by Hope Tarr
"If anyone is the object of envy and admiration, it is you, sir. Black suits you. You . . . you look very fine in that tailcoat." She touched his lapel, an unaccustomed boldness.
He grinned. "I am glad you approve of something about me."
He didn't kiss her, not at first. He reached down and with one long finger traced the outline where the satin piping of her bodice met the heat of her skin. A single finger, just a whisper of a touch, but it was all it took to make her wet. Beneath the thin drape of her gown, the slit of her silk drawers felt warm and sticky as syrup.
Callie looked down at Hadrian's hand and this time she let her gaze linger, willing him to read her thoughts. She wanted that finger inside her, she wanted Hadrian inside her, and even as she tried to blame her wantonness on the champagne she'd drunk, she knew it would be a lie. It was him. All he need do was press her back against the wall and slide one of his clever hands beneath her skirt and she would let him. Let him take her; have her, in any way, in every way he would. She tilted her face up to his, an open invitation.
"Do you want me to kiss you?" His hair was a well of banked moonlight, his mouth a curved smile all but brushing hers.
"Yes." Oh yes, she wanted him to kiss her. But she wanted, needed, so very much more.
A moan, hers, cut through the muted sounds of the revelry taking place just a few feet away behind the closed doors to their back. She took hold of his hand, pressing it to the juncture of her thighs, pelvis jutted upward to meet his touch. "I want--"
"Hush, love, I know what you want, what you need. What we all need."
His other hand found her breast, thumb flicking over the satin-sheathed tip, the hardened nipple stabbing into the stays she wished desperately to be rid of. So this is what it means to be vanquished, she thought, and touched her mouth to his.
Against his lips, she said, "Take me home, Hadrian. Now. Please."
All his regret poured out in one rueful sigh. He drew back to look at her. "In that case, shall I find your aunt and call for her carriage?"
Callie hesitated. Take a chance. Be brave.
Moistening lips gone suddenly dry, she searched for the courage to say, "Not to my aunt's, not yet anyway. Take me back to your flat. Take me home with you."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Now, the fact is that seduction is, and ought to be, mutual. No love is without seduction in its highest sense."
--VICTORIA WOODHULL AND TENNESSEE CLAFLIN, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly
By unspoken accord, they didn't talk during the hansom ride from the opera house to Hadrian's. They sat facing each other on the cracked leather seats, the only physical contact the occasional brushing of knees when the coach hit a rough patch of road. But not speaking, not touching, only served to build the anticipation. By the time they halted at his flat, Callie felt as fragile as an egg left too long to boil and just as likely to crack.
The hansom halted, the driver calling out their fare. Reaching into his pocket, Hadrian looked across the darkened carriage to her. In the semidarkness, their eyes met. "You're sure?"
She managed a steady if slightly breathless reply. "Yes, I'm sure."
They stepped down into the street swirling with clouds of yellowish gray vapor, a proper London fog. Crossing to Hadrian's shop, the mist weighing the folds of her caped cloak, Callie felt equal parts terrified and elated. She was about to enter a man's lodgings. Alone. Unchaperoned. After midnight. Although she'd been in his upstairs flat on several occasions now, this time it was with the full intention of going to bed with him. A man who was not her husband, not even her fiance or steady beau. She was spending the night with Hadrian St. Claire of the sexy grin and laughing eyes and shadowed past. For one glorious night he would be all hers. The thought sent a thrill shooting through her.
But as they climbed the creaking stairs of his walk-up, flinty logic crept in. To spread your legs for a man and take him inside you was the ultimate submission, the ultimate gamble. And her intended lover wasn't any man but Hadrian. He was so attractive, so sophisticated, and so altogether comfortable with what men and women did together she couldn't help feeling gauche in comparison. The glimpses she'd had of his clothed erection suggested he was well endowed, possibly enormous. What if she was unable to take all of him? What if he hurt her? Worse yet, what if she disappointed him? That prospect terrified her most of all.
