by Lara Temple
‘Chrissie, touch me. I need you to touch me.’
As if she had been waiting for his hoarse demand, her fingers dragged up his shirt, spread under it and pressed into the muscles of his back, then slid forward to spread out over his abdomen and upwards. With a little muted cry she drew back suddenly and for a panicked moment he thought she was stopping, but she reached out, just grazing the pale skin of his scar. His pulse was slamming through his body, but outwardly he froze, as if a deer had stumbled into the clearing and mustn’t be frightened.
‘Alex...’ It was just a whisper, full of wonder and worry, and it cleaved through him. When she pressed her palm against that ragged remnant of his wound as gently as a breeze, a wave of heat seared through him, driving into his arousal with all the force of a spear splitting an iron shield. She must have felt that surge against her thigh because she shifted, her hips rising, accommodating him.
‘Chrissie.’ His voice was a rumble of fury and need. For days he had struggled not to say her name, but it was like an undeniable itch. It rushed through him, sultry, subterranean, tearing him from his moorings as it went.
‘Christina...’ That was almost worse. He couldn’t deal with either of them at the moment. ‘Oh, hell, Chrissie. We either stop now or not at all.’
His hand was saying something completely different, shaping the swell of her thigh, sliding under the soft muslin undergarments. He drew it back, but it rebelled, sliding up the curve of her waist and pausing just below her lush breasts. He might still have managed to draw back if she hadn’t made that sound again, the little gasp and moan, shifting towards him so that his hand was somehow shaping itself to her breast. She caught it, pressing it to her.
‘Then not at all,’ she gasped. ‘You owe me. I saved your life and you owe me this. I know you will be careful, but this I take with me.’
She shuddered, the fingers of her other hand breaching the waist of his buckskins, digging into the rise of his buttocks as she drew her hips against his, the pressure a welcome agony against his arousal. He abandoned the fiction of control and stripped them both of what remained of their clothing until she was as bare as his dream of the unveiled Venus, but far lovelier, her skin a warm pearl sheen against the tapestry of rumpled clothes beneath them and her hair a dark mass of tousled brown catching the warmth of the sinking sun.
This you will take with you.
He would pleasure her until her screams of joy could be heard above the treetops.
He eased her back, mapping out her defeat, dismantling her defences and control inch by delicious inch, using every skill at his disposal. His mouth and hands and body found every place of pleasure, the satiny slimness of her ankles, the beautiful roundness of her backside, the twin dimples above it, all the way up to the sweet warmth of her neck. He explored and plundered until she was writhing beneath him, her nails biting into his back as her hips ground against his, her eyes a deep blue, begging. Then he slid his fingers through the dark curls to the damp heat of her arousal, finding its core and teasing and taunting until he knew he held her at the very edge of annihilation.
‘Chrissie. Tell me you want this. Now.’
He could barely talk, his whole body poised as before a blow, but he had to be certain.
‘Alex. I want you. I need you.’ She arched back, moving against his fingers, her own fingers digging deep and painful into his back as she moaned, driving him wild.
He didn’t wait for more. Already he could feel the waves of her pleasure begin to break and he wanted them to break over him. He wanted to go slowly, but he couldn’t, he pushed in, greedy to feel her heat and ride the crash of pleasure with her. She gave a cry of pain and he froze, panting for breath and control, but then her whole body released on a very different cry, shuddering and rising against him and he abandoned thought and conscience and anything but the sensation of being inside her, part of her, barely clinging to the knowledge that he had promised to keep her safe. As he drove into her, through the receding waves of her orgasm, he almost gave in and broke his word, but even as the agony of holding back plummeted towards pleasure he managed to pull out, shattering even at the friction of that withdrawal. Everything but the pliant body beneath him and the knowledge that he had branded her ceased to exist.
* * *
He had no idea how much time had passed, but when he opened his eyes he could tell by the fall of the shadows it was late afternoon. Soon their absence would be noted and someone would come looking for them, but he didn’t want to move. To move would mean to dislodge the soft, warm weight of her body, half-stretched out on him and half-burrowed against his side. To move would be to face reality. He closed his eyes and breathed, gathering his resolve. His body was still humming with fierce satisfaction which just proved how frail men were, to allow such a disconnect between rationality and the raw hunger of physical needs.
He knew she was awake but he could think of nothing sensible to say, or of anything sensible at all. Everything had happened so fast, but it also felt they had been gone a lifetime. Everything had changed from the moment they had entered the forest and it was his fault. He should have known never to bring Chrissie here.
He had known. Another sign of precisely how dangerous she was to him that she could make him act against all reason and good sense and not even realise what he was doing. He had brought her to a place he knew they would never be interrupted. What had he expected to happen? He had walked into a trap of his own making and he didn’t know whether he was furious at himself or relieved that the choice had been taken away from him.
