by Neesa Hart
Her color heightened, and her eyes took on a slightly fevered look. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “I’m drowning,” she confessed.
His hands clenched. “I’ve been going crazy all week.”
“Me, too.”
The satin of her gown was cool beneath his fingers, but he felt her warmth seeping through the delicate fabric. “Then come with me now.”
She hesitated for long, breathless seconds, and he felt as though they were teetering on the precipice of a steep cliff. “Come with me,” he urged again.
Cora’s eyes drifted momentarily shut. She moved with him to the music, but he sensed the conflict in her. When she finally met his gaze again, her lips were trembling. “The reporters. I shouldn’t…”
An equivocation, he noted, but not a refusal. He executed a few deft steps, then brought her tightly to him. He was vaguely aware that every eye in the room was studying the musical seduction with keen interest. “You want to,” he urged, “as much as I do.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
He lowered his head. “The singe of flesh against flesh. The heat. The passion. I want to touch you…everywhere. And I want you to touch me. I want to give you such pleasure, Cora. Everything you could want.”
“Rafael—”
“Do you think,” he continued, knowing he was pressing an unfair advantage and not caring, “that Abigail wavered at this same moment?”
Her eyelids fluttered. “That’s not fair.”
He knew how strongly Abigail’s writings had affected her, how much she related to the woman whose intimate diaries had brought him here. “Do you think she did?” he asked again, ruthlessly determined to slake his unrelenting thirst for her.
Cora pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No.”
He spun her in a quick series of steps. “No, I won’t, or no, she didn’t?”
Her deep breath made her breasts rise against the satin confines of her bodice. “No,” she said softly, “she didn’t.”
His heart missed a beat. “And?”
Her gaze met his in a melting look of surrender. “Neither will I.”
Passion spiked through him, demanding his attention and damning convention. The music had not yet ended, and he could well imagine what their avid audience would conclude from this, but he didn’t give a damn. With a boldness that might have made del Flores smile, Rafael looped his fingers under Cora’s elbow and headed toward the door with purposeful strides. She wasn’t, he noted with broad satisfaction, struggling to keep up with him.
Energy was pumping through him in a shimmering current of heat and sensation, eating away at his self-control. He held her hand as he guided her to the car, but didn’t dare touch her elsewhere. Once, she whispered his name in a low, seductive voice that made him shiver. He pressed her hand to his lips to silence her. With his restraint barely leashed and his mind entirely focused on the exquisite anticipation, he wanted to simply savor the moment, not to clutter it with explanations or superfluous comments.
Cora seemed to understand. She fell silent. They reached his car, and he yielded long enough to press a hard kiss to her lips—a promise of things to come. She fought briefly with the unnatural confines and bulk of her gown, but got into the passenger seat without undue delay. The collapsible hoop of her dress necessitated that she gather it around her knees to sit. At the generous glimpse of her lace-clad legs, he stifled a groan and slammed the car door.
What in the world, he wondered as he rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side, had this woman done to him that a simple flash of a well-turned calf and ankle could have his libido on overdrive? Had del Flores felt that way when he’d lured Abigail from her father’s home into his private abode? Most likely, he mused, and wiped a shaking hand through his hair.
Neither spoke on the short drive to Cora’s home. Beside him, he keenly sensed her arousal. Her breath was short. Her body trembled. Her hands lay laced tightly together in her lap. He shifted down and took a corner a little too fast. Cora didn’t comment.
When he finally pulled up in front of the large antebellum house, he noted absently that it looked dark. With luck, Becky had the girls in bed. He had neither the focus nor the desire to concern himself with Becky’s reaction to their early return. They could use the outside back stairs to his room, he reasoned. A few more minutes…Patience.
He switched off the keys and looked at her for the first time since they’d left the reception. Her hair was somewhat mussed where his fingers had pried at her elegant chignon. Her lips were parted, her face flushed. “Cora,” he murmured and cupped her face in his hand. He used his thumb to lift her chin, then lowered his head to taste her lips. “Ah, Cora.”
She mumbled something and threaded her hands around his neck. He buried his mouth in hers. She sighed and took him in. In all his life, he could not remember ever feeling the sweet spike of bliss and headiness he felt when Cora traced the line of his lips with her tongue. The confines of the car and the restrictions of her dress were quickly becoming intolerable. He deepened the kiss for long seconds, then tore his mouth free. “Upstairs,” he urged. “Come upstairs with me.”
Her fingers fluttered at his nape as she slowly withdrew. He watched her squeeze her eyes shut as though she needed to stop the world from spinning. “I have to take this dress off,” she said.
He couldn’t suppress a slight laugh. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Cora shook her head. “No, I meant…” She paused. “I can’t ruin it. I need to take it off first.”
She was right and he knew it. Despite the strong urge he felt to fling reason and common sense to the wind, it would be irresponsible to risk damaging the dated gown. He pressed a kiss to the furrow between her eyebrows. “Then meet me upstairs in fifteen minutes?”
“Becky—” she countered.
“Will understand.”
Cora swallowed, then shook her head. “No, I have to explain—”
He headed her off by pressing his thumb to her swollen lips. “Not tonight, Cora. Don’t explain anything. Just come with me.”
