Thousands

by Pepper Winters

  I would never be free of her; therefore, I deserved to know all of her. But if I was to ever know all of her, I would have to pry her secrets out one by one.

  And I’d made an oath never to take what wasn’t mine again.

  No matter the pain.

  No matter the pressure.

  I would stand by my decision to love her but from a distance. Sex would only undermine my control. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from rifling through her memories. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself period.

  Add any more temptation or closeness between us and I had no doubt I would break all my promises and be just like the monsters of her past.

  Slamming to a stop, I waited for her to look up and see me.

  It took a few steps; her eyes focused on something I couldn’t understand before she blinked and came to a halt. “Elder.” The parts of her beautiful face not covered by her mask switched to a sensual smile.

  I became instantly hard.

  “I was just coming to find you.” Her fingers tightened over whatever it was she held.

  Where had she been? Who had she encountered? Had she done what I’d asked?

  Please tell me she didn’t.

  “I’m sorry for asking you to steal again, Pim.” Unlocking my knees, I ignored my instantaneous desire for her and stalked forward. Curling my hands, I made a conscious effort not to reach for her or bark questions about what she was thinking before I found her.

  Was it this house? Was it the tapestries and histories whispering down its many halls? Or had something happened while I was gone? Something I couldn’t control or prevent by leaving her alone?

  The box inside my tux—the box meant for her—turned into an anchor weighing me down. The breathlessness in my lungs made it seem as if I were drowning on dry land. I should’ve glanced at the craftsmanship of Hawk’s jewellers. I should’ve studied the gift before giving it. For all I knew, it could be a terrible tragedy and huge mistake.

  Meeting her in the middle of the cavernous corridor, I stopped myself before I could touch her. As long as I kept physical distance, I could maintain propriety and fairness.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t operate under such self-denying rules. Leaning forward, she captured my hand with cool fingers, smiled gently as she uncurled my fist, then dropped a glittering diamond onto my palm.

  Ah, shit.

  She nodded resolutely as the diamond rolled a little in my hold. “There. All yours.”

  She’d stolen again.

  All because I’d asked.

  Goddammit.

  My shoulders slumped with remorse instead of pride. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t.”

  Her green gaze met mine. “You did?”

  Clenching my fingers around the diamond, I hated myself for the added stress and torment I’d layered her with. “Never again, Pim. I won’t ask anything of you that you’re not comfortable with.”

  Including sex or secrets or anything else inappropriate.

  I would atone from here on out.

  A soft smile twitched her lips. “I didn’t steal it.”

  I ran a thumb over the facets of the stone. “This is real. How else am I holding it if you didn’t steal it?”

  Her eyes tangled with things I hadn’t been a part of. “I admit I wasn’t going to. I was going to disobey you. But as I headed out of the room, Mr. Hawk found me.”

  My back stiffened at the thought of her alone with the owner of this estate.

  “He told me to take it.” She rolled her shoulders as if negating other things he’d told her—things I desperately wanted to know. “So I did. It’s yours. Given freely, not taken.”

  Why had he given it to her?

  Why did she carry a glow that hadn’t been there before?

  Christ, I couldn’t do this anymore.

  The questions were too much. The need too strong.

  “Come.” Grabbing her wrist, I tugged her forward as my legs chewed up the ground. The music from the ball was too close. The lilts of laughter and people too near. My head ached, and my cock throbbed. I was losing to my lust, and Pim was making it so damn hard to say no. “We need to talk. Alone.”

  She didn’t speak as I dragged her away from the strings of music, storming down passageways I’d never seen. Scanning rooms left and right, I had no idea what I was looking for. Drawing rooms and day rooms. Parlours and solars. On and on until a quaint sitting room appeared with a large, oversized paisley couch, warm floor lamps, and a crackling fireplace with fawns and fairies carved into its mantle.

  It had space to pace. It had privacy to put myself back together again.

  Pulling Pim inside, I closed the door and twisted the old-fashioned key resting in the lock.

  I didn’t expect the mechanism to work in such an old hall, but it turned as effortlessly as if it were new. Having a barricade—a lockable barricade—between us and the rest of the occupants of Hawksridge allowed me to finally suck in a breath and relax a little.

  The only person I tolerated was Pimlico. And she was making my life intolerable.

  Ideally, my façade would hold until we were back on the Phantom. I would wait until we left port and sailed away from human society. I would ensure we were safe and armed and had a joint to calm the irrational clawing in my veins.

  But as she drifted deeper into the room and her dress whispered on the carpet, and the red of her mask obscured all the pieces I needed from her, I struggled to stay human.

  I forgot how to ignore the fascination and compulsions of my brain.

  I regressed enough that images of sex and nakedness and pleasure were more than just a temptation but an outright desperation.

  My fingers clutched at the stolen-donated diamond. I struggled to understand the truth. To guess how she was truly feeling. Why she was softer and quieter in the way she studied me? Why did her eyes glow with conviction as well as hesitation?

  It was as if she’d come to some conclusion while we were apart—a conclusion I didn’t know and couldn’t ask for.

