The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels Book 1)

Dorian lay naked for the first time since he could remember, enjoying the cool air against skin heated by movement and pleasure. He wrinkled his nose as a silvery curl tickled it, but was unwilling to let go of the woman draped across his chest even to move the offending lock.

He didn’t know how long they had been silent like this, long enough for the moon to move from one side of the window to the other. Their breathing had slowed, and little pricks of chill bumps began to make him consider tucking her under the covers. But that meant moving, and he couldn’t stand the idea of parting with her skin for even a moment. Also, he was pretty certain she’d drifted to sleep, and he would freeze to death before he disturbed her.

How had he made it two months without her presence? How had he survived seventeen years of unadulterated hell? It was like the fibers that constructed his body required her nearness in order to function.

He’d not only endured her touch tonight, he’d enjoyed it. She’d been so right. Farah could never be corrupted, was too pure to be touched by his darkness. But he felt less revolting, like some of the rifts in his soul had been stitched by her hands.

Dorian closed his eyes, berating himself for his stupidity. All this time, he hadn’t been afraid of her, he’d been afraid of himself. Afraid that intimacy would bring the violent fears of his years in prison roaring to the surface.

He should have known better. This was his Fairy. His soul remembered. He was a killer, a violent man, but he’d slit his own throat before harming a hair on her head.

He pictured the lust in her eyes when she’d bared his body. The honest appreciation. His desire for her didn’t make him feel vulnerable and weak. But powerful. Virile. Like he could conquer the stars and all the unknown powers beyond them.

“I hope you realize, Madame Sandrine is going to be very irate with you,” she said on a lazy yawn.

He nuzzled her curls, taking the scent of lavender so deep he hoped it knitted into the corners of his lungs. “I thought you were asleep,” he murmured, bemused that those were the first words out of her mouth. Likely, she was trying to put him at ease by creating a light moment after the intensity of everything just past.

She was so fucking precious to him.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” she reprimanded with a teasing poke. “You’re going to have to answer for destroying my entire wardrobe in one night.”

His hands roamed the silken skin of her back, creating chill bumps of his own. He’d never tire of the feel of her. Never cease to marvel at the unnatural softness of her fairy skin. It was like stroking a miracle. Holding an angel. A woman like this just—didn’t belong on this wretched earth. “You won’t be needing clothing for quite some time,” he informed her. “For I plan to keep you naked for as long as I’m able.”

She pulled herself out of his embrace to execute a dramatic flop onto her back with her hand held to her forehead. “Maybe you should reconsider a harem of courtesans.” She sighed. “I don’t think I’ll survive the bed of the infamous Blackheart of Ben More.”

Dorian rolled to his side to lord over her prone, pale flesh, his hand tracing the distracting underside of one perfect breast. “Do you want to help me interview them?” he asked lightly.

She swatted his hand away with a dangerous look. “Of course not!” she huffed, only half joking now. “I’d scratch the eyes out of any woman who dares to touch you.”

Dorian’s hand returned to her breast, his fingers working their way toward the other one. “I had no idea you were so ruthless, Lady Blackheart,” he teased, lapping at a nipple and then blowing on it for the sheer joy of watching it pucker.

“Oh my, yes.” Her boast was interrupted by an airy gasp. “I’ve shot a man, you know, and stabbed one. I can be quite dangerous when I need to be.”

Dorian sobered, his lungs deflating as he ran his large hands down the delicate line of her arm. It struck him again how fragile she was, how easily broken, how easily lost. “Is being a woman just terrifying all the time?”

Farah’s smile faded, but a playful glint still remained in her sweet, silvery eyes. “What a question. Whatever do you mean?”

“You’re so—soft, so frail,” he marveled. “Like a morsel of the rarest delicacy just waiting to be preyed upon. And we men, we are nothing better than wolves—no, vultures. Bloody predators,” he cursed. “How do you ladies muster the courage to leave the house? Better yet, why do I allow it?” He started thinking of all the dangers the world possessed for her beyond his arms and his palms began to sweat.

She traced the long scar he’d received from a dock pirate blade years ago. “Don’t you think you’re letting your—singular life experiences cloud your view just a little? I lived among dangerous criminals and bohemians for almost twenty years without being preyed upon.” Heat warmed the silver of her irises to a darker gray-green. “And more’s the pity, as I find I quite enjoy being your prey.”

That unsettling possessive instinct flared, the one he’d first felt in Applecross’s library. “Only mine,” he declared to the night.

“I’ve only ever been yours,” she affirmed.

He stared down at her, his heart in his throat. “I—love you, Farah.”

She blinked rapidly, a mist appearing in her eyes. “I love you, too, Dorian.”

He captured her chin, forcing her to look into his face. “You don’t understand. I’ve always loved you. From the moment I saw you in that graveyard I loved you with the strength of a man. So much, it terrified me more than you can imagine.”

