“But I am a rogue and a wastrel and not nearly good enough for you, Esme.”
“Let me finish!” she commanded desperately, grabbing his shoulders. “I’ve been in love with you for months, but I was sure you’d never care for a woman like me, so I tried to convince myself that what I felt for you was wrong and a terrible mistake.
“For a long time, I managed to fool myself. Ever since I stole that coin and vowed I would never do anything like that again, I’ve prided myself on my honesty and moral integrity, only to live a colossal lie when it came to my feelings for you.
“But no longer. I want to admit what I feel. I’m glad I feel it and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
He looked at her with hopeful, anxious eyes. “I love you, Esme,” he said softly. “I’ve loved you for months, but only realized it here, where I have never been happy before.”
As he had opened his heart to her, she would to him. “I love you, too, Quinn, with all my heart.”
She splayed her hands on his rapidly rising and falling chest, feeling the warmth of his flesh beneath her fingers, sensing the beating of his heart and the throbbing of his blood. “I want to be with you as if we really were husband and wife.”
He took hold of her wrists and shook his head even as desire flared in his dark eyes. “I should make you leave. Carry you to your room.”
“If you try, I shall only come back,” she vowed as she took his hand and led him toward the bed, despite the risks.
For risks there were, especially for her. They weren’t married and she could get with child. She was courting scandal and shame and worst of all, she would have to leave Jamie, to whom she’d been both companion and clerk. She’d have to give up the law.
Be with Quinn. Love him completely and risk losing the life she knew, or leave him and never discover what it was like to be in the arms of the man she loved and desired, who made her feel as no one else ever had or, she suspected, ever would.
The choice was easy. “I know exactly what I’m doing,” she assured him. “What I’m offering. What I want. Who I want. I love you, Quintus MacLachlann.”
“Thank God!” he whispered as he took her in his arms and kissed her with all the fervent longing she could ever hope for.
It was wonderful, and exciting and thrilling as her body warmed and waited, her heart throbbing with desire, the need growing as his fingers toyed with the knot of the lacing at the back of her gown.
She broke the kiss and turned around, presenting her back to him in silent invitation.
He understood at once and began to undo the lacing of her gown, his lips brushing across the nape of her neck and sending shivers down her spine. “You don’t know how often I’ve dreamed of this.”
“Or you how often I’ve dreamed of being in your arms.”
He laughed softly as the laces parted. “You’re right. I had no idea, or I assure you, I would have risked the lashing of your scathing tongue and tried to kiss you much sooner.”
Holding her bodice to her breasts, she turned to face him. “I am as I am, Quinn. You must take me as I am, or not at all.”
His smile instantly reassured her even before he said, “That wasn’t a criticism, Esme. I want you just as you are, stubborn and resolute and intelligent and proud and neat as an elderly spinster. I want you because you are as you are, not in spite of it.”
He stepped back and spread his arms. “But you must take me as I am, too, Esme, past sins and scars and all.”
“We are none of us perfect,” she said. “I do want you, Quinn, just as you are.”
His eyes blazed with admiration and longing as his lips curved up in the joyous smile of a man who begins to believe his impossible dream might be achievable after all.
Esme stepped out of her gown and, clad only in her chemise and pantelettes, into his open arms.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said as he brushed his lips across her cheeks, her nose, her jaw, before coming to her mouth, his kiss deep and loving and passionate.
She relaxed against him and gave herself up to the pleasure and exhilaration his kisses and caresses aroused. His tongue slid between her lips while his hands slipped her chemise from her shoulders, his action briefly shocking her back into the full awareness of who she was, where she was and what she was doing.
But she was still confident this was the right choice. The place she wanted to be. The man she wanted to be with.
Never had a man seen her without her clothes on. Never had she wanted one to—until tonight. Until Quinn.
She backed away and slowly lowered her chemise. His breathing quickened and his face flushed as he watched, but he made no move to come closer. Not then, or when she undid the drawstring of her pantelettes and they, too, puddled at her feet.
As his heated gaze traveled over her naked body, she instinctively put one arm across her breasts, and her other hand below her naval.
“Don’t,” he said softly. “Let me see you. Let me admire you in the candlelight. God, Esme, I had no idea… Those terrible gowns… No, I should be glad you wore them or too many other, finer, richer men would be vying for your love.”
“They could have vied all they liked,” she said as she lowered her arms, feeling safe and cherished, admired and respected. “It seems I prefer rogues—and since you have seen me thus, I think it only fair that you disrobe completely, too.”
“I’ve never been so inclined to strip naked before,” he huskily replied.
Chapter Eighteen
Esme discovered she wasn’t quite as bold as she thought, or perhaps it was the last gasp of her maidenly modesty, but as Quinn started to remove his white satin knee breeches, she hurried to the bed and scrambled beneath the satin coverlet.
“I may have a few scars, but I’m not as frightening as all that, surely.”
“It’s not fear,” she retorted from the warm confines of the bedclothes, her voice muffled. “I’ve just…I’ve never seen a completely naked man before.”
