To begin with, he kissed her, delving his hand in her hair to hold her to him. ’Twas only a warming kiss, a starter for the practice to come. But across the short space of mattress dividing them, they both leaned in yearning. They both touched hands, both moaned with pleasure, both relaxed into the kiss.
She felt good, Daniel thought. She felt right. Now that the first oddity of finding himself kissing Sarah—Sarah!—had passed, he’d come apace with the notion. He’d even grown to like it. He loved her enthusiasm and her ardor, her willingness to learn and even, strangely enough, her bossiness. It told him what she liked. That was invaluable information for a man in the throes of seducing his wife.
Otherwise, he reminded himself firmly as he trailed his kisses from the corner of her mouth to her neck, he would never have clean mended socks. He had to remember that. He had to think about skillets and holey britches and roast chicken.
Oddly enough, he thought of Sarah instead. He thought of her warmth next to him, of her curves beneath his hands, of the thrilling sound she made in the back of her throat whenever she especially liked something. She liked being kissed just where her earlobe met her neck, Daniel learned just then. She liked a brief bite to that tender lobe, liked a subtle caress of her shoulder as he licked, then kissed, her neck. She liked to wriggle beneath him as he returned his mouth to hers.
“Hold still,” he warned. “This is tricky stuff.”
She did not succeed in following his instructions. That made him glad, because it forced him to teach her a lesson by continuing his kiss…by deepening it until they both panted for breath. Sarah’s body tautened under his hands, round and firm beneath her layers of dress and chemise and petticoat. Soon he would show her his mastery of ladies’ undergarments, Daniel told himself, a skill of which he felt justifiably proud. But for now…for now he could not remember exactly where he was.
He opened his eyes and blinked. His gaze trailed from the disordered strands of Sarah’s hair to the twin mounds of her bosom, displayed to advantage by her partially unbuttoned dress bodice. When had that happened? Daniel could not recall having laid his fingers there, but plainly…
“Why are you frowning? Was that kiss not a good one? I tried to hold still, but it’s so difficult.” Sarah placed a gentle hand to his jaw, coaxing him to look at her. “When you’re kissing me, my whole body wants to get closer to you.”
Her innocent words were his undoing. Groaning, Daniel kissed her again. “It was good,” he assured her. Momentarily, he rested his forehead against hers, enjoying the closeness it engendered, even though closeness was not the goal of this night. “Very good.”
“But not terribly advanced.” She wrinkled her nose, looking charmingly put-out. “I daresay we’ve kissed that way before.” A pause. “Are you staring at my bosoms?”
He was, he realized. They were entrancing.
Daniel cleared the hoarseness from his throat. He was playing with fire. It would be better to sound masterful here. Prepared. Especially since Sarah seemed entirely too proud of his brief lapse of control.
“The advanced part of this kiss,” he told her sternly, “is that you must remain entirely still. No matter what I do—”
“No matter how much you beg?”
Her brow arched knowingly. The minx.
“—you cannot move. Understand?”
“Of course.” She wiggled, arranged her skirts, then regarded him impatiently. “I’m ready.”
Her zeal made him smile. It also made him hard and hot and ready to move their lessons forward a mite. But that was not the point of this night. The point of this night was to prove his mastery over her and begin to assert his husbandly command. Elsewise, he would be eating his own poorly cooked meals forever. That would not do.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” Daniel warned softly, “but all the while, I’m going to have my hands right here.”
Gently, he placed both hands over her breasts. The blissfulness of touching her that way nearly made him moan. Ahhh, but she felt good. Beyond good. Better than he might have dreamed.
Sarah started, her whole body quivering. With quiet deliberateness, she stilled herself. She gazed at him through surprised eyes…eyes that grew darker and needier with every minute.
She wanted him, Daniel understood then. He felt shocked to the core by the realization. Somehow, he’d never quite considered what being wanted by her would feel like.
He knew in that moment he needed more of it.
“Very good.” How he formed words, he did not know. “You feel very good. Very soft and warm and—” a small moan escaped him “—very, ahhh, good.” Damnation, this was more difficult than he’d planned. He swallowed hard. “Are you ready?”
