She glared at him. “Of course I need money.
What a stupid thing to say. Do you think I’d be a governess if I had money?“
He blew out a breath. ‘Jesus, Caro, tell me what you want me to do.“
“I want you to leave me alone.”
He was silent
“Did you hear me?” Challenge in each syllable.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can.”
He shook his head again. “No, I can’t” Although the reasons he couldn’t weren’t entirely clear. Or maybe they were clear, but he refused to acknowledge them. Or maybe wanting and having were two different things, although the wanting part wasn’t open to discussion right now. He began unbuttoning the collar button on his evening shirt.
“Simon, don’t!”
“I’m willing to accede to your rules, but that’s all I’m willing to do. I’m not leaving. So scream if you wish.”
“And if I do?”
“I’ll take you away, right now, this minute.”
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t”
“Then I should.”
“Don’t. I’ll live with your ridiculous rules. That makes you triumphant”
“Damn you, Simon!”
He smiled. “Is that a yes?”
“Only to the most obtuse.”
“I doubt you’re obtuse either. Make up your mind.” He glanced at the clock. “If we’re staying here, there’s not much time left.”
He’d take her away if she refused; he’d made that plain. “No comments in public, now?”
“I’ll be completely circumspect”
“You won’t be staying long, will you?”
“Probably not,” he lied. His curfew tonight was less than two hours away and he didn’t want to waste it in further conversation.
“Very well.”
He laughed. “Your enthusiasm is gratifying.”
She glanced at his obvious erection. “It doesn’t seem to have affected your interest.”
“We’ve missed you.”
“I suspect you say that to all your women.”
“Are you mine, then?”
She took note of the time. “For an hour and a half I am.”
“I’m flattered,” he said as casually. “Would you like me to undress you?”
“In these kind of arrangements, don’t the ladies usually undress themselves?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” he asked with a hard look, his hands arrested on one gold cuff link.
“Good God, Simon. I didn’t sleep my way across Europe, so kindly stop acting like a jealous husband.”
His eyes narrowed further as he set the cuff link on the bedside table. “Did your husband have reason to be jealous?”
“Are we questioning degrees of intemperance here? Because I don’t think you of all people have the right. And I doubt, in these circumstances, you grill the ladies you’re about to sleep with on their virtue.”
“I’ve never exactly thought of you in those terms.” He slid the second cuff link free, set it aside and tugged his shirt out of his trousers.
“Then don’t start. But if you’d rather, I wouldn’t mind saying good night and best wishes for your future. Truthfully, I’d prefer that.”
“No.” His voice was unrelenting and partly muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head. He tossed it aside.
“Yes, Captain.”
He went still, his gaze shuttered. “I haven’t heard that for a long time.”
“Your scars stand out in the candlelight.” His nude torso was burnished by the flickering light, his virility impossible to ignore.
‘They’re almost gone,“ he said, brusquely.
They weren’t, nor would they ever be, she thought, remembering how she’d helped care for him when he came back from Waterloo, nearly dead.
He didn’t remember the misery of those days, he recalled instead the bewitching game they’d played as he’d recuperated. His sigh was part memory, part regret. “What the hell went wrong?” he murmured.
She didn’t need clarification. She shrugged. “Too many things to count.” She looked past him for a moment, at a loss to even begin to define when the ruin had begun. Then her gaze returned to his and she suddenly smiled. “Do you want to play because I don’t want to remember the disasters.”
He inhaled softly, the disasters having come in stages he didn’t want to think about either. He nodded. “You choose which one.”
“The one where you knock on the door.”
His mouth turned up slightly at the corners. “Your favorite.”
“You asked,” she said, not quite able to read his tone. “Would you rather do yours?”
He shook his head. “I like that one too.”
She tipped her head faintly, her gaze on his trousers. “I can tell.”
He chuckled. “They were all my favorites. What the hell happened to us?”
She could have told him the truth-that aside from any number of adjunct disagreements he hadn’t been ready to think of marriage… not really, although they’d talked about it since they were young. “I felt like traveling,” she said, lightly instead, rising from the bed and moving toward him. “But right now, Captain, I can’t let you in,” she murmured. “It’s very late, and I’m alone in the house.”
The words were like a line from a song, forever etched in his memory and he answered as he had so many times before, “Forgive me, my lady. But I have my orders to bivouac here.”
She clutched the front of her nightgown, holding it tightly at her neck. “Surely… there… must be… some mistake.”
The hesitation in her voice was exactly the same, innocent, winsomely appealing and he felt the same surge of desire he’d always felt when he heard it “I’m afraid there’s no mistake. The campaign has moved this way and we’re in pursuit…” His voice trailed off.
She didn’t find it difficult to mimic apprehension; he was gazing at her with naked lust. “I… don’t know… what to say.”
“Forgive me. But my orders are plain.”
“If you insist on coming in… you must stay… in the parlor.”
“Of course. You needn’t fear, my lady. You’re completely safe.”
“Thank you.” A faint smiled played about her mouth and she nodded at his partial nudity. “You’re ahead of me.” She waved her hand in a small circle as though moving them along. “Would you like to dry your coat by the fire?” Her voice had reverted to her actress intonation.
