"I see, " he said. It was a whisper, ragged and heartfelt.
"You do see, don't you? You lost your family too."
The sympathy in her soft voice was unbearable. He raised the bottle to his lips once more and drank long and hard, the liquid burning down his throat, warming the hollowness of his chest.
"That was long ago. We were speaking of you and the bone-hunter," he said gruffly. "You are well rid of him, milaya. Surely you can do better than that. He was such a prude."
"How would you know that?" she demanded, her anger returning.
"Two seconds in his company was enough to determine that. Did he even kiss you, Finch, or does his English propriety warn against such intimacy before the wedding?"
She blushed crimson. "We have kissed."
"So I was not your first," he said teasingly, though inwardly he was not so sanguine. "Well, I would doubt his manhood if he hadn't at least kissed you. He tried, perhaps, to go a bit further?"
If she blushed any more, she'd be the color of a cherry. God. He loved watching her blush.
"Charlie is a perfect gentleman," she said primly.
"He sifted around you like he was looking for old bones, didn't he?"
"He did no ... Oh, how are we talking about this?" she cried.
"You wanted to know my opinion of the bone-hunter. I'd wager you planned on keeping the fact you were the author of a torrid penny-dreadful from him forever."
Her eyes went wide. "How could you know...”
He smirked. "I am three hundred forty two years old, milaya. I study human nature for a living. And I'm sure he had no idea you have a gambling problem either."
"I didn't need to tell him that, because it's not true, and I don't gamble any more anyway!" she cried, outraged.
"Care to wager on that?"
She glared at him. At least she wasn't weeping any more. "The point is moot. Charlie and I are through. Now I am stuck here. Just as you wish," she cried. "I know you have the power to have him dismissed. I know you think you can do what you want to me, and you've made it clear you didn't want me marrying him, or going to Egypt. How can I not believe you had something to do with this?"
"It's true I never thought this Egyptian nonsense was a good idea for you. You'd desiccate in the Sahara. If you can even survive the journey."
She huffed and stuck out her jaw defiantly. "That is not for you to decide."
Hearing the truth spoken aloud was more painful than he'd thought it would be. But he just shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. "You are right. Now that the madman has been caught, my interference in your affairs is at an end. Owing to your unique condition, however, and the fact that London seems to be crawling with vampires, I doubt you'd be any safer here than in the Sahara."
"How comforting you are!" she cried. She took off her spectacles and polished the tears from them. He noticed she looked a bit unsteady. The vodka was kicking in.
"The point is, I didn’t do anything to Neverfeel. I'd not do that to you, despite what you might think, milaya. I want you to be happy. And I'll soon be gone from your life completely."
Her brow furrowed in confusion. She stuck her spectacles back on her nose and peered at him. "What? You're leaving?"
He gave her a wry smile and finished off the rest of his bottle. He tried to set it on the chess board between them, but he miscalculated in his stupor, and it toppled to the floor. He ignored it, as he didn't think he could retrieve it without falling out of his seat. "It is time, I believe, for me to move on."
Far from looking relieved, she looked a bit deflated, which gave him some twisted sense of comfort. At least she wasn't reveling in his pending departure. "But where will you go?"
"As far away from here as I can get," he said honestly.
"Oh," she said, faintly. She was silent for a long moment. Then, "I suppose you have to do this often. Leave. Start over. I saw those letters you keep in your secret drawer. They were from all of your different lives." She paused. "I read the one from your wife."
He'd guessed as much when he saw someone had tampered with his drawer. He clenched his jaw and refused to look at her. "Do you really want to discuss my wife, Finch?"
"I don't know what I want, Sasha," she said softly.
He froze. He'd never before heard her call him by the diminutive his mother had used. The way she said it, so softly, reminded him of the two moments he'd allowed himself to touch her, kiss her. Dangerous, erotic chills swept down his spine at the memory of the softness of her lips, her breast. He tried to shove these dangerous thoughts aside, focusing on his anger over the direction of their conversation.
"I'll tell you about Yelena," he said. "She was beautiful, sheltered, and devout. And I loved her. Then my father killed her, and she took my son with her." He sat back in his seat, still unable to look at her. But she was very still across from him, so he knew she was listening. He continued, unable to stop himself.
He'd make her understand once and for all what he was, and why he had to leave.
"It took me a year to recover from what my father did to me, and to get by memories back. When I did, I sat down with my father for our usual chess match." He gestured to the table between them. "I put arsenic in his wine, and I watched him die. Then I left Russia, and I vowed never to love like that again. Its cost was too great."
He finally looked at her. She was staring at his chest with an unfathomable expression, and he realized he was unconsciously rubbing the scar over his heart. He dropped his hand away.
"You think what you did to your father makes you just like him," she stated quietly. "You think you are a monster."
He was stunned by her perception, the bald truth spoken out loud. He gave her a wry twist of his lips. "Am I not? You saw with your own eyes what I'm capable of. I ripped Vasily's head off."
"Well, he was a vampire who was going to rape and murder me," she said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world to talk about.
His heart sank anew at the memory of her at Vasily's mercy. He gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white. "I think the vodka has gone straight to your head, milaya. You sound as if you're defending me. You came here to throttle me, remember?"
