Chapter Nineteen
Sebastian was… unwell.
He was choking on sensation, on everything he’d done since she’d come to him last night. There wasn’t room for anything else—there was hardly room for the air in his lungs.
As soon as he’d arrived home, he’d bathed, the water hot enough to make his skin red with irritation.
After, he’d carefully laid out his shaving kit, every piece in its precise place. He’d slid the blade across the strop, back and forth, until it was sharp enough to split hairs.
His father, when he’d been too fuddled with drink to find his belt, had occasionally gone for the strop.
Of course, this strop wasn’t his father’s. Sebastian had burned that one, along with most everything else of Judge Spencer’s, reducing as much as he could of the man to ash.
When the blade was ready, he’d scraped it across his skin, swirling it in the bowl every so often, the dark hairs looking like drowned ants in the scummy water. He forced himself to set the blade aside once his cheeks were bare and not give in to the urge to keep sliding the cold metal across his face. He’d done that once before, pulling the razor in long sweeps until the skin beneath was weeping with it.
He had more control now.
Once the shaving kit was clean and packed away, he’d taken out a new suit, brushing and brushing and brushing until he was certain everything foreign had been removed. Then he carefully dressed, the fabric making his skin scream with the touch of it, before looking himself over in the mirror.
He looked like himself, every inch the marshal.
So he sat in the chair in his room and did not move. He was waiting for…
For her?
No. No, she wasn’t coming. After the disaster of today, after his rejection of her last night… she was most certainly not coming.
His gaze fell on the belt on the dresser, and for a brief moment he entertained a vision of it wrapping round his hand, biting deep into his palm as he paced the floor.
He imagined Isabel finding him like that.
She’d not be pleased. In fact, she’d likely scold him for it.
So he left the belt as it was and sat in silence.
His heart had been so foolishly buoyant this morning. The dog had sniffed her hand and thumped his tail, no bared teeth or raised fur this time. He’d thought to himself, Well, this is a fine thing.
He’d begun to hope.
Then he’d let himself trust: trust in her brilliance and trust that the jury would be blinded by it as well. He’d imagined them celebrating her wondrous performance tonight, first with their mothers, and then later, alone…
He’d chosen a solitary walk to arrive at the courthouse, in order to give space and time to the sensations within him to stretch and settle. When he’d passed a druggist on the way, he’d slipped inside, feeling like a green idiot, but doing it anyway.
But green was the scent of hope, the color of perhaps, and it was those very things driving him to the counter with a packet of preventatives in his hand. He’d been as dazed as any other young buck with a posy for his blushing miss, that tin burning a square into his jacket pocket.
Because of course, his lady love would win the day, and after she would demand tribute from him, wouldn’t she?
He dragged a hand through his hair, the ends prickling against his palm. What a fool he’d been. Instructing her to be yielding on the stand, as if a simper and a smile from her would have changed anything—she’d been a skeptic from their very first meeting, and she’d been proven correct.
He’d exposed her and he’d been her downfall in the end. When she’d flushed so deeply on the stand, he’d known exactly what she’d been thinking, since he was remembering the same thing. Only he was too shameless to blush over it.
Dear God, he had nearly struck Judge Bannister today.
He closed his eyes, craving the darkness behind them. All the judge had done was to stare at her—but it had frightened her, and Sebastian’s last thread of control had snapped.
But then there was her hand on him, her soft voice speaking his name—and she called him back from the darkness.
Cementing every suspicion raised in that courtroom in the process.
By morning, it would be in the papers and it wouldn’t look good for any of them—not him, not the judge, and especially not her. He’d have to hide the papers, but he wouldn’t be able to hide the verdict from her, which was certain to be not guilty.
He’d be more concerned about her reaction if he weren’t so worried about his own. Because he knew if McCade looked at her sideways, he’d kill the man. Putting this suit on hadn’t restored calm to his soul—it was only the thinnest veneer over the wildness churning within him.
He could not have another death upon his soul. He could not.
His mother had told him to unbend or he would break. Well, he was unbending and he was still breaking—the fissures deepening as darkness oozed from them.
He’d opened himself to Isabel and now he was coming undone.
The clock chimed two, the exact same hour she’d come to him last night.
She wasn’t coming. She’d never come to him again.
Pain speared him, and without thought he rubbed at his sternum to soothe it. But his shirt rubbed like nettles against his chest.
He couldn’t go to his notebooks and risk finding her in the library. So he remained in his room, still and suffering, listening hard for the footfalls that never came.
But even as he tried to convince himself it was better she was not there, he never looked away from the door.
When the handle finally turned, he thought it only a figment of his imagination. It moved excruciatingly slowly as it revolved toward releasing the door.
He stopped breathing. It could not be her.
But it was. She was barefoot, wrapped in a dressing gown entirely too thick for the mild autumn night. Armor was what it was.
Armor against him.
If she thought that gown could erase from his memory the image of her naked and astride him, she was wrong.
“You should not be here,” he said. Heavy with warning.
