Mirror of My Soul (Nature of Desire #4)

“All right then. You just call us if you need anything.” She slipped out, closing the door.

Tyler stripped out of his clothes, slipped in behind his unconscious angel. He touched the hollow of her neck, just above the cross and the ring strung on Sarah’s necklace. The diamond sparkled at him. As he caressed her there, another thought occurred to him. When he settled in behind her, he laid the curve of his hand from thumb to the end of his forefinger around the matching curve of her throat, where the heel of his hand pressed on the ring and cross, making her feel their presence as well as his presence in the area where she’d always been most emotionally as well as physically responsive.

Her body trembled, a soft murmur, a quiet plea. “Ssshhh…” He wrapped his other arm around her waist, brought her in close to the heat of his body. “I’m here, Marguerite. Your Master is here.”

He felt the touch on his shoulder, insistent, and then a sharp blow, almost as if he’d been shoved, hard. A brief flash of a face he’d seen before, but whose name he didn’t know. He started awake, realized he was alone.

Years in military operations where he had to come awake with all his senses ready for battle kicked in. He understood in a blink the bedroom door was open and he was alone. He lunged out of the bed.

She stood on the railing of the landing, the marble foyer twenty feet below her. The sling on her arm had dropped on the floor. How she’d even gotten up there with the type of injuries she had he didn’t know, but she was motionless on her perch, staring at something just above her through the arched window that availed him a sight of the night sky. She opened her arms, the white satin robe he’d left on her fluttering out on either side of her like angel wings.

There were ten yards and a corner from the hallway to the landing’s catwalk. He covered the ground as if he had wings himself. As her body fell forward, he was already there, seizing her around the waist and spinning them, lifting clear of the rail and putting her on the carpet, pulling her off with enough force they both tumbled. He kept grim hold of her though, until he realized she wasn’t fighting him. The glaze of sleep cleared from her eyes. She looked startled, then that distant look came back into her gaze. She’d been asleep. She’d been fucking sleepwalking, the extra dose of the strong painkillers apparently allowing her to perform a feat that would have been prohibitively excruciating if she’d been conscious.

He pressed his forehead down on hers as she lay beneath him, relaxed, her breathing already even again, while his heart raced so fast he thought he might be having a minor heart attack. Fortunately, he felt no numbness in his arms. Lifting her in them, he took her back to bed. This time he used her robe sash and bound their hands together so she couldn’t leave again without his knowledge. He needn’t have taken the extra precaution, however. He stayed awake until dawn brought light into the room again.

In the morning, he was able to get her to sit up so he could take her into the bathroom and let Sarah assist her there. He insisted on handling her bath himself so he could do a thorough inspection of her injuries and make sure there were no new swellings, heat or bruises. He remembered her first day here, when she’d turned over control to him. She’d discovered pleasure in the quiet darkness underwater, found that it wasn’t empty and alone at all, but filled with the sensations he could provide and share with her. He recalled her apprehensive wonder, the incredible response of her lithe body. The assimilation of it all by her extraordinarily intelligent mind.

“How do women put up with all this?” He kept up a running dialogue as he washed her hair, made sure the thick length of it was rinsed clean, made sure he was doing nothing to aggravate her injuries. “I’m not saying I want you to cut it. I love your hair. I’m just appreciative and awestruck at all that’s involved in keeping it beautiful.

You know I’m going to mess it up. I’m going to put some man’s shampoo on it that will make it dry and frizzy, not be the way you like it, so you’re just going to have to tell me how to do it right before I turn you into Medusa.” Putting the sponge down, he picked up a towel and raised her to her feet. And found himself looking into blue eyes that for the first time in days were focused on his face, his mouth. Somewhere deep she might be, but some part of her was listening, if only to his voice.

He managed, barely, to keep his voice steady, casual. “It’s not possible, you know.

You could never be anything but beautiful to me. I might not mind if you looked a little like Medusa to other men though. You get entirely too much attention for my peace of mind. You could have a bevy of Mariuses waiting on you hand and foot to satisfy your every desire, rather than having a cranky Master trying to tell you what to do all the time.”

He pulled a robe over her shoulders, belted it and had to resist the urge to wrap his fingers in the ends, pull her to him and hold her tightly against his heart. “You’re going to need to snap out of it soon, anyway. With Chloe and Gen running Tea Leaves, you know Chloe will be having topless male waiters serve the tea so she can sexually harass your employees.”

