Blue Heaven, Black Night

by Heather Graham

  With a sudden movement he tossed the apple into the fire to hold her head to his with both hands.

  “Henry’s mistress?” he repeated in a husky demand, and in it, Elise could read a multitude of his rapid-fire thoughts. He had softened, melted like steel in the craftsman’s blaze. She was no longer a murderer; no longer despicable. And he was experiencing a certain regret for having labeled her so and treated her so roughly . . .

  Not half so much regret as you will feel when I am free and you discover that I am capable of avenging the wrongs done against me, she thought.

  His face lowered toward her. She felt again the strength in his hands, yet it was a trembling strength, and the touch more a caress than an imprisonment.

  “You . . . loved . . . the king?”

  There was a strange inflection upon the word, but it did not alarm Elise, as she assumed he was merely assuring himself that her emotion was real.

  “Passionately,” she replied, meeting his heated indigo stare.

  But Bryan Stede was not, at the moment, in the least concerned with emotions—or with the king he had so faithfully served.

  He was thinking only that the girl was no innocent maid; that if she had known a lover’s touch and been long deprived, she would need feel such a touch again.

  And that the heat of the fire that roared behind him seemed to have become a part of him, ripping, tearing, consuming his blood, consuming his mind and his thoughts. The wind that whipped furiously beyond the cottage walls fanned and fed the fire until it was a storm that burned heated and blue and golden and red. Anger, desire, passion, and loss . . . all exploded within him. He had to have her. The weeks of tension and warfare, exhaustion and deprivation were overcome by the simplicity of that fire; the basic need of the warrior and the male within him clamored as wildly as the wind for the succor of an interlude of physical pleasure and forgetfulness.

  “Duchess . . . the king is dead.”

  “I . . . I know . . .” she murmured in sudden confusion. “And I . . . I believe that you loved him, as I did, and that is why I beg that you not drag me back as a thief and—”

  “Nay, lady, I will not drag you back as a thief.”

  “Thank you, Sir Stede, thank you—” Elise began, but she cut off as he stood abruptly, his hands sliding to her shoulders to bring her to him. She saw that the indigo of his eyes had burned to a smoldering flame, and that his features were again tense, with a pulse ticking against the hard corded muscle of his neck.

  “Nay, lady, I will not drag you back as a thief. I will give us the tempest of this night, and we will fill the voids within one another as the rain rages past.”

  “What . . . ?” Elise murmured, her confusion growing ever vaster, until she at last recognized the blue flame burning ever more intensely in his eyes.

  Desire. Naked, elemental desire.

  He was not thinking of her as a kitten, or as a child. Nor was he thinking she needed sympathy or protection . . .

  “Sir Stede!” she protested, fighting the web of the wine and the spinning room and the hot steel touch of his hands upon her. “I was Henry’s mistress—not a common harlot—”

  He laughed. “I take you for nothing common, Duchess, believe me!”

  Elise stared at him with wide eyes, her position suddenly coming threateningly clear to her. Whereas she had assumed herself the spider spinning the web, she was suddenly the fly caught within it. She had sauntered boldly forward, and too late realized that she had fallen into the entanglement of his strength.

  You have played the fool! she raged silently to herself. Her mind raced for the words to remind him that he took no woman by force, yet in the fire of his eyes she knew he thought not of force, just of passion, and that he believed she would welcome his tempest in her loneliness and loss . . .

  Dismay, and a sense of belated wisdom, came to her. She was so accustomed to being in control. She had known her father well, and she knew Percy well. With them, she could tease, she could cajole; she could take a game as far as she so pleased—and still call a halt that would be instantly obeyed. But Stede was no admiring gallant. He would never allow a woman to play a game, to tempt a man and walk away.

  But he would not force her! She had to think, and speak quickly, convince him that she made a plea for his sympathy and nothing else . . .

  She opened her mouth, but the time for words had passed. She was mesmerized, her eyes locked with his. Then she no longer saw the fire, for she felt it as his mouth seared down upon hers.

