Intrigued, she pulled out the volume and flipped randomly through the yellowed pages. Her eyes fixated upon an illustration of a man and a woman engaged in some amalgamation of sexual congress and acrobatics. The corner of the page was folded back. Appalled, she slammed the offensive smut closed, but the image remained ingrained in her mind.
Why would he have such a book? A handy reference guide? She reopened the cover and flipped to the flyleaf.
So many pages to cover before the summer ends…
Yours, Helen
The book fell from her fingers and thudded upon the floor. Who was Helen? Had he done these things with her? Claudine’s wayward mind conjured an image of herself and Leonardo in the lewd act described. The idea seemed more ludicrous than erotic.
Leo’s deep voice startled her. “I couldn’t sleep either. The heat is dreadful.”
As though she’d been caught in the act she’d just imagined, a hot wave of guilt washed over her. She thought to conceal the book she just dropped, but he’d already noticed it by her feet.
As he drew closer in the dim light, she noticed he was still dressed, more or less, in trousers and a high-collared shirt, open at the neck. His hair looked rumpled, as if he’d tried to sleep and failed. “Can I help you find something to read, or have you already found what you’re looking for?”
She took a step forward, concealing the offensive book under the hem of her nightgown. “Actually, your books are not to my taste. They bored me so much I believe I’ll have no trouble sleeping.”
“You might. Heat rises. This is the coolest room in the house apart from the kitchen.” He squatted and reached under her hem to retrieve the wretched book. Then he handed it to her. “I believe you dropped this.”
She looked at it as if she’d never seen it before. “It must have fallen when I tried to pull out the one beside it.” She attempted to place the horrid manual back in its slot on the bookshelf, but now the space was too narrow.
After a third attempt, she gave up in frustration. Why was she working so hard to conceal his book? It wasn’t her smut, after all. She thrust it at his chest. “It doesn’t fit. Maybe you should return it to Helen.”
A dark look came over his face as he took the book from her and examined it.
“Are you still seeing her?”
There was no answer as he slid the book back into its place on the shelf. She could not hold back her disgust. “It’s filthy. I’m glad I found it though. It speaks worlds about your character.”
“Had a thorough look, did you?”
“I’m sure you have as well.”
“It’s too clinical for my taste actually. I haven’t looked at the book in years. You might have noticed the dust upon it.”
“I was too busy noticing the artwork. If you don’t like it, why do you keep it?”
“To serve as a reminder.”
“Of your dear Helen and all the sordid things you did with her?”
“No. It reminds me that people will ultimately believe what they wish to believe about you so it’s futile to try to convince them otherwise.”
She wasn’t certain she wanted to know, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Tell me about Helen.”
He took a long breath. “If I do, will you stay?”
“I don’t see how anything you might say about your past would make a difference to our current situation.”
“You’re right. Why should it?” He walked over to the sofa and opened the sash window above it. A hot damp current streamed into the room. “There’s going to be a storm. I can feel it.” Gazing out at the dimly lit street, he added, “Thank god you didn’t leave tonight. The thought of you out there alone would have driven me mad.” His tone wasn’t at all dispassionate now.
He shifted his weight and sat upon the sofa, resting one arm on the upper edge. “While we wait for the storm, I’ll tell you the story. It’s a good one, involving many key dramatic elements: wealth and privilege, sex and violence.” Now he sounded like his usual urbane self, a man who knew how to capture the attention of his audience.
“It sounds tawdry.” She moved toward the sofa and sat in a formal ladylike manner on the far end, knees together, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. The lack of layers beneath her hands made her aware that she was wearing only a sheer nightgown and shawl.
A few feet away he bent one leg and angled his body toward her. “Oh, I assure you it is.” The scant light from the single lamp in the room managed to highlight his chiseled jaw and sensual mouth better than any spotlight.
“It happens that I’m in the mood for a tawdry tale.”
“Very well then. In the summer before my senior year, Pembroke invited me to stay at his family’s cottage in Newport. The alternative would have been spending yet another summer working at the settlement house in the sweltering city. Naturally, I accepted.”
She leaned against one of the colorfully patterned pillows by her hip. “Naturally.”
“The cottage turned out to be a mansion. It’s a game rich people play, pretending to be blasé about their wealth and possessions. I saw right away that I didn’t fit in at their garden parties and yacht races. I knew nothing of such pursuits and therefore had little to contribute. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave. The beauty, the peacefulness, the ocean held far more appeal for me than the crowded, noisy city so I stayed. One morning when I was walking on the beach, I saw a woman standing before an easel and painting.”
“Helen.”
“She was wearing a flowing white lace dress, and her hair was a stunning shade of auburn…”
“I get the idea. You were captivated.”
“I complimented her seascape. She gave a self-deprecating reply, and we began to chat about art, which I’d studied at school for just such occasions. We struck up a friendship of sorts.”
“Of sorts?”
“We began to meet in her cottage every afternoon at two. She was very particular about the time.”
