Last Enchantment

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Tegan lifted her chin and ignored the murmurs following her when she entered the Ritz hotel to meet her sister for afternoon tea. She couldn’t project her thoughts, because Oliver had gone to CAT to see G, but he always left as much of his telepathy as he could with her when he went anywhere. She could sense, but she couldn’t project, unless the person contacting her allowed it. She couldn’t do anything by herself, and if she used his telepathy it would deplete his. But he would come if she called, and that knowledge made her feel safer.

After two weeks at the Regents’ Park house, going out on her own still made her fret, not enough to stop her, but the tension was there, thrumming like a violin string. Long ago she’d learned to listen to her senses, not depress them. Unless it involved physical arousal, of course. But now even that was open to her. She need fear nothing inside her. Only what lay outside and what she had to cope with, learning to live a different life than the one she’d envisaged. Hard to make a U turn like that, but she was doing it. She’d visited the opera, charity dinners, celebrity restaurants, all with Oliver, who buffered the press for her and made enigmatic comments. Taunting, but until recently Marcus had been in the States attending to business, and Oliver had held firm. “Let him come to us,” he said. “Make him hungry. Marcus has always wanted what I’ve had, and always will. He’ll come.”

At least Tegan had Virginia to contact, although her sister had said very little, and of course, she couldn’t divulge Marcus Schofield’s future plans. She led his bodyguard team, after all. But if Virginia was back in London, that probably meant Marcus was, too. It was with hope and apprehension Tegan went to meet her sister for afternoon tea.

Virginia, looking chic in black pants and a tight, high necked pullover that displayed her figure better than a plunging neckline would, smiled and held out a languid, carefully manicured hand. “Glad you could make it. Tea or coffee?” She’d already ordered a plate of the crustless, thin cucumber sandwiches the hotel was justly famous for and a stand containing the most luscious cakes imaginable.

Tegan grimaced. Too much indulgence would make her fat. I’d like you fat. Eat a cake. His teasing interjection told her he was with her.

She’d shared the sight of the cake plate with him unconsciously, knowing he’d appreciate the sight, and her reluctance to indulge. It was a way of taunting him into speaking to her. She’d buried his communication deep, several layers below the one people could easily penetrate.

She smiled, not letting Virginia know she had a small amount of borrowed telepathy. Not enough to be of much practical use, but enough to make her feel more secure. Happy, even. Or was that Oliver making her happy?

Virginia gave her the critical visual once-over that would be considered rude in a non-relative, but she had a right. “You look different. Looser.”

“It’s my new style. I’ve always liked classic fashion, but classic doesn’t stay still. Skirts are shorter, hair isn’t as sleek.” She smiled, genuine friendship and fondness, something she’d never have shown in public until a few days ago.

“You’re teasing me. Have some tea.” It was as well Virginia was pouring, because the voice behind her shot her incipient tension into the stratosphere. The pianist playing for the customers hit a bum note, discordantly harsh. Or was that only in her imagination?

“Well, what a wonderful sight,” Marcus Schofield said. “Two gorgeous brunettes instead of one. Hello, Tegan, it’s good to see you.”

Wait where you are. I’m on my way. The harshness in Oliver’s tone told her she needn’t even try covering up her shock.

I’ll be fine. We’re in a public place. What can he do?

Don’t be so fucking stupid. Angry, not just alarmed. I don’t like this. Your sister set you up.

I can defend myself.

Who knows? He was on the move, his communication stronger, but she didn’t understand how he could get closer so quickly. He couldn’t flash during the day, and sun was streaming through the windows.

She gave Marcus the kind of cold smile she always deployed in the old days to people she wanted to keep at a distance. Before he’d wrecked her world. Crashed in and destroyed everything she had like some kind of barbarian marauder. But nobody looking at him now would have believed her, not for one minute.

