“Yes.” She stared him down. “Because you never really intended to marry me. Admit it: You were ashamed of me because I was not of your station.”
Anger flared in his eyes before he banked it. “I was never ashamed of you.”
“You didn’t even introduce me to your sister or your mother—”
“I didn’t want to burden my sister with my secrets, and my mother is the most indiscreet person in the world—as you ought to know, having met her. She would have told my father at once.”
“Which would have ruined everything,” she said sarcastically.
“It would have indeed, if he’d disapproved of the match and cut me off financially. And back then I did worry that he might, given that your father—”
“Was a wastrel,” she said. “Yes, I know. But your father wasn’t haughty. He didn’t seem to look down on me. Indeed, he was kind, even pitying. He seemed to feel sorry for me that I didn’t know your true character.”
“It was my character once,” he said unsteadily, his eyes burning into hers. “But not after I met you. Then I wanted to have you—and only you—for my own.” His voice hardened. “I made that very clear to him before I left for the Continent. He swore to me that if you came to him, he would help you.”
She fought to breathe. “You’re saying I’m lying about what he told me.”
“I’m saying . . .” He released a shuddering breath. “Perhaps you misunderstood him. Perhaps—”
“I did not misunderstand him!” she cried. “Do you know what it meant to me to hear that you . . . had been deceiving me all along? My world collapsed. I walked around in a state of shock, knowing you were lost to me forever. Your father had no interest in helping me, and Captain Trevor had given Papa only two choices.”
She gulped down air. “Either I accepted Reynold’s hand in marriage, in which case Captain Trevor would forgive Papa’s entire debt. Or I refused it, and our family, including my sick mother, would be carted off to debtors’ prison.”
Horror suffused Niall’s features. “God, Bree, the debt was as bad as all that?”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “Father never could resist high stakes, drat him.”
Niall paced before her, as if trying to make sense of what she was saying. Then he halted to look at her. “Did you tell my father this?”
“Of course not. And have him think me some sort of adventuress who was after his son’s money?” When he winced to have his words thrown back at him, she went on hastily, “I did have my pride, especially after he told me about your . . . your paramour.”
“Bree, there was no—”
“Anyway,” she went on, unable to hear his protest again, “I’d pinned my hopes on your saving me somehow, perhaps helping to pay off the debt . . . anything that might delay the inevitable. But after your father refused to send the letter, saying that you weren’t the sort of man to honor your promises, I . . . died inside. I agreed to marry Reynold, telling myself that I would grow to love him, that he was a nice man, that it was a good thing he was not you.”
She clasped one fist to her chest. “But my heart refused to believe it. It wanted you.” She glared at him. “I fought hard and long to cut you out of my stupid heart. I’ve spent the last several years doing so, and now you have the nerve to come here and—”
“What do you think I was doing all that time, damn it?” He stepped close to her. “The announcement of your marriage, which Father dutifully sent to me, ended my hopes for us. That was the real reason I went to work for Fulkham—to forget. To put you out of my mind. And my heart.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Did you?”
She glanced away. “Will you believe me if I say I did?”
“No.” He seized her hands. “Because you don’t kiss like a woman who doesn’t care anymore. You don’t look at me like a woman who doesn’t care anymore.”
Drat the man for always seeing through her defenses. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about my marriage! Because I knew if you heard the truth, you would use it to . . . to try to get me back into your bed. You already assume, as all men do, that a widow is eternally lonely for a man, so she would swallow any amount of pride to—”
He cut her off with a kiss. And it was every bit as glorious as the last one, long and ardent and oh so tempting.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she drew back to whisper.
His eyes smoldered like wood about to erupt into flames. “Reminding us both of what we’ve tried and failed to forget.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to be reminded,” she said desperately.
He merely gave her that devilish smile that always ignited her blood, then sealed his mouth to hers once more. He didn’t have to call her a liar or point out her weakness. Her heedless responses to his persistent kisses did that for him.
No matter how much her mind cautioned her against giving in, her heart wanted so badly to remember, and it was her heart that had her rising to meet the wild, ravening caress of his mouth, which took hers so thoroughly that she felt the impact to her soul.
With darkness falling softly around them, she rose up on tiptoe to loop her arms about his neck. He moaned deep in his throat before dragging her to him. His hands flattened her against his body possessively, and she felt every inch of his hard muscle—and his hard arousal—through his clothing.
Heat roared up from her belly, searing away her objections and fears. Oh, unfair. He knew precisely how to make her remember.
Except that now he was making new memories, sweeping her body with his fingers as if to memorize her curves . . . or perhaps just mark them for his own. And the hunger of those hands made her want to touch him, too, to slide her fingers inside his tailcoat and up beneath his waistcoat to where only a thin linen shirt separated his flesh from hers.
“Damn it, Bree,” he whispered, “you don’t know how I’ve missed this—being with you, touching you, kissing you.”
Next thing she knew, he was walking her backward until she bumped up against a plane tree. Then his mouth was on hers again and his hands fumbling with her shawl, and she was reveling in every moment. His body covered hers as he drank of her mouth and she drank of his.
