by Jenesi Ash
“Your name?”
“Emmy,” she told him, using the name her father had called her when she was a small child. He cocked his head to the side and studied her with his blue-green eyes.
“I am Adrian, Emmy.”
She shuddered at the intimacy of hearing his voice murmur her name; she wished she possessed the strength to say his aloud, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
“Who are you, Emmy?”
“No one,” she replied, savoring the gentle touch of his fingers running along the back of her hand.
How many nights had she dreamed of this, his touch, his large warm hands caressing her? So many nights. So many long, cold—empty—nights.
“Do you come here to write?” he asked. “I’ve seen you with pen and book.”
“No.”
“An artist, then? You study the statuary as if you were a connoisseur.”
“I am just a woman.”
“Not just. If you were just any sort of female I would not be here. I would not have come every week for over a month just to see you and watch you from afar. No, not just any woman, Emmy.”
“I…I must leave,” she stuttered, pulling away from him, fearing her weakness. It frightened her, this unbridled response to him. It terrified her to know it was not only her body responding to this man, but her mind, her heart—her soul.
“Don’t run, Emmy. We have both waited for this moment.”
“I…I can’t.”
“Next week you will be here. You won’t run and never come back to me?”
When she did not immediately answer, he brought her chest up to his and held her close. Her body absorbed the heat radiating from his broad chest, chasing away the dampness of the morning. “You will promise me now, that next week you will be here. You have to return, Emmy, because I have to see you. I have to.”
Her heart soared upon hearing his low, fervent words. Dazed, Amelia nodded, unable to do anything else but clasp his words to her breast and hold them tight. One more week, she told herself, just once more, and then she would never again return to Highgate.
CHAPTER TWO
FOG HOVERED ABOVE THE WET GRASS, SWIRLING until it wrapped itself around her body like a shroud. The light from the sun, struggling to break free of the black clouds that hung low overhead, cast her in an incandescent glow that made her appear more ghostly spectre than woman.
As if in a trance, Adrian pushed open the black-and-gilt iron gate. It protested on its hinges, but with a scrape along the fieldstone path, the gate swung open. He stepped into the cemetery, his feet carrying him over to Emmy.
The mist grew thicker, engulfing her so he nearly lost sight of her in the gloomy cocoon of fog. But then a cloud parted, revealing her as she sat on the bench, her head lowered, the long, black veil billowing softly in the crisp spring breeze.
She was holding a book and he saw that her hands were bare. His gut reacted to the sight of those small white hands. It was strange that such a simple thing should arouse him so.
As he neared her, his gaze remained focused on her delicate, pale hands; his mind filled with images of her palms sliding along his chest and traversing over his belly. Three little brown freckles lay enticingly between her thumb and index finger, spaced far enough apart so that he could kiss each one. He wanted to fall to his knees and clutch her hand to his mouth, kissing the freckles then stroking his tongue along each one, wetting her hand for the easy glide along his skin. He imagined that hand—her left hand—with its freckles, sliding up his shaft. He wanted to feel her fingers stroking him, soothing his flesh that burned. It had been too long since he enjoyed the simple pleasure of touching—of being touched.
He stood beside her, looking down at her bent head, which was covered with her plain bonnet. “I despise the dawn. I loathe it with a passion. It is only the thought of meeting you that draws me out of my bed to brave the morning light.”
She raised her head and studied him from behind her veil. “I adore the morn. It is a time of peace and tranquility. A part of the day for quiet reflection and memories. It is truly the only time that is entirely mine.”
What drove her here? Was she grieving for a fiancé? A lover? Had she been meeting someone else here all this time? The thought tore him apart and he was amazed at how damned jealous he felt. She was his….
“Walk with me?” he asked, offering her his arm while fighting to contain the riotous emotions inside him. He would not think of other men, would not imagine her waiting here in this secluded spot for any man other than him.
She stopped them before a weathered statue of a woman kneeling, her stone hands cupped before her in supplication. The statue was garbed in a long, flowing robe while a veil shielded her features.
“This one is my favourite.”
He felt those words, said in Emmy’s quiet voice. He felt that touch as he watched her hand, slight and freckled, skate down the length of the wind-worn sculpture. He was entranced by that hand gliding over the shoulder and waist of the statue. It was as if he could feel that same hand caressing his naked flesh. And he burned. Christ, every inch of his flesh grew hot as he imagined Emmy’s white little fingers trailing along his body.
Touch me that way, he wanted to say. Look at me that way. But he kept silent, and instead allowed himself to become mesmerized by the sight of Emmy’s gentle hands and imagining her soothing touch roaming along his aching, lonely body.
“How forlorn she looks residing over this tangled patch of overgrown shrubbery and brambles. It is as though she has been utterly abandoned—sentenced to years of loneliness until she crumbles to dust. No one will remember her and her presence here. No one but me.”
Reaching for Emmy’s hand, he covered it with his, watching with a sense of power how his large hand engulfed her little one. Never had his body been so hard with anticipation, with passion and simple seduction. Never had he felt a more visceral connection to a woman. It was more than lust that drew him to her.
