“I’m sure you have.”
“Kiss me.”
“Christien…”
“Kiss me, Madelaine.”
“This is going beyond exasperation into frustration. You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”
He stared at her lips, needing the feel of them against his own. “I heard every word. Exasperating. Frustrating. And something about baseball.”
He leaned forward and kissed her. Her small sound of surrender sent his heart soaring. Tentatively her fingers rested against his chest, her touch electrifying. He pulled her into his arms, feeling Madelaine. Not Lainie Alexander, but Madelaine, the woman he’d loved and lost. The woman he thought he’d never see again. ’Twas
her
body held tightly against his,
her
lips he was tasting. There could be no two alike.
He pulled away before the kiss went too far. Before he swooped her up and carried her away.
She swayed. Her lips parted. Her lids fluttered open. Her eyes were a deep amber, the exact shade Madelaine’s got when she was aroused. It took every bit of self-control to step away from her.
“Go inside, Madelaine. Before I change my mind.”
“Change your mind about what?”
“About taking you back to my place and making long, slow love to you.”
He waited, breath held, hoping she’d take him up on the offer. To his great disappointment, she unlocked the door to the building and stepped through, closing it firmly behind her.
He stood on the sidewalk for a long while, the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her in his arms.
Her dreams weren’t dreams. They were memories trying to escape her tightly locked brain. In the daylight hours she was strong enough to fight them, but in the night, when her defenses were down, the memories came pouring out.
Hope, joy, happiness, elation—all of those emotions flooded him. He wanted to shout in exultation. To run after her, pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless, but he held back, for a darkness hovered around his happiness. Questions that needed answers. Why did she return to him? Who was behind this miraculous resurrection?
Now more than ever, he had to be vigilant. Madelaine’s rebirth could only mean one thing. Whoever sent her was after him and using her to get to him. He silently cursed, caught between duty and honor and the love of his life. Somehow he knew he was going to have to make a choice between the two and no matter what choice he made, it was going to destroy him.
France, 1307
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” the count said in a husky voice Madelaine knew intimately.
The other woman murmured something, then laughed.
Madelaine’s body strained, the urge to run so fierce she began to breathe too fast, her lungs sucking up the air.
Christien pushed his body against hers, crowding her farther into the shadows.
“Shhhh.” His lips were so close to her ear they brushed against her skin, causing her to shiver.
She tried to look over Christien’s shoulder but he shifted to block her view.
“Best not to look,” he said so softly she barely heard.
Behind him, her husband groaned. Madelaine slumped against Christien, aware of exactly what she was hearing and mortified to the depths of her soul.
They were trapped feet away from her husband who was rutting with his mistress.
She burrowed into the safety of Christien’s arms and rested her head on his shoulder. It had been so long since she’d felt safe that she was dizzy with it.
“Let me see,” her husband said, his voice thick with lust.
Madelaine stiffened at the tone of his voice. ’Twas the same tone he used with her and what followed was always degrading and painful.
She looked up at Christien. “If he finds you here like this, he will kill you,” she whispered urgently. “You must get out of here.”
“Easy,
chérie,
” Christien murmured. “If we move, he will most certainly see us. Stay still,
ma petite,
and all will be fine.”
He didn’t understand the count’s power, didn’t know exactly what would happen if they were discovered. While it was acceptable for the count to rut with another woman, Madelaine’s husband would be beyond furious if he knew she even thought of another man, let alone spent time with him in the garden, his body pressed against hers in such a seductive fashion. She closed her eyes, more frightened than ever before. Not for herself, but for Christien who had done nothing but express kindness to her.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Shhh.” He leaned forward and she felt rather than heard his hush. An exhalation of breath that caressed her ear.
She pushed against his chest to look up at him. “You need to leave before you’re discovered.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “There is no need to be frightened for me.”
His hand moved to her hip, soothing her. He murmured soft, disjointed phrases, his mouth so close to her cheek each movement of his lips brushed against her heated skin. She didn’t know when the movements of Christien’s lips went from speaking platitudes to gentle, delicate kisses. They skimmed her jaw, her cheek, even the tip of her nose. She swallowed, trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach and the sudden trembling in her legs that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the man practically wrapped around her.
He kissed her forehead and her lips. She squeezed her eyes closed, waiting for the pressure of his lips to bruise, for his teeth to bite. But the pain never came. Instead an entirely different sensation filled her. She’d never experienced any of this before. Never felt this inexplicable need her body was reaching for.
He cradled her against his muscular body. Her breasts tingled and she nearly whimpered with an almost uncontrollable desire to rub them against him.
