One Night Is Never Enough (33 page)

He raised a brow, but there was something dark in his eyes, quickly covered. Something that made her heart increase.
So very close.

“Oh?”

“And all of those boys downstairs, running around, clean and clothed. From the streets? Chimney sweeps and crossing sweeps and orphans?” Her voice nearly stuttered at the end, reacting to his expression—he was going to
deny
it. And yet, she knew. She
knew.
That little one with the scar? The pride and satisfaction on Roman’s face?

The
something
swelled within her. Terrifying. Exhilarating. She couldn’t control her breathing. She needed to look away from him, but couldn’t.

“Don’t be fooled.” His eyes narrowed, and she wondered what he read on her face in that moment. “We hire them for our own benefit. Who takes notice of a child, after all?” He said it offhandedly, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

With worship in their eyes, and thin layers of fat filling out their frames? She simply stared at him, the seed sprouting shoots in multiple directions. The feelings intensified. She cut a shoot before it grew too large, but it was simply replaced by a dozen others.

Normally she might wonder why she was panicking so fully at such a small series of internal revelations. But while the revelations themselves might be small, the consequences were anything but. For one revelation just pushed at a dozen thoughts and feelings that were already present, pushing them all together into a maelstrom within her. Pushing into one giant whole.

“You actually gave Trant’s money to a fund for orphans, didn’t you?” The words emerged a little hysterically.

“Only to irritate him.”

“And—”

Her words were cut off as his mouth covered hers. His hands wrapped around the edges of her waist and pressed her into the bed. “No more talking,” he said against her mouth, lips trailing over her cheek to her ear. “You have no idea what I’ve done in this life. It would curdle your blood. Make you shrink from me in horror. Giving a few boys a place doesn’t make a dent in my sins.”

“There are few of us without sin.”

“And there are a few of us with too much to ever be overcome,” he said in a low tone.

“You don’t think you deserve love?” she asked softly, rubbing her cheek so that she was speaking into
his
ear. Something inside of her rotating her panic and her need. Rotating all focus to him.

He froze.

She gently pushed him to the side, to his back, rolling over to straddle him. She pushed her hair back, leaning down over him.

“Why not, Roman? Do you see it as a cage? Or do you see yourself as the animal that the cage keeps out? The cat from attacking the canary?”

“Charlotte—”

“You want something. You think you might find it in
me,
” she said hurriedly, terrified, elated, uncertain, assured. “And yet you are terrified too, aren’t you? I’m not alone in this.”

He was going to say no.

She pinned his shoulders, leaning over him, hair a curtain around them. “Tell me I’m alone in this feeling.” She slipped down so they were touching. He was already hard against her.

“Tell me.” She curled her fingers into his shoulders, lining them together. “Tell me if you can.”

“No.” He looked pained. His eyes closing as she brushed him, slipping along him.

“Why?”

“Always bloody why.” He pulled her hips so that she was over him, a thrust away from being completely inside of her. She shifted before he could do it, smiling at the frustrated expression on his face. But there was something vulnerable there too, not wanting to answer her question, and that was what she pressed against.

“Yes. For I want to know.” She pulled her hands over his chest. “All of you.”

“You won’t. I won’t let you.”

“That will likely be true,” she stated, feeling strangely
calm
all of a sudden. Calm and in control. “So I’ll tell you instead, Roman Merrick, that regardless of what happens after tonight, with whatever games you are playing outside of this—” She leaned down, touching her lips to his ear. “I will thank my lucky stars that you won me that night. That I’ve had all of these nights with you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said hoarsely. “
Don’t
thank me.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, kissing his ear, the side of his throat. “Thank you.” Up under his chin. “Thank you.”

“I cheated. There was nothing lucky about it,” he said harshly, though his body strained into hers. “I cheated in that hand.”

She pulled her head back so she could see his eyes, their bodies still straining together, not caring about the words they exchanged. “You cheated to win me?”

“To beat Trant.” His teeth gritted together.

She searched his eyes. The heady excitement rushing through her at seeing everything she wanted to see. The debilitating terror rushing through her
at seeing everything she wanted to see
. “Mmmm.” She smiled at him, controlling the excitement, the terror, channeling them into her want of him, to the moment. “Well, then I will thank
your
lucky stars that you didn’t get caught. And that you needed to beat him so badly on that
specific
hand.”

He closed his eyes as she slipped down his frame, kissing each scar she came across, and there were many. “Charlotte—”

“I want you to know what you have given me, Roman.”

“Given you? Taking your virginity? Making you sneak around to see me? Ruining your future?”

She continued kissing him. “No. For other things. Things that I will never be able to repay.”

“Repay?” he asked harshly.

