Magnolia Nights

by Martha Hix

  He traced the pad of his forefinger along her bottom lip. “Not for long.”

  “You’re wrong.” She fought against his mesmerizing effect. “That night was before you set fire to—”

  “Shhh.” He leaned across her lap to place the sherry on the table.

  A shiver ran the length of Emma’s spine when his body touched hers. Then his right arm slipped beneath her arm and up her back, and he pulled her close.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded in a whisper.

  “Don’t do what? This”—he feathered a kiss to her temple—“or this?” His tongue flickered down her cheek. “Or this?” His mouth closed over hers.

  She forced herself not to respond, and kept her lips sealed against his tongue. Yet through the materials of his shirt and her bodice, she felt the friction of his chest, and her mouth parted. As his finger traced a path along the edge of her ear, she lost all strength of will. Giving in to the fire that flashed through her, she ran her hands around him, to his back. “We shouldn’t . . .”

  “I know,” he murmured against her lips.

  “Emma!”

  Slamming the door, Franklin stomped over to the two of them. Paul eased back to the middle of the sofa, and brought to her senses, Emma touched shaking hands to her mussed hair.

  “Got a problem, Underwood?” There was a recklessness to Paul’s demeanor; he might have been spoiling for a challenge.

  Franklin said in a croak, “I cannot believe what I saw!”

  “Believe it. She’s mine now.” Paul took Emma’s hand. “And if you don’t like it, do something about it. There are ways of defending one’s honor.”

  Gulping loudly, Franklin recoiled. “I . . . I . . . I.”

  “I think you’d better tuck your tail between your legs and make tracks for Virginia, Underfoot. Excuse me—Underwood.” Paul’s words, as well as his eyes, goaded Franklin. “A coward’s not well received in this town.”

  Franklin’s Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down.

  Drat! Emma compressed her lips. Her former intended was such a coward that he wouldn’t defend his own honor, much less hers. And what was the matter with her? Duels were horrid ways of settling arguments. The best way to handle the present situation was to get Franklin well away from it.

  “Come along, Franklin,” she commanded. “We’re going back to Magnolia Hall.”

  “Don’t do it, Emma.” Paul clamped his fingers around her wrist. “Don’t leave with him. You belong to me.”

  “I belong to no one save myself.”

  “We’ll see about that.” His eyes were hard as coal.

  She chafed under Paul’s possessiveness. No matter what her heart said, she wasn’t his for the claiming. Emma pulled her hand from his grip and ignored his furious expression. Yet worry dogged her, as she and Franklin departed.

  Had she, by her stand, pushed Paul Rousseau too far?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How could you embarrass me like that?” Franklin said, pouting, as the carriage rolled down St. Charles Avenue.

  “If you have anything to be ashamed of, it’s your own behavior. You had no right to barge in on Paul and me, nor to act the spurned suitor.” Emma didn’t mention his cowardice. “Back home I told you in no uncertain terms that you and I were finished.”

  “Yes, Kitten, but I’d hoped by now you’d have changed your mind.” He extended his stubby fingers to touch her arm, but she drew away. “I promised your parents I’d bring you home.”

  “Louisiana is my home now.” As she said those words she grasped the honesty of them. She wouldn’t skirt the truth by calling this an extended visit. Here was where her destiny lay. With Dr. Boulogne, with her career, with Paul. With Paul? What had made her think that?

  “No self-respecting, unmarried lady of society would think to establish her own residence. Unless. . .”

  Emma suddenly wondered what would she do about living arrangements? She felt certain her uncle and aunt would offer to share their home on a more permanent basis, but that would be an imposition.

  “By your silence, I take it you plan to marry Rousseau.”

  “That never entered my mind.” Emma frowned. Why did everyone—Marian, Cleopatra, and now even Franklin—assume that she would cleave to Paul Rousseau? The scoundrel faced criminal prosecution; his future was uncertain to say the least. “He means nothing to me,” she lied.

  “My, my. You’ve certainly allowed your principles to deteriorate. First you allowed me to break our engagement, knowing your reputation would suffer for it; and tonight you behave in a most brazen manner with a ruffian you’ve no intention of wedding. How,” Franklin lamented, “could I have fallen in love with a woman of such loose morals?”

