“You mean a virgin?”
“Yes, a virgin.”
“Did I … did I disappoint you? Did you expect it to be more? For me to be more?”
She felt vulnerable as never before. The part of her that she denied — pushed aside the sexual part of her, needed the reassurance of her first lover. She wanted him to hold the memory of these moments in his heart, as she would always do.
“No, sweetheart, no.” He kissed the top of her curls. “It was wonderful. More than I dreamed it would be, and believe me, I’ve dreamed of it often.”
“You mean us. Together. In bed.”
He laughed. “In my dreams, my little innocent, we’re not always in a bed. We’re outside on the grass, in a cool pool, we’re … Well, never mind where.” He bent forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Perhaps soon, I’ll show you all the places, and all the ways, I want to take you.”
She grinned. “So, if our first time was that wonderful, what will our second time together be like?”
He raised an eyebrow in query. “Very recently, in fact, mere minutes ago, you were a virgin. And yet, you’re already contemplating the second time.” He laughed again. “I don’t know whether I should be flattered that you want more, or apologise to you because I think that the first time disappointed you.”
“Surely Cayle St. Martin isn’t doubting his own expertise as a lover? From what I’ve heard — ”
“No!” He covered her mouth with his hand. “I don’t want you discussing me with any more of your — friends. Especially not at any brothels.”
“Even if one of the women, at one of those places, told me that when she was a young girl there, you used to be very adept at … ”
Leaning forward she whispered in his ears, shocking him enough that he shot up and glared at her.
“Hell! You are a redheaded devil. You shouldn’t even comprehend such explicit lovemaking.”
“Ah, but I’m a scientist. I love experimenting with new things.”
“Huh! That sort of experience will be best left for another time.” He studied her more seriously. “Sweetheart, you do realise that Madame Faberge and her girls were teasing you, when they spoke about me. I was a lot younger when I visited brothels. My friends and I were always out for the latest escapade. The sort to be bought at those sorts of establishments. I’m now older, and a hell of a lot wiser.”
She gasped as he lifted her over his groin and then slid her down to relocate his semi hard shaft at just the right point between her thighs.
“But in a short time, when my stamina is recovered, perhaps you’ll not be too sore to enjoy a little experimenting.”
He moved upwards until his length slid through the folds of her sex, still swollen and tender, but still wanting him. “Like this.”
He slid up and back several times until she threw back her head to groan in a mix of ecstasy and agony. “Or like this.”
And he did it again, slowly.
“Oh, yes please.”
Becca purred like a cat as she wiggled in a frantic attempt to gain an even better position. She hoped to increase her knowledge every time they were together but for now, she was content that the intense dark stranger who’d returned from abroad had disappeared. Forever she hoped. In his place was the man she’d known from their youth. Carefree, mischievous, and wonderful.
His feelings were not as hers, may never be, so she’d enjoy every minute together, knowing it wouldn’t last. Sprawled on top of him, she wiggled again, adoring how her naked playfulness aroused him.
The signs were there. His indrawn hiss of breath, the hardening of his muscled body, and the more persistent propelling of his erection up and down between her legs.
“You want me again,” she said.
With startling honesty, Cayle admitted, “Sweetheart, I think I was born wanting you.
When you changed into a woman, I had to force myself to stay away. My father warned me — ”
“Your father?” She looked at him with bewilderment.
“He noticed when we visited that my interest in you changed. From friendship for a girl who spun dreams in her head, to obsession with a beautiful butterfly on the cusp of emerging from her golden cocoon. Ready to dazzle the world. I wanted to be the only one you alighted upon.”
Touched by his poetic and romantic words, Becca leaned closer to brush her lips in a slow sweep across his. His arms tightened around her.
“I didn’t think you noticed me any more after you turned twenty. Your interest was entirely focused on Annie, the blacksmith’s daughter.” She growled. “And that total wanton, Polly.”
