He turned, his expression still lacking any interest in his actions. Their gazes locked and it was clear his thoughts had been absorbed by her. His arousal made that very evident too, but she was halfway to ecstasy herself already. Seeing his erection caused the most delicious thrill to tremble between her legs.
He lifted the sheet and joined her in the bed. She ached to hold him, but he braced his weight on one arm and looked down at her.
His masculinity became a palpable force, altering the energy he exuded, imbuing it with sensual danger. A primitive chime of vulnerability rang in her instincts. It was a reaction as old as time, holding the potential for both excitement and fear.
The bedclothes bunched at his waist, and she let her gaze linger on his shoulders and chest. She wanted to touch those muscles and skim her hand along the shadows created by the light that his body partially blocked.
He dipped down to kiss her lips. Desire pulsed in the soft joining of their mouths.
He rose up again. His palm and gaze lowered to her neck, then to the ribbons of her nightdress. His fingers started loosening them. Her breasts tingled from the proximity of his touch.
“I have been half mad the last week,” he said. “Unable to think clearly. When I realized for certain it had been you . . .”
“When did you?”
“Outside Fleur’s chamber that day. You are better than most at hiding yourself from the world, but that day you could not. Even conceited, irritating men sometimes see what is right in front of them.”
She smiled at his reminder of her barbs. They seemed distant history right now.
Her nightdress gaped at her neck now, and his hand was finishing its work lower. The fabric moved subtly over her erect nipples, causing a delicate caress that proved how sensitive her body had become.
All of her body. From her face down to her toes, she waited, taut with anticipation and enthralled by the smallest sensation. She could not bear the separation even though the waiting was exquisite torture. She moved her hand and slid it up the strong arm braced beside her.
He pushed the edges of her nightdress aside, revealing her breasts. His fingertips and gaze slowly moved around their swells. She grit her teeth to hold in the impulse to moan.
“You did not speak much the last time, Charlotte. Do you intend to be silent again?”
“It may be wise, don’t you think? Our conversations are so often quarrelsome.”
“Only because you take pleasure in challenging me.”
“And you me.”
“Perhaps we both only sought to deny what brings us to this bed. I have found your willfulness more charming than challenging since we have shared indiscretions.”
“Then perhaps I will speak, if I am so moved.”
He dipped low and kissed one nipple. A shimmer of pleasure eddied through her skin. “I will have to remember to move you to speak in pleasing ways.”
“What kind of speech would be pleasing, Nathaniel?” She doubted it would matter. Speech required breath, and she was losing hers.
“Let me think.” He peeled the dress off her shoulders, and lifted her so he could slide it down her arms. “I think I would be partial to Do not stop, because I am in heaven.”
She laughed, but most of her attention centered on the way he pushed away the bedclothes. “I can see how you might prefer that to contradictions.”
He slipped the dress lower, and gently tapped her hip. “Up.”
She raised her hips so the dress could continue its path, exposing her naked body.
“Then there is Just like that, right there, it feels very good,” he said. “I am sure I would welcome discourse of that nature.”
“That sounds like instruction and command. I would not expect you to welcome that at all.”
He smiled vaguely as he bent to pull the billowing fabric down her legs and over her feet. “There will be no mistaking who is commanding, pretty lady.”
His caress and gaze proved that. Both took possession of her body in a masterful way. Both moved without restriction, freely taking what she had offered.
That chime sounded in her instincts again.
He eased atop her. The sudden contact, so full and complete, made their playful talk a game now ended. Braced on his arms, he filled her sight, and his weight and strength lined her smallness, dominating and overwhelming her. That intuitive fear spoke like a soft voice, pointing out her helplessness.
“Or if you prefer, you need not say anything at all,” he said. “I do not need words to know you.”
He had said something similar that night. The repetition now startled her.
She bit her lower lip and placed a hand flat against his chest. “Do you say that to everyone?”
“Only once before, with a woman I met at a party, who in donning a mask became free to reveal more than she hid.”
She gazed directly into his eyes for the first time since he had arrived.
She had feared what she would see or not see if she did that. Now the most beautiful reassurance waited for her. Suddenly they were back in a dark corner of a salon, and the laughter and movements of others were dimming into obscurity. An intimacy deep and profound instantly built between them that made the world irrelevant. No judgment showed in his eyes. No questions. Only an acceptance and comprehension that made her tremble, and deep fires of desire that burned only for her. She might be a stranger, but the things that mattered were understood.
She responded the same way she had that night, with a soul so grateful and relieved that she wanted to weep. The chimes died and the instinctive fear retreated. Trust drenched her, a trust complete and certain.
He kissed her. She could not mistake that it was different from that night, even if much else was the same. Their mutual awareness was starkly alive. They were not strangers. Nathaniel Knightridge was in bed with Charlotte Mardenford.
If not for the trust, that might have made her shy in her response. Instead she discovered that she liked the fact that he knew it was she in his arms. It added layers of history and familiarity to the knowing.
