The Lover (14 page)

His… or hers?

"Did you bring me here because you are ashamed of the way I look?"

The words burst out of her mouth before she could stop them. Anne withdrew her hand in horror.

She didn't want to know—she had had enough truths for one day.

"I brought you here so that you could meet Madame Rene." Michel did not blink an eyelash at her rash bluntness. "She's a wonderful, courageous woman who has flourished where other women in her circumstances withered. You remind me of her."

Yes, both of them were well past their prime.

"Were you ever her lover?"

Anne cringed. Madame Rene had to be seventy if she was a day.

"No. But I would have been." Michel's eyes were intent, daring
her
, his procuress, to judge
him
, a man who catered to needy women like herself. "If she had wanted me."

And had paid the price.

Anne focused on the curve of his bottom lip, feeling incredibly naive in this uncomfortable world of exotic beauty and blatant sensuality.

"Madame said that I am too small in the breasts." Her voice was small—almost as small as she felt. "That my waist is thickening. And that my legs are passable. But not to worry, she will do well by me."

He tilted her chin so that she had no choice but to meet his violet gaze. "That is not what she told me," Michel murmured smoothly.

There was no condemnation in either his voice or his face.

"Oh?" Anne drew in a shaky breath. "I would not have credited her with sparing a woman's sensibilities."

Laughter glinted in his eyes, like sunshine rippling on a lake. Brilliant. Blinding. "She said that your breasts are high and firm, like those of a young woman. That your waist is supple. And that you have legs like a racehorse."

Anne remembered
… the cold draft of air,
and violet fire
…

"You saw me," she said breathlessly. "When madame was measuring me."

And she had stood naked save for stockings and her hat with its ridiculous feather that made her feel like a great, clumsy horse.

"I saw you."

By lamplight. By sunlight.

Legs splayed. Feminine lips spread.

"I cannot wear Madame Rene's creations."

His mouth thinned,
still sensual, still alluring
. "Why not?"

"I'm in mourning." Her throat tightened as she remembered the pain that didn't stop and the exhaustion that always waited. "My parents died ten months ago."

The tension eased out of Michel's face—or perhaps it had never been there.
It was impossible to understand this complex man who claimed he wanted her as badly as she wanted him
. "Is that why you came to me"—his scarred thumbs grated across her cheeks while his fingers burned her ears—"to forget your grief?"

"No." Singeing awareness raced through her. Of his blood that pulsed in his fingertips; of her blood that thrummed inside her temples. "I came to you out of fear. That I will someday be as lonely and unhappy as they were."

He studied her lips, his gaze a palpable touch. "Yet you nursed them."

"They had no one else."

And neither had she.

"You did not want to go out with me today." Eyelashes lifting, his gaze locked with hers. "Are you ashamed of me?"

Had he heard the
couturière?

Did it hurt him when people stared?
Talked
?

How could any woman not find him attractive?

"Women do not pay men ten thousand pounds if they are ashamed of them, Monsieur des Anges," she said firmly.

His violet eyes were unrelenting. "Then why did you cringe in horror when I asked if you would be seen with me?"

He would not allow her dignity. Modesty.

Pride.

What had he said?

Sometimes a lie is all that protects us. But there's no need to lie. We both want.
. . .
We both need
. …

Anne stiffened her spine. "I cringed in horror at being seen with you because… because everyone shall know that you would not be with me if I did not pay you."

His silky soft lips twisted. "Anne—"

"And because I know that society is not as understanding of a woman's physical needs as you and Madame Rene are. There will be gossip. Rumors. What few invitations I occasionally receive will stop altogether."

A shrill laugh cut through the muted noise of the city—another customer, cozily ensconced in a private sitting room.

Perhaps she had once been Michel's customer, too.

Immediately she drove the thought out of her head.

She would not allow her insecurities to ruin their short time together. It was time to take responsibility. And initiative.

Anne tentatively cupped her hands over his; his scarred skin was hot and rough against her cheeks where he touched her, and against her palms, where she touched him. "But that is the price I am willing to pay."