He laughed out loud, the vibrations rubbing against her breasts. “I remember the blacksmith’s daughter. Or at least I remember her — ” In the air, his hands formed the shape of two ripe melons. “Her unforgettable attributes.”
Balanced on his chest, Becca rolled her eyes in mock disgust and punched him lightly on the arm. “So does every other man in the district.”
“But I can’t recall a Polly.”
She snorted with disgust. “Polly was the chamber maid you cornered in the linen closets at your country home. You kissed her. Often.”
Cayle smirked. “Ah, yes, Polly. Now she could really kiss.”
Incensed, Becca glared at him. “I can kiss. I kiss very well.”
He arched an eyebrow lazily. “Really?”
Realising he was teasing her, she muttered, “Oh, you’re impossible.”
He kissed her, and then grinned unrepentantly. “I thought I was heroic, gallant, chivalrous.”
She smiled at his list then added her own, “Don’t forget arrogant, immodest, annoying.” She stilled as she stared down into his beloved face, “And utterly adorable.”
Even as he gathered her up into his arms, Cayle warned in a soft whisper, “Becca, clinging to romantic notions of me as a white knight, your ideal man, is a mistake. I’ve changed in the past four years. Life changed me, hardened me. I became more black knight than white.”
He kissed her again.
“But from now on, I want to be the man who offers you the future you merit. You deserve the best that life has to offer.”
“I deserve a man who accepts me as I am, nothing more, nothing less.”
Seeing the worry etching his face, she searched for something to relieve his distress. Something to reassure him that she was no longer a starry eyed girl. Nor was she a title chasing chit or a clinging mistress.
“If I never find him, my white knight, my perfect man, then I shall be content to travel the world. I’ll become an aunt to my nieces and nephews. Unashamedly eccentric. They’ll call me Batty Aunt Becca.”
She watched his eyes cloud over but was unsure again what it meant, what he wanted her to say, to admit. At present, he wanted her body, her passion. That was enough for now.
There would be time enough to feel the pain when he left her, as she was sure he would. Like before. She leaned in to kiss his firm mouth with enough enticement to distract him from his troubled thoughts.
Enjoying these moments of harmony and happiness, she trailed her fingers over his body. At each new discovery, she lingered, savouring the feel of his contours, so different to her own. She licked each new spot with measured and teasing consideration, revelling in her new rights and powers as a woman.
• • •
Cayle remained perfectly still under her methodical onslaught. He managed to hold himself in rigid check for several minutes, before greed overcame him. He’d seize all she offered him and hope it became more.
He needed her. Needed that indefinable energy inside Becca that lit his own fire and made him feel alive. Alive as nothing in his recent life had, and he wanted to savour each moment of it. Savour the call of the siren who kissed him with eagerness and passion, yet with the contrast of innocence to sweeten every touch.
He pulled her bottom deeper into the cradle of his thighs, letting her feel his intensifying desire by sliding along her cleft, through her cr
eam and readying her. She was as eager as he for the fulfilment that only came when they joined completely, body and soul. Using his fingers, he stroked her with concentration and with a rich, never-changing rhythm, until she wriggled and panted and sang his name. A siren’s song.
Never would he tire of the way she called to him, urged him on. Finding her wet opening, he spread her thick milk, parted her and thrust upwards. Deep and straight, this time he risked filling her to the hilt.
Tossing back her long red hair, Becca arched and accepted him, sucking his pulsing arousal into the walls of her womb. Here he’d found his home, his salvation.
Pleasure washed them, sucked them in as she found her rhythm and rocked against him where he was imbedded so deeply. She writhed against his dark nest of pubic hair. Tickling, tantalising. Taking them up. And then he jerked, unable to hold back the spasms as he yelled her name with masculine possession. Her nails dug crescents into his shoulders as the first powerful waves of his release rippled through him.
“Come for me, sweetheart,” he ordered. “Now.”
