Anew: Book One: Awakened (3 page)

“A fruit tart perhaps,” I
suggest. “Filled with big, ripe raspberries brushed with apricot glaze? Or a
crème brûlée, so smooth and creamy that it slips right over the tongue and down
the throat?”

She squirms in the chair and
shakes her head.

Undeterred, I persevere,
grinning. “Perhaps a cannoli? Or we could share a banana split.”

She looks so damn delicious. I
lean forward a little, holding her gaze. My voice drops a notch. “With a shiny
round cherry on top? You know the kind I mean, drenched in thick, sweet syrup?”

That last bit seems to push her
over the edge. She breaks eye contact and takes several deep, ragged breaths.
Softly, she says, “Thank you but I’m really quite full.”

The devil who’s sitting
comfortably in his usual perch on one of my shoulders launches a laser missile
at the angel whose got barely a toe hold on the other, effectively vaporizing
it. Not even a feather is left.

I stand and hold out my hand. “In that case, let’s take a
walk.”

Amelia

W
hat is wrong with me?
I should be focused on making it clear to him that I’m not some helpless female
to be kept in ignorance and ordered about at his beck and call. Instead, I’m a slave
to my own appetites. Not only did I eat all his dinner--allowing him to feed it
to me no less--but I lied when I told him that I was full.

A hot, churning emptiness has been growing in me since I
stepped out onto the gallery and saw him again. No food, however amazing, can
slake that.

The memory of his fingers against my lips, the taste of him
mingling with the lightly salted flavor of the steak, threatens to overwhelm
me. I have a sudden image of myself succumbing to temptation, drawing those
fingers into my mouth and sucking on them, his amber gaze darkening as I do so.

A tremor races through me. I am on the brink of something I
can sense but not yet understand.

I should be focused on the matters that really concern
me--who I am, why I am there, why I was asleep for so long, not to mention what
is going to happen to me. Instead, all I am able to think of is Ian. With every
breath I take, I am acutely aware of him.

In a desperate bid for distraction, I look around the garden
and beyond. Clouds streak the blue-black sky directly overhead. A storm is
moving in but I can still see the silver arch of the Milky Way spanning from
north to south.

“We’re in North America, aren’t we?” I say. “Somewhere in
New England?”

Once again, I seem to have surprised him. “How do you know
that?” he asks.

“The stars.” I nod to the east where Orion hangs beneath the
bright beacon of Betelgeuse. Later, I can wonder why I have at least some
knowledge of astronomy. For the moment, I just accept it.

We are approaching the small pavilion where I awoke. The
floating bed sways in a sultry breeze that carries a hint of the tropics. Far
off to the south, lightning flashes.

Ian pauses, one hand still firmly holding mine, and with the
other gestures toward the dark expanse of forest and mountains beyond.

“We’re in upstate New York, about two hundred miles north of
Manhattan,” he says.

I recognize the name of the island enclave that is home to
the world’s elite and those who serve them, a city equally of soaring glass
towers and heights of privilege unimaginable to the vast majority of people who
are kept well away from it.

Manhattan and the handful of other places like it are where
the business of the world is done. All the rest--parliaments and congresses,
the media, even the ritual of elections--are a distant second. If I have ever
been there, I don’t know it.

“Do you live there as well?” I ask.

He looks down at me, his eyes inscrutable in the darkness
that surrounds us. “I keep an apartment in the firm’s Manhattan headquarters.
When I’m not travelling, I’m usually there.”

“But not now?”

He hesitates a moment before he says, “I thought you would
be more comfortable here.” His tone turns rueful. “Now I’m wondering if I was
right. You aren’t at all what I expected.”

Before I can ask what he means, he brushes a finger over my
lips, a feathery touch but commanding all the same. “No more questions, not
tonight.”

My breath quickens. His gaze is so intense! For a moment he
looks not quite so formidable, more young and even a little confused.

That vanishes as he moves the hand he still holds behind my
back and joins it to my other. His fingers curl around both my wrists, securing
them. His other hand grasps my hip, drawing me to him. I am suddenly, vividly
aware of how aroused he is.