  “Oh, Franklin, you’re such a prig and a bore that you need someone to shock you out of your dull, mother-entrenched existence.”

  “Emma!”

  “And get something straight—I never, ever imagined myself in love with you. I only agreed to the engagement to please my parents. I have since realized marriage cannot be based on pleasing others. When I wed it will be because I want to live with that person. He’s going to light a spark within me, and I’m going to do the same for him.” She looked straight at Underwood. “Before I arrived here, I never knew that feeling. And I lied a minute ago—I do care for Paul. There’s a fire between us, perhaps not enough of a one to base a marriage on, but by darn, it’s . . . It’s none of your concern.”

  She tapped on the carriage wall, and Jeremiah opened the sliding panel. “Drop me by Boulogne’s clinic,” she said, “and after you do, take Mr. Underwood back to Magnolia Hall. But don’t turn in for the evening. He’ll only be staying long enough to pack for his return trip to Virginia.”

  “Emma, how could you!” Franklin protested. “I won’t go.”

  “Don’t forget, Jeremiah, take Mr. Underwood to a hotel tonight.”

  The barouche stopped in front of the clinic, and Emma got out. Tending to the unfortunates of society, especially to poor little Myrtle Ann, would get her mind off her personal problems. And it did.

  Three hours later, past the point of exhaustion, Emma returned to Magnolia Hall. Jeremiah had, after dropping Franklin at the St. Louis Hotel, returned and waited for her. She trudged up the staircase, then down the hall to her room. Closing the door behind her, she realized that someone, perhaps Betsy or Cleopatra, had left the French doors to the gallery ajar.

  She was halfway across the room when Paul’s voice stopped her. “Where’ve you been?”

  “What are you doing here!” She turned to his voice, and saw the orange glow of what smelled like a cigar. Irritated, she ordered, “Get out.”

  Her eyes unadjusted to the dark, she heard rather than saw him extinguish the smoke. He stepped into the faint light that edged across the rug from the French doors. The knotted muscles of his arms and torso were cast in relief. He wore dark breeches, no shirt and no boots.

  “Did you get rid of Underfoot?”

  Remembering her words to Franklin about the spark between herself and Paul, she smiled. But she was weary, emotionally and physically, too weary to cope with this intrusion. She needed time to consider just how important Paul Rousseau was to her, and his presence had a way of blocking sound reason.

  “I told you to get out,” she repeated.

  He advanced toward her. “So you did.”

  “I’ll scream,” she warned, meaning it. Unfortunately her room was in the opposite wing from Uncle Rankin and Aunt Tillie’s room, and she had no idea whether Marian had returned.

  “But you won’t.” Paul stopped in front of her, lowered his head toward hers. “You’ve been wanting what I’m here to give you, and if you scream, you won’t get it.”

  Scrambling back, she whipped her arm in a wide arc, catching his jaw with the palm of her hand. Pain shot up her arm. He didn’t move. “Get back or my knee will find your groin.”

  “Ah but, chérie, if you do that, I’ll be no good to you tonight . . . and
we can’t have that.” He wrapped his forearms behind her, and, lifting her, threw her over his shoulder.

  “How dare you,” she raged, and beat her fist against his back while he strode across the rug as if he bore no extra weight. He threw her onto the turned-back bed, and the wind left her lungs on impact.

  “Get . . . away . . . from me. I . . . don’t want you.”

  “Liar.” Paul covered her with his heavy frame. “You were deliberately taunting me tonight.”

  He slanted his mouth over hers, the fire of his sherry-tinged kiss spreading down and through her. Then he eased onto his side and brought her with him. The scents of herbal soap and cigar smoke and lustful male assailed her, enticingly. His manhood was swollen against her leg. Moving his sculpted lips along her jaw, he trailed his tongue over the fleshy prominence at the front of her ear and whispered, “J’ai besoin de toi.” Despite her limited grasp of French, she understood, and excitement raced through every bone, every nerve, of her being.

  Saints above! How she enjoyed his breath in her ear. And she had need of him, too.

