Heart of Brass (25 page)

His mouth took hers, hard and insistent. She clutched at his lapels. Were there any space between them she would have pulled him closer.

The hooks at the back of her gown let go, one by one, under the nimble attack of his fingers. Arden made no move to stop him. She had no intention of stopping this, even though part of her brain screamed that it was a mistake—that it was too fast, too soon. When the gown gaped around her, she dropped her arms and stepped back from his embrace to let it fall to the floor around her feet. She stood before him in her drawers, chemise and a violet satin corset that pushed up her breasts and nipped her waist in a most flattering fashion.

Luke stared at her, eyes bright as crystal caught by the sun as he shucked off his jacket and waistcoat. The fine linen shirt beneath was another of his old ones, and it pulled tautly across his shoulders. He grabbed two handfuls of it and pulled it over his head.

Moisture leeched from Arden’s mouth—and she had a pretty sound idea of where it was going. His chest was as smooth as she remembered, but his abdomen was more muscular, his waist narrower. His shoulders were broader with heavier muscle. She was wrong—he didn’t have shoulders like David.

David should be so bloody lucky.

He reached for her and she went willingly, trailing her fingers down the fine line of hair that drifted downward from his navel. Her lips brushed his with the lightest of touches before she turned her back to him. “Unlace me?”

Those agile fingers went to work on her stays. She shivered, gooseflesh covering her arms as his teeth nipped at her bare neck. The corset fell to the floor, but before she could kick it aside, Luke’s hands slid up her belly, over her ribs to the ribbons of her chemise. Two tugs and it fell away as well. Those same warm fingers cupped her breasts and gently squeezed her nipples, bringing a tormented moan to her lips.

Too long. It had been far too long.

As the thin fabric slid down her arms she heard him make a low sound in his throat. His hands stilled, still holding her breasts.

“What?” she demanded, annoyed that he had stopped.

“When did you get this tattoo?” His voice was soft, and hoarse.

He must mean the small wing on her right shoulder. It was the only decoration she had other than her chains. “On our honeymoon in India. You wanted me to have something to remember it by forever.”

“It seems you were with me even when I didn’t know it.” He dropped his hands and she turned around as he did, presenting her with his bare back.

Arden made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a sob. There, on the back of Luke’s left shoulder was a tattoo of a wing. The ink wasn’t as faded, and it was larger by design, but there was no denying that it was the mate to hers, right down to the number of feathers.

“I got it four years ago when I was in India on assignment. An old woman in—”

“Calcutta,” she finished, tears blurring her vision. The same old woman who had done hers.

He turned. “Yes.”

She threw herself at him and he caught her, lifting her. She wrapped her legs around his waist as she kissed him with all the emotion she couldn’t possibly put into words burning in her chest, threatening to split her apart.

Part of him had remembered her
.

Luke turned and took a few steps. The ivory wallpaper was cool against her bare back, and Arden dug her shoulders into it for support.

His hand came between them, slipping easily through the slit in her drawers so that he could touch her. Arden gasped at the contact. She wanted his fingers inside her—anything that might ease the ache. He slid one inside and she moaned, her head pressing into the wall as she arched her neck. His other arm slid underneath her, holding her so that he could tease her into a tense spiral of wet heat while his mouth sucked hard on one of her nipples.

Arden rode his hand, bringing herself to the brink of orgasm just before his fingers eased away. She opened her mouth to demand that he put them back, but then she felt his forearm against the inside of her thigh and she realized he was unfastening his trousers.

When he returned to her it was with something bigger and smoother than his fingers. The blunt head pressed against her dampness, making her tense with anticipation. Slowly, he pushed forward, and her body opened to him, stretched with such a delicious ache as he filled her.

“Open your eyes.” His voice was rough, low.

Her lids were heavy, but she pushed them open to stare into the bright, clear depths of his eyes.

Then he pushed and filled her completely, driving her shoulders farther up the wall.

