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Now he listened to the sounds of water moving in the tub of the adjacent bathroom. Corinne had gone in to freshen up shortly after noon, having slept all the way through the morning while he pored over maps of the city and outlying parishes in the lightless gloom of the hotel room's curtain-drawn living area.
He'd noticed she had neglected to close the door tightly, and for the past thirty-seven minutes - the full duration of her time spent reclining naked in the tub - he'd had to purposely avoid looking at the thin wedge of golden lamplight that poured into the darkness where he sat. He rallied his focus to the spread-out maps he'd picked up from the hotel lobby on their arrival. They were abbreviated street listings, intended mostly for tourists whose main objectives were, apparently, finding the nearest restaurants, bars, and jazz clubs. Hunter would get further intelligence on Henry Vachon from Gideon shortly; until then, he felt it a beneficial use of his time to familiarize himself with the various streets and districts. Perform some virtual reconnaissance until sundown, when he could venture out and see Vachon's city for himself. Anything to keep his gaze from straying toward that partially open door across the room. His resolve was tested when he heard the gurgle of water draining as she pulled the stopper. Her skin squeaked against the porcelain as she moved about in there, liquid splashes indicating she had climbed out of the tub. He saw her slender arm reach out to take a thick white towel from a polished metal bar on the wall. He heard the rustle of terry cloth as she began to dry the water from her body.
He forced his eyes back to the work that covered the coffee table in front of him. With total concentration he studied the portion of the map where they were currently staying, intent on committing the multicolored grid and its corresponding street names to memory: Their hotel was in an area called the Upper French Quarter. This part of the city encompassed numerous blocks between Iberville Street to St. Anne Street and was hemmed in on one side by a street named North Rampart and, on the other, the Mississippi -
Through the wedge of softly lit open doorway, he caught a glimpse of Corinne's bare thigh. The towel traveled down, then her foot came up to rest on the closed lid of the toilet as she dried off the lean, slender length of her calf.
A heat that had been kindling in his belly now drifted lower.
Hunter wanted to look away.
He meant to.
But then she shifted again, and his gaze rooted on the small, rounded curve of her breast. The nipple crowning it was flushed dark rose, a tantalizing contrast to her creamy skin. He stared at that sweet pink bud peaking at the swell of her soft, pale flesh. He'd never seen a female's naked breast before. On film and television at the compound on occasion, of course, but none of those hard-looking, grossly inflated examples could compare to the delicate perfection he saw in Corinne's naked form.
He wanted to see more of her; it shocked him how much he wanted that. As he watched her move in and out of his scant field of vision, arousal began to coil around him and tighten. His skin felt hot and confining, drawn too tight across his chest and up along his neck. Lower still, the tightness was worsening by the second, his sex stirring, stiffening with the sudden upticking rush of blood through his veins.
He growled quietly under his breath, though whether from shock or shame, he wasn't sure. He didn't want to feel this curiosity for her, this unwelcome sexual awareness. He'd been trained - disciplined without compromise from the time he was a boy - to be above base needs or desires.
Yet he could not wrest his attention away from Corinne Bishop now.
Even as he shifted to alleviate the binding annoyance of his too-snug clothes, he stared, stealing another look, hoping for a longer glimpse. Wishing for a brief fumble of the large white towel so he could feast his eyes on her completely and sate the curiosity that had him leaning onto his elbow for a more advantageous field of vision.
His temples pulsed, almost as insistently as the throb that had settled in his groin. Had he not been raised so rigidly, so ruthlessly, he might have been tempted to stroke his hand over the demanding pound of his arousal, if only to relieve the ache. Instead he fought the urge. Thinly. Everything male in him was locked on to her in that moment, and Corinne would have to be unconscious not to feel the weight of his hungry eyes on her.
Perhaps she did sense something, after all.
She pivoted around suddenly and tried to sidestep away from the gap in the narrowly opened door. As she moved, the towel he'd been willing her to drop slipped out of her grasp. It swung down on one side, baring the column of her spine and the upper curve of her heart-shaped backside.
His breath ceased, caught in a low rasp in his lungs. Not from the feminine beauty of her body but from the savagery that had evidently been wreaked upon it at some point. A web of angry red scars tracked across the smooth canvas of her back, from shoulder to buttock. Hideous welts left from a lash - probably a length of chain as well, based on the ruination of her skin - left him stricken into a dull sort of wonder. What had she been forced to endure?
Just how deeply had Dragos's evil cut her?
All the heat he'd felt just a moment before was eclipsed by the sight of those scars. He felt something elusive and unfamiliar wash over him in that instant, feelings that seemed to rise up at him from somewhere deep inside, an inaccessible place, long out of his reach. Regret for what had been done to her flooded through him, along with a dark, swelling wave of fury for the beast responsible.
He cursed, unable to keep the contempt inside him.
Corinne's head whipped around, wet black hair slapping against her bare shoulders as she hurried to cover herself with the towel. Her eyes clashed with his gaze through the slim gap of the open door. There was challenge in her unflinching look, a rawness that made him feel as though his knowledge of her wounds was as deep a violation as the punishment itself had been to her. Hunter glanced away, casting his gaze back to his maps.
He kept his eyes averted out of respect - out of sympathy he didn't even realize he was capable of until now. He listened as Corinne's bare feet padded a couple of steps across the tiles of the bathroom floor.
The door creaked as she slowly closed it and latched it tight, blocking him out.
Chapter Twelve
"Yes, of course. I understand." Victor Bishop stood near the fireplace in his study that afternoon, speaking on the Darkhaven's private line. He'd debated making the call, but only because of the potential wrath his unwelcome news might bring down upon him. In the end, he'd figured it was in his best interest to reaffirm his alliance, make certain that he raised a flag of the proper color lest he find himself under unprovoked enemy fire yet again.
"If I can provide any further information, rest assured, I will contact you at once." He cleared his throat, despising the fear that put a wobble of awkwardness in his voice. "And, please, ah, if you would ... be sure he knows that I had nothing to do with any of this current turn of events. I have never betrayed his confidence. I am now, and I will remain, at his service."
With barely an acknowledgment, only a muttered word of good-bye, the call abruptly disconnected on the other end.
"Damn it," Bishop snarled, taking the phone away from his ear. He pivoted around, half tempted to pitch the cordless receiver into the nearest wall. He drew up short, surprised to find he was not alone.
Regina stood behind him, silent, her red-rimmed eyes condemning.
"I thought you were still in bed," he remarked, knowingly curt as he strode past her and carefully replaced the phone on its console at his desk. "You look tired, dear. Perhaps you should go back and rest a while longer."
She had taken to her bed right after Corinne and the warrior from Boston left the Darkhaven. He hadn't tried to talk to her in the hours since; he knew that his admission last night was a breach he could never mend. Not even his shared blood bond with Regina would be enough to mend what was now broken. They were linked to each other by blood and vow, but her trust, her love, would never truly be his again.
