His gaze fell to their hands. His hold tightened. Tiny lightning bolts brightened his eyes. “Touching me right now was another mistake, Pen. A very big one.”
She moved in a blur as he pulled her into his arms and captured her in an encompassing embrace.
He kissed her again, but it was different this time. Definitely impulsive. Dangerously furious. She might have controlled her reactions to the last kiss if she had truly wanted to. This kiss gave her little choice but submission.
The blanket wrapped her, but his strength encircled her, too. His tight embrace held her so closely that she could feel all of him. His chest pressed her breasts, and his firm grasp held her to the kisses ravishing her mouth and neck.
He paused and gazed down at her. There was no mistaking the way he looked at her. No mistaking the sensual fury in his eyes. Nor could she ignore the way her lips swelled and throbbed from his kisses, and how that pulse beat its way through her cheek and down her neck to her breasts.
That exciting pulse turned her initial surprise and alarm into a seductive entrancement.
Her whole body reacted to his bold gaze. The throbbing became undeniably sexual and beat in her blood and head, and physically in her breasts and belly.
He knew. New lights entered his eyes that showed he did. No matter what shock her face might show, he could tell that her body recklessly dared him to kiss her again.
He did, ruthlessly. He aroused her as if he knew just how to do it. Each kiss was calculated to render her helpless to the escalating pleasure.
Stunning pleasure. A hot wind of it. Sly currents of hunger flowed ruthlessly to swelling pools of desire. Her breasts grew heavy and tender and sensitive. Moisture began slicking her thighs.
She barely noticed their steps back to the dry sand stripping the base of the terrace wall. He lowered her as if lying on the sand were her only choice of where to go.
He peeled apart the blanket to spread on the sand and shrugged off his coat. She was able to embrace his warmth during the next kiss. It felt so good to hold him, so blissful that it drenched her spirit and left her even more defenseless.
The kisses calmed. They turned sweet and slow and too tender to bear. Her body both relished the slow pleasure and ached for more.
He rose up on one arm and looked down at her, giving substance to the image of him that had flashed in her head for the last day. The wind blew his dark hair and the sleeves of his shirt. His gaze followed the gentle caress of his hand over her face and neck.
“Do you want to go back to the cottage?”
She could not resist touching him, too. She caressed the face looking down at her and the lips that had been kissing her. The sensation of his skin under her fingertips entranced her.
Her intense reactions confused her. Frightened her. The part of her that shuddered with anticipation knew exactly what it wanted, but her conscience chanted that she should leave at once and not risk complicating and ruining this friendship.
“I do not know what I want.”
“I do.” His caress drifted lower, to her neck. Her skin began sparkling with warmth. “You will stay for a while, Pen, and we will enjoy the sea and each other.”
The next kiss told her what would happen and what would not. It promised as much as demanded, and she was filled with the trust she had always had in this friend. She did not know what she wanted, and he would not take advantage of that.
No more confusion, just total absorption in the sensations and changes. When he asked for more she could not refuse. The intimate strokes in her mouth sent stunning shudders all through her, enlivening her body, making her impatient for more closeness.
He caressed down her side and she felt his hand clearly. No stays protected her body or interfered. His hand moved again, over the fullness of her breast, as confidently as if he had touched her like this a hundred times before.
Only he had not, and the unexpected power of the pleasure sent her reeling. She wanted that touch to continue, desperately. Her body instinctively moved to encourage him. Even her breaths sounded a rhythm that begged for more.
What that hand did to her. His fingers found her nipple through the cloth and stroked it, sending streams of luscious excitement shuddering down her essence. She closed her eyes to try to control the madness that threatened to obliterate her composure. She kissed him back, urgently, to relieve the frightening desire building in her.
His hand moved to her shoulder. He gently rolled her on her side, away from him. Her disappointment lasted only a moment before she felt her dress loosening.
He eased her back on the blanket, then lowered her dress and chemise. He slid the fabric down, unveiling her body. She snuck a glance at what he saw. Her breasts rose naked above the rumpled garments. Her body was completely bare from the waist up.
He propped himself up on one elbow, out of her embrace, leaving her to lie there vulnerable to his gaze. The sensation of lying naked and exposed was incredibly erotic.
His hand came to rest on her stomach, dark against her white skin. “You are very lovely, Pen. Very fair and soft.”
From beneath her lowered lids, she could see that hand on her. Her breasts grew sensitive because of its proximity. Even the breeze seemed to arouse them.
“Too soft,” she muttered. “This dress needs stays and you forgot to bring me some.”
He caressed where the stays should be. “I forgot nothing. There is no one here but me. No need to truss yourself unnaturally. You looked beautiful in the dress. You look more beautiful with it half off.”
Calmly, almost languidly, he trailed his fingers up between her breasts and around their swells. They hardened in response and an itching anticipation started making her mad again.
He caressed as if he sought nothing more than to do this for a while. She gritted her teeth and tried to contain what was happening inside her.
