by Nina Rowan
“What did you say to him?” Clara asked when Sebastian returned to her side.
“That I’ll contact your father tomorrow to discuss the matter of Wakefield House,” Sebastian said.
“Already?”
Sebastian nodded, brushing a coil of hair away from her forehead. “My brother’s solicitor has already started to draw up the papers. I told him to do so the day you proposed.”
“What if I hadn’t found the plans?”
A warm, wicked light flared in his eyes. “Then I would have devised another way to make you my wife.”
Darkness fell. Clara watched the curve of the moon melt against the sky. Her pulse shimmered through her veins, settling into the nervous beat of her heart. She slid her hand across the worn, wooden box resting on the table beside her and unfastened the catch. The tangle of ribbons inside gleamed incandescent, like a pearl embedded in an oyster.
Clara lifted the ribbons from the box, pooling them in a colorful mass on the table. The door clicked open behind her, and then she was no longer alone.
She turned. He wasn’t looking at her. His dark head was bent, a swath of thick hair covering his forehead, his attention on the knot of his cravat as he tugged at it with his left hand. His right hand remained at his side, the fingers curled toward his palm.
Clara allowed her gaze to wander over him—the breadth of his shoulders and length of his strong legs, the way his waistcoat hugged his lean torso, the drape of his coat, which had managed to collect numerous wrinkles over the course of the day.
A slight smile pulled at her mouth. Good thing she hadn’t expected him to deck himself out in all sorts of finery for their wedding night.
Not that she had, either. Until this moment she hadn’t considered he might expect her to wear a fashionable peignoir of silk and lace. Unnerved, Clara tugged her dressing gown more securely over her plain cotton shift and waited.
He twisted the catch of the pin holding his cravat in place. The fastening gave way, allowing him to tug again at the knot close to his throat. As the folds of cobalt-blue silk spilled into his hand, his eyes met hers. He pulled the silk from his collar and dropped it to the floor before approaching.
“From the studio?” He scooped the ribbons into his left hand and let them stream through his fingers.
“They were my mother’s. She had very beautiful dark hair and she loved to wear colorful ribbons.”
A cherry-red ribbon trailed from his hand as he held it against her burnished hair. “Do you wear them?”
“Sometimes. More often when I was a girl.”
She remembered that her mother had liked to tie the ribbons into Clara’s hair as well, how perfectly she was able to shape the bows. Clara cupped her hand beneath Sebastian’s, catching the tangle of fabric as it fell from his fingers. She dropped the ribbons into the box and closed the lid.
Sebastian’s dark gaze swept her from head to foot and back, lingering on the neckline of her gown, which exposed a shallow curve of bare skin. He was close enough that she could see the gleaming dampness of his hair, his smooth, clean-shaven jaw that she wanted to stroke with her lips.
A tremble coursed through her blood. She’d be lying if she said she had not imagined this moment, the taut, fevered space just before the consummation of their union. But her speculations had been pointlessly twisted with memories of Richard, tangling the fearful, young virgin she’d been with the woman she was now. No longer young. No longer a virgin.
But fearful…?
Sebastian cupped his left palm around her nape, his fingers warm and strong, then reached to loosen the pins restraining her hair. In moments, her hair uncoiled in long skeins around her shoulders. Warm appreciation glowed in his eyes. Her heart hammered.
Fearful still, yes. Not because the dire portent of physical intimacy stretched between them and the bed, but because he aroused such a flurry of emotions, like butterflies spiraling and cascading through her very soul.
Because she wanted him.
Clara still didn’t understand it. She didn’t know its source or its end, this desire sparking in her blood, at once exhilarating and terrifying. All she knew was that it made her crave his lips, his hands on her bare skin, made her yearn with the need to touch him in return.
Sebastian dragged his fingers through a swath of her hair, softly pulling the tangles free. His brows drew together.
“Did he hurt you?” He spoke in a gentle voice, but the implications of his question corded the words with anger.
