“Well, we have run out of time,” Charlotte agreed.
She felt him take her hand from where it rested in her lap, and, as he had done before on her porch, Reed caressed her palm ever so gently with his thumb.
She took it back, clasping her hands firmly together on her skirt.
“You are spoken for,” she said, not looking at him. “Everything is different now.”
“Is it?” He turned her to face him with a strong hand under her chin. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “I don’t feel any differently about you. Nothing has changed for me.”
She was still as a statue. He was touching her face still. She could feel the rough rasp of his thumb along her jaw and she wanted to turn her head ever so slightly and touch her lips to it. Instead, she held her breath.
“Charlotte, look at me.”
“No,” she said. If she opened her eyes and saw his familiar face and deep blue gaze, she would be lost.
“Charlotte.”
Nothing.
Then she felt his lips touch her own. First, just a soft brushing, then another more insistent kiss.
“Charlotte, the situation is not what it seems.”
She knew he was talking about Helen Belgrave. She wanted to believe him.
He kissed her again, deeply, thoroughly, as he pulled away, his teeth caught at her lower lip for just a second.
“You know how I feel about you. There has been no pretense as far as that is concerned.”
She needed to believe him. The flutterings low in her stomach coiled like tigers ready to spring—becoming a passion quite untamable. A passion ready to erupt.
“Please look at me, Charlotte.” It was the husky tone to his voice that nearly got her. Then she felt the slightest nibble on her right earlobe, right next to her pearl earring. It was all she could bear. The flames of desire roared through her.
Why not? she asked herself, keeping her eyes closed but snaking her arms around his neck. Why shouldn’t she feel this way, just for one night? And then Helen Belgrave could have him back.
She shuddered. She could never do that, could she? But now he was kissing his way down the column of her neck. He reached the hollow of her throat and she moaned softly, and then felt him pull away.
Charlotte opened her eyes at last and there was his fine face, his warm lips slightly open, his blue eyes gazing into her own. She licked her lips and heard him groan before his mouth crushed hers beneath a kiss so fierce it would have frightened her if she hadn’t been intent on returning it with equal passion.
His arms came round her, gripping her to him—so tightly that the fine fabric of her dress was crushed against him where it strained across her instantly taut nipples. His hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers in the locks of her hair, compelling her lips against his as his tongue entered her mouth, plundering the sweetness there. He tasted like fruit punch from the evening.
When his mouth lifted from hers, the thunder in her head quieted a little until she opened her eyes again and looked into his. The passion there didn’t alarm her. It only reflected her own burning need that he had so easily aroused. There was no denying the silky heat building in her core.
Charlotte was tired of hiding here in her home, away from the life that she only knew through books. Now she wanted to live it—to taste the excitement of being with a man, not as she had the other day, but fully and completely, watching Reed take his pleasure as well. She had never felt more certain.
He brushed his knuckle ever so lightly against her dress where her full breasts perked expectantly under his gaze, and she was lost, the roar returned like a wind over the mountains.
“Reed,” was all she could manage.
“God, help me, Charlotte,” his voice was hoarse and he punctuated the words by dropping kisses on her face and stroking the sensitive skin along her neck, “but I want you so much that I won’t be able to stop myself in another moment. You’d better run.”
She didn’t. She raised her hand to touch his cheek, before tracing the line of his sensual strong lips.
He closed his eyes a moment, still fighting, but then he hesitated no longer. Reed stood up, pulling her with him. He was in the house in three long strides, pulling her along behind him.
At the bottom of the stairs, he swept her up in his arms, heading directly into her room at the other end of the hall from the children. Charlotte didn’t even mind that she lost both her green slippers on the stairs.
He stood her down in the middle of her room where she’d dressed for the dance just a few hours earlier. It seemed eons ago. The moonlight streamed in, illuminating the comfortable rocking chair, her grandmother’s oval mirror, and the big four-poster bed.
