My Immortal (Seven Deadly Sins #1)(32)
Author: Erin McCarthy

My mouth moved but no sound came out. I was shocked, appalled, frightened. If it had taken all my courage to come out into the garden dressed as if for dinner, how could I ever presume to go to his chamber?

"No? You don’t wish to? Well, that is somewhat disappointing."

He reached out and drew his finger along my decollete. The touch made me shiver, my ni**les hardening with a foreign discomfort.

"You look rather fetching tonight. Your maid has worked wonders with you,"

I confess I was offended. "She has done nothing. I have simply regained my appetite."

"Oh, I see I have pricked your pride." Damien leaned closer, tilting my chin up. "How interesting to know that vanity exists within you after all. Come upstairs and show me that you have regained, or rather developed for the first time, all of your appetites."

It could have been a tender touch. I wanted it to be. I wanted him to assure me that all was well between us. That if I came to him, we would start afresh, and have a true and sacred marriage. There was no such reassurance, of course. No smiles, no promises, no loving embrace.

Instead he moved away from me, crushing out his cigar with his boot. "I won’t wait for you but I will be in my chamber. Do as you please, Marie. You always do."

Chapter Ten

Marley followed behind Damien in her rental car and wondered if she’d lost her everlovin’ mind.

Yes, Damien lived in the pigeonnier, and she would be staying in the main house, but who was she kidding? Just the two of them until Saturday? She might as well strip naked now and save them both the aggravation of her futile resistance.

She hadn’t had sex in five years. Even then, it had been a brief, less than stellar performance by her high school crush, whom she’d run into at the park. All those years of daydreaming over Brian in sophomore algebra could have been spent more productively if only she could have had a glimpse into the future and known he was a sexual dud.

But maybe she was the dud. That was a very real possibility.

If Damien was a dud, she’d eat her skirt, one flower at a time. He looked like he could bring women to orgasm just by suggesting it.

That was part of the reason she’d clung to her rental car. She needed a way out, fast, if being around Damien for the next four days had her in over her head, which she suspected it would. She also had the niggling little fear at the back of her mind that she was being stupid, that she had no reason to trust him. But she always managed to wrestle that fear into submission by reminding herself that he’d had ample opportunity to take advantage of her, sleep with her, dismember her and toss her in the swamp the night before when she’d been half-dressed and drugged. If his motives were evil, she’d have been dead already.

Cheerful thought.

Damien came and opened her car door when she parked behind him in the driveway. He smiled at her and bent toward her. Marley backed up instinctively, then mentally groaned at her weird reaction when he pulled the button by her ankle to pop the trunk. He was just getting her luggage, and she’d been afraid he was going to put the moves on her in the Ford Taurus. Jesus, she needed to get a grip.

"So where are your parents?" she asked as she got out of the car and followed him around to the trunk. "Did they retire to a condo or something?" He couldn’t be more than thirty. His parents would be the right age for golf and traveling around the globe.

Damien lifted out her suitcase. "My parents have passed. My mother when I was a child, my father when I was twenty-four."

"Oh, I’m so sorry." No wonder he didn’t live in the big house. He truly was alone, and that overwhelming square footage must be a constant reminder.

"Don’t do that," he said, cupping her cheek with his free hand.

"Do what?" she asked, amazed at how breathy she sounded. But there was something so inherently sensual about having a man’s large hand cover her face like that, and she felt so bad for him.

"Feel sorry for me. I can see that softness in your eyes, that pity. I don’t deserve it, Marley, I truly don’t. Save your compassion for someone else."

He didn’t sound angry, just earnest. Marley shook her head. "Everyone deserves my compassion."

"You should protect yourself more. Someone is going to take your goodness, that compassion, and they’re going to hurt you. They’re going to shred you, make a mockery out of your trust and kindness, and they will walk away without a single drop of guilt or shame, and leave you bleeding."

His words were soft, but harsh, his fingers stroking over her skin. Marley shook her head again. "So I build steel armor around myself and never care about anyone? Never let anyone in? That sounds lonely as hell to me… I’d rather risk it."

He jerked back and yanked her second bag out of the trunk.

"You’re not going to shred me, are you, Damien?" she asked, even as she was sure of the answer.

"No. No, I’m not."

"I know. That’s why I’m here."

Pushing the handle back down into the suitcase, Damien turned and slammed the trunk shut. "That doesn’t mean you won’t regret the day you met me."

Marley slipped her purse back onto her shoulder and pulled up the suitcase handle before he could grab and carry both bags. She started rolling it over the gravel. "Oh, come on, don’t be so goth. You sound like you’re auditioning for vampire tour guide, all ominous and brooding."

He glared at her, but there was amusement in his eyes, and he struggled to keep a smile off his face. "Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I know I can be difficult."

"You’ve never seen a six-year-old lose his recess privileges. It’s ugly. I think I can handle you." She hoped. Playing cat and mouse with Damien was a little different than handing out color-coded behavior cards to students.

"Now show me the house, please. I didn’t have any time to look around last night."

Because she’d been too busy taking her bikini top off for him.

"By the way, why do you call the pigeonnier the pigeonnier?"

"Because pigeons used to be kept there."

"Oh." Duh, Marley. "I guess I figured that, but I meant why did they need a whole building to keep pigeons? Did they eat them or what?"

"Back in France, in the Old Regime before the Republic, only landowners could own pigeons. So building an elaborate structure to house your pigeons was a sign of wealth and class. And yes, they were eaten." Damien urged her to start walking again by pushing his hand lightly on the small of her back.

Marley marveled at the money, the heritage that belonged to Damien. Being just a nice, Midwestern, middle-class girl of unknown European ancestry, it was awe-inspiring to think about Damien’s lineage.