The Tiger's Lady (55 page)

“No—” Dark and haunted, her eyes searched his face and read nothing but honesty and implacable determination there. “Im-impossible.” But the denial was softer this time.

And then suddenly the dark veil in Barrett’s mind parted and memory arced through her. It was all there, the whisper of cold wind, the white silent flakes drifting against a dark sky. The sense of a faceless danger lurking in the night.

And something else. A stone with a heart of flashing fire.

The ruby? Had she seen the Eye of Shiva on that long ago night?

She blinked, trying to push away the painful fragments working through her head.

But the images would not stop. Like angry birds they dove and fought and swarmed around her.

A shrill cry. The neigh of plunging horses as they burst from the darkness…

And a man, his features shadowed. A man with mahogany skin and onyx eyes. Dear heaven, could that man have been Deveril Pagan?

“It’s coming back, isn’t it?” Pagan’s voice was raw with triumph. “By heaven, how I searched for you after that night. I sent men from Whitechapel to Kensington, but the results were always the same. Nothing. No sign of a woman with ebony hair and a black veil. No clues at all.”

Barrett held her breath, afraid to believe him, afraid to yield even though the heat in her blood whispered that he was not lying.

She twisted against him, but the ledge was narrow and the only thing that held her upright now was the rigid wall of his chest and his granite thighs.

Dimly Barrett realized that her heart did indeed remember, and her body too. Not all, but enough. Perhaps they had always remembered, even while her mind was veiled in shadows.

She swayed, and Pagan dragged her against his chest. “I went crazy looking for you. I must have returned to that square a hundred times over the next weeks.” His voice turned harsh. “Where did you go?”

Stunned, Barrett tried to inch away. This was simply another one of his tricks! But suddenly she had to ask, had to know. “You—you looked for me?”

“Day and night for three weeks. I tried the docks, the hospitals, and every inn and lodging house within the area. But you seemed to have been swept from the very face of the earth.” Pagan’s face darkened, hard with memories. “And then—then I had to leave. The ruby was sold, my business done. I had no more reason to stay in London, when Windhaven needed me so badly. Can you forgive me for that?
”

The harsh plea clutched at Barrett’s heart. Could it possibly be true then? Had he cared for her so much?

“What … what do you want from me, Pagan?”

“Tell me that you remember. Something—anything at all.”

Barrett searched his face, seeking some chord, some resonance with her past. But all she saw was a face hardened with care, a face that carried terrible scars, both on the skin and beneath it.

All she saw was a man who had seen too much of life’s dark side, and too little of its good.

All she saw was Deveril Pagan.

And heaven help her, she loved everything she saw.

She swayed slightly, crushed by a wave of blind yearning. She was dangerously close to yielding, Barrett realized. In this time and in this place she knew it would be very hard to deny Pagan anything.

But she knew she had to try. What future could there be between them when she was just half a person and a nameless pawn in Ruxley’s lethal game?

Her fingers splayed open. Only then did Barrett realize they were no longer anchored against the rock face but were locked to Pagan’s naked chest. She quivered as the warm bands of muscle shifted and rippled beneath her fingers.

She wanted him.
And if he pressed her much longer, she would no longer be able to conceal it.

She forced her hands to rigid stillness. “I—I remember nothing. You must be mistaken. Besides, my hair is hardly dark, as your own eyes will certainly affirm.”

“But it was then, Cinnamon. You were running, in disguise no doubt.” But from whom? Pagan asked himself as he had so often before. And why?

This time he meant to have his answer, along with all the other answers he wanted.
Now.
Wrested from her naked, straining body.

“No! It—it must have been someone else. A different woman!” There was desperation in Barrett’s voice.

Pagan went still, thigh between her legs, hands locked to her wrists while her breasts rose and fell with wild, tormenting friction against his chest. “Don’t lie to me,
Angrezi,”
he said harshly. “You can never hope to succeed.”

“I’m not lying!” Barrett stared back in tremulous defiance. “I don’t remember—neither you nor anything else!” More lies, but these were necessary, she told herself. She must never offer him encouragement, for this hard-eyed predator would not fail to turn any weakness to his own advantage.

