"Noble," she whispered. "Noble, what am I going to do with you?" She paused, sighed sadly. "And once you're gone, what will I do without you?"
"A moot question since you won't be rid of me until you throw me out. As for your immediate concern... have me for dinner. And should you find yourself still hungry, have me again for dessert."
Noble pulled away and studied her glowing face. As he looked at her now his multitude of dilemmas slid away.
"You make me feel so rich, Lori. Even richer than a land baron discovering a wealth of gold in his mine."
"Know what? You make me feel like gold."
"You are," he assured her. Indeed, Lori was gold. A woman of immense strength and vulnerability. A woman he would be very foolish to let go for any reason.
Breaking away, she dug into her purse and extended a book. "From me to you. Louis L'Amour. He's kind of like the Shakespeare of frontier fiction."
"Thank you, Lori—and now a gift to you in return." Noble traced the novel's binding down her spine, tossed the book away, and caressed her behind.
Angling for a kiss, he tossed away his principles as well. And judging from her rampant response as he palmed a warm, full breast, there was much to be said for wooing a modern woman minus one's old-world principles.
Chapter 12
She had come to a decision. A very important, life-altering decision. But as Noble studied her too incisively while she swallowed a generous sip of pink champagne, Lori was no longer sure if she could act on it.
She finished the glass and he refilled it, his darkly sensual gaze never leaving her overwarm face. A cool compress sounded good. So did some deep-breathing exercises alone in the bathroom while she reconsidered the wisdom of what no longer seemed necessarily wise.
Seducing Noble. What in the world had made her think she could pull off something so outrageously brazen? Fear and courage. Desperation and desire. Yes, that's exactly what it was. She feared losing him; she was desperate to keep him. But facts were facts and the simple fact was, for all of Noble's professed affection and steamy kisses, she was his first stepping-stone into the future, and once he got his footing, it would be only natural for him to expand his horizons beyond her and their relationship.
It wouldn't be long before her monopoly on Noble was history. She had realized that today, when she'd let Ryan enter the picture. And that's when she had determined to seize the moment, to be brave enough, foolish enough, to see to her needs without worrying about tomorrow.
The problem was, her needs went beyond desire, and already she was worried about picking up the pieces of her heart once Noble was on his own. Later, she told herself, worry later and quit wasting precious time, and while you're at it quit shaking your foot and say something—something provocative.
"This is delicious." Delicious as it was, the bread felt stuck in her throat and she washed it down with several long swallows of champagne. "Where did you learn to make bread?"
Noble shrugged. "A simple task, really. Simple enough for a boy to learn from watching cooks in the kitchen."
The hot silver gleam of his gaze on her wet lips had Lori reaching for the bottle. Noble caught her wrist. His fingers seemed to burn past her flesh and into her jumping pulse.
"Please, allow me." Again he filled her glass, his actions smooth and polished, unlike the faint shake of the glass as she lifted it. "Is something wrong, Lori? You seem not quite yourself tonight."
Maybe she should just tell him. Just tell him she was terrified he would break her heart. And once she spilled her guts about that, ask him if he'd mind seducing her since she had no experience in seducing a man.
But... no. No. She was a grown woman and fully capable of taking charge of her life, taking responsibility for her actions.
"Actually, Noble, you're right. I'm not quite myself." Lori put down the glass and squared her shoulders. "I came to a decision today. And once I did, I went shopping. On my lunch hour. Alone."
"It sounds as if your decision was a monumental one, given the message on your—what is it called? Ah yes, bumper sticker. 'When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping.'" He chuckled. "So, tell me, what sent you to the stores?"