She bit her lip. Nodded. “Yes.”
Crazily, he wondered if he were ready. All at once, it seemed possible he might have tackled more than he’d known.
But then his natural dominance asserted itself. The moment he moved, everything turned right side up again. Daniel leaned nearer, his vision momentarily blocked by a hank of hair falling across his brow. He sensed Sarah’s eager presence, felt the mattress tremble beneath them both, inhaled the delicate fragrances of soap and lavender that clung to her. He wanted her, wanted her….
This kiss was hungrier than the last and far less controllable. Lost in it, abandoning himself to it, Daniel kissed her again and again, holding her in his palms all the while. Her nipples peaked against his hands, lifted by her corset and straining hard against her sheer chemise. Again and again he stroked her there, testing the wonderful roundness of her against him. He could not get enough of feeling her. Sarah was wonderful to touch.
Her bodice parted. Clearly, his fingers had more of a say in his actions than his sense of resolve did. No matter. His only thought was to delve deeper against her, to cup her more fully. Her bare breast slipped in his hand as though it had been made to be there, and Daniel kissed her even more deeply in response. He needed more. So much more.
“Oh, Daniel.” Sarah trembled, her head tipped to the shadowed ceiling. “I need—”
“I know.” With a single deft movement, he carried her back against the quilt. Let his plans be damned. This was more compelling by far. “Give me more, Sarah.”
She nodded. He pinned his knee between her spread thighs, battening her skirts to the mattress. He found more buttons and worked at them avidly. He wondered how she would feel against his tongue, imagined the tender pucker of her nipples in his mouth. That was what he needed. She was what he needed.
Panting, Daniel kissed her anew. He paused to sample that forehead-to-forehead movement again, driven to it by an impulse he cared not consider any further. Comfort and need engulfed him, leaving him bettered by their influence. Slowing himself, he stroked Sarah’s hair carefully from her face. He cupped her cheek, feeling, in that moment, beset by caring. He did not know why, and he refused to think on it. Not while she lay sprawled beneath him, not while they both teetered on the verge of something entirely new between them.
“What do you want from me?” she asked breathlessly. Her fingers caressed his cheek, traveled over his whiskery stubble. “Tell me. What do you want me to do, Daniel? Whatever it is, I’m ready. I want to make you happy.”
This is it, a part of him dimly realized. The acquiescence he’d been waiting for. All he had to do now was push a little further, to tell Sarah how overjoyed he’d be with a patch for his worn coat or a warm knitted scarf. She would do it. She would do it, and he would win.
He had won.
“Let me love you,” he heard himself say, inexplicably. Yet the rightness of it overwhelmed him. “I only want to love you.”
“Oh, Daniel.” All at once, Sarah looked about to weep. Her eyes turned misty and her lips wobbled at the corners, exactly the way they had during their wedding ceremony. “Oh, Daniel.” She pressed a fervent kiss to his mouth, surprising him. “You do love me! I knew you would!”
Her words penetrated the fog surrounding him. He
raised himself on his forearms, staring at her. “Love you? I did not say—”
“But of course you love me!” Gleefully, Sarah flung her arms to the side, the very picture of a delighted woman. “You said so yourself, just now.”
Beaming, she hugged him. Her embrace threatened to overwhelm them both. Happiness radiated from her. Happiness and certainty.
How in the devil had this happened? It would not do.
“I do not love you,” Daniel said. “I care for you, of course. I want you, and soon. But love…Sarah, that is not possible between us. You know that.”
She stilled. All of a sudden, holding her was like canoodling with a hunk of pine. There was no life there at all.
Confused, he squeezed her, trying to bring back the woman he’d wanted so much. Who’d just wanted him. But all that happened was that Sarah shoved at his chest and sat up. Head down, she pushed herself away and crowded against the headboard with her knees to her chest. Jerkily, she yanked her skirts over her legs.
