by Noelle Adams
It was Harrison.
He was dressed in casual trousers and a black T-shirt, and he looked windblown and masculine. Rugged. The coiled power in his presence had transformed into pure physicality.
Her body clenched at the sight of him.
She still wanted him. More now than ever.
It was a ridiculous reaction, since he’d insulted her and refused to trust her, so she shoved her desire back into a safe corner of her mind with her other silly romantic notions. She wasn’t naive enough to be swayed by such things.
She was about to thank him for his help yesterday when he demanded, “What are you doing out alone at this hour?”
Her shoulders hunched. “What do you think I’m doing? Lurking suspiciously in the shadows in the hopes of catching a stray gardener unaware.”
“And then?” he prompted, the corner of his mouth curling slightly.
She tried not to respond to his suppressed amusement but failed. “Then I’ll pounce, of course. Because that’s what I do.” She started to walk the path again, away from him, since she didn’t have any luck in remaining aloof.
“I suspected as much.” Harrison had been rubbing his horse absently, but now he took it by the reins and guided it behind him as he fell in step with her. “I’ve got to tell you, though, our head gardener has been with the estate for more than thirty years and is approaching seventy. He might not be up for any pouncing. There are plenty of younger ones who wouldn’t complain.”
The sexual innuendo was obvious in his tone, but his taunt didn’t seem nasty. Marietta didn’t bristle as much as she would have two days ago. “Well, that’s good to know. Of course, I occasionally lurk around stablemen.”
“We have plenty of them to choose from. As well as footmen, a few handymen, and two chauffeurs. Plus, a rather volatile French chef who once hit on the wife of the prime minister of Belgium.”
“Seriously? And he still works here?”
“Gordon took care of it. We didn’t tell my uncle.”
“Would he have fired him?”
“Undoubtedly. My uncle doesn’t tolerate impropriety of any kind among his staff.”
“Just his staff?” Marietta asked, noticing that Harrison’s gaze, which had seemed teasing, turned sober.
“Or his family.”
She didn’t reply. The only sound in the quiet morning was the clipping of the horse’s hooves and the birds chirping in the distance. “He holds you to high standards.”
Harrison glanced at her. “I’ve always been able to meet them.”
“But it must be difficult. Does he know we…we…in Monte Carlo?” She flushed, not because she was afraid to talk about sex but because it brought up unsettling memories.
“He hasn’t mentioned it, but he’s not a stupid man.”
“And he doesn’t think that’s improper?”
Harrison stopped walking and regarded her. “I assume he knows I occasionally have sex. Or did you think I live like a monk out of respect for my uncle’s sense of decorum?”
Her mouth wobbled at his sarcasm. “That might be taking family loyalty too far.”
“I should say so.”
She smothered a giggle.
His eyes softened, and her breath hitched at the expression. She’d thought he might kiss her last night, and now again—
He cleared his throat and resumed walking.
She couldn’t help but feel disappointed, even though she knew how irrational it was. She should still be angry with him, but she wasn’t. Not much, anyway.
He didn’t appear so angry with her, either.
“There’s a secret garden on the estate. Have you found it yet?”
“No,” she said, perking up at the question. “Where is it?”
He gestured toward the wooded park. “I’ll show you.”
They walked in silence until he asked, “How are you feeling?”
Her lips parted in surprise. She was feeling a lot of things, but none she was willing to share with Harrison.
“After yesterday, I mean. The riding.”
“I’m fine. A little sore. That’s why I was taking the walk, actually. Oh, is that a wall to the garden?”
He nodded. “It’s mostly hidden by the trees. The door’s on the other side.”
“Locked with a key?”
“Of course.”
They strolled the length of the wall until something on the opposite side of the path caught her eye. “Oh, look at that arbor!”
Like the most charming features of the Damon gardens, the arbor was positioned unexpectedly, to be stumbled upon without warning. Climbing flowers and vines wound through the intricately carved trellis, with colorful blooms and green leaves spilling over the sculpted bench beneath it. Marietta had the silly urge to run over and sit on the bench.
Instead, she hurried over to examine it more closely. “I have a little arbor in my garden at home, although it’s not as pretty as this.” She raised her hand idly to stroke one of the blooms and realized with a thud of her heart they were sweet peas.
Her hand trembled on the delicate pink petals.
“You’re allowed to pick the flowers if you want,” Harrison said. “That’s not one of my uncle’s improprieties.”
She smiled faintly and picked one, mostly for something to do. She wondered if he even remembered he’d given her the flower in the hotel room in Monte Carlo.
To not make it all about sweet peas, she leaned over and broke off an iris from a nearby bed.
“Evidently, irises symbolize good news. Did you know that?”
“No. I’m glad I picked it, then, since I could always use some good news.”
Gazing down at the purple bloom, she wondered if she should be interacting with Harrison so pleasantly.
He was a Damon.
She’d hated the Damons since she was ten years old. They took what they wanted whenever they wanted it. Did what was best for the Damons at the expense of everyone else.
She wished Harrison weren’t quite so appealing. Sometimes.
