“Did you hear what I said?” Struan asked over the music. “All women are headstrong.”
She tossed her head. “You are right, sir. We have to be headstrong to keep our sanity while dealing with men. Men—for purposes God must consider important—are larger and stronger than women. For that reason, they consider themselves to be also of superior intelligence.”
“Quite so.”
“Hah! He admits it.” She stood at his shoulder and watched his long, strong fingers fly over the keys. “And they consider their desires stronger and their appetites more fierce …”
Struan’s fingers stilled.
Justine clamped her arms to her sides, appalled at what she had said.
A large hand pried her left wrist away from her body. “Look at me, Justine.”
She would not.
“Look at me. This will be perfect for your book.”
Reluctantly, she met his gaze.
“Stronger desires?”
She swallowed. “I meant that men think they want things more ardently than women.” “And do they?”
“I…” Academic. An academic exploration. “I believe women want things every bit as much as men do.”
“Things?”
Surely he could not be trying to trap her into some indiscretion. “In relationship,” she said boldly. “Yes, in relationship. They desire … intimacy. A oneness of heart. They long to share completely in those …”
“Those?”
“Sin’s ears, you do persist so. Those passions. Yes, they desire to share the same passions men wish to enjoy.”
“Why, Justine, you sound as if you need very little instruction in the business of passion and desire.”
She would not look away. “I know nothing of passion and desire but my own imaginings. And my own … sensations. I do not set out to lie to you, Struan. I have often wondered if I may be an unnatural woman, but with maturity I have come to the conclusion that I am not at all unnatural. Most women simply fail to allow their … urges to develop. Or rather their urges develop but they deny them. To themselves. And to their husbands.”
“I see.”
“It is my mission to stop women from denying their urges.”
“I… see.”
“And I think a woman’s appetite for fulfillment is equal to her husband’s. In the matter of closeness, don’t y’know?”
“No. No, I’m not sure I do. Closeness?”
She began to feel rather hot. “Perhaps we should concentrate on the ballroom? For now?”
Struan stood up. “I have the distinct feeling I shall become far more passionate on the subject of this closeness of yours.”
“Oh, it’s not mine, I assure you!” Whatever could he be suggesting? “No, no, not at all. I have merely constructed certain conclusions. Some of them … Well, anyway, I have no personal knowledge of these things and that is why I am so very grateful for all your unselfish assistance.”
“I see.”
“You do have an unfortunate habit of resorting to ‘I see’ when you don’t see. Don’t you?” “Possibly.”
Justine saw the need for clarification. “Because girls and young women are so sheltered from the truth.… The truth about life, that is. Well, because they are not told anything, it’s very difficult not to be nervous and ignorant in these matters relating to what occurs between a husband and wife. After they marry. When they share time in the same bed.” Her face glowed. “That sort of thing.”
“Quite.”
“I knew you’d understand.” She smiled gratefully at him. “I’ve done some preliminary research.”
“You have?”
“Oh, yes. We have a great many animals at Franchot. I observed certain activities—”
“Do you like to dance?”
Caught off guard by his swift change of topic, Justine blinked rapidly. “Why do you ask that again? You know I cannot possibly dance. I have never danced.”
“I’ll rephrase my question. Should you like to dance?”
“I…” He was honest with her. She would be equally honest with him. “I have always regretted that I cannot dance. I do love music. And I love to watch others dance.”
“Do you feel wistful when you watch?”
He seemed to know her heart. “Sometimes.” She sighed. “I’ve tried not to.”
Struan put an arm around her waist and took her hand in his. “Then you shall no longer have any reason to feel wistful. You shall dance.”
“No.” She tried to wiggle free. “No, please.”
“Yes, please. Can you still remember the tune I played?”
“Well… Yes, I can.”
He began to hum. “Good. Listen to it in your mind and let me lead you.”
Completely incapable of making her feet move, Justine stood quite still. “I cannot.”
“Cannot? Or will not? For our purposes—on this first occasion—my legs will guide your legs. Allow the pressure of mine to show yours where to go.”
“But—”
“But it’s not appropriate for me to touch you so intimately? Come, my dear. This is for scientific purposes. We must sacrifice ourselves—our principles—for the good of others.”
Justine stared fixedly at his black stock. “I am clumsy,” she told him. “My leg may simply collapse under me.”
“If it does, my legs will be your legs. What could be more simple?”
She felt weak and hot.
Struan took a step toward her and his thigh pressed her injured hip. “Backward,” he said softly, and she tried and stumbled. “I’ve got you. Relax. This is new.” His arm completely surrounded her waist and he contrived to make the step for both of them.
“A woman lets the man lead her,” Struan said. This time it was his left thigh that met her body. “Yes. Yes, just like that.”
Justine’s breathing became shallow. She dared not look up into his face for fear he would see her—really see her—see how he undid her simply by his touch.
“There are times,” he said, “when a man who is particularly fond of a woman wants to hold her near. If I held you in such a manner you would be able to report on the event for the book. And you might feel less afraid of falling.”