  “We’ve both waited a long time for this,” Paul said, “and I intend to get a good look at you.” He pinioned her with a leg, propped himself on an elbow, and reached to light the candle on the night table. Her sharp letter opener was resting beside the taper; he picked it up. Then he straddled her hips, the blade reflected in the light.

  Emma didn’t fear him. For some strange reason she didn’t believe he’d do her harm. There was something in his dark eyes, a fire of longing and passion and utter virility, that burned through her. She watched mesmerized as he brought the blade close to her chest.

  One by one he sliced the buttons from her bodice. His free hand swept the material away, then lingered to caress her chemise-covered breasts. She moaned as he lightly pinched first one nipple and then the other. He slid the blade under her lacings and the steel point flicked free the ribbons of her chemise. Finally, his fingers never touching her flesh, he drew the thin white muslin from her bosom.

  “You’d make an excellent surgeon,” she murmured, smilingly and half teasingly.

  “I’m”—he discarded the letter opener and worried her nipple with the edge of his nail—“a better lover than cutter.”

  Remembering her sister’s words about her husband’s unimaginative rutting, Emma murmured, “Yes . . . I believe you are.”

  Triumph gleamed in his eyes. “Then say it! Tell me you want me to make love to you.”

  She wouldn’t give in that easily. “How can I when your weight is squeezing the life out of me?”

  He lifted his body, moving to the side. “That better?”

  “Oh, much . . .” She batted her lashes, Marian-style. “Let me get out of this dress. It does seem to get in the way.” As she started to scoot from the bed, his palm touched her wrist. As his fingernails pulled at the minuscule hairs of her lower forearm, she shivered, a pleasurable feeling.

  “Taking off your dress is my job,” he said, smooth as honey. “The only thing you need to do, ma bien-aimée, is lie back and enjoy my attentions.”

  Considering the liquid heaviness that had settled in the core of her womanhood, Emma was tempted to acquiesce, but having gone this far, she resented being a sitting duck. Inching her leg to the far side of the mattress, she said, “Oh, but you’re taking forever to undress me.”

  She lunged aside, hoping to get off the bed and across the room, but he grabbed the back of her dress and undergarments, and yanked with all his might. The harsh sound of material ripping filled the air. Her clothing fell around her ankles; and she whirled around, instinctively covering the private parts no man had seen before.

  “Brute!”

  “Don’t hide yourself, my beautiful one.” He extended his hand, and his tone was deep, meaningful. “There are many names you call me, and many of them I deserve, but I must show you that ‘brute’ shouldn’t be added to the list.”

  “Oh?” She moved one foot backward. “Then what appellation should I place on a man who breaks into my bedchamber, cuts the bodice from my gown, and then rips the garment to shreds when I don’t lie back like a meek little mouse?”

  “Try ‘sweetheart.’” In slow, easy movements he rose from the bed. Taking her in his arms, he whispered into her hair, “It’s not a difficult word. If you’re not comfortable with that, try amoureux. Either one would make me happy.”

  She rested her cheek against his chest. The hairs tickled her nose, but she enjoyed the sensation. She savored Paul’s unique essence as her palms grazed his back, resting on scars. Oh, Paul, there’s so little I know about you. What makes you happy? And what makes you sad? She yearned to ask those questions, but realizing that would show weakness, she didn’t.

  He swallowed, as though her silence disappointed him. Then he stepped back, bringing her with him, and adroitly maneuvered her onto the mattress. She rolled onto her stomach, hiding her face. She sensed him near her, yet he didn’t touch her. Squeezing her eyes, she prayed for guidance. For days she had admitted, both to herself and to Paul, that she wanted this lovemaking, but wanting and admitting had naught to do with sanity.

  She was simply too bone weary to make a decision that would change her forever. Virginity lost was a lifetime thing. But hadn’t she relinquished it, emotionally, that night in his hotel?

  “You seem very tired,” he commented gently, much more gently than was his custom.

  “I am.”

  “If you’ll allow me to touch you, I’ll relieve your tension.”

  “That, Paul Rousseau, is exactly what I fear.”

  “Don’t,” he murmured. “And don’t jump to conclusions. You helped me when I needed it, and I’d like to return the favor. I’m going to rub your back till you fall asleep.”