"I do feel a bit wobbly. I should go, I suppose." But she made no move to rise. She just stared at him with that same, unreadable expression she'd been wearing for the past several minutes. It unsettled him, that look. Where was her righteous anger? Her despair over her broken engagement? "The hall was empty when I came inside tonight,” she said thoughtfully.
He shrugged. "The servants are packing up the house."
"Oh." She paused. "Already? You're leaving that quickly?"
"Yes, milaya."
She clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head, hiding her expression. "I'm never going to see you again, am I?" she said in a small voice.
She sounded ... sad. Longing. And it nearly undid him. He was as terrified of leaving her as he was of keeping her close. He'd never felt this way before, even about Yelena. He did not know how he was going to bear it. He hardened his heart, and gave her the unvarnished truth, however. "No, I think that's for the best."
At last she raised her head, and he was shocked to see tears coursing down her face again. "But why? Why must you leave? Is it really so necessary?" she cried, with such unexpected anguish Sasha's pulse began to race.
It was the vodka. He was drunk, and so was she. She could not possibly mean anything she was saying. But his heart was racing now, as if he stood at the edge of a very tall cliff, poised to jump.
"Aline..." he began. It came out as a low growl. A low, pleading growl. He needed her to leave, or he needed to leave this room and escape the madness that gripped him. Before he said something ... or did something ... he'd regret. But he couldn't seem to move.
"You've only been here a few years. Surely there is no need to leave,” she persisted.
He shook his head. "I've lived for too long in this life. I never meant to st
ay here in the first place. But you came along..." he broke off. There. He'd said too much already. The vodka had claimed the last of his discretion.
Her eyes went wide. Something like disbelief crossed her face.
He groaned and buried his face in his hands. Perhaps if he stayed like this long enough, she'd disappear.
"Sasha," she said when the silence had become unbearable. "You needn't leave because of what happened. Because of me...”
He laughed darkly and tugged at the ends of his hair. "It is precisely because of you I must leave. You really have no idea, do you?"
She shook her head. "I don't understand."
He lifted his head and met her perplexed, anguished eyes. He'd tell her the truth, then. Or most of it, anyway. That would scare her away, as nothing else could.
Or so he reasoned in his inebriation.
"I want you,” he said frankly. “It was never an act for me, milaya. I think I've wanted you for years, but lately ... I've taken to dreaming of you at night, wondering if you have freckles hidden beneath your clothes. I wonder if all of your skin is as soft as I suspect, if you taste as sweet as you smell ... all over. I want inside you. Do you understand?"
She just stared at him, speechless. She licked her lips, and there was something in her dazed expression that fired his blood even more than his own wicked words. Made him grow hard as a rock.
God.
He should stop. The small voice of reason that remained lucid in his head told him to stop. But he couldn't.
"I want to do unspeakable things to you until you scream with pleasure. In the last five minutes, I've imagined a hundred ways to take you on that divan. Fully clothed. Naked. With nothing but your spectacles on."
She made a strangled sound in her throat, her cheeks growing rosy. She couldn't seem to look away from him any more than he could look away from her. He could hear her harsh breathing from across the distance that separated them, second only to his own.
He gripped the arms of his chair even harder, willing himself not to move. "So this is why I'm leaving. Being near you has become unbearable. I have no control left where you are concerned, milaya."
Nothing but the sound of their breathing broke the stillness that followed. How close he was to crossing the distance separating them and demonstrating his words.
"You ... you mock me!" she breathed at last with quiet devastation, dropping her gaze.
His heart sank with disappointment and anger. Why was it so unbelievable to her? He wanted her madly. It was as if he'd woken up one day to find that his parochial little secretary had been replaced by some alluring she-demon determined to make his life a torment. But he supposed Finch had not changed so much as he'd been forced to take the blinders off and see the truth. He was smitten. He'd spent the last five years constantly thinking about what he could say to irritate her, what he now realized was just an elaborate act of foreplay on his part.
Now he couldn’t stop thinking about what he wanted to do to her.
She only had to look at his arousal pressing against the front of his trousers to see the truth for herself, but she was too innocent, too oblivious, to even contemplate such an idea. Which made him want her even more. But maybe it was for the best she held onto her illusions.
He gave her a bitter smile. "You may believe as you like. But if you don't wish to discover the truth, I would suggest you leave. Immediately. Fyodor can escort you back to Llewellyn House."
Whatever spell his confessions had woven finally snapped. She gave him a sidelong glance as she finally stood up, a bit unsteadily. She looked like she wanted to say something, then thought better of it and started for the door.
He wondered if this was the last time he'd see her, walking away from him, slightly drunk, without ever knowing how much he craved her.
It hurt.
He squeezed his eyes shut and settled back into his chair. When he heard the study door open and shut, he released a breath he'd not even known he was holding. He pounded his head against the headrest. He cursed in Russian, then in French for good measure.
What had he been thinking, saying those ridiculous things? He'd poured out his worst fantasies, and she hadn't even believed him. If she didn't despise him enough already, that should tip the scales. When he thought his life couldn't get any worse, it did.
