Pyromancist (20 page)

“I’ll do what’s right,” Josselin said.

Clelia swallowed the sob that threatened to
escape and backed away from the door. Maya suddenly appeared in her
line of sight.

“I have to take you to your cabin. The boat
has stopped.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a voice said
behind them.

Clelia flung around to see Josselin standing
in the door of the lounge.

“I’ll take her,” he said, sounding cold and
hot and everything confusing in between.

“Cain won’t like it,” Maya said, “but who am
I to challenge what you’ve marked as yours?”

“I haven’t marked anything,” Josselin gritted
out.

Maya snorted. “Like hell. But if it makes you
happy, just go on believing that.”

She turned on her heel and left them.

“Come,” Josselin said with a tilt of his
head.

He took Clelia’s arm and led her below deck,
almost shoving her into the cabin before slamming the door behind
them.

“Do you like Bono?” he said. “I know he’s
hard to resist. Pilot. Good looks. Women go crazy over him. Is he
what you’re looking for?”

Taken aback by his sudden outburst, Clelia
only blinked at him.

“I saw the way he looked at you. And I saw
the way you smiled at him.”

“And exactly how did I smile at him?”

“Like you shouldn’t,” he bit out. “A man
might get the wrong idea. Men are terribly stupid that way.”

“We didn’t look at each other in any way,
Joss.”

“Josselin,” he said harshly.

“Josselin.”

In a flash, he held her, his arms behind her
back, his hands on the curve of her buttocks.

“I didn’t like it, Clelia, how he looked at
you,” he said, sounding like a predator again.

“And how did he look at me? Like a future
lover?”

He released her abruptly, almost causing her
to stumble.

“Isn’t that what you said, Josselin? That you
were saving me for my future lover?” She allowed the hurt she felt
at Josselin’s rejection to filter into her voice. How could he save
her as he claimed he wanted, if he was supposed to kill her?

His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, and then
he turned on his heel and slammed the door shut. She heard the key
turn.

Clelia stared at the door, not making sense
of anything.

* * * *

When she woke, it was Maya who stood in the
cabin. It was hot inside, and a welcome breeze came through the
open door.

“You were sleeping, so I didn’t wake you for
dinner. You skipped lunch. You must be starving.”

Clelia rubbed her eyes and sat up. “What time
is it?”

“Past eight. The others and I have eaten. I
saved you a plate. It’s
confit de canard
, Bono’s
favorite.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“The effect of the tranquilizer should have
worn off by now. If you still don’t have an appetite, I may have to
get a doctor to have a look at you. And you should know that
Josselin is like a caged lion. He threatens to spoon-feed you after
forcing an appetite enhancer down your throat.”

Clelia guessed her loss of hunger had more to
do with her emotional state than any biological side effect. Only
the words she had overhead Cain say to Josselin gave her the
courage to try and force food down her throat. She had to build her
strength.

She followed Maya to the dining room table in
the lounge where a place was set for one. Besides the two of them,
the room was empty. Maya disappeared into the adjoining kitchen and
returned with a plate of food that she set in front of Clelia.

“Feel free to grab anything from the kitchen
anytime you want,” Maya said. “I’ve got some admin work to do,
reports and shit. Will you be all right, or do you prefer
company?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

Left alone, Clelia ate, even if she didn’t
taste a thing. The food was warm, but she couldn’t tell if it was
tasty or not. Maya had left a glass of milk as if Clelia were a
child, so she drank it like the good girl she was expected to
be.

“If you’d rather have a glass of wine, I’ll
pour you one,” Josselin said from the door.

Clelia jumped her heart in her throat. Too
lost in thought, she hadn’t heard him enter. She watched him warily
as he crossed the floor. Why should he always be able to read her
mind, when he was as closed as a clam?

“Well?” he said, stopping short of her.

“No, thank you.”

“I’m glad you’re eating.” He crossed his
arms. “I was about to force-feed you.”

She looked down at her plate, not knowing
what to say.

Josselin pulled out the chair next to her and
sat down. “There’s something I need to explain to you.”

