Treasure of the Sun (22 page)

"I really don't think that having my throat cut has put me in the mood for any experiments."

"Trials," he reminded her. "Trials, not experiments. You're a lawyer, not a scientist."  

She tried to lift her chin and found she could not afford such defiance. The skin pulled, and she clutched her neck.

"See what happens when you try to argue with me?" He placed his hands on her shoulders and nuzzled the top of her head with his chin. "Dios, but I came too close to losing you. I would perform one of these trials, but tonight you're hurt and tired. Tonight you'll sleep with me."

"Sleep?" She struggled against him and he caught her before she fell off the mattress. "Really sleep?"

"Yes." He lifted the covers, and slid in. His body, all skin, no cloth, pressed against her. With one hand, he carefully lifted her head and put his arm under it. "Really sleep."

She was determined to ignore the diabolical man. She would ignore him, pretend she was asleep, even though she knew she could never sleep after the night she'd been through. She'd pretend to sleep. Pretend to sleep.

She dropped like a rock into a well: a long, dark descent. Rain wet her face. Fog obstructed her vision. She knelt in the dirt of the street.

She could hear the roar of the ocean muted by distance. She could hear people murmuring around her, and a woman screaming. She could really hear it. She was there.

She could smell the horse feces under her knee, but it couldn't mask that other smell. The smell of blood.

Someone lay in the mud, mouth open, jaw cocked askew. She couldn't see his features well. They were obscured by fog and a rhythmic spurting of blood. What she could see was a woman's hands on his throat, trying to hold the blood inside. The hands jerked with each stream that gushed out.

The sound of the waves seemed to be the sound of that blood, but the blood stopped, and the waves did not.

Those hands lifted away, and they were her hands. She turned them over and over, and she could feel it. All that blood so slippery. All that blood, so sticky. She looked down at the body, and it wasn't him.

It was a woman. A woman with blond hair bound tightly about her head and staring green eyes.

It was her.

Chapter 10

She came up fighting, trying to scream.

Awake at once, Damian grabbed her, but she slapped at him. "Mi vida, stop." Afraid she would fall from the bed, he tried to catch her shoulders. "Ah, please, nina, stop this." One wild hand clawed across his face and he jerked back. He caught the hand. "You're hurting yourself. Open your eyes. Catriona, open your eyes." He lay on her, using his body to curb her, and her eyes sprang open. There was no recognition in them. They were solid black disks, dilated with fear and terror. "Catriona." Trying her English name, he pleaded, "Katherine Anne, come back."

In a snap, she woke. She whispered, "Don Damian." Her tears surged from her. She sobbed, a loud and ugly sound. She made no effort to restrain herself; she pushed against him like a kitten seeking the warmth of its mother.

Clumsy with sympathy, he wrapped her up in his arms, trying to rub her back, pat her head, kiss her cheek, do anything that would cure her of despair. He murmured meaningless words, rocked her back and forth, performing by instinct his own mother's rituals of comfort. It seemed like forever before the hysterical note disappeared from her crying, even longer before she could say, in a hiccupy voice, "Please, I need to wipe my nose.”

He looked around frantically, but there was nothing close and he wouldn't let her go. "Use your sleeve," he ordered.

Her little sigh almost sounded like a chuckle, but she obeyed as if any other effort cost too much.

He murmured, "I was afraid you'd dream about Tobias." She looked at her nightgown as if it were repugnant to her now.

"Damn," he said in disgust. He unbuttoned the sleeves, unbuttoned the front. ''This is no time to worry about handkerchiefs."

"I didn't dream about Tobias." Docilely, she let him strip the nightgown away from her. "It was me."

Her hands were trembling, so were her lips. He pushed the skirt of the gown into her hands. "Use this," he said gruffly.

She buried her head in the soft cotton, the quaver of her voice muffled by the material. "I was dead. Someone killed me. Killed me with a black knife that dripped red. I sprawled in the street like a broken puppet. My eyes bled. My hair mixed with the mud and dripped with rain."

"Stop." He shook her wrist. "For God's sake, stop. This has been too much for you. You like to think you're invincible, but you are a sweet maiden who should be sheltered."

"Oh, Don Damian."

"Don't interrupt." Her crying slacked off and she peered at him from bloodshot eyes. "In the future, you'll stay close by me. I can't stand this kind of worry. I can't stand to live in crippling fear. Whether or not we like it, there seems to be a reason behind Tobias's death, and we need to discuss it."

Her hand reached out and touched his chest.

He froze. First her fingers, then her palm smoothed his pectoral, following the line of the muscle. Intently, she watched her hand, fixated by the motion and his involuntary contraction.

Pushing her hand back toward her, he said, "What kind of man would love a woman who'd just had the experiences you've had?" His breath caught. She held her nightgown wadded in her hands, and her body lay exposed. Her braid rested on her shoulder, her arms hid her breasts, the sheet-God knew where the sheet was. It wasn't doing what it should, of that he was positive.

When he jerked his gaze from her anatomy and wrestled it back to her face, he saw the way she looked at him. Wistful, sad. "No," he said. The hoarseness of his denial worried him, and he tried again. "No, Catriona, you're too weak."

She picked up his hand and kissed it.

"You've had a horrible experience. Look at the nightmare you just had."

Her tears still swept her cheeks. She whispered, "Make the nightmares go away."

"I can't."

She leaned forward and kissed the curve of his shoulder, ran her tongue along the ridge of his collar bone. Her tears wet him trickling down his breast bone. "Querida, you can't." He put his hand against her cheek and wiped away the moisture. "We can't."

She bit him lightly on the neck.