She shivered, a delicious shuddering that tripped down her spine. “Inside—”
“Trust me,” he urged, and let himself out of the car. They walked in silence to the front door. He could not stop touching her. He massaged her neck with one hand while he absently jingled his keys with the other. The porch light gleamed, as did the moon, bathing their path in a swath of blue-gray color. Cora gave him a wary look as she mounted the porch stairs. She fumbled with the door and would have pushed it open, when he decided she might need something to remember while she changed.
He caught her close and kissed her deeply, vaguely aware that the door creaked open into the foyer. A sudden blinding light from the depths of the house failed to wrest his attention, but what did grab him was the unexpected—and unwelcome sound—of voices yelling, “Surprise!”
CORA GROANED and dropped her head to his shoulder. She had no one to blame but herself for this particular humiliation. The sound of robust laughter, cheers and children’s voices helped her find her equilibrium, despite the too-tight pressure of his fingers at her waist. She gave him a small smile and said softly, “Happy birthday.”
His gaze narrowed for a long, hair-raising second, before his implacable smile was back in place. He released her slowly and turned to face his family. Liza was already pulling on his trouser leg. “Rafael, Rafael, lookit! Look at all these people!”
He swept Liza into his arms seconds before a tide of exuberant children engulfed him. Cora didn’t even try to count the bobbing heads and high-pitched voices. Becky broke away from the crowd of adults and made her way to Cora’s side. “Why don’t you go change?” she said firmly. “There’s an awful lot of cake and ice cream in here for you to be wearing that dress.”
Cora nodded. “I will.” She glanced at Rafael’s family. They were trying, in vain, to corral their offspring and press toward their brother. He was talking to the
children, laughing, and apparently unperturbed by the abrupt end to the web of seduction he’d been weaving around her. Inexplicably annoyed by his nonchalance when she should be grateful for his élan, Cora looked at Becky. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Becky gave her a shrewd look. “Take your time. Kaitlin’s got hostess skills that make Miss Manners look like a novice. They’re having a great time.”
Cora nodded and headed for the stairs. Her stomach fluttered as she struggled for emotional balance. Her blood had been singing since he’d pulled her into his arms on the dance floor. Abigail’s dress made her feel reckless, but she hadn’t expected to feel so intoxicated by the heady realization that tonight she would let her passionate, exotic pirate lover take her to the stars. Tonight after the party, she had decided, she would join him upstairs. He wouldn’t be expecting her.
But he would stoke her courage with that lazy, seductive smile, which held such promise. She pressed a hand to her abdomen as she reached the landing. The fantasies had been spinning through her mind all evening, and now she felt strangely dizzy. “Get a grip,” she muttered, as she made her way down the dim corridor.
She pressed her hand flat against the cool wood of her door and pulled in a calming breath. This tremor would stop, she promised herself, taking with it the weak feeling in her knees. She would change and join the crowd downstairs. She would not succumb to the clutching need in her belly until the time was right. Practical, trustworthy, coolheaded Cora Prescott simply did not lose control of herself.
She slipped into her room and turned the lock. “At least not yet,” she said with a soft smile. She walked toward her bathroom as she began undoing the long line of satin-covered buttons on the gown.
HE HAD MEANT to wait. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Two of his brothers, six of his sisters and all their spouses and children awaited him downstairs. He was a man of experience, a man of patience and finesse. He knew the value of timing. And he had meant to wait.
Until he heard that annoying click of the lock on Cora’s bedroom door. The sound tripped an internal trigger. For weeks he’d let that sound stand between them. For weeks he’d battled a growing irritation every time he heard her shut him out.
At the sound his frustration soared. And with it his restraint fled. Perhaps it was the keen feeling that del Flores had faced a similar choice. Perhaps it was simply the result of weeks of unfulfilled sexual hunger. Whatever the case, he felt brashness swamp and overwhelm his common sense. Damn the consequences, he thought irritably. He was not going to spend another second locked from her room or her bed.
He rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles. When it yielded no answer, he pressed his ear to the door. He could hear the faint sound of running water from her bathroom. Before he could think better of it, he stepped away from the door and kicked it sharply with his booted heel. The antique lock gave easily and wrenched away from the oak frame.
The door flew open. Rafael stood in the threshold, breathing heavily. Immediately his gaze found her. She stood near the bathroom door with the loosened gown clutched to her breasts. Her eyes were wide with surprise—and something else. Something that looked like hunger. “I was in the bathroom,” she said.
He took a labored breath. “Your door was locked,” he announced.
Cora’s laugh was warm and sultry, and it enslaved him. “I see you didn’t let it stop you.”
He slammed her door shut, isolating them from the noise and inconvenient reality of the party in her living room. In four quick strides, he crossed the room. When he stood inches from her, he reached for her hands. She resisted for a moment, then let him pry them away from the bodice of her gown. The dress fell to the floor in a pool of pale-green satin. Swiftly he lifted her free of it, then spread it carefully over the chaise lounge in the corner of her room. His duty to Abigail fulfilled, he turned his attention to the woman who now held him in thrall. She still wore her white lace corset and stockings. The sight and scent of her filled his head like the most powerful of aphrodisiacs. “I’ve been listening to you lock that door for weeks,” he muttered as he drank in the sight of her.
