Hannah's Promise

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  She had blood kin in No Man’s Land. She’d made promises to them. She couldn’t leave her sisters and Biddy alone. No more than she could leave Slade. But she had to. She’d hurt him terribly by not trusting him. And she’d failed her family by getting so caught up with Slade that she’d forgotten her real reason for being here.

  A sudden tenderness tore at her heart. Slade was so good to her, and he said he loved her. Hannah sighed. She didn’t doubt that he did. But he deserved better than her. He deserved someone who could unquestioningly put herself in his hands, someone who wouldn’t hurt him at every turn. Hannah feared she’d been too independent for too long ever to just give herself over so completely to a man. Even one she loved so much. And that was why she had to leave him when all this was over. She wasn’t what he needed.

  With bittersweet tears poised to fall off the tips of her eyelashes, Hannah swiped at the moisture and focused on Slade, who was entering the parlor. Dear God, how was she going to leave him? But her concern for his troubled expression as he came to stand in front of her took precedence over her own pain. She vowed that for as long as she remained here, his wants and needs would come first. But not over her revenge. She couldn’t allow that.

  “Did you hear what I told Hardy and Temple?”

  Hannah nodded up at him. “Yes. But I hate to think that Jones is guilty of anything but being momentarily distracted or sidetracked.”

  He frowned at her as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. “First you defend Olivia, and now Jones. Why am I the only one you think the worst of right off?”

  Hannah’s insides jerked in guilty reaction. She deserved that. To her, his words were further proof of the deep hurt she’d dealt him. And more proof that she was not the woman for him. She opened and closed her mouth, trying to form words, but nothing would come. She stared helplessly up at him.

  He ran a hand through his hair and then dismissed his own words with a wave of his hand. “I’m sorry I said that. It’s just … everything. But I haven’t forgotten you were right about Olivia. Maybe you’re right about Jones, too. He’s worked for me for five years with no hint of disloyalty.”

  Hannah nodded, forcing herself to speak. “I always felt safe with him around. But that Isabel bedeviled the life out of him.”

  Slade chuckled. “She’d bedevil the poor souls buried in the cemetery, given half a chance.”

  Desperately clinging to this lighter topic, Hannah laughed gingerly, holding her ribs. “You’re an awful grandson.”

  “Ahh, you have been talking with Isabel, I see.”

  Their bantering grins bled to sobering countenances. His innocent but loaded reminder that yes, indeed, she had talked with Isabel—about his father and her mother—sent Hannah’s gaze to her lap. She rearranged the folds of her cambric wrapper—her erstwhile wedding gown. Their outrageous, drunken wedding. Would there never be a moment between them when some “ghost of truths past” didn’t plague their every conversation?

  “What did you think of Constance?”

  Hannah looked up. Slade’s expression willed her to jump at this new subject. She did. It was perfect because to think of Constance and Dudley was to smile. “I love her already. She’s not at all what I thought she’d be.”

  Slade laughed. “I know. All the young bucks in Boston, myself included, were half in love with her ourselves. Imagine our surprise when she let it be known she favored Dudley Ames.”

  Hannah’s mouth dropped open. “You and Constance were—?”

  Raising his hand to stop her words, Slade shook his head. “Nothing of the sort.” Then he grinned like a pirate. “Are you jealous?”

  Clamping her jaw closed hard enough to make her teeth hurt, Hannah airily fussed around on her cushion and suddenly found his boots to be of enormous interest to her. She stared openly at them, pretending not to notice he was wearing them. Or that he was still laughing at her.

  “Good friends that they are, I’m glad they’re gone.” Slade took the few steps that saw him stretched out on the sofa, his long legs crossed and his booted feet extending off the other end. He gingerly rested his head on Hannah’s lap and folded his hands together on his abdomen.

  Surprised that he felt comfortable enough with her to lie all over her, she made herself scold him … even as she ran her fingers through his black wavy hair. “That’s not a nice thing to say. Dudley and Constance are wonderful people.”

  “I know. But I want to be alone with you.” He tilted his head back until he looked into her eyes. “Very alone.”