  My hands trembled as I shoved the heavy rock into my pants pocket then pulled out the box from my blazer. She’d given me a diamond on my request. She’d given me everything I ever fucking wanted, and it still wasn’t enough.

  The guilt would eat me alive if I waited another minute.

  I had to give her something to balance the scales in my deformed brain and fight the overbearing lust quickly turning into wildfire inside me.

  I would give her my gift.

  I would make tonight equal.

  And then I would take her home where tomorrow was a new day with stronger rules and regulations.

  Pim looked at me over her shoulder as her fingers trailed over the polished lacquer of a nesting table, glided around marble busts of men long since deceased, and touched ancient easels with half-finished needlepoint. She never took her eyes off me as she floated around the room, staring in a dare, in acknowledgement, in agreement that everything we’d been running from had found us here.

  Somehow, there was no more road, no more avoiding the crushing weight of seduction.

  She knew it.

  I knew it.

  I didn’t understand how it’d happened.

  Why here, why now?

  What was the catalyst to this suddenly heavy, heady invitation to forget, to let go, to be free?

  No.

  Shaking my head, I tore my gaze from hers.

  That wasn’t what this was about.

  This was about balancing our relationship.

  She’d given me something. Therefore, I had to give her something.

  I had every intention of preventing the rampaging, quickening desire from making me do something we’d both regret.

  The box creaked in my hands as I gripped it hard. All I needed to do was give her this so we were even. So she wasn’t in my debt for stealing me the diamond. So I wasn’t in her debt for all the pieces I’d stolen this far.

  A gift given purely because she was the most beaut
iful creature on earth.

  Without a word, she settled on the inviting couch.

  Her dress billowed around her, filling the room with the soft rustle of satin. The multi-coloured paisley print clashed with her bruised gown, making it seem like she’d turned joy into torment.

  I wanted to stay on my side of the room. I wanted walls between us and chains around me. But I had to trust I had self-control. To be human long enough to ignore the body-breaking desire and get her back on the Phantom where she belonged.

  Swallowing hard, I moved stiffly toward her. With aching joints from denying what I truly wanted, I sat slowly on the couch. It enveloped me, cradling us both, the age-worn cushions compacting together so our knees touched and gravity tried to sprawl us onto one another.

  Christ, touching her...even with miles of dress between us was enough to make me shatter.

  We locked eyes but didn’t say a word.

  We both fought to stay sitting and not give up on the rules we’d wrapped ourselves in. I desperately wanted to kiss her.

  She licked her lips, her gaze latching onto my mouth.

  I swallowed a groan as everything else faded. Nothing else had the same weight or importance as kissing her.

  It was everything.

  Kiss her.

  I swayed closer.

  She breathed quicker.

  My heart burned with need.

  Kiss her...

  Fuck, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done—hovering in that tingling magic of an almost-kiss.

  Kiss her...

  I can’t.

  It took everything in me, it cost every pain, but I pulled back. The way my moods were tonight, I couldn’t guarantee I could stop at one kiss.

  I know I can’t.

  One kiss would turn to two.

  Two would turn to ten.

  Ten would turn to me inside her and every rule snapped and broken.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, counting my breaths, focusing on my heartbeat.

  Most of the evening, I’d focused on things I could control. Counting the drapes, the mosaics on the floor, the champagne glasses discarded around the room. Little tricks I’d long since mastered to stay sane.

  Counting wouldn’t help me now.

  Nothing could help me.

  The box.

  Give her the box.

  Even that didn’t offer the same safety as it once did.

  Shit, I should’ve stayed standing. I should’ve thrown it to her from across the room.

  Silence stretched, growing thicker by the second as I pushed the long rectangle from my lap and onto hers. I ripped my hand back before I could crush her dress in my fingers and hoist it high. Before I could strip her bare and take her. “Open it.”

  She still didn’t speak as if the swirling desire had stolen her vocal cords. She reminded me all over again of the woman I’d saved. The slave with her sliced tongue and tattered bravery.

  I shook from passion and pain. I crippled with need and nastiness.

  Christ...

  Her fingers quaked a little as she stroked the velvet casing before cracking it open. One hand flew to cover her mouth while the other quaked harder, distorting the jewellery inside. “Oh...”

  How could one little sound reach into my trousers and fist me?

  How could one woman reach into my chest and rip out my goddamn heart?

  A tightness wrapped around my neck that had nothing to do with the awkwardness of giving someone a gift or the agony of preventing lust from winning.

  Did she like it?

  Did she hate it?

  Would she wear it, or was it too steeped in painful memories?

  The tightness dropped into my heart, wrapping bands of cold anxiety around the smoking muscle. The same pressure entered my lungs and legs and fingertips. A pressure demanding I touch her, kiss her, comfort her.

  What sort of lover was I when I couldn’t even kiss her forehead without fear of demanding more? What sort of man was I when I couldn’t control myself around the woman he loved more than anything?

  I pursed my lips as she touched the bracelet. My hands clenched together, finding another thread of strength to sit beside her and not explode into a million pieces of want.

