The Romantic

by Madeline Hunter

  “You will be sure to get me out before the servants are about?”

  “I promise.”

  She lifted the bedclothes and climbed in. “We keep doing things we should not, but you are right; I do not want to be alone with my thoughts tonight.”

  There was an implicit trust in her movements as she settled into the bed. He was both flattered and amused. The images romping through his imagination were not at all trustworthy, but he expected he could survive the night. After a life of restraint a few more hours should be manageable.

  She looked up from the pillow. “Do you intend to sit by the bed like a nurse?”

  “No.”

  “Do you plan on lying here in coats and collar?”

  “No.” He slid off his frock coat and went to work on his neckwear.

  He extinguished the lamp. The fire was down to embers, but it still gave some heat and hints of light.

  “I think that you should remove your shirt.”

  “Do you now? It might be wise if one of us is not dressed for bed. There are limits to any man’s chivalry.”

  “Yes. Of course. Forgive me. You are always more sensible than I am, Julian.”

  Sensible, was he?

  He removed the damn shirt.

  And turned to find her looking at him.

  At least she did not appear to be thinking about Glasbury anymore.

  He sat on the bed and pulled off his boots. Deciding not to be sensible in the least, he removed his trousers, threw them on the chair, and joined her under the blanket.

  His body was already in a condition that would make the night a torture.

  “I suppose this is very reckless and dangerous,” she said.

  “You are in no danger from me.” That was not entirely true.

  “That is not what I meant.” She turned on her side and propped her head on her hand. “This helps, not being alone. I am glad you will be with me tomorrow as well. I do not think I could do it otherwise.”

  “You can do anything if you decide it is important. You have already proven that.”

  “I have not, in truth. If you think about it, I have never had to act alone. Someone has always been there to help me. But I do not want to think or talk about that anymore tonight.”

  “What would you prefer to speak of?”

  She rose higher on her elbow. “How magical the firelight is. It makes a little glow along your edges, like one sees in paintings.” She reached out and traced a line along his nose, over his lips, and down his chin.

  Desire began cutting through him.

  Her feathery touch traced over his shoulder and onto the muscles of his chest. The blanket moved down with her hand.

  “What are you doing, Pen?”

  “You looked at me. I want to look at you. You are much more athletic than I expected. No doubt all that rowing explains it.” Her fingers ran over a rough edge on his left side. “What is this scar? It is very long.”

  “I got it some years ago in Hampstead.”

  “I did not realize that the swordplay of the Dueling Society was so dangerous.”

  She referred to the group of Laclere’s friends who met at the chevalier’s house to practice with swords and pistols. Julian had been a part of that set since he was at university, and still met with them on occasion to continue the old camaraderie.

  “We all have a few nicks. Swords will do that.”

  “This is more than a little nick.” Her hand traced down the scar to its end on his hip.

  His body reacted, prominently. He moved her hand back up and suppressed the erotic images trying to conquer his mind.

  “You are making this dangerous despite my best intentions. Even old friends are not made of stone. I am not completely sensible all the time.”

  “No, you are not. What an interesting discovery that has been.” Her fingers and gaze moved over the top of his abdomen.

  He finally clutched her hand, stopping her. “Are you trying to seduce me, Pen?”

  “Not completely,” she whispered. “I suppose I am putting the dragon back in his lair, Julian. And I am reminding myself that there are good memories and good friends and that I was not ruined for such things.”

  Good memories, but not with him. And another had shown her she was not ruined, long before Julian Hampton ever kissed her.

  He knew how to make all the dragons retreat. He weighed whether he dared do so, and if he had it in him to show the restraint she would expect.

  He did not want incomplete sensual games. Their lovemaking on the beach had been precious, but he did not want to be one of the men who had stolen kisses and caresses over the years. Men who could be easily forgotten, and quickly relegated to a list of frivolous, playful flirtations with no consequences and no meaning.

  If she had just lain there quietly, he might have followed his better sense. But she turned slightly and her warm breath flowed over his chest, and suddenly he wanted whatever he could have.

  Sensual anticipation drenched the silence between them. Her hand still rested on his skin beneath his own. He lifted it and kissed her palm and pulse. “We will put the dragons to sleep for the night if you want.”

  She turned her head and looked up at him. “It is not fair to you, is it? As you said, even old friends are not made of stone.”

  “It will not be all that I want. I will not lie about that. But it will be enough.”

  He lifted her and moved her, so that she was the one in the dying fire’s glow, lying on her back. He slid her bed cap off and her hair poured down. He tried to remember when he had last seen it falling free. Ages ago, when she was a girl, he was sure. Yet he often saw her this way in his mind.

  He swept her tresses up so they fanned her head on the pillow. He pulled the ties of the little bows that held her nightdress together. She watched his fingers from beneath the thick lashes of her lowered lids.

  “You take my breath away, Julian, and you have not even kissed me yet.”

  “Then you should be too breathless to object when I remove this.”

  “Completely?”

  “Yes.” This at least would be complete tonight.

