The Lover Read online

  The cab had two possible destinations. Michael had two choices.

  He could grab Anne, open the door, and jump. Or he could wait. And see where the cab carried them.

  To death. Or to his town house.

  If they jumped, she would be injured, possibly killed, when only minutes earlier her only thoughts had been of the myriad ways a man and a woman could enjoy one another and the orifices through which their mutual satisfaction might be obtained.

  It should be he who begged her forgiveness.

  “I told you last night.” His breath steamed the window. Familiar buildings appeared through the fogged pane. Disappeared. Appeared. Disappeared. Death. Desire. Death. Desire. Inescapable patterns. “There is no need to apologize to me. Not ever.”

  Sunlight glinted off of a shop window; a shard of light momentarily blinded him.

  Unyielding metal bit into his left hand; his right hand fisted around the head of his cane, the gold soft and warm, like Anne’s body.

  A third choice.

  The cane, like the knife and condoms inside his nightstand, was custom-made. With a twist the gold handle pulled out and became the hilt of a short sword.

  It would be kinder to kill her himself. Quickly. Before he was forced to watch her beg for death.

  As Diane had begged.

  “I know what it is like to be an object of curiosity.”

  Anne’s compassion grated his nerves.

  Michael’s head snapped around.

  Her face was luminescent inside the cab’s murky interior, pale eyes a glimmer of light.

  It had not occurred to her that cabbies were capable of kidnapping—and killing—any more than it had occurred to her that men who were hired to bring women pleasure were capable of kidnapping. And killing.

  A vein throbbed inside his temple. Blood pulsed and pounded inside his groin.

  She had touched him, this spinster who had yet to learn what she wanted. She had cupped her soft, unblemished hands over the backs of his and had not once flinched at the feel of his rough, scarred flesh. She had let him touch her.

  And he had brought her to this.

  “What do you know about being an object of curiosity?” he asked harshly.

  What did she know about lying and cheating and killing?

  “A spinster is considered an oddity.” Shadow dimmed the glow of Anne’s pale eyes; the white plume crowning her black hat danced and shimmied in time with the relentless bump and grind of the carriage wheels. “Especially in the country where people have nothing better to talk about than their neighbors.”

  Yet she had agreed to stay with him, to be seen with him, knowing that their association would damn her reputation.

  Blaring music invaded the cab. A flurry of color and motion flashed outside Anne’s window, brass gleaming, drums pounding.

  In the blink of an eye it was gone—the ragged street band, the music, the very proof that either had ever existed.

  Michael had never spoken the man’s name. Not to Gabriel. Not to the madame who had claimed and trained her two angels. If taken, he would simply cease to exist in a world that already thought him dead.

  And the cycle of death and desire would be broken.

  There would be no more fear. No more carnal hunger that ate at his soul as well as his body.

  There would be no one to help Anne.

  How could he let the man take her?

  The cab veered around a corner, carriage leaning, wood creaking. Anne reached up, grabbed the leather pull.

  Too late.

  She lunged into him. The layers of grenadine, wool, and whaleboned corset did not protect him from the soft impact of a round, firm breast.

  He cursed his cock, which flexed in uncontrollable response. He cursed the man for the fear that only added to the sharpness of desire. He cursed the memories that burst inside his mind like fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day.

  He had no illusions about what would happen if he and Anne were taken together. Neither of them would survive.

  The instinctive urge to fight, to escape, metamorphosed into the primal need for procreation.

  Michael and the man were the last of their line. When they died, there would be no one else to carry on the family name.

  Anne was the last of her line.

  For one galvanizing second he thought about filling her with his seed and pushing her out of the carriage in the hope that she would live, pregnant with his child. She would be a loving mother. Their son, or daughter, would suckle at her breasts, as he had suckled at them, and thrive on her innate goodness, ignorant of the father’s sins. Through their offspring he would continue ….

  As would the man’s blood.

  Forcibly he reigned in the driving lust to create life out of the endless, senseless destruction. He could not block out the burning imprint of her breast.

  “It wasn’t your marital status that inspired their gossip,” he said stolidly. Women—and men—all too often despised what they wanted. And wanted what they despised. “It was your wealth.”

  “It really doesn’t matter what inspires gossip, does it?” she asked quietly. The cracked leather seat bounced and vibrated underneath them, a near painful stimulus in his erect state. “It is still painful.”

  The left rear carriage wheel hit a hole; the cab dropped heavily before leaping forward.

  He could not tell her that words didn’t hurt; they did. He could not lie to her and say that someday she would become inured to the pain. If the cabby drove them to the man, there would be no time for her to grow, to love, to laugh.

  A row of redbrick town houses sped by, inspiring hope, because the cab had not yet veered off the course to his town house. Breeding rage, because the man, like a cat, toyed with him. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  Except watch. And wait.

  And ache for release.

  “I have touched myself.”

  Michael’s narrow-eyed gaze shifted back to Anne’s face. Her right cheek was outlined by the blur of passing buildings.

