Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LUCIEN
It’s close to dawn by the time the two of us get checked out at the hospital, released and return home. I send Tamsyn inside while I debrief with the fire and police departments and we all survey the smoldering and wet wreckage of the cottage. I’m sure I look like the walking dead when they finally dismiss me and I head inside and upstairs. Maddie, who dashed back to Ackerley as soon as she heard, is sitting in a chair in the corner of my bedroom looking at her phone. She glances up when I walk in.
“I’m back,” I say. “How’s she doing?”
Tamsyn emerges from the steamy bathroom just then, saving Maddie the trouble of answering. She’s wrapped in one of the fluffy white towels and looks rosy cheeked with her wet hair.
“ She’s doing just fine,” Tamsyn says tightly. I’ll have to take her word for it, because she doesn’t sound that fine. Her voice is raspy from the smoke inhalation. I get the feeling her lungs are working overtime. I know mine are.
But it all could have been so much worse.
I take a closer look at her, determined to keep my shit together despite my pounding heart and the rock lodged inside my chest. She looks pretty good, actually. You’d almost be able to believe nothing happened earlier—if you overlooked the slight shakiness in her hands, her singed brows and the way she’s showing a little too much of the whites around her eyes, as though they’ve become permanently stuck in the shocked position.
“ She was able to get the smell of smoke out of her hair,” she continues. “ She didn’t need a babysitter while she was showering.”
“Good,” I say, pleased to discover that her fierce independence wasn’t consumed by the fire. “I’m sure Maddie doesn’t appreciate being called a babysitter. She probably prefers to think of herself as an unobtrusive companion available if anyone needs anything after a difficult evening.”
“Correct,” Maddie says crisply.
Tamsyn seems to realize she’s overreacting. “Sorry, Maddie. Thanks for your company.”
“Anytime,” Maddie says, standing and pocketing her phone before heading to the door. But she zeroes in on my face as she passes, and something in my expression stops her. Then she does something she’s never done in all the years she’s worked here at Ackerley: she reaches for both my hands and holds on tight, squeezing. “She’s okay, really. I hope you are, too.”
My emotions are running too high for me to do anything other than nod and try to keep it moving. “Appreciate it,” I say gruffly.
Maddie lets go and nods with grim satisfaction. “Shout if you need anything. Either of you.”
“Will do,” I say.
“Thanks again, Maddie,” Tamsyn calls after her.
Maddie leaves and closes the door behind her, leaving me and Tamsyn to reluctantly face each other. This whole operation is hanging together by a frayed thread. Neither one of us seems to want to be the one to show too much emotion and make everything fall apart.
I open my mouth, but I don’t know what to say and don’t trust myself to speak.
Luckily, she comes over and takes my hands the way Maddie just did, pulling me closer. I cling to this lifeline, reveling in the fact that Tamsyn is as warm, strong and vibrant as ever. We stand there like that for a moment, eyes locked, no words necessary.
“They didn’t find her, did they?” she eventually says.
It’s a pointless question, like asking if the sun is still rising in the east these days. Of course they didn’t find her. Of course she’s gotten away with something else. That’s Ravenna. Always has been and always will be.
Unless I permanently eradicate her as an issue. Which I fully plan to do.
“No.”
“But the police put out an APB for her?”
“Yes.”
Tamsyn looks relieved. “I’m sure they’ll find her soon. How far could she get on foot?”
I say nothing for a second or two. This level of na?veté would be almost charming if this whole situation wasn’t so terrifying. Now’s not the time for the reminder that this exact scenario played out back when Ravenna had the sailing accident and managed to elude the best investigators in the world for two years. She’ll continue to fly under the radar the way she always does. Ravenna is proof that the devil protects his own.
Don’t think that the irony is lost on me. At least Tamsyn is simply na?ve. Me? I’m stupid. I’m the one who taught myself to ignore my gut feeling that Ravenna was still alive. I’m the one who convinced myself that while Ravenna might be nasty, she wasn’t homicidal. I’m the one who should have known better.
“We handed over our security footage,” I tell Tamsyn. “Hopefully, that’ll turn up something.”
“And do they know what started the fire?”
“A candle on the end table near the living room curtains. Like Ravenna said.”
She gasps. “Lucien, I didn’t light that candle.”
“I know,” I say tiredly. “Ravenna did.”
Disbelieving laugh as she shakes her head. “Someone really tried to kill me tonight.”
My gut twists. “Yes.”
She nods and gives me a long look. Hard. Searching. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” I almost strangle myself on my own disbelieving laugh. “That’s not the question.”
She squeezes my hands tighter. “It’s my question.”
She’s got the Look . The one that says she’s not about to let it go. So I decide to tell her the whole truth. “I’m not okay, no. I’m sorry I ever brought you into my world. It was a mistake.”