"Then you will wear madame's dresses"—Michel's head lowered, close but not close enough—"for the time we have together?"

She instinctively moistened her lips for his kiss. "Yes."

"And afterward, when you are no longer in mourning?"

"Yes," she lied.

The dresses would be wrapped in tissue, packed away in a trunk, and delegated to the attic, there to join the trunks packed with the remnants of her childhood and her coming-out wardrobe.

His mouth grazed hers. "Let's go home."

Michel's home
. A house scented with flowers instead of mildew. Passion instead of pain.

Anne's breath quickened. "I cannot take you so soon after… I am raw."

His lips grazed hers again, violet eyes watching her watch him. "There are other ways I can please you."

She grew moist with remembered pleasure, muscles loosening, ache increasing. "You mean"—she swallowed—"like you did earlier."

With lips. Tongue. And teeth.

"I mean"—his lips grazed hers yet again, beautiful eyes starkly staring—"I am going to take that feather out of your hat and tickle your clitoris until you scream for me to stop. But I won't stop, Anne."

For a second Anne couldn't breathe for the vivid image of the white feather adorning her hat held firmly in his long, scarred fingers, and positioned between her yawning thighs.

The muscles in her lower abdomen contracted.

Anne's fingers convulsively dug into his to contain the stab of desire.

But she wanted more than solitary satisfaction.

She wanted the sharing of heartbeats; the mingling of breaths; the joining of their sexes.

"I prefer it when you take your pleasure with me," she said unevenly.

Just when she thought she would explode from the intensity of his gaze, his touch,
the promise of his kiss
, his thick black lashes lowered. Lightly he licked her lips, a scrape of liquid fire; the scalding heat palpitating against her palms and her cheeks plunged between her legs.

"Then I will show you other ways that a man and a woman can obtain satisfaction," he whispered. "Together."

Unexplored boundaries of passion.

Anticipation. Apprehension.

She had never before realized how alike the two separate emotions were.

Anne licked her lips, tasting his saliva, his breath.
Her uncertainty
. "Can a woman accept a man… where you penetrated me with your finger?"

Michel's eyelids slowly lifted.

Scorching heat rocketed through her body.

She did not know if it came from embarrassment at her boldness, or from his gaze and the riveting flare of passion there.

"A woman can take a man in her every orifice," he said hoarsely, fingers squeezing her cheeks, breath searing her lips.

The pressure should hurt, she vaguely realized, but it didn't. All that mattered was the violet of his eyes. The magnetism of his touch. And the image of him taking her where he had previously taken her with his finger.

Remembered sensation rippled through her.

"You said you would tell me what every woman has a right to demand. But what do men have a right to demand?"
How could she possibly return the pleasure he gave her
? "What do you expect from a woman, Michel?"

Michel released her; cold air embraced her cheeks. "I expect everything from you, Anne."

Anne blinked at his unexpected withdrawal.

Turning, he walked away from her. She stood rigidly straight, trying to regain control over her breathing.
Her body
.

She felt rather than heard him come up behind her. "Hold out your right arm."

Anne awkwardly thrust first one arm, then the other into the sleeves of her cloak. The motion forced her right breast forward… her left breast, her linen chemise a rough caress.

The weight of the grenadine cloth settled on her shoulders. It pressed in on her until she could not breathe.

What had she said to turn him away?

Suddenly he stepped in front of her, holding her black silk gloves and beaded reticule.

Not meeting his gaze, she stiffly reached for them.

Michel pulled them back, held them loosely on either side of his groin.

The gray wool trousers bulged between the feminine accessories.

Her gaze shot up to his.

"This is for you, Anne." Face set in unreadable lines, he pressed her gloves and reticule into her hands, his fingers scraping her soft skin, forcing her fingers to close around slippery silk and brittle jet beads. "Money may buy pleasure, but it doesn't make a man hard. When we step out onto the street and people look at us, they will see my erection—not a monetary transaction."