Softly, Struan hummed more of the waltz, his breath shifting across her brow. Releasing her hand, he took her arms and placed them around his shoulders. “To steady you,” he said. Then he spread his hands on her back and drew her against him. “And to assist you in writing your book.”
Their bodies pressed together.
“This… this would not happen in the ballroom?” she said.
“It might if there were a particular reason for a man to hold a woman especially close.”
“What reason could there possibly be?” Her Voice sounded as if it belonged to a quite different woman.
Struan hummed on. His hands smoothed gently yet firmly over her back. He swayed, and she swayed with him.
All of her body touched his. And his touched hers—leaned into hers. He was big. Solid bone and muscle. Hard angles that, miraculously, accommodated her softer lines—her softer curves.
“The dress becomes you,” he said. “Rose-colored. And there is rose bloom in your cheeks now.”
“Thank you. You did not explain why a man would hold a woman thus.”
“Because he wants to feel her.” His tone lost its softness. “This is part of what you want your readers to know, Justine. A man wants to feel a woman. Feeling her quickens his blood—and other parts.”
Her heart thumped. “I see.”
He leaned away to look down at her. “Now it’s your turn to see? Does that mean you’re confused?”
She raised her chin. “When you say it—does it mean you’re confused?”
The corners of his mouth jerked down. “I do believe you’re learning to banter with me. Yes, dear Justine, it does sometimes mean I’m not sure what you intend or what I’m supposed to say.”
“I see.”
He laughed, but th
e laughter stopped abruptly. “We are in a pretty fix, y’know.”
“I know.”
“Everyone telling us what we ought to do.”
“Or have to do,” she told him.
He gazed into her eyes, then at her mouth—then downward.
Justine grew even hotter.
Struan spanned his big hands about her ribs. His thumbs came to rest against the sides of her breasts. “Your skin is lovely,” he told her. “Rosy wherever I look.”
He looked at the tops of her breasts where they rose and fell far too noticeably above the neck of her gown.
“A female becomes accustomed to a man paying her such compliments,” he said. “You’ll remember that, will you?”
The next breath she took made her breasts feel they would swell free of her bodice. “I’ll remember,” she whispered.
“I do believe you will.” His thumbs smoothed flesh suddenly grown sensitive, grown raw to the touch.
“I don’t think you should—”
“Absolutely, I should. This is natural, Justine. Don’t you like the way it feels?”
His hips, braced against hers, distracted Justine. What she had so unsuitably observed on certain other gentlemen was happening to Struan. She could not contain her own small cry.
“What is it?” He frowned. A pale line formed around his compressed lips. “Have I hurt you?”
“No.” Her own hips moved. She felt powerless to stop herself from thrusting against the solid length of the ridge within his breeches. “You surprised me. I feel what is happening to your body, Struan.” Oh, she was cursed with a careless tongue.
“And it makes you cry out with horror?”
“It makes me cry out with … I feel… Struan, is it because you are touching me that this happens to you?”
“Yes.” He covered her breasts, very carefully, keeping his gaze on her eyes as if he could see into her very soul. “If you wish me to stop, I will.”
If she took her arms from his shoulders she would surely fall. “Do not stop,” she said. “Please do not stop.”
“Justine.” He said her name the instant before his lips brushed hers. Slowly, his mouth caressed hers, moved over hers.
Her eyes closed tightly, only to fly open again.
Struan pushed one thigh between hers and drew her up the length of rigidly flexed muscle. Deep within her heat licked. She tried to push away, but he held her fast.
And he kept on kissing her. His clever lips made hers tingle. Then he did another extraordinary thing. With the very tip of his tongue, he sought the sensitive inside of her mouth and slid over moist skin until the heat at her center and the tingling in her mouth—and the swelling ache in her breasts—convulsed her in his arms.
“I want you,” he murmured against her ear.
Justine heard but no longer understood.
With warm lips, Struan kissed her jaw, her neck, the hollow above her collarbone. And he kissed the tops of her breasts so softly that his mouth might have been a passing breeze, a breeze that did not cool but rather set her skin afire.
“This is the beginning of what you call closeness,” he said, returning his attention to her neck. “Or so I believe.”
“The beginning?” she asked him breathlessly. “Surely there cannot be much more.”
He chuckled and nipped at her ear. “Much, much more, sweet lady. We have barely begun.”
She should insist he set her from him this very instant.
She should protest his intimacy at once.
She should never, ever, allow him to touch her again as he touched her now.
“Barely begun?”
“Absolutely. There is so much more. And we shall ensure that you gather every possible detail. For your book, of course.”
“Of course.”
She would die if he never touched her this way again.
“When … when, exactly, would things such as this occur? In the courtship? Or whatever?”
Austere concentration settled on Struan’s bold features. His dark brows drew lower over his eyes while he regarded her face. “These things happen when a man has decided he must have a woman—a particular woman—no matter what the cost.”
She should not be all but riding his thigh.
