She walked to the door. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she opened it.
He stood there, arms crossed, shoulder resting against the ridge of the threshold.
“Were you going to stand there all night?” she asked.
“I did not expect to.”
He knew she would hear him if she was still awake. She wanted to think he had not knocked or called out of consideration, but he did not appear very thoughtful and kind right now. Rather the opposite.
“Did you want to say something to me? Why are you here?”
He crossed the threshold. She stepped back instinctively. She saw his face in the firelight as he entered the chamber. He answered her question with one direct glance that required no words.
You know why I am here.
His gaze was drawn to the silks on the bed. He went over and lifted one. The soft satin flowed down like a waterfall, so in contrast to his masculine hand in form and color. “I thought there were only two such gowns, and that you were giving them to your friends.”
“There were more. I saved them for myself.”
His gaze drifted down her body, sliding over her breasts and hips much like the flow of the silk that he held. She instinctively touched the lawn fabric of the undressing gown she wore.
“I would like to see you in one someday. But not tonight.”
She should tell him to leave. That went without saying. Yet he commanded this space so totally that she could barely form the words. Compelling, Verity had called him. If only she knew how inadequate that word could be. Like now. He appeared dangerous, but in the best ways. Her traitorous blood thrilled in reaction to his masculine force.
He moved near the writing table. The letter resting on it distracted him. His head angled while he read it. Then he turned to her, with the paper in his hand.
“You will not do this. Not now. Not yet.”
Dear heavens, he had come to talk her out of it.
To save her
.
She found her own presence again, despite the way his dominated this chamber.
Her
chamber. She resented that he was going to make her explain herself, about what was a decision about
her
life.
“I will do whatever I decide to do, as I said this afternoon. You are the last person I expected to judge me about whatever the decision might be. You even said several times that you would not.”
“I am not judging, Celia. I am saying you will not accept this fool’s arrangement now.” He waved the letter.
“I will not allow you to—”
“
No
.” He cast the letter into the fireplace. Flames immediately ate its edges and began to digest the rest.
She strode over to him, furious. “A fine gesture, and a meaningless one. Your overbearing manner is presumptuous and your criticism is offensive. I am not some stupid woman who struck on a fast way to accumulate new garments one afternoon, Jonathan. I have been thinking about this for more than
five years
.”
He gazed down at her, his expression tight and hard, his eyes warm, fathomless, and full of intensities that made her breath catch. He pulled her to him abruptly, and held her face just as he had that night in the garden. “I am not saying no to the decision, Celia. I am saying it will not be that man.”
He kissed her before she could respond. Before she could put him in his place. She fought mightily to permit that kiss to have no effect on her. Her thoughts scrambled as the sensations swept her body and the secret regret burst out of her heart, together threatening to drown all good sense and rational, practical resolve.
We must not. It will ruin everything. Ruin me, I fear, far worse than going to Anthony ever would.
Did she say it, amid the short gasps she made while his mouth burned her neck? She could not tell. He did not act as if he heard. Or else he did not care.
Always make them ask, Celia. Even with the first kiss.
This man was asking permission for nothing. He never had.
His embrace felt too good. Too welcome. His strength proved too exciting. She had not chosen to succumb to this desire they felt for each other, but she could not resist either. His fire began consuming her will, much as the flames had that paper.
He caressed her body, her breasts, his firm hands claiming and possessive. He held her so she molded against him. His kisses insisted she burn with him. Pleasure sang in her. Not a melody but a primitive song, pulsing and hot, its rhythms getting more rapid with every moment.
She could not deny that pulse. She could not pretend she was not glad to know this glorious passion once more. She should not indulge—for so many reasons she should not—but she could not care enough now to stop it.
She gave up the fight with herself. She surrendered, and her heart soared with relief and joy when she did. Yes, once, just once, she deserved to know what this could be.
You must remain in control. You must keep it dignified.
She had no dignity, no self-possession now. She controlled nothing with this man. She never had. She should have sent him away somehow. She should have never—
His hands left her body to hold her head to a kiss, hard and ravishing. She flew into a fevered daze and lost hold on her thoughts and the remnants of resistance. She pressed closer, closer, so she might feel more of him and more of everything.
She reached high and released the tie on his hair so it fell along the sides of his face, making him look roguish. She caressed from his nape to his chin, then plucked at his cravat. The kiss turned feral and she gasped for breath when he broke it, and gasped again and again as he heated her neck and chest with bites while his hands found her body again, and caressed with a touch that implied the fabric had disappeared.
Wonderful pleasure. Delicious excitement. The sensations piled one on another, making her want to groan and cry and sing. A special hunger took hold of her body and mind and she kissed him back, aggressively, so he might not delay too long in answering that need.
A storm of insanity caught them both. A whirlwind of heat and hardness and no thoughts at all. When he moved her toward the bed, her hunger rejoiced, triumphant, and her body silently begged for him to throw her down and fill the aching void that pulsed, pulsed, almost desperate for relief, so much it maddened her.
Instead he released her, sat on the bed, and removed his boots. She stood there, unsteady, shocked by the evidence he was not nearly as impatient as she.
He cast off his coat and pulled her to him, not so patient after all. She climbed on his lap, facing him with her knees flanking his hips. They were in the eye of a storm but nothing had changed. The winds of desire still howled in her, and in him too, she could tell. There was no need to rush, however, and his gesture had reminded her that there were rituals to enjoy.
She finished with his cravat. He let her, and caressed her legs. The undressing gown rose with those firm, skimming hands until it was skin on skin. By the time she removed the linen from his neck, the fabric pooled between them like so much water, and his hands explored her thighs.
