He put his lips to her temple and gently brushed his way down her cheek. Then he put his lips to hers. At his first touch, she wanted to pull away, but the soft intensity of his kiss stilled her. The warmth of his sensual lips slowly coaxed her. She opened her mouth to him. He kissed her so deeply, lingeringly, skillfully that she forgot everything but the driving sensual force of his lips and tongue.
She lay limply against the pillow, content to just stay there forever and let him go on kissing her. He touched both of her shoulders, sliding his fingertips down each of her arms until he reached her wrists. The light touch sent delicious shivers racing up, across her breasts, making her nipples pull tight.
He wrapped his hands around her wrists and drew her arms up. As if in a trance, she let him. She would have let him do anything, so long as she could continue to taste and feel his mouth. He took them over her head, pinning them to either side. The fine hairs of his body tickled her; his weight bore down on her. The sense of his strength, overcoming her, controlling her, sent liquid, honeyed heat pooling in her womb.
Wanting to touch him, she struggled in his hold.
He held her firm.
Another stronger wave of liquid heat flooded her. She moaned deeply.
He rolled his hips against hers in such a way that his pelvis caressed her sensitive nub but his cock moved only slightly, not the vigorous thrusts of moments before. Each movement gave her an equal measure of pain and pleasure. Slowly, he enticed her until bliss overtook the lingering pain. Each luscious, wet stroke of his cock inside her was the most delightful thing imaginable. The intimacy of it was just too much.
She clung to him, wanting to beg and plead for him to move within her more firmly and faster but the words came out as incoherent moaning.
He continued to simply rock gently against her, dragging her longing out until she ached for release. As if he somehow sensed the extent of her need, he pulled up to kneel between her legs, still joined to her, and brushed her nub with his fingertips.
Pleasure exploded within her and her inner walls gripped him tightly. Spasmodically. The very resistance of his hardness there increased her pleasure in a way she hadn’t expected. Made it deeper, more gratifying. A melting, sweet, womanly sort of a feeling. Oh, he was very welcome there now. She didn’t want him ever to leave.
But he withdrew.
“No, no,” she murmured, opening her eyes.
He had his hand wrapped around his cock and he was stroking the shaft, rather harder and faster than she would have ever dared to touch that part of him. Observing his hand moving upon his flesh like that, she became transfixed. Unable to look away. Yes, she did often touch herself. Too often. But to see someone else doing it, so openly, without any trace of shame…Well, it was simply the most fascinating thing she’d ever witnessed!
And rather arousing.
At a sudden prickling awareness, she glanced at his face.
He was watching her.
Watching her watch him.
As their eyes met, his seemed to shimmer with such a myriad mix of emotion, it made her feel a little lightheaded. She felt herself soaring to emotional heights just as heady as the physical pleasure she’d known just moments earlier.
It all made her feel closer to him still. Closer than she’d ever felt to anyone. He groaned and lowered his eyes. She followed. His cock jerked within his grasp and he gave a harsh shout. Creamy fluid spurted out of the head, wet warmth that shot out with such strength and force that some of it hit her breasts and her chin.
Shocked, she laughed. Joy flooded her all over.
“Oh God…Christ,” he rasped breathlessly. Then he braced his hands on either side of her body, slumping somewhat. “Oh damn.”
His voice caught convulsively as he spoke, almost like someone who was fighting laughter. He was still panting and panting. He looked up at her, his eyes glowing so brilliantly that, in the candlelight, they looked more blue than gray.
His intense gaze sent a curl of pleasurable anxiety through her belly. With trembling lips, she smiled. He moved over her, stretching, reaching above her head to the bedside table, and dropped a small, white towel on her middle.
Then he fell beside her onto the other pillow. His panting breaths sounded so loud. She wiped his seed off her stomach and tossed the towel aside. She wanted only to get closer to him.
Him and his wonderful, pleasure-producing body.
She curled into his side, her hand stretching over the sweat-dampened hair on his chest. His rippling muscles went rigid beneath her touch.
“What the devil?” He sounded angry.
She pulled her hand back and tried to turn her head away, to crawl into the pillow. But he followed her and gripped her chin. His eyes were like flame, burning her, forcing her to close her eyes.
“Open your eyes.” His words were a clipped command.
Her heart pounded into full alarm and she opened her eyes.
“Why did you lie to me?”
She tried to flatten herself further against the pillow but it wasn’t possible. There was no escape. “Oh God, you’re very angry, aren’t you?”
“I am absolutely livid,” he replied in a calm voice.
Her spirits crashed. She was sore between her legs. And worst of all, she had failed to please him. She’d made him angry instead. Tears she couldn’t hold back blurred her vision. Mortified, she tried to roll away, but again he held her fast. He gave her a little shake.
“What the hell are you about here?”
“I need the money.”
“I’d have given you money, if you had only told me.”
“I am not a charity girl.” The words came out as a watery sob. She swallowed hard and forced the tears back.
“Good God.” He sounded as devastated as if he’d suddenly received the news that he’d lost everything dear to him.
“Does it really matter?”
