"With your hand, at least," she insisted, crossing the room to his bag. She poked through it until she found the first-aid kit they"d tucked inside, and a brown paper bag full of medicinal supplies they"d grabbed from a convenience store near the motel. He was already trying to sputter out some kind of protest, but she shook her head. "I can help you," she said again. "Go stand over there by the sink. We"ll change your bandages."

He sighed, his shoulders hunching in resignation, but stood still and unflinching as she slowly unrolled the white gauze bandage from around his palm. Although he"d regained a small amount of mobility in the maimed appendage, any healing was from the inside out.

Underneath the stark glare of the vanity"s overhead fluorescent lights, the wounds looked as gruesome as ever.

The edges of torn flesh were jagged and ashen, the exposed meat bright red and spongy. It looked painful as h.e.l.l, and as she dabbed at his palm gently with cotton b.a.l.l.s soaked in hydrogen peroxide, she glanced into his eyes. "I"m sorry."

"It doesn"t sting," he said. "It"s just cold."

Earlier in the day, there had been enough damage from the bullet that Tessa had been able to see clear through Rene"s hand at a point in the center. That part of the wound, at least, had closed, for which she was grateful, because that had been disturbing. Rene, in fact, had held his hand up to his face, pretending to peek through the hole in a morbid attempt to amuse her.

He"d been doing that all day, as if her concern for him bothered him more than his hand. Which is kind of sweet, she thought, glancing up at him again.

"You know, you surprise me, pischouette," he said.

"How"s that?"

"This," he said with a nod at his hand. "Everything that happened today. I really thought you"d fall apart on me. But you did real good."

She laughed, pressing squares of gauze against either side of his wound. "Thank you, I think."

He helped her hold the pads in place as she wound a fresh ribbon of bandage around them. "Come on, pischouette. You know what I mean. Your clothes...your makeup...it takes you three G.o.dd.a.m.n hours in the bathroom every morning."

Only earlier that day, this might have p.i.s.sed her off, but now, Tessa just laughed along with Rene.

"You aren"t exactly what I"d call "low maintenance," chere," he told her. Her smile faltered as she reached for a roll of white first-aid tape. "My grandmother taught me to appreciate nice things," she said, peeling back a strip. "She was very beautiful and very elegant, and I always wanted to be like her."

She pressed the tape in place against his hand, then tore off another. "She was the only woman in the Brethren who ever got to leave the compound. My Grandfather would take her with him whenever he"d travel. She visited all over the world. He loved her very much." She looked up at Rene as she finished bandaging his hand. "I know you probably think the Grandfather is a monster, and he is in a lot of ways. But he wasn"t always like that."

It had always occurred to her that one of the reasons the Grandfather had always been so hard on Brandon, and yet at the same time had allowed her brother to enjoy a private tutor and to forgo his bloodletting for as long as he had-luxuries other Brethren never would have been allowed-was because of Eleanor"s intercession.

"I think after my grandmother died, Brandon reminded him too much of her in too many ways," she said, her mind turning back to the afternoon in which she"d confronted Augustus about breaking Brandon"s hands. That had been the last straw for the Grandfather, she suspected; Brandon"s determination not only to escape the Brethren, but to go to college, as well. It would have been something that Eleanor might have tried; a moment of Eleanor in Brandon"s otherwise ordinarily quiet and reserved nature that must have just seemed too reminiscent in the Grandfather"s eyes.

"I think a part of him died along with her," she said softly, her eyes distant, her voice nearly a whisper. She cradled Rene"s swaddled hand gently between hers and felt dim tears well in her eyes. She blinked against them, snapping out of the reverie of her distant, melancholy thoughts, and managed a small laugh. "Anyway, that"s where I get it-all of that with my hair, makeup, clothes and whatnot. My grandmother taught me."

And for four years, I couldn"t have any of it.

Martin had stripped her of all the fine clothes Eleanor had bought for her. In the Davenant house, Tessa had worn plain clothes, often hand-me-downs from other women in the clan. She hadn"t been allowed to put on makeup. On the occasions she was allowed to leave and visit her family, she remembered pinching her cheeks like Scarlett O"Hara in Gone With the Wind just to lend them some semblance of healthy color.

