Heath closed his eyes. “They both lost their lives because of me. My pride. My blind, all-consuming drive to be the best. My refusal to be beaten. I never went back to my country estate. I bought a desolate house on the moors. But even so, memories haunted me at every turn. For years I had ignored my wife and child, and once I’d lost them, every precious memory I had became
a torment. I burned the papers that were going to be my next book, and vowed I would never write anything again. Drinking blocked out the pain and began to steal the memories. Finally I fled England. I went to the Continent.”
She fought to focus on her stitching. To take great care. There must have been dozens of times she hurt him, but he didn’t even flinch. “And you were bitten there, turned into a vampire.”
“I knew if I took my own life, I would have no chance of seeing my family again. Ariadne and Meredith are in heaven. I was sure my daughter was looking down upon me, hating me.”
There, the last of the wounds was stitched closed. She stroked his back. The beautiful expanse was a patchwork of black thread and raw, red skin. “You tried to save her life, Heath.”
He shook his shoulders, as though shaking off her soothing words. Slowly, he got to his feet, and she gasped. She had never seen such agony written upon a man’s face. The handsome mouth contorted in a twisted sneer. His eyes burned like fiery embers.
“I went to the Carpathians because I was a selfish man. I ran away from my estates, from grief, from guilt. And when there was nowhere left to run, save Siberia, I tried to run to the bottom of a bottle. I got so stinking drunk, I was lying on the frozen ground, wondering if I stayed there and died if that would be considered suicide and I would go to hell. Next thing I knew, two hunchbacks in brown cloaks found me. They hefted me between them and dragged me to a cart. My head slammed against wood planks and I passed out. When I awoke, I was chained in a dungeon lit by four flaming torches. A man entered the room; I watched him float through the air. His eyes were gleaming red.”
“That was Nikolai?”
“Yes. He tore open my shirt, which stank of spilled drink
and vomit, and he touched my heart. Every memory of Ariadne and Meredith flashed through my head. It was the worst agony I’d ever known. I saw every moment, compressed into the space of heartbeats. I saw them die again. But this time, I experienced memories I didn’t know I had. The scream of my wife and child as the carriage started to go. My wife’s desperate, calming words to Meredith. Even facing death, Ariadne’s first thought was for Meredith—for our daughter, not herself.” He sighed. “Ariadne was like you. She was so loving, so giving.”
Vivienne stared at him. “Your wife sounded like a good woman. I don’t believe I compare to her at all—”
He suddenly caught her shoulders. His mouth slanted over hers, hot and loving. When he stopped, he glanced at her hand. She still clutched the needle.
“Where did you learn how to treat wounds, Vivienne?” he asked softly.
“From my mother. She would do it in the stews. She’d learned from her father. He was a doctor in Exeter.”
He gazed into her eyes. “How did the daughter of a doctor end up in London’s stews?”
After all he had told her, perhaps she owed him some truths. “That doctor married his daughter to a violent man,” she said bitterly. “I never understood why he did it. He tended to people and worried about his patients, yet he sentenced his daughter—my mother—to a living hell. Her husband beat her. And he was unfaithful. He enjoyed hurting her. Then he died. There were rumors my mother had poisoned him. So she ran away.”
Heath frowned. “But you said you didn’t know who your father was.”
She wrapped her arms around her chest. “That man was not my father. My mother had become pregnant twice and both times she lost her baby after
he
had beaten her. But he blamed her for the miscarriages, and beat her for that. She became pregnant
with me in London, by some unknown man.” She didn’t want to speak of this anymore. “As soon as it is dusk, can we go to Dimitri’s? I’m worried about Sarah.”
“She will be safe, but I promise we will go as soon as the sun sets.”
After Heath’s story, she desperately wished to see Sarah and hold her. How she wished Heath could have another chance. She’d seen how protective he had been of Sarah.
He had changed, even if he did not believe it himself. She was sure of it.
“The night will be coming soon,” he said softly. “I need to plan how to make love to you.”
Swallowing hard, Vivienne remembered. How could she forget that tonight would be the same as the other nights? She would crave sex, and Heath would have to think of a way to give her what she needed, without being the one to do it.
First he had to leave Vivienne sexually sated. Then he had to find Nikolai.
