She would have fallen in love with him if she wasn’t still in love with him.
But it was quite obvious that though he might also love her, he did not want her. Perhaps it was the memory of her stupidity with Alexi. Perhaps he had decided a relationship with her was doomed from the start. Or perhaps, as she suspected, his career as an operative would always come first.
In which case, he was right to keep his distance. It would never work between them. Helena was a generous person—loving, caring, and loyal. But she knew herself and her faults. Her biggest fault was her need for attention. It was why she’d tormented her younger sister and generally behaved in a beastly fashion as a child. It was why she’d pursued a career on the stage. It was why she’d married a man who had given her all his attention when she tutored him on the intricacies of stage makeup and dress.
But Blue’s attention had been fickle, and though she appreciated his careful watch over her now, she knew when this incident with Reaper was over, Blue would leave to watch over someone else.
And then, one day in the middle of singing “Or sai chi l’onore,” a rope snapped, and a heavy sandbag from the fly system slammed down on the stage beside her. It would have landed on top of her, if she had been paying more attention to work and less attention to her handsome husband playing the pianoforte. She’d moved left instead of right, and the mistake had saved her.
For a moment after the sandbag block fell, all was silent. Damiano, who was on stage with her, stared slack-jawed. Those moving about in the theater or behind the stage stopped what they were doing. Blue played the wrong chord, and the dissonant sound echoed through the theater.
And then pandemonium erupted, and the next thing she knew, she was in Damiano’s arms, being ferried back to her dressing room. Over Damiano’s shoulder, as she was carried away, she could see Blue looking at the fly loft then at the heavy counterweight, and she knew exactly what he was thinking.
That was no accident. Reaper was back.
***
Blue willed his heart to stop pounding. She had almost been killed, almost crushed under the weight of the sandbag. She wouldn’t have survived. The heavy bag’s impact left a small crater in the stage floor. More than anything, Blue wanted to go after Helena, tear her from the arms of that horse’s ass, and hold her tightly, reassure himself she was uninjured.
But she was safe now, surrounded as she was by people on every side. Blue looked up, wondered if Reaper was watching him, waiting for a chance to crush him. The assassin must be fuming at missing Helena. Blue could use that to draw the man out.
But first he needed the stage to himself.
It took little more than a whispered suggestion to Pacca, and the theater’s proprietor sent everyone home for the rest of the evening. The man was shaken, and Blue could not help but wonder if he’d yet realized Foncé was behind this. If Pacca lost his star soprano, he was doomed. Helena was not easily replaced.
Blue watched from the shadows as the company departed for the night. When the theater was quiet, he took a sconce of candles, set the gold and ormolu candelabra in the center of the stage, and held his arms out in invitation. “How does it feel to fail?” he asked the dark theater. “How does it feel to know Foncé is going to carve you like a guinea hen when he learns of this fiasco? You call yourself an assassin, Reaper? You can’t even kill a woman standing in the middle of a stage.”
Blue paused, waited and listened. He heard nothing, not a creak, not a whisper. Still, he had a sense Reaper was here. He would have given anything to have Saint beside him at this moment. Her instincts were unfailing. His were not quite so attuned. He might be wrong. He might be talking to himself.
“I’m going to give you another chance, Reaper. It’s me you want. So…” He removed his coat, tossed it aside, and then turned in a slow circle. “As you see, I am unarmed. Come for me.”
Blue braced himself for the heat of a pistol ball slicing his flesh, or the crash of a coil or a pulley landing on top of him.
Nothing happened.
And then Helena walked out of the darkness backstage. Blue swore. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Listening to your monologue. Marlowe?” she asked, cocking her head. “Or was it Ben Jonson?”
Blue didn’t smile. “Go home. You should be far away from here already.”
“And leave you in harm’s way? That wouldn’t be very noble of me.”
“This isn’t about nobility, Helena.”
She crossed her arms. “Isn’t it? Then why are you still here, making yourself a target for a madman?”
Blue didn’t speak. He watched as she sauntered to the pianoforte, sat, and played a few bars of a child’s song. She was a mediocre player at best. She’d never taken the time to become accomplished, but she could play well enough to pick out the notes of her sheet music if she needed to. Blue stomped over to her. “Go home.”
She played another few notes, her fingers clumsy on the keys, and he pushed her off the stool in annoyance. He sat and played a few bars of the aria she’d been singing when the counterweight had fallen.
“I will go home,” she said. “But I want you to come with me.”
“I intend to search the theater.”
“You won’t find him.”
“Then I’ll find where he’s been hiding. He must have some secret place I keep missing. How else could he come and go unnoticed?”
“Then I’ll search with you,” she said. “Perhaps if we both look, one of us will see something the other has missed.”
They searched for hours, until both were tired, hungry, and covered with dust and cobwebs. It was nigh midnight when Blue declared the theater empty save the two of them, and Helena ran down the street to fetch what sustenance she could from a tavern with its doors still open.
