Till Dawn Tames the Night (32 page)

She ached to touch him, but he still had her hands pinned to the counterpane. She wriggled beneath him, and he finally lifted his head and looked down at her. Though they were still naked, lying chest against chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, she could sense him pulling away. She now knew he couldn't hurt her, and that made the thought of his leaving that much more unbearable. They had come too far.

He moved to leave the bed, but before he went, he woodenly placed a kiss upon her tear-stained cheek. Desperate to make him stay, she summoned a womanly guile she never knew she possessed. She waited for his lips to leave her cheek and just when they did, she turned her head and her lips met with his.

Their kiss was sublime. Never in her most wishful dreams did she believe a kiss could be like this: a man's heart and soul distilled into one soft motion of his lips. He made her want him with a desire that surpassed the
physical, that
grew and grew until she was almost made wild by it. Losing her self-consciousness, she slid her hand between them and let her palm mold to the grid of warm muscle over his torso. Her other hand reached up and caressed his beard-roughened cheek. Their kiss deepened.

Her lips instinctively parted for him. He tasted her, pushed himself into her, all the while persuading her to taste him. She was a slow pupil, but finally she succumbed and slipped her tongue out to meet his.

Her pleasure was intense and immediate, but it increased tenfold when she realized that she had moved him also. She could hardly believe the power she suddenly possessed. He groaned against her, cupping her breast as if he held the wealth of the world in his hand. She shivered deliciously; her nipple hardened beneath his palm.

In the most fleeting of thoughts, she marveled at him, wondering when he had changed. When had his touch grown gentle, his caress tender?
His kiss aching and sweet?
She wasn't able to think so coherently for long. His mouth broke from hers and dragged along her throat. He moved lower and the velvet of his tongue traced one tight apricot bud, the black coils of his hair falling across her chest in stark contrast to the smooth ivory flesh beneath him. When he pulled himself up once more, the scent of his skin filled her, again bringing to mind the sea: salty, pungent, elemental. He looked down at her, his breath coming swift and insistent. She could feel him against her bare thighs, and her senses, filled to the point of intoxication, barely registered what happened next.

"Aurora," he groaned, "I think old Phipps just may be the one to kill me. . . ."

Everything moved quickly then. His arm reached beneath her hips; he arched her against him, awakening instincts in her she'd never known she had. When she helplessly moaned, it seemed he could take it no more. His knee forced apart her alabaster thighs and he slid between them, taking her sweetness in one searing motion.

The shock far outweighed the pain. She gasped and looked up, her eyes wide with disbelief. He stared back, implacable and devouring. Turning her head away, she felt panic overwhelm her. He began moving and her hysteria increased. Writhing beneath him, she did her best to pull back, but with him upon her it was utterly impossible. She was trapped like a wild bird suddenly caged.

"Stop, stop," she gasped, her eyes darkening with fear.

He never even broke rhythm. Instead he kissed her, his lips clinging, persuading, seducing, with all the dark fury in his soul. She sank back into helpless surrender, her body lifting to his as if it ached for him. She wrapped his violent motion in the gentle embrace of her femininity, and against her will her loins melted, tingling with the sensations of her dream. Her hands clutched at him, trying to hang on, but the turbulent ride became too much. Unbidden came the picture of the dragon on his back rippling with his every thrust, and she began to fall, everything around her sinking quietly into a deep, sweet oblivion.

Her last foothold on solid ground was her glance at him. He never blinked. His stare burned with sparks of lust, yet there was another desire there too. One that burned even brighter. It was a need of the spirit, and she wondered how he would ever satisfy that need when the dragon could not be slain. She understood that now. The dragon possessed him and always would. Her only hope was that it could be tamed. For the dark side of him would never completely go away.

She surrendered, and another truth came to her, a truth as shattering as the first, as naked as the picture of her fingers clawing down his back, clawing down that dragon in blind, wild ecstasy. She panted and cried and shook her head, but there was no denying it any longer. Vashon had confirmed it in a language more eloquent than words.

She had a dark side too.

A shaft of brilliant sunlight spilled across the two sleeping figures. When Peterborough entered the bedroom and threw back the heavy bed-curtains, one body stirred, the sheets twisting with his lazy movement. The young man's eyes slowly opened and he squinted in the blinding morning light.

"Viscount," he
said,
his voice thick with sleep.

"My good Lord Worthington," Peterborough greeted sweetly. "Does your illustrious father, the duke, know where you are?"

"No—no, my lord."

"Then imagine his disappointment when he discovers your little pleasures are hardly going to produce the family heir." With that dry comment, Peterborough whipped back the brocaded counterpane and grabbed the slender young man by the hair. He jolted him out of the bed and while the nude fellow scrambled to get to his feet, Peterborough tossed him off into the corner.

"What is the meaning of—
!
" Asher sat up in the bed, his words cut short when he saw Peterborough.

"Get up. We're going to Mirage."

Asher glanced at his paramour. The young man had grabbed the damask window curtains and was shamefacedly holding them to his loins. "I don't understand," he said. "I spoke to Azzedine myself. He was supposed to take care of Vashon."

Peterborough's face hardened and he eyed the young man in the corner. "I'm hardly going to explain all this with your lover staring at us from the drapery."

Asher ran an agitated hand over his jaw.

"Will you excuse us, Worthington?" Peterborough inquired politely, turning to the young earl.

Lord Worthington looked at Asher. Asher gave him a slight nod and the young man acquiesced. "Where can I find a dressing gown?" he asked.

"No time for that," Peterborough answered.

