After the Kiss

by Karen Ranney

  She was defenseless, alone in the world. With no relatives. No one to protect her from salacious earls with lust on their minds.

  Her silence added to his shame, bringing into sharp relief the inequities of their stations in life. He was a noble who, although necessity dictate he wed an heiress, still possessed an income far in excess of hers. She was a poor widow. Perhaps her silence was fear and the secrets she held in her eyes merely a resigned acceptance of his actions.

  He dropped his hands, walked away from her. The fact that he had to force himself to do so was a further indication of the danger of this moment.

  “Forgive me,” he said, staring into the fire. His booted foot braced on the fender, both hands fisted on the mantel.

  “It would be better if you left this room right now,” he bit out. Give him a moment to calm. Simply leave, and he would be himself once more.

  Margaret stood watching him, her heart beating so loud she felt as if her chest trembled with it. She fingered the button at her neck. Although she had never swooned in her life, at this moment it felt possible.

  She had wanted a kiss. Something to put into her storehouse of memories for those times of loneliness. A recollection of an afternoon when she had become scandalous and thoroughly reckless.

  Instead, he had placed his hands on her, touched her softly, his fingers imprinted forever on her breasts.

  What was she doing? She was both excited and frightened. She wanted to be exactly where she was and far from here. She wanted him to touch her again, train her in wantonness, and teach her desire.

  Leave now, Margaret. It is still not too late. The world would condemn you for your foolishness, but you have not yet been labeled whore.

  She didn’t care. Wasn’t that a silly answer? She didn’t care. She repeated it again in her mind, realizing that her conscience was silent, muted beneath the wonder she felt. She didn’t care. A third time. If Sarah Harrington knew what she was doing, she and her sister would go from house to house condemning her with their whispers. The shopkeepers along Stanton Street, where their small bookshop had been, would be hard pressed to recognize her. Where had proper Margaret gone?

  He turned and glanced at her, and she realized that part of what she’d hungered for was being answered in his look. She had never been desired. Not in this way. This feeling was harsh and wild and too compelling to ignore or deny. An awareness of him thrummed through her, a heady feeling as if she’d drunk too much wine.

  She knew that what she was contemplating was unwise. But who was to know? No one was here; no one would tell. There was the door. She could walk through it. He had invited her to do so. Almost urged her to take her dignity and her reputation and run from him.

  He stood in profile to her. A man still mostly a stranger. Yet how many times had she stared at a painting resembling him, stroked her finger across a muscled back as if to feel the texture of his skin beneath her trembling finger? How many dreams had she had of a man who looked similar to him, and awakened wishing he was real and alive and close to her?

  Now he was.

  Tomorrow, or next week, or a year from now, she was not going to cloak this moment in mystique and claim it had been seduction. It was, instead, complicity.

  She placed her shawl on the settee, looked in his direction once again.

  One kiss? No, more. Much more.

  Chapter 10

  A direct and uncomplicated mutual

  understanding is a requirement of great passion.

  The Journals of Augustin X

  He waited for the sound of her departure. But there was no click of the key in the lock, and the door didn’t open. Long moments later he turned and she was still standing there in the same position, her lovely mouth solemn. Her hands were clasped before her, but her chin was firmly tilted up at him.

  He was right to think her a country princess. She had the arrogance of a monarch.

  Her next action released him from self-condemnation, threw him once again into confusion. She began to open the buttons of her spencer.

  His gaze flew to hers, only to trap him in the openness of her look. He felt stunned into admiration for her. She was like no other woman he’d ever known. Direct and demure, shocking yet innocent. Captivating.

  He walked to where she stood.

  “If you stay, Margaret, I will do more than kiss you. Is that what you want?”

  “Yes.” A whisper of assent.

  “I will love you,” he said softly. “With great deliberation and absolutely no hesitation. Is that what you want?”

  “Please.”

  He smiled.

