Bridal Favors

by Connie Brockway

  While she and Buck Newton had had a good time, there wasn’t, well, any challenge left in seducing Buck, partially because she strongly suspected the reason he was called “Buck.” Any reasonably attractive—no, honesty compelled her to amend—any reasonably willing woman could do the same.

  But Beverly—now that would be a challenge!

  Chapter 20

  EVELYN LOOKED INTO the mirror for a long, silent moment. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. I see.”

  And she did. But not in her reflection. She saw it in his eyes. Whatever else she knew, or believed, for this night she had no doubt that in Justin Powell’s eyes she was, indeed, a fountain of loveliness.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Beautiful.”

  She pirouetted slowly, his hand still lightly on her waist, and encircled his neck with her arms. Everything she knew about herself had collapsed and been rebuilt in the space of a few minutes. The grace of confidence flowed in her movements and glistened in the darkening awareness of her eye.

  She robbed him of speech. His glibness had finally run out, replaced by want, simple visceral need so acute it nearly brought him to his knees. Silently, he cupped her face between his hands, her hair tumbling like silk over their backs. He bent and grazed her mouth lightly with his. She was warm, her fragrance rising with her body’s temperature, powdery, elusively sweet, feminine, and provocative.

  His loins ached, his arms trembled with his restraint. Want and need weren’t any excuse. She was acting on an impulse, a pull of attraction, on her gratitude to him for telling her what was manifestly clear, that she was beautiful.

  But even as he thought these things, he was lifting her, shifting her toward her bed, nearing his perdition. His paradise. He wavered on the cusp of doing the unthinkable, seducing a young, unmarried, innocent woman. But then she raised herself on tiptoe and pulled his head down to hers. She pressed her lips beneath his ear and whispered in a ragged voice, “And I want you.”

  Her words ground his scruples to dust and blew them away. Desire coursed like a liquid inferno through his veins and muscles. Seducer? Seduced. The line was blurred. He sank to his knees, his arms tight around her upper thighs, and pressed his lips to the soft swelling curve under her breast, damping the silky velvet nap with his tongue. He heard her inhale, and made one last stab at honor.

  “Tell me to stop,” he said hoarsely. “I can. I will. But you need to say it. I’m a strong man, Evie, but you undo me. I’m ashamed of how weak I am, how much I would give to have you beneath me, to feel myself buried in you.”

  He hoped the crudeness of his words, the images he evoked—images that sent his breath laboring, that thickened his blood—would frighten her. Or entice her. He clasped her hips and pulled her sharply against him, throwing her off balance, so that she needed to catch herself from falling by clutching his shoulders.

  “Last chance, Evie. Tell me to go.” He closed his eyes, yearning.

  “No.” The word came at once, quavering but certain.

  He looked up and met her darkling gaze. His hands slipped around to her back. Fingertips trained to a cracksman’s sensitivity found and within minutes dispatched the dozens of seed pearl buttons. The ribbons on her corset took less time and then, in a fluid movement, he rose, pushing the gown from her shoulders. It dropped in a deep crimson pool about her feet as he peeled the embroidered corset away and threw it to the side.

  His body was so hot and tense it felt alien, too hard, too unyielding. He would scare her. So he moved warily, skimming his fingertips along her jaw, through her hair, down her throat, and over her shoulders. He skated a caress along her slight ribcage to the elegant dip of her waist and the gentle flare of her hip. Then, with the backs of his fingers, he followed the swell of her buttocks beneath the taffeta confection of a petticoat to a narrow ribbon that came loose with a single tug. The petticoats followed the dress down, mounding around her pretty calves.

  All she wore was a revealing chemise, a pair of lacy drawers with silk ribbons at the calves, a pair of stockings, and—dear God—she still wore shoes. She followed his gaze and, as if aware of the incongruity of them, stepped out of the kid slippers, losing two inches of height in the process.

  Abruptly, he felt too big, menacing. He would hurt her. Especially as she was a virgin and he was in all ways a big man. And as he stood, wrestling with the issue, she reached out, and clasped his shirt’s placket.