She cocked her head, studying him. “No,” she said, “I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have been in the library last night either, but you didn’t protest then.”
Heat curled in his gut and his member twitched at the reminder. “What do you want?”
He needed to drive her from this room soon, or he would certainly lay her on that bed and use it.
She wasn’t put off by him—she never was. Instead she came closer, her bare toes peeping out from her nightgown with each step. “Are you well?”
Was he well? He was so far from well, he didn’t remember what it looked like.
“No,” he rasped. “I am not well. I almost struck a judge today. In that courtroom, I had to sit and watch as you… as you…”
“Failed?” She threw the word at him.
“No, as you were slandered.”
She swallowed, pink crawling up her cheeks. “He knew about us.”
Us.
There wasn’t going to be an us.
His reaction to the judge had proven he could never unbend where she was concerned. He set his jaw. “So you think all this was an elaborate plan to entrap McCade?” he asked. “That you were only a pawn?”
“I believe I was only a pawn to Judge Bannister and to McCade’s father. No one in that courtroom cared about what happened to me. They had already made up their minds.”
She’d said nothing about him. He shouldn’t want to know, should be shoving her out the door, but something deep within him, something beyond the darkness that lurked there, needed to know. He sent his plea to her from that place. “And me?”
“You.” She sighed. “You make everything better.”
No one had ever said such a thing to him—he’d only ever made things worse.
He couldn’t deny any sensation she called forth in him, and he certainly couldn’t
resist the one she’d summoned with those words.
He rose, the force of her words driving him to her, lifting her up and claiming her mouth before he laid her across the bed. He stretched out next to her, smoothing back the hair that had escaped her braid and wishing he could simply close his eyes and rest. To gather her close and know the peace of sleeping next to her.
He would never know that peace.
Her fingers traced the edge of his jaw, sliding along his freshly shaven skin until she found a small nick. It stung faintly under her touch.
“Did you do this to yourself?” she asked softly.
“No,” he replied as quietly. “That one was an accident.”
Her fingers traced over the faintly pink lines still crossing his palm. Of course she knew. She saw all of him.
“Does it help?” she asked.
“Yes.” He didn’t attempt to explain it further—he wasn’t certain if he could, not without appearing mad.
“Do you aspire to sainthood?” Her finger ran up the lines and back again.
“No.” Men such as he didn’t become saints.
“Would you stop?” Not at all a command—a plea. “If I asked?”
She pressed a kiss to his palm.
“I won’t ever do it again,” he swore. He wouldn’t, not when she treated his flesh so worshipfully. He couldn’t harm something she loved.
They lay like that for several moments, her fingers caressing any bare skin of his she could find, while he simply breathed into her hair.
“Promise me you won’t read the papers tomorrow,” he said, adjusting their positions so he could gaze at her face.
“Do you truly think it will be so bad?” As if she were trying to convince herself it wouldn’t be.
“It certainly won’t be pleasant.”
She blinked rapidly, but no tears fell. Her eyes squeezed shut, and the pain that lanced through him at the sight made his breath rasp. He wished she’d never taken that fateful drive that Sunday long ago. She would be safe, in her little mountain town, her insipid fiancé at her side, her life plans still intact.
And he would never have hurt her as he was now.
But time only marched forward, never backward. Erasing the past wasn’t possible, so he needed to find some other means of soothing her.
He kissed her.
He wasn’t entirely certain if the kiss would help, but it was what she usually did when he was overset. Just a simple brush of his lips against hers, accompanied by a stroke of her beautiful hair, but it jolted him right to his very bones.
He pulled away to see if it had had the intended effect. Her eyes were clear, with a sardonic spark.
“Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing the papers will assume we’re doing?” Her voice was as dry as her eyes.
He suppressed his laugh, but he did allow himself a small smile before growing serious again. “I am sorry I’ve exposed you to this.”
“I’m just as much at fault.” She closed her eyes, a soft breath passing her lips. “I never thought I would be so happy at the thought of going back to Cabrillo. Los Angeles was my dream for so many years, and now I never want to see it again.”
He knew to expect this, that she would leave and not wish to return, but he still felt as if there were a hot poker pressed against his breastbone.
“You’ll be safe there.” He pressed another kiss against her mouth and she opened for him with a sigh. “None of this will follow you,” he said against her lips.
“They’ll still know I failed here,” she murmured. He kissed his way along her jaw. “I’ll have to face them all knowing that I let that man walk free.”
“You didn’t let him walk free,” he insisted. “Don’t think that.”
She didn’t seem to have heard him. “The way he looked at me on the stand…”
“He’ll never hurt you,” he rumbled, his mood going dangerous. “I swear it.”
She didn’t answer and he sensed her slipping from him, already traveling back in her mind to Cabrillo.
“I’ll have to tell Joaquin I failed.” She stared into the distance bleakly, no doubt already imagining that conversation.
Bitterness cut at his tongue at the thought of her erstwhile fiancé. He knew it wasn’t fair—the man could hardly walk—but damn it, twice now he’d left Isabel alone to fight this outlaw. Had Obregon been here to take the stand, everything might have been different.
