feeling exposed. The pants hung low on her hips. He drew the drawstring bow loose, with a slow, deliberate pull. The soft, crumpled linen garment puddled around her feet, leaving her entirely naked. “And I meant it,” she finished in a whisper.
“Ah, Tamar,” he whispered back.
She flinched violently at the gentle touch of his hands spanning her waist. For a moment, it was just as she had feared it would be.
She cringed, her body going hard and tight with self-loathing at his touch. Still hearing that low, rasping voice, droning endlessly. Men don’t love women like you. They use them and discard them like the trash that they are.
But she closed her eyes and breathed. Covered his hands with her own, holding them motionless at her waist, and waited for a miracle.
Val himself was the miracle, a living, breathing miracle. His gentleness, his tender patience, melted her, healed her instantly.
The feeling bloomed from deep inside her, soft and sweet and intensely alive. Surprised, moved. Every moment a deeper revelation, a new level of tenderness, of longing. Her body was soft, hot, intensely sensitive. His every tiny touch burst like fireworks, tingling through her nerves. When he put his arms around her and pulled her against himself, an earthquake of accumulated tension shuddered through her.
He felt thinner, harder, his arms as tight and taut as piano wire. He vibrated with emotion, desire. He was rigid with the tension of holding back. Waiting for as long as she needed him to wait.
Amazingly, she felt safe in the circle of his arms. She pressed her face against him, breathed in his delicious scent. Listening to his heart, pounding strong and fast.
Safe. The feeling was so unfamiliar, it frightened her. To think that she could feel safe with him after all that had happened between them. All the ugliness, all the violence and betrayal.
“Why did you do that to me?” she blurted out and hid her face against his chest again. Afraid to hear the answer.
He stroked her hair, gripping her thick braid to tug her head back so she would look into his eyes again. “The video, you mean?”
She waited, eyes locked with his.
A long, careful sigh escaped him. “It was the deal I made with Novak,” he said. “Or rather, the deal he made with me. I was to deliver those videos to him every three days, and in return, he would refrain from carving a piece off of Imre while I watched on the videophone.”
She winced. “Oh, God.”
“I was desperate,” he said. “I hated myself for it, every time. I would never have chosen to do such a thing to anyone, let alone you. I am sorry. It’s over. Can we leave it behind? Can you forgive me?”
She nodded.
Val closed his eyes, sagging with evident relief. “He wanted me motivated,” he said. “He did not expect me to fall in love with you. Nor did I, though it happened before we even met.”
She glanced up, startled. “How could you—”
“I watched you and Rachel for ten days. That was enough for me,” he said forcefully. “You were so gentle with her, so patient. You were so strong. And bella maladetta. My wildest fantasy in flesh and blood. I did not even know that I had a fantasy woman. But you were—are her.”
He cupped her bottom and lifted her up onto the table. “My turn, now, Tamar. How could you do what you did to me?”
Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, then she remembered his wound and let go as if she’d been burned. “What are you referring to?”
“Ah, but where do I begin. The handcuffs, the drugs?” Anger hardened in his voice. “Running away while I was practically comatose? As if you did not care, as if there was nothing between us?”
The impulse to shove his accusation away from herself in anger was almost automatic, but she short-circuited it. She breathed, deep and slow, and swallowed the sharp words back.
They were no longer true, in any case, and she did not truly want to say them. It was just a reflex. A tic.
What she really wanted was for him to understand. She concentrated on the buttons of his black shirt, unbuttoning them one by one as she spoke to give her hands something to do, her eyes some place to rest.
“You know why,” she said fiercely. “I had to settle accounts with Stengl. He murdered my family, destroyed my village, my home. He killed my childhood, raped me, turned me into something that I was never meant to be. I’d been waiting my whole life for payback.”
His eyes narrowed. “Than why did you not kill him? I know that you did not. Santarini would have sent the Camorra for me by now if you had, and I was in no condition to defend myself from them. Did you fail to get close enough to him? Or did Ana—”
“No. I…changed my mind,” she said, her voice halting. She undid the last button, spread the shirt out over his chest.
He frowned. “Changed your mind?” he repeated. “When?”
“When I got into his room,” she said. “When I looked into his eyes. That was when I realized—”
“What?” he prompted impatiently.
“That you were right,” she admitted. “He wasn’t worth it. He was nothing compared to what I had to lose. Even though I thought that I had already lost it after what I’d done to you. I thought you’d never want to see me again.”
Val lifted her right arm, bent low, and pressed a gentle kiss against the scar. Then another and another.
She took courage from that. “I was running out of the clinic to find you when András got me.” She closed her eyes tightly, feeling every warm, soft butterfly kiss so intensely against her flesh. “You must think I am so stupid.”
“Not at all,” he said. “But explain this to me. Why did you change your mind about us and leave me all alone? Did living in bliss with me in a tropical paradise no longer appeal to you?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t bear to talk about it. The core of the problem. Her secret shame, the weakness in herself that she despised so violently. She was not made of gemstones or metal. She could not wash away the stains. Not anymore.
He took her face in both his hands. “Answer me, Tamar.”
She swallowed, tasting the bitterness of the poison. A bitterness she still tasted faintly every moment of every day. “I couldn’t,” she whispered.
“Why not?” he demanded, unrelenting.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and searched herself for the courage she needed to say it. “I felt…soiled,” she whispered. “Poisoned, damaged. I felt like a black hole. Like I didn’t deserve—oh, God. I thought it was better to get away, stay away. I didn’t want to inflict myself on anyone. Certainly not you.”
His face was blank with astonishment. “Oh, God, Tamar,” he said helplessly.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was fogging up with tears, to her distress. “I couldn’t
