Authors: Anne Gracie
She grabbed him by the arm as he rose. “Don’t you dare walk out on me again, for if you do, I warn you Luke, I will follow you—in my shift if I must!”
He sat back on the bed, and she released his arm.
“You say I cannot accept you as you are, but it’s you who cannot accept yourself, who thinks he must hide himself from me. It’s not modesty, so don’t try to pretend it is. You took off your shirt without a thought when I was thirteen. I remember.”
She waited for him to say something, but there was no sound in the room, only the fire hissing gently and the sound of his breathing.
“I saw you then and you were perfect,” she said softly.
Still he said nothing.
She swallowed. “I have been thinking a lot about that day… and, and what came after it. It’s my fault you couldn’t get an annulment. I didn’t realize what my aunt was asking me. She knew the man had cut all my clothes off me, and that I was naked, and she asked if he hurt me and I said yes, because he did. And, and then she asked me if there was blood, and I said yes, because there
was
, only… only not the blood she meant.”
“I see.”
She wished she could see his face.
“So I’m sorry. It’s not much of a thanks for the good deed you did me, to tie you to me for life. I know you didn’t want me for a wife, and I… I know a man like you wouldn’t ever choose someone like me, but… but I’m the wife you’ve got, and we must make the best of it.” She stared at his grim, silent silhouette, waiting for him to say it was all right, that he forgave her mistake, to repeat that he was content in his marriage.
But as the silence stretched, she knew it was just a lie he’d told to shut Ramón up.
Oh God, she was going to cry. She wouldn’t. She refused to. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips tightly together.
But she must have made a sound, for he leaned forward, lit the candle, and shone it on her face. “You’re crying?”
“No, I’m not.” She turned her face away, scrubbing at the tears that had welled up, unexpected and unwanted. She despised tears.
There was another long silence.
“And all of this is about me removing my shirt, is that it?” His voice was quiet, but there was an unsteady note in it that caught at her heart.
She leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee. “Luke, however it happened, mistake or not, I’m your wife. I made sacred vows to love you and honor you and I promise you I will never ever break them. There is nothing you cannot show me, no disfigurement that can make any difference to me. I don’t care if it’s ugly or—”
“Ugly?” He gave a harsh, jagged laugh. “You think I’m hiding something ugly?” In one fluid movement he pulled his nightshirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. “There! My disfigurement! Satisfied?”
Bella stared. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “That’s all it is? A tattoo?” All this fuss for a little tattoo?
“It’s not a tattoo.” He passed her the candle and she looked closer.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
It was a scar, yet it was like no scar she’d ever seen before. In the hollow beneath his right shoulder was a rose, its petals black-edged and raised against the surface of his skin. Carved into his skin—the edges of the petals were ridges of hardened skin, stained black to stand out.
It was beautiful. And horrible in its careful, deadly intricacy.
“Who did this to you?” she whispered. Each line, each petal had been sliced into him. Who would carve such a thing into a man’s living flesh?
He didn’t answer. She put the candle aside and touched the rose with gentle fingertips. He flinched. She looked a question at him.
“It doesn’t hurt. It was done seven years ago.”
And yet he’d flinched.
It must have been agony at the time. Some men liked such things, she knew. Tattoos and decorative scars. But if he liked it, why hide it? “You chose to have this done?”
His jaw tightened and he looked away. His knuckles were white.
“It was forced on you?” she whispered in horror. “By whom?”
He hesitated, and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “A gift from La Cuchilla.”
“The Blade,” she whispered and looked at the cuts in his flesh.
La
Cuchilla. He’d used the feminine form but it must be a mistake, she thought. It could not have been a woman… could it?
He took a deep breath and didn’t quite meet her gaze. “Now, if your curiosity is satisfied, wife…” he said in an attempt at a light, jocular tone that failed miserably.
Bella’s curiosity wasn’t nearly satisfied, but she could not deny him, not seeing the vile, beautiful thing engraved in his smooth, warm flesh. Done a year after he’d married her.