With a hoarse oath, Pagan twisted, driving her down beneath him onto the granite slab. Overhead the waterfall hissed down in a silver curtain, misting them with spray, shutting them off from the outside world. “You’re lying,
Angrezi.
And I’m going to prove it.”

A quiver rocketed through Barrett as Pagan’s massive body pinned her to the stone. His eyes were burning, his face taut with determination and something far darker. She knew her strength was no match for his, but what else had she to counter him with?

Pagan’s velvet assault intensified. He savaged the line of her collarbone and tongued his way along the sensitive hollows above, tasting the flare of her pulse with open, questing lips. “I’ll
make
you remember, Cinnamon. Before I’m done you’ll know everything about that night.”

For an instant fear swept through Barrett. Night, full of shadows and faceless phantoms. Hollow, pounding footsteps. Hands grabbing from the darkness…

She shuddered, closing her eyes before the piercing images.

But more followed. Pain. Nausea. Raw, searing helplessness.

No, don’t think! Better to push it down deep, where you can’t find it!

Pagan’s mouth moved upon her neck, urgent and hot. “Don’t fight it,
Angrezi.
Good or bad, the past is part of you. Just as
this
is part of you.”

“I—I can’t, Pagan. Don’t make me! You—you don’t understand!”

“Understand? No, by heaven, I don’t! But I will, Cinnamon. Oh yes, you can be certain of that.”

Barrett heard him groan and knew that he was studying the pebbled crests outlined beneath her damp camisole.

She could bear no more! With every second the dark memories inched nearer, and her traitorous body came closer to yielding.

She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting to deny his heat and the heat that he kindled in her. But even with her eyes closed she felt his devouring gaze, hot as a lover’s caress.

Not that this dark thing between them could be called
love,
Barrett thought wildly.

But it was no use. He was winning. She could feel the reckless hunger begin, slow and insidious, in the satin recesses of her body. Once again he was making her feel things she should not feel, want what she should not want.

Barrett’s breath caught in a sob. She shoved wildly at his chest. “Don’t—don’t do this to me, Pagan. I—I don’t
want
to remember!”

There, it was out at last. She was glad he knew, glad that she had faced the truth herself.

His voice was oddly gentle. “I know that,
meri jaan.
I’ve known it for a long time now.” His eyes were unreadable, even at this close distance. “But you need the answers as much as I do, and today we’re going to find them.”

Barrett twisted desperately, all too aware of the leashed power of his body, the straining heat of his manhood against her belly. Sensation overwhelmed her and she realized she was near to breaking.

Suddenly so perilously near…

“S-stop, Pagan!”

But the hard-faced man before her gave no sign of hearing. “Try to tell me you don’t feel it too. Tell me you don’t like it when I touch you like this.”

Barrett stared back, her cheeks swept with color. She tried to say the words of denial, but her eyes wavered before the steely force of his own.

Driven by an errant breath of wind, the jasmine and bougainvilleas pitched to and fro, scattering red and white petals across her ivory skin. Barrett shivered, covered in perfume. Steeling herself to the insidious beauty spilling around her,
through
her, she started to speak, to deny what she was feeling.

But she never got a chance.

For at that moment Pagan leaned down and began to tongue the fragile blooms away, one by one, his mouth hot and hungry against her flushed skin.

Barrett tensed, shoving at his chest, but somehow the protest on her lips emerged as a moan of pleasure.

The soft, breathless cry made Pagan’s eyes smoke. “Next time I’ll take you in rose petals,
Angrezi.
” With raw hunger he anchored her wrists to the rock beside her head and slid his thigh between her parted legs. “After that I’ll have you in jasmine and lilies. None of them will do justice to the naked silk of your skin.”

Beneath them the moss was soft and cool, water lapping gently against stone. But Pagan’s hands were hot, infinitely hot. “Think of you in silk gauze and little golden bells, with jewels spilling over your naked skin. Think of perfume in the night and our bodies merging, velvet upon steel, heat thrust into heat. Then look at me and tell me you don’t want all of that. If you can, I’ll let you go this second.”