The seriousness and vulnerability in his
voice made her lift her eyes.

“Because of what my father did to my mother,
I cannot stand anyone maliciously hurting someone, especially
someone not their equal in size or strength. What Iwig did to you
that day in the forest drove me close to murder. When I saw that
Maya had hit you, I almost deported her back to head office. What I
did to you,” he stared at her neck, “is the worst. And when I saw
Bono’s hands on you today, I saw you defenseless and frail and at
any man’s mercy.”

She swallowed. So much of Josselin didn’t
make sense to her, but she should have known that his difficult
childhood would have shaped him as such.

“You’re a good man,” she said softly, “or you
wouldn’t have cared.”

“I’m not good, Clelia, but I bitterly
disapprove of what my father made us suffer.”

She shook her head. “Please, stop suffering,
Josselin. I hate to hear you like this. It wasn’t your fault.”

His face turned back into a mask, and Clelia
felt the strain of loving a man like Josselin.

* * * *

Josselin stared at her and fought more than
his demons. He fought the agonizing hard-on in his pants. She was
so fucking beautiful. He wanted to apologize to her for his
behavior, but he couldn’t stand it when she was being so kind to
him, so accepting. Needing to change the subject he said, “I think
I’ll have a glass of wine after all. Will you join me?”

She looked injured. “No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” he said, keeping his voice
even. “It’s an excellent bouquet, 2005 Château Barreyres. I had
forgotten how good French wine is.”

“You seemed to have forgotten a lot about
your home,” she said.

When he met her gaze, she bravely held
his.

“I wanted to forget many things,” he said,
“but ironically, they wouldn’t let me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her pretty eyes
suddenly big. “I didn’t mean to...”

He couldn’t help himself as he reached out to
wipe her hair from her face. “I didn’t forget you, Clelia.
Ever.”

He saw her beautiful almond eyes widening
further, so ghostly black that the color of her irises couldn’t be
distinguished from her pupils.

“I did notice you, Clelia, even if you were
only a child. I tried not to, as God is my witness, but you were so
pretty, so innocent, so damn untouchable.”

“Joss–”

“No, don’t tell me not to say it, because I
know you want to hear it. It was you I thought of, when I fucked
all those girls, your sweet face I saw in the moment of my release,
and in the agony of my dreams.”

“No, please, Josselin, I can’t bear to hear
it.”

He ignored her plea, desperate to hear his
own confession. “It was you I craved, but you were just a child,
Clelia, and even now that you’re a woman ... a man like me, how I
would spoil you.”

She jumped up, her small breasts heaving.
“Please, I don’t want to hear this.”

He placed his body against hers, felt her
nipples brush his chest with every breath she took.

“Do I repulse you so?” he said.

“No, Josselin don’t you understand? It hurts
to hear about you and all those other women.”

“Clelia,” he said, his heart squeezing, “they
meant nothing.”

“You’re right,” she said, her eyes brimming
with tears, “it means nothing because there isn’t anything between
us. Nothing at all. You said so yourself.”

It wasn’t his hand that shook, but his heart,
as he reached out and touched the smooth skin under the curve of
her collarbone. Instead of laying his palm on her, he limited the
contact to the tip of his finger, tracing the strap of her top that
cut a black line across the elegant arch between her neck and
shoulder. He felt and saw the shiver that he had ignited, faint and
delegate like the goose bumps that broke out over her skin, but it
was the fluttering of her eyelashes, the dainty dip of a
butterfly’s wings, that made him withdraw his hand. He had no right
to blacken her with his savage craving, but God knows, he wanted
her so badly he could almost taste the iron cocktail of her blood
on his pallet and damn him to hell for his lust.

An invisible force between them pulled and
pushed a cord that roped him in and then gave way. He wanted her so
badly it hurt, but he loved her too much to ruin her.

“I needed you to know that,” he said,
turning, but she took his hand.

“Show me, Josselin. Show me what you’ve just
told me. Show me what you did with those women, what I’ve never
dared to imagine.”