Something stirred in her gaze and he picked up on it as if she’d spoken. His heart lifted at even this minimalist form of communication.

“Chloe is doing fine. I’ve had Mac and Violet checking on her daily. Her parents came into town as well. He broke her arm and leg, knocked a couple teeth out. She lost a good bit of blood from the stab wound in her side, but fortunately he didn’t hit any vital organs.”

He didn’t want to tell her all that but knew he had to. She would want honesty, not vague generalities. “Most of her injuries were because she fought him like a Green Beret to keep him away from Natalie. I don’t think her own mother would have fought any harder. He had to beat her unconscious to get away.

“Now, stop,” he reproved, sliding the robe back off her shoulders and replacing it with a comfortable sundress that dropped over her hips easily. Too easily. She’d already been thin. Over a week without more than a few mouthfuls of food and enough water to keep her hydrated wasn’t enough to keep her nourished. He knew it was past time to consider an IV and more in-depth psychiatric care. He couldn’t help but remember Komal’s reference during her last visit to those who never came out of a trauma or breakdown like this. People who were quietly cared for in expensive, private facilities where they received everything they could need and nothing they cared about, a lifetime as mannequins.

He pushed the thoughts away. It was too early to think like that. This was a woman who made subs long for the privilege of scarring them with permanent burns. Who had given him a run for his money in tennis. Had nearly put a fork through his fingers when he pushed her too far. Who had jumped off a building to save a child.

“Natalie’s mother is going to blame you for a while. And the police department here, or the prison that was holding your father. Even Chloe. Anyone within range of her thoughts, because she almost lost her little girl. But it’s not your fault, not any of it. I know you think if you’d died when you were fourteen, none of this would have happened.” His throat closed at the flicker of acknowledgement, agreement even, in her face. “But that’s total bullshit and I won’t tolerate it.” He closed his eyes, took a breath, resumed in a more even tone. “Let’s look at it this way. Say you died with your mother and brother. Your dad might or might not have gone free without your testimony, but then or now he would be out there, his mind twisted. He would have struck again.

Something would have snapped him. A waitress that looked like his mother, or the general humidity level or the Dow. And he would have killed or raped.

“But you stopped him. It began and ended with you. You ended it. And now you’ve earned the right to heal, love and live. You earned it a long time ago, a million times over. So I don’t want to hear you worry about it any more.” He arranged Sarah’s necklace on her, straightening the interlocked ring and cross. “We have a wedding to plan and I’m not doing it all myself. In fact, I think there’s a law that requires the woman to handle all of it. The man just shows up.”

“Never said…I’d marry you.”

The tone, sullen and faraway, made him want to turn cartwheels, but he took her hand as if they’d been carrying on a two-way conversation all along, his only reaction a tremor that ran through his fingers, which he covered by tightening his grip on her.

“But you will. Because you love me.”

“Talk too much.” She closed her eyes. “Never shut up. Tired. Sleep.”

“Food first,” he said firmly, then couldn’t stop himself from holding her to him a moment. He kept his touch tender when he wanted to crush her, shake her. Beg her to talk some more.

He took her downstairs, coaxed her into an unsatisfying handful of bites. He was sure Sarah was cooking nine or ten different dishes for each meal, anything to coax out her appetite. Just nothing—

“Oh, holy Christ.” He almost smacked himself in the head for his stupidity.

“Marguerite?” He took her hand. She was nodding off in the chair, inflicting sleep on herself to escape again. “Would you like a cup of tea?” Her eyes opened, a glimmer of interest. After a quick call to Sarah he found that he had three types, all ones Marguerite had brought to his house for him to try. In short order, Sarah had steeped and brought him a cup of each. He spaced them before her as he’d seen her do at her own shop when she drank from several in succession, trying the different flavors on her tongue.

She studied them, reached out, touched them, moved them, changed their arrangement on the table, making their relationship a more widely spaced triangle.

Picking up the middle one with her functioning right hand, she started to bring it to her lips. She hadn’t eaten enough and she was normally left-handed. Her hand started to shake. Leaning forward, Tyler steadied it with his own and moved with her to bring it to her lips. It touched briefly, a quick sip. Her eyes looked up at him then down as she drank some more. He could tell her hand was tired, so he pulled over a chair and sat next to her. Slid his arm around her so she could lay her head carefully on his shoulder as she continued to take sips. Both his hands were clasped under hers, cupping them and the teacup, giving her the extra strength. He noticed the cup’s heat and his heat were warming her fingers somewhat.