by Jun, Kristi
“Take those off.” His expression went dark, lustful, as he uttered the words.
She slowly pulled off the silk chemise and tossed it. Slowly, his eyes lowered to her garters that held the stockings. His gaze went dangerously dark when it reached her aching core. The man looked as though he’d been starved for days, and he was presented with a feast. He lifted her leg and steadied it on the rim of the tub. As he unfastened each hook, the stocking started to pull away. Then the next garter. He did this slowly, each finger grazing her skin, sending heat up to the center of her womanhood.
Lifting her up in his arms, he stepped into the tub and gently set her down on his lap as they both dipped into the warm water. His wet hands slid up her ribs to her breasts and stroked her bosom, rubbing her nipples between his fingers and sending painful pleasure shooting through her sex like a heatwave on a hot summer night. She shifted on top of him and reached back to touch the tip of his fascinating erection. He groaned achingly, as if he couldn’t contain it any longer.
She turned to face him in the tub and a swish of water fell over the sides. Face to face, her body pressed hard against his, she passionately kissed, touched, and caressed him, holding nothing back.
Widening his legs, he adjusted her into a better position as they continued to explore, kissing and fondling every inch of her. “Oh, Johnathan,” she heard herself say. He dabbed kisses on the curves of her neck and, slowly lowering his hands, slipped them between her legs. She gasped at the delicious sensation of his fingers working magic on her feminine spot. Oh, damn . . . She squirmed, unable to handle the pleasure. He kissed her breasts and nipples, and sucked until she writhed in pleasure she didn’t know was possible.
“Let me,” she said. She started to stroke him, slowly at first, his eyes going foggy with pleasure. “You like it.”
“Yes.” His voice was barely audible. Heavens, the man looked enthralled and hard as she slowly stroked his swollen sex in her hand. He positioned her so that he could slide into her like a hand into a glove that fit nearly perfectly.
“Are you alright?”
“It feels . . . full,” she said with amusement.
“You like it?”
She nodded with a wide smile. “Now what?”
God, she was so unbelievably naïve and beautiful. With his hands on her hips, he looked deep into her eyes and realized for the first time he might really be in trouble, because he was starting to fall for this woman. Not only that, he wanted to make her happy, to see her smile.
His hands slid up her soft curves, touching the nipples with his thumbs, and her eyes widened with excitement. Slowly and gently, he started to massage her breasts, and she moaned while they moved together. God, he was enjoying this, and her hazy gaze full of sex told him she enjoyed it too.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. When she nodded, her eyes wide open, telling him that she enjoyed the sensation, he moved faster, harder, then deeper as a swish of water overflowed onto the floor. They moved together until he felt the agonizing pleasure escalating to the point of explosion. And when he did, she fell onto him, her chest rising and falling from excitement.
God, he was in trouble, all right.
In her bedchamber, Emily and Johnathan were lying by the burning fire on a thick wool rug under a blanket to keep them warm. He shifted so they were both facing the fire as they recovered from sex.
He leaned in and kissed the tiny scar on her left shoulder. “How did you get this?” he whispered in her ear. Tracing her scar, he kissed it again as if that would somehow heal the pain.
“I fell off a horse,” she said, still watching the fire. “I think I was about ten. I never rode after that . . . until now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you fell off a horse? We could have used a carriage to travel here.”
“You don’t like to be confined, remember?” She looked back at him and smiled.
Selfish bastard. He’d been on his own for so long he hadn’t thought to give consideration for others’ feelings, their fears. “I will make a note of this.”
“It isn’t an issue, Johnathan. All that matters is that I am with you. You are all that matters now,” she said, almost in a whisper. She turned around and faced him, watching his expression.
Her words left him feeling perplexed. Because until now he hadn’t felt this way about anyone, and yet he knew their future was uncertain. She would not survive in his world, that much he knew, and her world would not welcome him. It was like trying to fit puzzle pieces that did not belong together. Yet how could he leave her after tonight? His honor would not allow him to do so, and even if he wanted to leave, he couldn’t.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered to him.
“You,” he answered. She looked back at him with hope in her eyes, but there was a glimmer of vulnerability there, and he felt compelled to protect her. What am I going to do with you, Emily? She felt so right in his arms, and he knew it would be hard for him to let her go.
He needed to think. He needed to figure out what he was going to do and how he would approach her with his plans for them.
“Tell me about America,” she asked, staring at the fire burning in the hearth.
“What would you like to know?”
“Where did you live as a child?”
“Boston.”
“And . . .?” she pressed.
“There isn’t much to say about my childhood,” he said.
“Where did you study?” she asked. “Did you have a tutor? What were you like?”