Clara shook her head, unable to speak past the knot in her throat. No, Richard hadn’t hurt her. Not physically. He’d been dispassionate and methodical and she’d felt like a vessel rather than his wife, but he’d hurt her only after he died.
And never once had he made her feel like this—restless and hot and wanting more, wanting something she couldn’t name.
Before she could speak, Sebastian captured her fingers in his and, with unmistakable intent, brought her hand to the buttons of his shirt.
Clara skirted her gaze to her husband, her pulse jumping at the heat already brewing in his eyes. No swift rut beneath the covers for this man. She steeled her courage, though her hands shook as she unfastened the first button to reveal the triangle of skin at his throat.
If she didn’t look directly at him…she forced her fingers to work as she slipped each button from its entrapment. When the folds of his shirt began to part, she stepped back, her breath quickening in pace as she watched his long fingers release the final two buttons before he pulled the shirt over his head. Mesmerized by the dexterity of his movements, the graceful lift of his shoulders, she could hardly muster any shock as his shirt pooled to the floor.
A riot of sensations fluttered inside her as she gazed at his half-naked form. So utterly different from Richard’s slender torso, which Clara had seen bare only several times during their six-year marriage.
She stared at the expanse of Sebastian’s flat stomach, the layer of dark hair over the sculpted planes of his chest, the smooth musculature of his shoulders. A strange, urgent pulse flared in her belly.
Dear God, but the man was beautiful.
He closed the scant distance between them, his hand moving to cup her face and draw her closer.
“I promise,” he murmured in the instant before his lips touched hers, “I will only bring you pleasure.”
And then she was in his arms, his mouth crushed to hers, her hands trapped between their bodies. Clara breathed in a gasp and sank against him, opening her mouth to allow him access, drowning in the flood of sensations that swept over her. She unclenched her fists and let her hands spread tentatively over the expanse of his naked chest.
Warm, taut skin and soft hairs tickled her fingers as she pressed her hands against him and slid them upward. The steady beat of his heart quickened against her palms, delighting her with the knowledge that her touch could inspire his reaction.
The pulse in her belly beat harder, sliding heat through her veins and winding around her lower body. Sebastian’s hands stroked her hips, his fingers digging in as he urged her even closer, close enough that the bulge in his trousers nudged against her belly.
Rather than alarm her, the sensation flared a new spiral of heat. He wound the thick mass of her hair around his hand, tugging her head back for ease in deepening his potent kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth as his hand grasped her wrist and guided her to touch the hardening evidence of his arousal.
She hesitated, uncertainty warring with desire, before she allowed her fingers to curve around him. A hiss of pleasure escaped him, hot against her lips, and the sound emboldened her to tighten her hold. Even through the material of his trousers, he throbbed heavy and hard against her palm. A blaze of white-hot lust coursed across her skin. She moaned into his mouth, closing her teeth on his lower lip, swimming in the increasing urgency to see him stripped naked.
Tension rippled through his lean frame as he lifted his mouth from hers. His eyes blazed. He yanked at the t
ies of her dressing gown, the knots surrendering easily to his adept fingers, and pushed it away from her shoulders. A part of Clara’s mind remained aware that he was using only his left hand, his right immobile at his side, but so deft were his movements that his infirmity seemed negligible.
Although her shift concealed her from chest to calves, Clara had never stood before a man wearing so little. Sebastian’s gaze moved lower, to where the fabric outlined the taut points of her breasts. Her breath hitched as she moved to cross her arms, but he was swifter and caught her wrist in his hand to prevent the concealment.
“Oh, no,” he murmured. “This time, I will see everything.”
Everything?
A shudder shook Clara to her core. Sebastian began to retreat, still grasping her wrist, compelling her to match his footsteps as he guided them both to the bed. He fell backward, bringing her down on top of his long body and locking his mouth to hers once again.