‘You understand what this means, don’t you, Chrissie?’ he said at last, brushing his hand down the indentation of her spine. ‘When we return to the Hall I will speak with King Darius and make arrangements for a special licence. I doubt he and the Princess will be able to delay their departure to wait for the ceremony, but perhaps once my duties at the Congress of Verona are over we can visit them on Illiakos for—’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she interrupted, pushing away from him and dragging her chemise to her. Her eyes had widened into dark-blue discs of sea turning to storm. ‘We said... I told you I expected nothing from you...’
He sat up as well, taking the chemise from her fumbling hands and helping her dress before he reached for his clothes.
‘Words are one thing, actions are another, Christina. I took your virginity...’
‘You didn’t take anything. I gave it to you!’
‘So you did, no strings attached. I believe you really mean it, but that is merely proof of how naïve you are. Aside from everything else what do you think will happen if King Darius were to hear of this? Do you honestly think he will still consider you a suitable companion for his daughter?’
‘There is no reason for him to hear. Unless you tell him.’
His jaw clenched.
‘So that is it? You have had your fun and now it is back to your duties?’
Hurt and anger chased away the remnants of languor and confusion in her eyes, but before they could spill over he reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders, anchoring them both to the new physical reality between them.
‘This is all immaterial. You are going to marry me. It is as simple as that.’
‘Simple.’ She laughed and brushed her hand over her eyes as she stepped back from his hands. ‘You should have stopped me if that is what you thought.’
I didn’t think anything but that I wanted you and I couldn’t have stopped if the whole forest had been on fire. That’s how far I’ve fallen.
He didn’t say the words. She looked calm now, which made no sense. Surely a young woman who had just been deflowered on the forest floor... On the forest floor, for heaven’s sake. He hadn’t even had the self-control or decency to offer her a bed.
She had told him what she wanted—just like the English brought back a statue or a painting
from Italy or Greece. This was to be her souvenir, something to add to her reading about exotic travels and those agony advertisements while she sank back into her life. Nothing that was worth risking her safety for. She was worse than Vera—at least Vera had expected something from him, everything. Everything he was offering Chrissie. No, Christina. Chrissie was a fiction of his own making.
‘Come, we need to return before they come looking for us. We will discuss this later.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but he took her hand and pulled her along the path down towards the fields and the waiting horses. He didn’t want to hear more sensible reasoning right now. He just wanted quiet so all the crashing and conflicting voices in his head could settle back into their respective corners and he could think.
Not that there was anything to think about. The deed was done.
* * *
Christina settled into the saddle and arranged her skirts before turning her horse towards the Hall. Her body was still shaking, half in remembered pleasure and half in shock that it had happened, that she had instigated the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her. She wished they could have stayed there, lingered in those amazing sensations of pleasure and being close and cared for by someone who listened to her body and her needs and answered them, someone who at least for those moments showed her just how much he wanted her.
She wasn’t ready for the reckoning; for the cold purposeful man who was telling her he was willing to pay the price for their mistake. How had it never occurred to her he would feel duty bound to offer her marriage? She had just presumed the difference in their situations was so extreme that it wasn’t even a consideration. He had called her naïve and she hoped it was just naïveté that had brought this blindness—perhaps deep inside her she had planned to tie him to her?
She glanced at the man riding beside her. This was Lord Alexander Stanton, the diplomat she had watched conduct the negotiations with the ease of a master driver, hardly even needing the whip and never tangling his reins. She searched his profile for some sign that she was allowed to be weak and take something for herself, but there was no hint of hidden clockworks, no pain and certainly no need.
He must hate her now, but himself even more. She knew what he was thinking—that he had allowed the Sinclair to win again and the Stanton would pay the price and marry her in penance just as he had paid penance over Vera by changing his whole life to pursue duty over inclination. She would be just like his mother’s portrait on the wall. Another reminder of his weakness. Virtue might be hard, but the alternative came at a price. He was not a man who carried debts.
She tightened her hands on the reins to stop the shaking. She wanted it so much, to stay with him, that it surely must be wrong, this need to turn her back on Ari and stay with the man she loved even though she knew it was wrong for him. She wanted it so much she felt ill with it, her body losing the pleasant hazy sensation that had followed their lovemaking and filling with a roiling queasy heat heightened by the afternoon sun pinching at her nape as they crossed the fields. He had been right about her, there was a volcano or an avalanche or another natural disaster barely suppressed inside her.
She was glad he wasn’t speaking. If he said anything now she didn’t know what might come out of her. Nothing good. Something that would damage them even more than she had already...
I know what I did was terribly wrong, that you must think I have ruined your life. That you have allowed a mixture of gratitude and lust to force you down a path you have tried so hard to renounce and now you will be forced to marry a woman past her first youth with no looks and no prospects and no family, who does nothing but get in your way all the time and has now thoroughly tripped you.
I am thoroughly, utterly selfish and I can’t help it, all I wish is to be with you. I want you to pick holes in my dignity and remind me I’m alive for myself as well, I want you to show me things that open the world to me. I want you to make me stretch my mind and body to their fullest extent. I want the way you make me feel safe when my world is shaking, even the way you shake my very foundations and drag me into unknown territories. I want you to touch me the way you did and shatter me from the inside out and never stop.