He was dressed in a gray suit of the finest wool cloth, the kind that did exactly what the tailor wanted it to. Or, despite it costing the earth, it would have gone in the trash. His dark blond hair was brushed back in the kind of natural style that cost a fortune to achieve, the kind lesser mortals copied without success. On another man that longer hair at the front would be constantly flopping in his face. Either that or welded back with what the hairdresser liked to call “product.” On Marcus, it looked as if he’d just swept it back with a careless hand. Except it didn’t move. It hadn’t moved when he’d loomed over her—

She cut the thought sharper than a pair of scissors cutting thread. No wallowing. Already her fear rose like bile in her throat, and she wouldn’t allow it. She’d been there, lived through it, done the therapy, learned the coping techniques. But they weren’t working as well as they had in the psychologist’s office. Her breath came shorter, and she knew it would show under the silk shirt she had on under her jacket. He’d see the fabric move and shimmer in the light. After a morning shopping for some new, more sensual outfits, Tegan wished she’d worn one of her old, buttoned-up suits instead of deciding to wear this new purchase. But she’d wanted her sister to see how much she’d come since they’d last met.

He responded to her cool smile with a warmer one of his own, his brown eyes like velvet, taking in her appearance. And she couldn’t read him, not one iota. He’d always been difficult to read, even when she’d been in full possession of her Talents. Now she had only what she could see, and she saw very little except a handsome, urbane man in his mid-thirties, moving toward her to kiss her cheek.

She’d lose it. She’d die. No, she wouldn’t. She fucking wouldn’t. But when his breath ghosted over her skin and his lips just grazed her, she flinched away, forced a smile, and made her hands release their hold on the arms of her chair. “Hello, Marcus. I didn’t know you were in town.”

“I arrived late last night.” He exchanged a warm smile with Virginia.

No, no, fucking no. Panic rose, but she fought it with everything she had, wouldn’t let it reach a level where Virginia would detect it. Pride and something else—caution, perhaps.

It relieved her to see Virginia smile coolly and move away from him, but her smile didn’t lose its warmth. “Did your meeting end early?”

“Yes. I got bored. Sometimes people want to drag things out and then hit you where it hurts at the last minute. But I knew what he was planning and I got there first. Sent him away sorry he tried to fool me.” He gave Tegan a sweet smile. “Something’s changed about you, Tegan. You look really good.” His gaze drifted down the silk shirt to her breasts and back to her face.

She conversed, barely aware of what she said, remembering to smile, to keep her body language relaxed. They talked about shopping, fashion, and London.

A shadow moved outside the door, and she caught sight of a man in a dark suit and sunglasses. It might be early spring, but the sun shone brightly today and a bodyguard had to take care to keep his vision clear. In this place, many people would have bodyguards, but the hotel wouldn’t allow them to appear too obvious. So someone must have pulled a string or two.

For a moment, her heart had leaped and she hoped he’d come, but barely ten minutes had elapsed since Marcus had entered the restaurant and greeted her. Oliver was at CAT, briefing G before he went on to his offices in the City, and even in a fast car it would take him ten to twenty minutes to get here. She wanted him here but hated the necessity.

And that bodyguard might have orders to keep him out, but as she glanced toward the door, a uniformed concierge approached the burly man and murmured something, indicating with one hand that he should move aside. The Palm Court was full today, as it was most days at teatime, tourists mingling with the high and mighty in their elegant carelessness. She let her gaze wander around the elaborate décor, heavily gilded, the distinctive yellow that was one of the hotel’s trademarks only adding to the rich effect. She could admire it, and the tall columns with the elaborate tops that dotted the interior, but she just wanted to look somewhere else. Anywhere but at him.

Becoming aware of her avoidance, she did as she always had. Faced her fear. Turned her head, made her eyes stare directly at the man. He smiled gently. “Feeling better, Tegan? I heard what happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

Anyone hearing that gentle voice would have believed him. People did, that was how he’d made his fortune in the stock market. Unlike Oliver, he’d been a self-made man, someone who had an ordinary background and then made the most of the stroke of luck that had gotten him a scholarship to Eton. Where he’d met Oliver and lulled him, as he had everyone else.

Even her, for a while. Until she’d seen him naked, poised above her—

She forced a cold smile. “It’s fine.”