Niall’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “I want to touch you.” He removed her fichu, then tugged her clothing down to expose one breast. “Here.”
“Yes . . . please . . .” she breathed, hardly conscious of what she said.
Need flaring in his face, he covered her breast with his large hand, and started caressing it, kneading it, thumbing the nipple to a fine point that shot sensation down to her toes.
Goodness gracious, that felt amazing. She must be out of her mind. Anyone could happen into this corner of the garden, evening or no. And if they found her and Niall doing this . . .
What kind of wanton creature was she, to allow such madness?
The kind who’d once dreamed of doing this with him in their marital bed.
“Do you like my hands on you, my beautiful rose?” he asked.
“Mmm,” she managed. “Delicious.”
He brushed kisses over her cheeks, her eyelids, her temples. “I love how you blossom beneath my touch.”
She’d never guessed this could feel so wonderful. It had never been like this with Reynold, her rather formal, correct husband, who’d made love to her in the dark with furtive efficiency.
There was nothing furtive about Niall’s caresses, and certainly nothing efficient. They were luxuriously blatant, driving her into more of a frenzy by the moment.
“I’ve waited years for this,” he said hoarsely. He kissed his way down her breast. “I want to taste you.”
“Oh yes,” she breathed, and buried her hands in his hair to urge him down to her bosom.
That was all it took to have him seizing her breast in his mouth, laving and sucking and turning her mind to mush. Every part of her felt liquid and hot, boiling beneath his avid attentions.
As he teased her nipp
le with teeth and tongue, she moaned and pressed against him, wanting more and more. With a triumphant groan, he dragged up her skirts so he could reach beneath them and between her legs to the part of her aching for him, already drenched for him.
Part of her was shocked by that sudden intimacy. Part of her was fascinated.
And the latter part was winning. “We probably . . . shouldn’t do this,” she said feebly. “Someone might . . . stumble across us.”
“No one’s coming in here, Bree,” he choked out against her breast. “Pip is standing guard outside the gate.”
That really did shock her. “Niall!” She pulled his head back from her breast. “Did you plan this?”
His eyes glittered at her. “I planned a private discussion with you. This is an . . . unexpected reward for managing it.”
Reward? The audacity of the man! “You deserve no rewards, you scoun—”
He cut her off with a kiss so thorough that her argument melted away, and she gave herself into his hands. Oh, how magical they were! One took over fondling her damp breast, while his other continued to delve through her curls until he found her slick flesh.
Then he teased and rubbed her down there like the reckless rogue he was.
“You’re so warm for me, sweeting,” he whispered against her lips. “And so damned wet, it’s hard for me to bear.”
Feeling wild and shameless, she cupped his arousal through his trousers. “Yes, I can see how hard it is.”
He jerked back to gape at her. “You’re not the Bree I used to know.”
Because he brought out the wanton in her. Lord only knew why.
She felt heat rise in her cheeks. “Does that . . . bother you?”
“Are you out of your mind? Not one whit.” With a knowing look, he thrust his hips against her hand. “Show me what you’ve learned while I was gone.”
Not this, to be sure. Reynold had never encouraged her to explore him, so doing such . . . wicked things felt enormously freeing. Because she’d been curious. She’d always wanted to feel and stroke and explore, but Reynold had seemed disapproving of that idea.
Niall was downright eager for it. He swiftly unfastened his trousers and drawers so he could draw her hand inside, then returned to making her insane with his own hands.
So they explored together, finding each other’s most sensitive spots, relishing each other’s soft responses.
And hard responses, too, for the more she caressed him, the firmer and thicker he grew, until his member was sticking out of his trousers like a hound sniffing out its pleasure.
“I want to be inside you, sweeting,” he growled against her throat, which he’d just been tonguing. “Now. I beg you.”
“You’re . . . already . . . inside me,” she teased.
“Don’t be coy. You know what I mean.”
She did. And she wanted him inside her, too. Which was odd, since she’d never really enjoyed the act with her husband, so she doubted she would enjoy it with Niall, but . . .
He cupped her face in his hands. “Do you want me or not, my wanton wench?”
No one had ever called her a wench. Or a wanton. She rather liked it. It fed her urge to rebel, to let him take her right here against the tree.
“Because if you don’t want me—” he went on.
“I do.” When an expression of pure raw hunger filled his face, she added, more softly, “I’ve always wanted you.”
“No more than I wanted you.”
Catching her legs behind her knees, he dragged them up to encircle his hips, so he could slide inside her.
She grabbed his shoulders. My word. It was so . . . intrusive. Rigid. Good. It felt exquisite, even though it had been over a year since she’d done this. She knew from experience that the feeling wouldn’t last and the exercise of lovemaking would grow tedious, but for now, this was enough.
“God, you’re tight as a virgin,” he ground out.
He drove into her up to the hilt, and she gasped. She didn’t feel like a virgin. There was no pain, no awkwardness. It even seemed natural to let Niall take her up against a tree, probably because she had loved him once.
