The Chase

by Sara Portman

  She was delirious, of course. Her thoughts were the cloudy revelations of an imbecile, but she knew it and didn’t care. She only wanted it to keep happening.

  Rap. Rap. Rap.

  Three sharp knocks on the cottage door broke the kiss. Mr. Rosevear’s lips were gone from hers with startling immediacy. Her own recovery was not so rapid. She blinked at first, then she looked at him, questioning. He had pulled away so suddenly. Was he ashamed? Did he regret the kiss? She made his eyes meet hers, needing to know what he was thinking, but there was only mystery there.

  Gently, he moved her from his lap and rose. As he walked to answer the door, she turned to the fire, certain whomever had arrived would know from her face what they’d been doing. She heard the door open and felt the gentle rush of cooler air spill into the fire-warmed room.

  “I’ve come to ready the place for you, sir,” a feminine voice said.

  “I believe the chore has been taken care of,” Mr. Rosevear said.

  “Oh.” There was a world of disappointment in the one syllable, no doubt as the girl counted her lost earnings. “I brought a hamper for your dinner,” she said, brightening again. Juliana heard the jingle of coins and the voice became more enthusiastic. “Thank you very much, sir. Will there be anything else you’re needing?”

  “No. Thank you,” he said.

  “Food in the morning, sir?” she pressed.

  “Yes. Yes, that’s fine. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, sir. Happy to help.”

  Juliana heard Mr. Rosevear chuckle lightly as he closed the door behind the girl. She turned.

  He looked at her and she looked back and she wasn’t certain what to say. Should they talk about what they’d just shared? She didn’t want to hear him tell her it had been a mistake, but what else would he say? If it had been a mistake, it was the loveliest mistake she’d ever made. She could not regret it, and she didn’t think she could bear just then hearing that he did. Irrationally, she searched his features to find some hint of his thoughts, even as she willed him not to speak them directly.

  “We should eat,” he said, ending the expectant silence, and she was relieved. “There is no certainty Miss Mary will actually return with food in the morning.” His tone was teasing but sounded strained to Juliana. She was desperate to know what he was thinking. He set the basket on the table and, with his back to her, began unpacking its contents—bread, cold meat, a wedge of cheese and a jar of jam. It was a simple task, but one that her father would not have done. He would have set the basket down and waited for her to be useful. After all that had happened, she owed this man a great deal—for the journey, for his protection—but he’d not asked for repayment in any form, save a bit of reading aloud.

  She rather wished she had the distraction of a chore anyway. She wasn’t quite certain what to do with herself. She turned back toward the fire. The wide log in the center was barely burned. It would last the whole night through. A night could be a very long time.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She faced him again. “A little.”

  He waved his hand to indicate the spread he had just unpacked. “Come and eat then.”

  She came to the table and sat, as he did, on the narrow bench. He cut a piece from the loaf of bread and handed it to her. She took it silently and ate, mostly looking down at her food as they sat, side by side.

  He spoke into the awkwardness first. “I am sorry that I kissed you,” he said. “I know that is not why you’re here, and I should not have taken liberties.”

  “Please don’t apologize.” She hated that he was sorry for the kiss when she could still feel it on her lips. “You didn’t take anything that wasn’t given to you.” She broke the bread in her hands, toyed with it, but did not eat.

  “Still, it was not mine to take. You’ve endured a harrowing ordeal and I took advantage of your need for comfort.”

  A harrowing ordeal? Did he truly think she was simply overset? She set the bread down and stared at him. “Are you suggesting that I was too upset to know my own mind? That you, as a man I have known for a pair of days, are better equipped to decide what I want?”

  He shook his head. “What? No. I only mean that I should not play the cad. Stealing kisses from an unmarried, unprotected woman mere hours after an attack seems rather selfish and insensitive in hindsight.”

  His words made her feel like a child, erasing everything he’d done to make her feel like a woman. “You cannot steal something that is freely given,” she said, unable to keep the edge from her tone.

  She had chosen the kiss. She. He couldn’t take away that choice. He couldn’t turn it into something that had simply happened to her, rather than something she had done. She’d lived her entire life unable to choose for herself. She stood, setting her hands on the tabletop as she rose and stepped over the bench. “If you imagine yourself a skilled Lothario who has led me astray because I am so foolish or naïve as to be manipulated, you are wrong.”

  He rose as well, pushing back the bench and turning to face her.

  She stepped away. She didn’t want to hear his explanations. She understood. He regretted the kiss. Worse, he believed she was too stupid to know she should regret the kiss.

  He followed, unrelenting, reaching for her hand to halt her. “Miss Crawley. Ana. I only sought to apologize for any offense, not to offend you further.”

  She snatched her hand back and shut her eyes to the false name. She was so tired of hiding and being frightened—hiding in her room from her father, running from his kidnappers, and hiding her true self from this man. When would she be allowed to be herself? To speak when she wanted? To kiss when she wanted?