The kiss deepened, increasing the tense anticipation that had kept her alert and aroused the last days. Like a string stretched too far, it snapped. Sensations of bliss trickled through her body, tantalizing her with streams of pleasure. He lowered and embraced her, his firm hands sliding beneath her body to hold her, his breath teasing her neck and ear and skin as his mouth pressed other spots of excitement.
Just holding him sent her senses spinning, then narrowing on the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips. Each touch and moment was real, perfectly alive. Already dampness slicked her thighs and passion had her half-crazed. She felt the hardness of his erection pressing her thigh and parted her legs to bring him closer.
She waited for him to move, to join, to quickly succumb to the onslaught of desire just as they had the first time. Instead he rose and looked down.
“It does not have to be fast tonight. No one can see us, Charlotte.” He did not wait for a response, but shifted a little lower and flicked his tongue on her right nipple.
She closed her eyes to attempt to contain what that did to her. She failed. Her whole body trembled. It became a wonderful torture, one that she did not want to end but that created cravings for more. “Yes,” she heard herself whispering. “Just like that. It feels wonderful.”
He paused. She opened her eyes to see him looking at her, pleased that she had spoken. He turned his attention to her other breast and with licks and nips made her insistent hunger even more intense. When he began drawing on the tip, sighs sounded in her head and breath. His fingertips caressed her other breast, multiplying the sensations, and rational thought escaped her mind’s grasp. She arched, swaying into it, offering her swollen breasts in a begging movement that knew no shame.
Instead he stopped and looked down with an expression chiseled and hard. The sensual energy she had sensed at the beginning poured off him, exciting her more. He caressed down her body and shifte
d off her so her legs were free.
Suddenly her pose felt vulnerable and scandalous. She began to close her legs. His hand had reached her hips and with a firm hold on one leg he stopped her.
He touched her down there and she was lost. Nothing else mattered, no kiss or embrace. Only the incredible pleasure and crying need commanded by that touch existed. She floated in it, awed by the pleasure lapping through her and the way it affected every inch of her body.
Then it changed. Not floating, but climbing. Reaching. Frantic impatience trembled within the pleasure. The sensations became excruciating and desperate. Nothing but yearning lived in her head, no other sights or thoughts. She dimly knew she was crying out, giving voice to the silent screams of pleasure racking her.
Nathaniel’s face was close to hers, saying something, praising her. She barely heard. She had reached an unbearable place. She either had to stop him or jump off a cliff.
She clawed at his shoulders and jumped.
For an instant only bliss existed, pouring through her in a beautiful shock. Then awareness returned, still trembling and vague. Lips brushed her cheek and he moved back into her arms, his body pressed against hers. Her climax had not eliminated the need. Again she shifted, to bring his hardness closer. This time he entered, filling her, giving the final completion that she wanted.
She kissed him hard. His own kiss spoke of much more to come. He withdrew and reentered. The intimacy moved her so deeply, she could barely contain it.
They joined slowly, savoring the sensation, gazes locked in acknowledgment of the power. She could have stayed like that forever, holding him, feeling him in her while she drifted in sated, stunned emotions. He could not. She knew he was going where she had just been from the light in his eyes and the severity of his face. She did not mind at all when the thrusts came harder and faster.
A new trembling woke where they joined, surprising her. He fanned the fire until she was burning again. It was different this time, and focused on him and that fullness. A wildness broke in her, more primitive than her last quest for completion. She wanted him more, harder, there. She abandoned all sense and shame, crying, pleading, urging him.
The end was violent, a ravishing that she welcomed. In the midst of it a glorious tremor began where they were joined. Like a plucked harp string, it centered in that flesh, but its vibrations throbbed through her entire being in an amazing release that joined the masculine tremor she held in her arms.
Jesus.
His heart slowed to something like normal. His head cleared of the cloud that had followed the lightning. Sanity returned. So did awareness that he was a dead weight atop Charlotte, and probably smothering her.
He braced up on his forearms and looked down through strands of damp hair. Her eyes were closed but a gentle smile softened her lips. She appeared contented enough. And very young with that dreamy expression. He trusted that meant that somewhere in the turbulent chaos at the end, she had found fulfillment.
He rolled off her, away from the light so he could see her in its faint glow. His movement made her stir. She dragged up the sheet to cover their nakedness. They lay side by side, looking at the ceiling, their breathing still deep.
“You near killed me, Lady M. I may sleep for two days.”
“And I may not walk for a week, Mr. Knightridge.”
He looked over at her. “Did I hurt you?”
“Let us just say that I am aware you visited a long time.” She smiled impishly, and he was reassured.
“The hospitality was so inviting and enthusiastic that I completely forgot my manners. Are apologies in order?” Enthusiastic was an understatement. He had not been urged on like that since he rowed against Cambridge at university.
She giggled. “An apology is not necessary.”
He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “An expression of gratitude is, however.” He arranged pillows to his satisfaction and pulled up the coverlet. “I believe that we may have finally achieved a right understanding on something.”
