“Oh, Edmund, how did this happen? I’m not supposed to fall in love with you, and you’re not supposed to fall in love with me.” Then, without warning, she popped up, her eyes full of fire and apprehension. “You are in love with me, right?”
He chuckled, but he supposed the display of amusement at her question was not a good idea. She huffed out her disapproval, shoving at his side until he twisted like a panther and hauled her underneath him. She struggled, bucking him several times, until he intertwined her legs and pinned her arms above her head. In his entire life, he’d never admitted loving anyone. His father always said it was an emotion wasted on the weak. So Edmund ran like a man on the streets of Pamplona from every possibility. He didn’t mind then. The philosophy had worked in his favor.
With her hair spilling over his arm like the rays of the sun, he adjusted himself firmly over her. The peaks of her breasts poked through her thin shirt and grazed across his bare chest. He wanted to make love to her until they lay exhausted and unable to move.
He couldn’t help but laugh softly at the turn of events. He’d escaped to America to keep from getting married, only to find himself contemplating the ceremony and all its grandeur.
Again, his humor was ill timed. “Do you think this is funny, Edmund?”
He nodded. “In an ironic sort of way, yes.”
She shook her head. “God, sometimes you can be the most unromantic man I’ve ever met.”
“But you still love me.”
Her nose wrinkled in the dim light. “I’m re-thinking that revelation at the moment.”
“I won’t let you.”
He tried to kiss her, but she twisted away from him, his lips finding the delicate part of her earlobe. She squirmed as his tongue stroked over her velvety skin. She tasted sweet, like the dew on a spring flower.
“I want to take you away, to Stonebridge,” he whispered, posing the sobering question.
She turned back, squinting at him with such conflicting emotions. “To the resorts?”
“No. I have a manor that I purchased for holiday. It’s where we can be alone. No Will, no cameras, just us.”
He watched as her eyes changed color, her mind struggling with what her heart wanted.
“Please.” Edmund said, finding the art of begging a constant occupation when it came to her. For the first time, he’d sacrifice an ounce of dignity to share one night with her in his arms.
She didn’t say anything, nodding her head once to accept his offer. Then she smiled, wrapping his heart in the most luxurious warmth.
He kissed her before lifting her off and away from him. “You pack, and I’ll call to make some arrangements.” He then sent her a wink, showing more confidence than he felt that everything would work out between them. Then again, the nagging of a love-sick end tugged at the very core of him.
****
“You’re awfully quiet,” Edmund turned to say as Abby stared into the illumination of the high-beamed headlights.
“I’m a little nervous,” she confessed.
“What? To be with me?”
She laughed, until she realized he wasn’t smiling. “What if,” she posed, “we find we have nothing in common and after tomorrow morning, we want to kill each other?”
“Hmm,” he grunted, and said nothing else, his gaze staring straight ahead.
Baffled by his brute response, she turned and glared out the opposite window. The two-lane road banked around a rocky backdrop, a blanket of snow covering the highest peaks.
“What if…” she began again. Only this time, he didn’t let her finish.
“We fit?” he asked. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. A few moments later, he pulled off the road, coming to a stop before a deserted scenic overlook. As his headlights peered into the mountainous view, he brought up her hand to press firmly against his.
“How different are these hands?” He paused, allowing her to feel the warmth and tenderness of his touch. “One is larger, more powerful,” he paused, a smirk tugging at his lips, “yet capable of pressing flush against the other so that nothing, not even light, comes between them.”
Abby dared not move. “Oh.” She exhaled. “You really do know how to leave a girl breathless.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Edmund realized he needed to do things differently with Abby. As they pulled into Stonebridge, he glanced over at her, her face full of disbelief and wonder.
“Do you own this?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, glancing at the mansion, now aglow with numerous lights inside and out. It was a three-story timber frame masterpiece with a barreled tile roof and stone accents used in the French Riviera. There were a few cars parked outside. One belonged to a maid service, one to a chef he always trusted to drop what he was doing to meet him there, and one to the housekeeper he hired to run Stonebridge.
