Robin Schone (35 page)

Silver eyes were waiting for hers.

Slowly the silver shrank until all Victoria could see was Gabriel and a pale-faced woman reflected inside

his eyes. The images exploded in a burst of internal light.

A woman cried out; it was not followed by the cry of a man.

Slowly Gabriel’s face swam back into focus. Sweat beaded his face; agony laced his voice.
“J’en vous

encore.”

I need more.

Words filled her mouth, her soul. “Give me more, Victoria.”

More pleasure. More orgasms.

“Show me the light.”

Victoria opened her body and gave Gabriel what he needed.

More pleasure. More orgasms.

Memories to lighten the darkness.

Gabriel’s eyelids snapped open, heart pounding. Darkness blinded him; it smelled of sex and sweat.

Liquid heat pooled on his left thigh.

Instantly he remembered .. . pounding hot water. Suffocating steam. Victoria.

She had touched him.

She touched him still.

Her body lay curled in a ball against his left side, head pillowed on his shoulder, leg riding his thigh. The

liquid heat of her satisfaction saturated his leg.

His scalp tightened.

He could feel the second man; smell him over the scent of Victoria.

Gabriel had no weapons in either the nightstand or the armoire; his cane, along with the derringer, bowie

knife and Adams revolver were in his study.

He was Victoria’s only means of protection. And he was unable to protect her.

Rage chased fear.

Victoria had shown him light again and again; he would not let her die.

Gabriel carefully eased out from underneath Victoria’s head and her knee. Cold air evaporated the wet

heat that pooled on his left thigh; icy wood impacted his feet.

The darkness was his ally. If Gabriel could not see the second man, then the second man could not see

him.

Stealthily, he padded toward the study door.

The sensation of being watched dissipated, as if a door had closed.

Gabriel halted, every sense alert. He filtered out the smell of sex, the soft, rhythmical sound of Victoria’s

breathing, his heartbeat...

There was no one inside the room save for him and Victoria.

Now.

There was no doubt inside his mind that just moments earlier they had not been alone.

Gabriel had designed the bedchamber door to open into the study, so that no one could use the door to

hide behind inside the bedchamber. Someone could very well be hiding on the opposite side, however,

someone who waited for Gabriel to enter the study.

Someone armed with a knife or a gun.

Gabriel was not afraid to die. But he was suddenly, heart-stoppingly frightened for Victoria.

Inside the shower he had shown her how easy it was to
make a woman—or a man—beg for release; he

did not want her to learn how easy it was to make a woman—or a man—beg for death.

He flung the bedchamber door back, catching it just before it slammed the wall so as not to awaken

Victoria.

There was no one behind the door.

There was no one inside the study.

But there had been. The second man’s presence lingered in the air like cheap perfume.

The silver cane leaned against the couch; the Adams revolver and holster were draped over the blue

leather couch arm.

They were undisturbed, like Victoria’s sleep.

There was only one way to enter—or exit—his suite.

Gabriel yanked the Adams revolver out of the holster and strode across the carpet. He jerked open the

satinwood door.

Allen leaned against the wall, black hair gleaming with moon-silver highlights, black eyes alert.

Immediately, he straightened.

He was neither surprised nor embarrassed nor alarmed to find his employer standing before him naked

with a revolver in his hand: whores, pimps, beggars, cutthroats and thieves were not easily discomfited.

Whereas Gabriel was all too aware that Allen wore a holster underneath his black coat.

Had it been Allen instead of the second man who had entered his suite?

“Good afternoon, sir,” Allen said politely.

Afternoon.

“What time is it?” Gabriel asked sharply.

“After four, sir.”

Gabriel had instructed Gaston to find out everything he could about Mitchell Delaney, and to report to

him promptly.

Dread knotted his stomach. The killing would continue as long as the second man lived. “Where is

Gaston?”

“He tried waking you earlier, sir,” Allen said easily.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. No one had tried to wake him ...

Immediately he remembered where he had slept.

Gaston would have knocked on the study door, or perhaps not. But finding the study empty, he would not

have entered Victoria’s bedchamber.

Had it been Gaston whom Gabriel had sensed in the suite?

“When did Gaston try to wake me?”

“He has been here several times, sir.” Allen’s black eyes did not waver. “Most recently he was here an

hour ago.”

So it had not been Gaston who had awakened Gabriel.

Allen outwardly showed no interest in either Gabriel’s nakedness or the fact that he came from a

woman. But there was no mistaking the smell of sex.

Allen knew he had been with Victoria. Gaston, too, would have known where Gabriel slept, else he

would have awakened him.

The rumor that Gabriel had purchased a woman had already spread throughout London. The fact that he

had fucked her would spread even more rapidly.

Perhaps it was already spreading.

Gaston was the only other person with a key to his suite.

He could have given it to Allen. Gaston trusted the men and women whom Gabriel employed.

“Were you inside my suite today, Allen?”

Allen did not blink. “No, sir. I do not have a key, sir.”

The fewer keys to his suite, the fewer people who could be killed—or bribed—to obtain them. But there

had been someone ...

“How long have you been on guard?” Gabriel asked.

“Since noon, sir.”

“Where were you ten minutes earlier?”

“Here, sir.”

Gabriel could not afford to trust his employees as Gaston trusted them.

“That is impossible, Allen,” Gabriel said silkily, dangerously.

“No, sir, it is not impossible.” Allen’s gaze did not waver from Gabriel’s. “I was here, guarding you and

the woman as I was instructed to do.”

“Then how do you explain the fact that a man was inside my suite only minutes earlier?”

“I cannot, sir.” Anger glimmered inside Allen’s black eyes— anger and hurt. “Begging your pardon, sir,

but an intruder would have to enter your suite through this door. The only way he could do that was if he

killed me. We are loyal to you, sir.”