He thought about his time at Roxbury Latin School in Boston and Harvard after that, where he was forced to study the classics. His father wanted the “best” education possible for him so that one day he’d take over the family business. He wanted no part of it, and when he dropped out of Harvard his last year, his father threatened to disown him and stop funding his lifestyle, so he went off on his own.
“I went to prep school, then off to Harvard to study business.”
“Harvard? I think I have heard of it.”
Most Americans couldn’t afford these schools, and it was a wasted education on him when someone else could have benefited from it. “You thought me to be a brute and uneducated,” he reminded her.
“That isn’t what I meant,” she said apologetically.
He kissed her neck. “I’m teasing. The truth is, I didn’t fit in and I didn’t enjoy being confined to a room full of old stuffy books and outdated dogma.”
“You have other skills that are useful.”
“Like using my fist?”
“That is one skill that can be useful when necessary, but you have other talents.”
“Like tonight?” She said nothing, so he continued. “You mean you didn’t enjoy this?” He slid his hand down her hips and touched the warm sex between her legs. He smiled when she responded to his touch. “I thought so.”
“Honestly, Johnathan, I hope you do know that you are a good, honorable man.”
“You give me more credit than I deserve.”
She turned around to face him. “At times when I watch you, there is a sense of regret in your eyes, and I feel you are too harsh on yourself. You believe yourself to be . . . well, someone who doesn’t deserve to be happy, and like you have something to prove.”
As soon as she said this, his father materialized in his mind. He hadn’t thought of him in so long, as he preferred it that way. But the beatings he endured at his father’s hands weren’t easy to forget; he even had the scars to remind him. He kissed her again and hugged her tight. Why did she insist on seeing him as a good man? If she really knew him, he doubted she would feel the same.
“Would you like me to tell you about the Mandan?”
“That would be lovely.” She buried her face in the curve of his neck and listened.
“I lived with t
hem for a while after my wife—”
She looked up into his eyes. “Passed away?”
His dead wife whom he had married with one purpose, then spent more than half his time chasing criminals in the wilds of America. He was not a proper husband, especially when she wished to have children and he said he wasn’t ready.
Now the child was dead, and he always had the guilt that maybe he’d wished the child gone. Had he? He didn’t know anymore. He was a monster for even thinking such a thing. When he received news that she was with child, he hadn’t returned home as he should have. And when he finally did, her belly was swollen, and the birth of the baby was approaching. There was a sense of hope in his path, he thought, despite the fact that he didn’t love his wife. He knew he could grow to love her for his new family. He promised to stay home after the last case was solved and left for Dakota. A month later, he got word that they both passed from fever.
“What is the matter?” she asked looking up at him.
“Nothing,” he said, reassuring her. When she gave him a reluctant look, he said, “Really, everything is fine.” That seemed to work, because she smiled and closed her eyes. And he proceeded to tell her about the tribe that had become a family to him.
If only she knew how much he cared for her. For the first time in his life since the death of his wife and child, he felt a future was possible. In fact, he found himself seeing Emily in his future. This thought was dangerous, because he knew a life with him was dangerous. But he could hope for a life.
A family of his own.
And Emily as his wife.
A life worth living . . .
Chapter 14
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could stay here forever?” Emily said, waking up in his arms. The sunlight was shimmering in from the window, but the chill still surrounded the room. She snuggled up to his warm body and kissed him.
He hadn’t slept much since realizing what he had to do. For the first time, he felt a sense of hope touching him deep in his heart. They needed to talk about what happened soon, and he needed to make his intensions clear, because there was no way he was going to leave her now.
“Why don’t we make some breakfast and we can talk,” he said.
“What did you want to discuss?”
“Us.”
She sat up. “I fear there is something I need to speak to you about as well.”
He watched her for several seconds. She looked reluctant, uncertain, then finally she said, “Eggs for breakfast?”
“Wait,” he said. “Is that what you really wanted to say?”
When he said this, her expression changed. He could tell she was irritated, uneasy. “Tell me what’s troubling you.”
“I will, I promise, but let’s have breakfast first.”
“I hope you’re not expecting a marriage proposal.” As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t, because it sounded wrong and insensitive. Why had he said this? You are an ass. She looked hurt. He hadn’t said it to hurt her; it was a half-hearted jest. Granted, it wasn’t funny in the least. “That didn’t sound the way I wanted.”
“Why would you say such things?”
“I am sorry,” he said, sitting up to look at her. “I am far from perfect.”
“That is quite clear. In fact, you are arrogant, egotistical, and not at all easy to converse with. You know what else, Mr. Hawk?” she started. “You seem to think you are in charge of everything, and don’t tell me it’s because of your occupation.”
“Easy,” he said. “What I meant to say was . . . I wish very much to give you everything you want.”
“Oh?” she said. “And what is it that I want?”
“Marriage,” he said.
“Are you jesting?”
“I would never jest about marriage.”