“When a man reaches such a pass, there is usually little question but that … Passion is almost certain to follow. Ardor, Justine. The satisfaction of those urges you mentioned.”
Filling her hands with his jacket, she attempted to slide from his leg—with disastrous results. Wonderfully disastrous results.
A burning dart speared through her very center. “Struan!” She clutched at him and pulled his stock loose.
“Yes, dear one,” he said through his teeth. “Oh, yes.”
“No!”
“Yes.” Surrounding her with one arm, he slipped his other hand beneath her skirts and found the pulsing core that held the root of the marvelous pain.
He pushed a finger inside her.
“Oh!” Justine bucked. “You must not.” She could not control her body.
His finger eased in and out. His thumb worked at the little place that swelled with a need she knew with her being but not with her mind.
“Let go,” he told her. “It is time for this.”
With parted lips, Justine drew in great gulps of air. All she saw were his eyes, his intensely dark eyes.
And a tide ripped through her, opened her, rendered her bare and helpless.
In the wake of the tide came searing ripples. Amazed, she struggled to collect herself. “Struan? What?”
“Passion, sweet. The fulfillment of urges. Closeness.”
It?
No. “Not all, though, Struan? There is still more?”
His smile was cynical. “More indeed. There is the matter of my urges. Of my body.”
Without thinking, she felt for the hardness between his legs.
Struan’s smile died. His teeth came together. “My lady, I do not advise you to persist with that.”
She drew her hand away. His flesh had sprung into her fingers.
“Very wise,” he said. Muscles bunched in his jaw. Gradually, as if reluctant, he set her feet on the floor but drew her into a tight embrace. “This afternoon’s work has not served to ease my dilemma,” he said, his cheek resting against her temple.
Where she had been hot, Justine experienced the slipping in of unnatural cold. When he released her, there was in his expression a deeply troubled cast.
“You mean that the contact with me caused you to be left unfulfilled in some way?” Of course that’s what he meant. “Naturally. It would be so with any female, wouldn’t it?”
The pallor of his face, the tension, shocked her. “There are physical reactions that are inevitable,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What occurs elsewhere is a different matter.”
Did he mean in the heart? A lover? Old fool! He’d told her to forget Grandmama’s words. She never would. “You have certainly kept your end of the bargain. Now I shall have a great deal to write about.” Even as she said the words she knew how absurd they sounded. “Max’s accent must be attended to at once.”
“To hell with Max’s accent. Don’t you understand—don’t you feel my struggle?”
Already troubled, he was now the more troubled because of her. “I do understand. Truly, Struan, I shall go if it will be easier.”
“It would be easier,” he almost shouted. “I intended to come to you today and insist you leave. But I cannot! No, it’s not possible. There has to be another way.”
She put a hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Do not ever be sorry. It is I who should apologize, and I do. But I am a match for whatever may come my way. We shall marry. There are grave considerations, but I will suffer them. I will control them.”
Justine dropped her hand.
Struan strode away and sat at the piano once more. “We will proceed with the arrangements at once.”
The music tha
t flowed from beneath his hands was harsh. Harsh, angry music.
“Grave considerations, Struan?” she said. “I would not think of you dealing with grave considerations on my account.”
“There is nothing more to discuss. There are certain provisions and precautions I must consider. Please allow me to think awhile.”
The only reason he was saying this was that he and his brother—and her own brother now—had decided propriety and their damnable family honor demanded it.
Struan hated the idea of marriage to her, hated the prospect of the derision that would be heaped upon him by disbelieving friends and acquaintances. And why wouldn’t he when he could have his pick of beautiful and suitable women?
But unlike many of those women, she was not simpering, blushing, or slavishly compliant. “I am not chattel,” she said clearly.
A great clash of jangling notes came from the piano. Struan stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, I am not chattel. This is demeaning. Who asked me what I want?”
He braced his arms against the piano. “That is hardly an issue here, is it?”
“Sin’s ears!” Hair had slipped from her chignon. She pushed the locks angrily behind her shoulder. “It is an issue to me! I do not want a man who doesn’t want me. I do not want a man to marry me because he feels forced to do so.”
He shook his head. “You really don’t have any idea, do you?”
“Oh, I think I have a great many ideas. Thanks to you. And they will be most useful as I proceed with my work.”
“The hell with your work. It is not your work we’re discussing here. It’s the matter of our marriage. It’s the matter of certain things I must consider and control after that marriage.”
“Really?” Her dress was outrageously rumpled. “I do not regret what I have experienced with you. I will not lie. You mean a great deal to me, Struan, and I shall forever remember this afternoon. But although I am inexperienced, I believe we did rather more than was wise—for scientific purposes. We shall, if you agree, return to our original arrangement.”
“Sin’s … Agh, you almost have me using your frothy epithet! I do not agree, dammit. Your honor is my affair. And I refuse to have you surrendered into the clutches of some pinching old pervert. I have considered all aspects of the problem and decided I will have more peace if you are where I can control what happens to you at all times. You will be my wife, and that’s an end of it.”
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