“He is rich enough for that to not matter,” Robin started to say but Katherine had endured enough and she cut her sister off.
“I don't care how rich he is. If his money is all that you want then you will find yourself miserable in a matter of months. The only thing truly making you happy is how much everyone else doesn't want you to marry him,” she accused, voicing the fears that she had already been considering. “You chose him because you knew that mother and father and everyone else would not approve.”
Robin's chin quivered as she listened to her sister's rants. A tear produced at the edge of her eyes and slowly ran down to her chin. Usually the sight of Robin crying caused Katherine to pull back and lessen her assault. This time it inspired her to only drive deeper. Perhaps being faced with the pain and consequences of her decision would be the only way to shake Robin out of making the worst decision of her life.
“You could choose someone who would make you happy, a husband that you wanted to be around. Instead you picked Victor, knowing that he would cause the scandals and attention that you crave. I have been willing to sacrifice my happiness by marring Kent instead of Garrett, simply to save our family should anything ever happen to father. But you, you would choose to marry someone out of spite.” There were other, crueler things that popped into her mind at that moment but with a sharp exhale of breath Katherine decided that it was not worth fighting with her sister. It only made it more likely that Robin would lash out and do something worse. She stopped her sister from responding by simply walking away.
Only moments later, Katherine saw Robin return to her fiancé and his guests with a smile broader than ever. Robin was such a good actress that Katherine worried she was starting to fool herself into thinking that she was happy. The sight made her miserable.
The wine had been watered down for the party and Katherine wondered how many it would take for her to get drunk enough that she wouldn't care about Robin throwing her one chance at happiness away. She considered going to Kent for some brandy, but that seemed out of the question.
There were three more dances that followed, of which Robin and Victor danced every one, while Katherine moodily claimed her ankle was hurting again and tried to disappear away from the crowds. It was then that Victor stepped forward and rose his glass to make an announcement.
It was exactly what Katherine had feared was coming.
“I would like to introduce tonight, the future Mrs. Victor Sullivan!” he cried out as he pulled Robin forward. She acted her part superbly, even smiling up at him lovingly as the crowd toasted to their future and wished them great happiness and many children.
If only it was real, Katherine thought, as she gulped the champagne that she had been handed to toast to the new couple.
“You shouldn't drink that so quickly,” Kent chided, as he pulled the glass from her fingers, despite the fact that it was empty. “You're not happy for your sister, are you?” he asked, believing that he was more perceptive than he was.
Katherine discovered that she might have already had too much to drink after the two glasses of watered down wine and her recent glass of champagne as she answered, “No I'm not happy at all,” before blushing shyly. “She doesn't love him,” she explained, as if it was the craziest thing that she had ever heard.
“You want the best for your sister,” he stated, rather than asked. “But why demand that she find something that might not even exist?”
That jolted Katherine out of her thoughts. “You mean love? You don't believe in love, do you?”
Kent knew that he had touched a nerve. “Of course I do. I just don't believe in this new notion that everyone has now, that if you don't marry for love you'll never be happy. Victor is rich enough that your sister will never want for anything. It seems to me that what he can offer her will make your sister happy.”
She refused to argue with him when it was the same thing that her sister had been saying. But it was all so cynical, especially when it was coming from a potential future husband. “Do you think that you could be happy without love?” she asked watching him closely for his answer.
It took him too long to answer, as if he had to think through how he should answer her. “From what I have seen, deep friendships can be far more beneficial to a marriage than passionate love. The kind of love that poets and romantics speak of tends to die away. A firm and growing friendship is more likely to last.”
At one point, Katherine might have agreed with him, but she had experienced too much over the past few weeks. She knew that with Garrett she could find love and now she faced the knowledge that with Kent she might not. Looking at his face she didn't have to ask if he saw their future as one of friendship and not passion. The term 'friendship' had never seemed like such a disappointing word, until now. “I'd like to go outside,” she told him unsteadily.
He set their glasses on one of the trays before taking her hand and wrapping it around his arm. The night air was crisp with a chill that often occurred right before it rained. It rushed into her lungs, making her feel slightly dizzy and she clasped the railing to keep herself steady.
“I would like to take care of you,” Kent told her as he held her shoulders in his hands, rubbing a tense spot at the top of her spine with his thumb. It was pleasant, but nothing like how Garrett's touch made her feel.
“But you would never love me.”
“Maybe one day we would have something akin to that, but I don't...”
Katherine placed her finger over his lips to keep him from speaking. His words erased the illusion that she had created for herself, that marrying Kent would not be her settling for an unhappy marriage. “Just kiss me,” she told him, grateful that she was drunk enough that she had no qualms about being so bold.
Kent turned her carefully in his arms and tilted her face so that it was at the perfect angle. Her eyes slid closed as his face drew in and his breath fanned her cheek. He held her tight to him as his lips brushed against hers before his tongue drove into her mouth.
A slug.
