Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 03]
Page 15
All he knew was that if he made love to her now, it would be wrong. He’d spent the last week being the man of her dreams, using her diaries against her. She was too good and too fine to be made a fool of like that.
Of course, if he told her that he’d broken into her manor and read her diaries, that he’d come to discredit her and win the seat of the Fox, she’d likely fetch that pistol back in truth! Not to mention that she’d never look at him the way she had over the bread and cheese—as if she wished she could spread him on a slice of bread.
And as if he were her hero.
God, what a thing to live up to! He wasn’t feeling any too heroic at the moment. He was feeling like a fool and a sneak. The worst of it was, in order to keep her, he might have to tell her the very thing that would lose her!
He couldn’t do it … yet, perhaps there were some things he could tell her. Things that might make it easier for her to understand and forgive … someday.
Coward.
Oh, yes. That I know.
When he reentered the bedchamber and closed the balcony doors behind him, she was clad in her wrapper and seated in the big chair before the fire. He joined her to lean one elbow on the mantel. They both stared into the fire for a long moment. Finally she stirred. “Was there something you wished to say to me?”
You ‘re lovely. You’re astounding. I lo—
He blinked and shook off that thought. Then he took a deep breath.
“You’re not preparing to leap off a cliff, are you, Marcus?”
He turned to see her gazing at him with wary curiosity. He blew out that breath and smiled slightly. “Perhaps I am.” He went to one knee before her and took his hand in hers. Her eyes widened and she drew back in surprise.
“You’re not planning on proposing, I hope. I do think it’s a bit much to announce another early engagement.”
He realized he was indeed in the classic pose of the entreating suitor. He laughed and stood, then pulled her to her feet. He took her place in the chair and swept her into his lap. “There. That’s better.”
She went rigid and leaned away from him. “Marcus, you needn’t—”
“Julia, you’re an amazing woman and I admire you enormously. But for once, let me be in charge, I beg of you.”
“This is my house.” She scowled at him. “I think I—”
He kissed her protest silent. At first, she pushed at him irritably. Then after a long moment, she went warm and soft in his arms.
And then she uttered that throaty sound, the one she’d made in the garden, the one that sent his mind vague and buzzing with lack of blood flow as his groin swelled …
He pulled away. She clung to him, gasping, still supple and compliant in his grasp. He settled back in the chair and cradled her. It felt very natural to do so.
“Before you and I embark on this … affair, I want to tell you something.”
She let out a long unenthusiastic breath that tingled his neck and then settled her head on his shoulder to listen. “Go on.”
He stroked her hair with one hand. “I am a second son, as you know. I am also a bastard-in-wedlock. My father is not my father and my brother is only my halfbrother … and all my life, the two of them never let me forget it.”
He waited for the bitterness to rise, but the scent of her hair distracted him. “Ah … yes.” He went on. “The family secret was never common knowledge, never even openly discussed, but there are a thousand ways to make someone feel like an outsider. Being blamed for someone else’s mischief, for instance. Learning through the years that no matter how hard you try, no matter how you scrap and study and fence and ride and run faster than any other boy, you will never be anything but second best.”
He felt her take one of his hands in hers. She nestled it between her breasts and held it like the child he’d been. Oddly, it seemed to help for he didn’t feel the sharp ache that always came with those memories …
“The worst of it was that I didn’t understand why. If I’d known about my parentage I think I might have given up years earlier. It wasn’t until I found my mother with her lover—a tall man with green eyes and my chin—”
Julia pressed herself to him as if she could protect him from that moment when he’d walked into the greenhouse to see his mother in the arms of a stranger.
“They were only kissing, but then he turned and looked at me as if he knew me, as if he knew all about me and was proud of me! He looked at me the way I’d always longed to be seen by the man I thought of as my father.”
He shook his head. “I realized at that moment that it would never happen. I would never be my father’s son … ever. I cared nothing for the stranger’s regard. It was my mother’s husband I revered. All those years of struggling to merit his approval had always been in vain, had I but known it.”
“So you blame him,” Julia said quietly.
“No.” Marcus laughed shortly. “I blame her” He paused a moment. “Or at least, I did.”
He let out a breath. “That was the day I went into the army—thinking I was walking away,” he added slowly, realizing it for the first time. “Yet still trying forever to prove myself.”
Julia pulled her head back to gaze at him. “Marcus, why are you telling me all this?”
He tucked her head back down with one hand, leaving it there to stroke her hair. “I wanted you to know, so that you would understand when …” He couldn’t say it, but he felt to make some sort of apology for how he’d used her own secrets against her.
“When I first met you, and even before I met you, I made assumptions. The beautiful young widow of the elderly lord—well, it’s a bit of cliché, isn’t it?”
She gave a sigh of resignation. “Only for those inclined to think in clichés.”
Then she shook her head, wrinkling her nose. “I am all right, but I am no beauty. My mother was beautiful. I’m well enough, I suppose, but my nose is too long and my hair is utterly maddening.” She spread her fingers. “And just look at my hands!” She sighed. “I cannot seem to keep the calluses away. I believe you may need spectacles, Mr. Blythe-Goodman.”