And of the effect that has on me. I do…do not…do…want this,
want him, want…

“Don’t,” I murmur but it comes out as little more than a
moan.

He stands perfectly still except for his hands. They both
entwine with mine, our fingers meshing. There is something in this, some
combination of his dominance and our mutual need, that draws a carnal response
from me. To my embarrassment, my hips begin to sway, rotating against him.

He makes a guttural sound and without breaking the contact
between us, bends me backward so that my throat is bared to him.

“Ian…” His name is a sigh, a whisper in the dark, a prayer.
I want…the caress of his lips, the sharp quick pain of his teeth, the heat of
his breath marking me. Want, becoming desire, threatening to ignite a wildfire
reflected in the searing heat of his gaze.

The first rumble of thunder comes over the mountains. A few
steps from us, the floating bed sways again in the night breeze. He thrusts a
muscled thigh between my own and pulls me upright so that I am crushed against
him, our mouths almost touching, our bodies--

Suddenly, his features tighten, his mouth narrowing to a hard
line. As though the admission is dragged from him, he says, “This is insane. I
don’t lose control like this, not ever.”

Without warning, his hold on my wrists turns punitive. I cry
out and in the next instant am free. He walks a short distance away, thrusts
both his hands through his hair in a gesture of… Frustration? Disgust? Anger?
At me? At himself.

He turns to look at me where I stand, panting more than
breathing.

My eyes flit to the bed. For an instant, I see us entwined
there, his far larger and more powerful body arching over mine, driving into
me, both of us lost in the pounding rhythm of--

He follows the direction of my gaze and his body flexes, as
though drawn into my own vision of us, helpless to deny me.

But only for a moment. In a visible exercise of his will, he
takes control of himself and of the situation.

Harshly, he says, “Go to bed, Amelia. I want you clear
headed in the morning.”

So that I will be better able to accept what he has to tell
me? I should be grateful that he has the self-control I so abysmally lack but
it only serves to frighten me more about myself…and him.

“Go!”

The veneer cracks and I see the man beneath the elegant
suit, the cultured manners, the worldly success. The man I saw coming toward me
out of the shadows into light, armed with weapons I do not have. A man whose
nature is to conquer and who I fear will overwhelm and utterly consume me
unless I can find the means to conquer him in turn.

Driven by the most primal instinct, I gather up my skirt and
flee down the length of the garden, across the gallery and along the arcade, up
the curving staircase, and through the inlaid doors. I do not pause until I
stand breathless in the golden room.

A sob breaks from me. I press my fingers to the lips he
touched and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror where the reflection of the
bed beckons. My eyes are unnaturally wide and dark, my cheeks flushed. I look
as though I am unraveling.

Averting my eyes, I move into the dressing room where I tug
with desperate urgency at the tightly binding sleeves until my arms are freed.
The gown pools at my feet, followed quickly by the demi-bra and panties. Naked,
I stand under the shower once again until I feel a little calmer. When I
finally emerge, I discover that while I was at dinner, someone removed the
white-and-gold counterpane from the bed and turned the covers down.

An ecru silk nightgown is laid out for me. When I drop it
over my head, it cups my breasts above an empire waist before falling in
graceful folds over my hips and down the length of my legs to my ankles. Small,
puff sleeves just barely hold it in place.

I wonder who selected the clothes and all the rest that fill
the dressing room, who designed the bedroom itself, who planned all this? Perhaps
tomorrow I will find out.

Fatigue suddenly overtakes me. I crawl between the sheets.
My last thought before my eyes close is that Ian was right, the bed really is
comfortable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some unknown time later, I wake gasping for air, swept by a
wave of panic that subsides only when I manage to untangle my body from the
covers and sit up.

For a moment, I have no idea where I am. Gradually, the bed
and the room resolve around me. I force myself to breathe slowly until my heart
stops hammering against my ribs and I am reasonably certain that I can stand.