  Suddenly shy, Hannah concentrated on her fingers already threaded through his hair. He reached up to her, tucking his thumb and index finger around her chin, forcing her gaze back to him. His dark eyes showed a stark hunger. “Is that so bad?”

  It was awful. The worst. She had to leave him. Every word of love only made her feel worse. But she shook her head. “No. It’s wonderful.”

  Slade turned abruptly on his side to draw his arms around her waist, bringing his cheek against her unbound breasts. “I’m so glad you think so. Because you practically took me against my will on the stairs not an hour ago.”

  “Against your will?” Despite her heavy emotions, Hannah laughed outright at him. And instantly paid for it when an arrow of pain lanced between her ribs, causing her to grimace and grab for the area.

  Slade sat up, his hand on her arm. “What is it? Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t you. I’m all right. Just take me upstairs. I feel the sudden need for a nap.”

  “Of course.” He jumped up and gathered her in his arms.

  Before he could lift her off the sofa, Hannah resolved that if her days with him were numbered, then she was going to enjoy every moment she had with him. And just maybe, she could take back something of him with her. Something that would arrive in nine months. So, with her hand on his cheek, she forced his gaze to meet hers. “I want to take a nap with you.”

  A riveting second ticked off the clock. Awareness flashed in the fathomless depths of Slade’s black eyes. Hannah slanted her head, placing a melting kiss on his firm lips. She tipped her tongue into his mouth and felt him tense. Only then did she pull back from him and again look deep into his eyes.

  A low, aching growl from deep in Slade’s chest rumbled up to lodge in his throat. Hannah’s eyes widened. He grinned archly, promising delights as yet unthought of. When she gasped, he lifted her easily and carried her out of the parlor.

  Perhaps luckily for the other inhabitants of the brownstone, none of them encountered their employer as he carried his wife up the stairs and to his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him.

  Still without a word passing between them, he placed her on his bed. He kept his gaze on her and tugged his shirttail out of his pants. Watching him intently, Hannah sat up and worked on her own fastenings. She stripped off her wrapper when he peeled off his shirt. Together they tossed aside their garments.

  Bare from the waist up, Slade sat on the edge of the bed to tug his boots off. Watching the rippling play of his muscles across his broad shoulders, in his powerful arms, over his hard-hewn belly as he worked at them, Hannah distractedly slipped her satin mules off her feet. They hit the carpet with muffled thunks. When he stood to face her, his feet apart, and began unfastening his black, close-fitting pants, Hannah forgot how to breathe.

  His motions themselves, just the very moving of his long fingers over the buttoned closure as his black eyes bored into her soul, were too arousing to be borne. Or so she thought, until Slade began inching his pants down over his lean hips. Hannah swore her heart wasn’t even beating. But there was a definite pulsing much lower down. A definite pulsing. Pushed to the edge of control, Hannah pulled herself up to her knees and quickly lifted her gown over her head.

  She didn’t even get it off before Slade’s naked body was warmly, carefully wrapped around hers. A rasping gasp from low in her throat carried her back with him on the bed. When they landed, bouncing sof
tly against the mattress, Hannah’s hands were over her head, her gown gripped tightly in her fists. Straddling her full length, his rigidness trapped between them, Slade pulled the white gown out of her hands and threw it over the side of the bed.

  “You won’t be needing that,” he promised, his voice low and husky.

  Afire with need, Hannah parted her legs and bent her knees, readying herself for the promised pleasures that flared his nostrils and opened his mouth to slant over hers in a kiss that reached to her toes. And curled them achingly. When Slade broke his kiss to slide down on her, roughly rasping her tightly budded nipples with his body, his chest hair tickling her soft skin, she arched into him, digging her fingernails into his shoulders.

  “Not yet, baby. You aren’t even close to where I’m going to take you.”

  “Slade, please,” she cried out, her mouth open, her breath already coming in gasps.

  “No.” He shook his head, allowing his nose to rub across the soft fullness of her breast. Then his mouth closed over her nipple. The hot, moist feel of his lips, coupled with his tongue’s delicious circling and flicking of her nipple exploded stars behind Hannah’s eyes.

