“Enjoy yourselves,” Sebastian returned as evenly as he was able while trying to catch his breath.
They remained quiet, holding onto each other and listening to Pippa’s retreating footsteps until Kitty heard a thud she thought might signal her departure.
Sebastian clasped her hand and started toward the door.
“Where are we going? I’m . . . disheveled.” She stopped him long enough to wave a hand in front of her chest to indicate her unclasped corset.
“Perfectly so, but if you remain like that in my study, I fear I’ll never manage a rational thought in here again.”
Chapter Twenty
“OH MY.” SHE’D expected his suite of rooms to be done in warm colors with dark woods, a masculine haven. But even the sitting room was decorated in light colors, mainly white, with intricate plasterwork arches and extraordinary accents of flower and vine designs etched into the walls.
“Is that stone?”
“Marble. The late duke and duchess spent time in India and took it as inspiration for these rooms.”
He stood watching her, waiting, as if all the choices between them were hers to make.
When she reached for him, he pulled her into his arms, pressing his mouth to her forehead, as he had the first time he’d kissed her.
But that desire in Lady Stamford’s garden was nothing to this need, this hunger to be closer to him. His scent, the hard strength of his body against hers, the desire to touch more of his skin, set off something pulsing and wild inside of her. Poise was gone. Self-possession had been jettisoned. There wasn’t room for any of that now. Only this mattered. Only this moment, only the need to get closer to Sebastian.
She reached up to continue unbuttoning his shirt and skimmed the raised edge of a scar. Peeling aside his shirt, she traced the oblong mark gently with her fingertip.
“You were wounded.” She wanted to know the when and the how, to know this and every part of his past, for them to reveal all of their secrets to each other.
“Many years ago. I was foolish.”
The finality in his tone stopped her from asking more. Then his hands were on her, and she forgot about questions and old wounds. He grasped the edge of her corset, but he wouldn’t get her out of it without removing her skirt and petticoats. She reached back for the hook at the top of her skirt. The movement pushed her chest toward his, and he hissed as if she’d burned him before cupping her left breast through the thin cotton chemise. When he slid his thumb over the tight mound of her nipple, she gasped and tried to remember how her fingers worked in order to unbutton each petticoat before nudging them and her skirt over the swell of her hips. Finally, she could shed her corset, and they both raced to untie the knot at the top of her chemise before tugging and pulling to get her free of it. She yanked so hard to free her arm that it jolted from the fabric, the flat of her hand slamming against the edge of his jaw.
She gingerly touched his face. “I’m so sorry.”
Grinning, he whispered, “You’re worth a little pain.”
Turning his head, he placed a kiss in the center of her palm before gazing down between them.
“Let me see you.”
For one pleasure-quelling moment thoughts rushed in, so loud they dulled the glorious rush of feeling and sensation. The room was too large, too bright, and she was far too bare. She became less aware of his heat and more aware of the sear of her own blush.
With one arm braced across her breasts, she reached down to—
“No, please. Don’t hide from me now.”
Then he was covering her, touching her, one hand cupping her shoulder before he dragged it down her arm, raising gooseflesh. His other hand began at her hip, sliding up to dip into the curve of her waist and then back down to grip the rounded flesh of her hip.
“I see you, every wonderful inch of you.”
He lowered his head. She thought he’d kiss her, but he pressed his mouth first to the tender skin at the base of her throat, tasting her with his tongue, then kissing the cleave between her breasts before taking her right nipple into the warm wet cavern of his mouth.
When she arched back and moaned, he slid the hand on her hip lower, down to the flesh of her thigh, molding it with his hands before pressing his palm to her mound.
“Sebastian.”
Releasing her breast, he tipped his head and gazed at her, his smile arrowing straight into her chest, burrowing under her skin. Niggles of worry—that she’d been too loud, moaned too wantonly—melted away.
“That’s how I’ve wanted to hear you say my name from the moment we met.”