Her fingers trembled in his. “I’ve been locking myself in.”
The quiet admission effectively unraveled what was left of his control. He kissed her deeply, his hands molding her to him. He wanted to touch her everywhere, to learn every secret of this bewitching woman who had captured him with a simple look from her fathomless eyes. “Cora,” he breathed. “Sweet Cora.”
Her hands smoothed the planes of his shoulders and back. She pressed against him and silently insisted that he give her what she wanted. Momentarily surprised by the simple act of wordless aggression, he gladly surrendered. He had dreamed of this moment for weeks, played it out in his mind in a dozen different fantasies of how it would be for them. In every one he realized, as Cora laid claim to his mouth and his body, he’d pictured himself as the seducer. She would sweetly yield to him, and he would finally have license to unleash his desire.
But Cora, evidently, had other plans.
And belatedly, he realized, he should have known that she would never be passive about anything. The thought had his blood pressure rising as her hands threaded into his hair and clutched his head closer to her. He would be the one, it seemed, to do the surrendering. And the experience was proving to be more erotic than he’d ever experienced.
With a low oath, he swept her into his arms and carried her toward the bed. “You cannot imagine,” he said as he followed her down onto the quilt-covered surface, “how much I want you.”
Her fingers were shaking as she traced the lines of his face. “Yes, I can. I’m starving.”
He laced his fingers through hers and pressed her hands to the pillow above her head. The exquisite feel of his body fully aligned with hers seared his nerves. “Then take me,” he urged.
And Cora did.
Chapter Ten
Dearest,
Forgive me, darling. I know I’m weak, and at times you must wonder why you put up with me when I show no courage. The gossip continues, and I try so very hard to ignore it. When you were here in my arms, I could, but now, when I am left feeling empty and alone, I stumble at times. They are cruel. How I long for you. My flesh burns when I remember your hands on me. My woman’s self tingles and aches for the exquisite feel of your body on mine. Oh, please, dearest, come quickly for me. I do not wish to face them again without you at my side.
Abigail
10 July 1861
Fifteen minutes later Cora found herself still struggling for balance. Rafael lay beside her, one arm flung over his head, his dark hair spread on the pillow. Like hers, his breathing was harsh. Considering the impact his lovemaking had had on her, she could barely credit that her room looked the same as it had twenty minutes ago. Except, she noted as her gaze fell on the evidence of the broken lock, her splintered door frame. Cora wiped a hand over her face and tried to stifle a giggle.
He opened his eye. “Are you giggling?”
“I never giggle,” she said in her best professorial voice, something she thought was rather remarkable, given that she felt like a volcano had exploded inside her.
His eye sparkled. “Maybe not,” he said, turning toward her and propping himself up on one elbow, “but you make plenty of other interesting noises.” With his fingertips he traced the bodice of the corset they hadn’t had time to remove. “I think we’ll try it without this next time, hmm?”
The mention of “next time” made her stomach flutter. “Easy for you to say,” she quipped. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to take off.”
His laugh was full and rich. “I’d consider that a challenge if you didn’t have a living room full of people waiting for us.”
Cora groaned. “Your family—”
“And all their kids,” he said. “How long have you known about this?”
“A couple of weeks. Margie called me and mentioned that it had been a while since you’d all
been together. With your birthday—”
He interrupted her with a tender kiss. “I’ve never had a better present,” he said when he lifted his head.
“I thought you’d enjoy seeing them.”
Rafael rubbed his thumb along her lower lip. “I wasn’t talking about seeing my family—which is nice, I admit. I was talking about you, Cora. About this.” He paused to kiss her forehead. “About us.”
“Oh.” She had a vague feeling she should say something else, but for once in her life, seemed to have run short of words.
Rafael nuzzled the side of her neck. “Let’s forget the party and stay here,” he suggested.
It was tempting, especially with his lips pressed to a particularly sensitive spot beneath her ear. Briefly she marveled at the amazing effect he was having on her. She, who could not remember doing anything on impulse in her life, was contemplating ignoring his family for the sake of passion. She summoned the shreds of her self-control. “We can’t—Ah!” If only he wouldn’t insist on touching every hot spot on her flesh.
He smiled against her skin, then nipped the place again. “It’s my birthday,” he said. “I can do what I want.”
Oh, so tempting. She drew a shaky breath and pushed gently at his shoulder. “No, you can’t. They went to a lot of trouble.”
“They expect me to be irresponsible.” His hands now rested on her corseted waist.
“You are incorrigible.”
“So they tell me.”
He cupped her breast, and Cora squirmed. Was she supposed to have this dizzying, heated need? “Rafael?”
At the query in her voice, he lifted his head. “What, love?”
Her stomach turned over. He looked beautiful, almost unreal in the dim light of her bedside lamp. His dark hair spilled over his broad shoulders and framed the sculpted planes of his face. She traced the sharp line of his chin. “Is it always going to be like this? I wasn’t expecting…”