“You began an affair with her just like that?”
“Some women are very straightforward about what they want, and I was twenty-one, restless, and bored. On the third occasion, she showed me that book you were looking at. She found it amusing so I pretended I did too. I was rather an idiot at twenty-one.”
“Is that when you earmarked the pages?”
“They were like that. She had some strange fascination for…”
“I don’t need to know.”
One afternoon we had an unexpected visitor, an obviously well-to-do man in his sixties who didn’t bother to knock on the front door before making his way to the bedroom. It turned out the man was her husband, Wendell Treadway, Pembroke’s father.”
Claudine gasped.
“That was my reaction as well. He’d returned home early from a business trip.”
“Helen never told you she was married?”
“Not a hint of it. She never wore a ring when I was with her, and she spoke mainly of her education and artistic aspirations during the times we actually conversed. I was so stunned to be found with another man’s wife, I didn’t know what to say or how to explain myself. Helen, on the other hand, had no trouble deflecting the blame. She promptly accused me of rape. Her duplicity staggered me. I couldn’t fathom how a woman could be so sweet in one moment and then falsely accuse me of a brutal and cowardly crime in the next.”
“Why didn’t you defend yourself?”
His expression turned cynical. “I tried. I saw that book on the floor beside the bed. I showed him the note his wife had written on the flyleaf page, thinking that would exonerate me. He snatched the book away from me and beat me with it. He was old, but he was a large man, and I suppose his sense of outrage invigorated him.”
He looked stricken as if he were reliving the experience. “I let him beat me. I remember thinking it was all pointless. He needed to believe the worst of me in order to remain with his wife, and he clearly wanted to keep her no matter what. He told me he would
press charges and see me imprisoned unless I removed myself from every place he might have even the remotest chance of encountering me. I didn’t doubt his word, and I couldn’t bear for everyone I knew to think me capable of such a vile crime so I quit college and disappeared.”
No wonder he never explained his absence to anyone.
“When everything I’d been working toward came to an abrupt end, I lost my sense of purpose. I could no longer envision a future myself so I simply existed day to day, drifting west, working odd jobs on farms to support myself.”
She knew exactly how that felt, and she ached for him.
“I tried for a clerical position when I first arrived in San Francisco, but I didn’t have any character references, and I looked rough. Without money, there was little I could do to fix that problem. They turned me down. I suppose they sensed I was trying to hide something about my background. The circus didn’t ask any questions about my past. All that mattered was my ability to entertain so I made certain to do just that. It helped me, focusing solely upon my routine. I didn’t want to think about the past. After a while, I regained my confidence and my ambition, and I came up with a new dream, one I could realize without a college degree and social connections.”
“You succeeded despite the injustice done to you.”
“Sometimes I think so. Other times I only feel a keen awareness of the emptiness of what I do.”
“Entertaining people is not an empty pursuit. People need to laugh or lose themselves in a drama or song once in a while. You provide an escape… But aren’t you afraid Wendell Treadway will come after you now?”
“That threat came to an end with his death. I never would have returned to New York otherwise.”
“You’re free then.”
He smiled ruefully, and she understood. He had everything a man could want in a material sense, but he’d lost more precious things he could never get back—his family, his friends, the future he might have had.
“I’ve never told anyone about that summer because I assumed no one would believe me.”
“I believe you.”
He exhaled slowly. “Why?”
“Because I know you.”
He gazed back at her soulfully. “I feel I know you too even though we only met eight days ago. Do you know I felt drawn to you before I ever saw you? There was something in your voice. You seemed at once exotic and familiar to me, as if we were predestined to be together. In that crowded city, we somehow found each other.”
This was the time to tell him who she was, that she was familiar to him because she’d known him since she was three, but she couldn’t. He would be furious with her. Her deception had only grown deeper with every minute that passed, every lie she’d told. He might even send her back to France in order to avoid further conflict with her parents.
And she didn’t want to leave him. Not now. “If you felt this way, why didn’t you tell me earlier? Why did you have to sound so cavalier?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I was trying to maintain a rational perspective, but it was a futile effort. I haven’t been rational since I met you. I want you with me all the time, and I don’t want to share you with anyone. I know that’s wrong and selfish. I didn’t even think it was in my nature to be so possessive. My liaisons with women in the past tended to be short-lived and emotionally detached… I’ve never been in love before.”
“You’re in love with me?” she murmured.
“So much so I don’t recognize myself. I’m not normally this much of an ass, but why should you believe that? I haven’t been fair to you. You can have the job I promised you. I’ll learn to live with it. Just stay with me. Give me another chance.”
She pretended to consider the matter as she pursed her lips. “That depends.”
“On what? I’ll do you anything you ask.”
“Anything, you say? That leaves a lot of possibilities. Hmm.” She steepled and tapped her fingers together. “I’ve got it.”
“What?” he asked, looking half-nervous, half-amused.