All of them stood in the doorway, the two women in matching lavender uniforms, waiting for his arrival, and he smiled.
“You even have servants,” Abby mumbled, more to herself than to him.
“Temporarily,” he emphasized, parking the car before the mahogany French doors.
Outside the night was chilly enough to need a small fire and dark enough to view every star as if it shone from only a few feet away.
As the two maids, Lonny and Tabitha, grabbed their bags and the housekeeper, Mrs. Shipley, led them into the foyer, he stood back to watch Abby. She had her head tilted back to admire the Murano glass chandelier.
He’d spared no expense on the furniture, decorating the home with everything from beige French antiques to maroon imperial luxuries. The fireplace stood as the most impressive feature with natural smoky stone extending the length of the wall.
“Lord Rushwood,” called the ironically lean chef from the door that led into the kitchen. “I have prepared some hors d’oeuvres for you and Miss Forester.”
“Thank you, Thomas.”
On a glass-topped coffee table, with beveled edges and a lower shelf of expensive brown marble, sat a chilling bottle of Brut Blanc de Blancs and a beautiful tray of salmon trout tartare with pressed caviar and tomatoes. Edmund pushed away the thought of never dining on these things once he set their wedding into motion. However, he’d have Abby—her marshmallow cereal, when she chose to eat it, and apple juice.
For now, as he remained immersed in his element, he poured them both a fluted glass, motioning for Abby to have a seat beside him. Her beauty never ceased to amaze him. Subtle and quiet, she had a way about her that charged his soul.
“So, this is the world you could never leave,” she said innocently, lifting an indulgent bite to her mouth. Her words made him pause, remembering the times he’d suggested he’d rather die than give all this up. He then glanced at her and understood how everything had flipped.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
Her eyes sparkled with satisfaction. He chuckled, admitting to himself that she’d have the same reaction to a plate of peanut butter crackers. He then watched as she drank two glasses of wine, her smile widening with each sip.
“Are you ready to get settled in?” he said, rising and reaching out his hand.
She hesitated to nod, and he wondered who was more nervous. Never had he planned an overnight excursion with anyone, or anyone he’d not been forced to entertain for the sake of ratings. Now, he understood her argument on spontaneity. With her, he wanted things to be perfect, and that meant some preparation.
She followed him up the sweeping mahogany banister with its diamond-shaped wrought iron spindles. At the top of the stairs, he turned down an open hallway and bypassed the first of four bedrooms, each with its own Jacuzzi tub and sitting room.
He led her through the second set of doors, where a crackling fire cast the room in a warm brilliance. It was decorated in cozy tans and browns with furniture dating back at least two hundred years.
He heard her gasp and then felt her hand drop from his. “Is…is this my room?” she asked.
“No. It’s our room.”
Her mouth opened in surprise. “I…oh.”
He thought he saw a flicker of apprehension, a flash of regret. “Is that all right?”
She nodded, and then began nibbling on her lower lip. “Yes,” she said, staring at the bed as if it might come to life and swallow her whole.
He eased in front of her. “We’ll go slowly, all right?”
She smiled up at him, her eyes blinking and glittering nervously.
“If you would like to freshen up, everything you need is through there.” He pointed to a set of white double doors leading to the master bathroom.
She moved slowly away, her behavior rattling him a bit. In his company, she’d grown quiet and shy. He wondered if the vastness of the room had intimidated her. Vowing to put her at ease, he started to unpack, now used to traveling with an iron to starch his own clothes and hang them up to his own liking.
As he waited for her to return to him, he shrugged out of his jacket and unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbow. So much time passed by, he wondered if she’d managed to get lost in the enormous loo. He drew close to the doors, wrapping the knuckle of his index finger against the hard wood.
“Abby, are you all right?”