But not anymore. She stifled the very thought. She couldn’t let herself be that foolish again. It always hurt too much when it was over.
“All right?” he asked.
The question took her by surprise, especially since she could feel the strain in his muscles as he held her in place. In her experience, men didn’t care whether the woman was . . . comfortable. “Yes.”
“Good,” he said hoarsely. “Because I couldn’t let go of you now if my life depended on it.”
She barely had time to be thrilled by that before he was kissing her again, fondling her again, thrusting into her with hard bursts of energy that should have hurt or chafed her.
But the more he drove into her, the more heated she grew. Then he shifted her so he was pounding her in an unfamiliar way, rousing her in an unusual manner. It made her hot and hungry and eager for the next thundering thrust.
“God, Bree,” he rasped, “you enslave me.”
“Good,” she said saucily. “Someone . . . should.”
“Watch it, wench. Or I’ll enslave you.”
He already had. With every lunge inside her, he heightened her need, tightening the chains that held her to him and wrapping her in the wild heat that was Niall in full arousal.
He might as well have put shackles on the arms looped about his neck, for she couldn’t let go of him. And the more he drove into her, the more enslaved she felt. Like some harem girl, she rode out her pleasure with her strong, commanding sheik, and every inch of her felt joined to him, part of him . . . needing him.
Then her blood began to rise and her heart to hammer, and she felt herself reaching for an elusive something she’d never felt before. Unable to help herself, she shimmied and arched against him.
“Yes, sweeting,” he whispered. “That’s it. Come for me. Come with me.”
In her feverish state, she wondered fleetingly where he wanted her to go, but then he was thrusting and thundering and she was reaching, reaching up and up . . . and suddenly, as if shooting over a hill into the unknown, she caught the stars she was reaching for.
Then he drove deep and groaned her name against her lips, and the stars exploded all over her, inside her, around her . . . setting her adrift in a sea of pleasure. With him.
Ten
Though Niall released her legs so she could stand once more, he refused to let go of her, not yet ready for that. He couldn’t believe he’d taken her like a whore against the tree, here in a garden where anyone might find them. He couldn’t believe she had let him.
But he’d do it again without hesitation. Because it was Bree. His, at last.
He brushed kisses over her cheeks and eyelids, basking in the contentment of having her after all these years.
She stirred in his arms.
“What was that?”
“What?” He drew back to look at her. “What we just did?”
“No.” She colored fetchingly. “What it . . . did to me. I . . . I had the strangest sensations. Like I might faint . . . or fly or . . . something.”
Uh-oh. “Pleasurable sensations?” he asked warily.
“Oh yes!” When he began to chuckle, she added hastily, “Not that I haven’t felt something . . . close to that before, but not—”
He cupped her cheek. “I take it that Trevor never made you come.”
“ ‘Come’? Ohhh, that’s what you meant when you said, ‘Come with me.’ You meant that feeling.”
“Yes. When a man ‘comes,’ he . . . er . . . puts his seed inside you. When a woman does, she feels those things you felt. Or so I’m told.”
“Seed?” Panic crossed her face and she pushed him away, going off a little distance so she could straighten her clothing. “Oh, Lord, you could have put a child in my belly!” There was just enough light from the streetlamps for him to see her desperate expression. “You said there were
ways to avoid that. Can you—”
“I’m sorry, sweeting—any method of that sort would need to be arranged beforehand.” Swiftly, he buttoned up his breeches and trousers. They were obviously not going to renew their sensual interlude. “I didn’t come here intending to do as we did. But you were married to Trevor for a few years before you bore a child, so I doubt that our one time—”
“That’s what men always say.” She stared him down. “Then they prove to be wrong, and next thing you know, they’ve gotten a woman with child and they’re running away as fast as they can.”
“I wouldn’t do that, damn it!”
“You did it before.”
“Not after giving you a child, for God’s sake! And I had good reason for leaving, no matter what you think.” He walked up to grab her by the arms. “I’m not having this argument now, when we just shared the most magical moment of our lives.”
She gazed at him, her face softening. “It was magical, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.” He smiled at her. “We should do it again.”
Now looking distinctly wary, she drew away from him once more. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t be your mistress, Niall.”
“I’m not asking you to be my mistress.” He stared at her. “We could marry. Turn this into a real betrothal. I need a wife, and you—”
“I don’t want to marry you!” she cried.
The words cut through him like a knife of ice. “Ah,” he managed to eke out.
“Don’t you see? I can’t do it again. You broke my heart the first time. You can’t just . . . come back after seven years and take up where we left off, as if nothing ever happened.”
He fought the urge to pull her back into his arms and kiss her senseless again. “Is there someone else?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s only your fear talking. And I see no reason either of us should give in to it.”
“It’s not fear; it’s caution. I have good reason to be cautious. We’re different people now, you know. I’ve already been married to one man who treated me like his Botticelli, and I don’t want another. Besides, my son is his heir, and I can’t take up with anyone without considering how it would affect him. Especially a man who still keeps secrets, who still won’t—”
The Pleasures of Passion: Sinful Suitors 4 Page 14