Edge of Darkness (11 page)

“You sure know how to make pretty speeches, Fancypants,” she breathed.

He exhaled, and she realized he’d been holding his breath, waiting for her reaction. He moved his hands from her face to her shoulders, then pulled her against his chest and held her there tightly, his arms encircling her, his cheek resting on the top of her head, his lips on her hair. Through his shirt she felt his heartbeat against her cheek, and she closed her eyes, hearing it throb and pulse, loving the sound of it.

Feeling as if her heart might strangle her, she said into his shirt, “I can’t believe you didn’t end that speech with a kiss.”

She felt his chuckle against her cheek too. It reverberated through his chest, pitched deep and low like a bass drum. He took her chin in his hand and tilted her face up to his.

“There will be kisses, little firecracker, many, many kisses—but you’re going to have to ask for the first one.”

In response to her look of mortification, he added, “Nicely.”

“You want me to
ask
you to kiss me,” she said flatly.

He nodded, a grin spreading across his face. “It’ll be easy, it’s just three words. ‘Please kiss me.’ How hard is that?”

“How about, ‘please tell me you’re joking,’ instead?”

His grin grew dangerous. “I never joke about kissing, Ember.” He released her chin, reached out, and lightly touched her bare leg just above her ankle. She sucked in a startled breath and froze, ridiculously grateful she’d decided to shave her legs after all.

He said, “There are several things, in fact, that I never joke about, and all of them have to do with pleasuring a woman.”

Holding her gaze, he slid his fingers slowly up her leg, and Ember felt it like a trail of fire on her skin. She was sure if she looked there would be burn marks. A little involuntary shiver went through her.

“Ask me,” he whispered, stroking her leg. “Three little words and I’ll make you shiver a lot more than that.”

“Remember before, when I was telling you what an egotistical something-or-other you are?” She whispered it back to him, her fingers wrapped around the lapels of his suit, her back stiff, their eyes locked together. He nodded, his fingers slowly moving past her kneecap, up her thigh. As his hand spread open over her skin, her voice grew even fainter. “I was right about the egotistical part.”

He lowered his head, just far enough so his lips hovered above hers. Against her mouth, he whispered, “Ask me,” so that his words brushed her lips, feather-light and fleeting.

Instead of speaking her ‘no’ aloud, she shook her head back and forth, skimming her lips against his in the touching-but-not-touching way he had done, slow and careful. He made a low, masculine sound in his throat. His hand tightened on her leg and the electricity running between them felt alive, magnetic and hair-raising, a wild animal about to be unleashed.

Then the car slid to a stop and Corbin announced, “We’re here, sir.”

Ember stifled a groan. “He has the most unbelievable timing.”

Christian closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “He certainly does.”

He inhaled, gave her thigh a squeeze, and released her, setting her back to her side of the seat. She made sure her dress was safely back over her knees and tried not to think about the hardness of his body, his lips and scent and gaze, how it felt to have his arms wrapped around her. Because if she focused on any one of those things, she didn’t think they’d make it through dinner.

She thought she’d tell him to take her home to bed, right now.

And she needed more time to figure this out—it was all happening much too fast. She wasn’t that girl, the one who had sex on the first date or threw herself at men, hoping for attention. No matter how gorgeous, rich, and swoon-inducing they were.

Christian helped her from the car and kept her hand clasped tightly in his as they entered the restaurant and were led to their table. As her brain began to come back online and her thought processes cleared, Ember was struck by something she’d missed in the emotion of the moment with Christian’s arms wrapped around her, his fierce intensity muddling her mind. It was something he’d said, something that seemed more and more ominous with every replay.

I’m not even sure how much longer I’m going to be around.

It made her wonder again about the life or death reason he’d been late for their date. And why he thought spending time together wasn’t in either of their best interests.

What exactly was he hiding?

The dinner was extravagant, and quiet.

There was caviar and oysters, silky foie gras and filet mignon, a Bordeaux—which she politely declined—so dark and decadent it looked more like dessert. The menu was French, as was the waiter with the aquiline nose and slicked back hair who bowed and scraped so obsequiously to Christian when he ordered.

In French.

It was an uncomfortable experience for Ember, in part because the electric tension from the car had not dissipated, and in part because it reminded her too much of the early days of her father’s marriage to Marguerite. The three of them, along with the Tweedies, would visit expensive restaurants like this one and Ember and her father would suffer through endless commentaries about everything from the quality of the food to the quality of Ember’s wardrobe. Both of which were always found to be lacking. Also, she loathed oysters and foie gras, but didn’t want to seem rude or ungrateful when Christian ordered them, especially since she’d already turned down the wine.

She longed for a hamburger. And a quick escape route.

Or maybe a bullet to the head.

By the time dinner was over, her nerves were frayed. She and Christian had exchanged a total of perhaps two dozen words.

“Well,” said Christian as he settled back into the plush confines of his silk-covered chair. Toying with his dessert spoon, he sent her a penetrating look from beneath his lashes. “That was one of the more memorable dining experiences I’ve ever had. In spite of the fact that I didn’t taste a bite of it.”