“Ah,” he sighed. “Well, for a neat woman, you’ve left your gown in peril of serious wrinkles.”
What was he doing? Picking it up?
She opened her eyes a bit, to see that was indeed the case. He had picked up her gown and was in the process of laying it over the back of a chair. And he was completely naked.
She opened her eyes wider to get a better look at his taut buttocks and long, muscular legs, his skin glowing bronze in the candlelight. He had not an ounce of fat on his lean body. Like his chest, his back bore a few scars, some obviously old, others more recent.
He turned and she quickly closed her eyes. In another moment she felt the bed dip as he joined her.
“No need to look away, my little plum cake,” he said as he reached for her. “It’s only fair that you see me as God made me, since I’ve seen you that way.”
She opened her eyes to find him regarding her with passion glinting in his eyes. “You’ve been hurt so many times,” she murmured, running her fingertips over a scar below his collarbone on the left side of his body.
And in other ways, as well, she thought.
“Never get into a knife fight with a Gypsy.” He skimmed his hand up her arm. “You, I notice, have no scars at all.”
“I’ve led a very uneventful life.” Until now.
“Good.” He sidled closer, bringing his body into full contact with hers, once more capturing her mouth with his.
Gloriously happy and still firm in her resolve, she shivered with desire and anticipation. He leaned down to drag his tongue across her nipple. Never had she felt anything like the sensations that aroused—yet there was more to come, as he put his mouth over the pebbled tip and sucked it inside.
She moaned and arched upward, too surprised and excited to do more, until he broke that contact.
“I—I didn’t…know….” she stammered in a whisper.
“There’s a lot more I want to show you.”
She felt liberated, unbound by convention, able to
do exactly as she desired. “Oh, yes, please!”
He did, letting his fingertips glide with agonizing slowness up her arm, then down her cleavage and below her navel, then back up again until she was squirming.
He lifted her arm and pressed a kiss upon the pulse of her wrist before he let his lips go where his fingertips had been—with one important difference. When he was on the return to her neck, he paused to lick and suck her breasts until she could scarcely stand the growing tension.
Hoping to ease that, wondering if she could, she began to do the same to him, letting her hands move up his arms and down his chest, brushing her palms across his equally taut nipples, watching his reaction to see if she was succeeding.
Judging by the strained tendons in his neck, the length and firmness of his shaft, she was. Even more excited, she put her hands on his chest to force him upward a little. She raised her head and began to pleasure his hardened nipples as he had pleasured hers.
His skin tasted ever so slightly of salt, smelled of soap and bay rum, and the little hairs that crossed his chest tickled her nose, but as he moaned, a heady thrill of delight rushed through her.
Here, in this chamber, in this bed, as they stroked and caressed, they were equal as they could never be outside. They were partners, both wanting to give and receive, and doing so.
He rolled her onto her back and positioned himself between her legs. “I can’t wait any longer, Esme,” he said as he reached below her waist, to where she was hot and wet and needy.
“Nor I,” she replied, ready for what came next. Anxious for it.
To prove that, and that she was still certain of her choice, she encircled him with her hand and shifted to get into better position for him.
His gaze upon her face, he pushed forward. She let go and took hold of his upper arms as he thrust farther inside.
She felt the slight tear of flesh—a brief pain—and winced.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his brow wrinkling with concern.
“No need,” she assured him, sliding her hands to his buttocks to show that she had no regrets. “I want this, Quinn. I want you and I want you to love me.”
He gave her what she desired, filling her completely, as with another low groan, he began to thrust. At the same time, he leaned his weight on his left elbow and with his right hand, caressed her breasts. His touch, the feel of him inside her, all combined to fuel her growing excitement.
This was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. This was making love. This was being loved.
Such was her last coherent thought as the excitement and anticipation and tension grew and grew again, almost beyond bearing. Quinn’s breath was hot upon her face, his body as tense as her own as he drove himself with increasing speed and need and passion. She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him closer and tighter, her own breathing hoarse and swiftly shallow.
The need and desire increased. Her whole body tightened, her mind a blank, aware only of the pleasure of his mouth and tongue on her skin, his hands on her body. She wiggled and squirmed and held him close—until the tautness snapped, like a line holding a ship at anchor in a rough sea, so that the vessel rocked and bucked and rode the waves without control or pilot.
He, too, groaned, loud and rough, as he stiffened, then jerked like a puppet on twisted strings. Afterward, drawing in great, deep breaths, he lowered himself to rest his head upon her breasts.
They lay thus for a long time as their breathing slowed.
Esme opened her eyes and looked at him, and the bed and the room around them. How could these all be the same, she wondered, when she felt so different? Perhaps she looked the same, too, although she could never be quite the same Esme.
She had always believed that she wanted something more than the usual fate reserved for her sex, marriage and children and endless domesticity. She’d believed she had found a better life, working with her brother.