His fingertips gently grazed one nipple. She barely swallowed a cry. He circled so lightly, so effectively, that she thought she would scream.
“How long has it been, Pen?” He watched his hand make its patterns, and also watched her body react. “How long since you have been touched?”
His thumb rubbed the tip of her nipple. The sensation defeated her control and she moved, arching her back.
“Not so long.” It amazed her that she could speak, since she could hardly breathe. “But …”
His fingers continued their sweet torture. “But what?”
“I had to be careful, didn’t I? Be on my guard. They could not be trusted, not really, so I could not risk losing control.”
He absorbed that thoughtfully while he continued the slow arousal of her body. His head dipped and he gently kissed the side of her other breast. “How long since you have made love?”
She could touch him now, and slid her fingers into the hair of his head while he pressed gentle kisses to her breast. “Do you mean completely?”
“Yes. Completely.”
“Almost forever. Since I left the earl.”
“Not even with Witherby?”
The name released a stream of sadness into her bliss. An old humiliation and disappointment slid through her heart. She was surprised that Julian would mention Witherby now, of all moments. No one ever spoke of that old love to her. Not Julian nor her brothers nor anyone else who knew of it.
“I could not risk having a son. Glasbury could claim him as his own and take him away, and my child would be condemned to that household and that man’s power.”
He appeared surprised by her answer. He had assumed there had been at least one complete affair. She expected that everyone believed that.
“No, I suppose you would not risk that,” he said. “So even when making love incompletely, you could not abandon yourself to it because you could not trust the men.” His hand resumed its meandering path. “Do you trust me, Pen?”
Did she? Her body seemed to. Or else it was betraying her in the worst way.
“It appears that I do.”
>
“I am glad.” He kissed her breast again. This time on the tip. His tongue flicked at it, making her gasp. “Now, no more talk. I do not want to hear any sounds except the sea and the wind and your crying with pleasure.”
He made sure that she cried. He used his mouth and his hand to breach whatever control she still had. Her breasts grew more and more sensitive as he teased each one with his tongue and teeth. Abandon beckoned, closing in on her awareness, fed by pleasures that ached demand for the completeness she could not have but furiously wanted.
She could not fight it, did not want to. She knew in her heart that she did not need to. Not this time. All of her, body and mind, relinquished control. She entered a place where only pure sensation existed, a state of pleasure and desire and wonderful physical responses.
She did not hear the sea or the wind. Only the pulse of need and her own moans and cries entered her head. And his voice, asking once more, “Do you trust me, Pen?”
A new caress explained the question. Lower, to her hips and thighs, pressing through her petticoat. Her body answered for her, rising to that touch, heedless of any risk now, careless of the danger.
He pressed the hot center between her legs and she almost swooned with relief. Nothing else mattered now except being touched there. Every sensation, every excitement collected at that place and moaned for more pressure, more … everything.
She felt a new nakedness, vulnerable and wonderful, and a warm palm smoothing over her legs. She opened her eyes to see a rumpled ledge of skirt and petticoat mounded at her waist.
He rose in her embrace and looked at what she could not see. He caressed her thighs as slowly as he had her breasts.
He turned back to her and she grabbed him close and kissed him madly, giving vent to her sexual fury
He caressed up until his fingers touched the one single spot where her whole essence focused. A stroke, one slow touch, made her cries catch in her throat. The intensity of the pleasure shocked her.
He kissed her cheek softly. “Do not lose courage now. If you can finally risk abandon, you should know what that can mean.”
He touched again, deeper. She grasped him tighter, gripping his back to contain what little sense she had left.
“Spread your legs, Pen.”
Her body obeyed. It wanted to. Even the shock was too delicious to deny.
He showered slow kisses on her face and breast while his hand created shivers that quivered up through her blood then down again to that spot. The flesh he caressed pulsed so strongly that it became the rhythm of her whole life.
She heard the waves now, in her head, mixing with the cries she could not contain. Cries of pleasure and frustration. Her body screamed for something. The intensity just kept getting deeper and her madness more engulfing.
Her spirit entered a place that was blind and senseless and dangerous. Still the pleasure increased, narrowed, rising higher until she tottered on the brink of sensation so powerful it was painful.
He kissed her hard as his touch forced the last step. Her scream entered him as the sensation penetrated her womb and exploded.
After the stunning lightning bolt came the most beautiful rain. Pleasure and peace flowed all through her, sparkling in a magical shower.
She was so lovely. His heart almost could not bear it.
Her astonishment appeared to match his, but he was sure it did not.
The beach became a mystical place, separate from his normal world, a spot hanging somewhere between dreams and wakefulness, between heaven and earth. Her sighs and gentle moves timed the pulse of creation and caused the rhythm of the sea’s waves and the wind’s swells.
He stroked his fingertips over her face, luxuriating in the sensation of her soft skin. He looked at her as he had always wanted, slowly and carefully, so his eyes and memory would be denied no detail.