  She didn’t say yes, but no wasn’t on her lips either. Feeling his roughened fingers brush aside the hair at her nape, she shivered with delight, and when his right hand, big and strong and callused, kneaded the muscles of her neck, she yearned to kiss those long fingers. With circular motions he attended to one shoulder, and then the other. Emma felt her weariness diminish as if by magic. Paul’s magic. The tips of his fingers worked their way down her spine and over the rise of her hip—his thumb found the dimple at the top of it. She heard him swallow hard. Her pulsebeats resounded against her eardrums like waves crashing against the shore. She couldn’t wait to make a forever change.

  “I’m not going to fall asleep,” she murmured, her face still averted, and edged her fingers to his chest. The back of her hand turned up, she flattened it against his skin, saying silently to him, This is the sign, amoureux. I’m telling you I’ve made my choice. Don’t make me put it into words. You’ve won the war, but give me this battle’s victory.

  As if he had read her mind, Paul changed course. The hand she had offered him was taken to his lips for a gentle kiss. The caress shot straight to her heart. And the sweet ecstasy was only beginning. His lips . . . his tongue . . . caressed her from forearm to elbow. She tried to turn away, but he spread his arm across her shoulder.

  His voice was a husky tremor. “Don’t deny me my pleasure.”

  No other part of his body touching hers, he moved his lips and tongue ever so slowly, and lightly, across her back.

  Tingles ran up and down Emma’s spine. She was intensely aware of his soft touch and feathered breath. Never in her wildest fancy had she dreamed it could be this tantalizing, this pleasurable to be possessed by Paul. Every part of her responded to his erotic assault, and her primitive urgings overshadowed sanity and doubts and uncertainty about what the future, and past deeds, might bring.

  “Would you deny me my pleasure?” she asked.

  “You don’t enjoy this?” He flicked his tongue across the rise of her hips.

  “You . . . know . . . I do.” She turned over, and settled on her back. “But my body cries for more. I yearn to see and touch you.”

  Brushing the curtain of hair away from her face, she allowed h
er eyes to assess him as they had never done. Outward confidence didn’t mask the need in his dark eyes. He was large and strong, like a mature oak—no sapling to be sure. There was sheer strength in his taut muscles and long limbs. And in his inner self. He was the kind of man a strong woman wanted to be sheltered by. She yearned to be held within his hirsute arms . . . to touch him . . . and to experience total fulfillment.

  “The first time I met you,” she admitted, “I wondered how far down the hair on your chest grows. I still wonder.” She glanced at his lower section, then back to his face. “Take off your breeches, my darling. I long to see how God made you.”

  Paul’s features tensed, as if he were held in check by a thin rein. “Your wantonness fires me, sweet witch.”

  “Do you not like it?” she asked, bending a knee and moving her foot up and down the sheet.

  “That needs no answer. But I question your experience, virgin vixen. You behave much as a woman accustomed to a man’s bed.”

  “This is my bed, need I remind you, and don’t compare me to other women.”

  “I’ve never compared you to others, ma bien-aimée.” He grinned and eased himself off the bed. His fingers worked a buttonhole, freeing his waistband. “This . . . is only between you and me.”

  “Oh it’s not between us . . . yet,” she teased, centering her attention on the hard male thighs that were presented to her. The dark hair of his midsection veed in whorls to his navel, then spanned downward and cut across the only white skin of his body. His thick staff, thrusting upward above legs bunched with physical strength, was stiff and dark. In a moment fraught with lunacy, Emma remembered the photographic plates in her father’s medical books; Paul was exceedingly different and superior to them.

  And now she knew the purpose of those short-chopped breeches she’d found in his sea chest. His bronzed, olive skin was light only below his waist. “So this is what you’re like. . . .”

  “No, my beautiful Emma.” The mattress sank as he levered himself above her. “This is what I’m like.”

  He lavished kisses, both tender and fiery, on her breasts, her neck, her lips, and with primitive need, her legs spread for him. She felt the tip of his sex at the entrance to her womanhood, yet knew no fear, the ache to sheath him within herself overpowering. Yet he gave her no solace.