“If I may…”
She turned and made a pretense of placing his coat by an imaginary fire, her breath in her throat
He came up behind her like he had so many times before; she could feel the heat of his body, the hard length of his arousal pressed into her buttocks. As she shivered at the sudden flaring heat, his erection moved and swelled against her.
“I’ve been on campaign for weeks,” he whispered, lifting her hair from the back of her neck, the coolness a signal memory from the past. “I haven’t seen a woman for so long…”
She stiffened in anticipation.
And then he bent his head and touched his mouth to the nape of her neck.
So light a kiss shouldn’t have made her so frantic, so covetous and eager. It hadn’t always. Not to this staggering degree. Please, please… now, she wanted to say. I can’t wait another second.
But he whispered, “I’m sorry, my lady. I shouldn’t have done that.”
And for a flashing moment she wasn’t sure what was now and what was then. But he’d stepped back, like he was supposed to and she turned to him. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she breathed, her agitation plain.
He took her hand and rubbed it across the front of his trousers, so she could feel the breadth and length of his desire. “You have to,” he said, not caring if this was fantasy or reality, knowing why he was here.
She jerked her hand away.
He d
idn’t move, although he’d quickly scanned the room. “You can’t go anywhere,” he whispered. “I won’t let you.”
Inundated by carnal longing, she drew in a sharp breath. “Because you’re-the captain.” She’d almost said My captain, but caught herself just in time.
He’d heard the minute pause, took note of the altered wording, resolved to change it back again now that he’d found her. But he uttered the expected words in order not to frighten her. “You needn’t worry, my lady. No one will know.”
“Your troopers will know.”
“Not unless I invite them in. Would you like me to?”
“No… no-no.”
He saw the uncertainty in her eyes, heard it in her breathy reply. “Are you sure? They won’t touch you.”
“You said you wouldn’t touch me.”
“I haven’t yet.” His voice turned silken. “Not really.”
Her skittish gaze glanced downward to the bulge in his crotch and her voice when she spoke, was almost inaudible. “There’s more?”
“Invite me in and I’ll show you.”
“You are in.”
“In here,” he murmured, touching her mons, slipping his fingers downward, forcing the soft linen of her gown into the moistness of her vulva. “Lift your gown,” he ordered. “I can’t feel you.” His dark eyes held hers. “And I want to.”
“No… no-I couldn’t… I can’t-my family would disown me. I’m betrothed to the local curate.”
His gaze was half-lidded; his fingers buried in her cleft were damp from her wetness. “I won’t tell the curate. He’ll never know.”
She shook her head. “He’ll know. Truly, he will.”
He stroked her gently, the fabric of her nightgown slippery under his fingers. “I’ll be gentle,” he whispered. “You could have lost your virginity riding.” He brushed her mouth lightly with his. “You ride don’t you?”
She quickly nodded, her thighs pressed tightly around his hand, her breath coming in short little pants.
“Lift your gown, my lady… for me.”
Temptation in the wilderness or in a small English hamlet or in a governess’s room under the eaves. Unable to resist, she closed her fingers on the fabric of her gown, bunched the skirt in her hands, and slowly lifted it.
“That’s a good girl,” Simon whispered, stroking the smoothness of her exposed belly. Sliding his hand downward, he nudged her thighs apart and slipped in one finger palm deep. “Ummm… you’re a very good girl. Have you let your curate feel you all wet and juicy like this-have you?”
She shook her head, not meeting his gaze.
“So I’m the first man to touch this?” He stroked her liquid flesh. “I think you could take more than one finger, couldn’t you?” he whispered, probing her slick passage.
She should say no to such cool self-possession; she shouldn’t be so shameless in her need-so insatiable. And if she weren’t aching to feel him deep inside her, she would.
He touched her cheek. “Answer me.”
His dark, seductive gaze further incited the scandalous throbbing between her legs. He was too beautiful. That was the problem. She craved him for his beauty alone. “Yes, yes… yes,” she said, her voice sounding as though it were someone else’s. Someone ignominiously in rut; someone who would have lain with him anywhere.
And when his second finger eased inside, she whimpered and squirmed, the penetration quickening her senses, adding urgency to her carnal longing.
“Am I hurting you?”
The sound of his voice drifted through her seething hysteria, but she couldn’t find the breath to speak.
Her overwrought passions were answer enough; he forced his fingers deeper. At her breathy sigh, he felt her muscles contract, felt the slick lubricant of desire flow more profusely. She was ready for sex, more than ready and without asking permission, he added a third finger. Slowly exerting pressure, he penetrated deeper, stretching the verges of her vulva until his third finger was fully submerged.
She moaned, shuddered, uncontrollable desire vibrating through her body.
He looked up. “Relax, darling…” And when she did, he jammed in a fourth finger.
She gasped, delirium washing over her in heated waves. “I don’t want to play anymore,” she panted, reaching out, stroking his erection. “I want this.”