  The spencer unfastened, he pushed it off her shoulders. It fell to the floor with a whisper. The sleeves of her dress were puffed, gathered in small tucks on the shoulder, then tight from elbow to wrist.

  He heard a stitch rip as he pulled one sleeve down, exposing a shoulder. He wanted to tell her that he would buy her a hundred such dresses. But at the moment, there were other concerns in his mind. The sight of her skin creamy in the sunlight. Smooth to his touch. She shivered where his fingers stroked.

  The dress had a rounded neck. From her neck to where the material began, her skin was bare. Anyone might see it. But not anyone would do as he did now.

  He bent down and murmured against her skin. “This is not a kiss, Margaret.” But his lips pressed in the hollow between her breasts, even as his fingers pulled her bodice lower.

  He thanked Providence that she was not an innocent. Or a wife.

  The bedroom was too damned far away.

  She might change her mind, or convince herself it was not wise, or his own logical thought might come to the forefront. His chamber was simply not an adequate destination.

  He led her to the settee. When she sat, he arranged the cushions behind her. He draped her shawl over her shoulders, even as he reached behind her to undo the top button of her dress. She said nothing to his actions, but her eyes widened.

  He was seduced by her silence.

  He pulled down her bodice just a little. A few inches, no more. Enough so that the rosy edge of her aureole peeped below the material.

  He touched her breast with one finger. A slow, exploratory touch. She closed her eyes, kept them shut as he reached into her bodice and gently pulled the material down, exposing her breast. Her nipple puckered, grew tighter in anticipation.

  He dusted small kisses over her neck, shoulders, then traced an invisible line to her breast. It seemed acutely sensitive to his touch. His fingers plucked at her nipple, gently elongating it. Then his tongue replaced his fingers, circled it slowly, tenderly. Margaret placed her hand at the back of his head, urged him forward.

  A moment later, he opened his lips, the nipple bathed in the heat of his tongue and mouth. He pulled on it strongly, teased her with the barest edge of his teeth. He heard her softly gasp, her hands falling to her sides.

  He pulled back, wished there was some way to preserve the picture of her as she sat there. Now was the time to wish for some talent in drawing. He would have sketched her, perhaps rendered her in oils.

  She sat on the settee, a virtuous pose in her clean and serviceable cotton. Her hands were clasped tightly together on her lap, her eyes downcast, her gaze fixed on the carpet at her feet. However, her cheeks were stained with color, and her breath was rapid. Afraid? She glanced up at him and he realized he was wrong. The languid expression in her eyes was arousal, passion. Not fear.

  Beneath the shawl, one breast lay exposed for his touch, the nipple erect and hard.

  He would, if he were a painter of some renown, choose titian for her hair, the subtlest rose high upon her cheeks, a darker green for her eyes. And her lips. A color to match that one exposed nipple. As if nature itself had marked the shade in order to render it the same.

  A courtesan, someone a king might treasure. Let alone a lowly earl.

  The expression on her face was neither censorious nor embarrassed. Instead, there was stillness to her, as if she waited
for him to continue. He wanted to enchant her, beguile her so completely that she would no longer be silent, but as needy as he.

  He was so hard that he hurt.

  He traced the slope of her breast with his fingers. She shivered. She was so still that he could see the fine tremors on her skin. Placing his hands on her waist, he brought her forward a little, then bent his head. His mouth encompassed the tip of her breast, sucked it tenderly.

  Her hands clenched into fists; her breath was exhaled in a sigh.

  It had been less than an hour since he’d seen her at Babby’s house. In that time he’d given her his word, questioned the fabric of his honor. Promised her a kiss. But now he wanted more.

  Her surrender.

  He moved closer to her, pulled back the draped shawl. Her face lifted and her gaze turned to him. His eyes were a blaze of blue, his mouth solemn, his face intent. He exposed her breast, tucked the shawl around it. His palm pressed against her nipple gently. His fingers fanned out to encompass her breast even as he watched her. That was the most startling sensation of them all, his intensity. As if he measured her response to him. Approved of her slight sigh, knew and sanctioned the feeling of heat traveling through her body.