“Yes. For you have given me . . . me.” Movement in her reflection once more. The drive to be something more
now,
not later. Still uncertain, still a little broken. But helping to replace bitter strength with something more self-assured and far stronger.

She kissed her way back up. She could see him arguing with himself, eyes tightly shut. “Charlotte—”

She slipped over him. That perfect feeling of being joined together. Like the first time, like the last time.

Of finding someone she could love. Someone in the least likely or appropriate place.

His voice cut off, his hands automatically going to her hips, pulling her more fully on him, clasping her to him.

“You know my fears,” she whispered. “The silly and the real.”

Silly things like beauty and growing old and her worth wrapped up in everything superficial and fleeting. Real things like Emily and her parents and losing herself.

“And you make me want to be better than those fears.”

Even if she never saw Roman again after tonight, and the thought physically hurt that she might not, she was determined to
keep
that movement.

To keep the emotions the man below her inspired. A man who she both
knew
and knew not at all. For he
was
playing her in some way still. A game within.

“Charlotte—”

She rose and lowered herself again, pressing against him, and he closed his eyes, pulling her hips down to capture the deep curl of feeling underneath. God, it felt so wonderful. She had never realized that her body could feel this way. Could produce such spectacular feelings. And if that were only it, then she could dismiss it all as physical pleasure.

The problem was that she felt a similar euphoria whenever he was near. When he smiled, when he tweaked her, when the danger danced along his skin, sparking her.
He
was where the feeling emanated from. Becoming a hundred times as potent when he was inside of her.

Her body moved with the thoughts, wanting to please him, wanting to please herself,
them
together.

He groaned, drawing her more firmly down each time, moving her hips, pulling her that extra measure so they were so fully joined she didn’t know if they’d be able to separate. Then moving with her body to do it again. Never one to passively accept anything. Always demanding the same from her. “Charlotte, I—”

Vulnerability. Pupils swallowing the blue with desire. Need. Alarm.

She leaned over, rubbing her thumbs along his cheeks. “Shhh . . . all will be well, Roman. You have nothing to regret.” She watched his eyes, rims of sky around dark tunnels of black. “For no matter what . . .” She leaned down to his ear. “I won’t regret having and loving you.”

The certainty of the statement—the terror and euphoria collided. She felt the balloon fill . . . not a distention of despair but filling with a mist of warmth and determination. Squeezing her, as she squeezed him. And she was riding the wave of it as he went rigid beneath her, as he pulled her mouth to his, consuming her, plunging up into her again and again, driving her to the brink.

One finger grasping sanity’s edge as the rest of her fell over into the abyss.

He smiled cockily at her an hour later. “I should return you just like that.” He kissed the side of her neck as she continued to dress, everything about her appearance thoroughly debauched.

She sent him a raised brow. “Are you feeling the sudden urge to make a visit to the parson tomorrow?”

His shirt was half-done up, sleeves rolled, golden hair half-curling and falling in disarray around his face. He looked just like the decadent, fallen angel she had first thought him.

He touched her cheek, crooked smile still in place. “Mmmm, do you know any?” He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. It was so perfect, she heard what had to be a choir of angels.

Though if she was being honest, it sounded more like the stamping of hell’s minions. Cacophony growing closer from every direction. Still, she decided not to be picky. Angels were obviously a rowdy bunch.

She closed her eyes and leaned in to him, one hand gripping his half-open shirt, fingers of the other wrapping around the band of his arm.

The muscles beneath her fingers tightened suddenly, immeasurably, and the next thing she knew her nose was pressed against his back.

And the whistle of something whirred past her ear.

Chapter 20

S
he didn’t know how he moved so quickly, moving both of them together in one sharp, seamless movement. She had no idea how he had spun her behind him like that, nor how they moved from the bed to the wall so swiftly, but she found herself flattened against the smooth surface, his back pressed against her, his body completely blocking her. Long and wicked-looking knives glinted in his hands.

She had just watched him put that shirt on. How had he hidden knives in his sleeves without her noticing?

And Hell’s minions, indeed. It sounded like the entire neighborhood was outside, trying to break down the walls.

Roman’s entire body stiffened, and she had the feeling he would be doing something far different if she weren’t pressed behind him. It was as if he were expecting, almost resigned, to being shot or—

A second whistle ended in a ping, shattering a decanter near her head. A spray of glass erupted to the floor, thankfully away from them.

Thankfully? She saw the flat knife that had fallen amidst the glass. Dear God, someone had thrown a knife at them. Suddenly, the whirring sound that had accompanied their movement to the wall connected with the evidence before her. A
second
knife.

But Roman still didn’t move. And the noise of the crowd far below grew louder.