“Unbutton my trousers and you can have it”
Even through her fevered need, his unruffled calm was grating. Her hand stilled. “It doesn’t matter to you?”
“I didn’t say that.” His smile was wolfish, his fingers moving inside her with deft subtlety. “Indulge me.”
Grabbing his wrist, she arrested his compelling massage. “Since when do you need to be indulged?”
He unclasped her hand from his wrist and withdrew his fingers. “Since I’m paying you five hundred pounds a night,” he said, wiping his fingers on her nightgown.
She slapped his hand away. “Take your money back and leave.”
His gaze met hers. “We shouldn’t have started this,” he said, gruffly, his own feelings impossibly disordered. “But I’m not leaving. I’m going to make love to you. Me, Simon-no games,” his voice deepened, “whether you want it or not, although I think you do.”
She frowned.
“You know I’m right.”
She didn’t answer for a very long time. “I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling,” she said, ill-tempered and sulky. “Breathless with need, practically crazed.”
“I know.” His emotions in turmoil, he understood.
“I don’t think you do. I think this is another night with another woman in a long list of similar nights for you.”
“No,” he said, thinking of the days he’d spent looking for her, of the years she’d been abroad without him-with other men. “You’re wrong. This isn’t the same.”
There was another long pause. She sighed, grimaced, finally spoke. “You still have to observe-”
“Your rules? Agreed.”
She gazed at him with patent discontent. “I’m still not sure why you’re here or why I’m allowing this.” She blew air through her teeth. “Merde. Maybe I’m thinking too much.”
His smile was tight. “Maybe we both are.” Un-trammeled behavior wasn’t unusual in his life; this irrepressible craving was. “Why don’t we both stop analyzing?” he murmured. “I’m going to undress you because I want to, not for any other reason, and you’re going to let me.” Taking her hand, he began to draw her to the bed.
“Carpe diem,” she said, under her breath.
“I suppose,” he muttered. “Probably,” he added. His dark brows drew into a faint frown, and he forcibly tamped down the discontent that always came with too much speculation on Caro’s past. Having reached the bed, he turned to her, unbuttoned her nightgown in silence, pulled it over her head and pointed at the bed.
There was a certain irony in his reluctant seduction that made her smile. “I suppose since you’re paying me, I have to do what I’m told.”
“It would be a welcome change,” he grumbled.
“Oh, dear, was I supposed to be docile and amenable?” she purred, throwing him a look over her shoulder as she climbed into her narrow bed.
He snorted. “That I’d like to see.” Stripping off his trousers and undershorts in the same businesslike manner, he left them where they fell.
“I know what I’d like to see,” she murmured.
He swung back at the seductive whisper.
And his thick upthrust penis swayed in provocative allure. “Ummm… you’re going to hurt me with that great big-”
“Cock with your name on it,” he murmured, moving toward the bed.
She opened her arms.
And he felt a kind of joy he only felt with Caro.
A second later, the bed squeaked under his weight and a second after that they were joined and the creaking was so loud, Caro went stiff in his arms.
“Stop!” she hissed. “We’re going to wake-” Her words
ended in a low moan as Simon held himself perfectly still within her, or almost still; the pulsing of his penis against her vaginal walls, against her clitoris, the faintest of sensations at the very mouth of her womb were unbearably intense.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, his mouth resting against her ear. “And you can’t make a sound,” he added, the faintest whimsy in his tone. “Can you do that?”
She nodded, delirium coursing through her body-willing to do anything to keep him inside her.
“Good girl.” His voice was warm against her ear as he slid his hand over her mons and upward just to where the dip of her stomach began. He flexed his hips minutely, forcing himself fractionally deeper at the same time that he put pressure on a small sensitive area under his fingertips.
She gasped, went rigid at the shocking pleasure and felt an orgasm begin in a headlong, monstrous rush of rapture. She began to scream and he covered her mouth with his. “No,” he said against her teeth. “Understand?”
She nodded or she thought she nodded, overpowered by the staggering pleasure.
He kept her in thrall to stupefying orgasmic pleasure, bringing her to climax over and over again until she nearly fainted from excess. And then he took his pleasure with his little governess courtesan, climaxing quietly in hot, deep, hammering, internalized waves that seemed to rise up from the very center of his body to explode on her stomach.
But neither was sated, their sexual hunger perhaps exaggerated by the days at Shipton, then-senses attuned to a new level of carnal need. And they explored the limits of sensation that night, on the floor, on the chair, against the wall-anywhere but on the noisy bed. Until with morning coming, Caro whispered nervously, ‘You have to go.“
He almost said, Screw your rules and the Carlisles, and everything that had to do with the curtailment of his pleasure. But he didn’t, because she was looking at him with a gravity even he recognized as deeply earnest. “I’ll be back tonight.” He didn’t ask; it was a statement of fact.
And like some lovesick maid, she murmured, “I’ll be waiting…”
“It’s going to be a helluva long day,” he grumbled, but he carried her to her small bed, tucked her in and gently kissed her.
And when he was dressed, he stood beside the bed for a moment, his smile affectionate. “I’m really glad I found you.”
Again and Again Page 7