When she"d left Kentucky, she"d taken several thousand dollars with her, money that Martin kept tucked inside a large manila envelope. He stowed the envelope away with a leather-bound ledger in a hollowed-out book in the library and over the years, Tessa had seen him put cash in and take it out of this secret cache, even though he"d been unaware of her.

She"d taken both the money and the ledger and gone to a department store in Lexington. Here, she"d bought a pair of suitcases and filled them to overflowing capacity with all of the designer clothes and shoes she could afford.

My way of saying a great big f.u.c.k you to Martin, she thought.

At that moment, she sensed the warm, fluttering presence of the baby in her mind as it stirred within her womb and pressed her hand to her belly reflexively.

"etes-tu bien?" Rene asked, his brows raised in concern. Are you all right?

"Yes." She smiled. "It"s just the baby. It moves sometimes. I can sense it. Do you want to feel?"

He blinked, taking a small, hedging step back, as if surprised, and Tessa laughed. "Come on. You grabbed hold of the barrel of a loaded gun today. I think touching my stomach will be a piece of cake."

She caught him by his uninjured hand and pulled her shirt up, exposing the slightly rounded swell of her belly. "Here." She pressed his hand against her and was immediately, acutely aware of the warmth of his palm against her skin. In that moment, her mind snapped back to the night before, when he"d pressed her down against the couch, laying atop her, and his hand had slid with electrifying friction along the length of her thigh, caressing the outermost curve of her b.u.t.tock.

Tessa blinked up at Rene and found him looking back at her, directly in the eyes. He didn"t say anything, but she could feel the hesitation and tension in his arm.

"Is it kicking?" he asked after a moment, giving his head a small shake and averting his gaze to his hand.

"No." Tessa giggled quietly. "It"s too little to feel anything like that yet. You have to open your mind."

His brow arched slightly. "Oh. Je suis desole." Sorry.

She watched his expression change as for the first time he allowed himself to be aware of the tiny, delicate life growing inside of her.

Any hint of uncertainty drained from his face as his eyes widened, his brows lifting with wonder. He stared at his hand, at her belly beneath, the corners of his mouth unfolding in a soft, marveling smile.

"Saint merde," he said. Holy s.h.i.t.

"Do you feel it?" she asked, even though she could see the answer plainly in his face.

His smile widened as he nodded. "That"s amazing, pischouette," he said, his voice small and quiet. "That...that"s d.a.m.n likely the most amazing thing I"ve ever felt in my life."

"I can"t sense it all of the time," Tessa said. "Not yet anyway. It"s still too early. But sometimes I do, like right now. It doesn"t have thoughts yet, not like you or I do. There"s just that-all warm inside, light somehow."

"Like sunshine," he said, and when she nodded, he glanced at her, raising his brow. "So if all we can do is sense it in our minds, why are you holding my hand against your belly?"

She could have told him that it was because the baby must have been able to feel it whenever someone pressed against her stomach, that this awareness was enough to stimulate the little growing bundle of neurons that served as its primitive brain stem. She could have told him that this was what they were sensing together, the baby"s reaction to his touch, the pressure of his hand against the shelter of her womb. She could have told him this, but instead, she said something else, something equally as true. "Maybe I like it there."

She"d never met a man like Rene before, someone who could make her laugh out loud or want to wring his neck all in the course of one conversation; one who could charm her, move her, infuriate, amuse, challenge and fascinate her. All that afternoon, she"d been reminded of how her grandmother Eleanor had been with the Grandfather, how they had behaved together, interacted with each other, how much emotion they had been able to convey without saying a single word. She"d been reminded because she"d seen it happening with her and Rene, and she"d come to realize that it had been growing between them all along.

Grandmother Eleanor would have loved Rene, she thought. And oh, dear G.o.d, I think I do, too.

His brow arched a bit more and he stepped toward her, collapsing the s.p.a.ce between them to no more than mere inches. He moved his hand from her stomach, trailing the cuff of his knuckles up between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, caressing the side of her neck, making her shiver. "Is that so?" he murmured, his fingers uncurling against her face, his palm cradling her cheek.

