Page 49 of The Devil in Her Bed
“My shoulder, mostly, and with a shotgun at long range,” he explained. “I was able to run into the dark, though I had to get pellets picked out of my flesh. Even my side.”
Stowing the pistol back in her pocket, she rushed forward and seized the palm. She dropped to her knees and kissed the little fissure again and again. Tasting the salt of her tears. Of his skin. Of her pain.
She covered her eyes, then her mouth, tears gathering like little gems in her lashes.
She didn’t care that she’d surrendered her dignity, her vanity, and her secrets. She didn’t care if he was good or bad, he was…
Declan.Alive.
Even in her thoughts the name washed her with such a swath of emotion she feared she might drown in it.
She looked up at the man who stared down at her with a guarded, almost uncertain expression, and swayed a little. Making sure her desire didn’t deceive her, she drank in the sight of him. Examined him with all the scrutiny of a detective.
His hair was darker than it had been as a boy, cut inshorter layers to hide its tendency to curl. He stood so much taller and wider than she’d ever expected the lean lad to become. And the pallor of his skin had given way to swarthiness. He’d come to Mont Claire with shadows in his eyes, and those shadows had darkened then been joined by others. The hazel of his youth had become more brown than green, especially in the dim light.
The cruel slash of his mouth, set as though a sarcastic sneer would appear any moment, was new. He’d been a kind boy, if a little melancholy and brokenhearted, but his smile had been earnest.
The proud brow and stubborn jaw, however, were unmistakable.
How had she not seen it before?
He’d been the ghost she could sense in the room.
She scrambled to her feet, surging against him. Enfolding her arms around him in an embrace she’d never thought possible until she crawled into the grave after him someday.
“Declan Chandler, I cannot believe…”
His arms came around her in the manner of a man who was unused to this honest sort of affection, but after a moment he gathered her up into his lap, this time cradling her as one would a sweetheart, not necessarily a lover.
“Francesca.” His voice was deeper than before, rasping with unspent emotion.
A pang of pain and regret needled beneath the word. The name was not her own, and it would kill him to find that out.
She should tell him.
But she needed a moment longer to bask in his nearness, in his regard. She’d yearned to be Francesca in his eyes almost all of her little-girl life.
What was a few more minutes?
“Bloody hell,” he groaned, kissing the top of her hair. “I didn’t believe it was you until now. Do you forgive me?”
Swallowing around a lump of sadness and dread, she turned her nose into his chest, inhaling the warm, masculine scent of him. Memorizing what it was like to be held by the ghost of the only person she’d ever truly loved. His flesh was like iron stretched over the mounds of his muscle, and she could have pressed her cheek against it forever. Listening to the sound of his heart. That percussion that had once kept her alive. Kept her going in the worst possible moment.
“Declan…” she began. “I’m not the child you knew. In fact—”
“No, you’re all woman now.” He slid a rough finger under her chin and lifted her face toward his.
He searched her eyes, looking past the tears gathering her lashes together to the soul mirrored within.
Whatever he read there beckoned him, and he lowered his head to kiss her.
Lifting her, twisting them, he rolled her beneath him, settling his weight gently atop her without breaking the seal of their lips. This time, his kiss was different. Better, if that were possible. A tenderness that hadn’t been there before melted her into a puddle of emotion and threatened to evoke even more uncharacteristic tears.
When had been the last time she’d cried? Shecouldn’t remember. Of course, with him kissing her like that, she could barely remember her name.
Her name!Pippa.Not Francesca. Pippa Hargrave.
She had to stop this before it went further. Didn’t she?