  He was a master at seduction. It was bright in the room and she had never loved in sunlight before. But it didn’t seem to matter.

  She felt an aching hollowness inside her. As if it was expanding, obliterating before it all those rules she’d learned about proper behavior, altering her. It was an intriguing feeling, this loss of herself.

  A moment later, he leaned forward, reached for the glass bowl of flowers, then snapped off a daffodil, and an early spring rose. He twirled the daffodil slowly against her nipple, the bright yellow color a colorful contrast against her flushed skin. She closed her eyes at the feeling. Exquisite delight.

  She had never known that it was possible to feel so much with her breasts, or that her nipples could harden until they almost hurt. When he pulled the flower away, a slight dusting of pollen appeared on her breast.

  “If I were an industrious bee,” he said, smiling, “I would be thrilled at this discovery.”

  He reached over and pulled down the other side of her bodice, exposing her other breast, then sucked gently on her. Margaret reached out and placed both hands flat against his hollowed cheeks, held him in place. She felt as if she were swimming in something dark and liquid, heedless and uncaring and maddened by him.

  He didn’t ask, didn’t coax. Nor did he request her permission, or seduce her with words. He simply pulled her from the settee, onto her knees and then to the floor. His hands, eager in anticipation, stroked from shoulder to waist, thigh to ankle, as he undressed her.

  His fingers found each separate curve, her inner elbow, the place where shoulder and neck joined. He learned her, the indentation of her navel, the soft, fine hairs on her upper thigh. The line of leg, the curve of an ankle. His fingers teased her, brushed against intimate curls. His longest finger slid between her thighs. She was slippery, her intimate folds gently swollen. Her head turned as his fingers touched her slowly, her soft moan an enticement.

  He wanted to gently bite her breasts, stroke her to pleasure with his fingers. And do more. So much more, that it didn’t seem fair that there were only hours left to the day. Perhaps he would keep her with him for a week. A month, perhaps, and by the time the days were done, he would understand the woman behind the mystery. All ciphers could be solved, all puzzles could be reduced to their most understandable. People were the same. All it required was a control over emotions, a rational discourse. Logic. Sensibility.

  Some other time, perhaps.

  He was too fervent, he knew that. His actions were almost those of an uncontrolled youth. Or the acts of a starving man. Before him on the carpet lay his feast, the voluptuousness of her body a lush invitation.

  He nearly ripped off his clothes, behavior unlike him. He knelt over her like a predator. But then, he did not feel quite human at this moment.

  She looked up at him, her eyes languid, her mouth a lure. A naked angel’s welcome. How odd that he thought of his honor at this moment. Her fingers fluttered on his shoulders, her nails scraped against his skin, and then all thought was lost.

  He entered her slowly, the moment almost unendurable, it was so close to ecstasy. He had never before been so aroused, so hard. The sensation was not simply in his loins, but seemed to spread throughout his body. His attention, his logic, his very sensibility had been supplanted by anticipation. At the same time, he wanted to make it last longer. For hours, perhaps. For days.

  Her hips rose up to meet him and he almost moaned with the feeling.

  He looked down at her. Her head was turned, her profile lovely and sunlit. Her hair lay in disarray upon the patterned carpet, her braid dislodged by passion, not intent. One hand was clenched into a fist and pressed against her mouth. He didn’t want her to stifle any sound. He wanted to hear them. Moans and gasps. Pleas and sobs.

  His hand played between their bodies, plucked gently at a nipple with his fingers before his mouth replaced it. He withdrew, then entered her again.

  Her body tightened around him. An invitation as demanding as her fingers drumming a tattoo on his hips. Her hips rose as she welcomed each of his strokes. Her breath was held tight, then released on a gasp.