  “It seems only fair.” She tugged at the buttons.

  In amazed gratitude, he shrugged out of his coat and dropped it, tore open his dress shirt, and flung it after. Then he stood, waiting. Except for the tacit knowledge that he could physically do whatever needed to be done, he’d never thought much about his body. But now he suddenly wondered what he saw in her wide-eyed gaze. Approval? Fear? Was he too big? Too ungainly?

  He waited, counting an eternity of heartbeats while she simply looked at him. He prayed for her to touch him, and as if in answer to his silent entreaty, her hand rose, suspended an inch from his flesh. The anticipation would kill him.

  “Careful,” he advised hoarsely

  “I don’t want to be careful.”

  “Why do you have to be so damned argumentat—ah!” She touched him. Her fingers played across his chest with winsome lightness, twining gingerly in the dark whorls of hair. She looked up at him, a little breathless, a little exultant, divinely female. “You like it when I touch you. You liked it in the wine cellar. You like it now.”

  “Like?” He took a step nearer, and she retreated before whatever she read in his eyes, at last yielding to common sense. Too late.

  “Evie,” he said in a low, harsh voice. “I’d commit hideous crimes for your touch.”

  “You shouldn’t say things like that,” she murmured, reaching automatically for her collar and discovering instead her nakedness. A blush flooded her delicate skin. He could see the color blooming, even under the sheer silk of her undergarments.

  “Why not?” He took another step forward; she countered with another step back. Her thighs bumped into the bed.

  “It sounds wicked.”

  “It is. Blasphemous. Excessive. True.”

  She turned her head away, the color deepening in her cheeks, and he knew that she was searching for words to stop him, to tell him that she’d changed her mind. He couldn’t allow that.

  He swept her into his arms and toppled her back onto the bed, following her down, kissing her deeply, his tongue delving into her warm, moist mouth. A demanding growl vibrated through him. In answer, Evelyn opened her mouth wider, wantonly, hungrily, completely forgetting her former reluctance.

  Suddenly, he pushed himself up on his forearms, breaking their kiss. She stared up at him, braced above her on trembling arms, the glorious, muscular planes of his chest glinting in the gaslight, the sound of his breath a rushing locomotive.

  He shifted, nudging her thighs apart with his knee, and rolled his hips into the resultant opening. He did so purposefully, intently watching her, gauging her response to the manner in which he deliberately fit that hard ridge between her legs. He rocked against her, and little channels of heat trickled out from the point of contact, enticing and agitating.

  He rocked against her again, more insistently this time, bumping erotically against her most tender part. Trickling heat became a torrent of molten desire. And he knew it. His watchful and intent eyes grew triumphant. Again, he thrust against her mons. Pleasure careened there, pooling, spreading. Her thoughts diffused; her senses telescoped.

  Her hands slipped to his shoulders, her fingers pressing deeply into his skin. She lifted herself, clinging to him, sweeping her tongue along his lower lip. He turned his face, catching her mouth fully opened, and licked her tongue, nipping her lips, dazing her with his passion.

  Excitement skittered along her skin, thrummed in her body, pulsing, there, against the hard length of him. When he rocked against her this time, she raised her hips, meeting his advance, her legs opening wider, inviting mo
re.

  “Evie. God in heaven.” He tumbled down atop her, his body heavy and dense and excitingly, solidly masculine. Then he wrapped his arms around her and rolled with her so that she lay atop him, her legs sprawled shamelessly on either side of his hips, her hands splayed against his hard, flat belly as she tried to push herself up.

  He wouldn’t let her. He’d twined a handful of her hair around his fist, pulling her down, plying her face and throat and bosom with wet, lingering kisses, while with his other hand he dug into the silk layers still separating them, his knuckles rubbing against her as he jerked the sheer, moist fabric away and . . . and . . .

  Dear heaven! He was naked. There! And so was she! She could feel the silky, heated ridge glide against her, a blunt polished knob part her swollen folds. With a sound like pain, Justin fell back, letting go of her hair. He seized her hips tightly and then, slowly, began pushing into her.