The door opened on a creak. "After you," he said, moving back for her to enter.
Callie stepped inside as she'd done on at least a half-dozen separate occasions, only this time was different. This time she was entering for the express purpose of lying with him. The act would be premeditated and preplanned, and no matter what happened afterward, she couldn't ever fall back on saying she'd been tricked or seduced.
She started on the hooks of her velvet evening cape, fingers clumsy with eagerness and nerves. Behind her Hadrian drew the door closed.
"Here, allow me." His hands, warm despite the chilly carriage ride they'd shared, found the tops of her shoulders.
"Thank you." She stood still and let him slip the cape off, his hands lingering for a whisper of a moment before he turned away to hang the garment on a peg.
"Make yourself comfortable." He draped his tailcoat over the back of a chair and then went to turn up the lamps.
A warm smoky glow suffused the room. Rubbing her bare arms, she drifted over to the table. Fitting one hand to the edge, she looked across to where Hadrian bent to the grate, busy rekindling the banked fire. She caught herself ogling his back, the way his buttocks and thighs molded to the soft wool of his tailored trousers. Despite the chill in the room, she felt a sliver of sweat slip down between her shoulder blades and silently prayed to whatever saint whose charge it was to watch over soon-to-be-fallen women that it wouldn't leave a telltale stain on her gown. For one night in her life she wanted to appear calm and collected, elegant and poised. She wanted to feel carefree and sexy and yes, just a little happy too.
Needing to breach the edgy silence, she called across the room, "You should know I've never propositioned a man before tonight."
"I didn't think you had but thank you for saying so," he answered over his shoulder, and she was warmed by the smile in his voice. "Not that you wouldn't have been met with a great number of acceptances." He straightened and turned to cross the room toward her, gaze holding hers. "You're so beautiful," he said and the warmth in his voice and in his eyes left no doubt he meant it. "Seeing you standing there in profile and dressed as you are, I can't help thinking Sargent's Madame X pales in comparison." He slid his gaze slid down the length of her, taking thorough measure of the heart-shaped bodice molding her breasts, the satin skirt cinched at her waist, the "V"-shaped fold of skirt draped snugly over her pubis.
Callie felt the brush of his eyes like a caress. She should have felt ashamed. She should have felt shy. But instead what she felt was a bold, pagan excitement coursing through her. "You make me feel beautiful."
Coming to stand before her, he slid one of the jeweled straps down off her shoulder, fingers trailing the edge of her forearm and sending fireworks shooting down her spine. "And you have the softest skin. Like rose petals," he added and then smiled at what an idiot he'd become.
Who would have thought that Harry Stone, whoreson and erstwhile thief, would be mooning over a woman's skin like some love smitten swain ramping up for his very first fuck? Incredible. Ludicrous.
Wonderful . . . wonderful beyond words.
Yet whatever shred of honor he still possessed prompted him to step back and say, "We don't have to do this, you know. There's still time to walk away. I'll never say a word to anyone, I promise."
Her eyes lifted to his. "I don't want to walk away. I want this. I want you."
He settled his gaze on her face. "You need to know I'm not a marrying man."
Callie's eyes flashed fire, a reminder of their first photography session when she'd sparred with him like a knight of yore. "What makes you think I'm a marrying woman
? Men gratify their physical desires outside of marriage all the time and no one faults them for it or expects them to forfeit their independence. Why should it be different for a woman?"
A woman's heart can be a very fragile thing . . . Callie's aunt's words had haunted him ever since her visit to his shop. Hearing them now in the echo inside his head, he said, "Because it is. If we go to bed, it won't be long before you'll want more from me, the promise of something permanent. And I'm telling you now, Callie, I'm not capable of giving you or any other woman more than this."
She tilted her head and regarded him. "Have you ever tried?"
He lifted her hand and carried it to his mouth, pressing a kiss into her palm. "You've a whole wide world out there just waiting for you to save it. The salvation of one scapegrace would be a waste of your time and considerable talents."