  I needn’t have worried about the Hawk’s craftsmanship. It was as if he’d reached into my brain and stolen the idea directly from the source.

  Pim’s fingers ghosted over the bright gold pennies dangling from the bracelet. Not copper or brass or any other unprecious metal. These pennies were pure gold to resemble how, even at the start when I’d tried to give her a penny for her thoughts, she was worth every wealth in the world to me.

  Inlaid in the face of the perfectly stamped pennies sat a diamond. The glittering stones distorted the pennies’ face, changing the numerical value from one cent to untold value.

  Because that was how I saw her.

  Her freedom was priceless.

  Her secrets were invaluable.

  Every part of her treasured and coveted.

  No matter how much money I had or how much time I could steal, I could never show her how much I’d fallen in love with her.

  Her eyes glossed with shock as she looked at me—truly looked at me and saw past my guards and barriers to the agony I was in. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Even my teeth ached from sitting so close and not having her. “Then don’t say anything at all.”

  “But...I have to. I have to find a way to thank you. To show you how grateful—”

  Gravity was the last element to smash my self-control. The couch cushions, long since broken in by prior sitters, collapsed beneath me. My hipbone collided with hers; our legs flush against each other.

  And that was it.

  My hand ignored my half-hearted command not to touch and soared up to capture her cheek. “I’m the one who’s grateful.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. I need to say this...” My fingers tightened on her skin, already craving more. I denied those urges. I hadn’t planned on this. I didn’t want to strip myself down to the bone. But holding her cheek, staring into her mask-rimmed eyes with rubies dangling like tears beneath, I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “I need to tell you how sorry I am. That I ran from the prison because I finally saw how you must see me.” I shook my head in dismay. “After so long in silence, why did you give me what you never gave him? Why let me do the exact thing he was trying to do?”

  She frowned as if in a dream she couldn’t understand or control. “You were never like him. Ever.”

  “I was. I am. I told you at the start I was after your mind rather than your body. I didn’t know why at the time. I blamed it on my need to conquer things I didn’t understand, but now I know different.”

  Her skin heated beneath my palm. “Know what?”

  Running my thumb over her bottom lip, I whispered, “Isn’t it obvious?”

  The tip of her tongue tasted my finger, sending a full convulsion through me. Her voice echoed with every desire I felt. “Not to me.”

  I squeezed my eyes, fighting every bellow to kiss, to touch, to take. I’d started this. I had to finish it. I had to tell her the truth. “It’s because I’m in love with you.”

  She gasped, jerking in my hold.

  I could stop there.

  I could kiss her and show her through actions just how true that was. But now I’d opened the vault, I had to tell her everything.

  Everything.

  Pressing my forehead against hers, our masks crinkled and joined. Feathers from hers and silk from mine, both of us disguised but still so aware of who the other was. So aware that we’d found each other, despite all the shit in the world.

  My voice thickened as she grabbed my wrist, holding me while I held her. “I think I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you. When you refused to shake my hand. When you stood naked and daring me to hurt you. When you pushed away my penny for your thoughts. Fuck, Pim...”

  S
he trembled, the penny bracelet on her lap dancing with light from the fire. My voice reverberated around the room, not fading. The damning words that I was in love with her echoing in every corner.

  “I fell in love with you when you swam with me in the dark. I fell when you shared the storm with me. I fell so many fucking times for you, Pimlico, and I don’t know how many times I still have to fall.”

  I scrambled for other things to say—things to fill the terrible silence of her not saying anything. I was weak. I’d just flayed open my heart, and I didn’t know if she was happy or upset.

  Pulling back a little, I studied her.

  For once, there were no answers or secrets for me to claim.

  Caressing her cheek, I dropped my gaze to the penny-diamonds nestled in her skirts. “I just told you I’m in love with you, yet you say nothing. Is my loving you a bad—”

  Tearing her face from my hold, she slammed the jewellery box closed, tossed the bracelet onto the floor, and crushed her mouth against mine.

  One second, we were separate.

  The next, we were one.

  Heat.

  Wet.

  Connection.

  My brain forgot letters and language and reverted to touch and taste.

  Goddammit, she shouldn’t have done that.

  I lost it.

  Well and truly lost it.

  My self-control from the past few days broke, and I kissed her back.

  Fuck, I kissed her back.

  Grabbing her jaw, I angled her closer. Her mouth opened, her tongue welcomed, and we fell together. She tumbled backward; I tumbled forward, smothering her on the couch.

  Our mouths fought, our tongues danced, our breath threaded together. I’d never been so diabolical in the way I attacked, and she’d never been so ferocious. We battled, we fought, our legs tangled in her dress, her hands everywhere at once.

  I kissed her deep.

  I kissed her hard.

  My hips thrust of their own accord as I climbed on top of her and pressed every inch of my agonising body against hers.

  I needed her.

  Goddammit, I needed her.

  Our lips slipped and bruised. Our teeth nipped and gnawed. We devoured each other, uncaring about dresses and tuxes and the fact this was not our house.

  Shit, this isn’t our house.