Chapter 20

Her body was heaven. Nothing existed beyond her wild cries of pleasure and the pulse of fire that leaped in his own veins. Lost in a crimson haze of hungry passion, he devoured the sweetness of her mouth and sank into the most secret part of her body and soul until their essences seemed to become one being, not two. Their hands met above their heads, and he twined his fingers through hers, even as he kept her trapped beneath him. She was forced to surrender the control of their lovemaking, but he would see to it that this moment was everything she had ever dreamed of.

"My heart," he growled against the soft skin of her neck and thrust hard into her. She quaked beneath him, her hips rising as she sought to get closer to his body.

"As you are mine." Her breathless reply stung his senses and tenderness flooded his chest in a warm wave of satisfied longing. There could never be heaven anywhere else but where she was. He would have captured the moon and stolen a constellation of stars to lay at her feet if it would make her smile even once. No man had ever been so blessed as he was.

The passion and desire built like a steady blaze between them until there was no stopping, no slowing down, only the rush to the glorious end.

"Isabelle!" His lips broke apart with his cry, and every bit of strength failed him as he released his soul into her. Her own stifled scream of joy was throaty and thick with sated pleasure. He laid his head upon her breasts, gasping for breath. Her hand smoothed his hair back from his face as she softly panted beneath him. The intimacy of it was so wondrous that he felt like a young boy riding a horse for the first time across the sloping hills. He was free, but not alone. Isabelle was with him. Always. Forever.

Bastian woke with a start, his head pounding, his throat tight as he fought off a shout of despair. His chest was empty as though a thief had slipped a hand between his ribs and stolen his heart. A desperate longing filled that void with leaden weights, and for a second, he couldn't breathe.

The dream. It was just that, a dream. He had dreamed of Isabelle and making love to her. A shudder racked him, and he cuddled Jane's warm body closer. Was he a mad man or a fool for wishing the dream had been reality and it had been Jane who was his, sharing her passion with him? A cold sense of dread trespassed along his spine. She was not his, could never be his, and yet holding her like this was sheer devastation to him.

After Richard and Isabelle, the women who fell in love with the men of Stormclyffe always died, which was what had led to the myth of the Weymouth curse. Except his mother. Her life had been spared, whereas his father had died. Witnesses had reported to the papers that a woman had been seen near the crash, a woman in white, wandering along the deserted road. It had led to a frenzy of ghost stories. Time and time again, people had whispered that his father had risked his own life by coming back to the deserted castle all those years ago in order to trade his life for his wife's to the dark fates that held the Carlisle family captive.

It was bad luck to have someone here purposely exposing his family history. And Jane, even with all her academic credentials, was still no better than a paparazzo with a pen rather than camera.

If Bastian had any sense, any real strength, he would slip out of this bed and leave her now before his feelings for her deepened beyond redemption. He was not his ancestor, and Jane was not Isabelle. He had no claim to the woman in his arms, and she had none to him, but Christ, he wanted it more than his next breath.

A sudden wellspring of hope roared through him with the force of a mighty gale. There was nothing to stop him from taking her and running to the ends of the earth to escape his family's reputation. He could seduce her blind, sweep her off her feet, and never let her go. A hundred faces of women he'd been with all faded whenever he thought of Jane. They had been empty entertainments, mere phantoms compared to his Jane.

Was this how it had been for Richard? The undeniable pull, like planets to the sun, to be with this one woman? A passion stronger than any of society's laws, a love deeper than the northern seas. There was no turning back, no walking away from emotions like that, once he set down that path. Did he love Jane? No, not yet, but

Jane stirred restlessly before settling back to sleep. Soon dawn would come, and he would show her his world. A world he wanted to share.

Soon.