"You. Me. I mean, us." Lori groaned. This wasn't coming out right. Maybe she should have written him a letter instead. Too late for that; she plunged on. "What it comes down to is that I want to keep you all to myself, but all I have is borrowed time. Today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow and—"
"Lori—"
"No, Noble. Let me finish. I've resigned myself to the cold, hard facts. Even if you break my heart, it's not worth giving up a single minute of what we can have now. And so, I went shopping. First, I bought a really sexy nightgown. And then I bought—" A box of condoms. She couldn't bring herself to be so blunt. "I, uh, picked up a bottle of cognac, some vanilla-scented candles, and threw in a box of Trojans. I meant to light the candles to set the mood before I slipped into my new nightie and wave the cognac at you while I drew you down on the bed."
Lori blew out a sigh of relief, glad to have gotten it all out into the open and thankful Noble hadn't laughed at her. Far from it, he looked aroused and intrigued.
He took a leisurely sip from his nearly untouched first glass of champagne, lifted a brow, and asked, "What are these Trojans in a box?"
"They're—they're..." Oh Lord. Why hadn't she just gone on the pill? Because by the time they kick in, the affair might very well be over. She took a deep breath. "They are thin plastic shields a man puts on to prevent pregnancy and protect both partners from sharing any sexual diseases." At his expression of slight offense, Lori hastened to say, "not that I have any because I don't. And I'm sure that you don't either. But it's the responsible thing to do."
He tapped his lips. "Amazing that you could and would actually purchase these... ah... French letters"—he paused—"in order to prevent a chance taking of my seed I presume."
"That pretty well sums it up."
"Should I take this to mean you don't wish for children?"
"No! I'd love to have kids."
"How many?"
"Heck, I don't know. Two? Three, max."
"An acceptable number." After a thoughtful silence, he quietly added, "I look forward to the day when those French letters are no longer of use to us."
Wasn't he listening to her? Obviously no better than she was listening to her heart before it was shattered.
"We can't even think about a family, Noble. For heaven's sake, we can't even think about being together beyond tonight and a few stolen tomorrows. That's why I'm trying to drag you to bed—so far, with little success—and no wonder since I—"
"Enough." He slammed down his glass. "Enough of this skirting around the real issue. It is not that I will break your heart by deserting you, because I have an equal fear you will desert me. The true difficulty lies in that I am absolutely, unapologetically in love with you, I will be for the rest of my life, and I shall have you for a wife. However, I cannot ask for your hand until I am financially sound again—and though I vowed to myself to honor your virtue until I'd earned the privilege of claiming it, I simply can't wait that long before seeking your most intimate favors in bed."
For a full minute Lori could only stare at him. "Let me get this straight," she said slowly. "Are you telling me that you think you're in love with me?"
"I do not think it. I know it. Just as I know my father fell in love with my mother in less than a week as well. I've dallied with many women, in bed and out, but never has one laid me low and sent me soaring, with a smile, a kiss."
How she wanted him to love her and how easily, too easily, it would be to love Noble. He made her feel too much, want too much. And there was the danger.
Hard as it was, she clung to reason. "There's a big difference between the two of us and your parents. They came from the same time—"
"They also came from two very different worlds. Love is love, they often told me, no matter the poor timing of it or the adversity which might c
ome as a result." He took her hand, pressed his lips to it. "I do love you, Lori."
"Tell me that in a year and I'll believe you."
"I will. Time will prove I speak the truth. And time will prove whether or not you can return the love I freely give to you. Tell me, do you feel some, even a little, now?"
Did she? Heaven help her, but she did. All the more reason to make him understand the distance she was compelled to keep. "I'm crazy about you, Noble," she confessed. "But I don't want to let myself love you the way you think you love me. I can't afford it. Not yet. Not until you—"
"Meet other women of your time?" he supplied. "Back to that, are we? Bloody hell, woman. Not only do you underestimate me, you underestimate yourself!"
"I'd rather underestimate us both than end up in love with you only for you to figure out what you're really feeling is something a lot less." Before he could refute her, Lori touched his hand. "Look, you need me to help you get through a painful transition. And I need you for the same reason. Please, Noble, why don't we just agree to leave love out of the equation? That way you won't feel guilty if you decide to leave and I won't be hanging my hopes on a shooting star sure to burn out when it hits ground."
