And just like that day five years ago, somehow, their lips met.
He crushed her into his body, because of course their bodies scoffed at the very idea that their minds had any say over whether or not they touched each other for the last time. This time the kiss was sophisticated. It began gently, softly, just a bump of lips, but it had purpose, direction. As though they had all the time in the world, rather than a few hours more. They knew each other now. So slowly they kissed. Deliberately prolonging the moment when their tongues would meet.
And she moaned when they did.
She pulled his face closer to her, and his hands slid down to her arse and pulled her closer. And she freed her hands from behind his neck and slid them down instead to the buttons on his shirt.
She wanted Captain Eversea nude in her parlor.
He shook out of his coat, and her fingers worked open his buttons, and his broad chest was bare to her touch.
“Here,” he said.
His coat and his hat went back on the settee. His shirt came off, and then his trousers were lowered, but not his boots because neither of them wanted to waste any time pulling them off, and Chase was standing in her parlor completely nude but for a pair of boots and his dropped trousers.
Her shaking hands had difficulty with the laces of her new dress, and then his hands were there to rescue her. Her clothes went in a disgraceful heap on the floor of her parlor. She gave them a little kick to clear them out of the way.
He settled back into a chair that creaked a bit, and she was a trifle concerned because he was so large.
“Come here.”
She straddled his thighs, which were thick and hairy, one of them battered and scarred, and her hands slid over them, memorizing him. She pressed herself against his thick cock, not yet astride; his hands savored her breasts, thumbing the nipples into peaks. When she gasped, her eyes closing to slits, her breathing coming short—his hands on her breasts made her simply wild—he tipped her back in the hard cradle of his arms so he could bend his head and suck.
Hot bliss fanned through her body where his lips met her nipples.
His hands folded her to him closely, and she could watch the light play over his face, see the burning wonder in those eyes, then revel when he closed them, swallowing, the cords of his throat taut with pleasure. He raised her up, and she sank down on him until he filled her deeply.
And slowly she rode him. Slowly, slowly. But they could not remain slow: they soon bucked against each other, and in the end it was an inelegant coupling, their bodies coming together swiftly and hard, rhythm beyond their control. He came with a thrash of his head and raw gasp of her name as Rosalind shuddered.
For a silent moment longer they held each other. His head tucked into the crook of her shoulder. His breath lulling against her sweat-dampened skin.
Tacitly, silently, they disentangled. And silently they got him dressed again, and she dressed herself from the heap of clothes on the carpet.
He looked down at her solemnly, impossible to read. She’d begun to suspect that Charles Eversea’s face revealed least when his mind was fullest.
He watched her, blue eyes glittering. His breath seemed to be held.
She offered up a rueful ghost of a smile.
Chase went very still. He gave a short nod, a faint twist of a smile, and with a gentle, almost formal touch of his hat, he really did leave.
Well.
As usual, Chase seemed to take half the light and air of the room with him when he’d gone.
For some reason, she was careful to hold herself very still. She felt peculiarly hollow.
A few silent seconds later she realized it was because she was afraid to move.
Much like a person who has taken a great fall. And then she understood this was the moment of blessed numbness before the anguish set in. Before she understood just how injured she was. Just how complete and permanent the damage might be.
She felt oddly disconnected from her body, but some instinct made her raise her trembling arm up to her face: the smell of his skin was still on her skin.
She breathed in, and squeezed her eyes closed…ah, and here was the anguish. Along with the suffocating realization: it wasn’t Charles Eversea who was hard and unyielding. It wasn’t Chase who was afraid to be vulnerable.
She was.
She’d been the one unable to surrender to the possibility of love, and he’d known it. He protected himself from hurt even as he’d loved her in every way he knew how: with a patience with her that surely must have killed him, in his insight, in his protection, in his tenderness and passion, in his determination to see that she had what she wanted, that she was safe, that she was happy.
And she’d been so terrified of surrendering to the enormity of how she felt, so afraid was she of losing him yet again, so afraid of loss itself that she’d held herself carefully away from him for so long, even as she made love to his body. Afraid of a heartbreak that would surely kill her, since it would of course be equal to the magnitude of how much she loved him.
Because, oh God, she loved him.
She’d likely loved him from the moment she laid eyes on him five years ago.
So afraid that, like an ass, she’d let him go.
And like an ass, he’d gone.
That, she decided, in a sudden fury, was taking the idea of ensuring that she had what she wanted too far.
He still wanted her, and he’d left anyway.
And as she was resourceful, and as this time she was determined to get what she wanted, she bolted for the door and flung it open.
Only to run smack into the wall that was Chase Eversea’s chest.
“Rosalind.”
He looked very stern, very determined. He placed one not entirely gentle hand flat on her sternum to keep her from sending them both toppling down her steps. And then he eased her back into the house, his eyes never leaving hers.
Her heart was clanging like the bells of St. Mary Le Bow inside her chest, and surely he must have felt it through his palm.
They stared at each. His eyes seemed particularly brilliant, which was when she noticed just how pale he was.
Captain Eversea was nervous.
