Wicked Burn(81)
Author: Beth Kery

His gentle, ephemeral, lovely little butterfly, Vic thought with a small smile as he lightly traced her elegant arched brow with his fingertip. He went very still when her eyelids opened and he suddenly found himself swimming in the depths of Niall’s hazel eyes.

Niall stared up at Vic for one of those eternal moments that one sometimes encounters hovering between sleeping and wakefulness. She eventually smiled drowsily.

“I never knew that a man could be beautiful until I first saw you,” she whispered softly.

“I never knew the meaning of beauty until I first laid eyes on you.”

Niall blinked twice and raised herself on one elbow. Sleep still weighted her eyelids, but it slowly began to dawn on her that she wasn’t dreaming. But surely she’d imagined Vic saying those words. The haloed quality to his deep, husky voice had certainly been the stuff of dreams.

That, along with the heavenly feeling of his long fingers delving into her hair and slowly massaging her scalp—

“What a nice surprise to find you in my bed,” Vic said.

“You said it was where I belonged,” Niall found herself saying while she was locked in Vic’s mesmerizing stare. Her heart began to thump faster when she read what lay in the depths of his light gray eyes. God, if this was a dream, she hoped she’d never awaken.

“It is where you belong.” The tip of his callused thumb brushed her cheek softly. “But I was wrong to tell you it was the only place you belong. I want more of you than that Niall. Much more.”

Niall’s lips fell open in amazement. “You do?”

Vic nodded slowly. “I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting,” he said gruffly. “And about what happened here last night—”

Niall shook her head quickly. She brushed her first two fingers over his warm lips, halting him. “Don’t apologize for that, Vic. Making love with you is always so good . . . so right. I was just feeling vulnerable about what you’d said earlier that day,” Niall tried to explain. Tears welled up in her eyes. “It wasn’t the sex toys I was upset about, not really.”

Vic suddenly leaned down and kissed her warmly on her forehead. Niall stared in amazement when he leaned back and she saw the profound regret that shadowed his handsome face. “You don’t have to try to explain. It was callous of me to tell you I wanted you only for sex and then expect you to give yourself to me so completely.” His gaze met hers. “Which you did, Niall . . . despite everything. You’re so sweet.”

Niall gawked at him, not sure if she could trust that Vic was staring at her with undisguised longing . . . and what looked very much to her befuddled brain like love.

“Sex toys weren’t the only thing I was going to give you last Christmas,” he said suddenly with a crooked grin.

“No?”

“Uh-uh,” Vic muttered as he stood. He crossed the room and grabbed a black box from his dresser. Niall realized dazedly that it was what he’d placed behind his watch last night after he’d retrieved the bag from the closet.

“Go on, open it,” Vic insisted when he returned to sit on the edge of the bed and held up the velvet box for her.

The sheet fell down to where she held it above her breasts when Niall reached for the box. She saw Vic go still out of the corner of her eye.

“Are you naked under there, baby?” he asked in an uneven voice.

“Yes,” Niall replied, never taking her eyes off the box in her hand.

“How’d I ever get so lucky?” he asked in what sounded like genuine amazement.

Niall laughed softly, flattered by his words and tone. She opened the box and her mirth quickly faded to wonder.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” she whispered in awe as she lightly touched the exquisite butterfly amulet. The gold filigree had been meticulously wrought and the myriad cut gems—emerald, citrine, topaz, sapphire, and tourmaline—had definitely been cut and designed by an artist’s hand.

“You had this made for me?” Niall asked with wide eyes, but she already knew the answer. She’d rarely seen such fine craftsmanship.

Vic nodded as he took the box from her and extricated the delicate gold chain. He unclasped it and signaled with a hitch of his chin that he wanted her to sit up. Niall did, clutching the bedclothes around her breasts as she did so. Vic’s hands encircled her throat.

“Thank you. It’s so special. How does it look?” she asked after he’d fastened it.

“Beautiful.”

Niall felt happiness in its purest, most distilled form when she saw that his eyes had never strayed from her face when he spoke. Despite her increasing bliss, she couldn’t help but wonder what had changed Vic’s mind about her. Although she had a suspicion—

“When Meg came to the hospital, she said that when she spoke to you earlier on the phone, you told her that you were at Joliet Prison.”

Vic merely nodded.

Niall swallowed thickly. “How . . . how did you find out about Matthew Manning?”

“I went to Chicago this morning. I looked for you both at your loft and at the museum. I ran into Evan Forrester at Toulouse’s bar.”

Niall’s jaw dropped. “Evan Forrester? How does he know anything about Matthew Manning?”

Vic shrugged. “He said it was from the papers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy trolls for gossip about you every chance he gets. He’s a real bottom-feeder.”

“I know,” she whispered. She toyed anxiously with the butterfly.

“Matthew Manning’s execution was postponed, Vic. They sent me a letter yesterday. The state assembly’s temporary lifting of the moratorium on the death sentence for the special case of Manning was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court.”

“My God,” Vic muttered, floored by the news. “It wasn’t in any of the newspapers—”

“They tried to downplay it since several political groups on both sides of the issue were threatening demonstrations today. They were informed by special delivery—just like I was—by the governor of Illinois, saying that Matthew Manning’s fate now hangs in the same balance as the thousand or so other inmates on death row in Illinois.”

“How . . . how do you feel about it, Niall?” Vic asked uneasily. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she experienced in regard to the man who had so senselessly murdered her innocent child. Seeing Donny in the hospital this afternoon had torn him apart, and he knew what he felt about the boy was nowhere near as deep and complex as what Niall must have felt for the son she bore from her own body.