“It’s never fine when someone does that. But I’m glad you came through it. You had therapy?”

Why should he care? “Yes, I did. I’m fine.”

“I would have visited you, had I known where you were.”

Had he realized she’d survived, had he known she’d live to identify him.

“But I know what you lost.” He glanced at Virginia. “Your sister told me.”

Fear, horror, and a freezing realization swept through her, leaving her unable to speak. Surely he couldn’t mean that Virginia had revealed her carefully concealed secret? She wouldn’t tell just anyone she was a sorcerer and so was Tegan. Was he only a close friend or a—lover?

Bastard pervert. Raping one sister and seducing another? Surely not. She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t.

The person she wanted to see most in the world entered, his hair blessedly tousled after the neat orderliness of Marcus Schofield, his long, lean body encased in a suit every bit the equal of the one worn by the man opposite, but in a heavenly blue that enhanced the sheen of his pale eyes. Currently they were filled with concern. Are you all right?

How the hell did you get here so fast? The exclamation was born from total amazement.

I got a ride. He turned his expression, allowing a smile, but it wasn’t the smile she saw in the mornings or after they made love. It was the practiced, smooth society smile. And she was glad, because the intimate smile belonged to her. Nobody else, and she didn’t want anyone else to see it. But she wanted it, wanted assurance.

He gave it by putting his hand on her shoulder and bending to touch his lips to her cheek before sitting in the chair a waiter had hurriedly brought for him. It was a measure of his charisma, or his custom here, that he didn’t look around, just assumed there would be a chair there when he sat. Arrogance, that was it. Sheer arrogance.

“What would you do if the chair wasn’t there?” she demanded.

His eyes widened in surprise. “It always is.”

And he laughed, but silently and inside her head, warming her with amusement. But nothing showed on his face. Instead, urbane, smooth assumption of authority and control that would make every woman here sigh. It certainly did it for her. To cover her sudden rush of arousal, she lifted the teapot and poured him a cup that had also magically appeared on the table. He thanked her with another polished smile.

He’d avoided shaking hands with Marcus, but he turned to him. “Your trip to the States went well?”

“Very well. I’m a few million richer. But that’s not as important, is it, when you get to a certain level?”

Indicating that he and Oliver were at the same level. She wondered if that were true. Oliver appeared to accept it, but then the British would, to save face and to be polite. Strange, the subtle differences between society and attitudes either side of the Atlantic, and she was nowhere near interpreting them. Especially without the Talent she was born with, the ability to see more than what lay on the surface. Irritation rose yet again, but this time he was there, soothing her.

Oliver sat close to Tegan, but not swamping her or claiming her. Unlike Marcus, who had one arm around the back of Virginia’s chair and sat so close she could probably smell his body odor, if he had any. Which she doubted, because she hadn’t noticed any when—

Let it go, she told herself firmly, then spoke telepathically to Oliver. Do you believe me now?

He paused before he responded, and her heart turned to lead. I believe that you believe. I want to ascertain the truth.

She nearly got up and walked out then and there. How dare he disbelieve her?

He didn’t respond to her surge of anger other than a slight tightening of his mouth. And Virginia skimmed her mind, curiosity in her brief touch. Tegan managed a shrug. “As you can tell, I’m not quite over it yet, but I’m getting there.”

“Is it this place? Shall we go somewhere else?” he asked.

A mental vision rose up to confront her about Marcus, a dagger through his heart, slumped on the table, bleeding all over the pristine tablecloth. It cheered her, but she pushed the notion deep, saving it for when she was alone or in a place to savor the sight. “No, actually, I’m fine. Just sometimes inappropriate emotions happen. They’re nearly gone.”

She didn’t imagine Marcus’s sharp stare. He fixed on her as he had that night, when she’d been drugged to immobility, unable to do more than give a token fight. She remembered the vision and repressed her shudder.

“Are you sure? We could get a private room and have tea served there,” Virginia said.

The chink of fork on plate, the gentle chatter, and the smooth, soft sounds of the piano soothed her. She didn’t want to be alone in a room with this man ever again or even with just a few people, because the people who had helped her to feel safe before had melted away, until she was left with him.