Her sister's description seemed to make sense as she let Kent expertly run his tongue along her teeth and into the velvety warm center of her mouth. She had to admit that he wasn't doing it wrong. She even recognized some of the same movements that Garrett had once used on her. Yet when Kent did it, she felt nothing, none of the sparks and excitement that she experienced with Garrett. There was nothing that felt like the start of love between them.
He would be safe, she would never lose her heart, but kissing him there beneath the moonlight, she felt a mixture of fear and anger welling up inside of her. It wasn't fair that she had to choose between disobeying her mother or marrying someone safe like Kent who she would never feel anything for but friendship.
As soon as he'd said it, she knew that it was all that they had together. If she married Kent then she would be just as unhappily married as her sister. Yet she wouldn't allow herself to compare Robin's situation to hers. Robin had set out to find someone that would never touch her emotions and she could keep them locked away safely. Katherine had never intended to find someone like that. A part of her had always hoped that she could find some way to fall in love with Kent.
Slowly pulling herself away, Katherine ended the kiss and opened her eyes to smile kindly up at him. In many ways he was more handsome than Garrett, taller with perfectly set features, a larger, more masculine body. But that didn't seem to matter to her.
As if thinking about him had made him materialize, Katherine saw Garrett as he strode out of the ballroom door and caught her eye before walking off into the garden behind them. Kent murmured softly in her ear and she realized that he had not seen Garrett pass by them and motion to her.
“I need some time to think about things,” she told him as she stepped back further and towards the garden where Garrett had disappeared to. He moved to follow her but she held up her hand to stop him. “No, please Kent, just give me a moment alone.” He nodded briskly before turning back into the ballroom.
Once she was alone Katherine followed the path that she had seen Garrett take. With every step she became more and more upset with how things were going that night. Her sister was marrying a man she would never care for, and because of that their relationship was further strained than ever before. She was considering disobeying her mother and would risk being cut out from her family's life forever. And the one titled man that she had received a proposal from didn't really love her. She now knew that she would never love him. All of this welled up inside of her until she felt like she would burst with all of her contained emotions. When she finally found Garrett leaning casually against the same statue of cupid that she had seen Kent at earlier that day, she felt her anger pique.
Even from the distance of twenty feet, she could feel the pull between them. The unquestioning desire that built upon itself, until she wanted nothing more than to go to him and feel the comfort of his embrace. Even that angered her.
Before fully understanding what drove her to do so Katherine hurled herself at him with a scream. She beat his chest with her tiny fists as she let all of her rage, fear and desire overflow into the type of tantrums that she had seen her sister engage in, but she had never allowed herself to commit. Tears streamed from her eyes as she cursed at him with every foul word that she had ever heard spoken, even those that she did not fully understand the meaning of.
Her wrists were easily caught in each of his hands as he pulled them up to wrap around the back of his neck. Garrett held her tight as her rage crumbled into a horde of tears that she sobbed against his jacket front. After a moment he began rubbing soothing circles along her back to quiet her crying.
“Hush Kat, it's alright,” he whispered close to her ear as he held her tightly, trying to calm her tears and absorb her pain.
New tremors pulsed through her body as she felt herself react to his touch in a way that she could not react to anyone but him. Katherine gripped him tightly in her arms. Pulling his head down she sought his lips with her own and plunged her tongue inside his mouth, tasting and feeling the textures within.
Her body sighed against his as he expertly slid his own tongue along her lower lip and his hand slid to her neck, caressing the soft flesh in gentle strokes. She needed this. It didn't seem to frighten her as much as the fear of never being able to have this again. It was not just the raw emotions nor any physical act that she was craving, it was Garrett himself that she needed and felt that she couldn't live without.
His arm wrapped around her back, supporting her weight as he leaned her head backward, breaking the kiss and feverishly pressing his lips and lightly biting teeth along her delicate neck, licking at the pulse he found along the way to her ear before circling his tongue inside of the hollow. Katherine sighed against his neck, while her hands turned into clawing vices, trying to pull him closer and securely around her as she used him for strength, comfort and her own desire.
She became annoyed that there were too many layers between their bodies; too many barriers between the melding of their flesh and she slid her arms beneath his jacket searching for the warmth of his skin and scents buried within his clothes. She worked at the laces behind her back, trying to untie them in her search for some higher peak that she had never experienced before. She wanted to feel her skin against him, their bare bodies touching and she moaned greedily at the thoughts that filled her head of their two bodies naked and entwined as they sought each other's passion. She could picture the two of them naked, writhing around on his bed back at the family's townhouse and she wondered if he had imagined the same things before.
Loosening the ties on her dress, she felt him lower the edge of her corset and push aside the thin chemise searching with his teeth for one of her breasts. She offered the bare flesh up, aching her back against the support of his arm as her tightening nipple inched closer to his waiting mouth. He pulled the firm crest in, rolling it between his tongue and teeth then releasing it to blow the cool night air against it, making the point even more sensitive than it had already been.
