This evidence of the control he was exerting over his needs lit a blazing conflagration of desire in Julia. She smiled at him, a slow, tantalizing smile, and leaned deliberately closer so that he could not fail to appreciate the deep decolletage of her dress. His eyes did indeed dip to admire her as she had intended. He jerked them up, and when they met hers again he glowered at her.
“Listen, you little minx, I’m too old to be making love in carriages—especially when we’ll be arriving at our destination in about fifteen minutes. I have no desire to be caught flagrante delicto by my own servants. So behave yourself, if you please.”
“But I don’t please,” she whispered wickedly, and as he glared at her she smiled again. Her eyes ran over him, luxuriating in the sheer pleasure of being able to look her fill at him, loving the lean powerful contours of his body as much as she admired the sculpted planes of his face.
His fists were still balled in his breeches pockets, she saw, and as her eyes followed the line of the material as it stretched from one clenched fist to the other she saw something else as well: the swollen, unmistakable bulge of his manhood straining against the tight fitting black cloth. She stared at that telltale shape, and then, before she even knew she meant to do so, her hand stretched out to touch it. She ran her fingers lightly over the bulge, marvelling at its hardness and the heat she could feel radiating from it even through his breeches. He gasped and went rigid as she touched him, and she looked up at him in mild surprise.
“Don’t you like that?” Her query was all innocence. Violence seemed to explode in his eyes. His face hardened, set into rock�like immobility.
“I like it too damned much,” he said through clenched teeth. His hands came out of his pockets to catch her wrists and lift her hands away from him. “I said, behave.”
“I don’t take orders from you anymore, my lord,” she breathed as she leaned closer to plant a soft kiss on his mouth. His hands tightened on her wrists, and then he seemed to forget about his prisoners as her kiss deepened and became more persuasive. Her hands once again free, they fluttered like butterflies to settle on him again. He groaned as she traced the shape of him through the cloth, then groaned again as her hand tried to close over the tensile hardness. But the tightness of his breeches prevented her from giving him more than a slight squeeze. She frowned even while still doing her best to distract him with kisses, and her fingers probed the swelling again. But this time she was searching for buttons.
She found them beneath a flap of material, and slowly, cunningly slipped first one and then another from its hole. There were five in all, and when they were freed it was an easy matter to adjust his underclothing so that his manhood burst from its confines, glorying in its freedom.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He spoke with difficulty into her mouth, while the hands that had been stroking the bare skin of her neck and shoulders and arms moved to capture her wrists again. Since distracting him with kisses had proved only partially successful, she lifted her mouth from his with a final regretful kiss and smiled up into his eyes.
“I want to please you,” she whispered, her hands twisting so that they could stroke the hands that imprisoned them. “I know there are ways women please men, but I don’t know how. Teach me.”
The words were a siren song, accompanied by a witchy look out of eyes of molten gold. Sebastian stared at her, and Julia saw by the blind heat that glazed his eyes that she had won.
Easing her hands out of his slackened grasp, she reached down again to touch him, and this time there was no cloth between their flesh. Her fingers curled around him, testing the strength of him, and he groaned suddenly, his eyes in flames as he watched her hand on him. Julia looked, too, and the sight of her slender white fingers wrapped around the heated proof of his desire awakened a harsh, empty aching between her legs. She wanted him to love her, but first she wanted to brand him, to put her mark on him so that he would never be able to do this with anyone else. She wanted him to burn with desire.
“Teach me how to please you, Sebastian.” The words were the merest breath of sound, but he heard because his hand was on hers and he was showing her the motion, showing her how to stroke and caress and tease and she was doing it until his head was thrown back on the velvet roll of the seat and his eyes were closed and he was groaning….
