Unholy Promises (16 page)

“I am not going to apologize for who I’ve been or who I am. Yes, I’ve lived. Just as you’ve lived. Even now, there are others in my life who love me, and I love them, but I couldn’t leave France without seeing you, even though I know that you are no longer the same woman I left behind … even though I am not the same man. We’ve changed … I’ve changed … but—” He lifts my hand to his lips, kissing the top, then turning my hand in his, kissing my palm, slowly, sensually. He presses soft kisses to my palm as punctuation.

“—you know the real, living, breathing me…” Kiss. “…and maybe you are the only person I’ve ever shared my true self with…” Kiss. “…maybe I’m selfishly here to find myself again … because some days I’m too far gone to find anymore.” Kiss. “Or maybe the truth is, Eva, I didn’t realize how badly I was going to miss you, when I left. And after I left, once I realized, it was too late; but I want you to know I have thought about you every day since I’ve been gone. I’ve dreamed about you every night. I fell in love with you, Eva, even though then, I didn’t realize what I was feeling, and it was only after I held my son the first time, and knew I never wanted to be parted from him, knew that I would do anything humanly possible to keep him safe, that I recognized the emotion love. Only then could I realize it was the same feeling I felt for you. I love you and I want you to be mine again. I want to keep you safe.” Kiss, kiss, kiss.

My feet freeze in the mushy, wet earth as he leans near enough to kiss my mouth, pulling me against him. I know I’m treading in dangerous territory, but if all we have is this moment … I want it! I want his lips, his heat, and all the romantic declarations, even if it is just for now. Because one thing is for certain, I’m not dreaming this.

We walk. How much time passes in silence? My shoes crunch on gravel-covered pavement and I realize we are on the main road, leading to the church … or away from it.

Crossing the bridge, he stops in the center and leans over the stone wall, looking into the brisk-moving water. I relax next to him, emotion spent. I lean over the edge, mimicking him, truly relaxed for the first time in years.

The current is mesmerizing.

“I really have been dead—without you—Eva,” he whispers, close to my ear, too close, inappropriately close. “Tell me what you want, Eva.” He inhales my scent, his breath tickling the base of my neck. “Tell me.”

Tell me, tell me, tell me … it is the seductive echo of the past … bound and wanting nothing more than my freedom. Free, wanting nothing more than to be bound by him.

“Are you remembering the first time we were together or the last?” he spasms into my thoughts.

I spin around, facing him, not meaning to put myself between him and the aged stone wall behind my hips, giving him opportunity to trap me between his arms, my back pushed against the rough stone bridge. The satin and lace covering my hips make an ugly hiss as it rubs across stone. It is a reminder that I wear a wedding dress. I’d forgotten for a moment.

“Neither,” I deny, knowing by the heat rising on my cheeks that he will know it for the lie it is.

Dusk falls early, the sun, originally hidden by clouds, not having a chance against the approaching night. In the deepening lavenders of twilight, his eyes are intense.

“Liar.” His lips close over my mouth before I can protest. I don’t want to protest as his hand moves between my thighs, rubbing my sex through layers of lace and satin, our tongues sparring as we share one breath.

His scent is completely memorable, Luka—frankincense, sunshine, and cinnamon.

His scent wraps around me, embracing me as his free hand closes around the back of my neck, holding me as surely as steel bonds as his lips pull away—just a little, teasing. His strength is a beautiful thing, an energy that surrounds him, defining him. Reminding me that he is an elemental force to be reckoned with. Holding me steady, even before I realize that I try to pull away, his lips move closer, a bare brush of heated skin. Teasing, teasing. I try to kiss him again, but he maintains the small distance, controlling when and if another kiss will happen. The hand between my legs becomes more demanding as his gaze demands that I keep looking into his eyes. My knees grow weak and my stomach tightens with his obvious assertion of dominance. Without a doubt, I am wet and ready, but is it really possible for me to be his again?

Suddenly, he claims my bottom lip with his teeth, holding my gaze as he traps me between the promise of pleasure and the threat of pain. This is the lure. This is why I dreamed of this man for six long years. This feeling—part adrenaline rush, part narcotic numbing.

This is what it feels like to be alive.