She crawled across the length of the couch that separated them, put her arms around his neck, and whispered, “Take me to your room.”
Chapter Thirteen
Leo scooped her up in his arms as he came to his feet. She had ample opportunity to change her mind as he carried her up three flights of stairs and down a long corridor to his bedroom, but she didn’t.
Moonlight bathed the vast room in a dim golden glow. He laid her upon his bed and untied the knot of her shawl while he trailed hot kisses along her temple to her ear and down the side of her neck. Gradually, his weight pressed down upon her, but she didn’t feel trapped. She felt secure beneath the rapid pounding of his heart.
Soon she was floating in some dark, warm place that blotted out everything but his sensuous mouth, the shifting of his back and shoulder muscles, the heat of his skin. She could scarcely see him, but he felt so beautiful. They moved against each other as if trying to absorb one another, the distant thunder barely audible over the quickened tempo of their breathing.
Vaguely, she was aware that her nightgown had bunched up to her waist. Still entwined with her, he leaned to one side, resting his weight upon his forearm. She caught her breath as his opposite hand slowly trailed up her thigh to her hip and waist, then slipped beneath her nightgown to explore further. His fingers meandered along her ribcage and traced the lower curve of her breasts with infinite tenderness.
Aching for more, she arched her back. He watched her intently as his thumb brushed one of her nipples back and forth. Both of her nipples tightened with need and anticipation. His expression looking increasingly tense, but he turned his attention to her other breast, molding and caressing, as if he had all the time in the world.
“Come closer.” Her voice sounded strange. She realized she was quivering.
“Je veux te voir,” he said tautly, sliding her nightgown higher. “Raise your arms.”
She did so at once, and the gown came off easily. Kneeling beside her, he gazed intently at her pale body and exhaled in a long, slow breath.
“Aren’t you going to remove your clothes?” she asked.
He looked down suddenly, unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt, pulled the garment over his head, and threw it to the floor. Then he jumped off the bed to remove his trousers and drawers, never taking his eyes from her. He was magnificent. Broad shoulders tapered to a flat stomach and narrow hips.
His erection would have been impossible not to notice. Oddly, the imposing sight didn’t worry her. It fascinated her. She’d never seen a man’s penis before. The episode with Philippe had happened so quickly. As Leo rejoined her on the bed, she reached out and touched the tip. “It’s so smooth.”
He sucked in his breath.
“Does that hurt?”
“No, it gives me great pleasure. Maybe too much at this time.” He removed her hand and pressed her shoulders down upon the bedcovers as he leaned over her. “Just let me look at you for a moment. I’ve wanted you for so long.”
“It couldn’t have been more than eight days.”
He smiled and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. “It felt like years. Being in that stateroom with you was torture. I didn’t want to take advantage of you. Having you here in my house, in my bed at last, is almost overwhelming.”
He traced a light circle around one of her nipples and drew the tight bud into his mouth. She gasped at the exquisite heat and subtle tug.
She wanted him so much, but her insecurities rose to the fore. “I can’t do those things shown in those illustrations, and I wouldn’t want to.”
“Forget the book. I have little use for diagrams and instructions.” His hand smoothed across her belly. Heat penetrated deep into her womb. He circled her navel, caressed her lower abdomen, and strayed downward in a slow, purposeful path to the mound at the apex of her thighs.
With a tiny whimper, she parted her legs. One finger brushed against her opening, then explored dee
per, and she realized the slickness there had come from her own body.
“You feel so good,” he muttered. “Open wider for me, ma douce.”
She could only obey as his fingertip investigated a wondrously sensitive spot. Her soft whimper filled the taut silence between them as he teased the little nub. Hot, melting currents gathered and swirled. Surely, only a former magician could create such an exquisite sensation with so little effort. His touch was deft and gentle and loving, and soon she had to bite her lip to keep herself from moaning aloud.
He stared down at her with scorching intensity. “This is my house, and we’re all alone up here anyway. Make all the noise you are moved to make. I adore every sound.”
He moved lower until his head was between her thighs. Before she could ask what he intended, his hands slid beneath her lower back to tilt her pelvis, and he placed a scorching kiss upon her sensitive nub.
“This cannot be right,” she muttered half-heartedly as that elusive gathering and swirling inside her increased in strength.
“This is just another way to show my love for you.”
Confused but more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, she gasped as his hot tongue slid along her opening and toyed with her little nub. She nearly protested the indecency of this act, but her panting and writhing got in the way. So he continued to tease and stroke and delve until she moaned loudly indeed. Joy overflowed inside her, and her eyes welled.
“What’s wrong? Bad memories? He leaned over her and wiped away a stray tear with the pad of his thumb. “You’re not afraid, are you? I’ll stop if you wish.”
“No, no. Please don’t. I’ll die if you stop.”
His smile was loving, cocky, and seductive all at once. “Well, we can’t have that.”
“It’s just so wonderful. You are so wonderful, beyond what I dreamed.”
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