Chapter 6
Liling peered through the window. "The clouds out there look very dark." Lightning dashed, and she drew back with a visible flinch.
"I had thought the weather would be clear for the flight." Valentin pressed the intercom button on the side console. "Is there a problem?"
"We've encountered an unexpected storm, sir," the pilot replied over the cabin speaker. "We're ascending to avoid the worst of it. You should keep your seat belts fastened until we're clear."
"Thank you." He didn't care for how the pilot's voice had quavered, as if he were as nervous as Liling. He looked across to her and noted how her color had changed and her lips were pressed together. "It should be over in a few minutes."
Liling nodded, but her eyes stayed fixed on the window.
The turbulence increased until the jet bounced as if it were on springs. Liling lost her grip on her teacup, which flew across to smash against Valentin's chest.
"Mr. Jaus." She fumbled with her seat belt before she knelt in the space between their seats. She brushed away the broken bits of porcelain and pressed her linen napkin against the quickly spreading stain. "Did it cut you? Are you hurt?"
"I'm only a little wet." Seeing her like this, on her knees in front of him, made his dents acérées ache.
"That tea was so hot." She pressed her full lips together as she lifted the napkin to look beneath it before her anxious gaze moved up to his face. "It must have scalded you."
Oh, he was burning, but the tea was nothing compared to her touch, her scent, the midnight delights beckoning to him from the darkness in her eyes. Just as it had last night, the tantalizing perfume of her skin, like sun-warmed peaches, filled his head, his thoughts, his blood. He bent, wondering if her lips would feel as soft and sweet as her breath against his skin.
"Valentin?" Liling's lips parted on his name.
If you kiss her, this time you will take her.
"It's nothing. Miss Harper." As Valentin rose, he reached down and gently lifted her, placing her back in her seat. "I keep a change of clothing in the back cabin," he told her as he fastened her seat belt over her lap. "Please excuse me for a moment."
Valentin focused on regaining control as he walked into the back cabin. He felt nothing for Liling, just as she felt nothing for him. The turbulence must have triggered his defensive instincts; his shedding so much scent in such a confined space would have bespelled any human. By the time he changed and calmed himself, the effect of l'attrait on her would wear off, just as it had last night outside the museum. Liling would never realize how close she had come—twice—to being ravaged by his endless, cursed hunger.
He didn't bother with the lights; like all Darkyn he didn't need them to see. Shrugging out of his jacket, he pulled off his tie and reached for the first of the buttons. As always, they resisted his one-handed efforts to unfasten them. It infuriated him to be so clumsy, even as he knew there was nothing to be done about it. He might be a cripple, but he would be damned if he would be reduced to having someone else dress him.
The shirt was new, the Fabric around the buttons stiff and unyielding. Viciously he tore at the front of it, sending buttons flying as he ripped it from his body.
"Mr. Jaus? I found a towel and a first-aid kit in the rest-room." The door to the cabin opened, and a small shadow blocked out the light shining in from the center cabin. "Do you need some help? There's some burn cream here."
"I am not burned." He didn't want her to see the flash of his fangs, which had sprung into his mouth the moment he had heard her voice. "Thank you, Miss Harper. Please go back to your seat before we encounter more turbulence."
"This was my fault." Liling looked down at the buttons on the carpet around his feet and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "Please let me help you." She put her hand on his useless arm. "It's the least… I can…" She went silent as her fingertips brushed over the long, narrow recess in his flesh.
The place where Thierry Durand had brought down his blade and severed Valentin's arm from his body.
The towel fell from Liling's other hand as she gently traced the length of his scar, following it all around his arm. "How did this happen to you?"
"It was an unfortunate accident." He turned his head so he would not see the pity in her face. "There was only so much the physician was able to do to repair it."
"When did you have the reattachment surgery?" Her voice sounded thin and strained.
"Some time ago." He hated her seeing him like this, only half a man. He did not want to face her sympathy or her revulsion. "I am partially paralyzed, Miss Harper, not helpless. You may leave me to deal with this."
Instead of hurrying away, Liling stepped closer, bringing her other hand up to the scar, spanning it with all of her fingers. She bent forward and brushed her lips against the recess of flesh.
Valentin went still. "What are you doing?"
Her lips moved against his scar, but whatever she said was lost in the accompanying rush of sensation. Human warmth, effortless and beautiful, wrapped around his cool flesh and sank into him, until he thought he could feel it seeping into his very bones.
