Wallflower (Old Maids' Club, Book 1)

by Catherine Gayle

Who was he to disobey? One hand moved to cover her breast and the other slipped behind her, settling over the soft, rounded flesh of her derrière. He squeezed both, glorying in the taught nub that formed beneath his palm at her breast and the near-inaudible whimper that trembled forth from her lips.

  She grabbed the lapels of his coat, pulling them back and over his shoulders as she nibbled a path along his jaw. She had it halfway down his arms before he came to his senses.

  Noah stilled Tabitha’s hands, holding them tight so she couldn’t continue to undress him. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  Her tongue slithered over his jaw, soothing the abraded skin she had left behind. By Jove, he needed about six more hands to contain her.

  “I’m disrobing you,” she said breathlessly. Her hands continued to seek freedom as she placed feverish kisses over his neck and ears. “Unless you wanted to keep our clothes on. I suppose it is possible that way, though it will be a bit more complicated.” One of her hands pulled away, and she gave his cravat a great tug, then another, finally pulling it away. It fell unceremoniously to the bed of flowers and grass beneath their feet.

  “Stop this, Tabitha. That isn’t why I brought you here.” In the dark, his attempts at recapturing her rogue hand went awry. She eluded him at every turn, until the flat of her hand pressed torturously against his erection. With a tiny movement, she enfolded him in her grasp. “Oh, God. What are you doing? This can’t happen.”

  He had to stop her. He couldn’t give in to his baser instincts. Noah picked her up and set her away from him, holding her back with the greater length of his arms. It took every ounce of patience and honor he possessed to do so.

  “If that’s not what you intended, what are we doing here?” Another cloud drifted away from the moon, and in its insubstantial illumination he saw her cross her arms over her chest, magnifying the glorious display before him. Her expression was a riveting combination of mutiny and desire. She looked absolutely ravenous—not something that would help his cause.

  He chanced removing his hands from her shoulders. She didn’t immediately go on the offensive again, so he took a breath and pulled his fingers through his hair. “I thought to get you alone for a bit. I just wanted to kiss you.”

  “I want more than a kiss. I want your hands on me. I want to feel you all over me—inside me.”

  Dash it all. Even just hearing it from her mouth, in her voice, was almost enough to send him over the edge. “Tabitha, I thought I made myself clear to you in the carriage yesterday. We have to wait. I want this to happen the right way.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Who says what way is the right way? We love each other. We’re to be married in two days’ time. Why do we have to wait?”

  She would be the death of him. He might not make it to his own wedding.

  Noah pressed his eyes closed. “Thirty-six hours,” he managed to get out between gritted teeth. “It is only thirty-six more hours, and then we’ll be married, and I can do things the way you deserve to have them done.” The image of Tabitha’s body beneath him in his bed flooded his mind. He opened his eyes and took another breath. “You’re an innocent, Tabitha. I absolutely refuse to take your maidenhead on the ground in a public garden.”

  “I’m not.”

  His heart stopped. He must have misheard her. “You’re not what?”

  “I’m not an innocent, Noah. I know exactly what I’m asking you for.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Noah stood staring at her as though she had suddenly sprouted wings and might fly away at any moment. “What do you mean, you’re not an innocent?” His words were quiet and measured, as though each one caused him great pain.

  She hadn’t meant to blurt it out to him this way. He would have to learn eventually, once they were married and he tried to bed her at least, but she had hoped she would have a little more time to decide just how, precisely, to go about her explanation.

  But Tabitha couldn’t very well have expected to be in this particular situation. She hadn’t planned it, not by any stretch of the imagination. The story was far from a short one to tell, and Tabitha was over-stimulated to the point of desperation. She needed him.

  Tentatively, she stretched out a hand and reached for him, only to have him grab hold of it and hold it captive. “Explain,” he growled.

  Oh, good Lord. He clearly needed her as badly as she needed him. But he was behaving like an intractable mule. “It was years ago,” Tabitha said, with far more exasperation tainting her tone than she’d intended. “I was young and exhausted from all of the fortune hunters paying me court. One of Father’s footmen said sweet words to me and sent flutters coursing through me, and I thought myself in love.”