“Merrick.” A voice called, and she could see black boots step forward out of the door’s shadows. She couldn’t see anything else, blocked as she was. “Merely a warning, as you’ve obviously guessed since we aren’t currently trading blood.” Something hit the ground, near their feet—a black card with a picture of a man hanging upon it. “I was hired. I have
missed.
Our debt is satisfied.”

“Who?” Roman’s voice was deadly flat.

“A surprise, to be sure. I hadn’t realized the ass was so
well
connected.” The voice was equally flat, almost bored, with just the slightest hint of irritation. “And if it’d been
he
as my target . . .”

It didn’t seem possible, but Roman’s body stiffened further.

“Ah, family betrayal. A lovely thing. Though I don’t believe anyone else has pieced it together,” the voice said, musing. A sudden increase in the rage of the crowd below nearly drowned his words. “But fair warning. The stirrings are enough to cause comment—everyone waits to see what will happen.”

Something fairly
vibrated
about Roman’s body. He wanted to be somewhere else
now.
But he tilted his head, waiting, and a second later the dark boots disappeared soundlessly into the shadows.

As soon as the man disappeared, Roman was in motion. “Andreas.” There was something of anguish to it.

Wait, what? Andreas had attacked them? Or had them attacked? And was the entire building under siege?

Roman’s hand whipped, and the knife in his right hand disappeared. He knelt and in two smooth motions pulled a pistol from under a pile of clothing and pulled a cord under the bed with his other hand. He cocked the pistol, pressing it into her hands, eyes locked with hers. “Shoot anything that moves. Reinforcements will be here in one minute.”

Then he was darting through the partially opened door.

Charlotte frantically looked around, but there was no evidence of whoever had been throwing knives at them. And she had the very certain notion that Roman wouldn’t have left if he had thought otherwise.

She held the pistol gingerly in her numb fingers before curling her fingers tightly around the handle, jerkily aiming it at everything in the room that caught her attention. She might have never held one before, but that didn’t mean that with the choice between pulling the trigger and having one pulled on her, she wasn’t going to choose the first option.

She listened to the roar below and clenched tight fingers around metal. She couldn’t even comprehend what was happening.

Andreas had betrayed Roman? Had hired someone to kill him? And what . . . people were rioting below to make sure no one escaped alive?

But . . . but Roman had gone after Andreas. What would
Andreas
do to Roman? Especially with Roman in emotional pain over his betrayal? Andreas could
kill
him.

Her mouth opened, her throat worked, but no sound emerged. Killed while she stood here stupidly waiting—while a crowd tried to break down the building at its foundations and destroy everything within.

Her feet moved through the bedroom door and toward the outer door without mental consent. She attempted to open the outer door, but it was locked tight. It took a precious thirty seconds to unlock the
three
locks. How . . . ? She shook her head at the unimportance of the question. The hall was empty, but the only other door in the hall was ajar—Andreas’s room, sharing the other half of the building’s upper floor with Roman.

Her breath came in pants, but she crept to Andreas’s door, pistol waving all over the hallway toward any noise.

Then everything went suddenly silent. So silent. Nary a shout from the streets below.

She slowly peered around the edge of Andreas’s door.

Her first impression consisted solely of bodies and blood. Then her gaze snapped to Roman, who was crouched, hovering, over someone half-propped against the wall. She took a step forward. Roman spun around and for a split second she saw her life end. His knife hit the wall half a pace from her, as, at the last moment, he threw off his aim. The blade vibrated outside of the tip of its sheath.

“Shit. God. Charlotte.” He closed his eyes tight, then they shot open. “Stanley,” he shouted. “One-eye, Milton, Bertrand, Lefty! Upstairs, now!”

She wasn’t sure her body would regain movement, the pistol frozen in her fingers for all eternity. She heard feet furiously stamp up the stairs and down the hall.

“Sorry, Boss, but someone started a riot and—” The young voice abruptly ended as a boy appeared at her side, stopping dead just inside the frame of the door. She could feel at least one other body at her side, but her head stubbornly stayed forward, unable to move or look to see.

“Johnny, whiskey, needle, and thread. Peter, the special knife, two candles.” There was nothing soft about Roman’s voice, and his accent was so thick she could barely discern the words.

The scene finally snapped into sharp focus as someone next to her pried the pistol from her frozen fingers. Roman was crouched over
Andreas,
who looked as if he’d participated in a war, one leg bent at an odd angle. And there were five other bodies and a flood of spilled blood on the floor.

“Dammit, don’t touch that.” Andreas, fortunately, or
unfortunately,
still alive, tried to swat Roman’s hand away from a bloodied gash in his chest.

“Stop being a fucking lightskirt.” But Roman’s voice was steady—too even. “Charlotte, can you sew him up?” Roman didn’t meet her eyes for a moment, but when he did, they were carefully blanked of expression.