He needed more vodka.
When he opened his eyes, however, he saw Finch standing in front of him with a lost expression on her face. His heart lurched. Surely the vodka had conjured her up. Surely...
"Five minutes," she said, all too real.
He tried, but couldn't even manage to stand. He fell back to his chair and gaped at her. "Why are you still here?"
She approached him until she hovered inches from his knees, not meeting his eyes. "Just sit there, please, for five minutes, without moving. I must see...”
He shut his eyes again, not daring to believe what was happening. "What must you see…”
His remaining words strangled in his throat as he felt her hand touch the skin just above his false Necklace. The raging lust that reared up inside of him at her touch sobered him immediately. His breath caught in his throat, and his hand shot out to cover her own, to bring it high, to his lips ... or lower, to where his painful erection now strained against his trousers. He couldn't decide which he wanted more.
"No moving. Five minutes," she said, near his ear now. Her breath caressed his skin, causing gooseflesh to rise. He froze and dropped his hands to the chair arms and gripped them tight. He was afraid if he touched her now, he would not be able to stop himself from devouring her whole. He didn't even dare open his eyes.
She brought her other hand up to join the first, and they felt around the edge of the Iron Necklace to the secret clasp in the back. Every brush of her skin against his own was a torture. At last, she worked the clasp free, and she removed the disguise from around his neck. She sucked in her breath as she touched her fingers to his bare, unmarked neck. She stroked his skin as lightly as a feather against silk, and he couldn't help it. He shuddered.
When at last he looked into her eyes, now level with his own, he tried to fathom what was in them. They were chocolate now, dark and secretive, and filled with uncertainty. And desire.
He could not be mistaken. But what did she want? Did she even know? He groaned in agony. "What do you want, Aline? What in hell's name do you want?"
Confusion darkened her brow, clouded her eyes. She bit her lip. "I ... I don't know. Just five minutes to see..."
"See what?"
She shook her head. "Neverfeel ... Nether ... Charlie never made me feel as you did. As you do."
He growled at the mention of that loathed name.
"I just want to see..." She stared at him, lost. At length, she glanced down, where her fingers still caressed his neck. Then she trailed them down his shirtfront, pausing over the area of his heart, which had begun to pound against his ribcage, as if it wanted to burst free. "I want to see your heart," she said, placing her whole palm over it.
Her tender touch nearly unmanned him. He wanted desperately to hold her, to assuage this pounding hunger eating away at his battered soul, but he could do nothing but sit there in disbelief as she tortured him with those warm, stroking fingers. She stared down at him, bafflement clouding her features, as if she couldn't believe what she was doing any more than he could.
"Yes, yes, God," he tore out. "Anything."
His words seemed to startle her out of her distant reverie. She shook her head and leaned in closer until he was drowning in her once more. She began unfastening the buttons of his shirt and waistcoat with shaking fingers. She peeled back the edges, exposing his chest to his navel. She stroked her hands tentatively through the dusting of dark, curling hair, as if surprised by the sight of it.
Then she found the raised, jagged scar, running down the length of his sternum. She traced it with her fingertip, and he sucked in his breath, afraid to move. No one had ever touched him there.
It had never been like this before. She barely touched him, and all of his resolve began to crumble. It was all he could do to keep his hands at his sides. It had gone far enough. Too far. They were drunk. She was drunk. He should have walked away long ago, before he found himself in this untenable position. But it was the last thing his body wanted, the last thing his soul wanted.
"How painful it must have been," she murmured. "But why did it not heal?"
It took him a few moments to focus his brain away from her caresses enough to answer her. "Something went wrong. The man who ... turned me broke something."
"A broken heart," she said with a wry quirk of her lips, "that never quite healed."
He looked away from her fingers on his heaving chest to her face. She was watching him with such tenderness that he truly began to panic.
"Aline ..." he began. But then she flattened her palm against his racing heart, and he groaned.
"How quickly it beats," she murmured. Then she melted into him. That was the only word to describe it. Her legs bumped against his knees, her head tilted forward. Their faces hovered inches apart, and he could feel the hot, sweet breath of her against his lips. She trembled all over. "You feel it too. Do you not? You weren't mocking me...”
"Never," he whispered.
"Do you want me to kiss you, Sasha?"
His heart thrummed in gratitude and fear. "Yes, kiss me. Kiss me...”
She closed her eyes and leaned forward, touching her mouth to his. He made himself sit there as her lips, soft and tentative, brushed against his. Then her lips touched his cheek, his chin, his eyelids, his forehead. He'd never experience anything so sweet, so tender and so terrifying. It shook him to his toes. Kissing Finch was harrowing.
She stopped, shifted back, studying him like some unsolvable equation. "Even when you don't kiss me back, it's nothing like...”
He surged forward and captured her lips again. If she mentioned the bone-hunter's name one more time, he didn't know what he would do. With a little gasp, she slid her arms around his shoulders, pressing close. When her lips parted, he seized the opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue, tasting her, savoring her. God, she was so sweet. Every nerve ending in his body clamored for more.
Prince of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles) Page 19