Clara’s blood quaked as her breasts rubbed against his chest. Her hair fell in thick veils on either side of his face, enclosing them both in shadows dappled with shards of light. When she lifted her mouth from his to draw in air, she placed her trembling hands on his cheeks and stared down at him.
His dark eyes flared with heat—no self-restraint this time, only the hot, heady burn of desire. For her.
He captured her hand again and guided her palm over his chest, down his muscled torso to the thickness straining between them. Again she spread her fingers over his hardness, a fever filling her throat as he swelled against her hand.
“Take them off,” he murmured, moving her fingers to the buttons.
Clara’s breath hissed out in a rush. She sidled downward, her hair trailing like a paintbrush over his bare chest before she straightened, her bottom pressed to his thighs and her hands placed flat on his hips.
He was watching her. She felt his gaze like a hot kiss as he cast it across her crimson skin and the curves of her body beneath her shift. The faint thought surfaced that he was giving her a measure of control, as if to atone for the helpless subservience that had pervaded her life.
Until now. Until she’d purposefully asked Sebastian to marry her.
With a tremulous gathering of courage, she released the fastenings of his trousers, her urgency and trepidation stretching, then snapping like an electric wire. She let the trousers drop to the floor, a strange mixture of shock, curiosity, and pure want filling her like a cloud.
Sparks flew through her body when he nodded at her questioning glance, and she curled her hand around his smooth, taut shaft. They both watched her fingers, slender and white against his flesh, as she moved them in a hesitant rhythm that soon had Sebastian pushing his hips upward.
He made a muffled noise, half-groan and half-laugh, and flung his arm across his eyes. “Wait.”
Clara stopped, enthralled by the push-and-pull cadence of her stroking and his thrusts. “Are you all right?”
He gave another hoarse laugh and reached to ease her fingers from him. “More than all right. Come back here.”
She stretched the length of her body beside his, pressing her thighs together to quell the ceaseless throbbing that had begun the moment she unfastened the first button of his shirt.
Then he gathered the folds of her shift in his hand, his eyes never leaving hers as he pulled the cotton over her calves, her thighs, her hips…higher…higher…
Cool air brushed against her skin, knotting a tangle of trepidation in her belly. She’d never been so exposed, her slender limbs and hips bared to the dancing firelight and the heat of Sebastian’s perusal. He put his hand on her thigh, the intimate contact wringing a gasp of stunned pleasure from her as his fingers brushed the dark curls between her thighs then circled the shallow indentation of her navel.
Then he stopped suddenly, a ripple of tension coursing through his body, and Clara knew without needing to ask what had happened. She surfaced from the haze of passion and reached for his right hand, rubbing and kneading the stiff muscles until his fingers became pliable under her touch.
Holding his gaze, she placed his hand back on her body in a silent urge for him to continue his sensual ministrations. He did, his shoulders relaxing as he stroked his hand back down to the apex of her thighs.
God in heaven, she had never known the touch of a man could wind such a tight spooling of bliss. Her body strained as heat consumed her, beading perspiration on her brow and in the valley between her breasts. She wanted to arch against Sebastian, rub their naked bodies together with heedless abandon, beg him to touch her in shockingly intimate places. She wanted him to fill her and soothe the aching emptiness.
He murmured a request, lost in the sound of her heartbeat pulsing inside her head, but she knew what he asked and lifted her arms so he could slide the shift up over her head. He tossed the garment aside and levered his weight onto one elbow, a hard breath expelling from his lungs as he gave her body a slow and thorough appraisal.
Clara crushed the bedcovers in her fists, fighting the urge to cover herself—an urge that dissolved like salt in hot water when hunger fired in Sebastian’s eyes.
Then, in a movement taut with masculine grace, he rolled to straddle her, his knees hugging her hips, his lean, muscular body rippling with carnal tension above her.