  “No.” She nearly shouted it, opening her eyes. “I am not Ana Crawley.” She lifted her chin and leveled him with her most determined look. “My name is Juliana Crawford. I have waited twenty-five years for my life to be my own. Today is my birthday and if I want a kiss, I will have it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Michael could only stare. She stood, proud and furious, facing him down as she had her attacker from that morning. Her unbound hair fell around her shoulders, looking like a continuation of the red-gold light from the flames in the hearth behind her. Her fists clenched at her sides and her breasts rose and fell with the exertion of her indignation.

  He believed in that moment that she was a woman who would take what she wanted. God, she was beautiful. “Juliana,” he said, giving her back the name she had given him—acknowledging it. He stepped closer to her, unable not to.

  “I’m so tired of waiting and hiding.”

  “What do you want?” he asked, stepping closer still. God, he knew what he wanted. He’d known from moment he’d returned from the stream to find the cold water had done nothing to cool his ardor. He’d known before then—maybe from the moment she’d lifted her face to his outside the coaching inn at Peckingham, but he would honor her choice. Only please let her choose well.

  Then she was in his arms, as though one moment she had been restrained and the next she was free. He was full of her, her scent, her feel, her taste. Ever a woman of contradictions, she smelled of freshness and flowers, but tasted like rich spice—clove and honey. He crushed her to him, felt her breasts pressed to his chest. He responded to her fervent kisses with equal hunger, running his hands along the length of her as their mouths melded. He kissed her with abandon, letting his passion rise until he was nearly drunk with it.

  Then he slowed. He lifted his mouth from hers then returned, differently the second time—slower, lingering more carefully over her taste and feel. He didn’t want to consume what she offered in haste, when he could savor it.

  He liked this version of her—Juliana—not only because she was currently nipping at his lower lip, but because she was not meek or compliant at all. She was asking and taking and doing so in a way that he would have given just about
anything she desired, good sense be damned.

  “I’m going to do whatever I want from now on.” She nearly growled the fierce declaration into his mouth as they kissed through the words.

  Good. He pushed aside her thick hair and took his lips to her neck, below her ear, wanting to taste her there.

  She sighed in pleasure at his kiss in this new place and he wanted to encourage the sound by kissing as many new places as he could. His hands explored her slender curves through the fabric of her dress and he felt her respond, reveling in the contact. “You are beautiful everywhere,” he breathed against her neck, drawing a shudder from her body that passed through to his own everywhere that they were pressed together.

  “Do you mean it?” she asked, tilting her head to provide him easier access to the place underneath her jaw where he pressed his mouth.

  How could she question it? He had never been more on fire for a woman in his life. It was as though the truth of her was right there within reach, and if he could kiss her deeply enough—touch her everywhere—he would discover it. Yet the more he kissed, he found not answers but need. Merciless need.

  “God, yes,” he muttered into the soft skin on her neck. “I think you are the most bewitchingly beautiful creature I have ever known.”

  Bold hands splayed across the thin lawn of his shirt, their warmth searing him through the fabric. “I want you to make love to me.”

  His passion for her was so consuming, he was hearing her speak his fantasy aloud, when he knew she could not be. “What did you say, love?” he asked, between kisses on her throat.

  “I want to do what couples do. Husbands and wives, men and mistresses. I want to do that. With you.”

  Damn. He pulled back and stared down at her.

  What? No. He set her from him and stepped a safe pace away. Disappointment crushed him as he did so. Good sense, it seemed, would not be damned after all. “We cannot.” He said it firmly, to convince himself as well as her.

  “Why not?” Her question was insistent, but her eyes lowered to avoid his.

  Damn, again. Guilt speared him. He felt the rejection as keenly as if he had received it rather than given it. He reached for Juliana and pulled her to him, only holding her this time. “It is not for lack of wanting, I promise.” He laid his cheek on the top of her head and willed his heart beat to slow, his hunger to subside. “I cannot think of anything I want more in this moment.” He couldn’t think of anything else, full stop.

  She was quiet in his arms, but both felt the quaking they shared, as it was no longer possible to determine from whom it originated. Their embrace, still as it was, was alive with it.

  “Tell me why we cannot,” she implored.

  “Because you are…” He exhaled. “Because I am…” Damn it. There were reasons. Several reasons. Good reasons. Yet he couldn’t seem to call upon them just then.

  “Have you been with a woman before?” she asked.

  He lifted his head from where it rested atop hers. “What?” If he had made a hundred guesses, he would not have guessed she would ask that.

  “Have you made love to a woman before?”

  It felt very odd to answer the question while holding her, but he did. “Yes. I have. I am a grown man.”

  “But you’ve never met this woman who will be your bride?”

  “No. I have not.”

  “If you are not yet engaged and you’ve never met her, I don’t think you dishonor her if you simply do again what you have already done before.”

  He pulled back enough to look down at her. He gently set his fingers beneath her chin and lifted it, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Juliana.”

  She blinked, sending dark lashes up and down over jade pools.

  How could he explain? “It is not only my situation that makes this impossible. You will have enough trouble beginning your new life away from your father without being ruined as well. And I’m in no position to marry you to cure it.”

  She retreated. Brows furrowed she looked up at him, aghast. “But I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone. Ever.”

  He sighed. “You may. You should.”

