by Liz Tyner
‘I’ve been to your library. It’s not much different from out here.’
He scrutinised the gardens, the sky, anywhere but her, yet awareness jumped between them.
He reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Instantly, the heat of his skin surrounded her.
Taking both her hands, he trapped them between his own. ‘If you’re there, it will be much warmer than the outside air.’
Then he stepped closer and pulled her hands up the front of his waistcoat. Heated breath tickled her ears. ‘Put your arms around my neck.’
His hands went to her waist, clasping, and she’d never, ever swooned, but she felt her body weaken. She could feel his grasp even through the cloak and she was pleased she didn’t have to speak.
His stubble-roughened chin brushed against her cheek briefly. Tendrils of his hair, feeling cool, touched her and sent warm shivers into her body. The man smelled of smoke, yet he made her skin come alive, her muscles tense and knees weaken.
‘You’re silk softness.’ His voice was whispery gruff. ‘Silken kisses and silken skin. You make me forget about tomorrow. All I can see is the silken promise of your lips.’ His breath feathered the air and he pulled her against him.
Every bit of her exploded with delicious sensations. Flashes of power invaded her, but they instantly evolved into something else, something which controlled her.
She didn’t know she could feel another’s spirit inside her own body.
With his mouth, on her lips alone, he took control of her. With no more than a kiss, he blended into her, swirling desires, pulling her closer.
She could hear him say her name, which was impossible, because his mouth was against hers and he could not be speaking. But he was. It was the softest thing she’d ever heard. She kept spinning and spinning and spinning into deeper desire.
She didn’t even know when he stopped kissing her, but her thoughts returned and she was looking at him, his face above hers, and he watched her.
With the same care of moving fine porcelain from the edge of a table, he embraced her.
‘Vivian,’ he said and her body reacted to the emotions in the word. She could hear the tension, the desire and the longing he’d put into speaking her name. He would tell her he loved her.
He reached out, and brushed back a lock of hair from her cheek. ‘I think—’ He interrupted himself. ‘I do care about you.’
She thought he wanted to tell her he loved her, but he couldn’t get the words past his lips.
‘You know—’ He gave up.
‘Yes. I do.’ But she didn’t blame him for not being able to love, she cherished that he cared for her and that he had told her the truth.
‘We should go inside where it’s warmer. Together.’
He could have led her straight to the end of the earth, but instead he guided her forward with a gentle hand at her back.
Vivian walked inside the house with Everleigh and she hesitated. He clasped her gently. ‘We can part when you get to the top of the stairs.’
‘It’s too early.’ Even if it were approaching daybreak, it would be too early.
She moved quickly up the stairs, keeping ahead of Everleigh’s long legs, but he kept up with her effortlessly.
When she stepped on to the landing, she gasped in air. She hurried into the library.
His words were soft and they had the merest hint of humour behind them. ‘You run beautifully even if I cannot see well through the darkness.’
His mouth didn’t relax, but she glimpsed the softest shade of the sky she’d ever seen.
If she hadn’t been ill before, she would have accepted a proposal and continued on, blissfully happy that her life was following along the path that she’d hoped for.
In fact, she would have probably fallen in love with the next man who’d shown her marked attention and she would have been more concerned about her hair being perfect on her wedding day and the furnishings she might wish to select for the house.
Now she perceived potential suitors differently.
It wasn’t about how perfect her embroidery stitches were or whether the pattern on the plates was the one she’d preferred. To marry, she wanted someone who was devoted to her. Someone who wanted to be with her more than anyone else in the world, ever.
Everleigh watched her. He was the only man who had truly intrigued her.
‘I might fall in love with you,’ she said.
‘Would that be so terrible?’
‘It might. If I woke up and discovered that I needed more.’
She waited, questioning him with her silence and her gaze.
‘It never lasts long. You wouldn’t have to worry about it.’
She gasped. ‘Do you think you are capable of a lasting affection?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Had you considered marriage before Alexandria stopped our carriage?’
‘I’ve never proposed to anyone but you. I knew I could easily recover from the scandal of Alexandria creating a spectacle. I had considered proposing to her, but I suspected she might have that side of her we saw. I wanted no part of that in a wife.’
‘I fit your criteria.’
Brushing fingertips across the back of her hand, he let his touch linger before moving away. ‘My criteria included an acceptance of a proposal. So, I would have to say you have failed in that regard.’
She felt the need to apologise and angered at the same time. Failed. She didn’t like that word. ‘You would marry me without love?’
‘I suppose I would have to.’
Vivian’s heart fell.
‘When you’re leaving, I will make certain your father knows that it is a lost cause for him to expect me to marry you, if you’d like.’ He took her hand. ‘After I do that, it is unlikely our paths will cross many times. They didn’t often in the past. Your father will be pushing you to marry. He’ll ensure that suitable men will be at the soirées. He’ll give you a chance to dance. It just won’t be with me.’