  She arched again, ignoring the aching of her bruises and bumps. Using the heels of her palms to push against his shoulders, she urged him down to where she wanted him. But he insisted on going slowly, on softly kissing any bruise he came to, on laying his cheek against any injury done her body two days ago. Suddenly she realized he was speaking, that he kept repeating, “I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m so sorry.”

  Moved by his gentle care with her, Hannah raised her head, opening her mouth to—Gasp out loud and clutch at the quilted covers under her when Slade finally … oh, so finally slipped lower and raised her to his mouth. Hannah splintered, fragmented. He took her hungrily, as if she were an oasis in his desert. As if she were the elixir of life to his dying man. He no more than closed over her than the rippling shudders shook Hannah to her soul. Rhythmic pulsations spread out from her center to the farthest ends of her clutching, tearing fingernails.

  And still Slade rode the wave of her desire, eliciting from her more and more and more. Until she lay glistening and spent, and whimpering for mercy. Only then did he raise himself back up over her, wetly kissing his way up her belly, stopping only to sip at the tiny cup of her navel before he sat lightly atop her, straddling her hips, his arousal jutting proudly between them. He arched over her, leaning until his fisted hands rested beside her head.

  Hannah rolled her head as if just awakening. Fitfully, she swiped her damp and matted hair from her face, and inched her gaze along him. Her hands followed close behind, smoothing across his muscled thighs, up his lean hips, around his buttocks, over his tensed back, down under his arms and then around to his chest, flattening out to race through the crisp and curling hair that accentuated his blatant masculinity. His head hung forward limply with sensual pleasure and left Hannah breathless.

  Her hands raced up to his neck, his jaw, his mouth. She feathered her fingers over his lips, allowing him to suckle and nip them for only a moment before she teasingly took them away. She then lovingly raked her nails down his rock-hard chest, dipping to … close over his arousal. An ancient sound, flung from the back of his throat, arched his back and jerked his head up. She wouldn’t have been surprised right then to hear him howl like a wolf.

  Instead, he jerked forward, pulling Hannah’s hands away from him. “Cruel wench,” he whispered as he lowered himself on her, sliding full length to fit himself into the saddle of her hips.

  Victorious, Hannah grinned like a wanton. Until Slade entered her, slowly sliding himself up, up, and up to his hilt, into her depths. She gasped and tossed her head. “Please.”

  “Now it’s please. Wasn’t that you only a moment ago playing the tease, my sweet?”

  “Yes,” she cried out, clutching at his shoulders, afraid she’d die if he didn’t soon begin the rhythm that would ease the killing tension between her legs.

  “Are you my sweet, Hannah?”

  She opened her eyes, saw the shadowed line of his jaw, the prominent cheekbones, the proud, hawkish nose. His black eyes waited. “Yes, I’m your sweet.” Her words were no more than a groan.

  “You always were.”

  With that, he gathered her to him, his arms under her shoulder blades, and held her … gently at first … and stroked her desire evenly. But then the cadence changed, became demanding, unyielding, bruising. At the same moment, he took her mouth, refusing to relinquish it, so that her every breath was taken with him, so that his fire fed her body. So that her soul merged with his in a swirling dance that mimicked their physical coupling, and elevated them to a place where they truly became one.

  Only then, with cries wrung from them both, did their release begin. Hannah’s undulations clutched at Slade’s manhood, pulling him greedily into her, locking around him, holding him there … until he gave her his entire being. His seed spilled into her on his last climactic thrust.

  Slade collapsed heavily onto her, only to slide out of her and then off her in a sweat-soaked slick of overly warm bodies. His head popped up, and Hannah tried to laugh, but could only grimace and gasp. Slade stared at her for a second and then gave up, too, and lay half on her, half off. Spent, weak as kittens, the only sounds in the room for long minutes were those wrenching gulps they made trying to feed their starved lungs.

  Then Slade popped up again. Hannah turned her head—the only thing she could. Slade braced himself on an elbow. “Are you … trying to … kill me?” he barely got out.