But it isn’t all selfish. It isn’t. I want to make you happy and ease that anger and need and make you see how beautiful you are and how right. That there isn’t any need for your battles because what you call Sinclair and Stanton are just parts of the same amazing man. They don’t matter, but you do. I want to make you smile and hold your hand. I want to be your home.
I love you, Alex.
I never meant to cause harm.
The words danced through her, a whole universe of wants, trying to force their way out, but she remained as silent as he. There was nothing that could be said to make this right. He had been correct to say that words are one thing, actions are another. Now she must think how she was going to fix this before she hurt someone. Someone other than herself. There was really only one action she could take and that was to stand as firm as any model of Stanton rectitude. She refused to ruin his life any more than she already had.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Everything is ready, my lord. The carriages are loaded and waiting on the drive. Lady Albinia took the King and Princess and Miss James earlier to say goodbye to the vicar and Mrs Dunston, but they should return soon if they are to reach Southampton in time for the evening tide.’
Alex rose from his desk, moving towards the window and back.
In an hour the Hall would finally be empty of guests. Everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks would be part of the past—another chapter in his life and definitely not one of the best.
It wasn’t quite done yet, he reminded himself. By pleading a headache to avoid coming down to dinner the previous night it was clear Christina was signalling that what occurred in the forest would remain between them. He had no reason to feel surprise or resentment. He should be applauding the way she embraced his advice to take what she wanted. She would probably prefer to avoid any confrontation at all, but he wouldn’t let her take that cowardly path. If she wanted to send him to the devil, she would have to tell him to his face.
‘Have Thunder brought round, please, Watkins.’
* * *
He spotted the Stanton landaulet outside the church gates before he reached the vicarage.
‘Where are they, Henry?’ he asked the groom who nodded towards the church.
‘Inside with Mr Dunston, my lord.’
‘Here, keep an eye on Thunder.’ He tossed the reins to the groom and marched towards the church. Perhaps in the cool sanctity of the structure he had known since infancy it would finally be clear he had merely been suffering from temporary instability of the mind. Perhaps seeing her there, in the church where he would one day put the seal on the next phase of the Stanton legacy, would break the spell that was clouding his judgement and convince him he should be grateful for the reprieve she was offering.
He opened the door, the screech of hinges finding an echo in the grind of pain in his chest and sending a flock of sparrows fluttering upwards on to the beams above the nave, their wings filtering the light and making shadows dance on the stone floor.
‘Oh, how lovely. Look at the birds!’ Ariadne exclaimed and Mr Dunston, the vicar, smiled apologetically.
‘There have been sparrows here for as long as I can remember, I’m afraid.’
For as long as Alex could remember as well. His father had been convinced it was Alex’s fault, which it might very well be. Every Sunday he smuggled crumbs in his pockets, scattering them surreptitiously and waiting for the sparrows to appear and then at least he had something to watch during the interminable sermons. There had been a logic to the way the fragile birds approached and fought over the crumbs, a pecking order he found fascinating. When his father finally caught him in the act of sprinkling the dry bread up
the aisle and he tried to explain his fascination, he had earned himself a lecture on proper occupations for the present Lord Stanton and the next Marquess of Wentworth.
Then as now.
Currently the proper occupation was to wait with as much grace as he could muster until Mr Dunston finished his lecture on the history of the chapel, its architecture and the rich history it shared with the noble Stanton family that had come to the valley some four hundred years ago. Alex was only too aware of that history, good and bad. He had certainly done his best to atone for the Sinclair contribution. He glanced about the church as the King and Princess obediently followed the sweep of the vicar’s arm as he indicated the Gothic masonry above the apse.
‘Where is Miss James?’
Mr Dunston stopped mid-sentence and everyone turned to him. Hell, he was losing his finesse. Thankfully the Princess answered matter of factly.
‘She and Mrs Dunston were discussing herbs and I believe they went to inspect some plant named after a saint.’
Mr Dunston’s lines face crinkled in a smile.
‘Mrs Dunston is very fond of her garden. I’m afraid if she has found a kindred spirit, your Miss James will be a while. Shall I fetch her?’
‘No, not yet. When you are done here.’
‘Very well. As I was saying, after Cromwell...’
Alex crossed his arms and ignored the urge to head out to the vicarage. Finally it was over and everyone filed out towards the landaulet.
‘Shall I rescue that young woman from my wife’s toils, Lady Albinia?’ Mr Dunston suggested.
‘We shall drive by and collect her ourselves, Mr Dunston. The carriages are no doubt awaiting us,’ the King replied and the vehicle pulled out of the churchyard, the rasp and creak of wheels and clatter of hoofs fading away. Now it was quiet, just the music of a late English summer, insects buzzing above the wisp of breeze and below the chirping of the birds. Alex approached Thunder, but stopped at the familiar rush of flapping sparrows and turned back towards the church porch.