every muscle in her body until she felt like a jelly fish.
“Get out!” he ground out in a rumbling growl that sounded like the low, threatening growl of a wounded lion.
Chapter Seven
Raina shot to her feet as if an electric current had boosted her from her knees
. Escape was the only thought running through her mind as she barreled toward the door, which he was blocking. His hand snaked out and caught her arm as she shot around him. Her momentum carried her in a tight circle, but she wasn’t really aware of anything but a dizzying sense of disorientation until she was slammed back against an unyielding surface. The collision wasn’t painful, but she didn’t know if it was shock that cushioned her or if she just hadn’t hit it that hard. She didn’t have time to inventory possible damage or even figure out what had happened. A wall of flesh, as unyielding as the wall behind her, closed in on her, sandwiching her between the two. The pressure eased after a moment. A hand tangled in her hair, dragging her head back until she was staring straight up at Simon’s taut face.
She didn’t think, even if she’d had any of her wits about her, that she could’ve deciphered that expression. She certainly couldn’t at that moment. The only thing rattling around in her brain was total confusion as to just how she’d gotten where she was.
Every muscle in her body seized as the dim awareness filtered through her shocked brain that the body flattened against hers was Simon’s. Abruptly, she couldn’t breathe. Weakness filtered through her in a stinging path from her chest outward, as if her heart had stopped beating and her body was slowly dying of oxygen deprivation. As devastating an effect as he had on her from across the room, nothing could have prepared her for the way he made her feel at that moment.
Involuntary brain function kicked in and her lungs expanded abruptly, sucking in a gust of breath that carried a mingling of scents--a woodsy scent, the ocean breezes, the faint smell of detergent from his clothing, of soap and shampoo and aftershave, perhaps, from his skin although the light stubble of black hair along his cheeks and jaw and chin belied that. But the smell that overpowered all else, that wasn’t identifiable or even detectable as an actual scent, was Simon, and she knew it without ever having been near enough she should’ve been able to detect it. The airborne pheromones reached inside of her and completed annihilation.
He swallowed. Mesmerized, she watched the movement of his throat, watched his face as it moved closer, filled her vision, and then his lips as they parted and then she lost all awareness of anything else as she felt the pressure of his mouth over hers. Her heart clenched painfully in her chest. Something hot and burning shot through her veins. Like acid, it seemed to burn a path through her and leave ash in its wake.
His mouth was hot, demanding, savage, almost hurtful, his tongue a conqueror, not a petitioner, as he thrust it between her lips and raked it along hers with a ravaging hunger that took the last of the starch out of her knees. As she slipped, the hands she hadn’t even realized were holding her, tightened, one on her breast, one on her waist. The pull of fabric in her clutched fists told her she was gripping two fistfuls of his shirt even though she had no recollection of grabbing a hold.
Fire pored through her, awakening her to sensation all over her body. As if she’d been frozen and abruptly thawed, it was so intense it was almost more painful that pleasurable. His taste enthralled her, intoxicated her. Her world reeled on its axis drunkenly and she clung more tightly to his shirt as she lost equilibrium along with all else. Her belly quivered, the walls of her sex tightening and easing in a milking fashion, as if begging for the feel of his flesh inside of her.
She wanted it, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life before. Images flooded her mind of his body striving above hers. The thrusting sweep of his tongue in her mouth became the thrust of his cock in her nether mouth. The walls of her sex tingled and clenched in a mournful, aching echo of the pleasure rocketing through her from the feel of his tongue along the sensitive flesh of her mouth.
She sucked in a shuddering breath. Want, need, desperation thrummed along her vocal chords, emerging as an animalistic sound of supplication. An answering shudder rippled through him at the sound. His hand tightened on her breast, squeezing and releasing like the muscles along her channel.
She moved restlessly, entwined her tongue tentatively along his to savor the taste and touch of him even more. Almost as if he’d been waiting for that sign of complete and utter surrender, or perhaps as if it had somehow broken through his own focus of his needs, he withdrew his tongue from her mouth, withdrew his mouth from hers as abruptly as he’d captured it. She followed the retreat as far as she could before the tether of his fingers in her hair prevented further pursuit.
His ragged breath fanned her face. She opened her eyes with an effort, no more than a sliver. His face was taut, his golden eyes, narrowed, but wild with the same savagery that had been in his kiss. “Next time,” he ground out, “the forfeit will be more than a kiss. I will take everything I want.”