Anne searched his eyes for the truth. "It doesn't bother you that others can see your… desire?"

"Why should it?"

Why should it, indeed?

All her life she had camouflaged her needs, afraid to show them for fear of what others would think.

Michel offered her his arm. Underneath the wool jacket lay the muscled reality of masculine flesh.

The streets were crowded with people hurrying to their individual houses or nearby shops to take high tea while vendors frantically tried to tempt them with their goods. They did not notice Anne Aimes, or the man who unashamedly flaunted his arousal for a spinster.

Dark eyes snared hers, slid away. An approaching man, young, obviously wealthy, briefly appraised Michel's groin before his gaze once again leveled on her with open speculation.

There was no ridicule in his eyes. No censure.

Only male appreciation.

The London air, polluted with smoke, raw drainage, and animal leavings, was suddenly clean and pure.

Anne thought of the aigrette bobbing in her hat. And of the use the plume would be put to.

She thought of Michel's flesh, hard and erect. And his remark, bold and direct.

Their steps rang in unison on the cobbled sidewalk.
Every orifice
echoed inside her ears.

A cab instantly pulled up to the curb when Michel raised his hand.

Anne's pupils dilated inside the dim interior of the hack; the springs creaked, tilted, righted, first with her weight, then with his.

Michel smartly closed the cab door behind him.

She pulled her cloak about her to make more room for his shoulder; his hip; his leg.
Her lungs
. "You seem to attract cabdrivers, Monsieur des Anges."

A surge of raw energy bolted through the cramped confines of the hack. Michel's left hand tightened around the door handle as if to wrench it open while his right hand clenched the gold handle of his cane so hard that the reddened welts covering his flesh turned white. At the same time the cab lurched forward.

Too late Anne realized what caused his reaction.

Michael had not considered the possibility of being taken on a crowded street in the full light of day.
By a cabby
.

Uninterested pedestrians trotted by; vendors shouted out their wares while his cock burned and throbbed as if it were a separate entity, untouched by the looming threat of danger.

His gut clenched with belated understanding: when the time came it wouldn't matter if he was ready.

He gripped the metal door handle; it did not halt the cab.

The asphyxiating odors of old perfume, stale cigar smoke, and damp hay shot to his head in a disorienting rush of energy. Underlying the reek of faceless, nameless customers who would never know the fate of one lone spinster and the man she had hired to take her virginity was the astringent smell of benzine, soap, shampoo, and the sweetness that was Anne herself.

"I beg your pardon." Anne's low, cultured voice was a drum-piercing roar; her shoulder rhythmically pressed and rubbed his right arm, chafing muscles that were stretched taut with tension. "I did not mean to imply that your… appearance… attracts undue attention."

The cab had two possible destinations. Michael had two choices.

He could grab Anne, open the door, and jump. Or he could wait. And see where the cab carried them.

To death. Or to his town house.

If they jumped, she would be injured, possibly killed, when only minutes earlier her only thoughts had been of the myriad ways a man and a woman could enjoy one another and the orifices through which their mutual satisfaction might be obtained.

It should be
he
who begged
her
forgiveness.

"I told you last night." His breath steamed the window. Familiar buildings appeared through the fogged pane. Disappeared. Appeared. Disappeared.
Death. Desire. Death. Desire
. Inescapable patterns. "There is no need to apologize to me. Not ever."

Sunlight glinted off of a shop window; a shard of light momentarily blinded him.

Unyielding metal bit into his left hand; his right hand fisted around the head of his cane, the gold soft and warm, like Anne's body.

A third choice.

The cane, like the knife and condoms inside his nightstand, was custom-made. With a twist the gold handle pulled out and became the hilt of a short sword.

It would be kinder to kill her himself. Quickly. Before he was forced to watch her beg for death.

As Diane had begged.

"I know what it is like to be an object of curiosity."

Anne's compassion grated his nerves.

Michael's head snapped around.

Her face was luminescent inside the cab's murky interior, pale eyes a glimmer of light.