  Not long enough, damn it. It wasn’t going to be long enough.

  His breath hitched, the back of his throat closed up, his fists clenched on the floor as he drove into her. Some atavistic, not entirely human response roared through him. He wanted to make her scream in pleasure, sob in his arms.

  He held onto the last of his control, determined.

  She closed her eyes, pressed her fist against her lips. He wondered if she felt as he did, strung so tight on the edge of pleasure that it was almost pain.

  He knew the instant it happened.

  Her arms flung out, her body bowed beneath him as if she were a tightly strung string, or supple wood. A sound emerged from between her lips. A plea, a cry, a warning. He felt what she was experiencing. A sudden blindness, deafness to the world. A death, perhaps, to the consciousness that was each of them. Did she feel the same? Michael heard the question in his mind. But then again, it could have been only a thought, lost in the instant before his vision grayed.

  Chapter 11

  A courtesan selects her lovers with great skill,

  preferring those men with large ears,

  an indication of vigor and drive.

  The Journals of Augustin X

  What had she’d done? Margaret closed her eyes, wished herself somewhere else.

  He lay beside her on the carpet of the sitting room. He’d taken her on the floor and she had not noticed until now, she’d been so desperate in passion.

  She was new to this matter of decadence. She’d had no training in it, no sense of what was right or proper within the boundaries of this sinful behavior. Should she tell him that she had never felt this way before?

  For a shattering moment, she had been turned inside out, rendered as sparkling as a star. Sent hurtling to a place she’d never been before, linked to earth only by his hands and the whisper of his words.

  She wondered if the women of the Journals had ever faced such confusion. But then, they had been courtesans, trained in the way of giving pleasure, counseled in the method of receiving it. Each knew her exact and precise role with all its attendant complexities.

  What would one of those women do in a similar circumstance? Praise Montraine for his skill? Confess her bewilderment? What could she say to him?

  You frighten me. There, the truth. And one other. I frighten myself. He had lured her with a promise, and she had known when he’d given it to her that it was a dangerous attraction. Yet she had come with him all the same, in trembling uncertainty and expectant wonder.

  One kiss, that was all she had wanted. Just that, and no more. For all the nights she’d lain awake staring at the ceiling and wondering at th
e course of her life. A memory, that was all she’d wanted. She should not have wished for something so dear. So dangerous. Margaret knew now that she would recall him for the rest of her life. And this loving? It was burned into her mind.

  She turned her head to find him watching her.

  His hand reached out and pushed back a damp tendril of her hair. Then one finger softly stroked down her throat to her breasts. His knuckles brushed between them, as if he would brand her there.

  But he didn’t speak, nor did she, enmeshed in silence and wonder.

  A moment later he rose up, and bending his head, touched his lips to hers. He kissed her slowly, as if he savored a delicacy. His lips coaxed hers open, his tongue explored her. An unhurried, almost maddening, kiss.

  Finally, he pulled back, smiled down at her upturned face, then stroked his finger softly against the fullness of her bottom lip.

  “I was right to think your mouth made for kissing,” he said teasingly.

  She closed her eyes, reached up and slowly cupped the back of his neck with her hand. Unwise, Margaret. But she wanted another kiss. She brought him down to her, felt his lips touch hers. Again. Once more. More.

  “Kissing you last was wiser, I think,” he said long moments later. “I would never have been content with one.”

  In her mind she answered him. Neither would I.

  She sat up, watched him even as she began to assemble her clothing. He did the same, dressing quickly. The silence between them was awkward and telling. It forced them back into their proscribed roles as nothing else could have.

  He stood and walked to the hearth, watching the fire. She glanced at him, thinking that he was as engrossed in his study of it as she was of him. She wondered if he commanded it to burn brightly, and the fire simply fell beneath his will. Indeed, he might be able to decree that the wind blow and the sun shine. Stand upon the headland and dictate to the sea. Mystical thoughts for a woman versed in practicality.