****
Abby felt the thump of Edmund’s knock against her back. As much as her body ached to be with him, she didn’t know how to even admit the truth about her experiences or lack thereof. She laughed inwardly at Will’s shallow assessment of her. Talladega? Really? Then that would have meant she’d had more than her fair share of chances with men. That could not have been less true.
Between working in her father’s shop, his illness, and school, she just didn’t have time to go on any serious dates. Oh, she’d had crushes, but the guys were always emotionally unavailable and stopped calling after two dates when she hadn’t even let them get past second base. She had too much baggage, they’d whisper behind her back. So, there was an impromptu marriage proposal and an accidental sleepover, and neither one of them counted. She intentionally left Derek Crumwell out of the equation.
Unable to prolong the inevitable moment any longer, she opened the door and smacked straight into Edmund. She inhaled and glanced up at him. He was grinning down at her. “Are you that nervous?”
“A little,” she confessed, her heart pounding so fast she thought she might faint from the expectation of it all. “Edmund, this is all so lovely, the house, the food, the champagne—”
“But…” he said before she could.
“Would you be angry if we went back to Portland?”
He stared at her for a long time before nodding and leaving the room. She felt guilty and sick, knowing part of the reason she didn’t want to be here had nothing to do with the house or the food, or the champagne. She knew she and Edmund were taking their relationship to a place she’d never been before, a place he’d mentioned he never wanted to go.
Two silent hours later they pulled up in front of her shop, the sign on the door turned to Closed and the inside dark and shadowed.
“I’ll walk you up,” he said, his voice detached and low.
Abby tried to smile, but she felt her lip quiver instead. At the top of the stairs, she found her home just how she left it, her bed unmade and two dishes in the sink. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re angry.”
He plowed a hand through his light hair and shook his head. “No, I’m not angry. I’m…I’m…God, Abby. You just have no idea…” He clenched down on his last few words and turned away. His hands fisted at his sides, his shoulders rising and falling, fast and heavy.
She stepped toward him and slowly wrapped her arms around him. As much as she was unsure about him staying, she didn’t want him to go. Insecure and terrified, she laid her cheek against his back and the soft material of his sports jacket. With her heart thundering and her hands shaking, she lifted her fingers to the buttons on his shirt.
“Abby, don’t,” he said on a tormented exhale, bringing his hands up to stop her.
She didn’t listen, continuing to undress him. She fumbled with some uncertainty until his shirt lay open, exposing the smoothness of his chest against her timid exploration. He didn’t move or protest, standing rigid as she slipped the shirt and jacket from his shoulders and down past his arms.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against the flesh of his back, tasting the warmth of his clean skin. Then she dropped her fingers to unfasten his pants. This time, his hands clamped down hard over hers. She sucked in a breath as her palm pressed into the bulge of his arousal.
With his voice full of hoarse restraint, he gave her warning. “You have to know, I can’t promise I’ll be able to stop if you go any farther.”
She opened her eyes and pressed closer into him. “Good.”
He turned around so fast she lost her balance. Without another word, he lifted her up into his arms and laid her flat upon her futon mattress.
“I hate this bed,” he said with a crooked grin. Then, his mouth seized hers in a devouring and consuming kiss that made Abby dizzier than the night in the hotel. She felt his ravenous hunger, the ache to know what it was like to be with him, and only him, growing deep and stronger inside her.
She arched upward and he groaned, a beautiful, agonizing sound that sent euphoric ripples down her spine. With less than nimble fingers, her nervousness making it worse, she reached for the zipper on his pants. She didn’t have the experience of undressing a man, making it worse by the way he was driving her to delirium with this mouth.
Wanting nothing more than to know what it felt like with Edmund, in every intimate way possible, she tried to slide off what clothes he had left. Her amateurish attempt, however, drew a chuckle from deep in his throat.
“You could help me, you know,” she said, breathless and offended.