“Do
not
close your eyes,” he commanded. “I want you to look at me.”

Arden’s belly tingled at his words, the need inside her twisting and churning. She kept her gaze glued to his as they began to move together, instantly matching rhythm. The intensity of his expression, the stark desire in his eyes aroused her far more than anything she’d ever experienced before. It was like making love with a stranger who was somehow so very familiar. Exciting yet comfortable, dangerous yet completely safe. She could do anything with this man, and let him do anything to her, even though it was as if they’d never done this before.

She clung to him as the tension in her mounted, gripping him with her thighs as they thrust and pushed. Faster and faster, harder and harder. She didn’t care when she banged the back of her head on the wall. He grunted when she dug her fingernails into his shoulders, but it only made him thrust deeper.

She came with a loud cry of triumphant thanks to whatever gods were in charge of carnal bliss. Luke followed shortly after, pressing her hard against the wall as his entire body stiffened. She held him tightly as the spasms rocked through him, and then draped herself limply over his shoulder as he carried her to the bed.

She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

The lines of his face were still a little harsh, but there was humor in his eyes. And heat. So much heat. “Thank me later. I’m not done with you yet.”

Chapter 13

Luke woke up alone.

He glanced over his shoulder at the expanse of bed at his back, then propped himself up on his elbow to survey the room, but Arden wasn’t there. All that was left of her was a single silk stocking hanging limply from the footboard.

He’d never had a woman leave him before. “Arden?” No reply. She was well and truly gone then. The realization left a strange hollow feeling in the pit of his belly. If she’d left a few quid on the bedside he didn’t think he’d feel much more whorish than he did right then. He’d scratched her itch and now she was off doing whatever it was she did in this mausoleum of a house all day.

Although it was apparently his mausoleum. No wonder it had felt familiar to him. No wonder he’d climbed to her bedroom so easily that first night—instinct had taken over.

Just as some part of him had known to get that tattoo. He could still feel the soft brush of Arden’s lips against the ink feathers. He shivered. She had wanted him with a ferocity that matched his own. He’d never wanted to be inside a woman so desperately in all his life—not that he could remember anyway. Perhaps it had always felt like that with her. God help him, but he didn’t think he could manage three goes that close together again on a regular basis. Usually he liked to take his time, make the climax as good as possible, then pass out. But with Arden, he felt like a boy again—randy and eager. He came too quick but was ready for business again in a few moments. She hadn’t seemed to mind though, her orgasms outnumbering his.

Christ Automaton, but she was a sexual machine. She matched him thrust for thrust, against the wall, on her knees, on top of him. When he’d let sleep claim him he had thought for certain she would do the same, but if she had, she hadn’t slept for long.

He glanced at the clock on the mantel. Four o’clock. He’d been asleep for a little over an hour. At least his headache was gone.

Perhaps his wife had taken that with her.

His wife. It was the first time he thought of her that way without immediately feeling a sense of surprise. It was as though shagging her had somehow made it all more real. She was his now, and she would never belong to anyone else so long as he lived.

He had to make certain they both lived. That meant defeating the Company, a task far easier said than done, but if they could survive this immediate threat, there was a good chance they could have a future.

The thought of spending the rest of his days with one woman, in one place, used to scare the shite out of him. Before he had remembered who he was, he couldn’t stay in one place longer than a few weeks before the urge to roam came upon him.

Perhaps that urge had simply been homesickness, only he hadn’t known it at the time.

Tossing back the covers, he slipped out of bed and walked naked to the wardrobe where he found, in addition to several shirts, a vast collection of waistcoats, a few jackets and a thick velvet robe that he slipped on. At least it fit better than the rest of his old clothing.

He went to the shared bath and turned the faucets for the tub before turning the crank on a strange radiator-like device he deduced was to warm towels or clothing. He placed a heavy towel on it once the tub was full, and slowly sank into the bath. It was a decadent luxury he enjoyed until his skin began to wrinkle.