  An invisible vise tightened around his chest.

  She was offering him her confidence. Trying to make amends for the pain she thought she had caused him.

  “This morning you asked if I had touched my breasts when I imagined a man suckling a woman. I have.”

  She twisted her reticule. The beads glittered like black diamonds.

  “I used to lie in bed at night and imagine you suckling me.” Her gaze remained steady, guarded, uncertain of how he would respond to a spinster’s secret longings. “And I touched myself.”

  It was ridiculous to be jealous of a dead man. But Michael was.

  A black wave of anger rushed over him.

  Anne Aimes had imagined Michel suckling her. Not Michael.

  No woman had ever cried out his given name at her moment of release.

  Always it had been Michel.

  Never Michael.

  It never would be Michael.

  “Wouldn’t you rather have the man I used to be?” he asked brutally, wanting to hurt her, wanting to prepare her, wanting to protect her. “Or do you pretend that my scars don’t exist?”

  The harsh words rang out over the relentless grind of the carriage wheels.

  She did not look away from him. “No, I do not.”

  “No, you do not what?” he asked ruthlessly. “No, you do not pretend that my scars don’t exist? Or no, you don’t pretend that they matter?”

  Her gaze was too perceptive. Too ignorant of her fate. “No, I do not wish you were the man you used to be.”

  For a gut-wrenching moment Michael wished he were still Michel. For her sake.

  He wished he were ignorant of the price she would pay. For his sake.

  He wished he did not know what awaited Anne.

  In an hour. A day.

  A month.

  The man would come.

  “Why?” he asked bluntly. Crudely.

  After all these years he still did not know why.
r />   “Because you make me feel as if I am desirable.”

  While eighteen years ago Michel had ignored her.

  He had hurt his spinster before he had even met her.

  The tightly strung wire that his muscles had become quivered—in regret, for the hell he had plunged her into; in hunger, for what could have been under other circumstances.

  Responses that, for both their sakes, would best be ignored.

  But he couldn’t do that, either.

  “You are desirable, Anne. I saw the way the man on the street looked at you. He wanted you. I want you.”

  The light in her pale blue eyes flickered. Embarrassment that he had witnessed her feminine delight at an unknown man’s perusal flowed into vulnerability.

  She wanted to believe that she was desirable.

  But she still did not.

  She wanted to trust him, emotionally as well as physically.

  Yet she could not quite bring herself to do that, either.

  “You have spoken French only once since you took my virginity.” She tilted her chin, denying her embarrassment, her vulnerability, while the cab hurtled forward, its destination set. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. “Why is that?”

  She was already starting to put the pieces together.

  Michael gritted his teeth.

  Because he did want her more than death itself.

  But that wasn’t the answer she sought. Or even the question she asked.

  Last night she had corrected him when he called her mon amour. My love. But not when he called her chérie.

  Anne wanted the casual French endearments he had given her predecessors—that he had given her before he realized the futility of pretending to be someone he was not.

  He forced himself to speak the words she expected. “Would you rather I speak French more often?”

  Would death be less painful if it was delivered by Michel?

  “I would like you to teach me how to speak French.”

  Michael’s head jerked back, his heart lurching, the cab swaying. He could not be Michel. Not even knowing that it might be the last wish he could ever grant his spinster. “You already speak it.”

  Every gently bred woman learned French grammar.

  “Not like …” Anne resolutely held his gaze. “I want to know other words. Words that do not come from a medical compendium. Scholars define orgasm as a means by which sperm is deposited inside a woman for the purpose of impregnation. They describe a clitoris as a penislike projection which, because of a woman’s gender, does not mature into the organ that brings prestige and honor to men. I would like words to express the beauty of sexual union as well as the physiology.”

  Michael had wanted to know how a well-bred virgin had become conversant with sexual terminology. Clitoris. Penis. Terms polite society hid away from their women for fear they would contaminate their souls.

  Now he wished like hell he didn’t know.

  Her knowledge had been gleaned from a medical textbook. Words tainted by death and disease.

  “There are English words that are not medical,” he said baldly.

  “Yes, but English can be crude. I do not feel as if what you did … what we did … is vile. Coition is earthy. And primal. I have never felt as close to another person as I felt when you were inside me. French is a beautiful language.” She tried to inject lightness into her voice but failed. Anne had not been allowed to take life lightly. “Surely it is more suited for intimacy than English, is it not?”

  He had once thought so. Now all he could think about was the grinding progress of the carriage and the pulsating heat of her shoulder, hip, and leg rubbing his.

  Two separate rhythms, clocking two separate fates.

  Twenty-seven years ago sex had brought Michael back from the edge of insanity. Through the French language he had been able to express his need for comfort. For pleasure. He had basked in the joy of sexuality.

  Michel had been born out of that beauty.

  Anne was not asking him to be the man he used to be. She was asking him to make her life more bearable.

  “What words would you like to know?” he asked hoarsely.

  “You kissed me last night,” she said determinedly.