Behind them her husband grunted as he ploughed into the other woman, but Christien’s light caresses and soft kisses became more important.
She raised her head and pressed her lips against his, not knowing precisely what to do, only knowing she needed more. He sighed, his breath sweet against her skin, and kissed her back. Christien’s kisses were so much better than the painful kisses of her husband. Christien used his mouth and his tongue to excite, to invite, to cherish. Her husband used his to punish, to hurt and to dominate. She much preferred Christien’s way.
When his tongue flicked out she didn’t press her lips together or struggle in panic as she’d done in the past. She opened her mouth wider and let him inside. He tasted of mead and mint leaves. His tongue caressed her, bold yet tender. She’d listened to the servants talk of such needs but never believed they truly enjoyed the act. Now she understood what they’d been speaking of.
She didn’t know how long they stood there, stealing kisses while her husband stood so near. She lost all sense of time, knew only the warm liquid pooling between her legs and the clenching of her stomach.
Eventually—too soon—Christien pulled away. Breathing heavily, he lowered his forehead until it rested against hers.
“What you do to me,
chérie.
Never have I felt this way.”
His words, mirroring her thoughts, brought tears to her eyes and she valiantly battled them back. They were alone in the garden. Her husband had finished his sport and the two left without Madelaine even knowing it. ’Twas foolish to lose herself like this when danger was so near. Her distraction could have easily cost Christien his life.
All the warmth and tenderness evaporated. She slid from beneath his strong embrace and grabbed his hand.
“You must go now, before he returns for me.”
“Madelaine—”
She pushed at his chest with all her might.
“Go,”
she whispered.
He looked at her long and hard, his silver eyes nearly glinting in the light of the moon. Her heart leapt in fear, pounded with urgency. When her husband didn’t find her inside, he would come looking and he would be angry.
“Please,” she implored. If anything happened to Christien, she would never forgive herself.
He touched her cheek, a tender expression crossing his face and darkening his eyes. “Do you fear more for me than yourself?”
She nodded mutely. Too scared to speak.
“Ah, my lady.” He closed his eyes as if in pain and when he opened them, sadness had lodged there. Sadness and regret. “I will go, but know you are always in my thoughts and what is between us is not finished.”
He pulled her close and kissed her quickly before he disappeared into the shadows.
Present Day
Lainie’s friend, Erica, leaned over the small outdoor café table, her fork in her hand and her eyes wide with happiness. “Peter and I decided to try to get pregnant.”
Lainie smiled. “Oh, Erica, how exciting. I’m happy for you.”
Erica sat back, still beaming. “I’ve wanted to for a long time but Peter never thought we were ready financially. I mean, who ever thinks they’re financially stable enough to have kids?”
On Tuesday morning, when Erica called Lainie and asked her to lunch, Lainie jumped at the opportunity. She liked the tiny, bubbly woman who worked in marketing and Lainie desperately needed friends in this new city. Erica’s effervescent personality was exactly what Lainie needed to take her mind off the past weekend.
She hadn’t seen nor talked to Christien since Sunday morning when he escorted her back to her apartment. She needed space and time to think about the bizarre circumstances.
She’d been afraid to tell him of the dreams, afraid he would think she was going insane. But the dream in the garden was too much. The woman’s terror had been overwhelming and insidious, burrowing inside her until it became her own terror. She’d never been so afraid and it was worse because it wasn’t
her
fear.
Confused, she’d wanted someone to talk to and Christien had been there. He loaned her his strength, held her until her body stopped trembling.
And because she’d been vulnerable, his gentle probing shattered the meager defenses she’d put in place. When the story spilled out of her in fits and starts, he didn’t look at her like she had a third eyeball in the middle of her head. In fact, it had been the opposite. He’d been shocked for sure, but there had been something else in his eyes. Up until then he’d kept her at a distance, but after she told him her story she sensed…a closeness to him that hadn’t been there before.
Except he thought she was reliving memories of a past life.
So now who was nuts?
Reincarnation? She’d immediately dismissed the concept. She didn’t believe in reincarnation. But the notion of a past life stuck with her, popping up at weird times. Was he right? Was this what the strange dreams were about?
“We’ll start trying in December,” Erica was saying.
“Why wait six months? Why not now?” Lainie brought her mind back to the present and took another bite of her Caesar salad. She glanced around at the other diners in the small outdoor café who were also enjoying the warm sun. Conversations ebbed and flowed, accompanied by the clink of cutlery and china. Normal. Everything was normal and it felt good to act normal for at least one hour out of the day.