She pulled off the shirt she was wearing and flung it on top of his other one. She was naked beneath. She drew him
down to her, covering his face with kisses, as if somehow she could make up for the dreadful thing that had been done to him.
He pressed his face against her breasts for a long moment, holding her tight against him, while a long shudder racked his body.
Bella ran her hands over his body, kissing every bit of him she could reach, glorying in him, knowing it was futile to comfort him for something done seven years before, but unable to stop herself from trying.
He gently rubbed his face against her breasts, then his mouth closed hotly over her nipple and she gasped. He teased it gently with his tongue and teeth, and then sucked hard. She arched beneath him as a deep shudder rippled through her. He continued suckling and teasing until she was squirming and writhing under him.
He slid his hand down her belly, between her legs where she ached for him.
“No,” she said, and with every bit of self-control she could muster, she pulled away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she panted. “My turn.”
She pushed back the covers, baring him to her gaze in the candlelight, her big, golden warrior.
She ran her fingertips lightly over his chest, learning his texture, the firm flesh, the hard muscles, exploring the small nubs of his flat male nipples. His body was hard and hot, and she loved the feel of it, the feel of him.
She bent and flickered her tongue over his tiny, hard nipples, tasting salt and a sharp, masculine flavor that was all Luke. She loved the taste of him. She teased his nipples as he’d teased her, nibbling and gently biting them, scraping her teeth over their tips, and she smiled as he shivered and arched, as she had.
She smoothed her palms over the bands of hard muscle across his belly and scratched lightly like a cat down the line of dark hair arrowing from his belly to his groin.
Her hands wandered lower, and feeling bold, she ran one
finger lightly along the hardened length of him. He shuddered under her touch. She caressed the sensitive tip, tracing one fingertip gently over the tiny bead of liquid, smoothing it over him. The hot, satiny feel of him entranced her, and her palm tightened around him.
“Witch,” he groaned, but his eyes were half closed with pleasure, and he shuddered in a way she recognized. Emboldened by his obvious pleasure, she wrapped her whole hand around him and squeezed.
“Enough.” His body was hard trembling with barely controlled need. “Do you want me to explode?”
He slid his hands between her thighs. “Now,” he muttered.
“Yes, now, my love.”
His eyes flew open, but she had not the courage to repeat it. “Now.” She parted her legs and took him into her, and with a moan, he thrust and thrust, his gaze locked on hers, unbroken, until she shattered in his arms and he shattered with her.
T
he soles of his feet burned, his vitals were molten agony, every part of his body screamed with silent pain, and until the blade cut into him he hadn’t thought it was possible to feel any more pain.
But it was.
The blade sliced into his flesh in a cold, burning arc, slow and painstaking in its precision.
He stiffened, biting down hard on the inside of his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He’d rather die than scream.
Screaming was the point of the exercise.
Screaming and information.
“I do like to mix business with pleasure,” La Cuchilla had murmured in his ear. And made another slice in Luke’s flesh.
His body shook with the effort not to scream. He bit down on his tongue, and his mouth filled with blood.
“Beautiful.” La Cuchilla took a handful of blackened salt and slowly, thoroughly massaged it into the cut, packing it under each leaf of flesh. Forming the petals.
Luke arched and shuddered against the sting of the salt.
“Ahh, you fight it, but you will love the effect, truly.” La Cuchilla sat back and waited until the pain dulled to an almost bearable level, then smiled into his eyes and sliced again…
Luke screamed.
Panting, sweating, and rigid with fear, he surfaced from the darkness, his shoulder on fire, his arms and legs flailing, shamed, dirty, and desperate to escape.
“Luke, Luke, it’s all right,” a soft voice called in his ear. “It’s just a dream. You’re safe.”
He thrashed around, fighting nameless things, his body afire. He turned and there, lit by a glow of candlelight, he saw her, pale and lovely, her eyes clear and golden, shining with honesty and love like a beacon in the night.
He grabbed at her mindlessly, using her to haul himself from the morass of dark horror. He seized her roughly, pushed her legs apart, and plunged himself into her soft receptive body.