* * *
He could remember the feel of her skin against his. The strands of her hair brushing across his lips. Her scent. An innocent’s scent.
He shoved those thoughts aside, remembering he could not touch her.
To continue making love to her and to watch her walk away would be too much of a loss.
The innocent who had first asked him for the kiss might have remained a spinster, but the temptress who came to his room and who refused to marry him would not. She would not only dance to the tune she wanted, but would find someone to follow along willingly.
He bade her goodnight and left the room.
Vivian reminded him of a baby wren, always safely in the nest at first. But now she was a fledgling, moving into the world on her own.
He’d seen fledgling birds, though. They cheeped so the mother bird could continue to find them and give them morsels to help them along as they learned to manage on their own.
The only problem was that the predators listened. Hawks swooped down upon them.
He didn’t want Vivian to be anyone’s prey.
He didn’t want anyone else to teach her what he could show her.
But she didn’t want to marry him and he didn’t want to watch her navigate into a world where raptors resided, stomachs empty, talons bared and prey a momentary meal.
Blast it. He circled, not stopping, and returned to the room Vivian was in.
‘I miss you,’ he said. ‘Already.’
She ran to him and threw herself into his arms. ‘Make love to me.’
Chapter Twenty
He took her to his room, shrugging the coat from his shoulders and placing the garment across the back of a chair, next to the lit lamp he’d brought from the library. He wanted to see her.
With o
ne long stride he was again by her side.
Guilt clouded his mind. He could not make love to her. The repercussions for her could be tremendous.
But he couldn’t tell her to leave either. He could pleasure her as he had before. As long as he did not let himself go past the moment when it would be too late to turn back.
Then he undid the closures of the pelisse and helped her from the sleeves. He took the coat and threw it over his own.
She stared up at him and he remembered that she wanted sweet words. He could give them to her. She put them inside him.
He held her gaze. ‘When I see you, I know your skin is like nectar against my lips. Something created for pleasure.’
Her body, with the smallest turn, inspired his imagination to see all her feminine twists and curves.
She didn’t even seem to come from the same world he did—she came from a place of frilly frocks and gentleness and sunshine even on the coldest of days.
He rested his hands on her hips, savouring the moment of being in her presence.
She touched his waistcoat and undid each button. Taking the fabric, she slid it over his shoulders. Stepping back, she moved to put the clothing neatly, but he captured her again, and gave the smallest shake of his head. The waistcoat fell to the floor.
‘There’s too little time to think of our clothing,’ he said. ‘We’re together. That’s all that matters.’
Before she could respond, he held her hands, pulling her into a clasp that lasted only seconds before she tugged away, raising her hands to his white shirt collar.
‘I agree,’ she whispered.
Without hesitation, she slipped away the knot of his cravat, unwound it, and let it fall to the side.
She undid the fastenings of the shirt. He gave a slight nod, lifted the fabric from his waistband and pulled upwards. He helped her move the shirt away and her vision remained locked on the chest in front of her revealing a trim expanse of maleness.
He clasped both her wrists and put them to his cheeks, letting her feel the roughening beard, then moved her hands to the softer skin of his neck, the light hair of his chest and the pebbled nipples.
Her fingers hadn’t recovered from the touch of his chest. She wasn’t sure she could manage another set of buttons, when he stepped back.
His voice roughened. ‘Boots first, I suppose.’ He moved away.
He sat in the chair, his observation never leaving her, and removed his boots. Then he stood, and in his stockinged feet he seemed even larger. She leaned closer, reaching out to thread her fingers through his hair. He was a muse to lovemaking; his thoughts seemed to guide her.
She touched the fall of his trousers, letting the buttons rest in her hands. ‘I’m not as shy as I thought,’ she said.
His lips quirked up briefly into a true smile and she basked in it, wishing his smiles were not so rare.
‘I’m pleased.’
He reached behind her, so close she could feel him speaking against her skin, while he freed the hooks of her dress.
Her hands fell from his trousers while the dress slid down her body and moved between them, revealing her chemise, before falling to the floor.
‘No corset?’ he asked, not waiting for an answer, but instead dropping a kiss on her shoulder.
Their consciousness blended. She saw the knowledge in him that she wore nothing underneath the chemise and the awareness she imagined in his mind flared heated cravings in her own body.
He found the hollow of her neck and nuzzled against her, the moisture of his lips doing nothing to reduce the flames of passion his hands stoked as he caressed her back, pressing her so that the only way they could become closer was with movement, twisting and turning, so that their bodies could soak up the sensation of more touches and more of each other.
Her hand slipped down his side, leaving his skin and returning to the cloth of his trousers—now an unwanted barrier. Her fingertips tangled in his waistband and she discovered fine hairs on the heated skin of his stomach.