When she returned, they ate hard bread and cheese and drank watered wine on the floor of the stage. Then she lay down on her mantle, while he rose to play the piano. The simple act of running his fingers along the keys soothed him, relaxed him. He needed the release tonight. His frustration with not finding Reaper was at a peak. He looked over at Helena, her legs tucked under her skirts as she stared up at the open space above the stage. She should be home, in her soft bed, but instead she was here with him. She had always been the kind of woman who stood by those she loved. Her sister had delivered a child out of wedlock, and Helena had been the only one in her family not to disown the girl. She’d given her food, helped her care for the babe, and defended her sister’s honor to no end. Why hadn’t he remembered that when he’d found her in Alexi’s arms? Why had he assumed the worst, when he’d always known she was the most loyal woman of his acquaintance?
He was the one with divided loyalties.
She caught his eye and levered onto her elbows, her hair spilling out behind her, her breasts jutting forward. He couldn’t help being drawn to her when she looked like that. It would be so easy to kneel down beside her, take her in his arms, and make love to her here. They were alone. Of that, he was certain.
But before he could move, she rose and moved toward the pianoforte. She leaned on the side, listening to him play, then circled behind him, her hands roving over his shoulders and down his arms. His fingers did not falter. He played flawlessly, even as he grew hard with wanting her. She leaned down, sliding her arms down his, so he had to lift her arms to continue to play. The softness of her breasts pushed against his back, and then her mouth was on his ear. His skin tingled as she kissed a path down to his neck. Somehow he continued to play as her lips and her breath aroused him beyond what he thought he could tolerate without ravishing her.
Her mouth slid to the back of his neck, her soft lips tracing the sensitive skin there even as her hands slid up to his shoulders and down his chest. Down to his abdomen.
“Do you like this?” Her mouth was beside his ear again. Her hands delved betwe
en his legs, sliding over his hard flesh barely contained within his breeches.
“It’s horrible,” he groaned. “Don’t stop.”
She chuckled, the sound low and sensual against his ear. “Then you shall truly detest this.” She released the fall of his trousers and the skin of her hand met his engorged erection. His hands faltered, creating a dissonant sound on the piano keys. “What’s wrong,” she asked darkly, her hands sliding up and down him with maddening slowness. “Can’t you concentrate under such barbaric conditions?”
“It’s a test of will,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand this.”
“Oh, you can stand it,” she purred, stroking him faster.
“If I can stand it—” He gripped her hand and used it to yank her around him. He pushed back, so she had room to stand in front of the pianoforte keys. “—so can you.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. It is my turn to torture you.”
“You can have two turns next time we meet.” He grasped her slender waist and pulled her against him, putting his mouth on her breast. The woolen fabric of her gown was heavy in his mouth, but he could feel her heat through it. He could smell the sweet fragrance of mint and Helena. His hands worked down until he grasped her bottom. He slid down farther, teasing the junction between her legs through the thick material of her gown.
Two keys sounded, and she jumped at the sudden jangle. And then his hands stroked over her hips and into the V between her legs and another three or four keys clanged together.
“Who taught you to play?” he teased, his mouth against her belly. “You need lessons, I’m afraid.”
“Do you think you’re the one to give them to me?” Her voice was husky and breathless, and she moaned, leaning back and causing several more keys to clink out their tones.
“I think I’m exactly the one.” Blue stood, wrapped his hand around her neck, and kissed her.
***
He was doing it again. He was drugging her, making her drunker with his mouth and his hands than any good bottle of wine or cheap bottle of gin had ever done. She wanted him. She knew it was hopeless. She knew this would not last. He would not stay. She had changed, but he had not. Blue would find this Reaper, and he would be gone. She would see him again—if he didn’t get himself killed in the meantime. While they both walked the earth, they would never truly be rid of one another. But when they met, it would always be another coupling like this—passionate, intense, and over far too soon.
Although at the moment, she might have encouraged Blue to hurry a little. She ached with need. His mouth had come down on hers with a possessiveness and tenderness she had not thought possible. How could he be so demanding and so gentle at the same time? His kisses consumed her until she forgot where she was, who she was, and knew only him. In that moment, they were the only two people in the world.
The escape was addictive. He was addictive. His mouth moved skillfully over hers, slanting this way and then that, taking and demanding in turn. She kissed him back with a ferocity she hadn’t thought was in her. She couldn’t get enough of him. She realized it was part arousal, part desperation to hold onto this moment with him. Tomorrow he might be gone. Tonight, he was all hers.
His hand fisted in the hair at the nape of her neck, angling her head back so he could kiss the delicate skin of her neck. His lips were surprisingly gentle now, feather light as he traced them over her throat. And then, using his teeth, he made his way to her earlobe, brushing his tongue over the vulnerable skin behind her ear. She shivered. Her entire body trembled with want and need.
“Torture, isn’t it?” he whispered, his breath hot on her already inflamed skin. “Shall I stop?”
“No.” She grabbed his coat and pulled him hard against her until she could feel his erection digging into her belly. She loved that he was so hard for her. She loved that he wanted her this much. Other men had wanted her, but no one else was like Blue. He was extraordinary. He could have had any woman. And he wanted her.