Noble suppressed a disdainful retort. Leave love out of the equation, eh? For not having known Lori long, he seemed to know her better than she knew herself. She wasn't capable of shutting off her emotions while coupling. He would refrain, however, from righting her misguided reasoning. Especially since it abetted his cause.
"Very well," he agreed. With satisfaction he noted her slight frown at his seemingly easy capitulation. He twirled a fingertip in his glass and traced a wet path from her throat to the scooped neckline of her blouse. Dipping inside, he leisurely flicked a nipple. At her soft: gasp, he withdrew. "Very well," he repeated. "If it is a lover you want, a lover I shall be. A demanding one, Lori."
She wet her lips, a nervous little gesture. "I—uh, I'll go put on my nightgown. While I do, you can—"
"Watch. You are sorely mistaken if you think to relegate me to cleaning the table or pacing the floor while you do battle with the decision you've made."
She stood with stoic resolve. Noble admired her courage even as he shook his head at her resigned sigh. "Okay. Let's forget the dishes and—"
"And be done with it?" He blocked her way when she took a halting step toward the stairs. Staying her with a firm grip, he felt her slight shake. Lord, he thought, if Lori only knew how painfully revealing his own disrobing would be, she'd surely realize her anxiety had nothing on his.
He spoke to himself, as much as to her. "To take off one's clothes, Lori, is to bare your body but not necessarily your soul. No one can see or touch that part of another unless it is given freely, with trust. I trust you as I have few others, and will gladly bare myself, body and soul, for your view. However, I need at least some small measure of the same from you." Searching her troubled, yearning gaze, he felt an incisive empathy with Lori, as if he were in her skin, not his.
It had been like this since he first awoke, but the more time that passed, the more his sense of connection with her intensified as her unguarded revelations surfaced in his memory. How well he understood Lori. Even her present reluctance, her need to be loved by him and her fear to believe it was true. Somehow he had to break past her defenses and win her trust. But... how?
As he thought his gaze veered to the table and the second loaf of bread, untouched, covered by a towel. Lori was like the waiting loaf, its steam held in by external forces. And he was the knife capable of cleaving her defenses if she would but lend her hand to the cause.
"Lori," he said, breaking the charged silence, "what do you say to my need for more than just sex? Surely you realize it won't be good for either of us unless intimacy is part of what we share."
Noble was right. Lori knew he was absolutely right. Without intimacy, she'd feel cheap and empty. But once she lowered her guard, the stakes would go up, way up, and she had to decide if the risk was worth the consequences she might have to suffer later. Might. Later. Those were the key words that sealed her decision.
"All right, then," she acquiesced. "We'll take it as it comes, see what happens. But, Noble, I've gotta tell you, I'm really scared about this."
"I know you are, Lori. I know." His soothing voice held a silken edge of mystique that stole her breath and tantalized her imagination. "How very brave you are," he continued while turning her toward the table. His chest to her spine, his lips to her nape, he leaned in and led her hands to the cloth-covered bread. "So very brave to confront your fears and come with me to a place only the two of us can go."
"Where... where are we going?"
"On a journey. A journey of the senses. Close your eyes," he gently commanded.
Lori could feel her heart hammer, her belly clutch in anticipation of the sensual unknown, as she shut her eyes. "Why?" she asked.
"Quite simply, I want you to look within as we explore a world of our making—a very intimate realm where trust is earned and forged. Come with me, Lori," he murmured, guiding her unsteady hands to uncover the bread, then lightly stroke its warm, crusty surface.
It felt good, so good and reassuring. Instinctively, she sought the source of its heat, and sank her fingertips deep into the loaf. The steam seeped beneath and around her nails, and she indulged in the sensory delight.
"Do you like the feel of my bread?"
"I do. It's like holding hearth and home in my hands."