“Of course it matters.” His calm voice seemed to boom, unnaturally loud in her ears. “When you entered this chamber you were a virgin.”
“I am the same girl as entered here.”
“No, you’re not.” He drew a long, ragged breath. “Now I have debauched you.”
“It was my decision to make. It had nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me.”
“How do you reckon that? What could it possibly be to you?”
“It’s my honor, my conscience.” He released her and left the bed.
Listening to him move about the room, she placed her hands over her ears so that she wouldn’t have to hear him leave.
The bed rocked again. He hadn’t left. What now?
She held her breath, waiting. Moist warmth touched her bare buttocks and she stiffened. It touched her again.
A washcloth.
“Alex…” she gasped.
“Here, darling, turn about,” he urged, touching her shoulder.
She turned. “I can wash…oh my!” Vivid red streaks staining the snowy white sheets and marking her thighs drew and riveted her eye.
“Easy now,” he said in a more tender voice. “I was not a bit gentle.”
His tone was so full of self-censure that she couldn’t bring herself to argue with him further.
She closed her eyes weakly whilst he continued to clean her. She had wanted to prove herself an experienced woman of the world and now he was treating her like a baby. In the absence of excitement, such naked intimacy seemed far too raw to bear. Mercifully, it was soon over. As if from far away, she felt the bed rock when he left it again.
She drifted into darkness but awoke at his return to the bed.
He touched her head. “Come now, sweetheart, raise up.”
She opened her eyes and sat.
He was wearing his banyan. “Drink this, darling.” He brought a glass of wine to her lips and supported the back of her head as if she had suddenly become incapable. He caressed her hair. “Does it hurt badly, sweetheart?”
Though her
soreness had ebbed greatly, at his tender tone the pressure of those earlier tears broke loose and she began to cry.
He placed the glass upon the night table, then drew her closer and stroked her back. “My darling, my precious darling.”
His voice was soft and crooning, and it spoke to someplace deep, deep inside her. Grandmother’s death, Emily’s own brush with death, all the losses and disillusionments—all the sadness she’d been forced to push aside in the struggle to survive the past weeks rushed to the surface. She cried against his broad chest as he continued to caress her back, her shoulders, her hair. Deep, wrenching sobs racked her body until she was limp and spent.
He pulled her back with him and he settled on the pillows with her in his arms. He pulled the coverlet over them. She pressed her face to his soft, velvet-covered chest. Having cried so hard and so long, she had that sore-in-the-stomach, empty-of-everything feeling, something she had not felt since the day Grandfather had died.
She didn’t want to think; she didn’t want to move.
She just wanted to melt into this man, this strange, tender, wonderful man, and let him comfort her.
Forever.
After a time, he pushed the hair out of her face and wiped her tear-drenched cheeks with the edge of the coverlet.
“Please, darling, don’t take on so.” His voice sounded almost strangled. “I am going to take care of you. Such good care of you. So don’t worry.”
“But I need only a hundred dollars.” She sobbed the words out.
He made a sibilant sound and caressed her back through the covers. He put his lips to her head and pulled her closer to his body. His warmth and strength surrounded her. His steady touch proved lulling and suddenly her whole body went weak. She’d never felt so safe. She just wanted to curl into him and stay forever.
“I am going to do right by you. Don’t worry about a thing.” His velvet, soothing voice drifted away as forgetfulness beckoned her and sleep claimed her.
* * * *
Alex listened to Emily’s regular breathing as she slept. He couldn’t possibly sleep. Slumber often proved elusive and tonight it was completely impossible.
Her head lay upon his shoulder. He couldn’t remember passing a whole night like that with any woman. He traced a fingertip over the angle of her jaw, then smoothed her hair. With a soft moan, she stirred and snuggled closer.
As earlier, when he’d been inside her and again when she had cried so desolately, tenderness consumed him. It certainly didn’t feel like infatuation any longer. He hadn’t come that hard since he’d been eighteen or nineteen.
He regarded her warily. She looked so innocent, so girlish. Yet she’d done what no other person had been able to do in years. She had been under his skin, a part of him, even as their bodies had joined.
The reality of that shook him.
That he’d taken her virginity and caused her pain had been disturbing enough. Maybe there was no helping that. Maybe it always caused a woman pain the first time, no matter the approach. But it had been more how it had reminded him of the first time he’d had a virgin.
Of course that had been in another lifetime and another world. A world that haunted him night and day and kept him on the run, seeking anything to distract himself from his demons.
The steady dripping of water on tiles sounded clearly in his ears and he breathed in hot, moist air. The flies were buzzing, always buzzing.
He shook his head to clear the images away. No, he wouldn’t slip into the terrible seduction of his waking nightmares. Not tonight. He eased Emily’s head from his shoulder and arose from the bed.
He went to the other chamber, found his whiskey and immediately downed a shot. Then he collected his shaving materials and sought comfort in the mundane activity, scraping his razor across his lathered face and washing it off in the basin with methodical rhythm.
There had been clues the whole way along that she’d been an innocent, since he’d first seen her staring into the window of the Blue Duck with that lost-kitten look in her large, sherry-brown eyes. There was no excusing it. Alex had allowed his lust and his desire to explore the promise of her deep sensuality to overrule his better sense.
