My Immortal (Seven Deadly Sins #1)(3)
Author: Erin McCarthy

She hesitated long enough to warn, "If I do this, I can’t undo it. Do you understand?"

Though his eyes darkened, he nodded. "Yes, I understand. Do it for me."

With a shrug, she told him, "It’s done."

And with a soft groan, he moved, slamming her onto him, pumping up and down, exploding her mind and body with a thousand little gunshots of pleasure as she threw back her head in utter abandon.

"Thank you," he murmured into her mouth as he kissed her hotly, the porch steps creaking beneath his boots as they rocked. "You won’t regret it."

Though regret was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment, she knew with the clarity of one who can sense without seeing, that there was going to be hell to pay for this one.

Chapter One

As Damien du Bourg stood in the Liverpool Museum, iPod at his ears, and stared at The Punishment of Lust by Segantini, he knew he had to have that painting.

The dreamy, muted colors of the canvas showed the regret, the pain, the hopelessness that Damien knew as intimately as himself. It was his lust that had killed Marie, and his lust that had lured Marissabelle, yet they had taken the punishment for his sins.

Like the two women drifting in the empty landscape in front of him, he too was wrapped in shroudlike, clingy bonds of pain, suspended in nothingness for eternity.

"Excuse me," he said to the female security guard who had been discreetly trailing him.

"Yes?" She crossed her arms over her ample chest and eyed him suspiciously. Not an attractive woman, she looked like life had given her a reason to distrust, and he was sorry for that, sorry that she too knew pain.

"Do you know where I can buy a print of this painting?"

"The gift shop might have it." Her shoulders relaxed a fraction. "Do you know where the gift shop is?"

Damien smiled, knowing the effect it would have. "No. Perhaps you could point me in the right direction?"

"I guess I can walk you over there."

"Merci. Thank you, I appreciate it."

She gave an unexpected smile in return, and a plain face became almost pretty. It was a rationalization on his part, that random acts of sexual kindness could make up for what he had done, but it was the only way he could live with himself, and he had a long life to live.

Damien readjusted his plans for the evening to include the suspicious security guard and her Rubenesque body.

From: Busylizzie

To: Marley Turner

Subject: Hey, sis!

Hey Marley miss you lots. Would say wish you were here but if you were here I guess we wouldn’t be having any fun because this is definitely not the place for a prude like you. LOL. Parties every night and the hottest most amazing guy I’ve ever met in my entire life. I swear, I am going to stop at nothing until I have married this guy, Mar. His name is Damien du Bourg, isn’t that the most sexiest name ever? And Louisana (sp?) is sexy too, it’s hot all the time and all the guys are sweaty, it’s like a hunk calendar 24/7. Damien lives in this totally weird huge mansion—hello, it even has a name, Rosa de Montana, isn’t that cool??—and it’s like his ancestors house. Did I mention he’s totally rich? <g > He won’t let me poke around upstairs or anything but I know how to change his mind, but I won’t tell you how because maybe a nun is reading this over your shoulder and I don’t want to shock a sister. Just my sister. When is your retreat thingie done? We may have a wedding to plan.;-)

Hugs, Lizzie (in love)

Lizzie in love, I like that!

document attached

"Oh, Lizzie." Marley gave an exasperated laugh and reread her sister’s e-mail three times. It was hard to pinpoint what was the most ridiculous thing about it. There was the juvenile enthusiasm for a man she’d just met. And overuse of the word like.

But maybe more absurd than anything Lizzie could ever write was that Marley felt an unpleasant, swelling jealousy, an envy for her sister’s carefree selfishness. Intellectually, Marley was appalled by the reckless lifestyle Lizzie lived. But at the same time she resented the ease with which Lizzie leaped into new situations, relationships. Marley didn’t want to be Lizzie—she was too stable and cautious to willingly jump on a train wreck—but she wanted a piece of Lizzie’s exuberance. Marley wanted to be the one who made a mess, just once, and then walked away and let someone else do the cleaning up.

She wouldn’t, of course.

But she couldn’t hide from her growing sense of discontent, as spending the summer on a retreat at the Benedictine convent had proved. It had been an attempt to escape the needs and wants that swirled around her, pecking away at her emotions, leaving her worried and dissatisfied, but her strategy had completely failed. Her desires clamored even louder for attention. There was literally no peace, no retreat from her problems, her fears about her family, and her loneliness, so she was going home.

"Bad news from home?" Sister Margaret asked.

She glanced over at Margaret, who was charting her family’s genealogy on the other computer in the lounge. Marley was leaving the convent the next day on a mid-morning flight, but she had asked permission to check her e-mail and to let her family know she was returning home earlier than expected.

"Maybe. I’m not sure."

"You sighed."

"Did I?" Marley stared at Lizzie’s smiley faces, perky and bouncing, just like Lizzie, "My sister, Elizabeth, she’s ‘in love.’" Marley made quote marks in the air. "But she just met this guy, and there is no mention whatsoever of my nephew, her two-year-old son. She’s left him with my cousin again while she’s off with this guy. I worry about her."

Marley hadn’t spoken to any of her family in over two months, since she’d arrived at the convent, which had been a painful attempt to distance herself from their problems, to stop trying to play savior for everyone. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, and now she felt doubt, guilt rising up from that well of worry her family always filled. The e-mail from Lizzie was dated mid-June and it was already late August. Marley had spent the entire summer in prayer and reflection, and by the end of her time at the convent had realized her ache to be a mother was coloring all her thoughts, all her actions, driving her unhappiness.

It had led her to the decision to adopt a child and become a single mother.

What had Lizzie spent the summer doing?

Marley was almost afraid to ask.

Especially when she replied to Elizabeth and her e-mail immediately bounced back.

Her sister’s account had been closed.

Marley frowned and opened the attachment.

The Punishment of Lust looked good on his wall. Damien’s first instinct had been to frame the print in stark, sleek black, to mirror the austere nature of the painting, the bleak landscape. But then he had decided it was a better visual reminder to surround the image in a rich, gilded, ornate frame that echoed the France of his youth, the days when he had romped at court with Louis and Marie. Not his Marie, but the king’s Marie.