Heart of Darkness (22 page)

“You mean my father was a Sidhe too?” she
asked, startled into sitting up and staring at him. He clicked his
fingers, and suddenly the lights were a little brighter. She rubbed
her eyes a little but stared at him intently. “I thought it was
just my mother's line.”

He shook his head. “No. Your father was a
Sidhe. It could be that the ring passed through your mother's line.
But your father had powers too.”

“What were your mother's talents?”

Wolfe shot a half-smile her way. It was sad,
and filled with what might have been. “She had many, but one of her
strongest and one which gave her most pleasure, was her ability
to...I don't even know how to describe it.” He shrugged. “If a dead
petal lay upon a table top, she could press her finger to it and it
would rejoin to its bud. In the castle, we had hundreds of
bouquets. Each filled with hundreds of flowers. Each kept alive by
her.

“My father saw how much she loved it and
spent a small fortune on having them sent over for her. From the
Indies and the Africas. I think she was one of the only women in
England who would have preferred a simply bouquet of roses to a
half carat emerald necklace. Flowers were the only thing that made
her happy or made her smile.”

She frowned down at the sheets. Again, it
saddened her that his mama had not been able to raise a smile for
her only son. What a selfish woman she must have been. Surely it
was unnatural for a mother to hold the sins of the father against
the son? But then, not knowing the situation fully, perhaps, she
was being naïve...

“I wish I knew about my parents' talents. I
only assumed that I shared them with mama. But unless your father
also could control and communicate with animals...and manipulate
light?”

“No. His talents lay in figures. And money
craft. While the old secrets behind alchemy have long since died,
my father had a more modern version. I can remember him telling me
once, when he was trying to impress upon me the grandeur of the
Sinclair and Heath line, that when his father died, the castle had
been rotten. Falling down about his feet. My grandpapa had had the
talent for gambling--our talents are not necessarily for the
good--and while my grandmama lived, he was highly successful at it.
He still had a fortune by the time he died, but this castle eats
money as though it were suffering from worms,” he said with a soft
chuckle. “My father, with his father's remaining funds, built up
the Sinclair and Heath line into the monster that it is today.”

“Do you have no mathematical abilities?”

He shrugged. “Minor talents. I've managed to
slightly increase my father's success. But my gifts remain in the
wild. Even though the entail holds countless properties around the
Isles, I always return here. For the forest...such beauty cannot be
found elsewhere.” He laughed, then raised his hand and tipped it
under her chin. “Until now, that is.”

She blushed and ducked her head.

“I did not realize you still had that
ability,” he pointed out with a faint smile.

“What?” she scorned. “The ability to feel
embarrassed?”

“After what you've been through...yes.”

She jerked a shoulder. “You have experienced
much the same. At least, I...well, at least, I did not see them
actually dead. In my mind, they live on and are healthy and
perfect.” She buried her face in his chest and shook her head. “I
had my childhood with them. I grew to know them and while I loved
them as parents, I could love them as people too. You did not have
that. It seems that for so many years I have suffered with
self-pity, but that was selfish. There are many out there, such as
yourself, who have experienced far worse than I have.”

“I will not demean your words, by trying to
disagree with you. You are correct in what you say. But remember
this, even as a child, I was fully aware of what responsibilities
would someday be mine. At four, papa and mama became mother and
father, because I was of a sufficient age to start maturing. I'm
fortunate that my father wanted to drill into me the strictures and
rules of being a Duke personally. He did not believe schools were
tough enough. So I was at least saved that. I suppose I'm trying to
say, that I was old beyond my years.

“You, however, were not. The ladies in
today's society are not bred to be older than their years. We keep
them young, keep their virtue safe and their knowledge small so as
to protect said virtue. We coddle and protect and shelter until
they're sitting ducks. So while I was young and just a child, you
may just as well have been.”

“T-thank you for that,” she replied
softly.

“You're welcome. But it wasn't a compliment.
It was the truth.”

“Where did they take you?”

Wolfe shrugged. “To a village outside of
London. Very anonymous if you're the Lord of the manor.”

“How many were there with you?”

“Too many. It varied. Naturally, some
children...changed quicker than others depending on strength of
will. Gerard, Jaegar and myself were three of the children that
seemed to be there the longest. By the time we all managed to
escape, there was no one there in the manor that had been there
with us from the start, if that makes sense.”

“How did you escape?”

“You are a curious monkey, aren't you?”

She laughed, but it was tinged with
sadness.

Having experienced such ecstasy, it seemed
strange to feel the contrasting emotion so deeply and so soon
afterwards. “Perhaps. But if I tell you the reason why, you'll
dislike me for it.”

Wolfe was silent for a moment, then almost as
though he were scanning his memories, he said, “You saw the
argument with Gerard when we first arrived here.”

“Your memory is fantastic.”

“Another talent,” he murmured modestly, but
spoiled it by chuckling.

“But, yes, I think I did.”

“Ah. Well, through ingenuity.”

She sighed and knew that that was all she
would hear.

“Do you mind awfully that I saw what
happened?”

“It is hardly thrilling for my worst moments
to be on repeat inside your cycle of dreams, but seeing as there is
little I can do, I shall endeavor to keep you occupied and so
tired, that when you sleep your dreams are either of me or so deep
because you're insensate. What do you say to that Isabeau
Hart?”

“Why Duke, I find your suggestion most
pleasing,” she murmured, and meant every word. Isabeau did not want
to know more. She already knew far too much about this intriguing
and beguiling man!

Instead of saying that though, she battered
her eyelashes at him and laughed as he growled and swept down to
capture her mouth and take her once more to the heavens they'd
explored earlier.

