Rene waited until Tessa was asleep before going out to the car. He popped the trunk and stood there, looking down at Martin, still hog-tied and gagged. The other man had roused at the rush of fresh air coming into the trunk, the dim orange glow from the light on the underside of the door. He moved feebly, uttering a low, muffled groan around the wadded up washcloth Rene had shoved between his teeth and fettered in place with a torn strip of bedsheet.
“Bon jour,” Rene said, closing his hand roughly in Martin’s hair. He jerked the man’s head up and pulled down the gag.
“You…son of a bitch…” Martin gasped hoarsely, squinting up at him. His face was a mess of oozing pockmarks and scab-lined scratches from where the birds had attacked and there was dried bird shit and feather down visible in his hair.
“Yeah. Fuck you, too,” Rene said. “Tell me, when you slap your wife around, does it make you feel like a man?”
He shoved a plastic bottle to Martin’s lips, spilling tainted water into his mouth again. “I mean, do you get off on it, hitting someone half your size? Does it make your dick hard to beat up on a woman, you sick, twisted fuck?”
After Martin’s initial gag reflex left some of the drink splashed and slopped, Rene managed to force the rest down his throat. “I really want to know, Davenant.” He wrenched Martin’s head back farther, forcing a strangled cry from him. “What does it feel like to hit a woman?”
He opened his hand, letting Martin’s head drop back to the floor of the trunk. He promptly folded his fingers in toward his palm and sent his knuckles careening brutally into Martin’s cheek. He punched the shit out of Martin, hard enough to rattle a tooth loose from the feel of things, the moist, sickening crunch he heard at impact.
“Oh,” he said, stepping back, shaking his hand out, his knuckles stinging. “That’s how.”
Martin choked and sputtered around the washcloth as Rene crammed it unceremoniously back between his teeth, cinching the scrap of sheet tightly against the back of Martin’s head. He slammed the trunk closed on Martin’s garbled protest, then went around to the backseat and pulled out his folding shower chair.
Birds had relatively short digestive tracts and no sphincters, which meant they pretty much shit anywhere and everywhere without really meaning to. And when you had more than two dozen of them flapping around in close confines, like Martin’s motel room, sooner or later, you were going to get dumped on, telepathic control over them or not. Rene had changed his shirt since finding Tessa, but he still felt decidedly grimy. He wasn’t a vain man by any stretch of the imagination, but bird shit was bird shit no matter how you looked at it. And since he didn’t feel like taking another accidental, graceless swan dive in the tub, it was time to swallow his pride and get out the chair.
Keeping a wary eye on Tessa, he brought it back into the motel room and carried it into the bathroom. He unfolded it, extending and locking the aluminum legs into proper place, along with the molded plastic backrest. The seat was wide and contoured, roomy enough to accommodate his ass while leaving plenty of elbow room to either side. It was comfortable enough, but Rene hated it; hated the way sitting in it made him feel old and crippled and goddamn useless.
But bird shit was bird shit, and so into the shower he went, leaving his prosthetic leg propped against the toilet, his clothes in a heap on the floor. He closed his eyes and reached blindly for the soap as hot water, nearly scalding, hit his head in a stinging spray.
Both his hands hurt now. But saint merde, he thought with a wicked little upturn of his mouth as he recalled the sound of his fist hitting the side of Martin’s head. It was worth it.
Every time he thought about that son of a bitch laying his hands on Tessa, it infuriated and pained him. After she’d fallen asleep, Rene had sat awake for a long time beside her in the bed, stroking his hand lightly against her dark hair, feeling something deep within him ache as he gazed at her bruised, battered face.
It’s my fault, he’d thought, anguished. Goddamn it, if I hadn’t been such an asshole to her…if I hadn’t let her walk away from me at the gas station…if I’d gone to look for her sooner instead of taking my goddamn sweet time in the store…if I hadn’t gone the wrong goddamn way on the interstate…
None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for me.
“Je suis désolé, Tessa,” he’d whispered to her. I’m sorry.