It had not occurred to her that cabbies were capable of kidnapping—and killing—any more than it had occurred to her that men who were hired to bring women pleasure were capable of kidnapping.
And killing
.

A vein throbbed inside his temple. Blood pulsed and pounded inside his groin.

She had touched him, this spinster who had yet to learn what she wanted. She had cupped her soft, unblemished hands over the backs of his and had not once flinched at the feel of his rough, scarred flesh. She had let him touch her.

And he had brought her to this.

"What do you know about being an object of curiosity?" he asked harshly.

What did she know about lying and cheating and killing?

"A spinster is considered an oddity." Shadow dimmed the glow of Anne's pale eyes; the white plume crowning her black hat danced and shimmied in time with the relentless bump and grind of the carriage wheels. "Especially in the country where people have nothing better to talk about than their neighbors."

Yet she had agreed to stay with him, to be seen with him, knowing that their association would damn her reputation.

Blaring music invaded the cab. A flurry of color and motion flashed outside Anne's window, brass gleaming, drums pounding.

In the blink of an eye it was gone—the ragged street band, the music, the very proof that either had ever existed.

Michael had never spoken the man's name. Not to Gabriel. Not to the madame who had claimed and trained her two angels. If taken, he would simply cease to exist in a world that already thought him dead.

And the cycle of death and desire would be broken.

There would be no more fear. No more carnal hunger that ate at his soul as well as his body.

There would be no one to help Anne.

How could he let the man take her?

The cab veered around a corner, carriage leaning, wood creaking. Anne reached up, grabbed the leather pull.

Too late.

She lunged into him. The layers of grenadine, wool, and whale-boned corset did not protect him from the soft impact of a round, firm breast.

He cursed his cock, which flexed in uncontrollable response. He cursed the man for the fear that only added to the sharpness of desire. He cursed the memories that burst inside his mind like fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day.

He had no illusions about what would happen if he and Anne were taken together. Neither of them would survive.

The instinctive urge to fight,
to escape
, metamorphosed into the primal need for procreation.

Michael and the man were the last of their line. When they died, there would be no one else to carry on the family name.

Anne was the last of her line.

For one galvanizing second he thought about filling her with his seed and pushing her out of the carriage in the hope that she would live, pregnant with his child. She would be a loving mother. Their son, or daughter, would suckle at her breasts, as he had suckled at them, and thrive on her innate goodness, ignorant of the father's sins. Through their offspring he would continue…

As would the man's blood.

Forcibly he reigned in the driving lust to create life out of the endless, senseless destruction. He could not block out the burning imprint of her breast.

"It wasn't your marital status that inspired their gossip," he said stolidly. Women—and men—all too often despised what they wanted.
And wanted what they despised
. "It was your wealth."

"It really doesn't matter what inspires gossip, does it?" she asked quietly. The cracked leather seat bounced and vibrated underneath them, a near painful stimulus in his erect state. "It is still painful."

The left rear carriage wheel hit a hole; the cab dropped heavily before leaping forward.

He could not tell her that words didn't hurt; they did. He could not lie to her and say that someday she would become inured to the pain. If the cabby drove them to the man, there would be no time for her to grow, to love, to laugh.

A row of redbrick town houses sped by, inspiring hope, because the cab had not yet veered off the course to his town house. Breeding rage, because the man, like a cat, toyed with him. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Except watch. And wait.

And ache for release.

"I have touched myself."

Michael's narrow-eyed gaze shifted back to Anne's face. Her right cheek was outlined by the blur of passing buildings.

An invisible vise tightened around his chest.

She was offering him her confidence. Trying to make amends for the pain she thought she had caused him.

"This morning you asked if I had touched my breasts when I imagined a man suckling a woman. I have."

She twisted her reticule. The beads glittered like black diamonds.

"I used to lie in bed at night and imagine you suckling me." Her gaze remained steady, guarded, uncertain of how he would respond to a spinster's secret longings. "And I touched myself."