Still trapped by the vulnerability of my lower lip, I don’t resist as he grabs my ass, lifting me against him, pulling my dress up, baring my legs, finding silk stockings and little more. Balancing me on top of the stone wall, he fumbles only a second with his slacks. Taking my mouth in a deep kiss before pulling back to look into my face, balancing me, legs spread, the tops of my thighs exposed as my dress bunches around my waist. He slides his hands over my bare thighs, digging his fingers into my flesh. I don’t struggle, even when his fingers turn painful.

“I do, Eva,” he confesses solemnly, his words making me quake uncontrollably.

However, it is the look in his eyes, the knowing that he truly means what he says that terrifies me and makes me fall in love with him again. “I take you as mine, forever. Say yes, Eva. Say yes to my promise.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

He pulls my hips close enough to bury his thick erection to the hilt in one solid lunge. I’d forgotten how large he is. God in heaven, how could I have forgotten this?

He bites my face as he moves within me, the solid wall under my bare ass refusing to give. My vulnerable flesh scraping, but it is a pain I am willing to embrace as his hard length slowly moves in and out. I shake against him as he rubs against my clit. Want, need and long-trapped emotion flood my veins, settling as heat between my legs, exploding the hard shell encasing my heart.

He whispers against my mouth, “I love you.”

I sway in answer and he holds me tighter, steadying me against him. His mouth dips and his tongue thrusts into my mouth, hot and demanding, his cock becoming equally demanding. “You are mine. Then. Now. Always.”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

The climax starts high inside my womb, exploding down and outward, a strong, wet orgasm. As he shakes against me, holding me tighter, I realize that he, too, came.

“I love you, Luka.”

“Ari,” he corrects.

I look into his eyes, and with my hands cupping his face, I pull him toward me and kiss his forehead. “I love you, Ari.”

We both hear the roar of Liam’s BMW before the round headlights illuminate the stone bridge. Awakening to the nightmare of my life, I am pulled back to the reality of the situation like a cold dunk in the icy Gartempe churning below us. Ducking beneath Luka’s right arm, I put as much distance as I can between us before Liam sees us. The car’s tires squeal to an angry stop, the passenger door flying open.

I tremble, stunned, between two raging men. Both powerful, both demanding complete ownership, though in distinctly different ways. I am not the kind of girl who trembles; it is a new, not very likable feeling, being scared, vulnerable, confused. First fainting, now fear. I am ruined.

“Get in, Eva!”

“You don’t have to go with him,” Luka says, grabbing my sleeve, willing me to stay.

“I have to go—there’s something I have to do,” I whisper.

“You want to stop my brother, I understand. I can help you.”

“I’m trying to save him!” I hiss back.

“He’s beyond saving.”

It kills me to pull away. I offer, softly enough that only he will hear over the loud purr of the car’s engine, “I have proof that he’s being framed. Come for me in three days.”

God, I hope he heard me.

Not daring to look back, for fear I’ll change my mind, I demand of Liam, “Take me home!” as I slide into the leather seat and pull the car door closed.

The interior is like an inferno, suffocating.

I am suffocating.

Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if mishandled and exaggerated?

~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Land of Mist

January 6

Ile St. Louis, Courtyard Apartment

Standing in the bathroom, I look at my ass in the mirror, still reddened and scraped, the marks a trophy of sorts. My ass still burns where the rough stone left scrapes, but the pain is a reminder that the moment happened at all. I did not dream it, I did not hallucinate. Luka—Ari—made love to me on the Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe Bridge. He isn’t dead.

Love, I told him I loved him. And he said it back. We’ve never shared those words, except in my dreams. There is a saying about distance and the fondness of hearts, I wonder if it works the same with death? I thought him dead for six years. Can he possibly live up to the memory in my mind?

For three days, I have not had a moment alone. Liam doesn’t speak, but he watches me, until today. Now, another watches. I do not know his name, only that he sits in my living room. I’m pissed off that Liam feels I need a babysitter, isn’t it enough that I came back here with him? Sitting in the dark, I watched Liam leave for an assignment through the bedroom window, trying to decide if it was worth killing the man in my living room to escape the prison of my apartment. Liam’s stonewalling has shredded what is left of my nerves. I’ve fallen apart—completely—mentally, emotionally.