Before she could form a reply, he slid both hands to the base of her spine and lowered his head to kiss her stomach. Every spot his mouth and hands touched warmed, not just from the press of his mouth, but a deeper warmth, an inner heat, a secret thrill that he was the first man to touch her there, and there, and there.
Down on one knee, his other leg braced against hers, he stopped moving and looked up at her.
“I want to be the only man to touch you like this. Ever.”
Locks of hair slid down over his brow, and Kitty reached out to run her fingers through the strands.
“Yes.”
As she uttered the sibilant word, Sebastian pulled her closer and laved her belly button before trailing his mouth lower and kissing her tenderest flesh.
Kitty’s moan broke into a keening cry as her knees began to buckle. Raking his hair with her fingers and then reaching out to grasp his shoulder, she felt feverish heat radiating off his skin through his shirt.
He turned his head, resting it against her stomach, and held her tight.
“I love you, Kat.”
They were the words she’d longed for, imagined him saying. Needed to hear. And she hated the sting in her eyes, the tears beginning to force their way. Panic sprouting up to choke out all her bliss. Thoughts like weeds multiplying in her mind.
Hadn’t a dozen men said those words with nothing of truth or sincerity behind them?
Ridiculous. Sebastian wasn’t like any of those men.
So why couldn’t she give the words back to him when they lay just there, heavy on her tongue? She’d never offered the three words to any man, never loved any man until Sebastian.
Sebastian stood, the strength of his body sheltering her, the comfort of his arms embracing her.
“What is it?”
She shook her head, unwilling to admit that even as she stood naked before him, having experienced such delicious pleasure, such precious intimacy, she was still afraid. Afraid of giving all of herself to a man only to disappoint him. Afraid that beyond her pleasing shape and outward appearance, he would find nothing in her worth loving.
He’d been a fool to say it. He who’d been guarding his heart for years. Who swore he wasn’t capable of loving any woman again, let alone saying the words. He’d smashed their bliss with three overhasty words.
Worst of all, he wouldn’t retract them. Too soon or at the wrong time, perhaps, but he couldn’t deny the sentiment any more than he could deny the fever burning him from inside to touch her, taste her, pleasure her in every way he knew how.
When she finally lifted her head to look at him, he expected regret. Instead, he saw yearning, uncertainty.
He reached for a coverlet to wrap her in, but she gripped his arm to stop him.
“Please, Sebastian. I want to see you too.”
Her slim fingers worked at his last two shirt buttons and then gripped the fabric to wrench it up from his trousers. He bit back a groan when she went to work on his trouser buttons, her fingers grazing the firm ridge of him as she slipped each one. She kept her eyes turned down, but he needed to see her.
Sliding a hand along her jaw, he urged her chin up at the same moment she took him in her hand. Gasping as their gazes locked, he couldn’t hold ba
ck the groan when she traced the length of him with her hand.
“Kat.” He rasped her name on another groan as she pushed his trousers over his hips.
She smiled up at him. “I’ve wanted to hear you say my name like that since the night we met.”
He reached to cup the delicious warmth of her breast, so soft, so full in his hand. “You wanted me to call you Kitty on the night we met.”
“I prefer Kat now, but only when you say it.”
He stepped out of his last bit of clothing and she slid against him, stretching up to mold her mouth to his as the smooth curve over belly caressed his aching erection. He gripped her hips to hold her still, though instinct urged him to lift her, lay her down, and love her.
“Kat?”
She bucked against the restraint, and he felt the curls between her thighs tickling his abdomen. He licked his lips, remembering the taste of her.
“Please, Sebastian.” She slid a hand down to curve over his hip just as he held her, then she tugged him closer. “Love me.”
He lifted her, bending to scoop her up in his arms, and carried her to the edge of his bed. He lowered her slowly, gently. When she reached for him, he bent his head to kiss her tenderly and rested his hands on either side, easing her onto her back.