The worst thing was that she only had the one, clear memory, the one vision of him naked, looming above her, and then the pain, and then nothing. Or blurred sights that not even the best of CAT’s sorcerers had been able to decipher. They meant nothing. But this time she didn’t let Oliver see the vision or her reaction. She forced an easy smile. “No, it’s fine. How did you know I’d be here?”

“Virginia told me. She said her sister would be here, and I hadn’t seen you for some time. I can’t really remember when we last met. Can you?”

“No.” She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of telling him that she remembered only too well, found it difficult to forget. She reached for her tea, glad when the cup only made a small clink against the saucer. At first, she’d trembled and quivered a lot. And hated herself for it. It was one thing intellectually knowing the reaction to trauma, quite another to experience it.

“It was last year sometime, but we saw quite a bit of each other at one point. In New York, do you remember?”

Another of those Brits who spent half his life in London, and the rest travelling around the world. She remembered, and his laughing attitude to life, underlain with a gravity she’d never completely penetrated, made him very attractive. Or it had.

The bastard took a sandwich and ate it in one bite. “We should see more of each other. Don’t you think so, old man?”

The old man in question gave an easy smile. “It sounds good. I’m not too booked up right now. I cleared my calendar for Tegan.”

“So you’re taking her as she is?” Marcus had to know it wasn’t Oliver who took her virginity. But she let her lover field this one.

“Yes.” Intimate warmth spread through her body, prickling at her nipples and her pussy. Yes. Yes, he was. The first time didn’t count. He was in every way that mattered her first. “I’m honored. You know she’s been—ill, don’t you?”

Marcus gave her a sympathetic look. “Yes, I do. Virginia told me that. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.” She shrugged. “It happens to a lot of women.”

“Not many lose what you did,” he said.

I want to show you what he’s thinking, but I don’t want to freak you out. Can you stand it?

So Oliver had been monitoring his friend. Yes. If she didn’t, she’d regret this for a long time to come.

Oliver linked them, showed her the outer layer of Marcus’s mind, but remained between them, a buffer and a shield. She knew, and now, so did he. For the first time, she felt a twinge of doubt. Oh, he did it, she was sure of that. But was he any more compos mentis than she’d been? She knew there was at least one other person present, perhaps more, but she’d never remembered any more details. They let her see him, they didn’t blindfold her or drug her into complete unconsciousness, so was she meant to identify him?

She doubted because she saw nothing incriminating in Marcus’s mind. Nothing but sympathy and a touch of libido. Not surprising if he’d started an affair with Virginia, because the two sisters were close in age and resembled each other enough so they could be easily identified as siblings. She’d known Marcus was interested in her. He hadn’t revealed Virginia’s secret, and he seemed involved with her, his softer emotions mostly directed toward her.

Of course, he could have arranged his mind, but only a Talent could do that so perfectly. Given her sister’s relationship with Marcus, she could have done it for him, but not this well. And Marcus wasn’t a Talent. While his mind was reasonably orderly, it didn’t have the carefully sorted layers, and she saw no sigil, the symbol vampires and shape-shifters carried to identify them to other Talents. The sigil was branded into the mind at puberty, when the Talent emerged, and they could hide it from all but the most highly trained sorcerers. Like she’d been once. At least she still had the skills to discern it, and with Oliver’s help, she could analyze a mind like this.

No evidence lay there, no remembrance, no touch of shame, pride, or triumph, nothing that a man who’d taken her forcibly, then faced his victim would have. Either he truly didn’t know or someone had taken the memory away, smoothed it over as if it never existed.

She turned a startled gaze to Oliver, and he leaned forward and snatched a quick kiss, giving her time to recover. Ignoring the tuts from the people around them, she concentrated only on him. The kiss didn’t last long, but it was enough time for her to regain her sangfroid and cover her thoughts, bury them deep.

Oliver leaned back, unperturbed, and gave Marcus an urbane smile he’d find hard to match. “I thought Virginia was your bodyguard. Isn’t it true that a bodyguard shouldn’t get involved with her client?”