He was so hot and heavy in her hands, so turgidly male as he pulsated with desire. Julia stared down at the thing she held with awed fascination. His body was so different from her own, so excitingly different. In order to better watch herself pleasing him, she slipped from the seat to kneel between his spread knees, her gold skirts swirling around and enveloping his feet and calves in their glossy black Hessians. She stroked him again, slowly, slowly, up and down, and saw his teeth clamp hard on his bottom lip. Then, compelled by an instinct that she couldn’t explain, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to him in a soft, sweet kiss. He gasped, and jackknifed into an upright sitting position to stare down at her with eyes that were drugged with passion. They flickered into blazing life as he saw her there between his legs, her black hair working loose from its elegant upsweep so that tendrils curled down to feather against her white neck and tangle tantalizingly with the nest of dark body hair that she had exposed. Her golden eyes were molten with excitement as she looked up at him, and her soft, rose pink lips were only inches from that part of him that they had just caressed.
“Christ, Julia, where did you learn that?” The harsh croak of a demand would have angered her at any other time, but tonight she was too caught up in the magic she had generated, too lost in the heat and pulsating excitement she had created.
“I—I just wanted to do it. You liked it, you know you did.” Her husky defense as her fingers still enwrapped him and her mouth hovered that tantalizing few inches above his flesh left him unable to form words. While he stared down at her, trying to cudgel his overheated brain into some kind of working order, she leaned forward again and pressed her lips to him while he watched. His mouth went dry, and his breath rattled in his throat like a dying man’s.
“See?” she whispered, and he was lost. His hands moved to cup and hold her head, and wordlessly he showed her how she could pleasure him in this way. Under his guiding hands her lips and tongue and fingers learned everything there was to know about him, about the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of him. When at last he went rigid and his hands pulled her away from him, she watched the physical proof of the peak he had reached with smoldering eyes. His shaking excitement stoked her own….
The carriage rocked to a halt, jerking on its superb springs as the horses were reined in and Jenkins jumped down. They had arrived at their destination. Julia got to her feet on shaky legs, and leaned over to blow out the lamp in order to afford Sebastian an extra measure of privacy while he repaired the mayhem she had wrought on his person.
When Jenkins opened the door and let down the steps, she stepped into the pool of light cast by the streetlamps looking no more disheveled than she would have been if she and Sebastian had exchanged a mere few kisses. But as for him—she threw a quick look back over her shoulder as he stepped down behind her. He looked as coolly elegant as he always did. Not a hair on his head was disordered. If she hadn’t known in what an intimate position he had been not three minutes before, she would never have believed it even if a witness had sworn to it on a stack of Bibles. He caught her eye on him then, and the blaze that leaped to life in those heavenly blue eyes was all the proof she needed that the past few minutes had been no dream.
“Before you lose that ungovernable temper of yours, let me assure you that my motives in bringing you here again are very different than they were the last time. It’s just that I needed privacy to say what I want to say to you, and I do own this house after all. It seems a shame to waste it, though we can of course go to an inn if you wish.”
Until Sebastian uttered this hasty speech in her ear, Julia had not realized that they were standing before the
cheerful little house where he kept his mistresses. For a moment she stiffened under the restraining hands that rested on her bare shoulders. The look she threw over her shoulder at him must have been a sizzler because he smiled in an utterly charming, conciliatory fashion that soothed her despite herself. After all, she wanted to be alone with him, too—and not just to talk! This house would certainly afford them far more privacy than a public inn. Her expression must have mirrored her acquiescence because his fingers tightened in a quick squeeze.
“And, of course, it does have that nice big bed upstairs,” he added in a whispered addendum. As her eyes shot quick suspicious sparks at him he chuckled. Before she could decide whether or not she ought to get angry, he was beside her, drawing her hand into the crook of his arm as he led her up the stairs. Julia went with him unresisting as the carriage rattled away behind them. Granville was there, looking as if he had hastily pulled on his coat at the sound of the carriage, swinging the door open for them with a subservient bow that Julia knew owed everything to the presence of the man beside her.