She didn’t know what she was asking. He
allowed the sweetness of it to infuse him before he pushed the
impossible thought from his mind.

“I’ve had many women, but I’ve never taken a
virgin. I won’t take your innocence.”

“This is ludicrous. Don’t you know that I’ve
waited for you?”

“You had a fixation
–
but you were only a child. Now you’re a woman,
Clelia, and you should know better.”

“And who should I ask to be my first?”

He couldn’t stand the words, didn’t want to
hear them, but forced himself to say, “Someone worthy of you.”

When she turned away from him, he said, “I’ll
take you back to the cabin, and then I’ll call for Maya. She’ll
stay with you.”

“Why? Why can’t you touch me? Is it because
you’ll feel bad for killing me afterward, or that you may actually
feel something and are scared that you won’t be able to follow out
your orders?”

It was like a slap in his face. “I told you,
I won’t hurt you.”

He couldn’t. Ever. The fight he fought daily
to win over his darkness, to maintain the good he had left, would
be meaningless if anything happened to her. He knew it suddenly,
and clearly. Clelia was a part of him that had started long ago. He
could as little harm her as he could forgive himself for the death
of his family.

“Show me, Josselin. Or do you want me to
beg?”

When he didn’t speak or move, she took the
lead, pulling him behind her from the lounge, over the deck and
down to her cabin. She closed the door behind them and lay down on
the bed, watching him with her big, inviting eyes.

“You started this,” she said, “now I expect
you to finish it.”

She was too fucking brave for her own good.
Just a kiss. He was just going to taste her lips, her skin, her
pureness. That’s what he told himself as he moved toward her and
sat down on the bed.

She lifted her arms and pulled the top over
her head, exposing her soft skin and the perfect mounds of her
breasts under the black cotton bra with the cute lace trimming he
had packed. Arching to him, she took his hand and guided it to her
heart, placing his palm over the beat. It mirrored the erratic
rhythm of his own heart.

“Make the yearning stop,” she said.

“I can’t make it stop, Clelia.”

“Then take it away.”

He closed his eyes when he kissed her,
because he couldn’t look into hers without seeing her loveliness
and her innocence. He knew he would be a monster for stealing it.
He kissed caresses like butterflies over her eyes, her nose, her
lips, and her chin, tasting the skin of her throat and tracing the
line of her shoulder with his tongue. Only the fact that she
remained still, not showing any signs of excitement, kept him from
stopping. He would worship her body, but he had no intention of
taking her virginity, and he wasn’t going to punish her with making
her want to the point of no return.

When he lifted his head, she said, “No.
More,” so he kissed the upper curve of her breasts where they
pushed up from her bra. He traced her cleavage with his tongue. Not
daring to wander toward the peaks that would be his undoing, he
traced a line with his finger around each under-curve. He longed to
pull the soft skin into his mouth, to feather his tongue around
each nipple before sucking hard, biting down softly, and massaging
her to a climax with his mouth. He had done that with women before,
but none of them had mattered, as he now tasted the delicate bird,
ignoring his need to set her on fire with his hands and his
fingers.

He wanted to be her first, and God knows, her
last. He’d kill the man who so much as looked at her. Yes, he was
burning for her, but he’d rather burn in hell than watch her go up
in flames with him because of his selfish lust. He gave her a last,
gentle kiss on her tummy and took her hands that had slipped to his
hair, placing them firmly beside her body on the bed.

She looked at him with big eyes. “What are
you doing?”

“I’m preventing you from doing something
you’ll regret.”

She shook her head. “I want this.”

“No, you don’t.”

Her eyes flared. “You don’t know what I do
and don’t want.”

“There’s a theory in captor-captive
psychology about the captive developing a sexual fixation on the
captor. It’s a way of dealing with the trauma.”

“You can’t seriously imply that I’m suffering
from a psychological fixation. Is that why you think I want to
sleep with you?”

“It doesn’t really matter why you think you
want to sleep with me. It’s not going to happen.”

He got up and stared down at her. He wanted
to stay, but he could not find the strength to keep his hands off
her. Not for a whole night.