As he gazed down into her eyes, brimming with desire and eagerness to match his own, a latch inside him broke, some imprisoning bar of his own bitterness and regret. Colors brightened, Kat’s rapid breaths rasped loud in his ears under the beat of his racing pulse, his skin tingled as the tension he’d hosted too long melted from his shoulders. Only Kat. Only this moment mattered, and the rest fell away.
She stroked the hair on his chest as he watched her, then reached around his neck to pull him down for a kiss.
He tasted her mouth, then trailed his lips down to her breasts, tasting one ripe taut nipple before laving the other. She lifted her hips each time he licked her, and he wanted to slip inside of her, draw her to the point of pleasure. But not yet.
Sliding down her body, he kissed the smooth expanse of her stomach, then lower, tasting her center again, slipping his tongue into her delicious heat. The taste of her tore away all pretense, all propriety and gentlemanly thoughts. She was his. Only his. No other man would touch her like this. Ever.
She lifted her hips off the bed as she cried out her release, fingers tangling in his hair, her other hand pulling at his shoulder. He kissed a trail up her body before settling between her thighs.
“Sebastian.” The sound of his name on her tongue, spoken with such wonder and awe, warmed him, and he was already burning.
She opened her mouth and he thought she might say it, those three words he hadn’t imagined hearing or wanting from another woman ever again.
Tracing his jaw with her fingers, reaching up to smooth the hair back from his brow, he saw it in her eyes.
“Love me, Sebastian.” And he did. His heart ached for how deeply she’d burrowed inside.
The words were there, true and real and the most frightening words she’d ever say to a man. She wanted to say them to Sebastian, wanted everything with Sebastian.
She licked her lips to try again, but he flexed his hips and she gasped as he pressed inside. She savored the thick hard slide as he joined their bodies and she lifted her hips to urge him closer, deeper.
He moved again, emitting a low sound at the back of his throat, and slid against her, filling her. Too full, too much. She pressed her hands to his shoulders to still him, and he lowered his head to kiss her. Yes, she needed to taste him. She opened to let his tongue dance against hers, and then he moved inside her, against her. Slow, delicious thrusts that drew every nerve in her body tight as a harp string.
Lifting his head, he gazed at her with such tenderness, such love and desire. No pretense. No charm. Just Sebastian loving her.
“I love you.” She spoke in ragged breath as much as sound, but he heard every word. He closed his eyes a moment and when he opened them to gaze at her, they were molten silver blue, glassier than before, and he drove against her faster, deeper, drawing her toward the edge. Her skin burned, breasts ached for his mouth, and she wanted him deeper, could not get him close enough. Then she burst apart, crying out, arching up against his body, as pleasure drowned her until she gasped for air. He broke, groaning her name, driving into her once more, repeating the name he’d chosen for her. The name she loved. The man she loved.
He turned and collapsed beside her, reaching out to gather her against him. Their legs tangled, and she adored the tickle of the fine hairs on his body against her skin.
They lay quietly, catching their breath, and he stroked long drugging ribbons of sensation across her back with his fingertips.
She turned her head to listen to the beat of his heart, marveling that any man’s heart—this man’s heart—could be hers. As her own heartbeat steadied, her mind took up the reins, speeding ahead.
Fear rushed in. Doubts. He knew her body now, how she sounded when he brought her to the precipice of pleasure and caught her as she fell. He knew the taste of her body, the feel of her skin against his. But he still didn’t know her heart. He looked at her and saw more good than anyone ever had, yet she hadn’t shown him the rest. She had been cruel. She had been petty, manipulating others, just as she’d watched her father do so many times.
The heat of Sebastian’s body warmed her skin, but inside she began to go cold, defenses rising, old habits settling into place.
“Would you help me dress?”
“Of course.”
He sat up and then stood, quickly pulling on his trousers before assisting her. He touched her tenderly, refastening the clothes he’d helped her to shed, and watched her intently as she tried to avoid his gaze.