No lover, human or Kyn, had ever touched him like this.
The subtle curve of Liling's cheek brushed his shoulder as her small hands slid down to become the gentlest of bracelets. She looked up at him, tears making her black eyes wet.
"I'm sorry." That was what she was saying. "I'm so sorry."
Sympathy had always angered him, but hers only made him wish she had been there the night he had lost the duel with Thierry. Her touch might have saved him then.
It was too late now.
Valentin tried to move away from her, but discovered that he didn't want the moment to end. Before she could speak of her pity again, he brought his good arm up around her narrow waist, curling it around to pull her closer.
"No," he murmured when she stiffened. "Stay."
He closed his eyes as Liling relaxed and rested her hands on his chest, where the warmth followed and lingered, surrounding the cold stone of his heart.
He held her for as long as he dared, until the need to taste her became a beast clawing and writhing inside him. Then, very carefully, he took her hand and brought it to his lips.
That her compassion aroused him as much as her beauty made him even more disgusted with himself. "You should be careful. You don't know what you do to me, mein Mädchen."
"I'm touching you," she said, her voice low and shy. "I wish I could do more."
Valentin despised himself for using his talent, but it didn't stop him from asking her, "What more do you want?"
"I'd like to kiss your mouth." Her fingers turned in his, pressing against his lips. "And put my hands on you, and move them all over you. I want to be naked with you. I've thought about how it would be. How you would make me feel. I've dreamed of you with me, in my bed, and then I wake up all alone and shaking."
"You cannot desire me." He could not believe her words. L'attrait compelled her to make such claims, not her heart. "Tell me the truth. Liling. Now."
"I've wanted you since the first time I saw you," she answered, the words leaving her lips with halting reluctance, as if she fought saying them. It was the same with every human he compelled to tell him something they considered a shameful secret. "It was when you brought Luisa the camellias for the first time. I saw you and thought you were a prince out of a fairy tale. Then you spoke to her, and I knew that you were better than a prince. You treated Luisa with such kindness and respect." She swallowed. "I envied her your friendship."
Valentin's hand trembled as he slid it over her hair to cradle the back of her head. "Why did you never say anything to me?"
"You're an important man," she whispered. "I'm only a gardener. I knew I could never be with you."
"Liling." He kissed her forehead, the bridge of her nose, the curl of her upper lip, the curve of her jaw, and breathed in the luscious scent of her. "You were wrong."
Liling felt time stop, as if she would spend the rest of eternity held there, against Valentin's bare chest, her mouth tingling from the touch of his breath. She had just told him things she never wanted him to know, heard the words pour from her lips without hesitation. As if it meant nothing to confess her most private fantasies to a virtual stranger. How could she have done it? The weight of the humiliation alone should have crushed her.
But it was what he had said that smashed through the glass walls of her shame.
You were wrong.
He wanted her. Somehow, some way, this man felt the same attraction, the same longing.
"I don't believe it," she said, more to herself than him.
"Why not?" he murmured, tugging at her braid. "Each time you looked at me, mein Mädchen. I looked back."
"But I know who you are." She couldn't fit herself into this puzzle. "Luisa told me that you own the Lighthouse, and that you live in a mansion on the lakeshore. You own corporations, and you have chauffeurs and servants, and you—" She stopped and shook her head. "You could have any woman in the city. Any woman you want. Why would you even notice someone like me? I'm a gardener, I have no family, no money. I'm not American. I'm… I'm not even white."
"So?" He sounded amused. "I am not Chinese, and you noticed me. I will tell you a secret." He bent his head. "I am not American, either. I am Austrian."
Liling couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. "This is not happening. People like you and I don't… This is crazy."
"Is it." His fingers deftly worked her hair free and smoothed it across her back. "I adore this hair of yours. It feels like a cloak of black silk."
Her hand went to her hair as if to hide it. "I keep forgetting to trim it."
He caught her chin with his hand. "Never cut a single strand."
"It grows very fast." She caught her breath as his hand encircled her throat. "It would end up dragging on the floor. Mr. Jaus—"
"You are in my arms, Mädchen," he said. "My name is Valentin." When she didn't reply, his fingers tightened. "Say it for me."
Her mouth went dry. "Valentin."