In this private arena, he commanded and she obeyed and he was gratified when a shuddering orgasm grabbed her and sent her spinning. Her inner muscles squeezed like an iron fist around his cock and the warm flood of his stream spurted ever upwards. He filled her body as he yearned to fill her life, her mind, her heart.
He tried to jerk out but she clamped her thighs tightly. Her recently awakened body was not ready to liberate him when she was at the peak of such new pleasure. With each contraction, she drained him more. Over and over. And still she held him tight. Eyes still closed, she slumped forward onto his chest. Spent.
Heedless of how her tears were flowing down her face to spread wetly over his chest, Becca sobbed. He brought his arms up to encircle her, wanting to enclose her in a cocoon of comfort, one from which he hoped she would never fly. She cried even harder. They lay entwined until her sobs subsided.
Brushing her hair back from her face, Cayle watched her. “I made you cry. Why?”
“It’s not … not you,” she sobbed. “It’s the sheer beauty of it. Us. Together. It makes me feel powerful. Whole.”
• • •
After a minute’s silence, Cayle groaned and shook his head. “Damn! You didn’t give me a chance to protect you. And I was too carried away with wanting you to stop.”
Wide eyed, she pulled back. “Protect me from a child, you mean.”
“Yes. A child. I’ve always taken extreme care not to bring a bastard into this world. There’s enough strife in people’s lives as it is, without careless idiots adding to it.”
Nevertheless, seeing the emotion in Becca’s eyes, Cayle knew exactly what he wanted. Something he’d never let himself admit to needing before. Something that was crazy in his present situation.
He wanted to make love to a woman for more than money, for more than a night’s pleasure. A woman who was his friend, a woman who made him laugh and long to live life to the fullest. A girl he’d known all his life and obsessed over as she blossomed into a ravishing beauty who unwittingly bewitched all around her. He wanted to make a child with her, to see her belly grow round with their baby.
Jesus, he liked her. Adored her. There’d never been another who sparked his humour, occupied his mind, and stirred his body to molten heat. Effortlessly, just by being herself, she managed to do all three at the same time.
He wanted Becca. Desperately. Hungrily. He could admit it now.
“Becca, when I was nineteen I kissed Polly. Yet in my dreams, I imagined it was you. I flirted with Annie, knowing I couldn’t do the same with you. All the time, with any other woman, I saw you, only you.”
“I thought I wasn’t pretty enough for you.” She twirled the hairs on his bare chest around her finger. “I thought I didn’t have enough bosoms.”
He laughed and kissed the top of her head. “If you’re fishing for compliments, let me reassure you, your bosoms have matured nicely.”
He squeezed one globe of her rounded bottom, savouring the weight in his hands. “As have all your other female assets. But back then, you were a young sheltered girl. Far too good for me. Far too innocent. That’s why I stayed away until you were older, until that night at the stables. Even then, I resisted coming to your house, knowing how I’d feel once I saw you again. It was always the same.”
He saw the startled expression on her face as she digested his disclosure. She’d obviously never known how deeply he felt about her. He considered how she’d react if he told her now. If he revealed everything he envisaged in the future. Of how he was even now conspiring to make it happen as he wanted, to fall into place at his command.
“Cayle — ”
He placed a finger over her lips. “Shush, sweetheart. It’s of no importance. Now, we need to get you home before you’re missed.”
He knew she’d gnaw over what all this might mean but his own feelings were still too new, too raw, to set her mind at rest. To convince her of his sincerity after rejecting her so many times.
Becca was different from other women. Her scientific mind would theorise that he’d made love with her because he was physically unable to resist the allure of her body. The male of the species mating with the female. Could she believe in a man who led a woman on and then rejected her, not just once but several times? No, she’d reiterated she didn’t want him permanently. Not just him, but any man. A husband didn’t figure in her immediate plans.
What she wanted was it. The extreme pleasure she’d found that had turned her into a demanding wanton. The wild passion that boiled under the facade of a conforming lady had been uncorked. It was far too late to put the stopper back.