“Kat, is this a good-bye?”
Swallowing, she willed words to come, forcing herself to be the self-possessed woman who’d walked into his study less than hour before. But she wasn’t that woman anymore. She would never truly be that woman again. Everything had changed. He loved her, and she loved him. But she feared reaching out and embracing love. Loving him would change her, and for the better, but losing him would break her.
Poise. Calm. She could put on the mask again. She’d spent her life pretending, mismatching actions and emotions.
Finally lifting her gaze to his, she dredged up a bit of the old Kitty, summoning the even emotionless tone she’d learned from her father.
“How could it be? Ollie and Harriet aren’t married yet. We still have our roles to play.”
Chapter Twenty-One
SEB’S THOUGHT REGARDING the equation hid, dodging every attempt to grasp it. Finally he caught it by its tail and rushed to scribble down the one bit of coherence he’d managed all morning, but he pressed the nib of his pen too hard, splattering ink on the paper, the blotter, and his shirt cuff. Staring down at the ragged hole where his captured thought should have been, he ground his teeth and flung the damned writing implement at the pen rest, missing it entirely.
With the movement, a twinge came, deep in his chest. His rusty tattered heart protested like Victor Frankenstein’s monster for being brought back to life.
He stared across his study at the unlit fireplace. The marble mantel and looking glass above faded, and she was there. Kat, gloriously nude, every inch of her luminous skin exposed. She wanted him to see her, she’d said, and he’d never seen anything more magnificent in his life. And not because she’d been some ephemeral nymph, some flawless goddess he could never deserve. She’d been solid and warm in his arms—smooth flesh, lush curves, tantalizing angles—and she’d tasted of vanilla and lavender.
What a brave woman, so determined to gift him with those moments of intimacy and pleasure. And Kat had given him more than a memory he’d never forget. She’d given him a revelation—about himself, about his bruised heart. He’d wanted her in that m
oment like he’d never wanted anyone or anything. And he knew, acknowledged to himself and to her, that he loved her. What he hadn’t confessed, what he’d only realized as Kat stood before him, is that he’d never felt it before—desire that bowed and strengthened him in the same moment, certainty that she would be his and he would be hers and there’d never be another.
What he’d felt for Alecia hadn’t been love. Obsession, madness, youthful preoccupation—whatever it had been, it didn’t approach this. His feelings for Kat had crept upon him so softly he hadn’t time to fear or deny them. They were as much a part of him now as his limbs or the blood pumping in his veins.
When a knock sounded at the door, he realized he’d clenched the scribbled paper in front of him into a crinkled ball.
“Come in.”
A young housemaid pushed through the door and curtsied. “Your Grace, forgive the interruption. There’s a lady to see you.”
Kat. Thank God. He could reassure her, soothe whatever fears had precipitated her hasty departure the night before. He still couldn’t reconcile the uncertainty he’d seen in her eyes as she walked out the door with the love she’d confessed moments before.
“Thank you. Please show her in.”
“Oh, forgive me, Your Grace. I asked her to wait in the drawing room.”
Perhaps the drawing room was best, especially if Kat had any regrets about what had passed between them in his study.
“Very well.”
He licked his lips and clenched his fists as he followed the maid down the hall. Sniffing the air, he expected to detect one of Kat’s floral brews, but he only smelled starch and the mild sweetness of a bouquet of hothouse roses artfully arranged in a crystal vase on the entryway table.
“Your Grace, forgive me for calling unexpectedly.”
Not Kat. Not the woman he longed to see. Seb’s shoulders sagged and a dull ache thumped at the back of his head.
Archie Naughton’s governess stood in the center of his drawing room, pressing her hands together, a frown twisting her face and carving lines across her forehead. The matter of the boy and Alecia’s claims hadn’t slipped from his mind, but last night and this morning, Kat monopolized every thought.
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