Whatever secrets she had hidden there, he discovered with deft and expert thrusts and swirls. His tongue tasted of cognac and her perfume.
With one hand supporting her back, he took his other and slid it with delicious intent to the slit in the front of her skirt. Slow torture turned to raging gratification as his finger inched up her inner thigh and slipped inside the fine lace border edging the leg of her panties. If he hadn’t known before that she was hot and sleek with hunger for him, he soon discovered that, too.
He was a devil and an angel, and she was so helplessly in thrall to his fondling that the best she could manage was to cling to him like a wilting vine as the spasms of completion he induced rolled over her.
When her knees threatened to buckle, he released her side zipper and with one sweep of his hand sent her dress and panties into a silken puddle on the floor, then lifted her into his arms and carried her to one of the couches. While she lay there with echoes of pleasure still rippling in the distant recesses of her body, he stripped off his own clothes and what he laid bare to her passion-glazed eyes was awesome to behold.
Of its own volition, her hand reached out, only to be halted by his while still inches from its destination. “Let me touch you,” she pleaded. “Let me give pleasure to you.”
His eyes caressed her face. “I’m not finished with you yet,” he said, his voice overlaid with velvet.
“But I can’t…not again, Sebastian….” Limp and depleted, she closed her eyes and felt tears pool along her lashes.
He parted her thighs, found her with the tip of his tongue and when she arched convulsively, brought his lips back to hers and whispered against her mouth, “Yes, you can, my lovely Lily. And when I’m deep inside you, you’ll come again.”
She was sure he was wrong. Would have found pleasure and satisfaction enough in accommodating him, in holding him close to her heart as his urgent thrusts took him closer to the edge of oblivion. Instead she caught the rhythm, climbed with him past the point of no return, then convulsed around him to milk the passion spilling from him and secrete it deep within herself.
The scented aftermath of their loving permeated the night, an elusive blend of skin and heat, of aftershave and perfume and fine French brandy, of man and woman and sex. His labored breathing punctuated the silence. His weight pressed her into the cool, smooth leather of the couch. His limbs, tangled with hers, held her his prisoner. And all the while, in her most intimate and secret place, he remained joined to her, a spent warrior at rest.
How long, if they’d had the choice, they’d have drifted together like that she never discovered, because another sound disturbed the night: that of the lower door from the stables opening and footsteps ascending the winding staircase, and Natalie’s voice calling out, “Sebastian, you beast, are you here? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. We need to talk.”
Lily’s breath caught in a horrified gasp. Her eyes shot open, slewed across the room to the window where her dress lay like a puddle of ink on the pale oak floor. The diamanté heel of one of her shoes sparkled gleefully in the moonlight. Sebastian’s shirt lay hooked on the corner of the coffee table, shining like a beacon to advertise his undressed presence.
Her limbs, which mere seconds before, had possessed all the strength and resilience of overcooked pasta, tensed. Completely unhinged, she swung her gaze back to Sebastian still stretched out on top of her, her eyes spelling out the words that surely must’ve been pounding through his mind, too. What are we going to do?
He gave an infinitesimal shake of his head and quietly laid his hand over her mouth before she could give voice to the question. And Natalie, having reached the landing, began making her way down the hall toward the living room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“SEBASTIAN?” Her steps grew nearer and came to a stop so close to the couch that Lily’s lungs seized up in anticipation of the scene about to unfold. Oh, the indignity of being caught in so compromising a situation! The shame!
Panic-stricken, she struggled to find an explanation—something…anything!—which would lessen the magnitude of the embarrassment consuming her. And the best she could come up with was, Natalie, this isn’t what it looks like.
The utter absurdity of such a statement sent her into a paroxysm of silent hysterical giggles. Feeling the ripples chasing through her, Sebastian gave a faint, admonishing shake of his head, and buried her face against his shoulder.
Then Natalie’s voice came again. “Hmm…wonder if he went to pick up Penny after her shift ended? Maybe he’s already back at the party with her, and I’ve missed my chance again….”
Praise heaven and a benevolent God, her footsteps were fading toward the stairs! Shortly after, the lower door thudded closed.
Sebastian waited a full two minutes before moving: a small eternity of time that left Lily suspended somewhere between acute appreciation of the narrowness of their escape, and the fact that their naked bodies still lay entwined in the ultimate intimacy. But the magic of the moment, if, indeed, there’d ever been any, had left with Natalie, and if Lily had thought to presume otherwise, Sebastian soon disabused her of the idea.
The second he deemed it safe to do so, he rolled off the couch and disappeared down the hall. Shivering for all kinds of reasons, not the least being the sudden absence of his warm body on top of hers, Lily shot across the room and attempted to climb into both items of her discarded clothing at the same time.
Not a wise move, she quickly discovered, yanking viciously on her dress and hopping around on one foot as the other became hopelessly snarled in folds of fabric.
A table lamp clicked on. “No need to ruin a perfectly good outfit. Natalie went away convinced there was no one home. The odds of anyone else showing up unannounced are negligible,” Sebastian observed, sauntering back into view decently covered in a navy terry-cloth bathrobe.