Marcus folded Virginia’s hand in his. “It is. But she isn’t acting as my bodyguard anymore. She’s supervising the new guys. I never go anywhere without her. Do I, my lovely?”

Virginia gave a cat-that-got-in-the-cream smirk. “Not these days. And yes, you’re right about the conflict of interest. As soon as it became clear that Marcus and I were more than bodyguard and client, I found two other men to look after him.”

Tegan frowned. There was something wrong here. “You haven’t been working for him very long, though, have you?” It wasn’t like her sister to throw caution to the wind for a new lover. Why had she told Marcus so much?”

“We met before.” Virginia glanced away, then back at her. “You remember when we had our last little break? Just after that, I met him, and we dated for a while, then split. I missed him, but life goes on. Then, after I left the job with the senator, the agency said Marcus had asked for my services.”

“But I didn’t mean as a bodyguard,” Marcus put in smoothly. “It was the only way I could discover where she’d gone. I wanted her back, very much. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.”

Their little break. Tegan and Virginia met when they could for a small vacation. Sometimes only a day or two, but they’d done it for a long time. The last time had been some time ago, because of what had happened in between. She glanced down, picked up her teacup for something to do, and put it down again.

Oliver’s watch glinted in the light. The expensive item seemed a part of this place, like the sparkling flatware and the gleaming mirrors, luxurious and old-world. Timeless, which was a strange thing to think about a watch. He glanced at it. “We need to go. Marcus, I’d love to see more of you. I’m having a small gathering at my country house this weekend. How about coming along?”

The shot of pain she felt was out of all proportion. This was what they planned to do, what CAT wanted to happen. And she’d be at Oliver’s house, not foreign territory, and in the company of other people. It was all good.

Marcus pulled out his smart phone and touched the screen. “There’s nothing I can’t cancel. Actually, the man I was having dinner with on Saturday would do better to wait. Make him squirm a bit before I close on the deal. I might even squeeze a further percentage or two out of him.” He glanced at Virginia. Was she communicating with him? Did she give him some of her powers so he could read others, including his clients?

They had to find out. Without that, she wouldn’t find closure. That was the reason her counselors agreed to her staying on the active list and keeping informed on the situation. Because knowing for sure would help. But they hadn't bargained on her getting quite so close, she was sure of that, too.

Fuck that, she was there.

****

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” Back in the safety of his apartment in the Regency house, Oliver took Tegan in his arms, as he’d been longing to do since they left the hotel. But although they left hand in hand and she’d let him put his arm around her in the limousine, she hadn’t allowed anything more. She didn’t want her mind clouded with him, she’d said, and he understood that, because sure as fuck his mind was clouded with her. But he didn’t have to touch her for it to happen. Anytime, anywhere, it happened. The flashes from the few cameras that had escaped the security people he’d stationed around the place after his less than subtle arrival didn’t bother him anymore. Anyone not identifying her after today didn’t deserve the name of paparazzi, and that was saying something.

“Yes, I do.” She spread her hand on his chest in a way he was finding charmingly familiar and stared up at him, her dark eyes clear and untroubled. But she didn’t fool him completely. He’d sensed her distress before she shoved it away but done her the courtesy of pretending he hadn’t noticed. “I want to go. I want to face him. And on your ground.”

“Make no mistake, this is part of the operation. And when we’ve done this, then we’re finished.”

“What do you mean?” Her lovely eyes widened, and he saw the dismay, recalled what she’d just said could mean.

No, not that. Far from it. “I want to take you away for a while. As soon as we know about Marcus, I want us gone.”

She bit her lip, and he bent to kiss her and soothe away the tiny hurt. “I’ve asked my PA to find us somewhere quiet and private. Somewhere nice and hot, where we can go naked if we want to.” He pulled her close, growled low in his throat, and she laughed as he’d hoped she would.

“But I want to see this through.”

“I know you do. That’s why we’re not there already.” He loved holding her like this, close and small and altogether his.