The young man was about to give the viscount a rather snubbing retort when his eyes opened wide in horror. Peterborough had a pistol aimed directly at his forehead. Before Asher could even gasp, Peterborough shot the young earl dead and drolly watched as his body slumped beneath the
window,
the lad's face a frozen, blood-flecked mask of horror.

"Why did you do
that!
" Asher cried, rushing to the young man.

Peterborough stopped him. "I want to talk to you. We have business."

"He would have left us alone!" Asher exclaimed, anguished by the sight of the dead young man.

"There wasn't time."

"Are you out of your mind? I'll be hanged for this! How shall I explain to the duke?"

"You won't need to. We're leaving. Our ship is already at the docks." Peterborough looked scornfully at Asher's nudity. The blond man's thin lily-white body looked as though it might perish in the sunshine. "Get dressed," he said.

Asher stared at him with loathing—and something else, something strangely like misplaced desire, on his face. "I wish you hadn't killed him," he said. "He was a good lad, despite his . . . waywardness."

"Don't mourn him. He wasn't your type. You're a kneeler, Asher.
In more ways than one."
Peterborough uttered a scathing laugh.

Asher's expression soured.

"Get dressed. I'm not going to say it again."

Asher slowly stepped over the dead earl and went to his wardrobe.

Showing a vast amount of callousness, the viscount sat in an armchair right next to the young man's bloodied corpse. He resumed conversation as if there had never been a killing. Testily, he said, "I just received word this morning that the
Bleeding Heart
has sailed to Johanna for an extended raid. Azzedine failed like the miserable bastard he is."

Asher peeked from behind the wardrobe door. "Why can't we send another—?"

"Shut up, you fool. Say good-bye to your buggering little earl here and get ready for a voyage." Peterborough shot him a look that promised all the fires of hell if he didn't comply. The viscount's green eyes sparkled with fury, and to emphasize his point, he pounded his fist on the windowsill, unconcerned with the dead young man near his feet. "I'm going to get him this time, Asher. Mark my words, I no longer care that Vashon's my brother. I'll see him dead and that emerald mine. And I'm going to do it in such a way that I'm going to make those men wish they were back on the
Leviathan!"

"One day you'll go too far," Asher said in an ominous voice.

Peterborough laughed handsomely and kicked the corpse. The young earl's bloodied hand fell forward in a mock entreaty.

"But I haven't yet," the viscount said sarcastically, "have I?"

Turning back to the wardrobe, Asher closed his eyes. He appeared as if he wanted to fight back, at least with words. But he didn't. Something weak and terrible in him always bowed to those more forceful. And ever since he'd met this handsome, monstrous viscount, he knew he would never win.

Reluctantly he buttoned his shirt.

Vashon held her to him for probably an hour. He was quiet, almost peaceful, but his arms gripped her as if she were a present too soon to be taken away.

Aurora watched him, her gaze hungering for every detail. The tension was gone from his normally hard mouth. His eyes were sleepy and half-lidded, their emotion now cloaked only by shadow. Somewhere she heard a clock ring four times and she wanted to scream to make it stop. She wanted to run through the mansion and destroy all the clocks. Time must stop; she never wanted to leave his arms.

But time evaporated like desert rain. When Vashon finally left the bed, Aurora knew she had never seen a man so cold. The night air was hot, and perspiration slicked back the tendrils of her hair, covering her body in a fine glistening sheen, but still she shivered watching Vashon's frozen silhouette. He stood at the doors to the balcony, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. The dragon didn't move. She pulled the scarlet counterpane to her, suddenly chilled, suddenly self-conscious about her nudity.

"Vashon?" she whispered.

He allowed his head to fall back, as if he'd already begun to regret what he must say.

"Vashon," she said again, barely able to keep the quaver from her voice.

"Get dressed. We've stayed here already too long.
Ignatio
may give up his search for me and return."

"But we must talk—"

"Get dressed."

His tone sent one huge tear cascading down her cheek. She should have broken all the clocks after all. She knew the moment he left he would be lost to her. He was now pushing her away, and after what she'd just surrendered to him, she'd have welcomed a knife with more pleasure.

He faced her and she quickly wiped her tear away, but not before he saw it.

"This should have never happened," he said.

"But it—has—happened," she answered, her voice cracking.

"Never again.
Never again."

Another tear fell. She reached for her gown with shaking hands. It didn't seem possible that only minutes before he had held her, caressed her, loved her. That tender man seemed from a dream now, a dream impossibly out of reach.

"Aurora."

She looked up. He towered over her, his naked body ominous and beautiful.

"Aurora," he began, "this . . ." His gaze guiltily roved over the governor's rumpled bed; the sight of her virgin's blood on the sheets seemed to stab him in the gut. "This was beyond my control. I never really intended . . ." Their eyes met. Too quickly he looked away.

"You never really intended what?" she whispered.

His expression turned wooden. He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

She closed her eyes. Everything was going numb—her body, her mind,
her
spirit. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she gathered herself and pulled her wrinkled blue gown over her head. She tied the laces at her breasts and again made a search for the pins.

"Here."

She looked at him. He picked both pins out of the counterpane and held them out to her. But she didn't take them. Instead, she opened her palm and forced him to give them up. Her insides felt as if they were slowly freezing beneath his dispassionate facade, and in their place was left only a cold, empty anger. What he had done to her was unforgivable. She couldn't feel worse than she did at this very moment. There was no torture cruel enough, no pain deep enough.

With trembling hands she fastened her apron front, noting with bitter amusement how tattered and worn her pretty blue gown looked.
As tattered and worn as her emotions.