Out of the Dark (12 page)

“Take me instead,” Lucien said, his voice a rough murmur in his throat. “If you need something uncivilized to tame, tame me. If you need a devil to turn into an angel, I am here. If you need something, or someone, not quite whole to make well again, use me. If you need someone to care for and share your secrets, to keep you from the dangers of the dark and the future, then please—please let it be me.”

Somewhere deep inside her, a knot of lonely anguish began slowly to dissolve. It pushed the tears over her lashes so they seeped into his shirt front to wet it. Over the aching tightness in her throat, she said, “You won’t mind?”

“I will be honored,” he said as he smoothed the cloud of her hair that tumbled down her back in loose ringlets and curls. “But I should perhaps warn you that I may not always be content as your pet.”

“No,” she said, brushing her fingers over the firm muscle above his heart in a small, convulsive gesture. “Still, if you will allow me to love you, at least a little, then perhaps—”

“If you will give me even a miniscule portion of the love you gave to your panther,” he said unsteadily, “then you will have all my devotion for all my life long. And one day, when I am old and gray and near to leaving this life, I hope you will miss me even a little for all the reasons you miss your Satan, and weep for me as you soothe me on my way to death. For you are my wilding mate and my only love, and I am lost without you.”

It was what she needed, all that was required. She drew back to meet his gaze for one long, heart-stopping moment. Then her attention drifted to the generous and resolute contours of his mouth. Her lips parted on a soft breath.

He needed no other invitation. Bending his head, he took possession of her mouth, invading in a full, liquid sweep. She slid her arms around his neck and rose on tiptoe to receive him. The sudden surge of blood in her veins made her giddy. At the same time her heart was so full she swallowed salt tears of both old grief and new joy. Then the sweet, perilous rise of desire wiped away all thought, all doubt, leaving only the piercing certainty of bodies attuned and vibrant with recognition.

They were two parts of a whole, wandering mated souls matched at last. If he was wild, then so was she, for they melded together in a fury of need that pressed them closer and closer against each other.

Still they could not be close enough, could not touch as completely as necessary. Stepping to the bed, they brushed aside the mosquito netting and sank down on the mattress. He turned her so her back was to him, sweeping her hair forward over her shoulder as he worked at the row of tiny buttons on her gown with swift competence and only a few muttered imprecations. Pushing his hands inside her open bodice, he brushed his lips across the top of one shoulder while he gently cupped her breasts.

She drew a soft, hissing breath and arched back against him as he took her nipples in his fingers to knead them as carefully as tender, juicy berries. As she tangled the fingers of one hand in the waves of his head, he leaned over her, turning her to take her lips once more.

Clothes, there were endless layers of clothes. Slippers and boots, close-fitting pants that had to be peeled away. Gowns that slid and sagged in heavy folds. Stockings and hose, petticoats and stiff hoops, cravats and under-drawers: each item required the learning of new skills, at least for Anne-Marie; each called forth a salute of kisses upon the skin newly bared. Like drifts of refuse on a beach, the discarded garments collected around the bed.

Lucien sprang up then and closed the jalousies, extinguished the lamp. Returning, naked and gilded by moonlight, he lowered the mosquito netting around the mattress then joined her inside it. With their eyes like dark pools of promise and yearning, they hovered in silent questioning. Seeing their rich, mutual welcome, they came together again, heart to heart, mouth to mouth, mind to mind.

Still, they did not hurry, but moved at their own sweet pace to learn the texture of skin and the flavor of it, explore scents and sounds and sensitivities. Playful and cavorting, or grasping in hard, internal convulsions of feeling, they sought for true intimacy with hands and tongues, lips and souls. And discovered it in soft, sweet whispers and pleas; in quick, flicking licks and slow absorbing assaults that plumbed resistance and endurance, readiness and mercy.

When they came together, the small physical barrier to penetration gave way with warm, liquid ease, aided by his careful penetration, her infinite trust. Locked in tight conjunction, they tried each other, learned each other. Then moving together, rising, falling, seeking and finding a mutual rhythm, they sought the final glory.

And discovered it. Discovered, too, the release from their aloneness, from their grief, their worry and pain. For in loving was the benediction and reward for choosing life. Even if it was not everlasting, it was still, finally, enough.