More than just her injuries, her fear for her baby had broken Rene’s heart. He’d watched her touch her stomach time and again over the course of the evening, her face fraught with worry, her dark eyes anxious and afraid. Again and again, his mind had turned to Irene, the miscarriage she’d suffered. He had probably been the cause of it, the strain he’d put on their relationship, the stress that had finally destroyed it. He hadn’t been there to comfort or reassure her. He’d let her down—just like he’d let Tessa down. And it had damn near cost Tessa her child, too. Never again, he swore in his mind. Never again—by Christ and all that’s holy, Tessa, I’ll never let you down again.
He scrubbed his face, opening his eyes and watching water stream down, spattering against the floor of the tub. He sat hunched forward, relaxed and relatively comfortable, his elbows resting on his left knee and the stump of his right leg. His hair clung to his cheeks and forehead in drenched strands; water dripped from the sharp tip of his nose, his lips. Soap bubbles swirled, gathering in a frothy foam against the chrome drain plate while steam curled up, bathing him in misty tendrils.
More than just a bully, a sick, sadistic freak, Martin Davenant was a fool. The man had everything Rene had ever longed for—a bright, beautiful wife like Tessa, the amazing glow of life that was their baby growing inside of her. A family. Rene had been so lonely for so long, he would have given anything in the world for what Martin had thrown away with such seeming, callous ease.
I wish you were mine, Tessa, he thought. You and the bébé.
The shower curtain drew back, letting in a gust of sudden, cool breeze and he jerked in wide-eyed surprise; he hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open. When he saw Tessa standing there, holding the white fabric curtain aside with her hand, he jerked again, choked for breath, momentarily dumbstruck.
She was nude, her petite frame lean and strong, her small but shapely breasts crowned with rose-colored nipples, her flesh creamy and smooth, like a porcelain doll’s. She had a ballerina’s legs—slender and muscular—and elegant, graceful arms. The delta of her lovely thighs lay marked by a thatch of dark, silky curls; just above these, the outward swell of her womb was slightly pronounced and visible.
“Tessa…” he whispered, a sort of stunned, breathless croak. He stared at her for a long, confused, mesmerized moment. And then it occurred to him that just as sure as she was naked, he was, too, his maimed body—the disfiguring absence of his right leg—laid bare and exposed for her to see, stark against the white backdrop of the shower walls and tub.
“Tessa…” he said, tearing his eyes away from her beautiful form, looking down in dismay at his own. Oh, God, oh, Jesus, oh, fuck me, Christ, his mind rattled, and where the fuck was that niggling little voice of reason when he needed it the most? He reached for his thigh, covering the stump with his hands, his face blazing with bright, humiliated color. “Tessa…I…I didn’t…I…what are you doing?”
He saw her step into the tub out of his peripheral vision, but couldn’t look up at her. He heard the soft rattle of the shower rings as she drew the curtain closed, then she stood in front of him under the heavy stream of hot water. He could see her feet. Her toenails were painted, he noticed with a detached, stricken sort of fascination. A sort of pearlesque shade of pink. Nearly the same color as her nipples, he realized, with a slight glance up.
“What…what are you doing?” He found his voice, ripping his eyes away again and oh, Christ, if the ground were to have opened up and swallowed him right the fuck whole, he wouldn’t have complained, not one goddamn bit.
“It’s all right,” Tessa said, her voice gentle and quiet. He felt her touch his face, tilting his gaze up toward her. When he tried to protest again, stammering and choked, she leaned down to kiss him sweetly, silencing him. “It’s all right, Rene,” she said, cradling his face in her hands, meeting his eyes.
Tessa kissed him once more, pressing her mouth against his, the tip of her tongue slipping between his lips, and Rene groaned softly, his body instantly responding.
He pulled her near, tangling his hands in her wet hair and kissing her deeply. Water streamed down her face, spilling against his own. He touched her, running his hands hungrily along her sleek, soaked curves as she straddled him in the shower chair, placing her lean thighs on either side of his hips. He cupped her breasts in his hands, kneading the bullet points of her nipples between his fingertips as his lips trailed from her mouth to her chin, the angle of her jaw, and from there, along the graceful, downhill slope of her throat.