She stared at it a moment, and then went to pull the curtains, but Reed halted her by the window.
“In this light, you’re an emerald, a precious jewel.” Charlotte shivered at his tone and at his touch as he started to take out the clip that held her hair. “Your hair is your crowning glory and I want to feel it on my chest when I have you on top of me.”
That did it! Her knees went weak and she swayed toward him—he was magnetic and she couldn’t resist the intense pull.
He kissed her again, his fingers moving through her silken tresses that tumbled over her shoulders, softly scented with lavender perfume. And she returned his kiss with all her strength.
She felt his hands roam up and down her back, trying to find the ties, then he paused, his forehead against her own.
“You’re gown is the loveliest creation I have ever seen, but I’m going to have to rip it off you if you don’t stand still. Better yet, turn around.”
With that, Reed turned her in his arms and lifted her hair over her shoulder. Having free access to her gown, he swiftly unhooked the fasteners and she was soon standing in her petticoats, corset, and stockings. Another moment and her petticoats were also at her feet.
She stepped out of the green pool and turned slowly. Reed Malloy looked to be a man momentarily astounded, and Charlotte felt thrilled that she had inspired that look. His eyes lingered on the swell of her firm, full breasts that were pushed up halfway above the trim white corset and the sleeveless chemise underneath.
“Lily picked out my stockings,” she whispered, feeling instantly foolish. But then his gaze dropped to her white lace drawers and the sheerest white gossamer stockings.
“She has impeccable taste.” His voice sounded thick with desire, as his piercing blue eyes raised up to meet her own. “But then, I think you’d look lovely wearing nothing at all.”
Slowly, as he spoke, he slipped the suspenders over his broad shoulders, and then took off his collar and his white shirt. Both landed on the floor. She had time as she had not had two days before to notice the muscles that moved across his chest and that sculpted his upper arms. Then her eyes dropped to the trim line of his waist and below.
She swallowed, bringing her eyes back from that path to his face. He didn’t smile, kicking his shoes off toward the closed door. Only his trousers remained . . .
Charlotte held her breath. There was delicious terror and there was desperate anticipation warring within her. She was glad she had waited and not taken the tumble offered her by a neighboring boy when she was seventeen. But, by God, there had been a lot of years in between then and now when she had wished for a man to touch her.
She took a step forward, and he pulled her to him, sweeping her up against his body and letting her feel the hot hardness of his desire, before he lowered her gently to the bed.
The most handsome man I have ever seen evidently wants me the way I want him.
As he removed his black trousers and drawers, Charlotte shamelessly watched him. She’d had no idea!
“Man alive,” she murmured at the sight of his manhood, proudly erect, and of Reed, himself, unembarrassed by her frank stares. He joined her on the bed.
She tore her gaze from the mystery that she longed to fully understand, and looked him in the eye.
“I’m a little frightened, Reed.”
He shook his dark head. “Just let me adore you.”
She nodded and he began to untie the ribbons that held up her stockings. He pushed the sheer fabric down her long, slim legs with a sensual ease, one at a time.
For a moment, she had goose bumps from ankle to shoulder. Then he let his hands slide up her legs, pausing at the lace-trimmed drawers.
“Your corset,” he said with grim determination and an audible sigh. His skilled hands loosened the laces and unfastened the hooks, before tossing the garment aside, and finally her breasts were loose against her hip-length cotton chemise. He drew it up above her navel.
Charlotte gasped as he bent his head to kiss her smooth stomach, just above her lacey drawers.
“These have to go,” he said. Untying the drawstring, he pushed them down over her slim hips.
“Reed,” she exclaimed, feeling her face hot with embarrassment and excitement.
She heard his throaty laugh, just as he whisked away her chemise, baring her body to his gaze and his touch. She sighed as his hands closed over her breasts, relieving somewhat the building tension in her body. His mouth plucked tenderly at one nipple.