"Shouldn't I be the one to decide that?"
He shook his head, a hank of hair falling over his one eye, making him look younger, boyish even. "You don't need me, Callie. I'm no good to you. If you're even half as intelligent as I know you to be, you'll go now and never come back."
Reaching up, she combed back the golden strands with her fingers. "I want to make love with you, Hadrian. I think I've wanted to almost from the moment I set eyes on you in Parliament Square. I'm not asking you to promise tomorrow, only give me tonight."
He kissed the curve of her neck. "In that case, no apologies, no regrets." His life's guiding mantra, only now he was giving it to her.
He'd tried to send her away, truly he had. He wanted her. He was shaking with the need to be inside her, to be one with her, to be a part of her life if only for this one night.
Stepping back from her, he held her gaze and said, "Your hair, take it down for me."
She reached up her arms--such lovely long limbs she had. Her hands went to her hair, fingers pulling at the pins, and he saw she was shaking. Oh Callie . . .
Hastening to reassure her--political pamphlets aside, how much did she really know about how it was between men and women--he hastened to set her at ease. "You don't have to worry about there being . . . consequences. I have a tin of French letters by my bed."
Tossing the pins on the table, she looked at him askance. "You've slept with a lot of women haven't you?"
Threading his fingers through the silk of her hair, he didn't deny it. "I can bring you to climax any number of ways. I don't have to breach you to make you come. You can have as much or as little as you want. It's your choice."
She took a deep breath and then released it very slowly, her magnificent breasts pulling at the short stays she undoubtedly wore beneath her gown's plunging neckline. "All of you. I want all of you."
His chest felt as though it were swelling, not with pride but with something else. Something deeper--finer--than anything he'd ever felt until now. "I've never been with a virgin before, but I won't hurt you, Callie. I'll go slowly with you, let you get used to me, and once you have, I'll give you as much or as little as you want."
He wasn't prepared for the raw vulnerability washing over her face. "Oh, Hadrian, I feel such a fraud."
He couldn't begin to guess at what she might mean, but he recognized the look of hurt, the bald self-hatred, at once for hadn't he confronted the same demons in his shaving mirror every day since he could remember?
She shook her head, the very picture of misery. "The press calls me the Maid of Mayfair because I'm so pure, but I'm not, I tell you, I'm not." The quaver in her pitched voice told him she was perilously close to crying.
"Callie, love, what are you saying?"
"That I'm no maid, not of Mayfair or anywhere else. I'm not a virgin and haven't been for ten years. Oh Hadrian, I've been pretending all along."
"I'm a hypocrite, Hadrian, the very worst sort."
In the ensuing minute or two since her confession, Hadrian had guided her over to his bed. Sitting side by side on the edge, he felt Callie's misery as a palpable thing, a dull throbbing that might as easily originated inside his own chest.
He stroked a hand down the curve of her bared back-- she really did have the smoothest skin--and said as gently as he might, "I doubt that very much but go on."
Head in her hands, Callie began her story. "I was engaged a long time ago. I was young, just nineteen, and up from the country for my first season. My come-out had been nothing short of a disaster. The other girls that season all seemed to be blond and petite and the eligible men all my height or shorter. I think I came to dread being noticed and ignored in equal part. Every ball was a misery to me and even knowing that going home without an offer would brand me as a failure, I still didn't care. I just wanted to go home."
Gently, very gently, he pulled her hands away and turned her chin so that she was looking at him. "But you did receive an offer, I take it?"
She nodded. "I met Gerald at a musicale held at the home of a friend of my aunt's. He was pleasant, ingratiating even. When he confided to me that he too hated to dance, I felt at ease for the first time in months. The next day he called at the townhouse we'd let and asked Father's permission to court me. I have to admit it, I was flattered."
"Did you love him?" It was foolish, he knew, but for whatever reason he had to ask.