Feeling at a decided disadvantage with her panties hanging at half-mast around her knees, Lily grabbed the dress and used it to shield herself from his inspection—as if he hadn’t already seen his fill! “How can you stand there and calmly behave as if what just happened wasn’t a near disaster?”
“Are you referring to Natalie’s untimely arrival, or the fact that you and I got rather carried away in the heat of the moment?”
“Both!” she cried, her nerves so brittle she felt ready to snap in half. “You’re supposed to be dating another woman, yet you don’t think twice about making love to me, and when we’re almost caught in the act, you just lie there and wait to be discovered.”
He shrugged and picked up the brandy decanter. “Sure you wouldn’t like a shot of this to settle you down? No…? Okay….” He poured himself a refill and cupped his hands around the delicate balloon glass in much the same way he’d held her face not half an hour before. “First, to set the record straight, you were the instigator of our sexual encounter, not I.”
The truth of that allegation sent a blush sweeping through her like wildfire. “Well, you didn’t exactly rebuff me.”
“No, Lily,” he said evenly. “I suspect not many men would have turned down such a charmingly insistent proposition. We are, after all, mere mortals, just like women. And you are a very persuasive and accomplished seductress when you put your mind to it.”
“Are you so fixated on sex that you don’t see the bigger picture here? What if Natalie had found us?”
Smothering a sigh, he paced the width of the room. “It’s because I do see the bigger picture that I can’t worry about something that didn’t happen. Tonight I betrayed the trust of a man who’s been father, friend and mentor to me for longer than I care to remember and who never, except for this one thing, asked for any kind of return on his investment.”
“I gather you’re referring to the fact that you told me about my mother?” she said, scrambling into her dress while his back was turned. “Well, if you’re worried I’m going to run to Hugo with the news—”
He spun around, his glance so loaded with ra
ge, it was a miracle he didn’t self-destruct. “I don’t give a damn what you do! It’s what I’ve done that’ll keep me awake all night, and if you think I can just sweep my actions under the carpet and forget them, you know even less about the kind of man I am than I thought. So spare me your heroics, please! Hugo will learn his secret’s out, but he’ll hear it from me, not you, first thing tomorrow. I might have acted unethically, but I’ve not yet sunk to the level of cowardice.”
“And that’s the only regret you have?”
“Should there be another?”
His contemptuous indifference to what the two of them had so recently shared should have burned her. Instead it chilled her to the bone. “Some might say the fact that we risked an unplanned pregnancy tonight might be cause for concern.”
He drew his hand down his face as if, by doing so, he could erase the entire evening. “Thank you for reminding me that, on top of everything else, I didn’t use a condom. I suppose it’s too much to hope you’re on the pill?”
“I’m not on the pill. Casual sex isn’t a recreational pastime for me and, unlike you, I’m not involved in a serious relationship with anyone.” She stepped into her shoes and tried to finger-comb into place all the loose ends which had fallen out of her elegant hairdo. “Which brings up another point—how would Penny feel if she were to find out you and I had…?”
“Had sex?” He smiled bitterly. “Well, that’s one secret I am prepared to keep, nor do I imagine you’re too anxious to broadcast your indiscretion.”
“It was your indiscretion, too,” she reminded him, dismayed all over again by how much his easy dismissal of their lovemaking hurt. “I might have started it, but you didn’t seem to have too much trouble joining in and finishing off.”
He rounded on her, the anger formerly directed at himself turned now on her. “You want me to tell you I’m swimming in guilt about that, too? Fine, you’ve got it! I’m the world’s biggest jerk. I should be strung up by my thumbs—unless there’s some other section of my anatomy you’d prefer to see surgically removed. But I’m not a magician. I can’t turn back the clock. What’s done is done and we’re both going to have to live with it.”
“Was there nothing memorable about it, Sebastian?” she asked, tears stinging her eyes and choking her voice. “Were you just going through the motions? Would it have been just as easy to turn me down?”
“If it had been, I’d have done that,” he told her, a hint of tenderness warming his tone. “But I can’t give you what you really want, Lily, and that’s what makes sex between us wrong.”
“What is it you think I want?”
“Love,” he said simply. “It’s one reason, maybe even the chief reason, you came to Stentonbridge in the first place. The loss of your immediate family has left you vulnerable and that by itself gives you enormous appeal.” He took a step closer and brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “It would be very easy to ignore my conscience and embark on a summer affair with you. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the attraction’s there, and the opportunity to give in to it. But we aren’t in love, Lily. We don’t even like each other very much, most of the time. And I’ve seen too many lives turned into a living hell because people mistook good sex for something deeper and more enduring. I’m not about to make the same mistake myself, especially not with Hugo Preston’s daughter. I owe him better than that.”
Everything he said made perfect sense. Trying to elevate lust to love was preposterous. Laughable. So why was she having such a hard time holding back the tears? Why did she feel as if she’d just found something precious, only to have it snatched away from her grasp before she could gain firm hold of it?
“You’re absolutely right, of course. A summer fling doesn’t do it for me. I do want more. I want commitment from a man. Permanence.”
“And I’m not able to offer you either, not now and perhaps not ever.”