Now she knew that no matter how much she loved the law and helping people who needed a good solicitor, she loved Quinn even more. Perhaps they should have waited until they were truly married, behaved with more propriety, told Jamie about their feelings. Instead, she’d acted impetuously, selfishly, wildly…
Like Quinn in his youth.
Now she could truly understand how emotions could rule the mind. And she was older than he had been, so presumably should have had more self-control.
But if he loved her as she believed he did, they would always be together, and life as his wife was the one thing that could promise her even more happiness.
Since coming of age she’d trod her own path, made her own way, in a world that expected little of women except compliance and duty, but never had she done anything as unconventional as what she was about to do now.
Nevertheless, she would do it.
She took Quinn’s face gently between her hands and, looking steadily into his eyes, asked, “Will you marry me?”
At Esme’s softly spoken request, the full weight of what they’d done came crashing down on Quinn like a huge and heavy tree. He’d made love to the woman he adored and respected above all others without benefit of marriage. He’d taken the virginity of his best friend’s sister without a word or pledge of promise. No matter what she had said before, her judgment had been clouded by desire and she would surely come to regret what they’d done tonight, even if they married.
Perhaps especially if they married, for whatever hopes he harbored for the future, the past could not be changed.
He got to his feet and tugged on his breeches without looking at her, knowing there was only one thing to do, one way to protect and preserve her happy life in London. “No, Esme, I won’t marry you. I’m nobody. I’m nothing. I have no title, no estate, no home, no wealth, nothing to offer you at all.”
Her loose hair her only covering, Esme also rose from the bed. “Are those your only objections?”
“Aren’t they enough?” he demanded, grabbing his shirt. “They should be.”
“I’m well aware of your past, Quinn, and know you’ve done things any man of sense and honor should be ashamed of—as you are, which only proves to me that you are a man of sense and honor. If you weren’t, your past wouldn’t disturb you as it does. Whatever you’ve done in the past, you’re a fine, worthy man and I’m not going to let you go.”
She didn’t really understand. She couldn’t, or she wouldn’t want to marry him.
He would have to try a different tack. “Generally, it’s the man who makes the proposal, Esme, and I note that I did not. I have no wish to marry. Why should I, when I can enjoy the benefits without any legal entanglement? Surely you can appreciate how much easier it makes things when I tire of my lover.”
“There was a time I would have taken those words at face value and believed you must not really love me,” she said, as calm and cool as if they were discussing an entailment. “I would have thought that you had, after all, only lusted after me and having seduced me, were finished with me. But I know you too well to believe that now. You love me as much as any man ever loved a woman, and the proof of that is your refusal to bind us by law or contract because you’ve got the foolish notion that you’re not good enough for me.
“Even if you truly don’t wish to marry me, I have no regrets for what we’ve done. After we finish our task here, I’ll go back to Jamie’s house and you can go back to yours. We can meet there, if that’s what you’d prefer. With no legal entanglements.”
Convinced at last that what she felt went far deeper than mere desire and that she did, indeed, realize what she was doing, a hope unlike anything he’d ever experienced blossomed in Quinn’s lonely heart. Esme McCallan loved him, and she would accept him as he was, in spite of his past. She would take him for her husband and give him the chance to be part of a family again. Only this time, it would be a loving one.
And yet… “What about your brother? How can I go back to London and tell Jamie, the man who helped me when I was at my lowest—and low it wa
s!—who has seen me at my worst—and it was terrible—that I want to marry his sister?”
“We’ll tell him together,” she replied, regarding him with resolute serenity. “Or I shall tell him myself, if you’d prefer.”
As if he were a coward. “I’m not afraid of Jamie.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked softly. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll lose his friendship? Aren’t you afraid that he’ll hate you?”
She came to him and took him in her arms, her voice steady and sure, her breath warm on his cheek. “He won’t, because he loves me and he knows I’m no flighty, silly girl to be swept off my feet by something I only think is love.”
“Oh, Esme,” he whispered as he embraced her. “Yes, yes, I’ll marry you, and I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you.”
“You already are,” she assured him as she held him close, until she felt something damp on her shoulder. “Quinn, your nose! It’s bleeding again!”
He muttered a curse as he hurried to the washstand and dunked a towel into the pitcher of cold water.
Esme grabbed a sheet to wrap around herself and dragged a chair closer. “Sit down and put your head back.”
He did as she commanded and she wiped the blood from his upper lip with the cold towel.
“There. The bleeding’s stopped for now. I really think a doctor should examine you.”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’ve had worse injuries. And as you may have noticed, I’m quite a healthy, virile specimen.”
His gaze flicked to the towel in his lap, which wasn’t quite in the same position it had been before, having been raised by an obviously aroused portion of his anatomy.
Despite their recent intimacy, Esme blushed. “I thought men were always rather…exhausted…after such exertions,” she said as she rinsed out the cloth.
“Some men are,” he replied from where he still sat, “and sometimes I am. But not tonight. Not with you.”
Highland Rogue, London Miss Page 19