Daniel stared at the silky dark tangle of her hair, wanting to glimpse her face. He could not. She was shuttered from him.
“Damnation, Sarah! Don’t be this way.”
Silence. Then a snuffle.
Regret assailed him. He’d hurt her.
Daniel softened his voice. “All I want is for things between us to be good. To be—”
“To be the way you want them?” she interrupted. She raised her flushed face to his, eyes flashing. “With me ironing and mending and cooking?” Her expression sharpened. Saddened. “You’ve been so nice to me these past days. All because you want me to end my strike.”
“No.” She didn’t understand. “Not…entirely.”
But Sarah only glimpsed the part of it. She only saw that he wanted something from her and was not above using his body—and hers—to get it.
“Sarah, I want you.” Beseechingly, he raised his hand to touch her cheek. He encountered only a stray length of hair as she stubbornly turned her head. “You want me. We’re already wed. There’s no reason we have to be apart.”
“There is.” She raised her face to his. With dignity, she regarded him. “It’s called love. Until you can give me that, we’ll always be apart.”
Daniel didn’t understand. “I…care for you. That should be enough.”
“You expect that’s so just because you say it is, don’t you?” She offered him a wistful smile. “I’m afraid this time you’re wrong. It’s not enough. I want you to love me, Daniel.”
Frustrated, he shoved his hand through his hair. “What do you think we were doing just now? I was ready to love you.”
“I want you to give me the words.”
Ahhh. That was the way of it, then. Seriously, he studied her. She deserved the truth. “I don’t believe in them.”
She shook her head. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do. ‘Love’ turns people to fools. It ruins lives.” He saw her skepticism and went on. “For the sake of ‘love,’ my sister abandoned her only child,” he said savagely. “She sent Eli away so he would not interfere with her new marriage. That is how much Lillian ‘loves’ her second husband. If that is love, I want no part of it. Ever.”
Sarah stilled. “Is that true? Is that what she wrote in her letter to you?”
At her round-eyed expression of disbelief, Daniel looked at her squarely. “Do you believe I would lie about such a thing?”
She hesitated. “I believe you might be misled. Misinformed, or confused or—”
“No. I’m not. Eli has been hurt once already. Do you think I will let myself fall prey to some addle-headed idiocy and risk hurting him again?” Daniel shook his head. “I am his only family now. I won’t take that chance.”
“There’s no saying you’ll behave as Lillian did. You’re a different person. A man! A strong man.” She leaned forward, put her hand to his arm. “You would never abandon Eli.”
He met her gaze, feeling restless. “No. I would not.”
Pain lodged itself near his heart, defying all his efforts to ignore it. He wanted Sarah, but couldn’t have her. He needed to protect Eli, but only grasped at knowing how. He was only a man. An ordinary man. How had the gap between what he wanted and what he would allow himself widened so deeply?
“Then there is hope for us,” Sarah said firmly. “Because if you won’t abandon Eli, there’s reason for me not to abandon you.”
Daniel scoffed at that. “I don’t need caretaking.”
“I’m talking about loving.”
“Then stop it.” He frowned, further pained by her persistence, by her cockeyed beliefs. “The only love I can give you happens right here. In this bed.”
For an instant, her eyes widened. She understood him.
But she wasn’t afraid.
“The only way that’s happening is if you let yourself love me first.” Gently, she spread her hand over his chest, atop his heart. “Right here.”
He shook his head. They were at an impasse.
“I can convince you differently.” Daniel knew it was true. Another kiss, another caress… She would come to see reason. She would accept their arrangement eventually. “You’re a sensible woman, Sarah. Don’t tell me you’re holding out for some romantic dream. It’s not like you.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.”
Of a sudden, Sarah looked as though she knew something he did not. The sensation discomfited him.
“It’s very much like me. If it’s the last thing I do, I intend to make you realize that.”
“Don’t be—”
But she wouldn’t listen. She stopped him with a hand to his mouth, obstinately shaking her head. “Do you think I’ve made this life for myself only to give up now?”