This must be what heaven feels like, Charlotte thought. But the throbbing between her legs and the trembling in the pit of her stomach told her there was something more she needed.
Reed already seemed to know that, as without warning and with his mouth still teasing one breast, his hand slipped downward, over her stomach, and lower. When the warm palm of his hand closed over her woman’s mound, her eyes flew open and her body arched against him of its own volition.
Reed lifted his head to kiss her lips and while he touched the tip of her tongue with his own, he slipped his finger between the moist, hot petals at her core and touched the small bud that throbbed there.
She whimpered against his lips. The feel of his fingers and smell of his warm skin overwhelmed all her senses. She felt herself drugged by the heady sensations, unable to move even if she’d wanted to.
Not lifting his mouth from hers, Reed murmured, “You’re exquisite, Charlotte Sanborn, and tonight, you’re going to be mine.” He kissed the edge of her lips and along her jaw, then moved to nibble on her earlobe. “All mine,” she heard, his voice gone husky, with, she assumed, the same desire that kept her helpless under his touch.
Soon, she could think no more as the practiced rhythm of Reeds finger and the scorching of his mouth on her skin drove all coherent thought out of her brain. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and clenched his shoulders with her fingers as he drove her wild.
Charlotte felt as if she were flying higher and higher and if he stopped the steady movement that echoed the imaginary beating of her spirit’s wings, then she would collapse in agony.
He didn’t stop, and there was a moment of fright as she thought she might disintegrate with the powerful shudders that wracked her. When it was over, she felt diffused with warmth and a calming peacefulness wash over her limbs, which had gone liquid with the exertion of her own clenching muscles.
Charlotte lifted her lids to find Reed looking at her with eyes that blazed fire. She reached for him, both arms around his neck, and pulled him down. She kissed him gratefully, thoroughly.
He groaned against her lips, then was silent.
“Reed?” she queried, but she already had an inkling of what was causing him discomfort, for there had been moments in the last few minutes when the pleasure was something very close to pain, and if he had stopped . . .
She looked at him steadily, before grasping hold of the firm protrusion—like flint encased in velvet—that pressed against her body. He shuddered and leaned down to kiss the damp tendril at her temple. She held onto his throbbing shaft even tighter, then cautiously, she stroked it—once up, once down.
He actually growled. Then, raising himself up on his hands, one muscled arm on either side of her, Reed opened her thighs with his knee and settled himself there.
Resting on his forearms, his face just inches above hers, his eyes held captive her own green gaze. Charlotte saw the query in his eyes and smiled slightly. With that response, she felt Reed press against her warm cleft, where she was damply swollen. Amazingly, though she’d thought herself satisfied only moments before, she felt the wanting stir again.
“You’ve been there alone, now, Charlotte,” he said softly, and she felt the tip of him enter her, “let’s go there together.”
She could only bite back her apprehensiveness as his shaft slid in a little farther. It was thrilling and fearsome at the same time. She felt a mild discomfort as he continued to press into her, and when a flash of pain sent dazzling colors swirling before her eyes, she started to squirm.
“Christ,” he exclaimed, looking to Charlotte like a man restraining himself with great difficulty. “Don’t move, woman, or I’ll—” But she continued to writhe involuntarily away from the burning discomfort.
He broke off his words, looked her straight in the eye, and embedded his shaft into her as a sword in its sheath, right up to the hilt. She cried out, unable to help herself, and he froze, the sweat now breaking out on his forehead.
“Are you all right?”
“I think so,” she told him, the stinging feeling already dissipating as her body adjusted and closed in around his erect shaft. “Will it hurt anymore?” she asked, feeling a little less enthusiastic.
“No,” he fairly croaked, “I don’t believe so.” He rocked his hips, then stopped.
“All right?”
“All right,” she answered, awed by the new sensation of being intimately joined to Reed. It was incredibly sensual, this hot fullness, this feeling of being stretched to the limit by his potent erection. “More than all right,” she whispered.