  Noah riffled his free hand through his hair in the way that always made Tabitha want to take over the task. “One of your father’s...Did he...? Did they...? Is he still...?”

  Tabitha frowned. She wished he would just bed her and let her finish the rest of it later. “James Marshall was sacked. Not because of our relationship. Well, not exactly because of it. After we had been intimate for a few months, I caught him coupling with a pretty, petite scullery maid in his quarters when I went to look for him. When I confronted him, he admitted he was only bedding a ‘fat wench’ like me because it allowed him the opportunity to sneak around the family’s wing—I’d arranged for him to work in that area of the house, because I wanted him to be happy. He’d stolen quite a bit of jewelry and some artwork already since he took up the position. James was quite sure I’d never admit what had been happening to my father or brothers. He was right. Instead, I found Owen and told him where he would find James and the maid in the act, and he sacked them both on the spot.”

  She sniffed back her frustration and stole a glance at Noah; his eyes were closed tight, as though hearing her admission pained him. “Since him, no gentleman who wasn’t already a notorious fortune hunter has paid me any attention. Clearly, no one has any need for a ‘fat wench’ like me.”

  “Don’t call yourself such an ugly untruth as that. I do. I need you.” His words were like a prayer.

  “So you say. Your body appears to agree with your words, but then you push me away. Why? I’m no innocent, and I’m asking you to touch me, yet you tell me we must wait until it is all legal and proper.” Tears stung her eyes. Damn them for betraying her now. “What reason should I suspect is behind this if not your need to have my dowry firmly within your grasp before you force yourself to touch the ‘fat wench’ I am? If you even decide to touch me at all, that is.”

  “You can’t still believe that,” Noah said. “I thought we were past your distrust of me. And for God’s sake, would you please stop calling yourself a fat wench? You’re not fat at all. You’re perfect.”

  “Perfect?” Tabitha scoffed. “There are many things I am, Noah, but perfect is about the furthest thing from the truth.”

  “You’re perfect to me.” His eyes were still pinched closed. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her as he spread his falsehoods. “You’re perfect for me in every way.”

  Tabitha turned away. “I’ll believe that when you can say it while looking me in the eye. When you can look at my body and all its imperfections, and then say it straight to my face.” James had never been able to look at her, either; he had always extinguished the candles before he would touch her.

  “Look at me,” Noah commanded softly.

  But she couldn’t. She didn’t want to see the disgust in his eyes while he tried to appease her. It might break her to the point she could never put herself back together.

  She felt him come up behind her before she heard him. “Tabitha,” he pleaded.

  His warm breath fanned over her ear and neck, sending tiny tingles of awareness coursing over her body, though he didn’t touch her anywhere. Even now, when she was more certain of her repulsiveness to him than she’d ever been before, her body betrayed her with a disloyalty so rapid her neck might snap. She couldn’t stay the
re with him. Not when he couldn’t bear to touch her. Not when he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Tabitha started back toward the meadow without looking back, as fast as she could go in her gown and slippers without tumbling to the ground.

  “Wait.” Noah caught her in a few long strides, grabbing her arm and holding her firmly in place. She tried to pull herself free, but his grip was unrelenting. “I’m not going to let you run away from me, Tabitha. You can’t always run away from the things you don’t want to face. It won’t solve anything.”

  The velvet heat of a tear landed on the bodice of her gown. Blast, she didn’t want to cry. Not now. She desperately brushed the growing flood of tears away with her free hand.

  Noah placed both his hands on her upper arms and forced her to face his direction, but she refused to look up at him. “Christ, how am I supposed to do what you asked if you won’t even look at me?”

  Fine. If he could live with himself for lying straight to her face, if he could look her in the eye and tell her bald untruths while fighting off the revulsion he surely must feel, then she could force herself to watch as he did so. It would be far from the first time she’d seen such an expression in a man’s face, and she doubted it would be the last. Tabitha slowly lifted her gaze to meet his.