“No. No
bloody
way,” Andreas said.

Roman looked relieved to look away from her and back to his brother. “She’s a lady. They have to know how to sew a perfect stitch. It’s a requirement.”

Charlotte knew quite a few ladies who were abysmal at it, actually, but she thought it best not to add her thoughts. They kept slipping to the dead bodies splayed on the floor anyway. The blood soaking the floor was like too much wine spilled at a Bacchanalia. She was pretty sure the man nearest her had not died
pleasantly.
And another one . . . she didn’t know you could actually stick a blade through bone like that.

She snapped her eyes away, focusing instead on a lock of hair that was falling into Roman’s eye as he argued with his brother.

“It’s the best option.”

His hair was always quite fetching.

“She’s not
touching
me.”

“She’ll do you up right.”

A much nicer color than hers.

“No.”

And his eyes. They were fetching as well. Very fetching all around. She felt fetching too when she was around him. “Fetching,” what a strange word. Like fletching, but without the “L” that made one’s tongue do extra work.

“Why are you whining? She will—
shit
!”

Huh. The ceiling wasn’t gold here, but the wood was quite dark.

“See?” a voice hissed. “Bloody useless.”

She wondered if they planned it that way—to echo themselves in their décor.

Roman’s face appeared in her view. How’d he get up there? “Charlotte? Charlotte, are you hurt? Did Slade hit you without me realizing it?”

He sounded panicked, and she felt his hands moving over her. She tried to reassure him. He would always be so pretty, unlike her. Her mouth opened, but before she could say anything, his eyes went wide, and she found herself twisted to the side.

A good thing really, as she proceeded to retch all over the floor and what looked like a bloody stump. But that didn’t make sense. There were no bodies over on this side of her. She retched again, only Roman’s soothing hands keeping her from falling into the swirling mess.

“She
fainted.
” The voice sounded farther away than the wall. “Ladies
faint
at the sight of blood. And then
vomit.
Except they call it ‘casting up their accounts’ because they are too
ladylike
to use the real word.
Bloody useless.
”

Roman uttered a string of words—quick and angry—but she couldn’t catch them with his thickened accent and through her fuzzed thoughts.

“I will
not,
” Andreas sounded furious—not that that was different from usual.

Fifteen minutes later, and with a cold compress pressed to her forehead, she watched from a chair as they bickered over how to stitch up the wound.

“Now, Boss, you know you ain’t no good with a needle.” Bill rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “And the only good blood-and-bones can’t be found. Damn riot. Smart bastards to start it. Kept everyone busy downstairs. Lucky we didn’t lose anyone.”

She had been studiously avoiding watching the boys clean up the bodies. It had taken six trips. She closed her eyes and pressed the pad harder against her forehead, trying not to think about why five bodies necessitated six trips.

“Anyway,” Bill continued. “Merrick is the best one with a needle. A rotten ass of a doctor, but he gets the job done.”

“Exactly.” Andreas held out his hand imperiously. “Now bring me a damn mirror and give me the damn needle, so I can sew it up my damn self.”

“You’ll end up stabbing yourself,” Roman said flatly. “Your hands are shaking. You’ve lost too much blood.”

“My hands are not shaking.” Andreas’s voice was deadly.

Charlotte threw the cloth down on the table. “Just give
me
the damn thing.”

“
No.
”

She stood up and strode around the—
wine
—on the floor. “Give it here.” She held out her hand, and Roman gamely handed the needle to her.

The wound had been cleansed, so she could see the blade line.

“Have you ever even seen this done?” Andreas snarled.

“No,” she said bluntly. “But you are sorrier-looking than my first embroidery attempt, so shut your gob.”

Surprisingly, he did. She thought it might be because he was too tired to do anything else, though. He glared but closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. He had other injuries too, but the chest wound was by far the worst. Somehow his leg looked completely normal again. Obviously a trick of her mind before she’d fainted.

She threaded the needle. A simple series of straight stitches. She had been able to sew a perfect line since she was eight. That’s all she needed to do. She put her finger on top of the needle and placed the tip against his skin. Of course, sewing through cloth and sewing through skin were hardly equal tasks. She hesitated, point pressed.

“Just push it through,” he said viciously, eyes still closed. “What difference does it make at this point? You’ll probably faint halfway through the first stitch anyway, then I can just do it myself.”

She set her jaw and pricked the skin, pushing through to the other side of the gash. “You know exactly how to motivate me, Mr. Merrick. Congratulations.”

She finished the half stitch, pulling the thread through as carefully as she could. She peered up to see his eyes still closed but with something looser in his expression.

“Are
you
going to faint, Mr. Merrick?”