Her gaze passed over a man sitting at a table across the street. Her gaze jumped back to him. He was nursing one of those expensive, designer coffees and leafing through a magazine. The bright sun glinted off his blond hair and turned his pale skin pink. Dressed like every other man in the area—in dress pants and a white button-down shirt—he didn’t seem out of the ordinary. On the contrary, he seemed very ordinary—a businessman enjoying lunch on a nice spring day. Even so, Lainie’s heart thumped hard. Something about him seemed familiar.
“Peter wants to pay off a few more bills,” Erica said, but Lainie barely heard.
He’s probably a guy who works and lives around here, just like you.
“Lainie? Are you all right?”
She turned back to Erica and pasted on a smile. “Of course. I thought I saw someone I recognized. So tell me about the baby. Are you going to keep working after it’s born?”
Erica shook her head. “Enough about me. What’s been going on with you?”
It was on the tip of Lainie’s tongue to tell her new friend nothing was going on in her life, yet she hesitated, wanting—
needing
—to share something of herself. To pretend this was a normal lunch between good friends. There it was again, that word
normal.
Would she ever feel normal again?
“I’ve sort of been seeing Christien Chevalier.”
Erica put her fork down with a loud clang and stared wide-eyed at Lainie for a moment. “You’re kidding, right? Chevalier? The guy who owns the nightclub?”
“Yes.”
“My God, Lainie. He’s…” Erica’s brow scrunched.
“Out of my league. I know.” She tried to tell him as much but he refused to listen. Sometimes—most of the time—she found it hard to believe Christien Chevalier was interested in her. But he’d as much as said it outside her apartment building Sunday morning when he claimed he would wait until she was ready for him.
She’d been trying so hard to give him an out, to make him understand she wasn’t going to be clingy or needy. Instead of taking the out, he’d stepped away from it and she’d lost her heart to him.
They were so different. He was rich. She was struggling to make ends meet. He’d been all over the world. She never made it out of Wisconsin. He was big-city sophistication and she was small-town rustic.
Yet the differences didn’t seem to bother him.
Erica shifted in her chair, preparing for a long talk. “So tell me. What’s he like? Have you slept with him?”
Lainie laughed. It felt good to laugh and shed her somber thoughts. “He’s very nice. Very thoughtful. A little…” She searched for the right word to describe Christien. “Chivalrous. And no, I haven’t slept with him.” She’d been surprised to wake up in his home, however. She remembered him leaving to take care of business and being so tired. The next thing she remembered was standing in the middle of the room and him holding her tightly while she cried, the remnants of the dream still terrifyingly close.
The dream. Madelaine and Christien in the garden, about to be caught by her husband. Even now Lainie shuddered at how close they had come to being discovered. It was almost like watching a soap opera on TV except it was so much more real and the intensity of the dreams was wearing her out.
She didn’t tell Erica about the dreams though, or running to Christien after seeing visions of herself dying. She hadn’t even told Christien about her visions of death and neither would she. He might say she wasn’t crazy, but she didn’t believe him. How could she when
she
thought she was crazy?
“But I have kissed him,” she said with a secret smile, her body warming at the memory of their kiss. It’d heated her blood until she was completely flushed. His arms around her made her feel safe. It’d been a long time since she felt safe. When he pulled away, he looked flustered, not an expression he wore easily.
“Yeah? So tell me what it’s like kissing Christien Chevalier?” Erica asked.
“It’s…”
Like I’ve come home. Like I’ve been searching for something all my life but didn’t even know it until he showed up.
“Nice.”
“Nice?
Nice?
By the look on your face I bet it was much better than nice.”
Lainie laughed and tried to put into words what kissing Christien was like. Except it wasn’t something easily explained. When he’d said “kiss me” she’d been tempted to throw everything away. To forget her responsibilities and be reckless for once in her life. He’d been so tempting and she’d been so tempted, but common sense prevailed and she walked away. She wasn’t sure how much longer her resistance would last. Her mind told her to stand strong. A relationship with this man would alter her life forever. Her heart said to grab what she could for the exact same reason. Either way, she knew she would never be the same again.
Do you feel it?
he’d asked the other day.
Do you feel what is between us?
She had felt it. This…
connection…
was the only word to describe what was between them, but even that didn’t come close. When she was with him, it felt right, like she’d been missing the other half of herself her entire life and had finally found it. It was as if she knew him, knew what made him tick, what he was thinking, what he liked and disliked.
Was he right? Had she known him in another life?
She shook her head and handed the waiter her credit card. Reincarnation only happened in the pages of books, not in real life. Lainie had to keep her head on her shoulders. Christien was wonderful and kind, but she had to stop him from distracting her. She had to think of her father and his needs and wants before her own.