  Evelyn knew—Merry had told her, others had whispered—but nothing could have prepared her for this . . . filling. He stretched her, entering her, hurting her!

  Sensual pleasure was forgotten. Instinctively, she tried to pull away, pushing herself upright on his belly, her knees digging into the soft mattress on either side of his hips and in doing so inadvertently seating him deeper inside.

  “Mother of mercy!” The words burst from his lips. His eyes closed tightly as if he were expending profound effort. His throat corded with veins. He caught her by her shoulders, pulling her down, flattening her against him.

  “Wait. Still! Please, Evie, for both our sakes, stay still. Just a moment. Please.” Tremors raced down the length of his body, yet his lips moved tenderly against her temple. Gently, he began to rub her back. “Trust me.”

  She did trust him. Bit by bit, she relaxed, and quickly, the pain ebbed. The tension drained from her under his soothing ministrations, her body draped over his solid form, molding to him. Slowly, little flickers of sensuality prickled back to life under his long, soothing caresses.

  His hands moved down her spine, her hips, and over her buttocks with nerve-shattering deliberation. Then they started back up again, each circuit bringing her body back to panting involvement, each moment turning the alien feel of his possession from discomfort to something erotic.

  His free hand slipped between them, cupping her breast. He began playing with her through the chemise, plucking gently at her nipple. She raised herself on her arms without even being aware she did so, so that he could touch her more easily. Casually, he unknotted the chemise’s ribbon and the silk fell open.

  He lifted his head, and slowly, deliberately licked her breast. She jerked back. She should feel hot with shame. Except that she liked it. Liked it when he lifted her breast in his hand and opened his mouth over her nipple and suckled her. It was indescribable.

  He moved his head, tasting her other breast, and she pushed herself further upright, offering herself more fully to him.

  This time there was no pain, just a harrowing sort of pleasure.

  Justin felt the tension return to her body. The wet velvet glove of her body tightened, her back arched slightly. He clasped her hip and rolled her beneath him, surging into her, moving now with an ancient rhythm. His eyes closed as he lost himself in escalating desire. Each thrust intensified the nearly unbearable pleasure. Each thrust tested his self-control.

  And she clung to him, hot and damp from his mouth, a faint sheen glistening over her, tight around him like rough, oiled silk. She cried out as his body broke the laws he’d imposed on it, finding a new, deeper rhythm, a fiercer sort of coupling.

  Her inky hair spilled across the white linen, her breast pink with abrasions left by his beard and mouth, her eyes shut, her throat arched in abandonment. He’d never seen so erotic a sight.

  Her body opened to him. For him. He thrust into her with primitive passion, holding her head still as he did so, bruising her lips with a kiss. Abruptly, her body clenched around him, her inner shudder closing around him like a fist. Every muscle in her body grew taut, stretched on the razor’s edge of pleasure. She cried out once, a long rising song of climax achieved, of sated pleasure.

  It toppled him. Destroyed him. Ended all hopes of a dry withdrawal. He crushed her to him, burying himself deep within her, and his own orgasm spun out like molten heat, spiraling into a single deepening vortex before exploding.

  Justin slipped his leg into his trousers and stood at the side of the bed. He buttoned his fly and looked around for his shirt, crossing the room to where he’d flung it earlier. He retrieved it from the floor and shrugged into it, only then allowing himself to glance at Evie, sprawled across the bed in exhausted repletion.

  He turned away, his thoughts bound by the knowledge of his deception and how she would react. His entire life he’d tried unsuccessfully to imagine loving a woman so much that she became crucial to

  his happiness. To feel such indiscriminate emotion had not only seemed foreign but frankly doubtful. And now?

  Now, he couldn’t imagine not loving her. He couldn’t imagine being without her. He suspected that if she walked out of his life tomorrow, he would spend his lifetime listening for her light tread, straining to hear her calm, no-nonsense speeches unexpectedly dissolve into irresistible laughter. What would his life be without her, now that he’d begun to imagine what it might be with her?