She cries out, stiffening. “Don’t say that. I’m glad I’m here with you. I wouldn’t change that. And I’m fine .”
It’s a good performance, but I don’t believe her for a second. There’s a wild-eyed tinge of hysteria around her edges. I’m feeling it, too. Something about seeing Ravenna unmasked in all her unhinged glory has really turned my bones to splintered ice. “Why aren’t you angry with me?”
“For what?”
It’s a basic question. I don’t know why she seems so startled by it. “I’ve got one job as the man in your life—to be your protector. You should be spitting in my face right now.”
She gapes at me as though I’ve started braying like a donkey. “For what? Not predicting the behavior of a psychopath?”
“For taking this long to realize she is a psychopath. And for downplaying your concerns when you saw that flash of white at the tree line when Roman was having sex at the pool. Remember that?”
“Oh, God. So it was Ravenna. Spying on us?”
“Who knows what she was doing? The point is, I should have paid more attention. I should have had security?—”
Incredulous laugh from Tamsyn. “You did everything you could think of to do. I’ve realized that the great Lucien Winter is only human. I’m hoping that one of these days, you’ll realize it, too. Maybe then you’ll stop being so hard on yourself.”
I turn my head away, unwilling to receive this gracious empathy when I don’t deserve it. I am my own worst critic. Always have been, and that’s unlikely to change at this crucial moment. Also: add her easy forgiveness to the endless list of reasons why I love her so much.
“And did you forget that you’re the one who saved my life?” she continues. “Look at me! I’m not even burned. You’re the one who looks like a broiled lobster.”
I glance down at my stinging red arms, now slathered with ointment courtesy of the EMTs, with a dismissive snort. “It’s nothing. You’re the one who barely has any eyebrows left.”
That gets her. She laughs.
I swallow hard, unspeakably grateful that she’s still alive to laugh and has something to laugh about. But the laughter dies quickly because I’m not ready to forgive myself. “I never thought she’d do something like that.”
“ Lucien . How could you?”
“Because I had years of exposure to her pettiness and cruelty.”
“But she was never violent before…?”
I’m almost too ashamed to admit it, but we’re way past ego at this point. “She raged at me. She slapped me a few times. Nothing like this, but…” I pause and drop her hands while a memory fleshes itself out for me. “Hang on. She had a cat. An orange tabby. His name was Herbert. Indoor-outdoor cat. She was playing with him one day and he scratched her hand. Made it bleed. She was pretty pissed about it.”
“And…?”
I frown as more details rise to the surface. “And the next morning he turned up under one of the trees with a broken neck. We thought it fell out of the tree, but now I’m not so sure. She didn’t seem too upset by his death.”
Tamsyn presses a hand to her neck, looking stricken. “Oh my God,” she says. “That poor cat. Is this why you wanted me to work nearby?”
I shrug, struggling to put it into words because the feeling was too vague for that. “I just want to make sure you’re safe. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry I overreacted and called you controlling.”
“Don’t apologize.” There’s no managing the sudden fervor in my voice. But nothing in this entire mess is remotely Tamsyn’s fault, and I don’t want her thinking otherwise. “I am controlling.”
Little does she know exactly how controlling. First thing in the morning, I’m hiring a personal security guard for her. A secret personal security guard, because I know she wouldn’t like or want it. Said guard will trail her around and make sure she’s safe for the foreseeable future, until I get the Ravenna problem taken care of once and for all.
“That’s enough talk about Ravenna,” I say. “You need to get some rest.”
“So do you.”
I shake my head as I turn toward the door. “I want to call Detective Smith. I know it’s a little soon, but I want to see if any of the security footage is turning up anything helpful.”
She goes to the bed. “Okay. But stay with me for a minute. Just until I fall asleep.”
I know I’m being managed, but I hesitate because that’s the best invitation I’ve had all day. “No. I smell like smoke.”
A hint of a smile from Ms. Scott. “I don’t mind.”
I watch, riveted, as she sheds the robe and climbs into bed wearing only a sexy little white nightgown and panties. As if she has sleep on her mind as she stretches out with a contented sigh. As if I don’t recognize that gleam in her eye. It’s not like I can ever tell her no . Which just goes to show what a dick I am. I know she’s exhausted from her ordeal. I know that I don’t deserve to touch her. Not if I can’t take any better care of her than this . But I’m already on my way to the bed because I need her. We need each other.
I tell myself to go easy as I hastily ditch my clothes and shoes, but that all goes out the window the second she touches me. Her fervency matches mine. Her fingers dig into my flesh as she quickly rises to her knees, sheds her nightgown and tips her head up to mine. She's the first one to nip a lip, the sweet pain fueling the hot rush of blood in my veins the way trucks on the tarmac fill underground tanks with jet fuel. The lushness of her tongue as it meets mine drives me insane. So do the little mewling sounds she makes. Her murmurs and croons quickly escalate into cries when I push her onto her back and help myself to handfuls of her breasts. My name pours out of her mouth as I suck her nipples and bite the perfect curve where waist flares to hip.