His body vibrated against her, as if something inside him was breaking loose, and then he hoisted her up, his arm under her buttocks, and turned, taking her to the back of the cabin. She hadn't realized there was a bed until he laid her down upon it. The surface of the coverlet, something incredibly soft, teased the back of her legs as he stripped her jeans and panties from them.
"If you do not wish me to tear your shirt," he said, reaching for the front of his own trousers, "you must take it off."
Lost in a haze of passion and camellias, Liling found herself pulling her T-shirt over her head. He didn't wait for her to unfasten her bra, but yanked down the cups. They pushed her small breasts up higher, making them into an offering.
She didn't think he could see her, the cabin was so dark, but he stared down at her as if there were a thousand candles around them.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the cabin for several seconds. In the harsh white light, Liling saw Valentin's body. Broad, tight muscle and thick ropes of tendons bulged under his pale skin, which the storm gave an almost luminous glow. If he had been a statue, chiseled by a master's hand from a single block of flawless moonstone, he could not have been more perfect.
He was not a statue, however, but an aroused male, hard and eager for sex. His penis, thick and erect, testified to the fact as it strained in a swollen arc against his lower belly. A shiver went through her at the thought of being impaled by him, and then the folds between her legs ignored her fear and went damp as they throbbed and ached, as if he were already there, pushing himself inside her.
As much as she wanted that, shame swelled inside her heart. After they arrived in Atlanta, she would have to leave immediately for Florida, and have no contact with people who had known her as Liling Harper. She would never see him again.
This could be only a one-night stand.
His fingers caressed her cheek. "Don't be afraid of me. Liebling. I will never hurl you."
Tired of her own doubts. Liling pushed herself up, reaching for him as he came down for her. He lifted her from the bed just as the plane jolted, standing up with her, and she wrapped her legs around him, clinging instinctively to his powerful frame. Only after a moment did she feel the satiny dome there, nestling against the delicate recess between her thighs.
Liling turned her face to his, seeing that the pale blue eyes she had always thought so cold had changed, becoming lustrous and piercing, the pupils elongating. Bathed in the heady perfume of a thousand unseen camellias, she loosened her grip on his neck, sinking against him, enveloping the blunt head of his shaft, saturating it with the silky wetness seeping out of her slit as he stretched her wide.
He supported her weight, going no further than she had taken him, keeping her poised on the very tip of his sex.
"Is this what you want. Liling?" His voice had gone so deep and thick the words sounded slurred. "For me to fuck you before I even kiss you?"
His language and his question didn't frighten her; they freed her. She had taken lovers—she was no stranger to sex—but the men she had been involved with had treated her like one of her flowers, as if she might break if they did anything more than cuddle and pamper her. For once she wanted to be treated like a real woman instead of a doll.
To be like the women she was in her fantasies.
His strength and size excited her on a level so deep and hidden she hardly recognized her own longing. She needed him to be strong for her, to take instead of ask, to hold on to her and take control by making her his. They had only this night, so she would let him do anything to her that he wished. She also suspected that if she tried to explain her feelings that the words might repel him.
She had to show him with her body.
Liling brushed her lips over his in a brief, sweet touch that made him inhale sharply. Then she slid her hands down to his shoulders, allowing the weight of her body to say what she could not, to surrender to him what he would not take.
This was what she had wanted, but even her secret desires had not prepared her for what followed: for blasting through the boundaries of polite sexual conduct, for how his penis stabbed into her softness, so deep and hard that there seemed no space left inside her body that he did not claim with his own. The intimacy of his penetration, of taking him so ferociously, was every bit as stunning as the power of how it felt.
"Wait, please." She bit her lip, trying to adjust both mind and body as her muscles clenched around him. The fantasy of surrendering herself to a powerful man had never included so many new sensations. The wanton slickness of her sex seemed to melt into the rigid spike of his shaft, but the neglected muscles inside her body quivered, still unsure of handling such a union.
"Forgive me." He rested his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, and then lifted his face before bringing his open mouth down on her flesh.
Liling felt twin points of fire pierce her skin and cried out, writhing against him, before the flowers closed around her and her hand came up of its own volition, stroking his hair and urging him closer.
Watercolors of pale blue, violet, and green shimmered around her, washing away the pain and the fear. She and Valentin lay together on a bed of white fur, on their sides, facing each other, bodies entwined. All around them stood tall, wide stained-glass panels, each containing gardens of glass.