He’d caused the revolution and he wanted nothing more than to reap the benefits every day for the rest of their lives. But this was his second chance with Becca and this time he was determined to get it right.
However, all that would have to wait. Other problems hung like black clouds over their heads. His conscience tugged at him and resolutely he moved her aside and arose, muttering, “I need to get you home. We’ve much to face tomorrow. The authorities will question me regarding the fire, and the gunshot, but I’ll ensure nobody remembers you were there.”
• • •
Donning his garments was far more difficult than it’d ever been before with any other woman he’d lain with, no matter how beautiful or sexually enticing. He walked to the door to summon Jenner and the carriage.
But at the door, he made a mistake. Instead of seeing Becca home, he looked back at her. She stood before the fire, shrugging into her damp gown. The light picked up the fiery sheen of her hair and showed the swollen pout of her lips where he’d kissed her, repeatedly.
While he watched, she reached up to touch her lips with a look of wonder and amazement on her face. And he was lost. He could no more control the wanting that racked his body than she could, and he’d gained a lot more experience in lessons of control.
“Bloody hell. Michael will shoot me.”
She laughed. A full-throated gurgle that enthralled him with its joyous release of feelings. His Becca, normally so worried about her family and never harming or upsetting them, decided that her own pleasure should come before theirs.
She looked happy, free, as if she was revelling in the moment and their shared intimacy. As if she was made for his loving. Tonight, he’d helped her forget their problems and think only of her own pleasure. He’d released the sensuous side of her nature so long hidden.
When he hovered beside the door, undecided of whether to go or stay, she took control. With a seductive swish of her hips, she sauntered towards where he stood paralysed, hand on the knob.
“What Michael never knows, will never hurt him. This is between you and me, Cayle, for whatever time we have left together.”
Before she could utter another word, he swept her up into his arms and crushed his lips to hers as he launched them back to the rug in a whirlwind of action. Clothing flew around the ro
om in a flurry of activity as they both strived to get the other naked in as short a time as possible.
Chapter 21
The next night, Becca pushed open the door to her bedroom and sighed tiredly. She’d told her maid not to wait up for her and Laura had already opened her gown’s buttons. As she walked, she undressed, so exhausted she could hardly take the time to shrug off her gown before she dropped into bed. Her chemise followed her gown onto the floor in a puddle.
She was untying the ribbons for her drawers when she stopped, sensing a presence in her room. Her mouth opened on a scream but when she recognised who’d invaded her private sanctum she managed to shut it again with an annoyed snap before she’d roused the household. Both hands clutched her chest where her heart pounded at a frantic rate.
“God almighty! You scared me.”
“Oh, I promise I’m going to do a lot more than scare you.”
A dark headed, dark eyed, and glowering giant rose from his concealed position in a chair near the fire and stalked towards her. He wore only a fine lawn shirt hanging loosely over trousers and each time his huge fists clenched and unclenched at his thighs, muscles rippled in tight waves up his equally hefty arms. With the aristocratic Cayle covered by civilised accoutrements and his raw character tamed and masked, it was easy to disregard how powerful he was, how dangerous.
The resemblance to the panther he’d referred to the night Becca braved entering his lair was striking. So much had happened it resembled a lifetime; yet, it was mere weeks since she’d disguised herself to visit Mayfair. Tonight, this prowling panther intimidated her far more and she backed away, knowing the words about to explode from his mouth. Knowing the reason he was so angry with her.
“Where are you going, my beloved? Surely you can’t have forgotten me already? I’m the man who made love to you last evening. The lover who’s going to throttle your deceitful, contriving, miserable little neck.”
Her eyes went wide and she stopped breathing as she searched her mind for something to appease him. “Please stop.” She held up a hand as she glanced around for an escape route. “I promise, it’s not what you think.”
Suzi Love Page 26