A little while later, he was dressed in another pair of trousers and a shirt that fit tolerably well. He shoved his feet into a pair of boots that felt like they had been expressly made for him, and realized that they probably had been. Then he went downstairs looking for his missing spouse.

The first maid he stumbled upon stared at him as though he was a ghost—all wide-eyed and pale. She told him that it was most likely Lady Huntley was in her workshop around the back of the house, as that’s where she spent much of her time. Then she gave him directions, and when he asked, replied that she would indeed ask Mrs. Bird to send along tea and sandwiches.

When he reached the building he assumed to be the workshop, he knocked and waited for her to grant him entry before walking in. It was a large room and neat as a pin. It had to be, for there were so many bits of machines, strange devices and tools that it would be an indecipherable mess were it less organized.

And in the middle of it was his wife. Arden stood at a long table on the right wall of the room tinkering with something that looked like a Roman centurion helmet made for a Cyclops.

She looked up, her cheeks flushing softly when she spied him. She looked softer to him—less stern. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was until I woke up alone.” He smiled at the “governess” clip to her words, and closed the distance between them. “What are you working on?”

“Nothing, yet,” she replied, glancing down at the helmet. “But when it’s done I hope it will be a sort of memory receptacle.”

“For me?”

She shrugged. “If you want.”

There was something in the way she said it. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Its design is more for storing memories than reviving them, and not all memories are pleasant—as I’m sure you know.”

“How could I possibly have unpleasant memories after spending the last seven years under the control of an agency whose sole purpose was to use me as an instrument of death?” He hadn’t meant to sound quite so bitter—or amused. Those things he’d done were very real, and yet they seemed to have been the acts of another person. Regaining even just a little of his memory had changed him. He wasn’t the Lucas Grey she remembered, but he wasn’t Five anymore either. In fact, it was a little overwhelming just to know he had a name.

Arden lifted her head and turned those big brown eyes of hers to his. “Did they make you do many horrible things?”

“I’ve got blood on my hands, yes. Whether or not the Director will hang me for it remains to be seen.” At that moment, looking at her and seeing no judgment in her expression, he realized that he did not want to die. After years of not caring, it felt oddly terrifying to suddenly have a reason to want to live.

“You’re not going to hang.” She used a wrench to tighten a bolt on the side of the helmet. “I won’t allow it.”

Luke chuckled. “Break me out, will you? Ferry me away to the far corners of the earth where they’ll never find me?”

Her jaw was set as she turned to him. Such a fierce little warrior. “If necessary, yes.”

“Why?” He was genuinely confused, and didn’t bother to hide it. “Why would you risk so much for a man you barely know anymore?” There, it was out in the open. They were more strangers than anything else. Strangers who were practically obsessed with each other. “Surely not just because you think you owe me anything?”

The helmet fell on the bench with a clatter as the full force of Arden faced him, hands on her hips. “Because you are my husband. Because you could have killed me on several occasions and yet you did not—not because I stopped you, but because you couldn’t do it. And because even though the Company tried to obliterate me completely from your mind, you got a tattoo from an old woman in Calcutta that matches that of a woman
you
barely know anymore.”

Luke stared at her, a peculiar tightness in his chest. “I don’t see how a man could ever entirely forget a woman like you.”

She caught her breath. “You say these things and all I want to do is take you inside me and never let you go.”

He understood, even as his body reacted to her words. Theirs was such a strange and unique situation that it was difficult to know how either of them felt, let alone understand it. Physical attraction was the one thing they had that needed no explanation or apologies. And maybe if he made her come hard enough, often enough, she’d stop being angry at him.

Because she was angry—even if she didn’t know it. He could see it in her eyes, feel it when she had dug her nails into his flesh. She was so very angry, and he couldn’t blame her. He was angry too. He’d lost seven years of his life—seven years that had been taken from her as well. The only difference was that she had been aware of it every damn day.