"And such is the way I feel when I hold you." His arms came around her waist, and in his embrace she felt a wondrous, lifting thrill. The strength of his chest pressed to her back, his arousal firm against her, quickening her own desire. And the bread's giving texture, wrapped around her fingers, felt wonderful, like a moist cloth to a fever.
There was a fever inside her, rising high and fast in her blood. Noble. Noble was the fever. He was in her system and all she could do was pray he didn't break her.
But for now she was safe, safe in his whispered promise: "No need to fear the next leg of our journey, I'm here and holding fast to you, love." There was a sweet restraint in his touch as he glided his palms from her knees to her thighs, too slowly raising her skirt and bathing her neck with leisurely kisses. By the time he hiked the skirt over her hips and stroked her buttocks until she moaned soft and long, her need for more, so much more, was dire.
"My hose," she panted. "Noble, please, take them down."
"Far be it from me to refuse you a second time," he assured her with a low, seductive chuckle. His thumbs hooked into the elastic, and she could hardly bear the suspense as the blunt edge of his nails skated down her legs. They were trembling, unsteady, when he reached her knees. There, he stopped. Before she could demand that he finish, he placed a demand of his own.
His hand covered one of hers, leading it away from the security she clutched. He placed her palm over the knife's hilt.
"You know what I want you to do," he whispered, his breath moist, hot on her nape. At her halting nod, he let go. "Courage, Lori. You've come so for, don't falter now. Freedom, release, they're within your grasp. Trust me."
Disbelieving of what she was doing even as she did it, Lori drew the knife down and put its blade to the panty hose stretched taut between her knees. Her hand shook as she sliced awkwardly at the elastic band.
"Help me?" she whispered.
"I would be honored, my love," came his hoarse reply.
Lori felt the rip as surely as the rending of her frail defenses. Noble slid the spliced panty hose down, taking them off until nylon and shoes and defenses lay at her feet.
She kicked all three aside and was rewarded with his approving groan, a lingering kiss to each bare-bottomed cheek. Rising, he stroked her belly with a sweeping caress. And then she endured a delicious agony, the feel of him fretting her most private hair, the teasing graze of his fingertip to the peak of her gender's pulse.
"Make love to me," she pleaded, then demanded, "make love to me,
Noble. Now. Now."
"All in good time," he said with a maddening calm while he drove her nearly insane with the slide of his palms between her legs. She eagerly opened them and he bent his knees to the backs of hers, fit himself to her everywhere except for where she was desperate to be joined together, tight as a fist gloved in wet velvet.
She thrust back, urged him on with a frantic push of her hips. "For the love of God, what are you waiting for?" she all but shrieked. He stilled her with a firm clamp.
"Patience, Lori," he soothed her. "One should never rush what's meant to be savored." His hand wound into her hair and she felt the tug prickle her scalp and tingle her womb. He pressed her down until her cheek rested on the linen tablecloth and the earthy aroma of yeast invaded her senses.
She smelled the bread made by his hands, smelled the clean scent of his skin riding hers, and weaving around and through them both was the smell of musk, pulsing on waves of a dizzying, sexual heat.
Where was this place Noble had taken them? She vaguely wondered. The answer came swiftly. This place, this intoxicating, mind-bending place, was where the unknown became the known and more than bodies were bared. It was a place of intimacy as she had never perceived it before, racing on a current of the deepest reaches of desire, buried in the far corners of her mind. Hidden, until Noble had taken her where she'd never dreamed to go...
His realm. He ruled here with ease and dark grace. His passion controlled while he unleashed her own, so completely and profoundly that she didn't hesitate to obey him. "The butter, Lori. Hand me the butter," he commanded.
She passed him the semi-firm stick. He skated tiny figure eights over her nerve ends until she pounded the table and begged for him to stop, only to plead for the butter's return when he did.
She heard the butter thud onto the table, felt his grip on her arms just before he abruptly turned her to face him. Her eyes flew open and she struggled to focus on his looming face, his breath coming harsh and fast while her own was nowhere to be found.
Mallory Rush - [Outlawsand Heroes 02] Page 11