With that, he gave in to the passion between them, stroking slowly at first, until she held on to his shoulders, urging him, demanding more. He increased the intensity, quickening his motions as the tension built for both of them.
Her body understood the ancient ritual better than her mind, for she was moving also, matching his rhythm with an easy lifting of her hips. Her hands roamed over his broad back, and she could feel the sheen of dampness on his skin.
His hands were alternately in her hair, on her breasts, or, wickedly, under her buttocks, squeezing and separating them as he rocked in and out. And then again, she started to soar, climbing higher, higher, with each long stroke of him, deep insider her. Only this time, Reed was sharing the pleasure with her, locked together, as one.
And when her quivering release came, it was answered by the shuddering of his own muscled frame, as he pressed into her again and again, filling her up with liquid heat. His mouth was against the damp skin of her neck, murmuring primitive words of passion. Finally, he collapsed on top of her, spent and seemingly exhausted.
When she returned to earth, her body calming for the second time, he was holding her in his strong arms, her head pillowed on his expansive chest. She felt him kiss the top of her head gently as she drifted in to blackness.
Chapter Thirteen
Her eyes still closed, Charlotte stretched her hand out to touch Reed as she had done more than once in the night. He was gone. Hearing the children outside, playing in the yard, she stretched and smiled and felt . . . tender . . . all over. Except her toes. She wiggled them. Nope, not sore. She listened for Reed’s voice.
Creeping downstairs, feeling a little embarrassed, a little awkward, especially when she saw her green satin shoes lined up neatly in the front hall, she started to heat water for a bath. Still no Reed. Ten minutes later, she sank into a hot bath with relief. But Charlotte didn’t linger too long.
Washing away the traces of their night diminished none of the memory burned into her brain. It had been a wonderful night. She looked at her naked reflection in her grandmother’s mirror. And I don’t regret it for a moment. I am an unrepentant sinner. Her body looked different to her this morning as she considered
it through Reed’s eyes—a thing of beauty and pleasure.
“I don’t believe he finds Mrs. Belgrave so,” she told her reflection.
She dressed with care in her best day frock and made her way down the stairs once again. Her office, empty. Parlor, empty. She proceeded to the dining room and the kitchen in turn, both empty. Then she went outside, only to learn from Lily that Reed had come downstairs full chisel and pulled foot for the stables. That was nearly an hour earlier.
He’d gone straight to town. To Helen Belgrave, her mind concluded. Charlotte felt a slight sickness in her stomach. He’d gone straight from her bed to his fiancée without even a good-bye. Had he taken his possessions already? She turned hurriedly toward the house.
“Aunt Charlotte,” Lily’s voice stopped her, “wasn’t his friend beautiful?”
She nodded and tried to smile normally. Then Thomas piped up, borrowing Lily’s word from the night before, “A pincess.”
“That’s princess, Thomas, with an ‘r.’ Have you had your breakfast?” Charlotte asked, wondering if her voice sounded as strained as she felt.
They had, so she was free to run upstairs and check his room. Astoundingly, his belongings were still there. So he was coming back.
She cursed herself for being a silly romantic, but couldn’t deny she was relieved that he had not just ridden out of her life for good. Though it wouldn’t be any less than she deserved if he had. She had behaved outrageously, like an adventuress from one of Denver’s infamous brothels.
Charlotte stood a moment at the top of the stairs. What to do? How to pass the time until he returned? While she made tea, she cut a thick slice of bread and buttered it absently.
Let me love you, he’d said. Perhaps he’d meant more than the physical act. Perhaps he hadn’t. Reed had wanted her beyond reason, past the ability to stop. He didn’t feel that way about Helen Belgrave or he would have spent the night with her.
But it was hard to hold on to that belief as she sat in the dining room listening to the clock ticking, trying to quell the uneasy feelings inside her—the guilt mixed with happiness mixed with wonder mixed with sadness.
An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One) Page 14