  He lifted her shoulders so he could slide the garment off and watch the fabric inch down her body. Her scent told him that the disrobing aroused her, but then her expression was already that of a woman halfway to ecstasy.

  She had been right about the fire. It did make a glowing line along the edges of her body. He traced it as she had, down her face and neck, then along her chest and up the swell of her breast. Her rosy nipple tightened more as his fingertips neared, and her back subtly arched. Her breathlessness was audible now.

  He gently circled her nipple with his fingers. “You are very beautiful, Pen. I cannot imagine passion more lovely than yours.”

  Her hand pressed his nape until his face was close to hers. “The dragon does not only sleep when we do this, Julian. He dies for a while. It is as if I am a girl again, at Laclere Park, and nothing ugly or sad has happened yet.”

  Her words touched him. “Then we will go back to Laclere Park, Pen. To when you were a girl and I was a youth.” He kissed her cheek. “It is spring, and I have taken a turn near the lake and found you there alone, sitting amidst the flowers.”

  She giggled softly and closed her eyes. “Yes, spring. It is a warm day with a blue sky and big, white clouds.

  There are jonquils under a tree. The oak leaves are not out yet, though. Where are my brothers? Why are you alone?”

  “They have left with the steward to buy a horse. I chose to stay behind.”

  “To get me alone?”

  “Perhaps. If you like.”

  “I think it should be an accident. An impulse. We are very young, after all. I do not think it would speak well of you if it was a calculated seduction.”

  “Actually, in my story you were going to seduce me.”

  She reacted with shock, but it melted into a little grin. “How very naughty of me.”

  “Well, noth
ing new there. When I find you, you are removing your hose so you can wade into the lake and try to catch fish with your hands, the way you did that one summer when Vergil and I came upon you.”

  “My governess will make me stay in the house for a week when I go home with muddy feet. If I lift my skirt to enter the lake, you will see a lot of my legs, won’t you?”

  He slid the blanket over so that her whole left side was visible, down to her toes. He watched as he caressed her silky skin along her side to her knee. “Quite a lot. Very beautiful legs. I am entranced.”

  “So, after playing in the lake, we kiss,” she whispered. “It is my first real kiss, ever.”

  He kissed her. The purity of the pleasure saturated him.

  She looked up and smoothed her fingertips over his face. “And you? Is it your first real kiss, Julian?”

  “Yes, Pen. You are my first.”

  “I am glad. Kiss me again, Julian.”

  He was no longer so young, but he might have been.

  She was not really his first, but as he caressed her it was as if his hand had touched no other woman.

  The difference was in his heart. Every kiss was new and perfect, a revelation of emotions buried too long. There might be no future but there was also no past. She only wanted to kill the dragons for a night, but his soul shook from what was happening.

  His body roared with impatience, but his heart wanted an eternity to pass. He controlled the hunger and kissed her slowly, listening to every breath she took and every response she gave. Nips on her ear made her shiver. Kisses on her neck made her gasp. During a long, deep kiss she joined him, venturing her own little invasion into his mouth, letting him know that she would not be passive.

  He kissed one breast and caressed the other, entranced by their softness. He memorized the sensation of her skin beneath his fingers and mouth, and the song of her increasing madness. Dreamy ecstasy marked her expression, and breathless encouragement flowed to his ear.

  He rose up so he could see her face and remember it forever. He stroked her hard, erotic nipples while he watched her joy in the pleasure.

  She opened her eyes. She appeared embarrassed that he watched her reactions, but it passed. A warmth entered her eyes.

  “Do you like seeing what you do to me?”

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze moved slowly over his chest. “Then you will not mind if I play, too. Fair is fair.”

  Her childish words reminded him of the fantasy they had begun. It was no girl whose hand moved down from his shoulder to caress his body, however.

  Her touch had him gritting his teeth. Flames crackled through his blood and burned in his head.

  She ventured lower and his head began splitting. She touched his phallus through his smallclothes, then slipped her hands beneath to caress it. They got rid of the impediment and she began to drive him insane.

  His arousal became savage and dangerous, but hers remained lyrical and luxurious. He dipped his head and licked and sucked her tight velvet nipples. He claimed her whole body with his hand, caressing her fluid curves, deliberately seducing her to abandon.

  She bit her lower lip and a powerful tension flexed through her, as if she relinquished control of her reactions. “Perhaps … perhaps it does not have to be merely enough tonight. Just this once. Maybe …”

  He looked in her eyes, barely daring to breathe, let alone speak. His body did not remain silent, however. It shouted with chaotic hungers breaking loose of their tenuous bonds.

  “Maybe, if we are careful at the end … it need not be so unfair,” she said.

  A good friend would not let her decide this now, here, while he exploited pleasure’s lure. An honorable man would not allow her to abandon the caution of a lifetime, especially on a night when the memories had made her vulnerable.

  His own desire had pushed him far past good and honorable, however.

  “I can make sure we are careful.” Somehow he would find the strength to make good on that promise. “You are sure, Pen?”

  “I think that I will die if we do not.”