“Good evening, my lord, madam,” he said deferentially, closing the door behind them. “Can I get you some supper, or—”
“Nothing, thank you,” Sebastian said crisply, hardly looking at the obsequious butler. “You may go.”
With another deep bow Granville vanished. Julia stood looking up at Sebastian, whose face was tinted with gold from the flames of the three branched candelabra that sat on a small table near the door and appeared to be the only light in the house.
“I should have had him light some candles,” Sebastian said ruefully as he took in the darkness that surrounded them on all sides.
“We can do it—or at least I can. Does my lord Earl even know how to light candles?”
“Barely.” He was smiling at her. Julia thought that she could live forever on the warmth of that smile. She went up on tiptoe suddenly to press a quick kiss on his mouth. His eyes flamed, and he reached for her, but she snatched up the candle and dodged away from him toward the stairs, laughing. She felt suddenly very happy.
“Your teasing is liable to get you into trouble one of these days, minx,” he warned.
“I certainly hope so,” she replied with a shameless grin, and he laughed and followed her up the stairs. At the door to the bedroom she hesitated, feeling suddenly a little shy. She was being very bold tonight—perhaps he did not like bold females?
But he was behind her before she could even try to retreat, his arm coming around her as he opened the door, then pushed her gently through it. Closing it behind them, he took the candelabra from her and set it on the table at the side of the bed.
“You look very nervous all of a sudden,” he said with a quick grin, and walked toward her.
“I …” She took a step backward. It was suddenly very important that she hear what he had to say. Back in this room with the gilded cupids and naked maidens, she felt like a straw damsel. If all Sebastian wanted of her was for her to be his mistress, then she would take what she could have of him and be thankful. But she had to know. She could not wait any longer.
“I won’t hurt you, little girl,” he said with a wicked leer, reaching out to catch her by the upper arms.
Julia had to smile at the lascivious smile he had adopted, but she put a hand up to his chest to hold him off. He looked down at her with raised eyebrows. She shook her head.
“No, Sebastian.” Her voice was faint but firm. “First we talk.”
XXX
Finally he nodded. “As you wish.”
Julia waited a moment, but apparently that was all he was going to say. He still held her upper arms, his fingers moving sensuously over her soft flesh, causing responsive goosepimples to quiver up and down her spine. She shook off the distracting frissons of feeling, and looked at him severely. The hand she had planted against his chest tapped him sharply.
“Perhaps I should have said, first you talk.”
He grinned a little at that, but his eyes were faintly wary. “You’re turning into a very demanding female, did you know that?” he muttered, squeezing her arms once before releasing them and turning away. Three jerky steps took him to the window, and he stood with his back to her, pushing aside the ruffled curtains so that he could look out into the street.
“Sebastian….” She had turned to watch that lean powerful back framed so incongruously by tiers of rose pink ruffles, but she made no move to follow him. He had to say what he had to say with no coercion from her or anyone else.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this last week,” he said to the window, his voice sounding uncharacteristically stiff. “It rained every damned day, so there was precious little else to do.” He paused for what seemed like an eternity. Julia resisted the urge to say something. He would proceed when he was ready, she hoped.
“While I was trapped in the house looking out at all the rain, I realized something.” He turned to look at her then, leaning back against the window frame while his hands clutched the sill on either side of his muscular thighs as though for support. His eyes were very blue as they met hers—and very remote. Even his voice was distant, she thought, and realized that it was in self-defense.
“I realized I was lonely,” he said after a moment. “That I’ve been lonely most of my life. My parents—my father was a good man but weak, too weak for my mother. He was invalided when I was six, and never had much time for me after that. I loved him, and I think he loved me, but he never had the courage to stand up for me to my mother. Until I was old enough to be packed off to school, she left me to a series of nannies—I was no angel, and I went through quite a few. But when she did notice me—sometimes I tried to make her notice, as often as not by some bit of mischief that I knew would drive her mad—it was almost invariably to reprimand me in that cold way of hers.