He dragged himself back to reality. She would be his for a while longer, but not that long. He couldn’t allow himself to think long term. Except he was already doing it and he didn’t seem to be able to stop. Maybe he should stop thinking and just let this run its course, as long as that didn’t turn out to be too long. She wanted kids, he got that, but he would probably not give her any. She wanted a normal life, and his was just—not. And he’d have to watch her age and die. Or not. That thought intruded again.

Staring at her lovely face, he wondered if it would be so bad to take the other road. He’d been thinking about that more lately. But not until they’d finished this operation. He was concentrating on getting the job done first.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

That startled him. She wasn’t supposed to read that. “How can you tell? I locked it away deep. I figured I’d tell you later.”

“I noticed something wrong in the pattern in your mind.” She smiled and touched his lip, tapping it in mock reproof. “You shouldn’t have let me in. I might have lost my Talent, but I haven’t lost the analytical skills I learned.”

He kissed her finger, and she drew it back before he could suck it into his mouth. “I might have known.” He sighed, but he wasn’t really upset, just resigned. “Yes, there is something else. We might want to avoid the press for a while. So I called my PA, asked him to reschedule a meeting to my country house this weekend. And to find us a vacation.”

“Why?”

“Because I called my PA from the back of a dragon.” He grimaced at her shock. “What was I to do? You screamed into my mind, sweetheart. I couldn’t tell where you were from the contact—you never can—but you’d told me you were going to the Ritz to meet your sister, so I hitched a lift with the nearest available Talent. His name’s Spartan Bergström.”

“Swedish?”

“Duh.” But he smiled. “A great golden giant, as a dragon and a man. G wants him in the team when we go in. That means this weekend. I don’t plan to introduce him as a guest. He’ll be on the roof and if anyone sees him, he’s one of the staff. It means he can be in different places to us, and he can come and go as he needs to.” And so he could get Tegan away fast if he needed to. Spartan knew that, but he wouldn’t let Tegan know. If he could help it. How could an ex-sorcerer who had less skills than the average human discern all the things she did?

Because she knew him so well, that was why. He’d opened to her when he made love to her. Sometimes, at the height of orgasm, he didn’t seem able to help it. And that had never happened before to him. It scared him a little, him, the fearless vampire.

“So how many people saw you?” she asked.

“More than I wanted to.” With long lenses, probably many more than he’d thought. “I thought we’d get away and get this done. Then we can go somewhere quiet and I can think it through.” A shiver went through him. “I was so terrified when you screamed.” He dropped his head and pressed his forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry.”

“In a way, I’m not. But I need to try to control the situation as well as I can. I’m fortunate that Louis knows I’m a vampire.”

“Your PA?”

“He discovered a while back. Even let me feed from him once. He said it was a real kick, but I didn’t want it to turn into a habit.” He quelled his response, but not soon enough.

“You wanted him? You like men?”

“I like both sexes. It was a great sin when I was young and my mother punished me for it. But I couldn’t help it, although I kept the habit quiet until after they died.” This was hard, much harder than he thought. “Does that make you hate me?”

“Have you been doing it since we’ve been together?” She glanced down, and he knew she was avoiding his gaze. “I mean, we didn’t promise, did we, and I haven’t asked you or anything.”

He found her confusion adorable, even more so because she was normally so controlled. “I haven’t wanted to.”

Her laugh sounded choked. “You? I heard stories about you. How adventurous you are and how you like it with several partners. Wild stories. I put most of them down to exaggeration and sometimes envy, but I didn’t think too much about it. I didn’t want to.”

Putting a finger under her chin, he urged her to look at him. “This is the truth. All I’ve wanted was you since our first night together. As you learn, you’re teaching me, or reminding me about things I once dreamed about. Exclusivity, deep intimacy. I stopped looking for that a long time ago, until you came along. Then I didn’t need to look because you were there.” He’d felt this surge of deep affection before, even acted on it a time or two, but it didn’t last. It faded or matured into something else, so he’d been told. But this was out of his understanding and so profoundly different from anything he’d felt before that he only had one certainty. “I love you, Tegan.”