“Why? You’re doing an excellent job,” he said, his voice teasing as he worked at pulling away her clothes. She started to say something when he reclaimed her mouth.
Abby sighed against his tender and sweet lips, his care dissolving any reservations she had about this moment and the moments that would follow. His taste drugged her until she realized she’d stopped disrobing him and he had to pull her hand back to his boxer briefs.
“I thought…I was…doing an excellent job?” she asked him, when he’d abandoned her lips for her throat. Then, he lifted his head slightly to stare into her eyes. They were the brightest she’d ever seen them, more blue than green.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little coaxing,” he said, using his other hand to trace a tingling trail from her shoulder to one unbound breast.
“You’re…exquisite,” he murmured, dipping his head to a draw nipple into his hot mouth. Abby’s eyes squeezed shut to relish in the intense sensation of his tongue exploring and teasing, causing a wave of wondrous sensation to envelope her. She wondered if her touch could bring him as much pleasure and wrapped her hand around his thick and rigid shaft.
Edmund gasped and fisted his hands into the linen on Abby’s bed. His body trembled to make love to her, the urge almost driving him insane.
“God, how I’ve waited,” he said, his eyes squeezed shut, trying to concentrate on making this last longer than one minute. She deserved better than him, but he was, after all, a selfish bastard.
As Edmund’s thundering heartbeat drove into Abby’s palm, she panicked. “Edmund—”
His face softened over her. “Let me love you, Abby,” he said before his mouth slanted over hers.
Somewhere between the gentle persuasions of his tongue and the tender caress of his hands, he’d rendered her oblivious. By the time she’d recovered from his heavenly kisses, not a stitch of clothing separated them.
Then he was there, his fingers parting the warm folds of her sensitive flesh. She wrenched upward at the wondrous sensation, his velvety touch like nothing she’d ever imagined. She wanted to keep kissing him, but what he was doing
to her was too much. She turned her mouth to his neck, clinging to him and tasting the warm spiciness of his skin.
She felt pleasure, extraordinary, unexpected pleasure, with each tender flick of his thumb. Her breath heightened against his throat, her arms reaching around to hold tightly to him. The sensations lifted her higher as a shimmer of cooler air glanced over her heated skin.
Edmund’s body screamed for the same release Abby sought. Only, when her writhing grew stronger, and her breathing labored and shallow, he withdrew his hand.
“No!” She let out a whimpering cry.
“Patience,” he teased her, but his own voice sounded strained.
She bit down on her bottom lip, her nervous eagerness setting Edmund on the edge of his own desires. He’d waited so long for this moment, and he needed to do this right, especially knowing she had never been fully with another man. He touched her with longing, and God help him, a sense of ownership. The realization still astonished him, still left him shaking. While he wanted to drive deep inside her, he also wanted to make her ready.
He lowered his head to her breast, pulling one pale pink nipple into his mouth. Her back arched, her legs opening wider to the pleasure. He licked and teased the sweet peak to a puckered point, his hand lowering, his fingers feeling her point of entry.
“You’re so wet,” he said, massaging her delicately, drawing from her, again, a series of rising breaths. When she thought he was pulling away, her fingers wrapped around his wrist, holding his hand in place.
“No,” she begged.
With his free hand, he reached down for his wallet, taking out the condom he’d bought the night he met Abby. In his immature mind, he thought he could say a few words, seduce her into his bed, leave, and think of her on the seldom occasions his mind turned to sassy American women. Only, he never imagined being drawn so deep into her inconspicuous world. If love didn’t describe what he felt for Abby, he didn’t know what did.
“Do you need help?” she asked, her voice trembling.
He shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers as he lifted the wrapping to his teeth and tore it open, pleasing her with one hand and pulling on the condom with the other. When he was ready, he braced over her, searching her face for any signs of retreat. He saw nothing but want and desire and something he’d never seen before, pure, innocent love. Although he’d never let himself explore such an emotion, he loved her, too. How did this happen?
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