With a quirky half smile, Sarah watched him. He could feel…something…building inside her, growing stronger with every moment. Something bullheaded and naive in equal measure. ’Twas a dangerous combination.
“I expect you’ll give up on me eventually,” Daniel said. “You’ll have to.”
“Then that’s where you’ve misreckoned.” She pushed from their bed with a businesslike air, smoothing her skirts. Her final words came tossed over her shoulder. “I intend to make you see me, Daniel McCabe. To see the truth between us. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
God help him. He feared she was right.
Chapter Twelve
At Molly’s bakeshop, Sarah plunked a handful of coins on the counter. “Hello, Molly! Are you there?”
Her sister came around the counter, wiping her hands on her apron. She tucked a stray lock of tawny hair behind her ear. As she did so, her gaze fell on the money.
“All that? You were serious about your order, then?”
“Yes.” Firmly, Sarah nodded. “All two dozen.”
“Very well.” A few minutes later, Molly had everything prepared. She slid a box of spicy-scented, plump cinnamon buns onto the counter. “Are these for your students, then?”
“No. Just for me. Thank you!”
Box in hand, Sarah stepped past the dainty wirework chairs, carefully keeping her skirts from being caught. She’d nearly reached the door when Molly stopped her.
“Exactly why do you need two dozen cinnamon buns?”
“Errr…because they’re so delicious, Moll. Bye!”
“Stop.”
Reluctantly, Sarah turned. She’d hoped to dodge this conversation altogether. She faced her sister’s expectant look.
“I need them because of Daniel,” she admitted, deciding to have done with it once and for all. She’d save herself the further trouble of hiding it. “Your advice—and Grace’s—worked too well! For nearly two weeks now, Daniel has been after me.”
“After you?”
“Day and night. Night and day. Cornering me in the hallway, where we’re bound to be…close to each other. Kissing me. Bringing me little gifts. Paying me outlandish compliments. Plying me with flattery. I’m at my wit’s end!”
&
nbsp; “Yes.” Molly crossed her arms, her sleeves floury. “I can see where an excess of husbandly romancing would be wearisome.”
“It is! Moll, I mean it.” Beset by doubts and confusion, Sarah crossed the empty bakeshop again. It was a good thing there weren’t customers thronging the place. She sidled closer, hardly daring to meet Molly’s eyes. “If you must know, Daniel seems intent on…seducing me.”
Falsely aghast, Molly gave a cry.
“I’m serious.” She gave her sister a playful whack. “It’s very hard to deal with. I can’t think straight anymore! And it’s wreaking havoc on my strike, too. Yesterday I nearly served Daniel a biscuit. With honey.”
Molly’s eyes widened. “Grace will be appalled. All her notions of connubial disobedience, spoiled by breadstuffs.”
“Stop laughing! I should have known this would happen.”
Distraught, Sarah put down her cinnamon buns. By force of habit, she smoothed her dress. Lately she’d begun finding it partially unbuttoned at the oddest moments, thanks to Daniel’s continued courting of her—and her own blasted weakness when it came to him. The man was a scoundrel, through and through. Not even sturdy wool worsted could stand between him and a solid, manly grope.
Despite what had happened between them when he’d told her about Lillian’s abandonment of Eli—and the woman’s astounding excuse for it—Daniel remained persistent in his pursuit of her…in his charming of her. Sarah didn’t understand it. It was almost as though, by refusing his advances, she’d fired up his ambition to bed her properly. These days he definitely would not take no for an answer.
But Sarah, more than ever, felt determined to give it. He was close to loving her. She was convinced of it. Until Daniel gave her his heart, she’d promised herself, she would not surrender her body.
If only her pledge weren’t so dreadfully difficult to keep! She didn’t know how long she could continue to keep her long-held, embarrassingly unreciprocated feelings for Daniel a secret—especially when he seemed so determined to lay her bare…in every way.
Partially, she blamed her sisters.
“Your persuasive counsel on ‘dressing prettily’ was too much for my husband, I fear,” Sarah told Molly. “Now Daniel can’t keep his hands from me.”
Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 02] Page 15