Taking one of her hands, he put it on his top trouser button and she undid the fall, finding the man beneath.
After a moment he stepped back, sliding his clothes away, and stood before her, no more self-conscious than if he were fully dressed.
He touched her chemise and did little more than give a twist of his wrist and a flick, and she blinked as the cloth moved over her head.
She took his hand, and pulled him closer to the bed. Then, they fell back on to the mattress.
When his head swooped down and his lips took hers it took too much strength to keep her eyes open. Her fingertips absorbed the feel of his skin, taking it in, and the whole of her body did the same.
His mouth swirled over her. Her lips, her neck, her shoulders and her breasts. He moved along her body, taking the taste of her skin, and, as if he could not merely experience her with his mouth, he had to taste her with his whole body. And his hands.
She knew he was intensely aroused. She could tell by his urgency, by the pressure of his hardness against her and the heated air around them.
She grasped him, as if he could keep her from going over a cliff, and she pushed against him, ready for the edge, the tumble and the pillow his arms made for her.
The only thing keeping her from fluttering from her body was his clasp. Stronger than she realised. His lips came back to graze at her neck, her shoulders.
Liquid desire overtook her and made her restless for his touch.
She didn’t pull him closer—it wasn’t possible. He breathed into her skin.
Even when she arched against him, he kept her hip pressed into his arousal.
‘Ev...’ she whispered, but his lips stopped her.
Her body—every part of it—felt alive, lush, absorbing his touch. Time altered. Worlds changed. She could have parted clouds and pulled the moon to a higher part of the sky.
While she didn’t say his name fully even once, he said hers. He whispered it in her ear, prayer-like, and said it against her skin and against her hair, and her body responded to his call.
He explored her with the reverence of touching a miracle, his fingertips grazing the softness of her stomach, the gentle slope of her hips and the femininity hidden within her.
Then he gave her a pulsating completion which could have shattered the sun.
While she learned to breathe again, he held her close from above. She saw him, but it wasn’t the same man she’d seen before.
‘I need to go,’ he said, his lips blending with hers. ‘You’re an innocent. After you’ve had time to consider if this is really what you want, then I will meet you.’
‘I thought about the things you mentioned before I entered the room,’ she said. ‘No one else I have ever met or seen comes close to making me feel the way I feel about you. No matter what else happens, I’ve gone too far to walk away as innocent as I was and I’ve gone too far to walk away without knowing that you’re the man I want to share my first time with.’
He waited, torn. ‘But if you were to change your mind in the morning...?’
‘I’d rather risk regrets, which I don’t intend to have, than risk wishing for what I have missed. I want to always have this memory. Of you. Of making love.’
She was silent, waiting for another kiss, tracing his lips with her fingertips, running a hand over his chest, exploring the form she would never forget.
‘If you do have regrets in the morning, I will feel them for you. You mustn’t. You mustn’t regret this. We may never have another opportunity to share so much of ourselves with each other. I want you happy,’ he said.
‘The only way I can have that,’ she answered, ‘is if you make love to me.’
He held her chin and tenderly silenced her with his lips. Holding her at his side, he let them explore each other, the distance between them lessening with each kis
s and caress.
With the tip of his manhood against her, he positioned himself, rose over her and pulled her bottom towards him, controlling her movements and his descent, watching her, searching for her pleasure while he entered her.
Their bodies intertwined and he was affected more deeply than he’d ever been before. He had no control except for wanting to give her something she would cherish and he’d find his pleasure in that.
His skin reacted as if it touched lightning and she was the life force that kept him breathing and alive.
He concentrated his attention, turning inside, reaching some unknown place. He breathed primitive gasps as he released inside her.
They rocked together and she felt his shudder. She clasped his back and knew, knew the oneness that enveloped them as her release followed his.
When she regained the use of her body, she could still feel him inside her, above her, pressed close, a sheen of exertion on his shoulders and sounding as if his breaths used all his strength.
Then he moved and pulled her to his side, resting his face against her. They lay side by side, embracing while catching their breath.
The moment soothed her, but then he moved, just enough to jostle her back into reality.
This had been a pleasing interlude away from their lives, one she’d never forget or regret. But it had to end. And it must end soon, before someone discovered them.
When she’d rolled away she slid from the bed, but he clamped an arm about her waist.
‘A little longer,’ he said. ‘We have more time together.’
‘I know...’ She hesitated, then slipped out of his grasp, continuing to move away, surprised that he could lounge so completely unclothed.
She pulled her chemise in front of her, covering herself, and knowing a humorous glint lit his expression.
She saw the mirror and touched the countenance that stared back at her. That person had changed so much in such a short period of time.
Then she observed her hair. Strands poked out in ways she’d never seen before. Half the pins were missing. She noted how long it took her to dress in the morning compared to the seconds it took him to turn her into total disarray.