Fuck gentle. There's no gentle in me, and I highlight the point by ripping her panties off with a loud tearing sound. I was lost before she came. Now I'm lost in her. If she leaves, I'll be lost again.
No, not if she leaves. When she leaves.
But she's here now. That will have to be enough.
I grab her hips and drag her to the edge of the bed. Funny how I never quite made it onto the bed with her. She was all over me before I could even get that far. Not that I'm complaining. She rests her hands above her head, arches her back and licks her lips, watching me with eyes that are gleaming and heavy lidded because she knows what's coming. She knows how I like it when she wraps her plump thighs around my waist and pulls me closer. She knows that I go wild seeing her cup her breasts while letting her nipples peek through her fingers. She welcomes my hard thrust inside her, her pussy already dripping with wet heat for me. Then she straightens her legs and rests her ankles on my shoulders, smiling as I shout her name and grip her calves to anchor myself to her perfect L shape.
She meets me stroke for stroke, swiveling her luscious hips in the perfect counterpoint to mine, her face twisting with gathering ecstasy. She lets her breasts go and rests her arms over her head again, giving me the perfect view of her jiggling breasts dotted with erect pink nipples.
The longer I watch her, the harder I pound. But the harder I pound, the more my strokes falter. I’ve got way too much emotion trapped deep in my chest. Too many nerve endings firing at once. Too much pain wrapped around too much pleasure.
I'm only a man. There's only so much I can take.
But I somehow tough it out, feeling the strain in my neck and bunching shoulders as I shift my grip to her ankles and hang on for dear life. The one thing I’m not going to do is come before she gets off. Thank God I don’t have to wait long. That’s one of the most thrilling things about Tamsyn: she always comes for me with the explosive enthusiasm of a woman experiencing her first orgasm—or her last. That's what she does now, her joyous shouts freeing me to join her.
The French call an orgasm la petite mort . A little death. But there’s never been anything little about the pleasure Tamsyn finds and rips out of my body. Especially tonight, when I feel as though I die a lot more than usual. I let my head fall back and pump all of myself into her until there’s nothing left.
When it’s over, her legs drop and I collapse onto the bed next to her. We wrap each other up, no words necessary, and she falls asleep before I know it. Giving me the chance to hold her. I kiss her forehead, my lungs heaving and my lips twisting against the dark emotions rising in me. But I hold them back because now is not the time for me to fall apart. I smooth her hair. Imprint all her curves and hollows as they press up against me. I think about the things that were. The things that will never be.
Then I gently let her go and watch as she settles into a deeper sleep without me.
I get up, head straight to the window and stare down at the smoldering remains of the cottage. It’s not a pretty picture with half of the roof caved in and splintered shards of charred wood in every direction. The worst part is that I’m looking at what could have been the scene of Tamsyn’s death. If Ravenna had simply set the fire and left the grounds without taking the time to track me down and taunt me about it, things could’ve gone in a whole different direction tonight.
Tamsyn would be dead now. Dead .
I glance back at the bed, where Tamsyn lies peacefully asleep on her side, with one of her hands tucked under her chin. What would I have done if all her beauty and vitality had been snuffed out today? Or if she’d survived but was badly burned and had to live with excruciating pain and surgeries? The questions make my gut cramp into one big knot. How would I have lived with myself? Hell, how am I living with myself now?
That voice starts up in my head. Don’t let her go . That voice is the reason I followed her to Europe the day I met her, turning myself into an international stalker. It’s the reason I didn’t want her working far away in the city. That voice whispered at me yesterday. It’s screaming at me now. Meanwhile, another voice pipes up. My own speaking voice. The one that made the graveside vow to Big Ralph. I’ve got her now .
I’ve made this mess. It’s time for me to clean it up. Past time.
The bottom line is that Tamsyn will never be safe with Ravenna alive. I now know that beyond any shadow of a doubt. Tamsyn will always remain the focal point of Ravenna’s jealousy. And I now realize that Ravenna is willing to do anything to eradicate a perceived enemy.
Which means that I can’t do anything to put Tamsyn at risk. I’ve got to be willing to do anything necessary to protect her, which is my duty as the man in her life. Anything .
I slump into the nearest chair and rest my head in my hands, overcome by rising emotion and sudden absolute clarity. Ravenna is determined to hurt me. I’m determined to protect Tamsyn. And I now know what I need to do, no matter how much I don’t want to do it.
I’ve got to be every bit as ruthless as Ravenna to accomplish my objectives.