That distracted her enough that she handled his waistcoat and shirt with less panache. She finished with the shirt’s buttons while his touch slid up and down her inner thigh. Each time he teased close to her vulva, her breath caught.
She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and leaned forward to kiss a line from his ear to the top of his arm. She flicked her tongue to taste the flavor of his skin, then leaned back so she could caress his chest. It was a fine one, she decided. Lean and muscular, as if he lived an active life. Stronger than one would guess at first, if seeing him in his coats. She slid her fingertips along the planes and ridges, fascinated.
He eyed her undressing gown. “It closes in the front.”
“That will make it easier for you.”
His caresses moved very high on her thighs. “I am busy.”
He wanted her to do it. She clumsily worked the closures, too far gone to be artful. An odd shyness tinged her madness, one she knew she was not supposed to feel. It mattered to her, she realized—what he thought and whether he was pleased.
She parted the bodice, so her breasts showed. A moment of profoundly intense sensuality passed between them, with his hands firmly caressing her legs and his gaze capturing hers. She nestled deeper on his lap, so the bulge of his erection pressed her. The pressure tantalized her.
His hands cupped her bottom. “Up.”
She rose on her knees, took his face in her hands, and kissed him with all the skill she could muster. His hands worked at his garments, and when she sat back down he was naked and her gown was high, bunched around her waist. He pressed against her directly, hard, giving a vague relief that also made hot thrills coil deeply between her hips.
Caresses on her breast, too wonderful, so enlivening. A daze of sensation built in waves, each one more exciting, each one making her more sensitive. Soft fabric slid high, blinding her as he drew off the gown. Then she was naked, facing him, filling her gaze with his intense expression and hard, taut body, fascinated by the look and scent of him, trembling from what he was doing to her.
She almost could not contain the way he aroused her, but she feared it ending too soon, too fast, ever. She leaned back and braced herself with her hands on his knees so he would caress her breasts more fully. He did, in smoothing strokes that made vibrations thrum down her core, to where that coiling tightened, then sent bright jolts of pleasure even lower.
Kisses now, on her body, her stomach. The tightness in him palpable, a thrilling tension that she felt in the air and his touch and kiss, in the way he handled her.
She floated in the sensuous haze, feeling it all as fully as she could, wondering if there was a way to feel like this always. She forgot herself for a timeless spell as the pleasure filled her and his hands moved over her in possessive strokes, so masculine and firm, making her want more and more.
Alessandra’s lessons whispered. It was not right to only take pleasure. She was supposed to give it too. She sat upright again, unsteady, aroused beyond shame or restraint. She looked in his eyes directly, into hard lights of male need that carried so much potential danger.
She looked down at where their bodies met, at his lap and her mound. She moved back enough, and took him in her hands. She knew how to do this. It had been the easiest thing to learn.
She stroked the shaft softly, then harder. She circled the tip, then enclosed it entirely. She watched his face flex within its tautness, and the line of his mouth firm, and those wonderful eyes deepen, deepen.
Up again, but he did not ask this time. He grasped her bottom and lifted her high enough that he could take her breast in his mouth. His phallus rose along her thigh, but it was his hand that pressed her now, his palm on her mound and his fingers farther back, touching swollen, sensitive skin that shrieked from the contact.
Helpless, she grasped his shoulders and wept from it all. From the hard way he sucked at her breast and the stunning, screaming pleasure he gave with his hand. Nothing else existed but her body and his and the insistent need he made her feel.
She could barely remain steady. The daze closed in and the hunger made her insane. She heard herself whispering, begging, asking for more, always more, offering herself, her body, her soul, anything, if he just gave the relief he had made sure she wanted.
Firm hands grasped her hips, lowering her slowly, so slowly, too slowly at first. Then she felt the hardness push and she knew why, but still her impatience made it torture. Filling, stretching, hurting, but the daze never shattered and the hurt almost felt good. Gasping at the end, she clutched his arms and pressed down even more.
She huddled against him, within protective arms holding her close. She fought through the haze so she could feel it all, him inside her and around her, the breath carrying his reassuring murmurs, and remember it forever. He allowed the respite of poignant restraint, but she sensed the need waiting in him, and it would not be denied.
Holding her hips, he moved, and moved her too. Then she felt him, again and again, filling her body and her senses, defeating what was left of her hold on herself. And she knew in her soul, as intimacy drenched her heart and left her defenseless, and as his strength made her weak, and as she gave far more than her virginity—she knew that Alessandra Northrope would never have approved of how much her daughter had relinquished to this man.
S
he had been a virgin.
He wanted to believe he had been surprised. He could find reasons why he might have been. Only he had guessed as much, and it had not stopped him.
He should feel more guilty than he did, most likely. There were things he should say now too, if he had any claim to being a gentleman. In the white bliss of his contentment as he lay with her atop him, her knees still pressed to his hips and their bodies still joined, the notion of saying them actually seemed a good idea.
He sat up with her still bound to him, and stood enough to cast the satin gowns from the bed and pull down the bedclothes. He laid her down, then put more fuel on the fire.
She gazed at him when he returned to the bed, her eyes still glistening, her face radiant. It would be a while yet before she decided whether this had been a mistake.
She appeared so beautiful there, all pale and gold. He joined her and gathered her satin warmth into his arms so the lightness he experienced inside would not pass too soon.
“Did I hurt you?”
She turned in his embrace so she looked down at him. Her fingertips lightly stroked his lips. “Not very much. I expected worse.”
That was something at least.
Her eyes saw into his mind. “You were not sure, but you were not surprised, were you? Nor deterred. It was safe to say that no matter which way it went, I was no innocent, after all.”