The alias rang harshly against Marcus’s conscience. He cleared his throat. “At any rate, I’ve been told I had a blind spot when it came to women. I’m considered to be a bit … judgmental.” He shrugged, causing her to resettle herself. “I simply wanted you to know that I no longer care. I am not without fault. I no longer expect the woman I … I no longer expect saintliness.”
“Well, that’s very big of you,” she said, gazing at him doubtfully. “Precisely which of my debaucheries have you decided to ignore?”
He laughed. “Julia, my point is that I simply don’t care either way. Madonna or whore, it matters not. I want you, wholly and completely. All of you.”
15
All of you.
This time it was no fantasy, but truth. All of you.
All of her? The bossiness and the bad singing and the way her littlest toes stuck out from all those years running barefoot?
Her past? For that matter, her present?
Her heart stuttered a beat. Her future?
She kissed him, this time pinning his hands down so he could not press her back again. He struggled a bit at first, but she persisted, taming his mouth until he didn’t want to talk for one more blessed instant.
Keeping her hands over his, keeping his lips busy with hers, she shifted in his lap until she sat astride him and could devote her attention more fully.
When she let him come up for air at last and sat back, he remained limp with his head fallen back on the chair. “If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me,” he whispered. He swallowed hard, which reminded her that she wanted to remove his cravat.
“Stay,” she ordered, as she began to undo the complicated knot.
His deep breathless chuckle bounced her intimately against him. “Yes, my lady. As you wish, my lady. I live to serve.”
“Then shut it and let me concentrate,” she said as she frowned at the k
notted neckcloth. It had always just melted away in her fancies. “Bother this thing,” she muttered.
Marcus opened his eyes to see her glaring at his cravat with the concentration of a surgeon, one end of the cloth in her teeth and her fingers busy out of sight beneath his chin. “I can—”
“Sit,” she ordered tersely around the cravat in her mouth. “I’m going to get this …”
Suddenly the cravat loosened and she drew it free triumphantly to wave it like a banner over her head. “Done!”
Marcus reached up and took it from her easily. “My lady, we have only begun.”
He took her wrists in his big hands and began to wrap the cravat around them. She drew in a breath and gave him a startled look. “Marcus, I—”
“ ‘Shut it,’ and I quote.” He grinned at her as he tied the knot. “For the next twelve minutes, until that clock chimes the hour, you are at my mercy.”
Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. He couldn’t tell if she was aroused or nervous. “Yes, my lord,” she whispered compliantly.
Ah. Aroused, then. Then, just as he began to enjoy his supremacy, she added a codicil.
“Then it’s my turn.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Then I suppose I ought to use my time well.” He put her admittedly loosely bound hands behind her head. “Stay,” he ordered. She drew a deep trembling breath that swelled her bosom enticingly, which reminded him that she still wore her wrapper. He took one end of the tie and yanked the knot free in one motion. “Hmm. I suppose I ought to have removed this before binding you … oh, well.” He took the silk in his hands and ripped forcefully.
She gasped as he tore the wrapper from her, exposing her translucent nightdress once more. “That’s better.”
“I liked that wrapper!” she protested. “Just you wait, Marcus Blythe—”
He put his fingers over his lips. Not that name, not right now. “I’ll weave you a new one with my own little hands if you’ll just shut it.” He leered at her. “Don’t make me gag you.”
Her eyes widened and her tongue flicked out again. “With what?” Her hungry whisper caused a cascade of wicked, unseemly thoughts to enter his head. Hers as well, apparently, for her hips massaged a slow circle in his lap.
“Never mind that now. I want to see you again.” His fingers shook slightly as he began to undo the tiny buttons of her nightdress. He didn’t want to tear this. He wanted her to wear it always.
“Again? When did you—” She gasped. “The lake! You peeked!”
“Hell, yes.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “Then I could have peeked as well?”
“Never pass up an opportunity,” he said absently as the last delicate button came free. “There.”
He spread her gown wide and sat back to admire. She sat astride him, her gown rucked up to the top of her long splendid thighs, her exposed full breasts jutting high and taunting, her rosy nipples crinkling even as he watched. “I think I might just be the happiest man on earth right now,” he mused. Except for the massive erection strangling in the confines of his trousers. And the way his heart beat irregularly when her aroused, broken breathing caused her breasts to sway … and the way her bottom lip was so chewed that it plumped and reddened until he couldn’t live one more moment without kissing her.
He wrapped one hand over the back of her neck and drew her mouth to his. She bent forward enthusiastically.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Let me kiss you.”
So she went still in his grasp and he was free to take his time. Her mouth was bruised and hot and tasted of Camembert and lust. He drove his tongue slowly within, tasting her more fully. He had all night to taste her, and he would take every moment—
She whimpered into his mouth and his control cracked. Then the clock chimed the hour. “Take me this minute,” she moaned into his kiss. “Now.”