She hesitated. "Looking back, I think I was more infatuated than in love. He was young and good-looking and . . . virile in the way of country squires. My parents had started to despair of having a spinster on their hands, and Gerald seemed to satisfy all their requirements for a son-in-law. His family was solid, respectable, and well, it wasn't as though I was any great prize."
"I beg to differ but go on."
"The only person who didn't care for him was Lottie."
"Wise woman, your aunt."
She nodded. "Indeed. We'd courted for several months when he proposed."
"And you said you weren't a marrying woman." He stroked a hand down her cheek and shook his head if only because she looked so adorably earnest sitting there making her "confession."
"Oh, I'd read a few feminist tracts and attended the odd lecture, but I wasn't active in the movement. Gerald assured me that once we wed, I wouldn't have time for such silliness. His patronizing grated, but still I never thought of refusing him, that I might do something with my life other than be someone's wife." Her face darkened. "No sooner did I have his ring on my finger then he began pressing me."
"For sex." It wasn't a question and absurd as it was, he felt jealous.
She looked away. "I put him off for a while, not that I wasn't thinking about it as well. We'd kissed, that was all, but I'd liked it. I have to admit I was . . . curious."
He reached for her hand--touching any other part of her just now would have seemed wrong in some way he couldn't quite define. Lacing his fingers with hers, he said, "You're a passionate woman, Callie. There's no sin in admitting you wanted sex or that you enjoyed it."
That raised a thin laugh. She lifted her eyes to his, and he could imagine how she must have looked all those years before, untried and unsure and so vulnerable in her innocence that he felt his heart turning inward.
"Mostly I was nervous--and terribly shy. The embarrassment of being dragged out onto the dance floor was nothing to what I felt when Gerald unbuttoned my shirtwaist and exclaimed over how . . . how large I am."
The bastard! He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "He hurt you, didn't he?"
She bit her lip and looked away to the chipped globe of his bedside lamp. "He wasn't a monster if that's what you're asking, but he'd been drinking. I think it's fair to say he was . . . less than patient with me. When I asked him to please go more slowly, he laughed and said something about pain being the legacy of Eve, and if I liked I could close my eyes and think of something else until he'd finished."
"Good God." He wrapped an arm about her and pulled her to him as tightly as he could without hurting her--she'd been hurt so much already. "Please tell me you broke it off with him then."
Against his shoulder, she shook her
head. "I should have, only I didn't. As I said, I was young and, despite my politics, still rather conventional. I'd as good as handed him my virginity on a silver platter. What choice had I but to see the thing through?"
"He broke it off, then?"
"Not exactly." She grimaced and he sensed then that the truly painful part was yet to come. "We were at our engagement ball. Now that he'd had me, I can only describe his attitude as coolly civil. We danced the obligatory opening dance and then went our separate ways. I imagined a lifetime of such nights with us together yet apart, and I knew I had to get out of that room if only to think. I'd only been in the garden a few minutes when Gerald and one of his cronies stepped out onto the balcony for a smoke. It was coming on dark, and I was about to make myself known and go back inside when I realized the girl they were talking about was me."
"I gather whatever they said wasn't particularly complimentary?"
"Hardly. Oh, I've blocked out a large portion of it but words like "milcher" and "beast" will always hold a place in my memory. Afterward there was nothing Gerald could do or say, nothing my parents could threaten, that could induce me to go through with marrying him. The only person who stood by me was Lottie. She let me come up to London and stay with her until things blew over. That was ten years ago. Rather a long visit, wouldn't you say?"
He raised their joined hands to his lips and brushed a kiss over the top of her knuckles. "Oh, Callie, my sweet, lovely girl, if can't you see how beautiful you are, then let me show you. Let me make you happy if only for tonight." He pinned her gaze with his. "Tell me what you want."
She smiled that small Mona Lisa smile of hers he'd grown to love and shook her head. "Beyond being with you I'm . . . I'm not certain."
He made a tsking sound and slid a hand beneath her fall of silky hair, cradling her nape. "Caledonia Rivers not certain of what it is she wants? I don't believe that for an instant."