  Noah released her arms and used the pads of his thumbs to skim over the dampness covering her cheeks. “You are so beautiful to me, Tabitha.” His tone and eyes were sincere, not filled with disgust. He leaned down to kiss first one of her eyes and then the other, before trailing feather-light kisses over her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, across her cheekbones, and along the line of her jaw. Then he returned to stare ardently into her eyes.

  “I don’t know why other men have failed to see you the way I do—why they neglect to see your beauty and intelligence, why they refuse to acknowledge your wit and charm. But they are the ones who must live with the loss. My only disappointment where that is concerned is how their actions have evidently hurt you.” With a scorching kiss, his tongue met hers in a fevered dance. “I love you, Tabitha. I don’t know how else to tell you—what else I can do to make you believe me.”

  Tabitha wanted to believe him. Deep in her chest, tiny little cracks were forming along the surface of her heart; it would shatter into a thousand pieces if she allowed herself to trust him and then his words proved false.

  “But you don’t,” he said after long minutes of silence elapsed between them.

  The first of the evening’s display of fireworks exploded overhead, lighting the night sky with a burst of color that seemed to rain down over their heads. “We should go back,” Tabitha said. They should have returned already. Jo and Lord Leith would find their absence conspicuous, even if no one else did.

  She turned and started to leave again, but his arms came around her and he pulled her tight to his chest. His arousal pressed into her bottom, hot and hard and pulsing.

  “Stay with me,” he murmured into her ear. “Let me show you. If you can’t believe my words, let me show you.” His lips met the sensitive skin on neck, just at her nape, and a frisson of electricity surged to her stomach, matching the display bursting overhead in a torrent of fiery hues flooding the sky.

  Everything inside her begged to do just what he asked, but she couldn’t help but think it would be a mistake. “I thought you wanted to do this properly—to wait until we’re married.”

  A rumble sounded in his chest. “I do. But more than that, I want you to believe you are as beautiful, as ravishing, as enticing as I find you.” The palms of his hands flattened over her stomach, pressing her backside to more fully nestle into his hips. Then he slid his hands along the torturous path up her torso, settling over her breasts to knead against her already distended and sensitive nubs. “I thought you wanted this. I thought you wanted me to look at you and tell you how perfect you are for me. Let me.”

  Tabitha’s traitorous body melted a little more at his every touch. When one hand left her breast and moved to the top of her thigh, she nearly lost her ability to stand. His tongue flicked against a spot just behind her ear, just where the heat always gathered when she blushed. That proved to be her undoing. “Damn you,” she breathed, spinning around in his arms and pulling his head down to meet her in a kiss.

  Noah struggled to remove his coat, and she tugged at the sleeves to help him out of it. When he finally had it free of his arms, he spread it out over a patch of freesias, then set to work unclothing her. “Damn me, indeed.”

  In a flurry of kisses and heated touches beneath the flares and bursts painting the midnight sky, he undid the series of buttons holding her gown in place while she fumbled with the flap of his breeches, pulling desperately at his shirt to loosen it from the waist of his pants. He finished his task before she had done more than remove the neck cloth and pull his shirtwaist free, and in a single motion, he pulled her dress and shift from her body, leaving her in only her stays, drawers, and stockings.

  Another flash lit up the sky, illuminating her to his gaze. She covered herself, an instinctual move, before she could think better of it, but Noah pulled her arms aside. “I need to see you, Tabitha. All of you.”

  An intensity filled his eyes and he kissed her again, his tongue mating with hers in a slow, sensuous dance. Shaking hands lowered her to his coat. Noah lay beside her, propped up on one arm and undoing the laces of her stays and drawers with experienced ease.

  When he had them both free from her body, another flash of color split open the night sky as his eyes traveled the length of her, taking in all of the crevices and valleys she so detested. But he contemplated her with hunger, not the repugnance she had expected.