He pushed her back with his hips and his thighs until her bottom all but rested on the pianoforte. The keys jangled again as she struck chords never meant to be paired. While his lips teased her neck, his hands went to work on her skirts. He pushed them up, slowly, his fingers trailing over her calves and then her thighs.
She sighed against him. “What are you doing to me?”
“It’s called anticipation,” he said on a laugh, his mouth going to the collar of her gown.
“I’ve had years of anticipation. I want you. Now.”
“You’d make an awful spy,” he said. “You have no patience.”
“And you’d make an awful opera singer,” she panted as he opened her bodice and kissed the soft flesh her tight stays pushed up and out. He wet her skin with his tongue then breathed warm air over it, making her shiver.
“Why is that?”
“Hmm?”
His hands still caressed her thighs, moving higher and higher so slowly she wanted to scream. The greater urge was to grab his hands and thrust them where she wanted them, but she knew he would only laugh and start all over again.
And she liked this torture anyway. It made the release, when it finally came, that much sweeter.
“Why would I make an awful opera singer?” He tugged at her stays until one breast popped out. He flicked his tongue over it, and she jerked. The pianoforte played another unlikely chord.
“Because.” She had to take a breath as he sucked harder on her nipple, and she felt the pull all the way down to her belly. Would he not touch her already? “You draw everything out, and audiences hate that.”
He released her nipple, rubbing his stubbled cheek against it. “But you don’t.”
“I don’t like you very much right now.”
“You will. Give me another minute.”
She could tolerate the wait one more minute.
“Or two.”
“Blue!” She admonished. He chuckled, his mouth making its way to her other breast. But she knew how to get to him. She knew how to make him give her what she wanted. “Ernest.”
His vivid blue gaze glared up at her, and she couldn’t help a small, satisfied smirk. He was annoyed now. Good. Maybe he’d take that frustration out on her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked with a smile.
“My name is Blue.”
“I’m not certain I can remember that.” She reached down, between their bodies and took his warm, hard length in her hand. “Perhaps if you made me scream it three or four or five times…”
“Five times?”
She quirked a brow. “Too much for you?”
“Just wait and see.”
Without warning, he lifted her bottom and deposited her heavily on the keys. They banged out a noise that echoed in the empty theater, but Helena wasn’t listening. She concentrated on the feel of his fingers as they slid up her inner thighs and parted her folds. One finger slipped inside her, and she bucked against him, ready to climax then. “Not yet,” he warned. “I want to feel you when you come.”
“Then take me.”
“With pleasure.”
He slid into her, thrusting hard enough that she heard the clink of the higher keys as her hand came down on them for support. And then she wrapped her legs around his waist, and he bore the brunt of her weight. Impaled on him as she was, she knew his substantial length and hardness. He filled her, stretched her, brought her to the peak of pleasure, and then pulled back again.
“Blue!”
“That’s one,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I’m not playing ga—” He entered her again, and she could barely remember how to speak much less the words that had been on her tongue. Spirals of acute pleasure raced through her, gathering and tensing, waiting for release.
And then he pulled away. She all but
sobbed his name.
“That’s twice.”
She dug her nails into his back, feeling him shrug slightly, even though he still wore his coat. She remembered when they’d first met. It seemed every time they made love, they were fully dressed and in some small alcove, struggling to be quiet lest they be found. They weren’t very quiet, if the ringing of the pianoforte was any indication, but their mating tonight had that same intensity.
He thrust into her again, and she wanted to let go. She might have, but if she had, he would have pulled out again. Instead, she held on, clenching around him so that pulling away from her was the last thing his body wanted to do.
“Helena,” he groaned, sounding both angry and pained.
“That’s once,” she whispered.
He punished her by thrusting deeper, and they both came apart. She shattered, calling his name more times than she could count. The world went black and then bright white again. She closed her eyes, letting the pleasure roll over her like a churning wave.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, her vision hazy and blurred. And then it sharpened. She blinked and stared into the shadows beside the curtain. A man draped in black and wearing a stark white Venetian larva mask stood holding a scythe.
Seven
Blue felt Helena stiffen in his arms. “Did I hurt you?” he murmured in her hair. It had come loose in sections as the night wore on, and now it fell freely down her back.
“No.”
Something was wrong. He could hear it in her voice, feel it in her body. Blue’s back prickled. “What is it? Whisper it in my ear.”
“There’s a man in a white mask watching us, just beyond the curtain. I think it’s him.”
Blue did not need to ask to whom she referred. He knew it was Reaper, and he knew he’d been a fool to allow this to happen. He was vulnerable now. His stupidity in taking her here might have just cost them both their lives. “Ease back slowly,” he murmured. She did so, one of her hands striking a key. His hands on her sides tightened, stilling her. “We’ll try another way. When I set you down, you run.” He didn’t wait for her to argue or ask questions. He set her down, gave her a push then bent for the knife in his boot, and spun around.
Shana Galen - [A Lord & Lady Spy Novella] Page 7