Allen’s anger could stem from the fact that Gabriel did not trust him. Or it could stem from the fact that

Gabriel had outwardly dismissed John and Stephen—no one knew that they were still in Gabriel’s employ,

not even Gaston.

Or Allen’s anger could stem from the fact that Gabriel had burned down his house six months earlier.

Anger, like a conscience, could be preyed upon.

Fear, too, could be preyed upon.

Gabriel had eaten, slept, pissed and shit these past years for the sole purpose of killing the second man.

The smell and the sight of him had tainted Gabriel’s every waking thought, his every dream.

The feeling of being watched when he awoke could have stemmed from a dream. The scent of him in

the dark bedchamber could have been conjured from memory.

Gabriel’s concern for Victoria
could be
making him
paranoid.

He could not afford to trust. To feel. To want.

To need.

But he did feel. He did want.

He did need.

History was repeating itself.

Six months earlier Michael had allowed his feelings for a woman to interfere with his judgment. Michael

would have been killed if Gabriel had not interfered.

Michael would have died because of a woman.

Michael might still die because of a woman.

Because of Victoria. A woman who had become a servant rather than be dependent upon a man who

belittled women; a woman who had sold her virginity rather than succumb to a man who victimized her

because of her virginity.

And now she was dependent upon Gabriel; victimized because of a man she had never met.

We do what we must in order to survive.

“Send Gaston up.” He hid the fear pumping through his blood behind the mask that was Gabriel. “I will

watch over the woman for the time it takes you to get him.”

“Yes, sir,” Allen said.

Gabriel remembered the feel of Victoria’s body pressed against his. She was so thin he could snap her

bones like twigs.

“Have Pierre prepare breakfast
à deux,”
he said abruptly.
I’ve never eaten pineapple. Is it sweet?
“

Tell him to include fresh pineapple. I will ring when I want the tray sent up.”

Gabriel did not wait for Allen to respond. He closed the door.

Victoria drew him toward the bedchamber.

Light from the window in the study sliced across the wooden floor. The scent of sex and sweat and

satisfaction permeated the air.

Hers. His.

Gabriel’s flesh immediately hardened.

Victoria lay as Gabriel had left her, damp hair spread over the pillow instead of his shoulder; leg

sprawled over the sheet instead of his thighs.

He remembered the silk of her skin, slick with water in the shower, slippery with sweat in his bed.

He remembered the wet silk of her hair and the heat of her buttocks between his thighs as he combed

through the tangles of their past.

He remembered the touch of Victoria’s finger on his testicles. The sight of Victoria tasting her finger

flashed through the darkness of his life, dark hair blackened by water, cheeks flushed with excitement, blue

eyes glinting in the electric light.

I would say you taste of. . .
les noix de
Gabriel.

No woman had ever played with him. They had climaxed for him, but they had not played with him.

They had not touched him.

They had not loved him.

Victoria’s eyelids popped open.

Blue eyes studied silver eyes, color blackened by darkness, need shadowed.

Victoria had witnessed his naked orgasm. And not once had she asked the question he could not

answer.

Gabriel had thought himself impervious: to pain, to pleasure.

To a woman.

Once again the second man had proven him wrong.

Gabriel tensely waited for Victoria to regret touching a homeless
fumier.

“I got your pillow wet,” Victoria said in a small voice. She sounded far, far younger than the

thirty-four-year-old woman Gabriel knew her to be.

“I’m not concerned about my pillow.”

“I got you wet.”

A sudden smile creased Gabriel’s face, secure in the knowledge Victoria couldn’t see the smile or the

vulnerability that lay behind it.

“Yes, you did,” he agreed solemnly.

“I’m wet now,” Victoria said guilelessly.

Gabriel had had two orgasms only hours earlier. He should not be hard. He should not want Victoria so

badly that his testicles ached.

She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman.

She was death in disguise.

“Show me,” Gabriel said silkily, knowing the danger of playing sex games but unable to resist the

temptation that was Victoria Childers.

“It’s dark,” Victoria reasoned. Gabriel pictured her teaching a silver-haired child; she would speak in

that same tone of voice. “You can’t see.”

“I can see.”

Gabriel could see the trap that was Victoria.

Gabriel could see that he had seriously underestimated the second man.

Victoria flipped the covers aside, bed squeaking, cloth rustling.

Her skin glowed like pale, polished marble. She had long, slender legs.

Gabriel had felt them wrapped around his waist; he wondered what they would feel like thrown over his

shoulders.

He could not help himself. He sat on the bed and touched Victoria, the perfect bait.

The wet heat of her fisted inside his groin.

Her clitoris was swollen with need.

Gently he slipped his finger between her lips and stared at the shadow that was her sex. The lips of her

labia furled around his middle finger, as they had furled around his cock only hours earlier.

She was so wet he could drown in her. She was so responsive that he wouldn’t mind dying inside her.

But there were more lives at stake than his own.

A tentative hand grasped his penis.

Gabriel stiffened, bracing himself. The expected memories did not come.

Gabriel would pay for the reprieve; he just didn’t know how.

He didn’t know when the second man would come to take away the gift of Victoria Childers.

A padded thumb swirled around the crown of his penis; the touch vibrated inside Gabriel’s chest.

“You’re wet, too,” Victoria whispered, unable to hide her excitement.

She was too new to sex games to draw out the arousal. Gabriel had been trained in sex games since he

was thirteen.

He concentrated on the changes he had created in Victoria’s body instead of the vulnerability she

inspired.

Her plump flesh was hot and swollen, from both his use and her desire. Her vagina was an open ring