Barrett squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think, tried not to imagine how it would feel. But with every ragged heartbeat the forbidden images sharpened, growing unbearably real.

And suddenly she knew it would be all he said and more. How could she fight him?

“Still you will not speak? Still you push down these memories and trap your feelings?”

Without warning Pagan’s fingers dropped, wrenching her breeches open and surging beneath to feather the curve of her belly.

His gaze smoldering, Pagan slid his thigh up and down in a slow, tormenting rhythm. He watched her shiver with rising need, then slowly brought the rough pad of his thumb downward.

Barrett’s eyes flashed open. Every nerve, every muscle in her body sprang to electric awareness as his finger neared its goal. A moan tumbled from her lips as fire uncoiled in a rich, sensuous path, radiating out from those strong, stroking fingers.

And then in one wet slide he filled her.

No, he could not—she
must
not!

She burst to life beneath him, biting and twisting and clawing, desperate to prevent his claiming, for a claiming she knew it would be, far fiercer than anything she had ever known.

Around them the air seemed to shimmer, their bodies locked in a struggle as old as time.

“Give me your passion,
Angrezi.
Show me the woman you were there in the snow. The woman I could never forget.”

Water brushed across the granite slab, lapping at their feet and fingers.

Close, so close, the images burned.

Barrett’s heart leaped. Tendrils of memory swept over her, dim still…

That was when she realized that with the yielding would come the remembering, and in its wake she would be crushed by pain.

Move!
she told herself desperately.
Hold it back!

She arched and wrenched, but the movement only drove the flushed points of her nipples against Pagan’s chest. Brought her closer to the velvet power of his restless fingers buried deep inside her.

His gaze fell to the shadowed peaks upthrust against the fragile barrier of her bunched camisole. Desire swept his face, stark and raw, but something told Barrett that his need went far beyond mere physical hunger.

Barrett’s breath caught. Pinned beneath him, opened to his hot invasion, she felt a slow storm begin to build at the focus of his fingers, arcing out like heat lightning from nerve to nerve, limb to limb. Soon her whole body burned, inside and out.

For him, only for him.

And he knew it, damn him.

The only sound around them was the splash of the waterfall and the restless rustle of straining fabric. Pagan watched her in harsh silence, a muscle flashing at the clenched line of his jaw.

Abruptly his finger stilled, buried strong and hard within her sleek heat. He made her wait and watched her wait, watched her tremble as her body turned traitor, soft and wanting beneath him.

In that moment he made her want him, just as he had promised he would.

Barrett’s dry lips quivered. The hunger was part of her now, squeezing through blood and bone. She raised her hips and squirmed mindlessly. “Pagan—” Freed now, her hands twisted, hammering at his chest in helpless fury.

In mindless need.

“Tell me,
Angrezi.
Say it. I want
all
of you, and that includes the memories.”

“I—oh, , no—”

“Say you want me. Say you want
this.”
His fingers moved, feather light.

“I—damn you, Pagan!” Shadows and smoke. Fire mixed with clawing fear. Why did they always twine together in her mind? “L-let me go!”

“Very well. If that is your choice.” He eased slowly from her tight, sheathing velvet, his face a granite mask.

But Barrett discovered then that the emptiness was worse than the fear. She squeezed her eyes closed, sinking her nails into his tensed shoulders.

At her wild movement Pagan’s eyes turned to smoke. “Open your eyes, falcon. Open your
mind.
Look at me when I love you. Look at me when your body burns.”

Fire flared through her cheeks, but Barrett did as he ordered, able to think only of the sleek power of his touch.

“How clear you wear your passion. Rare, so rare. And it makes me wish—” Abruptly Pagan’s jaw clenched and he bit down what he would have said next.

And then his thumb rose, parting her sleek heat in search of a forbidden goal. Slowly, carefully, he eased deep until he found the tiny velvet ridge that throbbed beneath his feathering touch.

Barrett’s breath hissed out in a rush. She arched like a cat, mindless and wanton, thinking of impossible things like trust and hope.

Like forever.

But these were things that could never be. Not between enemies such as they.