Liling glanced down and saw that they were still joined, their body hair meshed in a tangle of gold and black. The light shining through the glass on them made other patterns of color on their skin. "Where are we, Valentin?"
"A better place for this." His hand cupped her breast, massaging the weight of it before plucking at the small brown nipple. "Tell me what you want me to do to you, Liling."
Real flowers began to grow up around the edges of the fur. Lavender-hearted morning glories opened at their feet; red poppies lifted their scarlet faces out of the lacy fern near their heads. And on the stained-glass panels, elegant, passionate white blossoms of camellia appeared and flowered in the glass, until the light bathing their bodies turned opal white.
Liling rolled onto her back, wanting him on top of her. Valentin came with her and braced himself on his good arm, moving against her just enough to keep their bodies joined. Only then did she realize how rigid he was, and she saw the set of his jaw, as if he were grinding his teeth together.
Over his shoulder she saw a gap between the stained-glass panels, showing another place beyond them, a place as shadowed as the panels were radiant. The dark place reflected their naked bodies like a brooding mirror, but in that place they were not on furs surrounded by flowers. They were back in the cabin of the plane. Liling saw herself on her knees in the dark, her hands clasped behind her, her head flung back. Valentin stood before her, his hands caressing her hair.
Part of her understood. His needs were like hers, hidden and denied. "Take me there."
He looked over at the dark mirror and then down at her, his eyes narrowed. "You can't want…"
Liling kissed him, and then looked into his eyes. "I've kissed you. I've taken you inside me. Now give me what you want. Valentin."
The panels of stained glass turned dark, until only streaks of lightning painted the world. Then they were in the plane, on the bed, Valentin pressing her thighs apart with his hips as he drove into her.
"You wanted me," he said, "then take me."
She took him as he forced his way into the narrow ellipse of her flesh, bracing herself as he recoiled to thrust again, faster and harder, until Liling's back bowed and she cried out, the pleasure drenching her, drowning her in the storm of his lust.
Valentin jerked her to the edge of the bed, holding her down with his hand as he stood and wrenched himself out of her body. He pulled her up, guiding her face to him.
"Take me in your mouth," he said, wrapping her hair around his fist.
Reality was not the same as the image in the dark mirror. None of Liling's lovers had asked her to do this for them. She had no experience, no knowledge.
Valentin tugged on her hair. "Open for me, Liling. I want it."
He wasn't asking. He wanted her submission, not her doubt. He demanded it. Dark delight rocketed through her as she parted her lips for him, surrendering, taking the full thrust of his cock into her mouth. She tasted herself on him before she began to suck. Valentin pushed against her tongue, forcing her to take more of him, until her mouth stretched wide and his body hair brushed the tip of her nose.
No man had ever treated her like this. Not even her fantasies were this hard, this rough, this real. Liling thought she might climax from the sheer excitement of it.
His fist snarled in her hair as he urged her closer, stabbing deeper, filling her mouth as completely as he had her body. "That's it. Deeper. Take me deeper. Yes. Like that."
Liling moaned around him, her thighs tightening as the notch between them pounded, empty and hungry, unbearably aroused.
He came without warning, in silence, in long, thick jets as cool as cream. She drank from him, greedy for the taste of his semen.
Valentin gave her no respite, but pulled out of her mouth and put his fingers between her legs, cupping her and working the heel of his hand against her swollen mound even as he lifted her.
"Now you," he demanded, pushing her back onto the bed and fucking her with two fingers, pushing and stroking and stabbing until she twisted, unable to escape the rasp of his palm as it dragged over her clit. "Give me what I want. Give it to me. Liling."
The storm outside the plane was nothing to the one he raised inside her. Terrifying pleasure seized her and flung her into the dark, where nothing mattered but the heat and the bursting light and the harsh voice of her lover demanding everything she had, taking everything she was.
Liling collapsed, pleasure-blind, and rolled bonelessly against the damp vault of his chest. She couldn't speak, and nothing wanted to move. She might have to stay forever right there where she was. Only after a time did she feel the motion of his hand, gentle and steady, stroking up and down her back.
She opened her eyes to see him watching her face. It was impossible to read his expression, to know if she had pleased him. "Is that what you wanted?"
He nodded, brushing the hair back from her eyes.
"Good." She closed her eyes, satisfied beyond belief, and happy that she was able to make their one time together perfect. "So did I."