"Madre de Dios." His surrender was quiet as a breath, but she recognized it, and laid her head against him with a sigh. He cupped her head and placed her against the pillows. His voice broke as he said, "You are so fragile, and I almost lost you. You are so beautiful." He never thought of her blotchy face, her red eyes. He only thought of his Catriona, stretched beneath his hands, needing comfort and giving comfort by her very acquiescence.

"Let me touch you here." His palm stroked the moisture from her cheeks. "And here." He stroked down each arm, lifting her hands and kissing her fingers in a multitude of tiny pressures.

The tears halted under the influence of his adoration, and she kept her gaze fixed on his face as if he were the provider of all life. His eyes, dark with passion. His nose, strong and beaked. His chin, jutting with determination.

His palms skimmed her skin, trailing tiny sparks of sensation behind him. Pain, terror had no place between them. There was no room for anything but Damian and Katherine. He brushed away horror as he massaged her. A slow transformation led her from wide-open stares and shudders to the brief sighs of yearning. How did he do it? How could one man's calloused hands be so comforting, so erotic?

He whispered things, things one could shout on the street and no one would be shocked. But in his husky voice, rumbling with pleasure, they became a chant of worship.

When his palms molded her breasts, his eyes drifted closed, as if the combination of sight and touch were too much. He kept them closed as he leaned closer to nuzzle her lips, and his breath was as warm and sweet as the flutter of an evening breeze. His lips touched her eyelashes, her nose; they skimmed up her cheekbones and back down her chin. He caressed her lips, not kissing, but exploring the shape and texture. He moved to her neck, and her relaxation was so complete she let him touch it with his mouth. When he came up over her face again, his eyes were open and a faint smile brought the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth to life.

"I adore your body," he whispered with relish. "So relaxed, so sensual. Soft and feminine as I had never imagined. So accepting, yet giving me what I want. You trust me, don't you?"

Reveling in the luxury of his pampering, she rubbed her head against his hand. "I trust you. I told you I did." It was a pledge, a token that said far more than she realized. She saw the slash of his grin, and wondered belatedly if she should have prevaricated, but she couldn't work up the energy for alarm.

This was Damian. She did trust him, with her emotions, her body, her life if necessary.

The effort of holding her eyelids up became too much. Lazily she let them drop and considered the way he had encouraged her.

No longer did she jump in shock when he touched her. She wasn't doing anything.

She wasn't embarrassed or wondering what to do. She didn't feel constrained to give back what he gave her. With Damian, it was all right-more than all right, it was wonderful-to accept his gifts. He seemed to relish her acceptance of him, her acceptance of anything he chose to do.

She opened her eyes. His smile displayed his satisfaction, but she'd allow him that.

He had just performed a miracle.

He pressed a kiss to her ear, circling the shell with his tongue, following it with a breath. All over, her skin tightened. He murmured encouragement and lifted her wrists to his mouth. On first one and then the other, he kissed the spot where the pulse throbbed. "The heart of my beloved beats here. It's a precious spot." Holding her arms cradled in his, he kissed the inside of her elbow. "The heart of my beloved beats here. It's a precious spot." Moving up to her neck, he kissed the bandage and repeated the formula. He kissed between her breasts, kissed her stomach, her thighs, the arch of her foot. Turning her over, he kissed the delicate skin behind her knee, the curve of each buttock, the base of her spine. "The heart of my beloved beats here. It's a precious spot." In each place, she found it was true. Her heart beat there, accelerating, warming her, bringing every nerve to life. A string of kisses up her back, and he rolled her over again. Putting his forehead against hers, he looked into her eyes and vowed, "The heart of my beloved, the body of my beloved is precious. But the soul of my beloved resides here, inside her head, and that is most precious of all. When time has gone and we are no longer, still the soul of Katherine will be precious to the soul of Damian."

Her chest tightened; she couldn't breathe beneath the weight of his vow.

"Knowing that, you'll let me love you?" She sighed; it meant yes.

He understood perfectly and· his eyes widened. She was the one who didn't understand until he pressed closer in a slow dance of titillation. The roughness of his feet tangled with hers. The warmth of his legs covered hers. His thighs slid inside her thighs; one knee came up and pushed for a brief moment.

Her toes curled.

In deliberate tardiness, he lowered his groin against her stomach. Unnoticed by Katherine, a spiral of heat had already begun, ignited by his indulgence, his words. Now it grew, nourished by the proof that she excited him. He rocked against her, the length of him rubbing where his knee had been previously.

His arms held him up, and he assessed the reflection of her emotions as a master jeweler assessed the facets of an emerald. What he saw must have satisfied him, for he lowered his chest so the frost of his hair tickled her nipples. The weight of him compressed her. Briefly, she wondered why he had cut her of from the comfort of his hands and mouth; then the wave of response hit her. All of her skin against his, all of her self against his. All that exquisite stimuli, contained in the bone and sinew of one Damian de la Sola.

Had she ever felt stifled in the act of love? Now she felt covered, protected.

"Kiss me. Let me taste you."

His voice was an audible extension of himself, and as such excited her, intoxicated her. Her parted lips met his straight on. Their noses clashed. She tilted her head and their mouths settled together. His tongue touched her lips, wet them, dabbed at her teeth. They reminded her of the delicious kisses he had administered before-before she knew she liked them. She knew now, and she touched the tip of his tongue with hers. She felt the surge of his excitement. It was evident in his gasp, in the stir of his legs, in the growth of his manhood. Surprised by the reaction, she experimented with the stroke of her hand against his hip. He groaned and followed her tongue into her mouth.