“Once more without words.”
Yes, once more. He’d had to know, and now he did. He just did not know what to do about it.
It appeared she did not either. She tucked the covers about her more neatly. She kept sneaking glances at him.
“Are you embarrassed, Charlotte?”
“No, not at all. Well, I could be if I thought much about . . . but, no. Why do you ask?”
“You appear unsettled.”
“I am just wondering . . .” Her voice drifted off as she glanced at him, the door, the lamp, the bed.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No . . . that is . . . were you thinking to . . .” Blushing, she groped along incoherently.
Charlotte Mardenford was at a loss for words. He never thought he would see it. He could not resist the impulse to let her flounder through a few more broken phrases.
“You have never actually slept in a bed with a man before, have you?” He knew many women hadn’t. Their husbands visited, poured seed in the vessel, and left.
Her weak smile said he was right. It was one more thing he had learned tonight about her marriage. If not for the insights it gave him on her, it would in sum be more than he wanted to know.
“I am thinking I will stay awhile.” He did not wait for her permission, but made himself comfortable and drew her into his arms.
She tried to act sophisticated, but he suspected this was the most astonishing thing he had done all night. He reached over and gutted the lamp. The silence and dark quickly had him drifting into languid repose.
“What if you are found here?”
“The door is locked, and I will leave at dawn anyway.”
She snuggled in. Her head fit perfectly on his shoulder.
“It was very nice,” she said quietly. “I am glad I was not a coward.”
He pressed his lips to her crown. It had been nice. Amazing, actually. There had been no doubt that they were in that intensity together, but her words touched him. She intended her admission to explain that her misgivings had been unfounded. She wanted to reassure him. There was no winning or losing tonight, in this bed.
One chamber of his mind jumped to the days ahead. There might be winning and losing then.
He shut the door on that room. He would not examine its furnishings too closely right now, with his sated body hovering on the edges of sleep—
“Do you snore, Nathaniel?”
“I would not know. Wake me if I do.”
Holding her body created a peaceful intimacy. The night had left him very contented and he began to drift—
“Do you really plan to sleep for two days?”
“More likely two hours. Then I will wake and ravish you again.”
“Oh.”
The silence pulsed, then flowed. Dreams beckoned—
“Nathaniel, if you snore, one of your other lovers would have told you by now. If it is customary for a man to sleep in his lover’s bed all night, you would indeed know if you snore.”
“You will have to ask your brothers if it is customary. It is not customary for me, so I would not know if I snore.”
“It isn’t? Why not? This is very pleasant.”
That he had decided to stay tonight, without even realizing it was unusual, begged for some reflection. He was too drowsy to engage in mental inquiry now, especially since he suspected the conclusions would further complicate consideration on what to do about all this.
“I have not made it customary because there are rumors regarding what happens if a man remains after the passion is over.”
“Rumors? What sort of rumors?”
“You will find them astounding. It is said by men who know, that after sexual relations women want to talk all night. It is said that a man who stays will get no sleep at all. Can you believe it?”
Silence hung for a five count. Then her little fist gave his ribs a little punch.
He laughed to himself and held her closer. At least it ha
dn’t been a parasol.
He did not snore. Nor did he wake in two hours and ravish her again. She knew, because she did not sleep for a long time. She lay in his embrace trying to herd scattered thoughts and reactions into order.
It was impossible to do. The intimacy dulled her mind. Comfort soothed the nibbling concerns. She knew only that her emotions had not been an illusion, and she had not built a fantasy on that first night. The sensations and bond had been repeated now. They were real.
She wondered if that reality existed only in silence, though, and in passion. They could not spend their lives alone in bed. A world waited outside these walls. Soon they would walk forth and enter it again, and their paths might once more leave them facing each other across a chasm.
The rhythms of Nathaniel’s breaths in her ear finally lulled her toward sleep. As she sank away, a waking dream came to her, of little Ambrose laughing as he rolled a ball toward her. She would not be there for his visit again tomorrow. They had been parted a long time.
She rolled the ball back. Ambrose held out his arms for it. Before it arrived, however, a man’s hand reached down and took it. Puzzled, Ambrose came to her embrace and snuggled close. Together they watched that hand carry the ball out the door.
She woke at first light. The faintest silver glow etched the outlines of the furnishings in the chamber.
She had moved in her sleep, and Nathaniel had with her. She lay on her side with his body close behind and his arm around her waist.
She looked down at the hand lying on her stomach. There had been a dream last night . . . not a frightening one, but it had disturbed her. She could not remember it now, but . . .
His hand flexed and he held her more firmly. His breaths no longer marked out time. He was awake.
She felt him rise slightly behind her. His chest pressed her back and his lips kissed her cheek.
“Dawn comes,” he said.
“You must go.” The idea saddened her. She feared an end might come if he left. She could have lived forever on the memory of one scandalous night, but she knew the memories of two nights might bring pain. “I wish you did not have to.”
Lady of Sin Page 17