He touched her, as he had often imagined doing so. Over the fullness of her cheeks; around the firm little bones of her jaw and chin; softly along the vague, tiny lines barely visible at the outside edges of her eyes.
He kissed those lines. Laughter had made them. They symbolized her sweet disposition, her ability to see good and have hope no matter what her own troubles.
They also represented all the time he had wanted her. At parties and at dinners. Alone in his chambers. Wanting her had been a calmly accepted part of his existence, much like being a certain height. It was not something he resented or regretted. It was just there, framing certain decisions in his life whether he wanted it to or not.
Now, finally, he had tasted what he hungered for. He knew he should not have done it, but he did not give a damn about that now.
She did not say anything as she lay in his arms afterward. The embrace was so serene that he could have stayed there forever. The lowering sun made the wind cold, however, and their sand very shadowed. They could not stay like this.
She let him right her garments and wrap her in the blanket. She did not object when he rested his back against the wall and pulled her into an embrace beside him.
Together they watched the late shadows claim the rocks and sea. His eyes saw it all but the images in his head were different ones, of Pen in her passion.
He would never hear the sea again without also hearing her gentle, lovely cries.
And her admission that there had been no lovers. At least not complete ones.
The man who wanted her had liked hearing that. The friend who knew her disappointments had not. Over the years he had been jealous at the smallest evidence of lovers, but he had not wanted her lonely and unhappy, either.
He turned his mind from that, and to her and the way she nestled against him.
“What are you thinking?” He did not mind her silence, but he wondered what kept her so quiet.
She tucked herself closer and her head lolled on his shoulder. “I am thinking that I really must remember to put you on my list now.”
She damn well better.
“We quite lost our heads, didn’t we, Julian? It was very nice, though. I am thinking that intimacy with a good friend is nicer in ways than that with a great love. More trust, for one thing.”
It did not surprise him that she was deciding this had been an impulse between two old friends. Perhaps it was for the best.
“I am also thinking that I need to decide if I will make use of that list, or find another way. What if he does not react as we think he will? What if I embarrass him with a public affair, and he does not divorce me?”
“He will not be able to ignore it. This is not a man who will accept such a thing.”
“No, but he may decide to deal with it in other ways.” Her quiet voice communicated how deeply she had been contemplating this.
Yes, he might. Outrage could lead Glasbury to take the rash step that would lead to that Hampstead meadow and the call to stations.
She eased out of his embrace and got to her feet. She brushed the sand off the blanket. “I need to decide soon. I cannot avoid it now.”
No, she could not, and not only because of what had just happened on this sand.
The mood had changed. She had subtly retreated more than physically.
He stayed where he was. “I will sleep above the stable.”
In the weakening light she appeared a little sad.
“You are still my friend, aren’t you, Julian? We will continue as before, won’t we? You will not let what happened here change that, will you?”
“Of course not.”
Her stance appeared to relax. “Then you do not have to sleep in the stable.”
“I will use the chamber below, then.”
She laughed lightly. “Yes, that may be best.”
He watched her walk up the stone stairs. Sleeping below was not only best. It was essential. He would never rest if he used the chamber beside hers tonight. He doubted he would be able to stay in his own bed. This was not the night to test his trustworthiness any further.
He looked back at the sea turning black
in the nightfall.
He had just lied to her when he said what had happened did not change their friendship.
In fact, it changed absolutely everything.
chapter 9
Pen tossed in her bed. She tried to name what had just happened with Julian.
She knew women who had affairs that were mostly about physical pleasure. Their brief intimacies were fun little games, no more. Her “incomplete” affairs had been like that, except with Witherby. She was well enough experienced in silly diversions based on flirtation and stolen caresses.
There had been nothing silly about tonight, however. This had been different than a dalliance for superficial thrills. Her friendship with Julian made it more than that. Nicer. More intimate. She could trust him, and that had changed everything.
That friendship was confusing her reactions in other ways, she decided. If she had not known him so long, if their history did not stretch back for years, the notion of being kissed by him would not be so startling.
After all, he was a man and she was a woman. As he had said, why wouldn’t he think of her that way? Why wouldn’t she react to his kiss? If she had not been so stupid, she would have realized that their continued proximity these days might give rise to such a development. Everyone knew that men were inclined to experience sexual impulses given the least provocation.
She turned on her back and listened to the silence. Julian was sleeping below this chamber, directly underneath her. She tried to hear if he snored or moved.
Memories of their embraces crept into her head. They were so vivid that she felt his touch again. The fantasy aroused her. Her body started yearning for those caresses.
No doubt abstinence had played a role tonight, too. Maybe when a woman spends years being titillated by flattery and incomplete affairs she is well disposed to utter abandon if she once drops her guard.
The beauty and peace she had found in that passion had been more seductive than the pleasure, however. She had felt so innocent. Glasbury might have never existed. She had never before so completely forgotten those years.
The Romantic Page 9