His long fingers curled around that small swell, so perfect it fit in his palm, and as he caressed her, delicate with his touch, tender, heat sparked low in her belly. “I never knew a man could be gentle,” she confessed, closing her eyes and giving herself over to the sensation of that gentle kneading. Through the fabric of her gown, he tweaked the erect nipple, sending another wave of warmth spiraling through her. “I want to learn everything else I don’t know, Graham. And I want you to be the one to teach me.”
With a groan, he covered her mouth with his.
This was nothing like the first gentle meeting of their mouths that had been slow and explorative. This kiss, this joining, was all raw heat and desire. Martha parted her lips, allowing him entry, and they tangled with their tongues. Theirs was a duel, and she met every stroke of that flesh.
Never breaking contact with her lips, Graham scooped her up by the knees and started across the kitchens for his rooms.
The moment he’d closed the door behind them, he turned the lock and carried her over to the bed.
Kneeling on the lumpy mattress, they frantically divested each other of their clothes. Martha shoved his jacket off and reached for his lawn shirt. He shrugged out of the articles, and they fell in a heap at the bottom of the bed. Her wrapper joined them.
Next, he was drawing her night shift over her head, so that Martha knelt bare before him.
Her chest rose and fell hard as he stopped. His gaze lingered on her, and for the first time since she’d put her request to him, uncertainty crept in.
You are hideous. You should be grateful I give you any attention, you crimson cow.
She hugged her arms to her chest in a bid to shield herself from his focus as, unwanted, the viscount’s hateful charges whispered forward, kindling all her own self-doubts.
“Do not,” he whispered, staying her hand, and she reluctantly let her limbs fall uselessly at her sides, exposing herself to him once more. With a reverence in his touch, he cradled her right breast, weighing it like he measured spun silk. “You are so beautiful.”
She bit her lower lip, his touch as seducing as his words. And while he continued to caress and worship that skin, her head fell back, and she gave herself over to simply feeling and surrendering all she was to him and these feelings and this moment.
Graham captured the swollen, sensitive tip between his lips and suckled.
Martha whimpered, her hips undulating of their own volition with each pull and tug of his mouth. And then he was moving his attention to the previously neglected tip, laving it, tasting her.
She tangled her fingers in his silken hair, holding him close. “Please, don’t stop,” she panted. “Promise you’ll not stop.”
“Never,” he vowed against her skin, and while he continued to worship her breast, he slipped a hand between her legs.
Martha bit her lower lip to keep from crying out as he palmed her. Then his fingers found the nub shielded by her curls. He teased her in an erotic game that was both torture and rapture combined. Sweat beaded on her brow as she thrust into his touch. Needing more. Wanting more.
“Please,” she begged, and it was as though he knew for what she entreated, no more words needed, when she herself didn’t know.
Graham slipped a finger inside her sodden channel, and she hissed, clenching her legs around his hand. Riding it. Her body was climbing higher, carried higher by him and his every stroke.
It wasn’t enough.
Then he was gone, and her body went cold.
But he was shoving his trousers down, kicking them aside so that he knelt before her naked.
Martha stilled, her breath catching in her chest.
He was… all masculine perfection, his body cut of sinewy muscles, a light matting of black curls upon his chest.
Martha stroked her fingers along his chest, and he groaned. A thrill of female pride moved through her. Emboldened by her own power over this man, she continued to stroke him. She trailed her palms down his flat, muscled belly and lower to the hard, long length jutting out proudly from a whorl of black curls.
“You are magnificent,” she whispered. She’d spent her adult life hating the male form, finding it repulsive and vile, only to have Graham’s muscled physique available for her exploration and pleasure and finding the beauty in it.
Nay, it was just him. There was no man like him.
And he would be leaving.
Sadness stabbed at her heart.
Do not… do not let that in…
“What is it?” he asked hoarsely when she’d stilled her fingers.
She’d steal this moment from him and hold on to it forever. “I’ve never known a man like you, Graham Malin,” she whispered and then leaned up, taking his mouth in a kiss.
Graham caught her under her buttocks and drew her close. The heat of his body rippled from him, burning in its intensity.
He guided her down. The mattress creaked with the shift of their weight as Graham lay between her thighs, cradling her between his elbows.
She felt him at her entrance. The head of his shaft slipped inside, and her body, wet for him, slicked the way, and there was no pain. Only splendor. Only bliss. Only them.
Lowering his head to her breast once more, he teased that sensitized tip, and the dueling sensations sent her body into a frenzy as she lifted her hips, needing him. All of him.
He plunged deep, and she opened her mouth, letting out a silent scream of ecstasy. Then he withdrew, and she gripped him tight around the back, clinging to him. “Please,” she begged. Not knowing what she begged for, only knowing he could ease the ache that throbbed at her center. He was thrusting, moving within her, his strokes slow torture, luxuriant, toying with her sanity. And Martha matched each lunge, lifting her hips, their bodies in perfect harmony with each other.
The tense, almost painful set of his face, a study in concentration and hunger, sent her desire climbing. She caressed a palm down his cheek. “Faster,” she urged, and as he increased his rhythm, Martha met his thrusts.