Her lips twisted. She exhaled a slow, ragged breath and tried on a tentative smile. “You live well,” she said quietly, looking down at the untouched dessert on her plate, a sugar-dusted hazelnut merengue the waiter had called “dacquoise.” It appeared diabetes-inducing.

“Thank you,” he murmured. Ember glanced over at him and he was looking back at her with unblinking intensity. Horribly, because of course it would happen, she blushed.

“Okay. How about if we skip dessert and go for a walk instead?” Christian suggested. Ember looked at him and he sent her a wry smile. “I could use some fresh air. You?”

“Yes,” she agreed, profoundly grateful. Walking beside him—not having to look right at him—would be much easier than sitting across a table from him trying to ignore all the unresolved sexual tension in the air, or getting back in the car and…what? Christian called the waiter over and paid the check. She’d never been so relieved to skip a dessert in her entire life.

Or so conflicted about it.

Once out on the sidewalk, Christian informed Corbin they’d be walking and they set off at a meandering pace down the boulevard. Corbin followed slowly behind in the Audi. She tightened the cashmere wrap around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the night air. Christian, seeing it, asked, “Are you cold? Would you like my coat?”

“No, but thanks for offering.” She wrapped her arms across her chest because she was exquisitely aware he might take her hand again if she didn’t, and she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted him to or not. “Is he your bodyguard or something?” Ember asked curiously as she glanced over her shoulder and saw Corbin’s worried face through the windshield. He had a death grip on the steering wheel and was staring at the two of them as if he thought something terrible was about to happen.

The question made Christian chuckle. “That would be a no.” After a brief pause, he said, “Why, do you think I seem like I can’t take care of myself?”

She laughed out loud. “That would also be a no. But he does seem very…protective of you.”

Christian’s silence seemed fraught. After several moments, he said, “Corbin’s a good man. He’s known me a long time, since I was a boy, actually. He worked for my father—”

He cut off abruptly and Ember turned to him, remembering with a pang the story Christian had told her about how his parents had died. “Oh no. He wasn’t your parents’ driver, was he?”

Christian shook his head. “My father’s valet. Then my brother’s, then, after my brother married, mine.”

“All in the family, huh?”

Christian glanced at her, his expression giving nothing away. “Precisely. When I moved here, he insisted on coming. I have a feeling even if I’d said no and left without him, he’d have shown up at my door within a week.” His voice grew dark. “That kind of loyalty means everything to me. Especially now.”

They were in Gràcia, a colorful, artsy part of the city known for its nightlife, exotic restaurants and trendy bars. In spite of the chill in the air and the thunderclouds looming ominously overhead, the streets were crowded with pedestrians. Artists with easels were clustered under awnings on one side of the palm-lined boulevard, hawking oil and charcoal portraits to tourists. They were flanked by kiosks selling food, fruit, and T-shirts, interrupted constantly by tiny cafés with patios and upscale clothing boutiques and coffee shops. On their side of the street, there were people painted as statuary who would move in infinitesimal increments if they received money in the can at their feet, and street musicians who would play whatever you asked for the same.

With the Carnaval atmosphere infecting everyone, the streets held a buzz of excitement that warmed the cold air. It was a cacophony of noise and color and motion, and Ember was glad for the distraction from the man walking silently at her side.

She was just about to ask Christian what he meant by “especially now,” when she saw the woman with the cello.

Seated on a chair in front of a jewelry boutique, the woman had her eyes closed, her fingers poised on the strings. Before Ember could turn away or scream the “No!” that automatically rose in her throat with the hot, gagging acidity of bile, the woman lowered the bow to the strings and began to play.

As the first swell of notes rose into the night air and Ember recognized the piece she used to play so perfectly—Kodaly’s
Sonata for Solo Cello
, the piece that had won her scholarship to Juilliard—she felt a crushing sense of claustrophobia, along with an anguish so fierce and burning, so encompassing and incandescent, it was as if she was standing on the surface of the sun.

A cellist had to have the right combination of passion and steel to meet the extreme demands of Kodaly’s masterpiece. In live performance, when done well, the ear is fooled into thinking multiple players and instruments are at work. There is an orchestral timbre to the double-stop trills and
pizzicati
, to the haunting and brilliant
czardas
.

When played well, it is like hearing the voice of God.

The cellist in front of the jewelry boutique was playing it well.

With a choked sob, Ember turned and ran blindly away, shoving though the crowds, her left hand shaking so badly it felt palsied. She heard Christian behind her, calling her name, but she didn’t look back because she didn’t want him to see her face. She didn’t want him to see what she knew was looking out of her eyes, the thing like a hunted animal that would be staring back at him. She’d seen it for too many years in her own face in the mirror; she knew how wretched, how ugly a thing it was.

She ducked into a side street, and then into an alley, hoping she’d lost him in the crowd, and collapsed against the rear wall of a restaurant, trembling and gulping air. But he was on her in an instant, his voice as worried as his eyes.