She slid her fingers into his hair and closed her eyes, but he shook her hard, shouting, “No, look at me! Look at me, damn you!”
And she opened her eyes wide, shining clear and gold, and clung to him as he rode the storm, thrusting deeply into her, burying himself in her, cleansing himself in her heat and softness, driving out the demons that plagued him.
Until he shattered and was safe.
He lay there, panting, on her breast, and at last her eyes fluttered closed.
Slowly, Luke came back to himself. Through the shutters on the window he could see slits of cold, predawn light.
He was still inside his wife, still crushing her into the hard, lumpy mattress. Oh God, what had he done, using her so roughly? Grabbing her like an animal, pounding into her. Shouting at her.
Shame coiled in his belly.
He gently disengaged and moved off her.
“Isabella,” he began.
She stirred sleepily against him. “Well, if that’s what a nightmare does to you, remind yourself to have them more often.” She stretched and twined herself around him. “Do we have time for a nap before dawn?”
“You didn’t mind?”
She half opened her eyes and looked at him, a catlike smile of satisfaction curling her lips. “You want me to purr?”
It surprised a laugh out of him, and suddenly he found himself laughing and laughing. Horrified, he realized he was on the verge of tears. Laughter turned to choked sounds, and she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight as he fought the laughter-sobs that wracked him.
“Hush, my love,” she murmured. “It’s all right. Let it go, let it go.” She drew him down to her breast, stroking his damp hair back from his forehead, and murmured soothing things until the bout of emotion had passed and he lay calm.
And was safe.
“La Cuchilla?”
He nodded.
“What sort of a person would do that to another person?” She could not believe a woman could do such an evil thing.
He didn’t answer. She stroked his hair. “How did it happen?”
He shook his head. “It was just… something stupid. We were young and stupid.”
“We?”
“Michael and I.”
She waited. And he knew he would have to explain, some of it, at least. All these years he’d kept it locked up inside him, and now…
But if he was going to keep waking her up with the damned dreams…
Trust, she’d said. It didn’t come easy.
“Michael was one of us, Wellington’s Angels, or his Devil Riders, depending on who you talk to. Five of us from school, Gabe, Harry, Rafe, Michael, and me.”
He could hear her soft breathing and the shifting of coals in the dying fire.
“Michael was the only one of us who didn’t make it home.”
She tucked the bedclothes more warmly around them both and waited.
“It was in 1812. Not long after our victory at Salamanca. I’d just turned twenty-one; Michael was twenty-two. The war was going well, we were young and full of the confidence of youth…” He sighed. “Such extraordinary confidence. We’d been at war for years, and despite horrendous casualties all around us, none of us—our friends, the five of us who’d been at school and joined the army together—had even been seriously wounded.”
He lay quietly, recalling that time. Seven years ago, yet it felt in some ways like a hundred years. And in others, like yesterday. “We half believed ourselves invincible. Life was painted in bold bright colors, no shades of gray for us. It was all a big adventure; we lived for danger.” He shook his head. “Such fools young men can be.”
“Tell me what happened,” she said softly.
“We were riders—glorified messengers, really—taking messages from headquarters, liaising between different sections of the army, delivering information, money, orders—whatever was required.
“This day we’d come—Michael and I—from an important briefing, and we’d been ordered to take messages to—” He broke off. Even after all this time, the habit of secrecy was strong. “Suffice it to say Michael was riding to meet a general and I was taking the same information to our Spanish allies in the hills.”
“The
guerrilleros
.”
“Yes. But just out of camp we were… waylaid. A stupid thing; we should have known better. A… a woman in distress.”
“It was a trap?”
He nodded. “Next thing, Michael and I were in the cellar of a house being… questioned.”
“Tortured,” she whispered.
“He was in the next room. I could hear him… hear what they were doing to him. And he could hear what they were
doing to me.” His breathing grew harsher with the memory. “It was… bad.” He’d thought he would die of the pain. “I wanted to die.”