“From the moment I first glimpsed her through the brush she captured my heart. She has been left all alone, abandoned to this beautiful but lonely spot.”
Had Emmy been abandoned? Left alone in the world by a husband taken too soon, or a man who no longer cared for her? He experienced a mad, almost desperate urge to ask her, but then she spoke, her voice so quiet and without artifice.
“It is her face, I think, that draws me. It is veiled and concealed from us, yet one can imagine what she looks like beneath the veil and her crown of blossoms.”
He stepped closer to her so that his coat caressed her cloak and the toe of his boots touched the tips of her half boots. “What is the purpose of the veil, do you think?”
“I know little of art.” She smiled tremulously and lowered her head, as if she were ashamed of that admission. He tipped her face up and brushed the pad of his thumb along her cheek as he looked through the lace to the blue of her eyes.
“You needn’t know anything of art to appreciate it, Emmy. You only need to feel it and experience the emotion the work gives you.”
“Perhaps the sculptor thought her too beautiful to be standing in such a sorrowful place. Perhaps the veil is there so we do not see her lack of beauty, so that we look beyond the physical and into the heart of her, so that we may take the time to know her as something more than a physical beauty. What do you see in her?”
“Sadness. Loneliness. Need.” He was not looking at the statue, but at Emmy, her shrouded face showing those very same things. “She needs to be understood and loved by a man who would protect her. A man who could pleasure her. A man who would guard her secrets and not allow her to crumble to dust.”
A faint smile broke from her lips and she lowered her head to study her hands, which were clasped before her. He tipped her chin up once again, wishing he could lift the veil from her face to see just how beautiful Emmy truly was. For he knew she was.
She had eyes a man could drown in. Lips made to be kissed for hours and designed to provide i
mmense pleasure to a man. Her skin was the sort men wanted to touch over and over, and each time he would marvel at the softness, the suppleness, the astonishing purity of it.
She looked at the statue once again. “‘Because thou has the power and own’st the grace to look through and behind this mask of me, and behold my soul’s true face.’ The words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
He pressed closer, felt her sway ever so slightly into him. He wanted to touch her. To feel her beneath his hands before she melted into the gray fog, leaving him alone, frustrated, yearning to see her once again.
“Emmy, you cannot know what you do to me with your honesty. It empowers me,” he said, unable to control his thoughts. “I can’t explain it. You give me such strength. Somehow you have been able to reach deep within me and touch the man. It is more than a physical attraction between us. It is something I have never before experienced. Something powerful and beautiful—”
“Shhh, don’t say it,” she begged, pressing her cold fingertips atop his lips. “Words are so very difficult to take back and forget. Memories fade with time, but words never do. They linger in our minds, our hearts, haunting us. Right now, silence and memories would serve us much better.”
“What I feel right now defies words, Emmy. I have never felt so vehemently about anything as I do about you.” She swayed again and he gripped her arms, holding her tight.
“You must release me,” she said in a breathless sob. “You must. You don’t understand. I am not who you think I am.”
“Are you a widow, lonely for your husband? A scorned woman, searching for a man to make it right? Tell me who you are, Emmy. I want to know. I must know.”
“I am nobody.”
“No, you are not. When I close my eyes all I can see is you. Even now I can smell you, almost taste you…Christ, how I want you, Emmy.”
Amelia allowed herself to sag against the hard breadth of Adrian’s chest. The inner struggling, the war waging so deep inside her was almost over. Today she would go against everything she had ever believed—would toss aside every fear she had ever clung to. Today, she would allow Adrian to take her on a journey he had begun and only he could complete.
Only Adrian made her feel this way; like a woman in every sense of the word. In this little copse she was nearly his equal in mind and beauty. In station and wealth. Here in this little spot she was simply Emmy, and he Adrian. Nothing of their lives outside of this spot intruded.
Droplets of cold rain began to fall from the sky and Adrian reached for her hand, pulling her so that she was running behind him as he steered them toward the secluded alcove, where there was a roof of carved stones and pillars that resembled obelisks. They would be dry. It would be dark. And they would be utterly alone as the rain fell down around them.
CHAPTER THREE
CATCHING HER AROUND THE WAIST, ADRIAN pressed her against the stone wall as another echo of thunder rumbled across the sky. The scent of cool, spring rain and fresh churned soil saturated the air. She could also smell him—Adrian—the scent a mixture of spice and wool and a hint of tobacco. She could feel him, the heat radiating off his broad, tall body as he stood before her.
His head was bent to hers and his breath ruffled the tendrils of hair that had escaped from beneath her bonnet. “Let me see you,” he asked in a whisper as the pad of his thumb caressed her lips that lay hidden beneath her veil.
Fear and pride ate away at her confidence and Amelia struggled to hold on to the only shield that prevented him from seeing how very ordinary she truly was. And even if she were a beautiful woman, she couldn’t remove the veil. Her face, her name, must forever remain a mystery to him.
“I mustn’t allow it.”
“I must see you,” he said in a hard rush of breath. “I must.”
He pressed a kiss to her brow as his hands slipped beneath the edge of the lace. His bare fingers grazed along the column of her neck as one finger hooked beneath her chin, drawing her face up to his.