  Hannah grinned and shook her head, pushing a clinging curl off her forehead. “I suspect I’d have to get into a long line to do that.”

  His eyebrows arched and he tried to laugh, but no sound would come out of his mouth. So he rolled his eyes and just flopped back onto the covers, facedown, an arm and a leg flung over Hannah.

  After several minutes of staring numbly at the ceiling, Hannah realized her breathing had smoothed out. She listened. So had Slade’s. His was now deep and even. She turned her head. The man was asleep. She shook her head and chuckled. Big, strong man. She turned on her side, thinking she’d show him—she’d wake him up and … and have her way with him again. She reached out to him—

  And someone knocked on the door. Hannah froze. Then, Hammonds called through the door. “Mr. Garrett, sir? Are you in there?”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. If he opened that door—! She reached around behind her and shook Slade’s shoulder. He mumbled, pulling away from her, and settled himself more fully into a comfortable position.

  “Mr. Garrett?”

  Desperate, Hannah pinched the fire out of Slade’s buttock. He leapt up and off the bed, landing on his feet like a cat. With his hand rubbing his offended part, he came out spitting and cursing, “Gee-sus! What the hell—?” Eyebrows meeting over his nose, he finally sighted on Hannah. And belatedly picked up on her shushing, hushing signals. “What?”

  She pointed to the door, mouthing, “Hammonds.”

  His frown deepened, but he did whisper. “You pinched the living sh—you pinched me because Hammonds is at the door? Hellfire, Hannah, we’re married, and this is our house. It’s okay if we have sex.” He turned to the door, bellowing out, “What is it, Hammonds?”

  “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Garrett … and, um, Mrs. Garrett, but…”

  Hannah nearly passed out, so acute was her embarrassment. But Slade matter-of-factly snatched up his pants and jerked into them, again bellowing out, “Then why did you, man?”

  “Because, sir, I’m afraid that Mrs. Isabel Garrett and”—Slade’s eyes widened as he jerked around to Hannah. She popped up on the bed, her lower jaw dropping almost to her chest—“and her entire household, sir—her entire household—await you in the parlor.”

  A frantic scratching and whining at the door confirmed the scope of the entire household. “Except for one. Esmerelda. Who is here with me. What shall I tell her, sir? Your grandmother, that is.”
/>
  A grin of pure evil stole over Slade’s face. His ears grew pointy and horns stuck out of his forehead. Or should have. Hannah shook her head at him. “Don’t do it. Don’t. Please!”

  He opened his mouth—Hannah squealed and covered her mouth with her hand. Slade laughed out loud at her and then called out, “Tell Isabel and her entire household that Mrs. Garrett and I were just—”

  As soon as the first words left his mouth, Hannah scrabbled up onto her knees and leaned over, crashing nakedly into him, her hand over his mouth at the last possible second. Stumbling backward, he grabbed at her, pulling her off the bed. Her momentum carried them to the thick-carpeted floor, Hannah atop her husband. Fierce giggling and masculine guffaws followed and were quickly squelched. They lay there, a tangle of hairy limbs and smooth limbs, a muscular body and a soft body, listening, waiting.

  Hammonds, obviously also listening, finally cleared his throat. “I see. Well, then. Come, Esmerelda, we’ll think of something on our own. I say, big doggy, did you like your carriage ride into town?” Esmerelda whuffed her answer as the two walked away, as witnessed by the fading footsteps and clicking of doggy toenails on the wood floor.

  Hannah flung her tangled hair out of her face and over her shoulder, the better to see the man under her. “You dirty polecat! You were going to say we were—you know.”

  His black eyes snapping with humor, Slade put his hands to her bottom and caressed it lovingly. “No I wasn’t. I was going to say we were taking a bath together.”

  Hannah screamed out her disbelief. “That’s even worse!”

  Slade grinned. “You want to, anyway?”

  Hannah nodded eagerly.

  * * *

  “Well, here you are at last. I just don’t know about young people today. Do you always keep your guests waiting an hour—and then greet them in such casual attire?”