He’d been nice to her yesterday, when her legs hadn’t functioned and it felt like her nightmares might come true. She wasn’t sure what she would have done had he not been there to help her walk and then reassure her.
She brought up the sweet pea to her nose. “What do sweet peas mean?”
He paused before he answered. “Good-bye.”
With a sigh, she sat on the bench under the arbor, setting the two flowers beside her. She wasn’t going to hold on to either of them, but she couldn’t bring herself to drop them on the ground.
Harrison had let go of his horse’s reins, but the animal still stood obediently on the path, flicking its tail and occasionally huffing. When Marietta shifted her eyes from the horse back to Harrison, she saw he was peering at her, studying her, as if trying to figure her out.
“You can’t read my mind just by staring at me,” she snapped.
He raised his eyebrows.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. Then something occurred to her. “Wait, how did you know about the flowers?”
“What?”
“The flowers. How did you know what they symbolize?”
Harrison looked self-conscious.
She choked on a burst of amusement. “I never would have guessed it. Are you some kind of closet fanatic about the language of flowers? Or did you have a secret ambition to be a florist as a child?”
His self-consciousness faded into warmth, and he replied dryly. “You’d be surprised by the random knowledge you acquire when you’re raised in this particular household. Floriography is just one of my esoteric areas of expertise.”
She laughed at his lofty choice of words. When she subsided into soft giggles, she realized he was gazing at her again.
This time, though, his eyes were soft, appreciative, almost tender.
Her heartbeat accelerated and matching emotions washed over her. To recover her wits, she said, somewhat stupidly, “You’re staring at me again.”
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“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He’d said that to her before, when they were in bed together, just before he’d slid inside her. For a moment, the recollection was so powerful, visceral, her body flushed hot. She couldn’t seem to look away from his eyes. She adored the chocolate brown color of them.
“You were staring.” She stood without thinking and ended up a few inches away from him.
“We’ll have to disagree on that point.” His voice had grown thicker, deliciously textured.
She swayed toward him helplessly, drawn by the heat in his gaze. “We seem to disagree about a lot of things.”
He lifted his hand and tangled his fingers in her hair, tilting her head up more fully toward his. “I’m invariably reasonable,” he murmured. “I can’t imagine why anyone would disagree with me.”
She would have laughed, but he kissed her. Then she was kissing him back.
Her body melted in his embrace, and her arms twined around his neck. His mouth was soft at first, almost hesitant, but as she responded, he grew more urgent. His tongue slid along the inside of her lips, teasing delicious nerve endings, until she opened for him and he hungrily deepened the kiss.
She moaned into his mouth, moving one hand up to his head, loving the texture of his thick hair and the curve of his skull beneath her palm. Either one or both of them changed their positions, because she ended up pressed against the wall of the secret garden, the cool stone hard against the ridges of her spine.
His free hand stroked down her side until he cupped her bottom. He lifted one of her thighs the way he had in the nightclub so he could push her pelvis into his.
The pressure of arousal tightened between her legs, achingly sweet, as she ground against him.
The embrace turned heated so fast. She jerked her lips from the kiss and gasped as his mouth covered the delicate skin of her throat, sucking on her throbbing pulse.
“Oh God,” she muttered, rubbing shamelessly against the hardening bulge in his pants, her whole body pulsing with desire. “Oh God.”
He grunted and raised his head to kiss her again, his mouth moving against hers with rough entitlement, his hand cradling her head away from the wall.
He was intensity, passion, force. And she wanted it, responded in kind, clawed her fingernails into the back of his neck.
They were still kissing when his hand slipped beneath the waistband of her yoga pants.
She whimpered into the kiss when his fingers found her clit. He started to rub in tight circles, and her knees buckled. She would have fallen had she not been pressed between his body and the wall.
Sensations spiraled fast and hard. She clung to his strong shoulders, her muscles tightening around the building pleasure. His shirt muffled her wordless gasps. She could feel him watching her lose control.
Marietta came hard, clutching him so tightly she thought she might strangle him.
She moaned into his shirt as her body relaxed, saturated with deep satisfaction. Wanting to return the favor, she slid her hand down to the front of his trousers. He was very hard. She palmed him eagerly.
“Harry,” she breathed, overwhelmed with a shameless claim to this extraordinary man.
He groaned helplessly at her touch.
Irrationally, the uninhibited sound sent a slice of frigid terror through her.
The unwelcome feel of the world closing in darkened her vision—the way she always felt when she crossed the boundaries of what was safe.
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
She shoved him away and stumbled several steps from the wall, desperate to give herself space to suck in air. She leaned over, her hands on her knees, fighting for each painful inhalation.
“What the hell—” The small, coherent part of her mind that still worked processed that Harrison looked like he’d been sucker-punched—flushed, panting, tense, and utterly baffled. He shook off his disorientation and rushed over. “What happened? Are you all right?”
She jerked away when he extended an arm. “No,” she gasped, “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me!” She needed safety. She needed space. She needed air.