Thunder rolled once again and the sky grew dark, casting a murky, forbidding shadow. The alcove was now dark, her identity safe from discovery. Adrian’s face was shielded, as well, and without her spectacles, his features were blurred and cloudy.
The rain continued to pour down from the heavens and for long, unbearable seconds only the unrelenting sound of the rain could be heard above their breathing.
Then at last, he spoke. “Tell me what you love, Emmy. What you desire. Tell me who you are. I will tell you anything you want to know about me. I will not demand your secrets and give nothing of myself in return.”
“I know all I need to know about you. I can feel what I need to know while I am standing in your arms, craving the touch of your hands—needing your touch.”
“Is it anonymity you need? If it is, I will give it to you, if that is the only way you will allow this. I will be only Adrian, and you will be Emmy, and we will come together here, at Highgate, where no other soul shall ever discover us.”
Amelia closed her eyes, unable to believe she was actually here with him. It was her most secret fantasy come to life. Yet she hated knowing she was deliberately misleading him. She was not this person, this woman of mystery. She was not what he believed her to be.
“Have you ever wanted to be someone else, Adrian? To be anyone other than who—what—you are?”
She felt him shudder against her. “Yes. Nearly every day of my life I have longed to be anyone other than who I am. And when I am with you, Emmy, I am someone else. Someone infinitely better than who I really am.”
“I…I have never done this, met a stranger and given so much of myself. In fact, I have never let another see so much of my soul.”
“Neither have I, Emmy.”
“I want this,” she gasped, biting her lip. “I know I should not. I know what you do not—how wrong this is of me.”
Reaching for her hand, Adrian brought it to his chest, flattening her palm against his waistcoat. His heart was beating hard; she would feel it. He was breathing hard; she would feel that, too. He moved her palm lower over his breast, down over the flat hardness of his belly, where it rested at the waistband of his trousers. He pushed her hand lower and made her feel his cock that was hard as iron beneath his woolen trousers. She went utterly still, but did not attempt to pull her hand from beneath his. She could if she wanted to. He barely held her hand against him now.
“Take what you want,” he said, brushing her hand against the placket of his trousers. Closing his eyes, he gritted his teeth, savoring the feel of her hand on his prick, despite the fact it was still innocently covered. He was so damn hard. So hungry for the feel of her flesh against his flesh.
“I can give you what you need, Emmy. I can give you everything you could ever imagine.” She whimpered, a husky, throaty sound that told him she was struggling with what she wanted to do, and what she knew she should not. “Take this, Emmy. Take what you need.”
She was watching him and he saw the acceptance shining in her eyes, despite the shadows that cloaked them. “Take this for yourself, Emmy. For me. For us.”
Angling his head, he captured her face in his hands as he cursed the clouds and the rain that engulfed her face in shadow. Only her vibrant eyes, the color of precious lapis lazuli, could be seen in the gloomy shadows. He could drown in those eyes.
As their gazes locked, he inched his head lower. Felt her breath caress his lips, felt every nerve in his body tense and tighten as he lowered his mouth to hers. As he clutched her face in his hands, Emmy opened her mouth to him, allowing him to search between her lips with his tongue. He kissed her long and slow, his tongue moving and tangling lazily with hers as his hands slid down the column of her neck to the little lace choker she had tied around her throat.
It was a kiss with no ending and soon she was so needy, so reckless that she was grasping him to her and rubbing her mons against his body and the large erection straining against his trousers.
Ad
rian tore his mouth from hers and set his lips against her pounding pulse. His fingers sought the edge of the lace she had bound around her throat. “You smell of innocence,” he murmured before untying the ribbon and pulling it from her neck. “But you taste of sin. Such tempting, forbidden sin…”
Tipping her head back, Amelia allowed him to suck at her neck with his hot mouth, knowing he was going to leave marks that she would be forced to conceal, but she didn’t care about any of that now. She only wanted more.
“How long, Emmy?” he asked, kissing his way down her throat to the opening of her cloak. “How long has it been?” His fingers worked on the buttons of her black cape, parting it and pushing it back over her shoulders. She felt him reach around her waist for the buttons that secured her gown. He undid them slowly, teasing her with the movements of his fingers and his breath against her neck. Her legs shook as he slid the wool from her shoulders and kissed his way down her arm, until the bodice of her gown fell to her waist.
She gasped in pleasure as Adrian’s large hand reached into her corset, past her thin chemise, to cup her breast, pulling it from the harsh confines of muslin and whale boning. Once free, his hot palm rubbed the flat of his hand along her nipple, sending it straining against his smooth skin.
His gaze passed over her face, then down to where he held her breast in his hand. “It has been far too long since a man has loved you, hasn’t it, Emmy? I can hear your body crying out for it.” He traced the contour of her breast that rested in his palm. “Beautiful. Breasts made for a man’s pleasure. Made to be drawn into a man’s mouth.”
Unable to stand the torture, she looked down and saw how he used his fingertip to trace the circle of her nipple; her areole puckered in response to the featherlight caress. Sharp stabs shot through her, straight to her belly, as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, lengthening it as he gently tugged and plucked at it.