It was a moment before Lucien’s senses could reassemble. For it quite felt like that: as though he’d been taken apart and reassembled, into a better, newer, freer, infinitely more sated Lucien Durand. His mood was transcendent. Making love to this woman was clearly why he’d been born. He was a little drunk on both brandy and sex, but it didn’t strike him as an unreasonable reason for living.
And just as he lifted his head to see in her eyes how the lovemaking had changed her, she staggered to her feet and backed away.
She dropped her face into her hands, her shoulders still heaving for breath.
“Angelique?”
She stood for seconds just like that.
And then seized her robe and yanked her night rail up over her shoulders, and turned, and it could quite fairly be said that she fled.
Chapter Twelve
Sleep was elusive and fitful, mainly because Angelique had fought it off. She wanted to relive each moment while Lucien was still fresh on her skin. Her lips were hot and kiss swollen; her cheeks were scraped from the start of his beard; her mouth still tasted of him, of brandy and musky sweetness.
She didn’t wash. Her body still smelled like him, of sweat and sex and desperate want. She seized a fistful of her hair and dragged it across her face, and there he was, too.
Her heart yearned to soar. She could feel it surge toward the light. But she’d tethered it like a falcon. She trembled with the magnitude of what she’d done. She didn’t know sex could be like that, something that launched you from your body and nearly made you sob from the unbearable pleasure, and it had terrified her. Sex thatshehad chosen, thatshehad wanted. And that was part of both the terror and pleasure of it, too.
All that talk of love and so forth.I am sorry that you knew pain.How did he know? Because the two of them, courtesy of the events of their lives, had been fitted with similar lenses. He could see her in ways that others could not. And on the one hand, it was a luxury that made her want to surrender to him utterly, everything in her mind and heart. And on the other hand, it left her raw and exposed; it was so much easier, safer, more comfortable, to go on as she’d been.
Memories of his expression when she walked away without another word also kept her awake. Betrayal and hurt.
She was not prepared for what might follow, for Lucien, doubtless, would not let it lie. And while she knew that it was so much better to be the one who left than the one who was left, she also knew leaving like that, no matter how overwhelmed she’d felt, was cowardice.
And she was ashamed.
Because Lucien Durand was a lot of things, but he was not a coward.
All of this was why she was all but tiptoeing down the stairs to the kitchen the following morning, hoping Lucien was snoring away in a sex stupor. After all, he’d paid for the best room and there was no reason he should get up before he wanted to.
She froze on the landing.
Lucien was just turning the key in the lock on his room.
He went still when he saw her.
They paused to study each other.
She wondered if her expression was as wonderstruck as his. Her knees, already tired, nearly melted beneath her when his eyes met hers.
But the wonder in his was fleeting. Something cooler set in.
“Good morning, Mrs. Breedlove.”
“Good morning, Lord Bolt.”
Motionless, they regarded each other.
“Well. Aren’t you going to tear away at the very sight of me?” he asked finally. Their voices were low.
“Perhaps not just yet.”
There was a little pause.
“I have witnessed a good many things in my day, Mrs. Breedlove. I can’t say I’ve seen a woman just get up, cast her face into her palms in despair, and drift away like a wraith in a horrid novel after I’ve made love with her.”
“My goodness. Perhapsyouought to try your hand at a horrid novel.”