  “No.” She shook her head vehemently, sending a ripple through the cascade of auburn waves. “Not ever. I’ve already told you, I will live quietly as a widow someplace where no one knows me. What we do or do not do this night will bear no significance, save the memory that I shall have.”

  A selfish part of him felt a premature pride at the thought of being the memory that warmed her on future lonely nights. He liked it too much, the vision of her on some later eve, slowly reliving in her perfect memory their night of shared passion.

  Only they’d not shared a night of passion—not yet. But damn his irresponsible soul, he was already experiencing it, planning it, ticking off in his mind the things that he would show her, the places he would touch her.

  She moved forward again into his hold and laid her cheek on one side of his chest. She drew her hand up and, with her fingertips, began tracing light, teasing circles over his chest and his stomach, drawing tension and gooseflesh to each place she touched. “You think I don’t understand,” she said, softly, still tracing. “That I can’t be allowed to decide for myself, but I do understand—fully—and I have already made my choice. It is only for you to make yours.”

  He stood stock still, but for the involuntary reaction of his skin tightening and his nerves pulsating where her circling fingers touched. He tried to tell himself that he had not yet chosen, that a chance still remained for him to be wise, cautious, sensible.

  He was a liar.

  He had chosen the moment she had stepped into his embrace. He caught her hand in his, halting the torturous circles. “I choose your pleasure,” he said, unable to keep the words from coming out as a low growl.

  She stared up at him, and he wondered for a moment if she regretted her bold request now that he had acquiesced to it.

  Then her lips curved upward. The minute movement at the corners of her mouth altered her expression dramatically, from uncertainty to bold satisfaction. All hint of the meek, unsure maid was gone and remaining in her place was a beautiful woman who knew her mind and was courageous enough to give voice to her desires.

  She had given them voice.

  He would give them meaning and memory.

  He lowered his lips to hers and tried to tell her with his kiss just how slow and thorough her pleasure would be. This time when he kissed her, there were no limitations to where he allowed his hands to roam. He lifted one hand to cup her chin as his lips toyed with hers, then her drew the hand down her throat and splayed it over the warm skin above the bodice of her dress. He dragged it even lower then, over the fabric that bridged the valley between her breasts, finally closing over one pert curve. She pressed herself into his hand and he squeezed gently, letting his palm tease the cloth-covered peak.

  “Does that please you?” he asked, though his male pride already swelled at the knowledge that her body had answered the question. He moved his hand to her other breast, this time brushing his thumb across the tightened peak.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  He tucked two fingers over the top of the dress and underneath the fabric, grazing them across the bare peak of her breast and she shivered. He nearly did as well.

  “I choose your pleasure,” he repeated, turning her to unfasten the ties that closed the back of her simple day dress. The fabric loosened at her breasts. He untied the lower fastenings and the skirt loosened as well. He pushed the dress forward, over her shoulders, pressing a kiss to each one. He whispered in her ear as he pushed the garment down the length of her and let it fall away. “I am going to show you so much pleasure that you will want to call on the memory every night forever.”

  She shivered again and stepped from the circle of fabric at her feet. He clutched her to him again, in noth
ing but her worn-thin chemise, her back to his chest, and ran his hands over her front from breasts to hips, touching everywhere, lingering only long enough to awaken sensation in each place.

  “Every time you call on the memory,” he promised, “I want the thought to leave you flushed and breathless.”

  She sagged against him, making no effort to hide herself or her pleasure as she allowed his hands to roam where they might. “I…think I am breathless now.”

  He wanted her to be more than breathless. He wanted her to be insensate. Never before had he been so consumed with the need to bring a woman more pleasure than she could imagine—enough pleasure to replace a lifetime of experiences. He almost didn’t want it to begin, because he didn’t want it to end.

  Almost.

  He lowered his hands to the hem of her chemise and drew it upward. “Lift your arms,” he whispered and she did, allowing him to pull the garment over her head and toss it aside. “Face me,” he asked and she turned, bared completely before him, her fair skin touched only by firelight and a fall of flame-colored hair. “You are more than beautiful. You are a fairy tale or a legend, full of fantasies and secrets and too perfect to be real.”

  “I know that I am real,” she said, her lips curving into a teasing smile, “because I am cold.”

  He laughed and swept her up in his arms, hating that he had to test his leg before he carried her to the bed and laid her gently atop the bed linens.

  She sat on the edge of the mattress, swinging her knees. “I think this is not the way it’s done,” she said with a shy smile, “where I have none of my clothes, but you have all of yours.”

  He grinned. How could he deny such a request? He pulled his shirt over his head and stepped from his boots. He unbuttoned his trousers and they sagged low over his hips, but he did not remove them yet. He stepped forward within her reach and she took advantage, placing her hands on his chest. They searched him, smoothing across the hair on his chest and down the length of his arms. They played over scar and muscle and skin teased into gooseflesh, and he waited, allowing her to explore as long as she wished. She leaned forward and placed a searing kiss on his stomach. When she looked up at him again, eyes searching, he swept his arm beneath her knees, sliding her into the center of the bed where he could stretch himself out beside her.