He leaned toward her, and Tessa felt her heart-which had started pounding beneath her sternum in a frantic, fluttering rhythm- quicken all the more. Her breath hitched once, twice, then fell still, caught in the back of her throat. The pad of his thumb brushed lightly against her lips, making her hiccup softly, a shudder going through her entire body. He smiled and c.o.c.ked his head, leaning closer, until the front of his shirt touched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His lips lightly brushed hers as he used his hand to guide her face, tilting her chin up. Then his mouth settled against her, a gentle, lingering kiss that made her heart hammer, and sent chills trembling all the way through her. The tip of his tongue slipped between her lips, dancing against her own, and he uttered a low, hungry sound, like a cross between a growl and a groan as he pulled her near, kissing her deeply. He pressed her so tightly against him, she could feel the heat from his chest through the fabric of his shirt, and the hardening strain of his growing arousal against her through his jeans.

When he pulled back, just enough to draw his lips away from hers, leaving their foreheads nearly touching, the tips of their noses together, Tessa gasped quietly, trembling."Merde," Rene breathed with a quiet, shaky laugh. s.h.i.t. After a moment, he stepped back, leaving an abrupt chill in the air and against her body. "I...I shouldn"t have done that. I"m sorry, Tessa. I don"t...I don"t know what got into my head."

"It"s all right," Tessa whispered. She didn"t seem to be able to summon any more voice than this.

He shook his head. "No, it"s not." He forked his fingers through his hair and turned, walking away. "You"re married, pischouette. I mean, your husband may have had six wives, but I"m sure he still cares about you and wouldn"t-"

"He doesn"t care," Tessa said. "Trust me."

"Sure, he does," Rene replied. "He must. You"re carrying his baby, for Christ"s sake. He"s probably-"

"He used to hit me," Tessa said, and Rene"s voice cut off in mid-sentence. He turned, visibly startled, and she looked down at the blue carpet beneath her feet. She wanted to clap her hands over her mouth and take it back somehow. Worse, now that she"d admitted it, she found herself saying even more, the words spilling out of her mouth in a rapid-fire tumble. "Martin was a horrible man. He hated my grandfather and punished me because of it. He"d punch me, slap me, knock me to the ground. He"d take off his belt and whip me with it, leave me black and blue...sometimes so much I couldn"t even walk."

She glanced up at him, her eyes clouded with tears. "I hate him," she whispered, her voice tremulous. "I never told anyone about it, not the Grandfather, not my father...not even Brandon...especially not Brandon...because I...I just couldn"t..."

The words faded and her tears spilled. She pressed her hand against her mouth and turned toward the wall. Rene didn"t say anything at first. He simply went to her, draping his hand against her shoulder and turned her around.

"Come here," he said, drawing her into an embrace.

"He doesn"t even care that I"m gone," Tessa wept, huddled against his chest. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he...all he wants is the baby. He wants the baby back...he wants to take my baby!"

"No one is going to take your baby." Rene tucked his fingertips under her chin, making her look up at him. "Listen to me. I won"t let anyone hurt you or that baby. Not now. Not ever. I swear to you, pischouette."

He leaned forward, his lips pressing against hers again, first in promise and then with growing pa.s.sion. He pushed her back against the nearest wall and pinned her there, holding her face with his uninjured hand, kissing her the entire time.

"Tu es sur avec moi," he told her. You are safe with me. He let his lips trail lightly across her cheek, tracing the contours of her ear.

Tessa touched him, feeling the roughness of his face, the unkempt beard stubble, and the contrast of his hair, soft and thick, nearly silken through her fingers. His heart thrummed against her, its rhythm mirroring her own and she sensed the blood racing through his veins, coursing through his body, making her gums ache with sudden, mounting need.

Not to mention other parts of her.

She reached between them, cupping her hand against the hard swell of his arousal, straining against the fly of his jeans. He groaned softly as she moved, gripping him firmly, then caught her wrist to stay her. "Don"t," he said in a hoa.r.s.e, ragged voice.

She blinked at him, drawing back, somewhat wounded and confused, but he slipped his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head in his palm and kissed her again. He turned, guiding her until the backs of her legs met the mattress. When she sat, he moved with her, laying her back against the bed and stretching out beside her. He began to explore her with his good hand, caressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, toying with her nipples until they grew firm through the thin fabric of her blouse. The sensation of it left her breath hitching, and she hooked her fingers into the curve of his shoulder, digging her nails into his sleeve.