“You just did,” she reminded him.
“Not anymore.”
“You are serious?”
“I can give you a family . . . and a home. You will have to leave London, your brother, your friends, and this life that you have come accustomed to.” She looked as though she might cry. “I will not force you. That is the last thing I want.”
“I know,” she said.
“What is your answer?”
She nodded with a smile, tears falling from her eyes. They looked at each other, both thinking of the possibility of what that would mean for the both of them. Hope filled her eyes.
“My brother . . . he will not be pleased.”
“You can’t live your life for your brother. You will ultimately have to make a choice if you really want your freedom.”
“It isn’t that simple,” she confessed. “I won’t have a penny to my name when we are wed because my brother won’t approve of the marriage.”
“I have enough,” he said.
She smiled brightly and hugged him. “You do not know what this means to me.”
Much of the income he earned came from his occupation and he had saved most of it, and then there was the inheritance from his maternal grandfather. “What is mine is yours.” He touched her cheek, reassuring her. “We shall speak to your brother together. Would that please you?”
Emily didn’t have any illusions about the reality of their situation. This was an enormous risk, but she knew if Johnathan was there by her side, she would have the courage to speak to her brother. After all, she was nearly one and twenty, and mostly importantly, Johnathan didn’t care if she was penniless.
The snap of a twig from outside alerted them, followed by a hefty thump. Johnathan swiftly got up and looked out the window.
“I’m going outside.” He pulled on his breeches and shirt and grabbed his bone knife. “Stay here and lock the door behind me.”
Chapter 15
“Release me,” the footman said.
Hawk dragged the intruder into the cottage and released him in the foyer. The footman had fallen from the trellis below Emily’s window when the frame broke. Then he proceeded to run when he saw Johnathan exit the cottage.
Fuck, the damn footman was fast. He detested running, because it was one of his father’s ways of punishing him. He would force him to run around the property until he nearly passed out from exhaustion when he misbehaved, which was often. By the time Johnathan caught up to the intruder, he was running out of breath.
When he finally had the opportunity to take a good look at the culprit, he realized that it was the Duke of Kemp’s footman. What on earth was Kemp’s footman doing here of all places?
“Talk,” Hawk ordered.
“You are a madman,” footman said.
“I am not going to ask twice.” He pulled a ten-inch bone blade knife from its beaded, fringed sheath. The footman’s eyes widened in fear.
“What do you plan on doing with that?”
“Use your imagination.” Johnathan brought the knife close so that the footman could see the sharp edge of the bone blade that had been made by the chief’s son and given to him as a gift.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Johnathan put the knife closer, the tip of it pointed toward the footman’s face.
His lips quivered in fear. “You would not dare. I am the—”
“I don’t give a damn who you think you are.”
Light and quick footfalls alerted both men. Johnathan saw Emily standing by the base of the stairs, looking at them with horror in her eyes.
“Mr. Henley? What are you doing here?” she said.
“My lady,” the footman said, awkwardly standing, and Johnathan backed away.
“Go back upstairs,” Johnathan ordered.
“I will do no such thing,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I suspect spying on us,” Johnathan remarked.
“Why, Mr. Henley?”
“I was not spying, my lady,” the f
ootman insisted. “I was instructed by his grace to keep an eye on you while he was away.” His eyes moved from Lady Wentworth to the knife in front of him, then back to Lady Wentworth again.
“Keep an eye on me?” she said. It was unfathomable. “Why would he do that?”
“I am not privy to that information, my lady.”
“Does my brother know that I am here?”
He was reluctant to answer at first, but he nodded. “I sent word to his grace, but whether he received it is another matter, my lady. I only did what I was told,” he said, staring at the knife again.
“Do you know where my brother has gone?” she asked.
“Gilford.”
“I need you to return to Kemp Manor, Mr. Henley,” she said. “Tell everyone I am well and that I am returning home soon.”
Once the footman was released to go, Emily approached Johnathan. “I have to return to Kemp Manor.”
“We can speak with your brother together,” Johnathan interjected. He knew once Emily’s brother got hold of her, it would be nearly impossible for him to get close to her; her brother would make sure of that.
“No, please,” she said. “I have to speak with him alone, to make him understand. Your presence will only anger him and make it very difficult for me to reason with him.”
Emily went upstairs to gather her things. She feared what her brother might be thinking right now. If he knew where she was and who she was with, it could mean the end of her and the possibility that she may never see Johnathan again. She needed time to think.
The thought of speaking to her brother was frightening. How would she make him understand that she wanted to be with Johnathan, that she wanted to be free of Lord Foley? Perhaps if her brother understood that Johnathan didn’t care if she was penniless, he might resign himself to her wishes. As she ironed her navy-blue empire dress with her hands and quickly shoved her belongings into the valise, her bedroom door swung open.