To his astonishment, her face fell, a troubled wrinkle appearing between her brows. “Did you just not realize?”

“I’ve always known.” He captured a ringlet with his finger, the action something he’d dreamed about for years and that he planned on doing for the rest of his life.

The wrinkle only deepened. “Then—why did you deny it before? Why did you break my heart when I offered it to you?”

Shame pierced at him, and he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. “In my world, if you care for something, it is a weakness your enemies can use against you.”

“I don’t care about that.” Farah covered his hand with hers. “What else?”

“It’s what I’ve said before,” he muttered, trying to find the words to express the depth of his dysfunction. “I was—am broken. I’m not only afraid of causing you harm in my sleep, but that if I allowed myself to love, to hope, the force of my love would consume you, destroy you, somehow. I don’t know. Smother or repulse you.”

She soothed his agitation with her touch, and he loved that he no longer flinched away, but melted into the warmth of her caress.

“That’s not what love does,” she whispered, lifting her head to press a kiss above his heart. “Of course it’s all-consuming, but love—real love—doesn’t destroy or smother. It’s the very opposite of a weakness. Love strengthens. It liberates. It molds itself to every fiber of your being and fortifies you where you may be broken. It is as necessary to the body and soul as food or water. It couldn’t repulse me. I can only be humbled and awestruck by the most precious gift of your love.” Her voice cracked and her eyes spilled tears she’d been holding back. “It is what I always desired the very most in this world, from the moment I saw you. Angry and wounded in the Applecross graveyard. I wanted to keep you, to hold you like this and teach you love.”

Dorian’s throat burned. Her words. Her eyes. Her tears. He couldn’t stand the sight of them without his heart expanding until his chest might burst. Jaw clenched, he blinked at a foreign blurriness in his eyes.

Panicking, he bolted upright, ready to flee.

“Dorian, no!” Farah shocked him by flinging a long, smooth limb over him, wrapping her body around his so tightly he’d have to hurt her in order to disengage. “Do not run from this.”

“Farah,” he croaked, the warning lost in the barrage of emotions crowding his throat.

“You are mine, Dorian Blackwell,” she said with savage possession so foreign to her angelic face. “Only mine.”

He tasted salt on her tongue when he kissed her, felt a cold wetness on his cheeks as she took him into her body, fusing her limbs around his trunk.

He gripped, she clung. Their hands roamed and explored. It didn’t take long before pleasure bloomed and blood sang. A simultaneous culmination so sweet and prolonged peeled away any barrier left between them, fusing their souls and their voices into an archaic song of pulsating bliss.

Dorian kept her body wrapped about him as he maneuvered them beneath the covers.

Once they were settled, he kissed her eyelids. “I love you.” Her cheekbones. “I love you.” Rooted in the soft curve of her shoulder. “I love you.”

She lifted her head, a luminous smile baring her small, even teeth. “I’m glad you’re getting used to the phrase.” She kissed his jaw. “You’ll have to say it at least once a day. For the rest of our lives.”

He’d already planned on it, but lifted his brows in mock surprise, enchanted that she’d swung back to being playful. “Every day, you say?”

“And much more often on the days when I’m cross with you,” she warned sagely.

“Why are you going to be cross with me?”

She slanted him an imperious look. “Trust me, there will be occasion.”

His laugh sounded foreign, even to his own ears. “Fairy?” he mumbled, a drowsy languor stealing through his bones, her tiny body warming him.

“Mmmmmm?” She struggled with her own heavy lids, apparently unable to open them wide enough to see him properly.

“I love you.”

Her yawn cracked her jaw and she patted his chest. “So you said.”

“I said it as Dorian. But I must tell you once per day for Dougan, as well.”

Her chin wobbled, but this time the tear that rolled down her cheek contained no sadness, only joy, and so he kissed it from her cheek, and moved to roll her over and leave her to sleep.

“Sometimes you watch me sleeping, don’t you?” she asked, more alert now.

Dorian didn’t answer her.

“Couldn’t you do that tonight, but hold me, as well?”

“I really shouldn’t…”

She put a hand to his chest, imprisoning his back to the bed. “Stay.”

“What if I hurt—”

“You won’t,” she insisted, and dropped her cheek against his chest, her legs still split over him. She was asleep in the space of an instant, just like when they were children.

Dorian did stay up and watch her. His fear melting into true realization. She wasn’t his weakness. Through his entire godforsaken life, she’d been the source of his strength, and now that they were reunited he could conquer anything. Even the past.

Especially the future.

Dorian closed his eyes, identifying the space in his soul as peace and—hope.

Before sleep took him, he whispered the vow into her ear that he would repeat every night until time claimed its due.

I make ye my heart

At the rising of the moon.

To love and honor,

Through all our lives.

May we be reborn,

May our souls meet and know.

And love again.

And remember.