"Tell me to stop, pischouette," Rene whispered, looking down at her. She met his gaze, trembling. She wasn"t naive when it came to s.e.x. Martin had spent four years forcing himself on her to get her pregnant. She"d never felt anything on those occasions but repulsion, but at Rene"s touch, his kiss, she found herself suddenly on that same brink of tenuous self-control as when the bloodl.u.s.t would come upon her.

"Tell me to stop," he said again, and she shook her head.

"No." She caught his face between her hands and pulled him down, kissing him again. He touched her through her pants, sliding his hand between her thighs and rubbing against her, sending sudden pleasure shuddering through her. No one had ever touched her like that before; sure as h.e.l.l not Martin. She found herself moving with Rene, and when he paused, unb.u.t.toning her fly and slipping beneath her waistband, she moaned softly.

She felt his fingertips steal through the tangle of dark curls hidden just beneath the edge of her panties, then move lower still. She raised her hips slightly from the bed and he caressed her, delving between her folds, stroking against a wonderful, almost electrified point deep at her core.

"Tu es etonnant, femme," he whispered as she clutched at him, gasping for breath. You are amazing, woman. When he slid his fingers inside of her one at a time, slow and deliberate, she moaned again. He kissed her, his mouth pressing hungrily against hers as she moved with a nearly desperate urgency, grinding against his hand, drawing him deep inside, filling her. Faster and faster he moved, plunging his fingers in and out. She could feel something ma.s.sive and wonderful building with his pace, some mounting pleasure that crashed down on her all at once, making her cry out, writhing against the bed.

When it was finished, leaving her breathless and trembling, she huddled against him, her eyes closed as he stroked her hair. "You all right?" he asked, and she laughed, nodding.

"Yes," she said, resting her chin nearly against his sternum to look up at him. "Very much all right."

He smiled, lifting his head enough to kiss her forehead through her bangs. "Good," he said.

Tessa wondered why he hadn"t made love to her. He could have. She would have let him. Impossible as it seemed, given she"d never felt anything but a rigid disgust when it came to s.e.x with her husband, when Rene had been touching her, kissing her, she"d wanted him, a foreign but fascinating-and d.a.m.n near maddening-sensation.

She felt certain that Rene had wanted to, as well; that much had been obvious from the fervency in his kisses, not to mention the fact that he"d been so aroused, she"d thought for sure he"d burst through the front of his jeans. He"d been as desperate for her, as much on the tenuous brink of self-control as she"d been.

Then what stopped you? She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the heavy, racing measure of his heart as it slowed back to its normal rhythm. Why didn"t you make love to me, Rene?

Chapter Eleven.

Stupid, Rene thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He"d d.a.m.n near waited too long before plugging in the lithium ion battery in his knee joint to recharge. It was designed to warn him of this sort of little oversight by vibrating. He"d felt the thrumming at about the same moment as he"d kissed Tessa for the first time, and had ignored it as a result.

Would"ve been real romantic, too, he thought with a scowl. If the d.a.m.n thing hadn"t frozen up and left me stuck there, unable to move without dragging it around with me-a G.o.dd.a.m.n 15-pound t.i.tanium anchor.

He sat in the motel room recliner with a blanket draped across his lap and his prosthetic leg propped against the chair arm beside him, the knee fully bent while the battery recharged through a nearby wall outlet. Tessa was sound asleep in the bed; he"d lain with her for a while until she"d drifted off in his arms, that d.a.m.n knee joint vibrating all the while in friendly reminder. He kept stealing anxious glances at every soft sound, each time she"d shift or murmur in her sleep. I don"t want her to see me, he thought. Not like this.

He didn"t mind particularly if men saw him without his prosthetic; in fact, Tessa"s brother, Brandon, had once, and Rene hadn"t been bothered at all. But women were different. He didn"t like for them to see him without the leg in place, and few ever had. He hadn"t made love to a woman face-to-face since Irene; when he had s.e.x with the prost.i.tutes he"d hire to feed on, he"d always done so from behind. It made things easier that way...in more ways than one.

While waiting until the last minute to tend to his leg had been foolish enough, that wasn"t exactly why he was remonstrating with himself at the moment.

Stupid, he thought again. What the h.e.l.l was I thinking, messing around with her? And what the h.e.l.l was she thinking, letting me?