Standing outside Sarah’s bedchamber in Dimitri’s house, Heath cocked his head. He heard feminine laughter. A light giggle that belonged to Sarah and a sensual, throaty laugh that must be Vivienne’s. He cracked open the door to Sarah’s room. Vivienne and her daughter sat on the edge of the large bed. He saw the soft love in Vivi’s face for her child, and his heart gave a low, hard tug.
She was like Ariadne. It was a good thing he carried a curse and already knew he couldn’t hope to have her.
Silk skirts whispered behind him. He turned to meet Sadie’s large blue eyes. “Lord Heath, I thought I would find you here. Lord Dimitri sent me to entertain Vivienne again tonight.”
He shook his head. “Thank you, Sadie, but tonight I intend to pleasure Vivi myself.”
The long, amber lashes blinked. “Are you quite certain, my lord, it’s safe?”
“I know to take care, Sadie.” Then he sent his thoughts to Vivi, hoping he didn’t startle her.
Vivi, meet me in my bedroom
.
He lifted Sadie’s hand to bestow a kiss, then he went to his bedchamber where he stripped off his clothes. A long cheval mirror threw the reflection of his naked body at him. His skin was so pale it almost shimmered in the firelight. Being undead had made his body leaner. Muscle rippled beneath his skin. His back was still unhealed.
Suddenly, Vivi’s voice came into his thoughts.
I know what I wish to do tonight, Heath. I want you to tie me up.
14
“I
want to leave this room and find out what scandalous things happen here,” Sarah cried, petulantly. “I am eighteen years of age. That’s hardly a
child
.”
Hiding nerves, worry, and fear, Vivienne lifted an eyebrow in the way known to mothers—the arch that spoke volumes.
Sarah stomped her foot on the floor and folded her arms beneath the bodice of her nightdress. “You do not let me have any adventures.”
“No, I do not. That is what mothers are supposed to do. Keep their daughters safe from dangerous adventures.”
At Vivienne’s side, the pretty vampiress and new friend, Sadie, tried to muffle a giggle.
Sarah flopped down on her bed, bouncing on the mattress beside a small pile of books. Dimitri had sent many books to keep Sarah amused, including
Pride and Prejudice
, the novel that had so pleased the Regent. Sarah lifted a chocolate truffle from a velvet-covered box, flipped open her book, and popped the entire decadent chocolate into her mouth. “Fine then,” she mumbled around the candy.
Leaving Sarah to read, Vivienne motioned Sadie to follow her into her bedroom. As soon as she gently closed the door, Sadie flashed a look at the bed and gave Vivienne a wicked smile. “Well, Vivienne, do you wish to—”
Flushing, Vivienne whispered, “Not tonight.” And she swiftly posed her problem to Sadie: how to break through Heath’s guilt and touch his heart. She remembered how Guidon had told her Heath welcomed the curse. Tonight she’d learned the vampire librarian was right.
Sadie tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“I must show him I trust him,” Vivienne whispered.
Sadie had brightened. “Is there anything you could do with him that would show him? It took me a long time to let a man make love to me in my rump. But eventually I knew he would be gentle, and he made me so hot and bothered by stroking me there that I wanted it, too.”
Vivienne frowned. She couldn’t do that. Then she remembered the shackles in Heath’s carriage. And she knew. One way to prove she trusted him was to allow him to tie her up.
Vivienne didn’t expect Heath to be wearing such a look of blatant confusion in his silvery-green eyes when he opened the door. Surely he could hear her heartbeat. It hammered so loudly. And it galloped faster when she saw he’d opened a tall wardrobe in the corner of his bedchamber. Ropes hung on hooks within. Whips—heavens, whips—lay across brackets on the door.
He led her in, then cocked his head. “Are you sure you want me to do this?”
“Yes. Do it now.” She might lose her nerve if he didn’t.
“Why?”
Dear God, why would he ask that? Men were not supposed to. A woman offered an invitation and they hastily acted upon it, lest it went away.
“I want to—” She wildly searched for a reason. His robe was open and she could see his body. All the hard muscle, the beauty of him, the large, heavy erection. Do this and she let him control her. Once her hands were tied, she would be entirely in his power.