  He was beyond thought, beyond judgment. He drowned her in pleasure so she could not change her mind. Her cries grew more frantic. When he stroked up between her thighs and touched her intimately, she joined him in a state of passion where nothing was careful or slow or contained. They shared and traded grasping holds and biting kisses and erotic touches. “Yes,” she whispered again and again, until it became a desperate melody of assent and desire.

  He moved on top of her. Another “yes” flowed on her breath, but her embrace suddenly turned awkward, as if she did not know what to do now. A different note sounded on her sighs.

  He wanted her so much he could hardly think, but her subtle hesitation restored a spot of calm amidst his fury.

  With their bodies pressed together, heart to heart, he looked down at her. In her eyes, beyond the desire, he saw the vulnerability he had almost forgotten in the heat.

  “Are you frightened, Pen?”

  She just looked at him.

  “There is no need to be. I would never hurt you.”

  He gently coaxed her legs apart. He entered slowly, as if she were really the virgin in the little fantasy that had started this.

  She reacted as if she were, with surprise and initial discomfort. Then her body relaxed and she accepted him deeply.

  It was his turn to be surprised. The sensuality was the least of it. A profound contentment permeated his essence, awing him.

  He closed his eyes and savored all the sensations, not moving. He had never before been so totally alive to a moment of existence.

  When his lids rose, Pen was looking at him with a worried expression that touched his heart.

  “I am fine now,” she whispered. “It had been so long that I … do not think that you cannot …”

  “I am not so good as that. I was just enjoying the feel of you.”

  “Oh. Like the eye of the storm, you mean.”

  “I expect so.” He knew so. Already the winds were beginning to howl again.

  He held off the madness as long as he could. He withdrew and thrust slowly, enjoying the delicious sensation and the soft sighs of her responses. He bent her knees high and rose up on his arms so he could see her face and her body and look down at how they joined.

  His body would not let it go on like that. The urge for completeness forced its demands. Balancing his weight on one arm, he reached down and slid his finger high in her cleft to caress her clitoris.

  It was her storm that guided the rest. Her groans as the pleasure unhinged her. Her moves as the need moved lower and her body tightened to grip him. Her hips rose and fell and shifted as she anxiously sought relief. His own passion turned hard and wild in response and began rising to a peak.

  He straightened her legs and pressed them together beneath him. “Do not move.” When he thrust the next time her fingers clawed his shoulders as the pressure stroked more effectively.

  “Yes,” she whispered, beginning her entrancing song again.

  She moaned with astonished pleasure the next time. Then little assents exhaled on each breath. Their rise told him how close she was, and he found the control to continue. When she was muffling screams against his shoulder and shuddering with her finish, he finally gave in to his body’s demands.

  Even at the climax, he never forgot it was Pen that he held. Her presence drenched that bliss just as it had every touch and every pleasure. Somehow, in that glorious cataclysm of being, he managed to keep his promise and relinquish their physical unity.

  chapter 14

  The dragons stayed in their lair all night Even when Pen left Julian’s arms and sneaked back to her own chamber, they did not threaten her.

  They only began stirring when the dawn woke her. Even then, the past remained vague and distant. The bad memories could not penetrate her thoughts of the night.

  Putting on her cloak reminded her, however. Walking down the stairs to join Julian at the carriage
lifted her out of her daze.

  In an hour she would see Cleo, and would relive much that she had tried to forget.

  She was a little embarrassed when she saw Julian in the light of day. His greeting was formal and proper, but his eyes showed warmth and a hint of playful conspiracy.

  He joined her in the carriage, and it rolled out of the town. He sat across from her, saying nothing, as was his way. She was the one who felt compelled to speak of last night.

  “I do not know how to behave with you now, Julian. It is all I can do not to giggle.”

  “I have always thought that was a lovely sound.”

  “I am astonished with myself. It appears I am more sophisticated than I thought. I suppose my long abstinence accounts for my losing my head last night.”

  “One does not need a long drought to enjoy a summer rain.”

  “I was not implying that it had nothing to do with how much … with the rain. Still, I am having difficulty accommodating how bold I was. Are you? Have you ever had a … sophisticated liaison before?”

  “I have had nothing else except sophisticated liaisons, Pen.”

  “Good. At least one of us knows what to do and what to say the next day.”

  She waited. After a five count, a slightly bewildered expression passed over his face. Then an amused one, as he seemed to realize she was demanding guidance.

  “Well, Pen, normally, at some point in the days ahead, some expression of gratitude is made.”

  “Of course. I see. Well, then, thank you, Julian.”

  He scratched his temple while a smile twitched the corners of his mouth.

  “I am supposed to express the gratitude, Pen, not you.”

  “I assumed we both—”

  “Not normally.”

  That did not help hersituation much.

  She was sure there were expectations of the woman, too. She probably should be clarifying matters, and reassuring him that there would be no scenes. She had known women who misunderstood and built huge expectations on what men thought were casual affairs.

  “Julian, I want you to know that I will not become childish and demanding and insist on continued attendance. I will not start convincing myself it was other than it was.”