She leaned back and gasped, clutching at his hair as he slipped her left nipple into his mouth. Using his tongue, he traced circles lightly against the sensitive flesh; with every sweeping pass, her fingers closed more fiercely in his hair. God, he had wanted to taste her for so long; her skin was sweet against his tongue, flushed with blood and desire, hot and wet from the shower’s downpour.
His left hand still wasn’t worth much of a damn, but with his right, he reached between them, slipping his fingers against her apex and then between the wondrous, warm folds. Tessa began to move against him, undulating against his hand as he touched her at her core, the place that obviously pleased and pleasured her. She moaned lightly, catching his face with her hands, pulling his mouth from her breast and up to her own. She kissed him again and he slid his forefingers inside her, up her hot, slick sheath. She was tight, but another moan and a sudden increase in the pace of her hips let him know she was eager for him.
He whispered her name against her mouth, pulsing his fingers in and out of her, touching someplace deep inside of her and palpating, making her breath hitch against his tongue, her fingernails dig into the muscles of his shoulders. He was fully aroused; hot, hard and throbbing with aching, urgent need. The tip of him brushed with repeated, excruciating friction between her buttocks every time she writhed against him, and at last he had to pull his fingers away and hold her still, catching her hips between his hands.
“Stop,” he whispered breathlessly, hoarsely. When she tried to move again, grinding against his lap, kissing him and whimpering, he laughed softly and again, forced her to stillness. “Stop, pischouette. Sie tu plais.”
She blinked at him, her large, dark eyes round and confused, somewhat wounded. “What is it?” she whispered, afraid she’d done something wrong. God, it had been so long since he had last been even this close to making love to a woman face-to-face, let alone see it through—close enough that he could read her every thought and emotion, even without his telepathy, all through the subtle nuances in her face. It had been so long since he’d last known a woman well enough to read her so well and goddamn, but he’d forgotten how good it could feel.
“Nothing,” he told her, smiling and kissing her. “You’re just…saint merde, woman, you’re going to make me shoot off like a clumsy goddamn kid on his first time.” He grasped her hips again and maneuvered her atop him until the head of his arousal pressed against her, sliding up between her folds and resting lightly—agonizingly—against her threshold.
He looked up into her eyes and held her here, prolonging the moment, savoring the hungry, veiled look in her eyes, the way her body trembled against him in eager anticipation, water streaming down her every curve and contour in steady, intertwining rivulets.
“Rene…” she whispered, and then he plunged into her, pulling her down against him and entering her fully in one deep motion. She gasped sharply, and he caught it against his mouth with a kiss. He kept one hand against her hip and pressed the other against the back of her head, drawing her near. As they kissed, he guided her to move again, setting a slow pace at first but letting her build it steadily, each stroke deeper and more powerful than the last. Again, he touched that visceral place inside of her, that deep recess of pleasure, and knew by the way she moved, her hips grinding more quickly, with ever increasing urgency; by the way her breathing grew sharp, hitching, that she was on the brink of climax.
“C’est lui, Tessa,” he breathed, lapsing into French without even being aware of it. That’s it. “Venez pour moi.” Come for me.
When she came, he could see it—something he had not enjoyed since Irene. He watched her eyelids flutter closed, her brows lift, her mouth slightly ajar almost in a delicate “O.” She tightened around and against him, writhing, digging her nails into his skin, her voice escaping her in a breathless cry. It was too much for him to take; he arched his back from the chair, clamping his hands against her hips and spearing into her one last time, crying out hoarsely in release.
When they were finished, he drew his arms about her, holding her against him, tucking his head against her shoulder and gasping as water pelted the back of his skull.
She turned her face down toward him; he felt her lips brush against his ear through his sopping wet hair, and looked up at her. “You all right?” she asked with a smile, her cheeks flushed brightly.
I’m in love, he thought as he kissed her lips. He touched her face, tracing her lips with his fingertips, her nose, lighting against the bruises. Goddamn, you’re beautiful, pischouette.
“I’ve never been better,” he told her, making her smile widen all the more.