Sebastian growled as he flicked open the buttons of her nightgown. “Don’t worry about that.”
He slid his hand in to seize her breast, to remind her that he, Sebastian, was here and had been at her side through the entire ordeal.
She raised an eyebrow as if to ask, Did I say you could do that? but didn’t stop him. “How can I not? Everything is so completely ruined. Thanks to the papers, tomorrow all of Los Angeles will think me an immoral jade.” She arched into his hold as his thumb rubbed across her nipple. “And they will think that because of exactly what we are doing at this moment.”
He swallowed hard, guilt clenching at his heart. He’d been just as immoral as she, but Los Angeles society wouldn’t slam its doors in his face as it would hers.
Her family would still receive her, but polite society—Anglo society—would think her tarnished beyond repair. To return to Cabrillo seemed the best solution—people she’d known her entire life wouldn’t believe the lies the newspapers had printed. But God, he wished there were another way.
One that kept her by his side.
Even if he couldn’t have that, even if it was beyond rash, he would take tonight. It was all he could have—even if he didn’t deserve it.
He grabbed a fistful of her nightgown just above her knees and began to drag it up. She writhed against him.
“Do what you did last night,” she ordered. “Only, use your hand instead.”
Desire pulsed through him at the command and at the thought of her coming undone under his fingers. He stroked the silk of her inner thigh, the heat from the center of her maddeningly tempting. He would part those folds soon, lingering in her slickness until they were both ready to go up in flames.
But first… “Were you sore today? Did I hurt you last night?”
She frowned. “No, of course not.”
He’d heard a lady’s first time was painful, but apparently that wasn’t always true. Good, because if this night was all he had left with her, he wanted to use it to its fullest. Use them both to their fullest.
“Well?” she asked breathlessly, and lifted her hips in demand.
His mouth tipped in the smallest of smiles as he set his hand against the very center of her. Greedy, demanding woman.
Lord, but he loved her like this.
Her sex was soft, slick, aflame—the slide of it against his fingertips made his head spin. The liquid of her desire coated his hand and the scent of it filled the air as he stroked and circled just as she’d shown him last night. He watched her reactions closely, each breathy moan from her lips, every licentious roll of her hips a reward for his efforts, rewards that sent the lightning stitch of lust through him.
Her moans began to shift to something more urgent, more keening, the arching of her hips becoming thrusts against his hand, and with one last cry that she held deep in her throat, she climaxed against him.
Her nightgown had bunched up about her waist. He settled along her side, pressed his face into the silken warmth of her belly, savored the smell and sound of her as she rode the last peaks of her pleasure.
He found the edges of her gown and tugged upward in a question. “May I look at you? Touch you? May I take down your hair?”
She slid a hand through his hair, her nails scraping his scalp as she pulled his head up to look at her. When their eyes met, she gave him a smile so soft, so fond, his belly clenched with it, clenched with the need to keep such a smile on her face forever.
“Yes,” she said. “You may do whatever you like. After, I’m going to touch you. Taste you.”
“Whatever you like.” Kneeling beside her, he pulled the gown over her head, then released her hair from its braid, spreading it all about her shoulders. She lay back again, her fond smile turning satisfied, and he found he had not the words to describe how she looked to him then. She was female desire incarnate, everything he’d ever lusted after, every carnal fantasy he’d tried to erase.
Everything his heart could never have.
He ran a hand along her shoulders, her breasts, and down her torso, encountering the silk of her hair every so often. Against the pale slenderness of her form, his hand was brutish—ugly, scarred. And yet she still curled into his touch.
She lifted her arms to wrap round his shoulders, pulling him down for a kiss. She tasted of hope and desire, their tongues tangling just as the rest of their bodies were.
As her hands ran along the fabric of his jacket, he realized he was still fully clothed. He pulled back from the enticement of her mouth to tug off his jacket and toss it to the floor. His fingers went to the buttons of his waistcoat, when her hand caught his wrist.
He looked at her in question, her eyes heavy lidded, smoldering with anticipation.
“Just the jacket,” she said. “Leave the rest. I want to see you as the marshal”—she ran her hand down his waistcoat—“and as Sebastian”—her hand ran down his cheek—“both at the same time.”
An odd sensation shimmered through him, equal parts anxiety and excitement. “But I am always both.”
“No,” she replied. “You aren’t. You are either one or the other. I want to see you as both.”
He went to protest again and she laid a finger across his lips. “Are you arguing?”
The words sent a thrill through him, every stern schoolmarm who’d visited him in unruly dreams coming to life in her.
He shook his head.
“Good.” Her praise gave him an even deeper thrill. “Your turn.”
She pushed him to stand next to the bed, then settled herself between his legs. The sight of her, naked as Eve while he was fully clothed, was more erotic than he could express. Her hands went to his trouser fastenings, her hair sliding across her shoulders as she did. The sight of all that dark luxury moving against the moonlight of her skin distracted him from the fact she was pulling his member free.
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