“She preferred Edward. Edward was as different from her as the sky from the moon, but she loved him. She never loved me, for some reason that I have never to this day discovered. Not that it matters any more, of course, but when I was a boy it hurt. It hurt to see her so besotted over my brother, who was no better than myself as far as I could see. It hurt to spend holidays at school because my mother did not want to be bothered with a grubby schoolboy—this grubby schoolboy. Edward, of course, was a different matter. It hurt to have no one at White Friars but the servants in the summers because she was taking Edward to Paris or Spain or somewhere. And Edward—he was my brother, but I never really knew him. Four years is a lot between youngsters. If he’d lived, who knows, we might have grown closer. But we were as far apart as ever when he was killed.”
He paused again, and Julia had to resist the urge to go to him, to put her arms around him and hug him and make up for all the affection he had never had as a child. But she resisted, knowing that if she did not hear all he had to say now he might never feel compelled to say it again. After a brief hesitation he went on.
“Then I was the earl. Suddenly the nonentity became a person of considerable importance. I was the head of my family, and I could control everyone—Caroline, Timothy, who was a pug-nosed schoolboy at Harrow, even my mother. Because I controlled the purse strings. Except for her widow’s jointure, which is relatively modest, my mother became dependent on me for everything. How that must gall her! And it must worry her, too. I could have cut her off without a farthing. But I didn’t. I suppose I had some foolish hope that maybe with Edward gone I could make her care for me. But she was no fonder of me as Earl than she was of the grubby schoolboy.
“And of course there was Elizabeth. We’d only been married six months when my father died, and I suppose I still had hopes for our marriage. Elizabeth was gentle and sweet, the exact opposite of my mother, I thought. She was of good birth and I had known her forever, and she was rich as Croesus besides. That summer before I inherited the title I fell top over tail in what I thought was love. We married, and I got the shock of my life. Beneath that soft loving exterior she was just as cold as my mother, on
ly in a different way. She was horrified by the physical act of making love. I tried everything. I was patient. I told her I loved her and respected her. Hell, I even begged her. And still she cried every time I went near her. But I was an earl, and I had to have an heir. So I kept going to her, and she hated it more and more, but at last she got with child. I don’t know who was more relieved at her pregnancy, Elizabeth or I. I never touched her again after that night when Chloe was conceived.
“So there I was, all of twenty-four years old, with a pregnant wife who couldn’t stand for me to touch her. I reacted as any young man would react—there are lots of women in the world, and I took advantage of the fact. For all her dislike of marriage, Elizabeth chose to enact for me a Cheltenham tragedy when she found out I had a mistress. This was after more than four years of being kept out of my wife’s bed, mind. What a farce! When I refused to go down on my knees and apologize, she went crying to her papa. Old man Tynesdale had wanted his daughter to marry an earl, but now he was beside himself. Knowing Elizabeth and how she felt about making love, there is no telling what she told him I’d done to her besides being unfaithful. He called me on the carpet and read me a regular bear garden jaw for mistreating his daughter, and we had words. Then about a month later, Elizabeth was killed. And you know what? I was relieved mostly. Relieved because I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life tied up with a woman I was beginning to actively dislike.
“Then, of course, the rumors started. I had murdered Elizabeth. I hadn’t, but not many people chose to believe me. By that time I didn’t even care particularly. If people wanted to brand me a murderer, that was fine with me. I didn’t need any of them. Except Chloe. My God, in all my life, what happened with Chloe was probably the worst of it.
“Elizabeth had kept her from me mostly. She always acted like my vile presence would contaminate her precious baby. But I loved the child. And I would swear she loved me. She seemed to. She was just a tiny thing, four when Elizabeth died, but she always seemed glad to see me. I would bring her presents sometimes, and she would put her little plump arms around my neck and kiss me and whisper in her lisping little voice. And then … and then …” He broke off to draw a deep, steadying breath.
Loving Julia Page 28