“Of course not, nor do I expect you to.” Since looking him in the eye was out of the question, she turned to stare out of the window and called up every last iota of pride to get her through what had to be said. “I think the least damage all around would be for us to forget everything that’s transpired between us in this room tonight. Don’t burden Hugo with your confessions, Sebastian, and let’s not burden each other with useless regrets.”
“I have to tell him.”
“No.” She shook her head, and the motion set the tears in her eyes to shimmering and blinding her vision. “Don’t risk your relationship with him because of what you’ve told me. It’s enough that I finally know the truth.”
“I can’t promise I’ll abide by that, Lily.”
“Well, you’d damn well better,” she cried, wheeling toward the stairs. “If you care about him as much as you say you do, you won’t ease your conscience at his expense. You’ll learn to live with what you know, just as I have to.”
She got no farther than the landing before he caught up with her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Anywhere, as long as it’s away from you!”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “By now, we’ll surely have been missed at the party. If you’re serious about not wanting to arouse everyone’s suspicions, we’re going to reappear, together, and act as if nothing untoward has taken place. If anyone asks, we went for a stroll by the river.”
She couldn’t do it. As far as he was concerned, her acting repertoire had exhausted itself. She couldn’t pretend she was fine when her heart felt as if he’d stamped the imprint of his heel on it. “You’re hardly dressed for the part,” she said, shrugging off his hand, “and I’m perfectly capable of making up my own lies to explain my absence, without any help from you.”
“You’re a mess,” he said brutally. “You couldn’t fool an infant, let alone anyone as perceptive as Hugo.” He steered her past the stairwell and shoved her into a powder room near the other end of the hall. “Splash some cold water on your face and fix your hair while I get ready. It won’t take me more than a couple of minutes.”
She looked in the mirror over the sink. A stranger stared back, wild-eyed and disheveled. The chain of her pendant was snagged in a section of hair trailing down her neck. She was wearing only one earring. Her lipstick was smeared, her mascara had run. He was right: she was a walking advertisement of sated passion and grief.
Somehow she managed to repair the worst of the damage to her face, though anyone looking closely at her reddened eyes would surely know she’d been crying. Restoring her elegant, upswept hairdo was another matter, and in the end she pulled out all the pins and let it fall loose to her shoulders.
Sebastian was waiting for her when she came out and, certainly, no one would have guessed he’d recently been rolling around naked. He looked as coolly unperturbed as if he’d spent the entire evening reading law books in Hugo’s library. His bow tie lay precisely where it should against his shirt which shone crisp and fresh as new snow. His jacket clung with immaculate precision to his shoulders.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No. I’m missing an earring.” She scanned the floor by the window. “I must have lost it here, but I don’t see it.”
“I’ll look for it later. With your hair down like that, no one’s going to notice.” He surveyed her critically. “I won’t say you look as good as new, but you’ll fool the people who matter. Let’s go.”
He preceded her down the stairs and led her out and around the back of the stables to another path, which followed the course of the river. “Gives more credibility to our story, should anyone ask,” he said, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Smile, for Pete’s sake. You look as if you lost your best friend, instead of just an earring.”
“I did,” she said stonily. “Thanks to you, I just found out my mother wasn’t who she pretended to be.”
“I tried to spare you, but you’re the one who insisted on knowing.”
“Right now, I’m not in the mood for any I told you so’s, Sebastian.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose I would be, either, in your place. Does it help at all to know I didn’t gain an ounce of pleasure or satisfaction from enlightening you and that I wish I could have been the bearer of better news?”
“Not much. It doesn’t change anything.”
They rounded a bank of rhododendrons and found themselves back on the lower lawn. The party had clearly wound down, leaving only a handful of guests remaining at the small tables on the terrace. “Uh-oh,” Sebastian muttered, as all eyes turned their way. “I hoped we’d be able to merge with the crowd. Instead we’re making an entrance. Just keep your smile pinned in place and leave the talking to me.”
She did and wished she could admire his accounting of their absence, presenting the facts as logically and persuasively as if he were trying to convince a courtroom judge. Instead she hated him for his ability to shift gears so effortlessly. Shakespeare, she decided bitterly, had been right when he’d written, Let’s kill all the lawyers!
After that night, Sebastian didn’t see her again for nearly two weeks. He wished he could as easily get her out of his mind but his conscience wouldn’t allow it. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d spilled secrets that weren’t his to share, he’d compounded matters by making love with her.
No use trying to trivialize the experience by labeling it as nothing but sex, because it had amounted to more than that. They had made love and in such spectacular fashion that whatever interest he’d once had in Penny Stanford had withered overnight.
Even worse, he’d betrayed Hugo a second time by taking advantage of his daughter when she was most vulnerable and even if Hugo could forgive him for that, he couldn’t forgive himself.
What was it about her that made her so hard to forget? Her fragility? Her vulnerability when she learned the truth about her mother? Or was it just that he felt sorry for her?
Hell, no! It wasn’t pity stirring to life down below his belt whenever he recalled their night of love, and it wasn’t charity!
Mistress on His Terms Page 10