Her husky command, uttered in that dulcet voice that made even the simplest of topics sound sexual, was more than he could resist.
With one hand he found her damp center and tested her readiness. She uttered a sharp cry of joy as he slid a long finger deep.
She was ready for him. He continued to touch her deeply within, distracted by the range of lovely animal sounds she made as he slid his finger in, then withdrew. He found her pleasure center and manipulated it tenderly with the tip of his thumb as he thrust deep with two fingers.
She exploded in his hands. He had to hold her with his other arm wrapped about her waist to keep her from slipping from his lap. She shivered with bone-deep paroxysms that only served to enlarge his own lust as her quivering body rubbed his.
Through the fog of his aching need, Marcus was a bit stunned. As she fell forward onto him, only the occasional shiver racking her now, he stroked her back soothingly.
“Julia … has it been that long?”
She gasped helplessly into his neck. “Since I have lain with my husband … years.” She drew a deep breath. “But that … that, never!”
Marcus felt at once proud and dismayed. He took natural pride in satisfying his woman, but …
Giving her her first true pleasure meant that all those things he’d read … could it be that they were nothing but fiction? Merely the detailed fancies of a lonely wife? A sensuous woman left unfulfilled by cruel fate?
If so, then through his manipulation of her, he’d done Julia a more severe injustice than he’d realized.
And more, he feared, than she would ever be able to forgive.
He closed his mind against the inevitable price he would pay for his crime. It would be far worse to leave her now. He had this one night to show her all of herself, to fulfill all the promises he’d made, both spoken and unspoken.
Tomorrow would be soon enough for confession and accounting.
Quickly, he rose with her in his arms and strode to the bed. Then he laid her down and sat next to her to unwind the cravat from her hands, although truly he’d done it so loosely she could have pulled her hands free herself. Yet, the satisfied look in her wide eyes told him that she’d needed him to take control, at least for a little while.
Then he lay down beside her on the bed. Going up on one elbow, he gazed down into her eyes. “My lady, I believe it is your turn.”
She grinned at him with that gamine’s smile and sat up to push him flat again. “I,” she told him briskly, “have been positively perishing to see you naked.”
She efficiently divested him of every stitch of clothing he wore, until he lay there more naked than she. Julia found that she liked that position of power. She also liked the way his bare flesh felt to her touch, silky yet different than her own skin. He quivered as she touched his body with long exploring strokes, running her hands from his ankles to his cheek, with a few side journeys along the way.
“You’re killing me,” he said tightly.
She kissed him quiet. “Shh, it’s my turn.” Then she pressed the cravat into his hands. “Wrap it around your wrists,” she advised him. “It helps.”
He compromised by gripping it tightly in two fists and raising his hands to rest on the pillow above his head. This had the interesting effect of exposing his manly underarms. She explored immediately.
On the underside of the impressive muscles of his upper arms lay the softest skin he had. She impulsively bent to kiss that male vulnerability. She felt him tremble beneath her lips.
Interesting. She moved her mouth to the tender area under his ear. More response, with the addition of a sharp intake of breath. Plus, he smelled wonderful just there.
She continued her exploration using her lips alone. The hollow of his throat, the center of his breastbone, the copper rings of his flat male nipples—
“Oh, damn!”
The rippled surface of his belly, which tightened further as she kissed her way down each furrow of muscle until she reached his shallow navel. She dipped her tongue into it.
He jerked and gasped and his erection rose higher, as if begging for her attention.
He twitched violently. “I’m going to die,” he informed her breathlessly.
Without thinking much about it, Julia bent to plant a soft, wet kiss on the tip of his erection. This time there were no words from her glib lover. This time, he merely ripped his cravat in half.
And the clock chimed the hour once again.
Marcus sat up, his eyes glittering and his jaw hard. “My turn.”
Julia yelped in mock alarm—well, mostly—and dove for the other side of the bed. He was too fast for her. He wrapped one arm about her waist and deposited her flat in the center of the bed. He pressed his naked body over hers to quiet her nervous struggles and kissed her hard.
With one swift motion, he sat up and pulled her gown over her head, tossing it aside. Then he flung his long hard body between her thighs and gazed down at her with half-lidded eyes.
He watched her carefully as he pressed the head of his erection into her wet slit. She made no further protest, but only let her head fall back as she slid her hands up his arms to cling to his neck.
He was so thick that her flesh stung as he stretched her, but she was so hungry for him—so alone for so long!—that she only spread her thighs wider and strained toward him.
He pressed onward, not stopping until he filled her completely. Julia wrapped her arms about him, pulling him down upon her. She raised her legs to wrap her thighs about him and held him close. Pressing her face into his neck, she took deep breaths as she waited for her body to adjust.
It did not hurt so much as ache, yet she felt as though her virginity had been returned to her at some point in the last few years, given back so that she could gift it to this man.
Which was nonsense, however charming the thought. He wouldn’t be in the circle of her body now if she were a virgin.