  He didn’t want to know.

  Fear constricted about his chest, its pressure unfamiliar. Only the light chime of the mantel clock broke his immobility. With a sound of exasperation, he finished buttoning his shirt and thrust the ends into his trousers. Before he considered the future, he first needed to finish with the past. He needed to complete Bernard’s assignment with every constraint observed, silently, anonymously, as were all a spy’s jobs. Then he would offer Bernard his resignation, his service record unimpeachable.

  Hell, he thought with wry humor, there might even be a knighthood in it. He wondered if Evie might like that, and decided that she wouldn’t give a fig for a title. But he would like to bring her something more than an ornithologist’s notebook and a pocketful of suspect talents. In a way, it was too bad they would go to waste, but he couldn’t ask that of her. He couldn’t imagine Evie waiting without knowing where he was or what he was doing or when he would return.

  He wanted Evie to be his wife. He waited for some taint of apprehension to poison his pleasure. There was none. He only felt a heightening urgency, a fervent sense of anticipation.

  With that, he moved toward the crate, intending to liberate the Diabolical Machine before anyone else came looking for it. The gaslights in the room still glowed in their sconces and outside he could just hear the first predawn bird song as he slipped his pocket knife under the inside box’s wooden lid. He’d done most of the loosening earlier; all it wanted was a good tug and— A glint of something wedged between the two crates caught his eye. He reached down and grasped a smooth metal something. It took a few hard jerks, but finally he pulled it up. It was a small metal jimmy used to open crates.

  He stared at the jimmy. Someone had been here before him. Someone had already opened the outer crate and knew what it contained. But whoever had done so hadn’t opened the inner box, probably for the same reasons he had been loath to; in doing so the contents might be damaged. The ramifications made his mouth grow dry.

  He pushed and the interior lid came free in his

  hands.

  He stared into the dark recesses of the crate.

  He was still staring when he heard Evie move.

  Evelyn rolled over. Muscles she’d never used, hadn’t even known she’d owned, twitched in protest. She scowled, irritated that something so perfect should have any penalty attached to it. But, of course, there were penalties.

  No. She would not think like that. She had no regrets. None. It had been simply, profoundly wonderful. And it felt good. Right. Oh, wicked, too, there was no denying that. But wicked in a lovely way. Wicked like angels dancing.

  She stretched he
r arm out and it fell into a shallow indentation, still warm from Justin’s body. Anxiety pricked her. Was he gone? Crept from her room as he’d crept from Mrs. Underhill’s so many years ago?

  Her eyelids flew open. Immediately, she saw him, already dressed and standing beside the crate that had been delivered from London. She relaxed, even though her pulse accelerated at the sight of his unruly hair curling on the nape of his neck, the way his shoulders stretched his shirt, the dark color of his tanned forearms against its bleached whiteness, because—of course—he’d rolled the sleeves up.

  As if he felt her gaze, he straightened and turned. The dim frost of gray dawn touched his features. At the sight of them, the smile she’d meant to greet him with wavered. His eyes were dark, his lips tightly compressed.

  “Evelyn.”

  Not Evie.

  “Evelyn,” he repeated, “you must get up. We have to talk.”

  She heard in his grim voice the ashes of her dreams. She twined herself in the sheet, acutely conscious of her nakedness beneath the soft Egyptian cotton, and clutched it closed at her throat.

  He came to her, his gaze unwavering, his brow lowered, his entire aspect alien to everything she knew about him, thought she knew of him. And that, the idea that she’d shared something so remarkable, so altering, with someone so altered, alarmed her most of all.

  She was not a child. She had always been careful to be honest with herself so that the realities that ambushed others never caught her by surprise. Realities such as the fact that mirrors reflected what was there; realities such as the fact that a man’s past foretold his future; realities such as the fact that a womanizer seduces women.

  Justin looked down at her. “I need you to listen, Evelyn,” he said intently. “I need you to understand.”