  “The French have many different words for a kiss.” He strained to hear the strike of the horse’s hooves to determine either a reduction or an increase in speed. “It depends upon whom one kisses. And where.”

  “You kissed me between my thighs.” Anne’s breasts rapidly rose and fell beneath her staid black cloak. “On my clitoris.”

  The echo of the horse’s hooves blended with the pounding of his heart. How far they had traveled since she first climbed into a cab with a man she did not know. A man she still did not know.

  “A woman’s clitoris is called un bouton d’amour, a love button.” His mouth flooded with the taste of her, the silky hot blend of salty sweet passion. “The type of kiss I gave you there is called le broute-minou.”

  Anne’s gaze skidded away from his. She faced the worn leather interior of the cab; the white egret plume and black hat hid her face from his view.

  Michael focused on her window and the reflection of her pale, cameo-perfect profile that was superimposed over passing London landmarks.

  They were so close to his town house … only a few blocks away. He could not escape the surge of anticipation, even knowing it was too early to tell … knowing how carefully orchestrated his hope might be ….

  Knowing that it would be best if the man took them now, before his spinster became more attached to him … and he to her.

  “You called your … penis … ma bitte. Are there other words for it?”

  A park charged past them—a blur of leafy green trees, twirling parasols, and children chasing a hoop.

  He had been young once. Happy. Carefree.

  Had Anne?

  “There are many words for a man.”

  A creak of leather alerted him; Anne turned in the seat. Her gaze locked with his, her eyes filled with compelling urgency. “Such as?”

  His blood pumped through his veins; the cab rushed through the cobbled streets. There was no turning back.

  “Bequille.” Crutch. “Outil.” Tool. “Bout.” End.

  He had by turns used sex as a crutch and a tool. A means to an end that was rapidly approaching …

  Anne frowned, translating the French slang into English words that made no sense.

  He had never heard her laugh.

  Diane had not laughed after the man took her. But she had laughed before.

  Anne had had no joy, no pleasure. Her entire life had been dedicated to providing comfort for others.

  Michael wanted to give her laughter while there was still time.

  “A man’s penis is also called an andouille à col roule,” he said with a calculated ease that denied the pounding inside his chest and groin and the raw, unrelieved pressure that crawled up and down his spine, searching for an outlet.

  She stared in blatant disbelief. “The French call a man … a sausage with a rolled-down collar?”

  He watched her intently, gauging her response. “It is an apt enough comparison.”

  There was no repulsion in her eyes, only curiosity. “What other words are there?”

  She was so serious, this woman who confessed she did not often laugh. So determined to explore the subtle nuances of intimacy.

  There were many sex words that, when translated into English, became sublimely ridiculous. He chose a term she could more readily understand.

  “Cigare à moustache.” Cigar with a mustache.

  The imagery was irresistible.

  Laughter followed her shock, a clear, husky peal that exploded the gathering darkness inside the cab and twisted about his guts.

  Her pale blue eyes sparkled. “What do you prefer?”

  His tumescent flesh thickened, hardened, lengthened, nine and a half inches stretching into nineteen and a half inches. He felt as if he would burst t
hrough his own skin, like an overripe grape, if he did not soon gain release. “Bitte,” he rasped.

  All traces of her humor instantly evaporated. Her wide-eyed gaze reflected the evocative memory of her swollen clitoris embracing his rubber-sheathed manhood. My penis, my cock, ma bitte.

  Suddenly there were only the two of them inside the cab: a spinster with her first lover.

  There was no room for death.

  “Why do you precede … bitte … with a feminine pronoun … as opposed to a masculine one?”

  “Bitte is a feminine noun—”

  Anne glanced down at his lap.

  He did not have to follow her gaze to know that a damp spot, evidence of his arousal, marked his gray wool trousers. Last night he had used it—along with her own feminine essence—to lubricate his manhood to more readily fit it inside a condom.

  Her gaze darted up to meet his. She, too, remembered ….

  A tall, gold brick Georgian town house appeared behind Anne’s head, the first in a row that marked his home street.

  Michael’s muscles coiled for action.

  Now.

  The cab would stop … or it would drive by.

  He would take Anne … or the man would take him.

  The grinding of the carriage wheels filled his head, his body, his sex. His entire being focused on the sound, waiting, waiting …

  The cab slowed, rattled to a stop.

  It was not yet time for either of them to die.

  The energy that he had forcibly held in abeyance erupted into naked force. Eyes locking with Anne’s, his voice hardened in feral need. “Because it is made for a woman.”

  He thought about lifting her skirt and taking her there in the cab.

  She wouldn’t fight him. There was nothing she would not let him do.

  Michael wrenched open the door and jumped out, a jarring catalyst of motion. Cool spring air enveloped him.

  It did not extinguish the seething turmoil of sexual need.

  A creak of springs sounded behind him.

  He pivoted and stared, mesmerized.

  Poking out her head—downy white plume dancing in the cool breeze—Anne stuck out a narrow half boot and felt for the step.