It was ridiculous to be jealous of a dead man. But Michael was.

A black wave of anger rushed over him.

Anne Aimes had imagined
Michel
suckling her. Not Michael.

No woman had ever cried out his given name at her moment of release.

Always it had been Michel.

Never Michael.

It never would be Michael.

"Wouldn't you rather have the man I used to be?" he asked brutally, wanting to hurt her, wanting to prepare her, wanting to protect her. "Or do you pretend that my scars don't exist?"

The harsh words rang out over the relentless grind of the carriage wheels.

She did not look away from him. "No, I do not."

"No, you do not what?" he asked ruthlessly. "No, you do not pretend that my scars don't exist? Or no, you don't pretend that they matter?"

Her gaze was too perceptive. Too ignorant of her fate. "No, I do not wish you were the man you used to be."

For a gut-wrenching moment Michael wished he were still Michel.
For her sake
.

He wished he were ignorant of the price she would pay.
For his sake
.

He wished he did not know what awaited Anne.

In an hour. A day.

A month.

The man would come.

"Why?" he asked bluntly. Crudely.

After all these years he still did not know
why
.

"Because you make me feel as if I am desirable."

While eighteen years ago Michel had ignored her.

He had hurt his spinster before he had even met her.

The tightly strung wire that his muscles had become quivered—in regret, for the hell he had plunged her into; in hunger, for what could have been under other circumstances.

Responses that, for both their sakes, would best be ignored.

But he couldn't do that, either.

"You
are
desirable, Anne. I saw the way the man on the street looked at you. He wanted you.
I
want you."

The light in her pale blue eyes flickered. Embarrassment that he had witnessed her feminine delight at an unknown man's perusal flowed into vulnerability.

She wanted to believe that she was desirable.

But she still did not.

She wanted to trust him, emotionally as well as physically.

Yet she could not quite bring herself to do that, either.

"You have spoken French only once since you took my virginity." She tilted her chin, denying her embarrassment, her vulnerability, while the cab hurtled forward, its destination set.
And there was nothing he could do to stop it
. "Why is that?"

She was already starting to put the pieces together.

Michael gritted his teeth.

Because he
did
want her more than death itself.

But that wasn't the answer she sought. Or even the question she asked.

Last night she had corrected him when he called her
mon amour. My love
. But not when he called her
chérie
.

Anne wanted the casual French endearments he had given her predecessors—that he had given her before he realized the futility of pretending to be someone he was not.

He forced himself to speak the words she expected. "Would you rather I speak French more often?"

Would death be less painful if it was delivered by Michel?

"I would like you to teach me how to speak French."

Michael's head jerked back, his heart lurching, the cab swaying.

He could not be Michel
. Not even knowing that it might be the last wish he could ever grant his spinster. "You already speak it."

Every gently bred woman learned French grammar.

"Not like…" Anne resolutely held his gaze. "I want to know other words. Words that do not come from a medical compendium. Scholars define orgasm as a means by which sperm is deposited inside a woman for the purpose of impregnation. They describe a clitoris as a penislike projection which, because of a woman's gender, does not mature into the organ that brings prestige and honor to men. I would like words to express the beauty of sexual union as well as the physiology."

Michael had wanted to know how a well-bred virgin had become conversant with sexual terminology.
Clitoris. Penis
. Terms polite society hid away from their women for fear they would contaminate their souls.

Now he wished like hell he didn't know.

Her knowledge had been gleaned from a medical textbook. Words tainted by death and disease.

"There are English words that are not medical," he said baldly.

"Yes, but English can be crude. I do not feel as if what you did… what
we
did… is vile. Coition
is
earthy. And primal. I have never felt as close to another person as I felt when you were inside me. French is a beautiful language." She tried to inject lightness into her voice but failed. Anne had not been allowed to take life lightly. "Surely it is more suited for intimacy than English, is it not?"

He had once thought so. Now all he could think about was the grinding progress of the carriage and the pulsating heat of her shoulder, hip, and leg rubbing his.