He rolled on top of her, kissing her with a
voracious hunger, devouring her mouth as if his life depended upon
it. Already, she could feel that delicious moisture creeping into
the depths of her being, readying her for him. Her sex clenched on
a spasm of pleasure, aching for fulfillment, for the delightful
stretch of his manhood deep inside her.

She kissed him just as eagerly, wanting and
craving more.

She stroked her hands up his massive arms,
around his corded shoulders and back, reveling in the play of
muscles that moved there. The hardness of his body enticed her,
made her want to explore every inch of him.

He gave a little gasp when she slid her hands
around his sides and moved down the ripples of his belly, past the
hard line of his hips. The lower she moved, the more tense he got,
and she found she enjoyed the jerk of his flat stomach as her nails
raked across his flesh.

Wedging her hand between their hips, she laid
hold of his cock, gripping it tightly. The moment her hand
encircled his thickness, he groaned and twisted off of her, lying
back on the bed.

She smiled devilishly, and stroked his
length, fascinated when a clear bead of liquid appeared from the
hole at the tip. She leaned close and with a move that stunned
herself with boldness, she snaked a tongue out and swiped it across
the satiny flesh.

He tasted salty, and she liked it.

“You imp,” he ground out, fixed and still as
she gave him a look that spoke volumes then decided to arouse him
more.

She found herself wanting to taste all of
him, and held his shaft firmly, sinking the mushroom head into the
depths of her mouth. He filled the moist space, making her choke
slightly, but the sound of that made his hips buck beneath her.

Pushing him down on the bed, trapping him
with one delicate hand, she suckled his manhood. Her sex clenched
enticingly at the power she held over him, the drugging look of
passion that made him look half asleep as he gazed down at her
ministrations with her mouth. She nearly came with just the heady
look in his eyes. She swirled her tongue around him, her saliva
running down his length to moisten her hand.

Experimentally, she rubbed her tongue on the
underside of the head, pleased when he groaned and grabbed the back
of her head with tight fingers.

“Gods, don’t stop with that wicked mouth of
yours,” he said hoarsely.

She smiled and hummed around him, then moved
her hand in a twisting motion on his cock. Each move she made only
seemed to make him harder, thicker in her mouth. She could do no
wrong with him at the mercy of her mouth.

A thrill raced through her, making the
moisture of her body cream her sex, make her ache for fulfillment,
but she found the anticipation and foreplay to be as entertaining
as the act itself.

He growled suddenly and sat up, dragging her
across him. She broke from his manhood as he settled her above him,
her bottom over his face and her knees around his head.

Looking back at the erotic image of
straddling his head, she was shocked when he grasped her buttocks,
spread her nether lips wide, and his mouth locked onto her clitoris
with a suddenness that nearly made her explode with intense
lust.

Wet heat spread through her body, making her
tighten, her nerves alight with pleasure.

She gasped and bent, taking him back into her
mouth as he speared her tight hole with his hot, wet tongue.

A moan tore from her throat. She sucked him
hard, twisting her hands around his massive length, tears of
pleasure dotting her eyes as he devoured her with his mouth.

He swept up her cleft, teasing her lips. His
chin rubbed her clit, the stubble of his jaw scraping the sensitive
flesh racketed up the intense sensation. She bucked against him,
but was held captive by his rough, huge hands tight on her cheeks.
His fingers rubbed the underside of each cheek, her thighs, pushing
her far apart so that he could enjoy her to the fullest.

Blood pounded in her veins and that hard
little nub. Her nipples rasped against his hard lower belly and the
hair that trailed there like an arrow to his groin. She rubbed
herself sensuously against him, enjoying everything that she could.
The taste of him, his heat, his mouth on her sex.

He nudged her puckered anus with a nibble of
his lips, and the movement shocked her. She stiffened, then jerked
when he swiped his tongue across the forbidden area, moving hand to
rub her wetness on the tight bud of her anus.

She tore her mouth from his length on a gasp,
her hands still gripping him tight.

“I would taste everything,” he said, his
voice muffled from behind.

A shudder rippled through her when he tongued
her bottom and lapped it with tickling motions. She did not think
that he could have done anything to increase her excitement more
than he already had, but having him in such a forbidden area made a
hard spasm tighten her belly.

“You drive me mad,” she groaned.

He released her and pushed her off of him.
She twisted around until they were face to face again. “You started
this,” he said.

She arched back into the pillows, tasting and
smelling of him. He moved between her soaked thighs, spreading her
lips with his fingers and replacing them with his engorged
erection.

Grasping her hips, he slid the length of his
thick cock against her jerkily, evoking a myriad of sinful shivers
to rake her body.

“Don’t tease me so, Wolfe,” she begged,
raking her nails along his shoulders and back.

He groaned and gave a push, and the thick
head of his cock glided inside her wet, willing channel with slow,
torturous movement.

She could feel every thick vein that wrapped
around his long girth.

She bit her lip, whimpering as he settled
ever so slowly in her depths. She clutched him with the snug grip
of her cunny, tension building inside her with his precise
moves.

Wolfe sucked a spot on her neck, drawing her
hips tight against him with powerful hands, then pulling back
before thrusting deep within her. She felt the thick head nudge a
sensitive spot inside her, grating against flesh so sensitive, she
cried out at the intensity of feeling.

Her nerves glowed with pleasure, veins
building a burning so intense, she thought she would die from it.
Fire flooded her, fueled by the fluttering beat of her heart and
the long, delicious strokes he pulled in and out of her.