Page 80 of The Devil in Her Bed
Her brows pinched together. “What have you possibly done that needs atoning for?”
He reached for her then, wrapping his hand around her nape and pulling her close so his forehead touched hers. “The sins on my shoulders are so heavy, Atlas wouldn’t trade me his burden.”
She pulled back, impassioned. “Tellme,” she urged. “I’vesinned. I’ve lied…” Her eyes moved restlessly in their sockets as she came to some kind of weighty conclusion. “Declan. Perhaps now is the time to trade secrets in the dark. Like we used to.”
She sat up, holding a pillow over her lap, like a shield. Thank God. He’d never have been able to pay attention if she’d been cross-legged right in front of him. “We’ll tell each other everything. Even if it’s painful. I’ll start.” She cleared her throat against a gather of nerves. “I’ll tell you who I really—”
Driven by years of pain and yearning, Chandler rose and swept her up in his arms, pulling her into the cradle of his lap and curling himself around her as if he could provide some sort of belated protection. Shielding her from a world that had already done its worst.
“I’m done with revelations for now, Francesca,” he said. “All I want to do is this. Christ, how often I wanted to do this when I was young, just pull you into me and hold on forever. You were so pure. So perfect. And I would spend an entire day just waiting to bathe in your grace. To bask in your beauty.”
He smoothed her hair away from her face. Her lovely, angular, elfin features. “And here we are,” hemarveled. “How did you appear just when I was about to run out of hope? When I felt as though the battles I fought were all for nothing.Here you are.A warrior in your own right. A paladin or cleric. Joan of fucking Arc.” He drew her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin. “I found you, Francesca. For twenty years, I’d only ever done that in my dreams.”
The only dreams he had that weren’t nightmares.
“I dreamed of finding you, too,” she replied in a voice muffled against his skin. “I looked for you, you know. Serana and I sifted through the ashes of Mont Claire, salvaging what we could. But I was secretly searching for your bones, as if I could have even identified them. But you could not have told me that as a girl.” She made a caustic sound, both harsh and soft. “And when I didn’t find any trace of you, I wondered if you survived. A part of me has always held out hope.”
“Did you?” Her confession heartened him, melted something hard within at the thought of her little-girl hope hanging on him.
She nodded against his neck. “Serana insisted that she witnessed you take a bullet, and it would have taken a miracle for you to survive it.”
“And yet, I did.” He wondered if he’d ever be able to tell her how he’d done it.
“A miracle,” she whispered.
He ran his fingers through her silken strands, untying the ribbon that no longer held the braid. “Listen to me.” He cupped her head in both his hands, loving the feel of her. “I’m going to get you out of tomorrow night.”
“What? No!” She artlessly scrambled out of his lap,her motions doing wonderful things to her small, pert breasts.
He swiped for her, but she evaded him, which brought his predatory instinct to the foreground. “Francesca, you’ve been playing such a dangerous game, and you’ve been fortunate so far. I mean blind fucking luck. But you have attracted not just Kenway’s notice, but his admiration. It is more dangerous to be close to him than to be his enemy.”
“I think I’ve more than demonstrated that I can handle the danger,” she said, uncurling from the bed to stand. “We will do it together. It’s already decided.”
He shook his head vehemently. “I won’t be able to do my job if I think you’re in peril, especially not now.”
She shrugged. “That’s your concern. Don’t we have this conversation sorted? Use me, Chandler. I have skills you might not.”
Oh, he’d no doubt of that. “You are already his victim, Francesca.” He unfolded from the bed and went to her, pleading with her to understand. “I refuse to allow you to be his casualty as well.”
She swung her right fist and punched him full in the jaw. His head snapped back and an instant temper flared, but he stood his ground, meeting her glare with one of his own.
“The next time you presume to allow or disallow me anything, I’ll knock you unconscious,” she spat, stomping to the wardrobe to yank a robe from its depths.
Chandler tried not to smile. He rubbed at what most definitely would be a bruise as he admired the back of her. He’d been hit with harder, more well-placed jabs,but hers was more than respectable. And he had a suspicion she’d held back.
That she hadn’t truly wanted to hurt him.
A distracting flash of color peeked from beneath her hair covering her shoulder blade, a tattoo it seemed, but of what he couldn’t make out.
“Sometimes I don’t recognize you at all,” he muttered, regarding her with a perplexed sort of humor. “You were such a biddable child… one aches for those days.”
Her glare went from stormy to tempestuous. “If that’s what you want, then I invite you to make use of that door, because I am not her. Do you hear me? I am not—”
“I know.” He closed the distance to her in two strides, stopping her from donning the robe by sliding his hands about her waist and pulling her close. “I know. And I’m glad.”
At his words, she decided not to struggle, standing beneath his caresses as he smoothed his hands over her like he would an excitable thoroughbred. “You’ve grown into someone brilliant, bold, and beautiful.” He made a sound of disbelief. “Christ. I cannot believe I was in your bed. That you are in my arms. That I am the first man to…” He broke off, knowing he revealed too much, but wanting to say everything he could, in case this was his last chance. “It’s as though I’ve walked into a dream, and I’m waiting for it to turn into a nightmare.”
Tomorrow, if things went as planned, it would.