A shiver crawled over her with the withdrawal of his heat. She stared at him blankly as he released her completely and eased away from her until he no longer touched her anywhere, too focused on trying to keep her legs from dropping out from under her to think.
“Get out!” he snarled. “And do not ever come in here again.”
She stumbled over his feet as the order galvanized her to move at last. Grabbing the edge of the door to steady herself briefly, she fled mindlessly down the hall, unaware of any destination until her gaze lit on the narrow, rear stairway. She blundered down them blindly. Her feet skidded out from under her the third or fourth stair down and her ass made painful contact with the step behind her. It broke her fall, jarred some of the shock out of her along with her breath. She didn’t move, couldn’t gather her wits enough to even figure out how to get up.
Mrs. Higgenbottom appeared at the bottom of the stairs, fresh folded linens in her hands. She stopped as abruptly as if she’d hit a wall, staring up the stairs--past Raina’s head. Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, Raina wrenched her head around to follow the path of the woman’s stare.
Simon, still breathing heavily, stood braced at the top behind her. Dimly, she realized the sound of her fall must have drawn him. Her lips parted in surprise but the sight of him was enough to send a rush of adrenaline through her. She pushed herself up and stumbled down the remainder of the stairs, sliding across half of them on ass. Her grip on the handrail was all that kept her from pitching forward when she neared Higgenbottom and slamming into the woman. She nearly knocked the woman down anyway as she shoved her aside to get past her.
“Rainie!”
Instead of freezing her on the spot, the sound of Simon’s voice calling her name sent another burst of adrenaline through her. She flattened herself against the back door momentarily when she failed to disengage the latch fast enough, fought for several mindless moments and finally managed to disengage the latch. Realizing at last that she had to pull the door inward to get it open, she wrestled with it and finally got the door open far enough to squeeze through. Without a pause, she raced through the garden, through the covered walkway, and across the front lawn.
She found herself jogging down the beach with no idea at all of how she’d found her way there. Feeling a stitch in her side, she slowed, gasping for breath. She heard the pounding of running footsteps behind her then, though. Whirling, she saw Audric barreling toward her. Uttering a breathless cry as her heart lurched in her chest, she whirled away and started running again.
She couldn’t hear anything beyond the roar of the tide and wind in her ears and the internal pounding of her heart. Thoughts flickered disjointedly through her mind, had since she’d fled Simon’s rooms, but she was in no state to try to collect them or sort them into any sort of order. She didn’t even know why she was running or where she thought she was going.
She’d simply yielded to an instinct to flee and been caught up so tightly in the urge that it continued to drive her even when she’d begun to feel as if her heart and lungs were going to give out with the effort. Something hard slammed into her abruptly, pitching her forward toward the sand. He fell with her, caught the brunt of the collision with his shoulder and hip, and it still jarred her painfully. She was only
stunned momentarily, though, began struggling to claw her way out of his grip, driving sand painfully deep beneath her nails.
His arms tightened around her. Briefly, they wrestled on the sand and then he heaved himself over her, pinning her hips beneath his, manacling her wrists with his hands and forcing her arms to the sand. “Raina!” he growled when she continued to heave against him in an effort to throw him off. “It is I, Audric!”
She stopped abruptly at that, staring up at him. She’d known it was Audric all the time. A sob of a breath escaped her. Her lungs were still heaving so desperately for air she felt nauseous. Numbness abruptly gave way to pain and she expelled another hard sob. Another chased it, and then another until she was gulping and sobbing uncontrollably, hard cries that wrenched painfully at her chest.
He eased his hold on her wrists, lifted a hand to stroke her hair from her cheek. It was enough of an invitation to pour out her grief. She grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and burrowed her face against him, trying to find comfort in his warmth and his scent. He rolled, carrying her with him until they were lying side by side, his arms tightening around her and holding her close. After a few moments, he began to stroke her back soothingly, murmuring words she couldn’t understand--in his own tongue, she realized dimly. It didn’t matter. It was still soothing and she still cried until she couldn’t any more, until she could only snuffle and hiccough for breath.
Exhausted finally, she relaxed against him, more because she didn’t have the strength to continue to cling to him frantically than because she wanted to let go.
“Why cry, Raina?” he asked huskily when she’d quieted.
Why? she wondered dimly, uncertain of why she’d wept as if her heart was broken, or why she’d run.
Dragon Lord Page 9