“Please Garrett,” she begged. He understood what she was asking for, knew instinctively what she needed him to do. Releasing her breast he lowered her body to the soft, mossy earth beneath them.
Katherine writhed on the ground below him, her hair spilling out of its pins, creating a fan around her head. Garrett sifted his fingers through the deep auburn hair before he slowly ran his hands along her body, from her neck down to her breasts, ribs, stomach, skirting past that one throbbing area that she then begged for him to touch. Placing one of his fingers along her lips he hushed her. “Not yet Kat,” he whispered softly as he continued to rub down to her thigh, calf, and ankle through her skirts until he ended at her tiny shoes.
“I told you not to wear these again.” Garrett pulled the shoes away from her feet, breaking the delicate laces as he did so. With his mouth he sought out the tiny red marks that he had seen that night and kissed lightly along the bright red lines, as if he could erase each mark by doing so. “This is what I wanted to do, the night that you hurt your ankle,” he admitted as his hands slid under her skirts and moved over her legs, only to retreat back down, never touching her quite where she begged him to.
“I was afraid of that,” she moaned between gasps as his lips and fingers started to crawl up her leg. Bewildered panic struck her as she realized where his mouth was heading. “What are you doing?” she asked as his kisses crept farther up her leg, tickling the backs of her knees and his fingers started to push her clothes aside to afford him a better view of her arching body.
“I told you,” he whispered thickly, “this is what I wanted to do.” With a swift tug of hands he tore the seam of her undergarments and she felt the cool night air rush between her thighs chilling the unfamiliar moisture that had been created.
His head shifted up higher as if her body called to him and Katherine tried to push him away. “You can't mean to really kiss me there?” she asked and received her answer with the feel of his tongue pressing along her opening while his hands pushed her knees further apart. Her heels dug into the ground as her body strained towards him. His lips brushed teasingly along the throbbing point, causing her hips to move as if he were a master puppeteer who could control her in ways that she did not understand.
The pressure of his tongue increased with light nibbling bites and she felt the tip of his finger slide gently inside of her. Sensation burst from that one point and Katherine couldn't stop herself from finding the same rhythm as his tongue as she felt light sparks of energy burst around them.
“I never would have guessed that you were thinking about something this wicked,” she gasped as his tongue continued to lick at the aching point and her hands balled into fists at the side of her body as she fought for some kind of control. Her entire body began twitching as she felt a climax descending upon her, fiercer than the one that she had encountered previously.
With a suddenness that shocked her, Garrett's mouth went still and the tip of his finger withdrew from her body. She sobbed loudly into the night air as she tried to pull him back into her. He placed one last kiss along her inner thigh before rolling off of her and resting on his side to watch her. Her body shivered like a beautiful instrument after being perfectly strummed. Gently his fingers reached out and he tucked some of her hair back behind her ear.
“Why did you stop?” Katherine asked as she tried to pull his hand towards her again.
“This isn't the only thing that I want from you, Kat,” he said calmly as he watched her carefully. Garrett tried to harden himself against the temptation that she offered, and he refused the urge to give into anything that she wanted. He was willing to do anything to have her, even if it meant that he had to pull away from giving her the kind of pleasure that they both craved. It might be his only way to have her forever.
“What do you want Garrett?” Katherine purred as she pulled his hand towards her, sucking on the tip of his finger as he had once done to her. “Anything, I'll do it,” she promis
ed while Garrett removed the tip from her mouth and placed his hand back on the grass and away from her body.
“No, Kat. I mean that I don't just want this from you. What we have now, what you have been willing to give me, it isn't enough,” he clarified and watched her stiffen as she realized what he was asking her for. “I want all of you. I need you to be my wife.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. Garrett hated hurting her like this. He wanted only to make her happy but he knew that neither one of them could be happy with only half of a relationship. Stolen moments with her would never be enough.
“I don't want to think about this right now. I don't want to have to decide my entire life.” She sobbed loudly before covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “You want me to choose between you and my family. Don't do this to me now Garrett, please I need...”
“Hush Kat,” he said putting his finger on her mouth to stop her from speaking, from begging him to do what he longed to complete. It was already going to be hard to resist her. “I know what you need, and I'm willing to give you that every single day and night for the rest of our lives, but only if you will marry me.”
Frustrated tears seeped from her eyes as she turned away from him. “I don't know that I can promise you that. I don't think that I can say yes to you.”
“You don't have to answer now,” he assured her, pulling her clothing back into place and lacing her back up as efficiently as any ladies maid. He even tried to reattach her shoes despite the broken laces that hung limp and tattered. “I'm willing to wait for your answer. But I want you to know that there will be no more of this,” and unable to resist he slid his hand beneath her dress, his finger delving inside of her again in one smooth motion. Garrett felt her moan, nearly screaming with pleasure before he withdrew his hand. Her eyes brightened with the tears as release flitted away from her view. “Not until I have my answer.” He pulled her up to straighten her torn drawers and tie the little ribbons that held them in place.
A Taste of Honey Page 21