  She didn’t know if it was pleasure or pain; she was only aware that it was the greatest shock her body had known. Too stunned to protest, she felt only sensation breaking through the fog of her confusion and dismay. He was the sensation. The sound of his heartbeat against her breast thundered like the night, and the steel of his body was not cold at all, but molten, enveloping her with his heat. His mouth was firm upon hers, and its demand was hungering, but persuasive. The brush of his cheek was slightly rough, and the stroke of his tongue against her lips was, again, pure fire. He invaded her mouth fully, and the sheer masculinity of him was such that she was overpowered before she could rally her wits to fight. Deeper and deeper he kissed her, until she was clinging to him not to fall, until the breath was taken from her body, until all spun about her until there was nothing but the roaring fire and the raging wind.

  It was a kiss, she tried to tell herself, somewhere in the misted regions of her mind. Nothing more than a kiss. She could not allow herself to believe . . . to accept . . . that she had made a mockery of her determined plan to win him sweetly to her cause—with no repercussions. It was still just a kiss . . .

  How often had she been like this with Percy—glad to play, glad to test her power? How often had they broken off, laughing, Percy swearing that he could not guard her honor were she to tempt him so? But just as she wondered with growing excitement herself what it would be like to allow him to love her further, she knew that he would step back, breathing heavily, his heart racing, and vow that they would have to marry soon. She was the one in control, and despite amusement and wonder, Percy knew that she would not have him until they were legally wed. A kiss, to tempt and beckon, but that was all. They had shared so many kisses . . .

  But never like this. Never this rage of heat and smoldering fire. Never this power that sent the world spinning and reeling to the tempest of the storm. Percy had never been steel, overwhelming, breaking down barriers, commanding her will.

  Only a kiss . . . to taunt and beckon. To make a man want more, to enchant him. So that when he stepped away, he would fall all over himself, forgetting all but to be gallant and to please . . .

  A kiss . . . no more.

  But this was not Percy; it was Bryan Stede. Swept into his spiral of hunger, she could not combat the force of his arms, she could not twist away from his lips . . . could not fight the mercurial heat of his invading tongue. She clung to him merely not to fall . . . yet she realized with a shivering fatality that it would seem that she beckoned him ever onward.

  His hands moved upon her shoulders and the blanket fell to the floor. When he drew his body from hers, she was clothed only in the lustrous length of her hair, which fell like silk upon the velvet of her skin. Her eyes beheld his, wide and dazed, and he fell ever more into a trap of legend and myth, beauty and fantasy. Tendrils of red and gold wisped about her fine features, and waved over her breasts. They fell like a cloak to feather sweetly along her hips and thighs. The perfection of her form again swept over his senses; the high, rose-crested breasts, the narrow waist, invitingly curved hips, and long lean flanks—all in unmarred ivory . . .

  “Nothing common . . .” he said softly, and again stepped toward her.

  His words were like an awakening clap of thunder, and Elise instinctively stepped backward, stretching out her hand in reflexive self-defense.

  She doubted bitterly that he had noticed; he was upon her again so quickly, sweeping her into his arms as if she were no more t
han air.

  “Stede!” she at last gasped out, yet she still could not struggle from the spider web of strength that held her, and the shock of the response she had elicited continued to numb her wits, no matter how she fought to clear them. “Stede!” She brought her hands against his chest, but it was like pressing against armor. His urgent stride brought them quickly to the low-framed bed of goose feathers, and she no sooner felt that softness beneath her back than she felt his hardness atop her. He still wore his dark tunic, yet it seemed to grant no barrier between them; his length burned against her as his sinewed weight kept her easily captive.

  “Stede!” Elise began again, but his fingers threaded through the sides of her hair, and she had but a brief glimpse of the intense desire burning darkly in his eyes before his mouth once more claimed hers.

