Long Shadow looked away to the wall.
The door opened and closed. He didn't move. An hour later he was still staring at the wall when the door opened again.
'Visitors, Chief,' the oily voice said and Long Shadow felt the hairs stand up on the nape of his neck. 'Told you I'd be back.'
Chapter Thirty-Six
'You must leave us now,' Wendee said over her shoulder to Pietre as she took Christophe's hand, drew him into the room. 'You will give us four hours alone. You will not watch us. I want you to wonder. To suffer.'
'As you wish.'
Dee knew he would prefer to watch, but he was accepting her command as yet another punishment, another form of foreplay. He would do as she ordered and suffer the jealousy, made worse by his own imagination. And when she was finished with Christophe, he would expect her to punish him for that jealousy. To hurt him.
He would also be hoping that the extremity of his suffering would enable him to mate with her again, as he had three days ago in Long Shadow's cell.
Nothing they had done subsequently had produced that favourable result and Dee knew it would only be a matter of time before he suggested another visit.
She wanted to avoid that at all costs.
Long Shadow's eyes already haunted her, fed her mind with doubts. His anger, his passion — both had been unexpected, incongruent with her perception of him as a conscienceless liar.
Yet his degradation of Skye — she's seen that.
Dee shook her head. Shut the door behind Pietre. Her ability to make moral judgements was gone. Who was good and who was evil? Who should she give her allegiance to? Her world was grey and she wanted it black and white. Good and bad. Love and hate.
Part of her feared what the torturing of Pietre was doing to her humanity, while another part revelled in the release of this dark side of her nature.
The witch and the queen.
'Wendee?'
She turned to Christophe — Christophe who was so achingly sweet she wanted to bury herself in his arms and forget everything but the smell of his skin and the beat of his eager young heart.
'Why am I here?' he asked.
She shook her head, pressed a finger to his lips. She didn't want to talk. She just wanted… comfort.
Taking his hand, she led him to the bed and undressed him. Then they lay on the cool sheets. Dee on top. She brushed the fringe out of his eyes and looked down at him. Smiled to reassure him.
'Are we doing it this time, Wendee,' he breathed. 'I've never — '
Still? 'Not even with Skye when — '
'I hated what they did!' he said, and Dee felt his body trembling. 'I wanted them to stop but they just went on and on and…'
'Shhh,' Dee covered his lips with her own, kissing away the bad memory. But even as she did, she thought of how she could use that memory to enhance his arousal, how she could build him up to the point of penetration and then pretend he was raping her. By manipulating his emotions she could sustain the power of his erection and -
She rolled off him and flopped onto the bed at his side.
'What's wrong?' He came up on one elbow. Gazed down at her in concern. 'What did I do?'
'Nothing. It's me.' She closed her eyes. 'I've forgotten how to make love.' Creeping fingers of ennui were stealing over her. She couldn't even muster up anger at herself for spoiling their precious time together. 'I only know sex, and I don't want to do that with you, Christophe.' Raising a hand, she touched his cheek, feeling the softness of it, the tremor along his jaw. 'I care about you. I don't want to hurt you.'
He looked deep into her eyes. 'You can remember love, Wendee.' He hesitated, then leant down and kissed her so sweetly that in its aftermath she lost herself in his dark eyes, wondering if he could reawaken the innocence in her.
'Do we really have four hours?' he said and she nodded.
'Pietre will obey me. He'll enjoy his suffering.'
Christophe kissed her again and she felt the sweetness dissolve into heat. 'I don't care about his suffering,' he breathed against her lips. 'I only care about you.' His hand ran down her body, over her breasts and between her legs to tentatively cup the mound of her sex. 'I want to make love to you, Wendee,' he said and she knew he was an infatuated boy no longer. His voice might tremble, but this was a man who wanted her.
'Make love to me, Christophe,' she said. 'Make me forget.'
'I will,' he promised, and she sighed as he moved over her and his lips covered hers again, his tongue gliding unerringly into her mouth with a confidence that relaxed her body. She didn't need to do anything. Christophe would love her. He would be a man for her. She needed that now — that strength.
'You're the only one I can trust, Christophe,' she whispered as his lips came off her mouth to resettle on her breast. 'The only one.'
He suckled for a moment and she felt a sharp flow of pleasure, untinged by guilt or pain, sweep through her body. Then he raised his head, looked at her with an expression older than his years. 'Do you trust me, Wendee?'
'With my life.'
He moved back up to her lips, kissed her again, said, 'I have to tell you — '
She shook her head. 'Not now,' and reached between their bodies to stroke his erection.
Christophe closed his eyes, an expression of rapture on his face. Then she steered the rigid flesh inside herself and he sighed, only to catch his lip between his teeth as she moved her hips upwards to engulf the length of him.
He opened his eyes again and under his gaze Dee felt humbled. The culmination of all his hopes and desires had come to fruition in this one moment. It was too powerful for words. She cupped his face and brought his lips down to hers for a kiss he quickly took over as his own.
Then, when she felt his first tentative thrust, she knew he had saved her. With the loss of his innocence, she had found her own. She could be tender. She could love. It wasn't forgotten.
Unsteadily at first, then with growing confidence, he found his rhythm. His arms trembled as he held himself above her, staring down at her not in concentration, but with undisguised wonder in his eyes. She wanted to kiss him but felt instinctively that it would distract him. Instead, she clenched her internal muscles around him and contented herself with rolling up to meet his downward lunge, her hands still on his shoulders.
A moment later he was arching his back, his breath caught in a groan of surprise, his eyes closing as though to lock the sensations into his memory.
Then it was over and she cradled him against her breasts, kissing his hair and smoothing it, listening to his hoarse breathing.
'I love you, Wendee,' he said, and like ice melting, Dee felt a tear form in the corner of her eye.
If she'd believed in a God she would have thought he'd sent Christophe as an angel to protect her. Making love with him had been exactly what she'd needed, exactly when she'd needed it, to save her from destruction.
'I'm sorry you didn't…' His head moved against her breast. 'I was so caught up in what was happening to me.'
'It's supposed to be that way the first time,' she said, her fingers pushing back his fringe as he lifted himself to look down at her.
'But you didn't — '
'I didn't want to.' She leant up and kissed him. 'Watching you was better.'
He shook his head. 'I don't understand.'