Each stroke of him inside brought her higher and higher to some unfamiliar place she’d never been, a precipice that beckoned.
“Come for me, love,” he urged, the hoarse whisper tickling the shell of her ear.
“I want… I want…” she panted, her body tensing as he thrust, touching her to the quick.
And Martha shattered.
She screamed. His mouth, however, was already there, on hers, swallowing the animalistic sound as it ripped from her throat. Wave after wave of white, searing ecstasy pulled her under, the waves of her release crashing over her, and she let herself drown in simply feeling.
Graham buried his head in her neck and, with a muffled shout, surrendered himself to that like oblivion. He drew out. His hot speed spurted onto her belly, and then catching himself on his elbows, he collapsed over her.
A small, contented smile toyed with her lips as she burrowed against him. “That was magic.”
He caressed his lips at her temple. “It was.” Leaning over, he rescued his jacket and fished out a kerchief. With a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes, he cleaned his seed first from her belly and then himself. The thoughtfulness of that, his restraint, and his ministrations were tenderness she’d never once known from the man who’d sired her three children.
“What is this, love?” he whispered, catching one of her tears.
Love. When spoken in those husky tones, she could believe that endearment was more than a throwaway word. “I’m just happy,” she said, snuggling against him. And where there was usually guilt without any hint of joy, now she let herself feel those emotions without shame. “I haven’t been happy in so long.” As soon as the admission left her, guilt found its home in her chest. Because there was Frederick, but there was also pain.
Rolling onto his back, Graham brought Martha atop him. She lay sprawled there, her hair a cascade about them and her ear pressed against his chest.
Closing her eyes, she listened to the st
eady beat of his heart.
“I’ve never been happy like this. Not truly.”
That quiet confession came partially muffled by the tilt of her head. Propping her chin on the light whorl of curls, Martha searched Graham’s face. There was a somberness to him. And it highlighted all the ways in which this man was still a mystery to her, and she desperately longed to know all those parts and pieces of him. “Surely you’ve been happy at some point. Because of someone… family… a love?”
“Oh, I’ve had moments of happiness. My father despises me, but my mother has been only ever more adoring than I deserve.”
She snorted. “That is rubbish. You’ve no doubt been a devoted, dutiful son.”
A twinkle lit his eye, giving him a boyish look. “Dutiful would have been the last word ascribed to me.” She stared at him wistfully, trying to imagine the boy he had been. One sneaking off to care for horses.
Martha wriggled herself higher until their noses touched. “Either way, dutiful, devoted, or not, you were always deserving of her love, Graham.” She cupped his face between her hands, the faint stubble tickling her palms. “Just as you were deserving of your father’s.” He made a sound of protest, and she gripped his face lightly, silencing him. “A parent loves unconditionally. Or they should. And that you do not feel that love? That is a failing not on you, but on him.”
*
That is a failing not on you, but on him.
Those words echoed in Graham’s mind, spoken by Martha with such surety. Spoken with the convictions of one who believed them, when Graham had only ever seen his own flaws as the reason for his relationship with his father.
The duke’s inability to care for Graham had come long before the day of that fateful race. It stretched far back, to a time when Graham had still sought his father’s approval and believed winning it was possible. Until he’d overheard that late-night discussion about the possibility of Graham’s madness and acknowledged the truth—his father, no matter what Graham accomplished or achieved, would never love him, because of the flaws inherent in his mind, beyond anything he could ever control.
Graham leaned up and took her mouth in a kiss. When he drew back, her thick crimson lashes fluttered. “What was that for?”
“You asked what makes me happy. You do.” And it was true. For a brief moment, built on both a dream and a delusion, he thought of leaving his position with the Brethren and living here on the fringe of Luton. Just the three of them—a family.
She swatted at him. “That does not count as one of your items. Before me, Graham. What brought you happiness before?”
He considered his answer for a moment. There had been countless evenings spent with lovers. Those exchanges, however, had been functional in a purpose. The women, his relationships with them, had been… tedious. There’d never been talks of… of… anything of import. “I’ve found peace working in stables,” he finally said, rubbing a palm over her back in a counterclockwise circle. “There is a sense of right that I always find there, but I’ve never had this…” He paused that massage. “Absolute joy,” he finally said. He locked his gaze with hers. “Until you.”
Her breath caught. “Have you ever been in love?”
“No.” His answer was instantaneous. “There have been… lovers.” But no woman had ever held his heart. His mind shied away from that thought.
“I’ve been in love,” she confided. Jealousy darkened his vision, and he hated the bastard unseen. Despised him for having known that gift. Martha lifted three fingers. “Three times.”
Graham puzzled his brow.
A mischievous smile danced on her lips. “Well,” she began. “Frederick,” she murmured. “I hated my husband. I feared him, but the moment the midwife placed my boy in my arms, I was filled with this overwhelming love. He kept me from becoming the empty, broken shell of a woman I would have been had I never had him.”