  Again there was the shock, rippling like bolt after bolt of lightning throughout her. And the air . . . the scent that came to her, not perfumed, but musky, clean, but threateningly male. Her teeth were parted by the hungry force of his assault; she hadn’t even the power to work her jaw as his tongue leisurely delved into the deepest recesses of her mouth, leaving her with no choice but to parry with her own . . .

  Desperate instinct brought her hands against him, but she could find no hold with which to wedge them apart. It was all so fast . . .

  So smooth, so swift . . .

  This was not what I intended! she shrieked inwardly, but she couldn’t speak, for he had effectively silenced her; she couldn’t strike out at him, for now her arms were trapped by his. She tried to kick him, but when she raised her leg, she found that she had abetted him all the more, for his weight wedged fully between her thighs, and his tunic was pulled high upon his hips, leaving her position far more perilous . . .

  Darkness seemed to fall around her. A darkness lightened only by a single torch of flaming fire. The rush of the wind was all about her, robbing her of all else but the moment, and the storm of sensation. Somewhere, in that darkness, she knew that he was the fire, the only light that could come to her now. Muscled steel and burning flesh. Lips that demanded and scorched, hands that began to play upon her, running along her body, to stroke her breast, to find her thigh, and gently force it to accommodate his form. She felt his touch, an intimate caress. Light, but as experienced as the firmly persuasive kiss that continued to imprison her in silence. Then she felt the force of his body, the power of his male sex as he began to shift against her . . .

  Steel, she thought, near hysteria. This was truly steel. Heated, strong, alive . . . and pulsing with life and demand. For a moment primal fear stilled all else. He would kill her; tear her asunder; rip her apart with the strength of his blade . . .

  Something else came to her. Would he know that she hadn’t been Henry’s mistress, or could he be deceived? Could a man be deceived—

  Fire! Streaking into her, piercing with a full and potent accuracy that was white lightning, rendering her slender form to stunned shudders as the lightning filled and filled her. A sensation of burning, exploding pain that was so great, Elise at last managed to tear from his passionate kiss, inadvertently burying her head against his shoulder to draw blood from her lower lip to keep from screaming out. The wind was a part of her, piercing into her, raging throughout her. Ceasing, like the eye of the storm, then slowly whistling, rising, buffeting to a tempest once more. Elise tried desperately to keep her tears in check.

  Stede! How she despised him, and now . . . now he was a part of her, inside her. He knew her more intimately than she had known intimate could be; he claimed her inside and out. He was part of her, and with each of his powerful strokes, he filled her ever farther, taking her so thoroughly that this possession would forever be a brand upon her, and she knew she would never forget him or these moments of tempest as long as she lived . . .

  The pain subsided, but not the feeling of fire. She was shocked that her body should so give to his, that although her heart and mind had not truly assimilated what had happened, her body had instinctively adjusted to primal ritual. She clung to him, her nails digging into the shoulder of his tunic, but her form moved to the heated rhythm of his, absorbing his masculinity. She was not going to die, or be torn apart. And . . .

  There was promise about it, promise in the flames, in the roar of the wind. Something . . . if she just reached for it. Something that was sweet, that filled her senses along with his intimate touch. Something that promised of starlight and beauty, and a soaring ride acrest the wind. If she allowed it . . .

  No! This was not Percy! It was Stede, and for all his lean, muscled splendor, he was a beast of the night. Now he had taken everything from her and she was left to cringe against him as he imprinted his will upon her for all eternity. Stroking, holding, touching . . . and then . . .

  Groaning, low and guttural, and falling hard against her.

  Flooding her with himself, even as he left her . . .

  The winds died; the glow of the fire ceased.

  Elise bit into her lip again, and when she strained swiftly to curl away from him, he allowed her.

  Rage roiled within her now. Rage and bitterness. She wanted nothing more than to be away from the man whose damp and powerful form still lingered far too near. She wanted to cry and scream and rail against God, and it was all the more bitter that she couldn’t allow herself to do so, for she was still his prisoner. If she remained perfectly silent, and played out this final role, he might at least free her, or she might still escape . . .