They were caught close in each other’s arms as the steamboat slipped its moorings with the dawn. Rocked by the movement, soothed by the steady heart-like beat of the steam engine, they slept on while everything they had known slipped away behind them.

It was a slow passage, but they came at last to Lucien’s house set among ancient oaks on the vast and spreading lands below New Orleans. They settled in, taking their time, growing used to each other by wondrous degrees. Summer passed into autumn and the nights grew cooler. Still, it was a night of pleasant warmth when Anne-Marie woke to see her husband standing in nude splendor at the French doors that opened out onto the upper gallery from their bedroom. He appeared transfixed as he stared out over the lawn.

“What is it?” she asked, smothering a yawn.

He turned his head but did not answer. Touching his fingers to his lips, he made a quick motion for her to join him.

She slid from between the sheets at once, as naked as he as she glided to his side and curled an arm about his waist. She rubbed his shoulder with her cheek an instant before turning to follow the direction of his gaze. For a moment, she saw nothing unusual. Then she caught her breath.

There under the trees that dotted the lawn, in the strong, copper-tinted light of a harvest moon, dark, dangerous shapes glided in and out of the hard-edged shadows. There were two—no, three. Sleek, sinuous, with coats shining like cut-pile velvet, it was a family of panthers: male, female, and a single kit.

“Oh,” she said softly, while gladness rose in her heart, filling it to send tears tracking down her face.

It was Satan. It had to be. Didn’t it?

Below her, the largest of the great cats stalked into the open area and stopped in the full, flooding path of the moon. Powerful, beautiful in his grace, he stood twitching his tail while he lifted his head and stared straight up at the window where they stood.

“He found you,” Lucien said quietly as he turned his head to look down at her.

“You said he would,” she answered, and met his gaze a long moment before turning once more, drawn to where the panther that had once been her pet stood like a sleek ebony statue.

He was safe. He was whole. Now he could live in peace on these wide lands without being hunted. He could come and go as he willed, if he willed. He and his family.

Now his mate had seen them there at the window. She was nervous. Gathering her kit, she faded into the shadows and was lost almost immediately in the deep black of the woodland beyond. At its edge, she called, a plaintive demand.

Satan turned his head to look, but swung back toward the window once more. If she herself called, Anne-Marie thought, he might come, might stay, might come close to be petted and loved, even as wild as he had become.

She did not move. Satan had his mate and his territory; she was near if she was needed. But he was no longer dependent on her as he had once been, and in truth she no longer looked to him as a symbol of her wilding urges or for loving affection.

One moment the panther was still there, the next he was gone. The lawn lay empty again under the brazen and benevolent light of the moon.

Anne-Marie put her head on Lucien’s chest and closed her arms around him, holding tight. He brushed a kiss across her hair.

“Sleepy?” he said.

“No.” The answer was definite.

“Shall I ring for warm milk with brandy? It might do the trick.”

“I don’t think so.”

He glanced down at her with a faint, tantalizing smile. “What then?”

“Come back to bed,” she said, nuzzling the hollow below his collar bone.

He turned more fully against her so she could feel his arousal against the smooth skin of her belly. “That sounds like a she-panther’s call to me.”

“Exactly,” she said, and nipped his skin, then soothed it with her tongue. “Are you going to answer?”

His laugh rumbled, vibrating in his chest. Leaning, he slid an arm under her knees to lift and carry her back to the bed, back into the wild yet gentle darkness.

Jennifer Blake has been called a “pioneer of the romance genre,” an “icon of the romance industry,” and a “
grande
dame
of romance.”
 
A
New York Times
and international best-selling author since 1977, she is a charter member of Romance Writers of America, member of the RWA and Affaire de Coeur Halls of Fame, and recipient of the RWA Lifetime Achievement Rita. She holds numerous other honors, including the “Maggie,” the Holt Medallion, multiple Reviewer’s Choice awards, the Career Achievement Award from RT
BookReviews
Magazine, and the Frank Waters Award for literary excellence.
 
She has written 65 books with translations in 20 languages and more than 30 million copies in print worldwide. Jennifer and her husband live on a lake in northern Louisiana.

To find out more about Jennifer’s award-winning books and to purchase direct from your favorite outlet, see the Steel Magnolia Press website at
www.steelmagnoliapress.com
.

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