He froze, his eyes searching her warily. “I thought you were— I thought you wanted it. I would have stopped if you’d said so. I swear I never would have forced you.”
She was horrified by what he thought but too incoherent to clarify matters. She turned from him and struggled to breathe.
“Marietta—”
“Don’t talk to me.” If he kept talking to her in that hoarse, bewildered way, she would lose it completely.
She wasn’t going to sob in front of him. She just wasn’t. She’d already humiliated herself enough with this ludicrous panic attack.
She hated it. Hated it. That she couldn’t control this. That she wasn’t strong enough to just get over it.
It was bad enough to have been cursed with an intense aversion to beer, but that was manageable. There was no justification for her weakness in the last two years, panicking every time her life felt less safe.
She’d been okay when she’d had sex with Harrison last week, but that had been just for the night, with no lasting consequences.
This—just now—felt different.
It was a long time—or maybe just felt like a long time—before Harrison said, “I’m not going to touch you again. And I won’t talk to you if I don’t have to. But I’m not going to leave until I know you’re all right.”
Her face crumpled, and she shook with a couple of suppressed sobs, the inevitable aftermath of the subsiding panic. She was a pitiful wreck who couldn’t make out with a man without a breakdown. Too mortified to even look at him, she managed to say, “I’m all right.”
“You don’t look all right.”
Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone to her humiliation? She composed her face and turned around to glare at him. “I said I was all right. What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want an explanation.” He stood stiffly, and his face was tense with what looked like suspicion.
“I don’t owe you an explanation. Or did you want me to apologize for not spreading my legs for you in the middle of the garden? You told me I wouldn’t get you into bed again, remember? What did you expect? Or do Damons think women only exist for them to screw?”
She regretted the words as soon as she spoke them. They were too crude and ugly. They weren’t like her at all.
Why wouldn’t Harrison just leave her alone?
He stiffened even more, and something closed in his expression. “This was a tease, then?”
Of course he would believe that. That she’d work a man up and leave him unsatisfied just for fun. “You can think what you want. As long as you go away.”
He stared at her a few more seconds. Then he trudged to his horse, swung his leg over the saddle, and rode away.
Marietta plopped on the bench under the arbor and cried.
…
Harrison worked most of the day in his office, since he wasn’t in a mood to talk to people.
He never should have kissed Marietta that morning, much less let it spiral out of control. He wasn’t a horny adolescent, and he shouldn’t have acted that way. He shouldn’t brood about her behavior. He shouldn’t play out various scenarios, ranging from her believing him a monster who took a woman by force to the possibility she’d orchestrated the whole thing to manipulate him.
He couldn’t avoid her completely while she was a guest in their home, but he could avoid being alone with her.
When his uncle requested his presence for tea, Harrison reluctantly accepted. It was a mistake, though. Tea was fine—just superficial conversation. Then, as they rose to leave, his uncle said, “Harrison, Ms. Edwards said earlier that she’s never been to see the Dover cliffs. Would you mind taking her this afternoon?”
Marietta’s flustered response told him she’d made a random comment and hadn’t expected an excursion. Whet
her his uncle’s motive was an ill-founded matchmaking attempt or subtle cruelty, however, Harrison didn’t know.
He had to comply, though. He was troubled by how scared she’d been of him that morning. Assuming it wasn’t an act, he wouldn’t compound her impression with rudeness.
“I’m sorry,” Marietta said as they got in the car. Her face twisted uncomfortably. “I had no idea he was going to suggest this. You really don’t have to take me. We can say I wasn’t feeling well or something.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s no problem at all.”
He would rather be in his office—or anywhere else in the world—than in a car with Marietta today.
She didn’t seem angry with him anymore, and surely she wouldn’t have agreed to go if she feared he might hurt her, no matter how terrified she’d acted that morning. If she wanted to manipulate him, it was definitely working. He was completely unsettled and could think of almost nothing but her.
He was sure she’d wanted to kiss him this morning. She’d responded so passionately, so eagerly. Even now, he couldn’t believe her desire for him wasn’t real. So why the hell had she pushed him away in terror and then acted like he was some sort of brute?
Neither of them said a word as he drove the narrow road that led to the motorway. Shortly after he pulled onto it and picked up speed, the windshield misted with a light rain.
He wanted to get to Dover as quickly as he could, but Marietta got tenser and tenser, sitting ramrod straight and holding the armrest with a ruthless grip. Her face emptied of color. There was no way she could have faked it.
Harrison eased off the accelerator. The car accident had happened in the rain. Marietta’s sister had died. She’d been paralyzed. He didn’t know what was true about her now, but no one could argue with what had happened to her then. He couldn’t begin to imagine the trauma she’d experienced that day, and he wouldn’t make it worse by driving too fast.
It frustrated him that it still affected her so deeply. Why the hell hadn’t her grandfather gotten her counseling? Surely something could have been done in the last fifteen years to help.
She didn’t say a word—not a complaint or any bossing about his driving, as she’d done yesterday. When one car cut him off, she shrunk into the corner of her seat with a hissing inhalation.