The rank wisps of a nightmare still cling to me. Afraid to
chance returning to sleep, I leave the bed and pad over to the tall doors at
the far side of the room.

Earlier, I observed that they give onto a second floor
balcony overlooking the garden. I am about to open them when a sound stops me.
It is faint but distinct, and very close. I strain, listening as it comes
again, a little louder and more quickly. At first the intervals between the
sound are random but then it becomes so steady that I finally realize what I am
hearing.

Rain is splattering against the glass panes of the doors.
Rain. As with so much else, I know what it is without having any memory of ever
experiencing it. That at least I can remedy. Without hesitation, I fling open
the doors and step outside.

The stars are gone, replaced by dark, roiling clouds backlit
by streaks of lightning. The columned overhang above the balcony protects me
until the wind, mounting in the heart of the storm, slants the rain past it. Drops
fall across my face, against my body, warm and delicious, smelling of a distant
sea and a lush, moist land.

I catch their taste on the tip of my tongue and laugh,
stretching out my arms, holding them high so that the rain sluices down my bare
skin, streaming in rivulets toward my breasts. That quickly, the silk nightgown
dampens. The fabric clings to my nipples, making me suddenly aware of them.

Hesitantly, driven by curiosity about my own body, I touch
one, then the other, watching as they harden. The sensation is startling.

Scarcely breathing, I skim my hands over my breasts,
noticing that they feel heavier and fuller. My fingers drift slowly downward,
finding the contours of my waist, the dip of my naval, the flat, suddenly
quivering plane of my abdomen until they come to the juncture of my thighs.
Pressing lightly, I’m surprised to feel through the fragile silk a hot, satiny
wetness that owes nothing to the rain.

Emboldened by the darkness, swept up in the fury of the
storm, I grip the fabric of my nightgown. Slowly, I begin to raise it, baring
my ankles, my calves, a little higher, until just as I raise the gown above my
knees, I freeze.

Ian is standing nearby, watching me.

My entire body blushes. Too late I realize that his room
must be only a short distance from mine, a space that narrows to inconsequence
as he comes toward me. His chest is bare above black pajama bottoms that ride
low, exposing the V of his hip muscles and his tight, washboard abdomen. As the
rain blows over his broad shoulders and cut torso, his skin glistens darkly.

A few feet away from me, he stops. “I told you to go to
bed.” His voice is soft and almost detached.

I drop the gown so that it falls once again around my ankles
and lift my head. Quelling my embarrassment, I return his stare.

“That’s something you tell a child.”

Reluctantly, the corners of his mouth twitch. “Your point
being that you aren’t one?”

“I’d say that’s obvious. Besides, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps I’ll find out tomorrow, if you
choose to enlighten me.”

He needs a moment to realize what the defiant edge in my
voice, the tilt of my head, the straightness of my back and shoulders mean.
When he does, the heat in his eyes sends a ripple of dark excitement through
me.

“Sarcasm, Amelia? You truly are full of surprises.”

He closes the distance between us until we are separated by
mere inches. If I swayed toward him even a little, my nipples would rake his
bare, sculpted chest.

Softly, he asks, “Do you really want to challenge me?”

Of course not! This is a man to placate and soothe, above
all to please. But when I open my mouth that isn’t what comes out.

Instead, I hear myself say, “I told you earlier, being
compliant isn’t in my nature.”

His grin is wolfish. Before I can even think of drawing
away, he brushes his knuckles down my cheek, along the line of my jaw and
throat to the soft hollow at the base of my neck where he presses lightly.

My breath catches. His touch is both arousing and strangely
comforting. He holds me spellbound.

“I think you have a lot to learn about yourself,” he says.

Step by implacable step, he backs me against one of the
columns along the outer edge of the balcony. The sudden hardness against my
spine comes as a jolt. I have a flashing image of myself secured to the column,
my hands raised high above my head, fastened with silken bounds.

Slowly, holding my eyes with his, Ian reaches for the golden
pins that still hold the coiled diadem of my hair. He pulls them out one by
one.