Clara gasped, succumbing to her body’s urge to squirm beneath him, swimming in arousal at the sensation of his shaft throbbing hard and ready against her belly. She cried out when his long-fingered hand cupped her breast. Pleasure spiraled into her core as he caressed her tight nipples, rubbed his fingers into the warm crevice beneath her breasts.
He shifted on top of her, uncoiling the length of his body as his knee eased between her thighs. Placing his hands on either side of her head, he levered his weight onto his forearms and pressed his mouth to her right ear.
“Open for me,” he whispered, his breath a hot shiver against her neck.
Clara’s throat quivered with a swallow as she curved her hands against his hips and parted her thighs to allow him to ease into place. His hard, slick length breached her body, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from them both. Sebastian paused, sweat beading his chest, the cords of his neck taut with restraint.
Clara couldn’t speak past the burn cascading through her. She coiled her legs around his in invitation and gripped his hips, knowing that only he could ease the urgent ache expanding outward like surging waves. Then with a muffled groan, he pushed forward, filling her, stretching her in one smooth motion.
“Oh!” Clara gasped, her eyes seeking his, stunned to the depths of her being by the desire crackling from him and into her, the promise of untold pleasures evoked by the thrust of his hips, the pressure collecting in her loins.
He lowered himself onto her, sealing their damp bodies together as he buried his face in her neck and thrust harder. Drowning in sensations and heat, Clara instinctively arched her body to meet his, her broken cries flowing through the crackling air. She clenched her fingers into the smooth muscles of his back, reveling in the flex and pull of his body as he urged them both toward an explosion of pleasure that Clara knew would be her undoing.
When it happened, a cry tore from her throat as a tide of bliss overwhelmed her, as her world distilled to nothing but the rocking of their bodies together, the grip of his hands and delicious, increasing press of his shaft inside her. His own groan was muffled against her neck at the moment of his hot release, his hands digging into her thighs to spread her more fully for his final thrust.
His weight collapsed on top of her, his chest hairs abrading the tender skin of her breasts as their bodies heaved together. When Sebastian eased aside, an odd sense of bereftness fluttered in Clara until he curved an arm around her and pulled her against him again. Their breathing quieted. The logs cracked and sparked.
Clara closed her eyes, as if by doing so, she could banish the wealth of emotions rising in her chest, the certain and painful realization that no matter her efforts, Sebastian was winding
into her like a plume of brilliant, shattering fire.
Her body fit against his, her curves yielding to the hard planes of his muscles, her leg sliding between his. He brushed his lips across her forehead. Clara’s throat closed.
The cold isolation in which she had lived for so long seemed to be melting. And in its place flourished the warm knowledge that she need never be alone again, that she could live the rest of her days with the reassurance of having Sebastian by her side.
Yet she did not want to imagine the cost of such a haven. If she allowed herself to acknowledge all the emotions beating at her heart, like birds struggling to escape a cage, she could lose sight of the reason she had married him in the first place.
What if loving Sebastian weakened her resolve to reclaim Andrew? What if she lost the sharp edge of her determination, the anger and desperation that had fueled her for the past year?
Lock your heart, she reminded herself. But even now she knew it was a futile command.
She couldn’t lock her heart against Sebastian, for he alone held the key.
Chapter Eleven
The low crash of chords reverberated in Sebastian’s head, woven into a long, spiraling braid of blue and brown. In the early morning hours of his wedding night, he’d left Clara sleeping and come downstairs to sit at his piano. He let the fingers of his left hand extract the notes of Mozart’s Concerto in G Major. The harmonies faded into the still night air. He played them again and added two octaves, struck by the sudden sense that the notes formed a counterpoint.
He’d always loved the melodic interactions of counterpoint. He loved the multicolored texture and structure of it, the challenge it presented to a composer.
He played the lines again, then improvised and added a new line that had a life and purpose all its own yet fit snugly against the other. Counterpoint. A melodic relationship between two independent lines. Two lines played together creating a harmony.