He planted his feet apart in a stance that led her to believe he was about to give a speech.
She folded her hands in front of her and waited, biting her tongue.
She had one of her own prepared, just in case.
“Rosalind…” his voice was quite steady. “I was wrong when I said what I do best is serving my country. I was wrong when I said it’s what I was made for. I wasn’t far wrong, of course, but I was wrong. What I was made for…” and here he stopped and took in a long, fortifying breath. And then he cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone husky. “What I’ve learned is that what I was made for is to love and protect. Specifically, I was made to love and protect you.”
He waited. She could not speak over the clanging of her heart, but something in her face must have encouraged him to continue.
“I know you wanted a chance to determine what you want. But what I want is this: I want to be wherever you are. Whatever that means. Wherever that might be. So if you want me, I will stay. For as long as you want me. However you want me. Because…” He sighed. “…I love you.”
Said with such absolute certainty and finality. The way he said everything.
There passed a silence noisy with glorious unspoken things, during which they gazed at each other and she couldn’t feel her hands or her toes. She was tempted to reach behind her to see whether perhaps she’d sprouted wings, like that prurient angel in the Rubinetto painting.
Imagine Captain Charles Eversea, offering up his grand, brave, scarred, difficult, beautiful heart to her.
She would die for the honor of protecting his heart forever.
“Chase?”
He waited, pale, his jaw taut, his eyes fiercely blue.
“I love you, too.” His voice had been so bold. Hers emerg
ed a whisper. Damn.
She reached up an impatient hand to knuckle away tears, because she didn’t want a single second of this moment to be blurred.
Slowly, slowly, he simply smiled.
“And Chase?”
He waited. His breath appeared to be held.
She wanted to be the one to give the order this time.
“We ought to marry.”
He went utterly still.
Something fierce and brilliant suffused his face. And then he closed his eyes and inhaled like a man taking his first ever breath.
He released it slowly.
When he opened his eyes again, he gave his head a disbelieving shake.
She knew how he felt: How did I become so lucky?
They beamed like ninnies, like besotted schoolchildren, and then Chase startled her by closing the distance between them with one long step.
Gently, as though she’d suddenly become breakable, tentatively, in acknowledgment to how new this was to both of them, he pulled her into his arms as though still uncertain she was his to keep. She reassured him; she went to him easily; she clung. He folded her tightly into him, and beneath her cheek his breath went out in a sigh, a very final sound, a sound of home.
She linked her arms around his neck, threaded her hand up through his hair, and her lips found his. The kiss began awkwardly, and became fierce, then deep, and then slow. A kiss that echoed the curve of the years they’d known each other, and they took their time about it. Because it was just the first kiss in what would be a lifetime’s worth of kisses.
Unsurprisingly, Liam was waiting outside for him when Chase left a few minutes later to inform the captain of The Courage he would not be on board as scheduled after all. He was passionate, but he was dutiful, and Rosalind approved.
“Where did you come from?” he said to the boy.
“Followed ye,” Liam said complacently.
“Ah,” Chase said.
“Ye’re walking like the blazes, Captain Eversea.” He was gleefully sly about it. “Almost dancin’…ye might say.”
“On air…you might say.”
“D’yer see the liedy?” Shrewd little cove.
“Oh, I saw the liedy.”
“Is she yer woman now?”
“Oh, aye, Liam. She’s my woman now. Now…” He turned around, walked backward a few steps, the sea behind him, Rosalind in front of him, watching him go and waiting for him to return. “…and forever.”
“Cor!” Liam said, and gave a hop. “Knew it all along!”
Acknowledgments
Much, much gratitude to my insightful, delightful editor, May Chen; to my agent, Steve Axelrod, for wisdom and Olympic-class pragmatism; to Kim Castillo, for cheerfully brilliant assistance; to the hardworking crew at Avon, who made the book you’re holding possible; and to all the lovely readers who help make writing such a joy.
About the Author
San Francisco Bay Area native JULIE ANNE LONG originally set out to be a rock star when she grew up (and she has the guitars and fringed clothing stuffed in the back of her closet to prove it), but writing was always her first love. She began her academic career as a Journalism major, until she realized Creative Writing was a better fit for her freewheeling imagination and overdeveloped sense of whimsy. And when playing guitar in dank, sticky clubs finally lost its “charm,” Julie realized she could incorporate all the best things about being in a band—namely drama, passion, and men with unruly hair—into novels, while also indulging her love of history and research. Since then, her books have been nominated for awards, including the RITA®, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, the Holt Medallion, Bookseller’s Best, and The Quills, and reviewers have been known to use words such as “dazzling,” “brilliant,” and “impossible to put down” when describing them. Visit Julie at www.julieannelong.com, www.julieannelong.typepad.com, or www.myspace/julieannelong.
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Romances by Julie Anne Long
SINCE THE SURRENDER
LIKE NO OTHER LOVER
THE PERILS OF PLEASURE
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SINCE THE SURRENDER. Copyright © 2009 by Julie Anne Long. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189359-9
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Since the Surrender Page 30