She stared back at him, honesty and joy shining from every pore. “I love you, too, Oliver.”

He wouldn’t kiss her, not yet. If he did, this conversation would end. “I want you to be sure, sweetheart. I’m your first, but before we commit, before I become your last, I want us to spend more time together. Love is an ephemeral thing, it can fade or it can get stronger.”

Her smile broadened. “I’m sure. I don’t need the time. But if you want it, it’s yours. I’m not going anywhere.”

He’d let her deeper into his mind than he’d ever allowed anyone before, and she’d reciprocated. After that single, blinding flash when they’d dropped all barriers, and he’d re-erected them hastily in time to stop them from bonding, they’d done it again. Not all barriers, but all that mattered, the ones between truth and confusion. Deep inside, in the part of him that didn’t need rationalization, he knew she was speaking the truth and she spoke to him soul to soul. He was sure now, but he had to ensure that she was, too, before they took the final step. But he wanted her to know. “Maybe we’ll choose to bond, in time.”

She gasped and bit her lip. He ached to kiss it, to soothe it with his tongue, to taste her, but she spoke just as he started to bend his head and draw her tightly against him. “No, you can’t want that. We can have ten years, twenty, then I’ll leave.”

“No, you won’t. The world isn’t big enough to hide you. I will persuade you, darling. I’ve lived long enough and the prospect of fifty years with you or three hundred without—I choose the fifty.” They’d have no secrets, their spirits would melt into one. A terrifying prospect, he’d thought in the past. He wanted it more than he wanted anything else. But he wouldn’t rush her. There was no need. He had at least ten years to change her mind. “That’s not something we have to decide now. You can only bond with someone if both parties agree and really want to. It can’t be forced.”

She paused. “I’ve known it happen. You drug the parties until they’ll agree to anything. But I can’t see you doing that.”

“Fuck, no.” This time he did kiss her, making it long and luscious, tasting her until his cock rose against her belly, begging to be allowed to play.

Smiling, he decided that before he gave Mr. Happy his playtime, he wanted an answer for something that had been bugging him for a while. “That time we worked together, did you want me then? We kissed, sure, but I was a player then and I kissed a lot of people.”

She gazed at him, eyes bright with happiness, and he decided then and there he wanted to see that expression a lot more, because it suited her. “We had to share a hotel suite and you used the sofa in the lounge?”

“Yes.”

“Did you want me? I thought it was just me. You made me want things I couldn’t think about, and I knew you would move on, that you never stayed with one person for long, so I stopped it.”

He stroked down her body so his hand rested on her lovely ass. She slid her hand around his waist, moved closer. “I wanted you too much to ask you to give up your lifestyle.” A shadow of concern darkened his mind. “But if I had, what happened to you wouldn’t have been so bad. You might have salvaged something, if I’d given you your first climax, because I would have done it with concern and fondness.” Not love, not then. But care for sure.

“I know. I can’t regret it, Oliver, because it happened. Regret isn’t something I indulge in, and I never have. Except for that time. After that kiss, I often wondered what it would feel like to have you touch me, to kiss me again. To make love with me.”

He gazed down at her, letting her see anything she wanted to. “I asked G not to put us together again. He said he was sorry because we made a good team. So I told him what I wanted to do with you. He agreed we couldn’t work together again after that.”

“I asked never to work with you again, too, for the same reason. My only temptation.”

Their mouths met in a kiss that was wholly mutual and mutually desired.

Together now, and for as long as he could keep her, nothing else mattered as much. Together, they made more than two, more than the combination of two bodies, two mouths, and he set out to prove it to her, taking her in a luscious display of tongue and teeth, nipping her lips, sucking her tongue into his mouth to cherish and worship.

He finished the kiss reluctantly, because he hungered for more, and he couldn’t be everywhere at once, although he’d try. Spreading his mind, opening to her, he pushed nothing but warmth and good feelings, gave her a sunny day here in bed. He had a small house in the country, something that had come to his estate through marriage, one that in the past his stewards had urged him to sell, but it was a gem of a place, too beautiful to consider merely an asset.