“And… the others?”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
It was the most telltale of the signals to mark a person’s unease. But in this case, with Martha in his arms, he felt that disquiet in the way her toes curled against his legs and the tightening of her calves. As if it took all the energy and muscles within her being to keep her secrets in.
“I have two daughters,” she blurted.
He stilled.
“Creda and Iris.” And then she spoke on a rush. “Twin girls. So very clever. Far more talented artistically than I could ever dare dream and with freckled cheeks and matching gap-toothed smiles and—” Tears filled her eyes, and she lowered her head back to his chest.
His mind raced. There hadn’t just been Frederick. But also two girls. How much of her was still a secret? And how he wanted to have all her secrets peeled away so he knew everything there was to know about the brave woman before him. “What happened to them?” he asked gruffly.
She drew in a shuddery breath. “I sent them away.”
He drew back. “You sent them away?” he echoed.
She frowned, drawing back slightly. “To preserve their reputations, Graham. I sent them away to protect them.”
“For how long?”
Martha said nothing.
Then it dawned. “Forever.” She’d sent away her two children and had no intention of ever again seeing them. “And they’ll remain… wherever it is you’ve sent them.”
“To be protected. You can’t understand. No man can.”
“Perhaps I cannot,” he shot back, aching for her and the two girls she’d described, children who needed her. Those young girls would only ever be better women for growing up with Martha as their mother. If they had her near. “But how is their living away from their mother and brother protecting them?”
Martha struggled to a sitting position. “I’ll not be lectured. Not on this.” Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she reached for the sheet and wrapped it about herself.
“I’m not lecturing you, Martha,” he said in the tones he used for the most fractious mounts. “I’m trying to understand.”
A sound of frustration escaped her. “Come, Graham, you aren’t naïve,” she said tightly. “You’ve seen how Frederick and I are treated for our circumstances. So do not pretend no hurt will come to them, the bastard daughters of a bigamist.” Martha started to rise, but Graham caught her, keeping her close. He didn’t want her to leave. Not like this.
“Don’t you see, Martha? Keeping your girls in hiding will not change who they are or the circumstances surrounding their births. They’ll come to believe there is something wrong with them. That your sending them away was… is because of a defect in who they are.”
She recoiled. “No. I didn’t… That isn’t…” And then she went limp, losing her hold on the sheet. It fluttered around her in a whispery heap. “Oh, God. In all my considering about Creda and Iris leaving, with all the tears I’ve silently cried into my pillow, I’ve never considered… that.” Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
The evidence of her despair ripped him apart inside. He wanted to take away the pain she’d known and make it his own. He wanted to shield her from any further hurt.
On a damned lie… She doesn’t even know who you really are.
Fighting off that taunting voice, Graham rested his hands on her shoulders, and she started, staring at him like she’d never before seen him.
“They belong with you, Martha,” he murmured, placing a lingering kiss against her temple.
“Perhaps,” she whispered. “But what if they shouldn’t? What if they are better away from me?”
He guided her around and tipped her chin up. “Impossible, Martha. Any person is just better for being near you.” As he lay back down and drew her into the crook of his shoulder, they lay there, no further words spoken, each taking the warmth and comfort the other offered.
What am I going to do without her?
Chapter 16
At some point after she’d fallen asleep in Graham’s arms, he’d carried her to her rooms
and left her there, covered.
When she awoke the following morning, there was a note. Working on the laundry even now, that note seemed to burn a hole in her stained, damp apron pocket.
I’ll return.
That was it.
Two words. An assurance that he would return. But when she’d rolled over and found it resting on the empty pillow beside her, there had been a buoyancy in her chest at what he might say.
What? Did you expect poetry and pretty words?
Scrub. Dunk. Rinse. Repeat.
Did you think he’d write how much you have come to mean and profess an inability to leave you or Frederick?
Of course, after such a short time, none of that would have held true. I just wish it did… Despite the cold of the winter’s day and the wind ramming at the stone walls of her cottage, the blaring heat of the kitchen stoves had moisture beading at her brow. As she saw to the laundry, she remembered last evening, the moments after they’d made love.
She’d confided in him about Creda and Iris. The need to protect her daughters, however, to keep their identities secret and the scandal around them buried, should have kept her silent, but she’d yearned to tell him all.
And in so speaking, she’d let them live again in this place they’d called home.
Last night, his disappointment had stung.
In the light of a new day, she weighed what he’d said about her as a mother and her little fractured family.
Don’t you see, Martha? Keeping your girls in hiding will not change who they are or the circumstances surrounding their births. They’ll come to believe there is something wrong with them. That your sending them away was… is because of a defect in who they are.
The point Graham had raised niggled around her mind and could not be unheard or go unthought.
If her girls grew to hate her, the pain of that would gut her. But for them to resent her and hate her for selfishly choosing to keep them close would leave her broken.
Martha paused and stared down at the suds that concealed the laundry.
Was it simply fear that had allowed her to live without her daughters? Had it been strictly fear of how the world would treat them? Or a worry of how they would view Martha as a woman?
The Rogue Who Rescued Her Page 18