I hide in the bedroom, behind a closed door. My babysitter is smart enough to stay on the other side. It is too early to be awake, but I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in the three days I’ve been home. I jump at every sound. The phone rings and a part of me dies each time it is not Ari. I’ve stopped eating. Whether anxiety or heartache is the cause, the resulting nausea and diarrhea are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I wait for my opportunity to do what I need to do, but none has opened up.

Now that Liam is away from the apartment, and I have my chance … I am weak, maybe too weak to kill the man in the living room. God, I’m a mess, a total and utter mess.

A streak of yellow breaks the otherwise dark sky. Bleak gray days have become routine, matching the bleakness of my heart. Hours will provide the answer I long for. He will come for me, or he won’t. I should have never left his side. I am not sure why I thought I could go back to business as usual. I’m not sure why I thought it would be so easy to put the game into play. I guess I never anticipated Liam’s level of scrutiny.

Or, that he would leave me guarded.

If I hadn’t been puking my guts out, I might have made a stink about it.

Buzz. Buzz.

The doorbell startles me but at least it isn’t Liam, he wouldn’t ring the bell. I glance behind me at the man lying on the floor. He’s not dead, but he won’t be walking around for a while. With a heavy sigh, I try to decide if his prone form is visible from the doorway. Not likely.

Automatically, I unfasten my underarm holster and ready my hand on the door handle. Peeking through the peephole, I see a floral deliveryman standing in the hallway.

Always the professional, I draw my weapon before unlatching and opening the door.

“M-Miss H-Hildebrandt?” The man’s nervous stutter does little to ease my anxiety. I open the door and pull him into the apartment, pressing the gun barrel into the side of his neck.

Seeing calla lilies behind his back, I lower my weapon. Six dozen pristine white calla lilies. Master.

I fight tears, taking the flowers, waving the man away with the barrel of my gun.

Luka always summoned me to him with calla lilies. It was our secret signal, whether they arrived at my apartment, or at the office … I would know to meet him at the warehouse.

Closing my eyes, I say a prayer of thanksgiving to the non-existent God I cursed so severely the night before.

He isn’t at the warehouse when I arrive. Disappointed? Yes, very disappointed but then I am hours early. Still, it is obvious I am expected. A St. Andrew’s Cross stands at the ready where the kitchen table used to sit. I know what’s expected, I’d once been Master’s well-trained slave. Memories swallow me as I walk toward the cross, the scent of old wood and leather bringing it all back. Once upon a time, I would have stripped naked, walked over to the cross, climbed onto the raised pedestal and secured my ankles with the buckled leather straps without waiting to be told. He would enter, expecting me to be in position. Facing the cross, I remember it all, securing my own blindfold, ankle restraints, and left wrist restraint. Master would take care of the rest when he arrived. He was always pleased that I obeyed so well. Sure, I fought, and clawed, and even bit on occasion, but it was part of the game, part of what I needed to do in order to be able to surrender to him emotionally. He understood that surrendering made me free.

Unbuttoning my blouse, all I can think about is my need to please him still. Even sick, I will do all I can to please him. Besides, there is nothing left to puke out.

Blindfolded, I hear his footfall before I’ve even finished buckling my wrist into place. His hand closes warm and gentle around mine, finishing the buckling process for me. He doesn’t speak, but I feel his breath on the nape of my neck as he leans close. I expect his lips on my shoulder. Instead, he takes my right wrist in his hand and secures the leather cuff more tightly than I would have preferred.

“Master?” I whisper, needing to hear his voice, needing the comfort his voice always brings.

I am answered by his footsteps taking him farther and farther away. More noise follows—clanking and banging, metal scraping against metal and items dropping with heavy thuds onto the floor.

Nervous, I remain silent. I’m early, very early. Is he displeased that I interrupted his preparations for my arrival? Weird. I thought he’d be as anxious as I to renew our bond.

Early seemed like a good plan, not one that would make him mad, especially when he learned my news.

After what seems like hours, but was probably only thirty minutes, my arms ache and my mind runs wild. I’m not up to this. I still feel like shit and he’s never ignored me so completely before. But then, it has been six years, he’s been living as a professional Dominant for most of that time … did I expect things to be exactly the same?