He should marry her. Anyone else would see that as the natural conclusion to such an event as the night before. But what had he to offer such a bright, fresh girl?
You’re not right. You’re damaged. There’s so much scarring inside you, no one can reach past it to touch you.
He winced. He could never think those words without wincing. They’d been flung at him in a fit of rage by Alice—or Alicia, as she had styled herself once she’d become Peter Van Moerdijk’s cast-off mistress, elegantly clothed with the money provided by his generous congé.
Poor, illiterate Alicia. She’d been so hurt, so disappointed by Peter. A frivolous, pleasure-seeking woman. Yet she’d seen through him in a matter of weeks, and in her impulsive rage had hurled at him a truth that other mistresses had been too polite and sensitive to relate.
In the beginning, her sad eyes had called to him. Her outward shyness covered an overt sexuality and emotionally explosive impulsiveness that had fascinated him. He’d known where it would lead, might have refused—but he hadn’t. He had longed to pour out all his compassion upon her.
His compassion—what utter vanity! Surface compassion at best. He never truly knew his women, nor did he allow himself to be known by them.
In the end, he hadn’t been able to reach or save Alicia any more than she could him. They’d brought her in and laid her upon the settee in the parlor. He’d been out riding, he’d found her there. He might have simply walked by—but he hadn’t. He’d been a man full grown and he could look. He’d gone and lifted the sheet.
He’d stood there and gazed upon her and not seen her lifeless hazel eyes, nor her sandy blonde hair wetted by blood and matted with gravel from the circular drive of his summer mansion on the Schuylkill River.
Rather, he’d been transported back to his youth, to a distant land, to the baths with the water dripping down yellow and blue tiles…
His hand slipped, the sharp razor slicing easily into his flesh. He winced again. As he watched the red droplets drip into the sudsy basin, his hand shook.
Water dripping down yellow and blue tiles… The water was… No, don’t look, he shouldn’t look…
He gave himself a mental shake.
God. Enough.
He wasn’t going to…He took a deep breath and pushed the memories down where they belonged. He pressed a towel to the nick on his left cheek.
Alicia had become far too fond of spirits and also of opiates during her ill-fated sojourn among the wealthy gentlemen of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Whether she had fallen from the roof or jumped, it didn’t matter. He’d known her weaknesses. He should have watched over her more closely. He should have softened their ending better. As the glow of infatuation had faded, he should have hidden his changing feelings from her more completely. He’d failed her, just as he’d failed before, so long ago, with Catarina. Because he lacked what it took to make a woman believe in him. Something inside; something indefinable.
Alicia had been correct.
I am damaged.
I breathe, I walk among the living, but I am dead inside.
If he tried to be what a girl like Emily wanted and needed, he’d fail.
She would see through him. She would be disappointed. He wouldn’t be able to live with that and he would leave her behind, just as empty as he was.
That was the nature of the damaged.
There was no use denying it. He knew it all too well. The most passionate of his affaires always devolved into two empty, damaged people, each trying to burn themselves up on the pyre of the other. No one ever left such an involvement whole, intact. And a damaged person could offer nothing else.
Before, in the beginning, in that hellish place so long ago with Catarina, he hadn’t been allowed to do the right thing. He’d failed and disaster had ensued. This tim
e he wouldn’t fail.
But what was the right thing?
* * * *
Emily awoke with sunlight streaming in through a crack in the heavy drapes to illuminate her face. She startled to find herself in the large, luxuriously soft bed in the strange chamber. The scent of sandalwood and sex on the sheets brought memories rushing back to her. She ran a hand over the place next to her.
It was cold.
For a moment, she felt lonely and sad.
I am going to do right by you.
His last words echoed in her head. The memory of what it had felt like to be cosseted and cared for by him warmed her. Made her wish that he’d return and that she could stay in that cozy haze where nothing mattered but getting as close as possible to him. How safe she had felt, tucked close to his body.
She couldn’t lie to herself. Last night, she’d begun to fall a little bit in love with him. But love and closeness never came without a price. And the price for that love was her personal liberty.
Having tasted freedom, if it came to choosing between love and liberty, she’d always choose liberty.
She remembered how Grandmother had manipulated her softer feelings, gaining control over her that way. How the woman had protected and sheltered her until she’d felt suffocated.
She had already witnessed his propensity to take charge of situations, to control her based on his desire to protect her. Suddenly she feared him. Feared his potential to want more from her than she was willing or able to give.
But now she feared her own feelings for him…and his ability to inspire in her such feelings and reactions, much, much more.
Anyway, she didn’t have time for such nonsense as having a lover. Why, she had so much she needed to do with her life yet. Not the least of which was getting her book printed. Her first priority would be to find new boarding house rooms with the money she’d earned last night.
Last night.
She remembered the pleasure, the pain, his exquisite gentleness afterwards and his tender care. How good it had felt to just turn herself over to it.
Wild, Wicked and Wanton: A Hot Historical Romance Bundle Page 60
