All the pain, all the anguish, extinguished by the touch of her hand and her eyes as green as his forest. At last, waves of weightlessness flowed through him, his limbs floating on a choppy, rhythmic sea of slumber. He let it take him, the sea—let it sink him, pull him under. It was then Aglaé haunted his dreams. Red flowing waves, lavender eyes: she was enchanting and alluring, and he followed her.
***
Elizabeth hardly remembered laying her head on the down pillow, because she was out before she could close her eyes, exhaustion pulling her under like the drowsy current of a narcotic. Now, just after sunrise, she awoke with low sunlight behind her eyelids. It didn’t take long to remember where she was, with high windows and golden drapes, and she twisted to her other side, her heart worrying a hundred frantic worries all at once.
But beside her lay a sleeping Henry, in his real form. She sighed a relaxing sigh, sitting up. He lay in the same position, on his right side. The sight of him in morning light took the breath from her chest, and he was even more beautiful than the beast had been under the light of the chandelier. His dark hair fell low on his forehead and his face looked more peaceful than she’d ever seen, and before she could get too swept away in watching him, she lowered the blanket ever so slightly, checking the incision on his side, just over his hip.
Regardless of what she knew about him, she was surprised at how advanced the healing was. It was a healthy, pink scarring color, and even surrounding the injury—where she expected to see puffy redness—was a normal fleshy hue. With caution—and an elated, quickened heart rate, she admitted—she lowered the blanket a little more, trying to keep his private things private, and saw the same thing had happened with the marks on his thigh. They were pink in the same fashion, suggesting healing.
She put the blanket back in place and found her eyes traveling his perfection—his masculine hands and fit, strong arms, and the muscular tone of his abdomen and chest—where they ended on his ominous tattoo. Except it wasn’t ominous, she realized. It was beautiful, just like the nighttime version of him, and it made him that much more attractive as a man, regardless of the reason she was sure he’d gotten it.
Her eyes traveled up his neck to the gentle pulse of a vein beneath his ear, and to his face—to his stern but peaceful brow and the way his short, dark beard, thinly grown and peppered with a silver that revealed the secret of his true age, added so much allure to his already charming features. She gently swept the hair off his forehead and drew her hand down his face, the smooth yet bristly sensation of his facial hair satisfying her fingertips. She wondered how long the poison would hold his consciousness. With a panicked heart, she wondered if he would ever wake at all. What if she had taken the wrong steps to revive him?
She ran her hand into his soft hair. “You have to come back, Henry,” she whispered. “I know you don’t want me here, but…I need you.”
Lying down, closer to him, she decided to let the poison run its course without extra morphine, since that’s what her instincts told her. She took his limp but warm hand and fit hers—hardly more than half the size of his—inside it. Holding it and curling it to her chest, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift back to sleep.
Chapter 22
Something about black satin rubbed Henry the wrong way. Perhaps because the trend had become so common among women of his class.
“I’m glad I caught your eye,” the woman wearing it drawled. Her lips were the color of red wine, and her extra-long lashes were glued on. She put her hands on her hips and Henry smiled, backing her into the corner. At least she wouldn’t be wearing the dress much longer.
They’d just left the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, or the “Schnitz,” as the Portland locals called it. Halfway through the Oregon Symphony’s rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, he’d spotted her in the balcony adjacent to his, eyeing him over her binoculars. She knew who he was, he could tell, but that didn’t surprise him since everyone did. He hadn’t planned on taking anyone back to his hotel tonight, but she was pretty enough. He had given her a single nod, and when it was over she waited outside the lobby. They’d walked up Main Street then turned left onto Park Avenue where Arne would meet them with the car. He never introduced himself since he didn’t think it necessary, and neither did she. He preferred it that way.
It was near midnight and beneath a canopy of trees, he wedged her into a red brick corner, the exterior of a local attorney’s office. He placed his hands on the bricks, cooled by nighttime air. His eyes traveled over her, down her long slender neck to the low, swooping neckline of her dress, revealing cleavage that did nothing special to his pulse.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said.
“And what have you heard?”
“That it would be a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Her thin lips grew mischievous, and he moved his hands to her satin-clad hips, his mouth traveling down her neck. She breathed a satisfied, “Mr. Clayton.”
She smelled of Chanel No. 5. The scent was everywhere.
For some reason, even though he’d smelled it on other women like her, he knew from this moment on, that scent would always remind him of her—the woman he’d just met, the woman who was nameless. Her black hair had been trimmed short, which made tasting her that much easier. As he descended her neck, she said between aroused breaths, “Surely, there’s somewhere else we can take this…”
He moved his hands down the roundness of her behind and gripped it firmly, pushing her into him, and with her diamond-studded earlobe between his teeth, he said, “My driver will be here shortly. Until then, I’ll take it where I want.”
She murmured, wrapping her arms around him. They usually liked when he took charge, but there had been a few who hadn’t, a few whose eyes swam in teary regret and humiliation when it ended. It probably should have been more difficult to forget those eyes and the brief sting of guilt, but he never saw the women again and frankly, when his successes outnumbered the few failed attempts at pleasing his partners, it was easy to forget the way some women felt taken advantage of.
He straightened at the sound of footsteps. The interruption bothered him, but it brought a strange presence. Turning, he squinted at the curvy silhouette, one he at first thought was naked. But she wasn’t truly naked, he saw when she stepped beneath a streetlamp; just clothed in something so scanty it could pass for lingerie. Heat and arousal flourished in his abdomen, and his eyes widened at her red, flowing hair and supple lips. It was like nothing he’d ever felt: so intense and sudden, it didn’t feel natural.
“Mr. Clayton, why’d you stop?” the unnamed woman in satin said, still holding his neck and not noticing the goddess approaching.
With his eyes on the goddess, he shoved the black-haired woman off of him, and she gasped in offense. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the red-head’s smile, off the way her lavender eyes nearly hypnotized him. He’d never seen eyes like hers, and a power lay behind them—a power he wanted to get lost in but didn’t want to be controlled by at the same time. He stared, dumbfounded.
She touched his bowtie, and her scent was that of exotic flowers. He closed his eyes, his head spinning in a deadly but euphoric daze. “I see your reputation precedes you,” she said, her voice raspy and slight. He opened his eyes. In his peripheral vision, the black-haired woman who paled in comparison placed her hands on her hips.
“My…reputation?” he asked with a deep swallow. Her index and middle finger walked up his neck.
“You’re a bad boy, Henry. You’ve hurt many women.”
“Excuse me,” the woman in black said.