  She felt him shift again, raising upon an elbow to rest his head upon a hand. And stare at her. And completely eradicate her last hope with his first words.

  “Henry’s mistress, eh?”

  She cringed.

  “Henry’s mistress, and the Duchess of Montoui?” He laughed aloud. “Aye, milady! And I am King of the Night Wind! What do you take me for, Duchess! An inexperienced idiot?”

  The tone was soft and pleasant—so soft and pleasant that the taunting mockery within it drove her nearly mad. She spun about, and her rage spewed forth.

  “An idiot? Oh, no, Sir Stede! I take you for an arrogant bastard and an unmitigated liar! Your honor is as false as your tongue. Vulture, snake, most vile of beasts—”

  “Speaking of tongues,” he interrupted her harshly, and she saw the dangerous narrowing of his now clear indigo eyes, “yours, milady, will definitely be your downfall. How did I lie?”

  “That you can ask!” Elise shrilled, trying to pull her hair from beneath his form, then meeting his steady gaze with the furious clash of her own. “Rape! You wouldn’t think of it! Force—you wouldn’t use it—”

  His free hand bolted out to catch her chin, threatening to crush the fragile bone. “Duchess, you came to me—on your knees, I might remind you. You didn’t resist.”

  “Resist!” The tears at last stung her eyes, but rage kept them from falling. “How could one resist you! You came after me like a stallion at rut, abusing and tormenting and brutalizing—”

  “Hold your tongue, Duchess, I warn you!” he thundered. His eyes simmered to a dangerous black, and his expression darkened. “You were not abused, tormented, or brutalized. Had you not lied to me, I could have eased the pain. Yet, had you not lied to me, we would never have reached such a point. I am sorry for your pain, but it is quite natural—I hear.”

  “You hear? Oh, God! So help me, Stede, there will come a day when I will cut you in pieces, feed you to the wolves . . .”

  He stared at her as her harangue continued, his jaw hardening. The virago now spewing venom upon him was a far cry from the seductive maid who had knelt so sweetly at his feet. She had proved herself to be a liar once more, yet he was overcome with guilt, and irritated that he should be, furious that she had put him in such a position. His knowledge of her circumstance had come far too late for him possibly to withdraw and leave her intact, and so all that passed was of her own making. She hadn’t cried out, and hadn’t given way to tears, and somehow that, too, worked upon his sen
se of guilt, perhaps because he had to admire the courage that kept her fighting, just as he could not regret that he had possessed her—in fact, had been the first to do so. Without meaning to give, she had been a sea of sensuality. She had brought the storm of his emotions to a sheltered harbor of satisfaction, eased his tensions, received his fever and his seed.

  And now become a harpy once more. Just when his physical gratification had combined with his long stretch of lack of sleep to bring him to total exhaustion.

  “Stop!” he snapped. “I’ve had all I’m going to take from a lying, conniving little thief!”

  She did stop speaking; she drew in a sharp intake of breath, and her cheeks paled as the brilliant fury faded from her eyes.

  “I . . . I am not a thief . . .”

  The words were barely a whisper, touching a chord of pity within his heart. Whatever he said to her, he keenly felt his own part in her misery, and although he could not change what had been, he was sorry for her. And she was still beautiful. More so now, as she tried to draw her hair about her to cover herself, like tattered remnants of her pride and innocence.

  “Don’t fear, Duchess, I have no intention of seeing your pretty neck severed—now. Your soft, sweet speech has too enamored me. I’ll see to your welfare, just as your ‘lover’—the king—would have done.”

  “What?” Elise gasped out, then followed his meaning. “I’d rather lose my head a hundred times than endure such a—”

  “Bestial rutting?” he supplied with polite and cryptic sarcasm.

  “. . . with you again. A most decent description!” Elise lashed out in quick anger.