He concentrated on that place, showed her the lawns edged with rose bushes, the scent drifting across the closely cropped grass, where they lay naked, alone but for the house and its blind windows, twinkling in the sunshine. Whoever built the house had offset the window panes, so they flashed in the sun, adding sparkle to the matt, weathered stone of the walls and the blue slate roofs, wavy from the way the supporting timbers had warped over the centuries.

She murmured something about lovely, and he knew she could see it. Lying on the warm grass, he nibbled his way down her body, took tiny bites around her nipples before sucking them into his mouth and lavishing them with licks and caresses until they peaked hard for him, their color more vibrant, more beautiful than the velvety rose petals surrounding them. When the breeze lazily changed direction, the scent subtly changed, sharper, sweeter, like the scents of her body that sharpened with her arousal.

He ruffled the hair at her apex with his fingers, dropped teasing kisses over them, before delving below, nosing her open before touching her with licks and nips, arousing her, making her juices flow. A notion took him, and he showed her as a bee, soft and furry, nudging her, trying to take her nectar for himself, to take home for his queen, the one woman he worshipped above all others, the one he’d know from all other queen bees in the dark. He lapped, pointed his tongue, traced her shape and allowed himself one long taste.

He’d know that scent, that taste, anywhere. In the depths of the earth, bound and tied to a rock, lashed by freezing water, he’d know it, know her, and consider himself in paradise.

Returning to his personal earthly paradise, he gave her a flavor of it, while he tasted her, deliberately keeping it long and leisurely, a dish of ice-cream on this gentle and loving English summer day, where they lay, cushioned by soft grass, manicured by unseen hands, nothing between them and nature.

Slowly, he felt her senses rise, her nerve-ends prickle with awareness, and only when he was bringing her to the peak of intensity did he move back up her body. He found a buttercup in the grass, plucked it on his way up, and teased her chin and lips with the glossy petals, before tossing it aside and taking her lips with his, sharing a subtle flowery scent and taste with her own, no less delicious, no less tempting.

She parted her legs for him and took him in as organically, as naturally as breathing. He’d opened her gently with his fingers, readying her for his body, but not venturing further because he wanted to make her his own with his cock this time, letting it forge its own path into her, driving with inexorable steadiness until they were fully joined.

He opened his eyes, then, stared down at her, her hair spread over the grass, adding its own beauty to nature, catching the gleams from the sun and making it almost silver. She stared up at him, eyes narrowed against the brightness of the sun. “How do you do this?”

“I love this place. It exists. It’s a sanctum. Let me take you there one day. We’ll do this for real. For now accept my gift to you, this flavor of a joy to come in both our lives.” He would, he meant it.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

A slow smile crept over his face, unbidden, but as natural as his body embedded in hers, the way her knees cinched his sides firmly, ready to add their own melody to the unbroken, twisting sounds of nature. The breeze rustled through the trees at the edge of the cliff, because this estate lay nestled between gentle hills in the Peak District, some sheared away in one of nature’s less forgiving moods. He showed her the view from above as a bird might see it, then zoomed back in to where they lay on one of the small lawns in the rose garden, scents wafting around with the changeable, caressing breeze that touched his backside like a lover’s caress.

Wait, it was a lover’s caress. Hers. Better than any breeze. She pinched him, and he laughed, began the rhythm he’d taught her, and they danced on their own, almost involuntary, his hips moving up and down as she braced herself, pushed up to meet his thrusts, angling her body to accept him.

Even here, they had to work for their climax, but it wouldn’t have been half so sweet without that work. He opened to her, and she did to him, this reticent, private woman. That, above all, he found most precious, that she could trust him enough to open her mind to him as well as her body. Their senses flowed together, so his arousal, male, powerful, wanting, became hers, no less raw, no less needy, but different in a feminine, accepting way, and he realized what trust a woman gave to a man every time she invited him into her body. Especially a woman like this, independent and powerful in her own right. Even now.

His last thought, as the sun enclosed them in bright, pulsating warmth, was that he would sacrifice anything for her. Even his life.