“What is it? What happened? Are you all right?”

Not all right not all right dying dying dying dying.
Trembling, feeling panic and pain wrapped around her with the clammy dark finality of a shroud, Ember squeezed her eyes shut and gasped for air.

He took her in his arms and rocked her gently back and forth, murmuring into her ear. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay. Just breathe, Ember. Just breathe.”

She curled her hands around his jacket and buried her face in his shirt. Inhaling deeply, she fought the panic, willing her heartbeat to slow and her body to stop shaking, drawing his smell into her nose, that wild, night-scented spice so unique to Christian.

“Easy, little firecracker,” he whispered, sliding one hand beneath her hair to cup the nape of her neck. “I’m right here. I’m not going to let you fall apart on me.”

Too late
, she thought, tears slipping from beneath her closed lids.

Still with one strong arm wrapped around her, Christian took his hand from the back of her neck and tipped her face up to his with his fingers under her chin. “Hey,” he said softly when he saw the tears on her cheeks. “I know you didn’t like the foie gras, but you don’t have to cry about it. My feelings weren’t
that
hurt.”

His gently teasing tone brought a weak smile to her face. “You could tell, huh?” she whispered.

He wiped her wet cheeks with his thumb then threaded his fingers into her hair. “You’re not exactly what I would call poker-faced, Miss Jones.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “Prime example: the woman with the cello.”

She bit down hard on her lower lip and squeezed her eyes shut again.

“I meant what I said before; we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. But I’m here if you change your mind. Okay?”

She nodded silently and put her face against his chest again. He held her like that for a while, the night music of the city sparkling bright in the air all around them. A bark of faint laughter, the bickering of car horns in traffic, a covey of crooning pigeons sent into shrieking flight by a child, squealing in glee. In her nose the scent of the man who held her and the sweet, pungent bite of caramelized onions from the restaurant kitchen, on her face, cool air that soothed the flushed skin like a balm.

In her heart of hearts, Ember was quaking apart. She was very good at smothering her feelings, even better at keeping anything resembling happiness away, because she didn’t deserve it. Day after week after month after year, she had chosen to stay alive when she knew it would be the right thing to do to kill herself, to take a knife to her wrists or swallow a bottle of Asher’s prescription anxiety medication.

It was an abomination she should be alive after what had happened, after all the carnage she’d left in her wake.

The one thing that stopped her, over and over again, was the belief that to go on living was a far greater punishment than death, which would have relieved the relentless guilt eating away at her soul like acid. Life had become an opus of pain, silent and unacknowledged by anyone but her, pain that was lessened a little bit every time she’d thought of Christian. It lessened even more as she stood trembling and stripped emotionally bare in his arms.

No one had held her in years.

How alive do you want to be?

After all this time—especially after meeting Dante’s granddaughter Clare, so brave, so unafraid of anything—Ember realized she very much wanted to be alive, even if she didn’t deserve to be. She wanted to feel something other than guilt and pain, even if only for a moment.

Into Christian’s shirt, she whispered, “Christian?”

“Hmmm?” He stroked a hand over her hair.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

She tipped her head back and looked up at him. In a raw, shaking voice she said, “Will you please kiss me?”

Even in the dark alleyway she saw it, the way his eyes flared, the way his expression changed from soft to ardent, faster than she could blink. Tender, Gentle Christian was gone, replaced in an instant with Hungry, Dangerous Christian, the Bedroom Eyes Assassin she’d first seen when he walked into the bookstore, and into her life.

She thought he would devour her, so rapacious was that look, but he merely took her face in his hands, pressed his body against hers and pressed them both back against the wall.

She leaned into him, her heart pummeling her breastbone, her blood racing like wildfire through her veins. He slowly lowered his face to hers, his lips parted, his lids lowered halfway, eyes shining with heat.

When his mouth touched hers she gasped a little, shocked by the current of static that passed over her lips, stunned by how soft, warm, and gently demanding his tongue was, gliding against hers. She arched against him, pulling his head down with both hands around the back of his neck, and he made a sound deep in his throat, a quiet groan of need or pleasure.

It was incredible, his heat, and strength, and maleness, the way he took his time exploring her mouth while every nerve and cell in her body was screaming for him. For
more
. His body was pressed so close against hers she couldn’t help but notice the new straining hardness that sprang up between his legs as they kissed; it twitched against her belly when she twisted her fingers into his hair and rubbed her breasts against his chest, suddenly more desperately hungry than she’d ever been in her life.

He dropped a hand from her face and cupped it around her bottom, squeezing and pulling her harder against him. A little animal mewl escaped her, and she squirmed against him, greedy, quickly losing all sense of restraint. And oh, God, the way he tasted—it was addictive. Like sunshine, clean air, and cool water, there was an earthy, elemental taste to his mouth that was at once savory and sweet and completely delicious, and she felt as if she’d been drugged. As if someone had injected a mind-numbing chemical straight into her veins that set her body aflame and squelched the little voice of reason in her head that should have been screaming
Slow down!