He watched Tessa sleep, admiring the soft play of lamplight against the contours of her face, alight against her glossy hair, remembering how it had felt to touch her, taste her. He hadn"t meant to, but hadn"t been able to stop himself from kissing her. And then when she"d told him about her husband, the way Martin used to abuse her, his heart had nearly broken. Here was the secret she"d been so careful to hide all along, the truth she"d been unable to share with anyone, not even her own brother. She"d confided it to him, and he"d been moved by her trust. He"d lost his mind for the moment, just like he had at the rest stop earlier. Only this time, he hadn"t acted impulsively to protect her from some drugged-out kid with a gun. He"d wanted to protect her from herself, from memories that obviously haunted and terrorized her. He"d wanted to show her that not every man in the world would hurt her.

There"s irony, no? a mean little part of his mind said. Because Christ knows you"ve never hurt anyone, right, Rene?

Especially a woman.

G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I need to get up, he thought, tearing his eyes away from Tessa and shoving the heel of his hand against his brow. He hated walls. That was why his home in the city was utterly devoid of them; nothing but a broad, open loft with drapes to mark boundaries. Right now, the claustrophobic confines of the motel room were d.a.m.n near suffocating to him. I need to walk right out through that G.o.dd.a.m.n door, get in my car and get as far away from here as I can.

But he couldn"t. Not now, because of his leg. My G.o.dd.a.m.n leg, he thought, and in that moment, he was tempted to hoist it up and throw it across the room, ruining a fifty-thousand dollar investment. He blinked against sudden, frustrated tears and hated the G.o.dd.a.m.n prosthetic more than anything else in the entire world. Worse than that, he wanted a drink. Vodka, bourbon, beer, something-anything to take away that horrible edge, to make him stop feeling.

Because that"s what got me into this f.u.c.king mess, he thought. Feeling. Letting myself get caught up in the moment.

He looked at Tessa again, the outline of her body beneath the crisp, pale sheets, all long legs and gentle curves. She was breathtaking, her figure flawlessly proportioned, slender and strong, graceful and lean.

And here I am, half a man, he thought. I couldn"t even make love to her because I had to charge up my G.o.dd.a.m.n leg.

She would have let him, too, and that had been the most humiliating part. He hadn"t needed to read her mind to know this; it was obvious from the urgency in her kiss, the way she"d moved her body against him, undulating to match the rhythm of his hand. When she"d climaxed, she"d jerked against him, uttering a soft cry, and he"d d.a.m.n near shot off in his pants like an adolescent schoolboy.

And all the while, his G.o.dd.a.m.n knee had been buzzing: Hey, Casanova! I"m about to die here! You"d better f.u.c.king charge me!

When it was over, Tessa had curled up against him and fallen asleep. His erection had withered along with his ego, and he"d lain there, feeling frustrated and humiliated, hating his G.o.dd.a.m.n leg.

And what would you have done if your knee had been fully charged? he asked himself sharply. You can"t just drop your Levi"s anymore, mon ami, not so she wouldn"t notice. She"d see your leg. She"d see you, a.s.shole, and talk about a f.u.c.king mood killer! You aren"t some G.o.dd.a.m.n romance novel hero, Rene Morin. Half a man, that"s what you are. That"s what she"d see. Half a man.

He glanced across the room at her, his brows furrowed deeply as he struggled defiantly against his tears, his lips pressed together in a stern, crooked line. "Stupid," he whispered.

Before he"d left her in bed, he"d felt the baby again. He"d touched her stomach through her clothes and that dim but wondrous sensation-which he could only liken to a broad beam of sunshine spilling into an otherwise darkened room-had flooded his mind, an awareness of some basic, inherent consciousness that had been sweet and innocent, like the thoughts of the birds he could call and command, but amplified ten-thousand fold. Just as it had before, this sensation had momentarily made him lose his breath, and he"d lain in the bed, dumbstruck.

Do you wish it could be yours? that spiteful part of his brain whispered. Do you, Rene? Stupid, stupid, stupid-you couldn"t be a father to the one you had the right to call your own. You drove Irene away. You broke her heart, made her lose the baby.

"No," Rene whispered, closing his eyes, his brows narrowing even more. "No, I didn"t."