But desire now pounded inside her. She knew exactly why she had whispered the idea to Sadie in her bedchamber. “I want to do something with you I’ve never done with anyone else.”
His breath hitched. His eyes glowed, more silvery and reflective than she’d ever seen them. He inclined his head, then prowled to the cupboard. Before her eyes, he took a length of red velvet rope. Crinkles appeared around his eyes, and he smiled wickedly.
She expected him to tell her what he intended to do. Instead, he came to her, took hold of her wrists, and wrapped the rope around them. He wound an intricate figure eight with long trailing ends. Without a word, he pulled on those ends, forcing her to follow him. He looped them around a hook in his ceiling. And she was bound, with her arms extended over her head, secured like this.
This wasn’t what she’d expected.
She wished he would speak. It unnerved her.
But this was to be about trust. She had to trust him.
He undid the knot in the belt of her robe. One twitch of his hand and the silken thing slithered off her shoulders and fell to the floor. Underneath, she was naked. Now her breasts, with erect nipples, bounced slightly. She saw them move in the cheval mirror. And she saw …
Her backside, too. There were two mirrors in the room. One placed behind her, so when she looked in the mirror in front of her, she could also see her rear. Her naked rear, provocatively displayed. And not six feet from her exposed derriere stood a closet full of whips.
Trust, Vivienne.
He moved so swiftly, she did not know where he was until he appeared before her and kissed her breasts. His mouth worshipped her nipples. Heat spiraled from each taut, happy tip and burst down in her quim. She ached. Throbbed. Needed. “Heath—”
But he opened his hand and a black leather strap fell. He held the end with his fingertips. It seemed too small to be a rope….
Grasping both ends, he gave it a firm snap and brought it to her face. With her hands bound, she couldn’t stop him. He slipped the strip of leather between her lips, tied it around the back of her head. He took care not to tug the tendrils of hair falling from her loose coil.
Raw sexual anticipation shot from her sensitive mouth to her quim. But in the next heartbeat, she thought,
Dear heaven, he has gagged me
.
Part of the game, he said gently in her thoughts, and she realized she had sent them to him.
I don’t mean you any harm, Vivi. This is play. You can allow yourself all the thrill and excitement of being at my command, yet know I would never hurt you.
She nodded. The point of the gag, she supposed, was so she couldn’t protest.
You can speak in my thoughts whenever you wish. To tell me to stop.
Never would she have dared try this. Never would she expect she would be so excited. She would never have done this with any other man but Heath. Her cunny was hot, slick, truly bubbling with juices. And he had barely touched her yet. So she whispered her thoughts to him.
Don’t stop
.
From behind, Heath cradled her breasts. His large, almost glittery pale hands cupped her ivory curves. He tweaked her nipples.
But she couldn’t see him in the mirror.
Then he moved away, and she gave a little sob of frustration into the gag. When he returned, he plucked both her nipples at once. Something in his hand was metallic and cold and she jumped. Or as much as a woman could when her arms were stretched above her head and she was balanced on the balls of her feet.
Then something clamped onto her nipples. Sudden pressure shocked her. “Ouch,” she gasped, but the gag absorbed it all.
The mirror reflected her raised brows and quivering lip, her vulnerability. And she knew he would free her if she asked him to in his head.
But the pain was easing. He had put clamps on both of her nipples. Small clamps lined with velvet. Chains fell from each and rubies hung from the links. Many massive stones, and they reflected the flames in the grate, flashing red fire around the room.
Heath sank to his knees in front of her and kissed the plane of her bare tummy. Vivienne giggled into the gag. His tongue flicked out, tracing the round indent of her navel. She squirmed. The rubies danced as her breasts swayed.
Then he kissed his way down.
He parted her nether lips and a flood of her juices gushed out. She could tell from his growl he was surprised by how aroused she was. And excited by it. He slid two fingers inside her. She moaned, the gag smothering the throaty sound.
Gently, he stroked between the cheeks of her bottom. Wet from her quim, his finger slid around her tightly closed anus. Slowly, he eased his finger in. Just the tip. But she gasped at the intense sensations.
Two fingers. He had pressed both his index fingers inside her. They were filling her passage, stretching her. Her tight anus resisted. Her muscles tensed and she made a sharp squeak of protest into the gag.