  He used a light touch to caress her with his fingertips, devouring everything he touched with his eyes. She watched his path, too, growing more aroused by the moment. As he fondled her breasts, Tabitha’s breaths grew uneven. In painstaking fashion, he lowered his lips to her taut nipple and suckled. An inundation of wet heat collected between her legs, increasing with each flick of his tongue and scrape of his teeth over her sensitive flesh.

  “So sweet,” he murmured.

  Noah raised his head and resumed his gentle, torturous path down her body, watching her reaction as he went. The tips of his fingers danced across her stomach, circling her navel. Spasms formed in the muscles beneath his tender onslaught. When he licked her navel, Tabitha’s entire body nearly came up off the ground.

  This was all nice and lovely and good, but she needed him to get on with it. She would go mad with need if he didn’t come to her soon. “Stop teasing me.” She grabbed a handful of his hair and urged him up to kiss her again at the same time as another firework exploded overhead.

  Noah would not be moved. He playfully swatted her hand away and moved himself lower. “I’ve only just begun.” This time when he repositioned his hand, he settled it at the back of her knee, tantalizing the tender flesh there with spiraling movements, gliding leisurely upward along the inside of her thigh. A little further and she gasped. Another few inches and she trembled.

  When he stopped just a hair’s breadth away from touching her most intimate spot, Tabitha threw back her head and nearly whimpered in need. “Touch me. I need you to touch me.”

  “All in good time, love.”

  A light pressure from his hand impelled her to open her knees. Then his fingers twined in her curls and nudged the folds of her sex, urging them apart as he had done with her knees. He traced her center, twirling a finger around her entrance and driving her to the brink of madness.

  All at once, he slipped his fingers inside and took the center of her need into his mouth. “Oh, God.” Tabitha had never experienced anything like it. James Marshall would have never done anything like this to her. It felt sinful and incredibly erotic.

  Noah stroked her in the familiar rhythm of mating while alternately drawing her core into his mouth and blowing a cool breeze over her until she was writhing beneath his ministrations. She reached out with her hands to gr
ab onto something, anything, everything she could. One hand found his hair, the other his shirt, and she pulled. The lawn fabric of his shirt tore at the same moment as a moan ripped from her lungs.

  Wave after wave of sensation crashed over her body. She was drowning in sensuality, dissolving in a gratifying agony she wanted never to end. When she thought she couldn’t take any more, another, stronger surge collided with her, and she exploded like the sparkling bursts of color in the heavens, fading back down to earth in bits and pieces.

  She lay there attempting to reassemble her mind, she knew not how long. Time couldn’t very well exist while she was fractured into millions of fizzling fragments.

  Noah left her for a few moments and removed the remnants of his attire. And then he was above her, kneeling between her legs and leaning down to kiss her mouth. Naked. Beautiful. Perfect. Hers.

  Tabitha ran her hands over the muscled planes of his chest and arms, exploring every aspect of this man who would be her husband. With her fingers, she followed the trail of hair from his navel down to his straining erection. It was hard and hot in her grasp, and she squeezed lightly.

  “I can’t wait any longer,” Noah ground out.

  “Nor can I.” Tabitha kept her eyes locked with his as she guided him beneath curls and inside. The initial contact between his sex and hers nearly unraveled her again from the heat. His jaw clenched and his arms shook as he held himself above her, never claiming control, allowing her to direct their coupling. The effort to hold back soon produced a sheen of perspiration over his brow.

  He eased his hips forward until he was fully embedded within her, joined to her, and then stayed like that until she had adjusted to his size. She felt full. Stretched. Loved. Tabitha wanted more. She shifted her hips and reveled in the sensation.

  Biting his lip, Noah released a distorted groan. She took his head in her hands, fisting them into his hair, and pulled him down for a kiss. With her tongue, she pursued a salty path over his neck and chest, at last arriving at one of his nipples. Tabitha took it between her teeth and grazed it as she ground her hips upward to meet him. His sharp, indrawn breath sounded beside her lobe. Finally, he moved within her, easing into an unhurried, measured cadence of lovemaking she had never known before. His strokes were smooth and restrained. Deliberate. Friction came in a gradual build, ever-increasing, climbing to higher and higher peaks.