Chapter 18 #2
“Nonsense,” she said, and went to stand before him. “However, I will be plain with you. Two days ago, when we were interrupted by your brother’s arrival, forcing me to depart so abruptly, I expected you to come to me later so we might discuss our…situation.”
A rather poignant shadow seemed to pass over his features before they hardened again. Was it her imagination? She longed to reach for his hand, but he seemed to be erecting an invisible wall between them.
“I have already told you,” he said roughly. “We cannot have any sort of situation. My brother arrived here at precisely the right moment to save you from ruin at my hands.”
Something was very wrong. Emeline looked around the shadowed bedchamber.
On a table, she saw the small chest marked Woodcroft Priory, the same one she had seen before in the library.
Tonight, there was a key in the lock. Nearby, stacks of clothing filled an open portmanteau.
Almost hopefully she murmured, “I see that I have disturbed your unpacking.”
“No, not unpacking. Packing.” With that, Hart turned away and returned to his task.
“I don’t understand.” She followed him, tried to catch his sleeve.
“I was always planning to leave. Perhaps you chose not to believe it, but I told you I would be gone by the end of October, before the last leaves are stripped from the trees.”
“But you just purchased this house!” Her chest hurt when she tried to breathe.
“I have come to my senses. I am not the sort of man who has a home.”
“I thought…” She faltered.
“Whatever you thought was born of a dream, my girl.” Hart turned back to face her, his eyes stormy.
“I have told you, warned you, that I am broken. I can never be worthy of you, Emeline. It is best for both of us that I leave as planned for Lisbon. Believe me, I cannot be the husband you deserve.” His mouth twisted as he added, “In fact, I doubt that I could be any sort of husband.”
“But that is…balderdash!” she exclaimed.
“Perhaps you were not listening when I told you that I do not want a husband, especially in this world where men have all the power. I mean to chart my own course in life, not take directions from a husband.” Taking a step closer, until she could feel the energy of his body, she added, “But that does not mean I intend to be celibate.”
“Don’t say things you will regret,” he growled. “Clearly, you do not know what is best. Your innocence should not be stolen by the likes of me.”
“Oh, how dare you?” It was a relief to feel outrage replace her shock and grief. “I am a grown woman, and I am the only one in charge of my own blasted innocence! Perhaps I want to surrender it. At this age, it has become a burden.”
“Emeline,” he warned roughly.
“Please listen! Hart, if you must go, do not leave me unsatisfied,” she said, and closed the distance between them.
Stripping off her gloves, she slid her hands under his loosened shirt and caressed his smooth-muscled back and the hard, warm breadth of his chest. She felt him tense as a smoldering ember of arousal flared inside her.
“Give me a memory to hold in my heart, for the years to come.”
Hart winced slightly and he caught her shoulders as if to put her from him. “I may be mad, but not that mad.”
“I want you,” she said boldly. Rising up on tiptoe, she pressed herself against him as heat coursed through her body. Even through her boned bodice and corset, her breasts awoke, tingling with need. “I want the first time to be with you, Hart.”
“No.” He seized her then and groaned, “God, no.”
However, it seemed that No meant Yes, for in the next moment, Emeline was being kissed. Tenderly, ruthlessly, in a way that told her there was no turning back. She clung to his broad shoulders, drinking in his kiss, and it felt so right she could have wept.
When Hart broke the kiss, it was to lift her into his arms and carry her to the big four-poster bed. With his usual careless grace, he swept back the covers and straightened, looking into Emeline’s eyes.
“Tell me again,” he demanded.
“I want you,” she whispered. “I want…this.” She nearly said Us but caught herself.
“It cannot be undone in the light of day.”
Her only reply was to reach up, open his shirt, and press her face to his chest, aching with needs she understood only dimly.
His scent was intoxicating. She nuzzled him, loving the tickle of crisp, soft hair against her nose.
She wanted to push him back onto the bed and discover every secret of his splendid body.
His fingers moved to the fastenings at the back of her gown. “I swore this would never happen.”
Deftly, he flicked open the tiny buttons, and it came to her that he must have had a great deal of practice. None of that mattered. This was different. Emeline watched his strong, elegant hands as he removed her dress and spread it over a chair back.
“Now you must remove something,” she challenged.
Hart glanced up in surprise, then gave a low laugh, a sound she had come to adore. “You are a minx.”
“Indeed, I do hope so,” she replied, beaming. Reaching up, Emeline drew off his shirt and drew in her breath at the sight of his bare torso, broad shoulders, and hard-muscled arms.
Hart laughed again. “You have never seen a man…undressed?”
A memory flashed of a man’s naked chest, momentarily bathed in moonlight. The stranger in the bedroom where she had taken refuge from Lord Fulham so long ago! His touch, his kisses. The shock of her involuntary arousal.
“No, not like this.” Not someone I know, a man I have come to want so very much. Impetuously, she leaned forward and touched her tongue to one of his nipples, tasting. The flat disc stiffened, and Hart made a sound in his throat.
“You are playing a dangerous game,” he warned.
“It is not a game.” It seemed that a locked door gave way inside her, releasing a tide of desire. Even her blood felt heated.
He lifted her onto the edge of the bed and kissed a fiery trail down from her throat to the swell of her breasts above the corset bodice.
She sank her fingers into his hair, loving its rich texture, the intimacy of touching him this way.
Just then, to Emeline’s shock, he lightly bit at her nipple through the sateen fabric, and an electric shock seemed to radiate to her intimate core.
Already aroused, she now felt an urgency she had never imagined, and between her thighs she was wet.
“Please. More,” she managed to gasp. How crazy it was to feel so much when her body was still mostly covered!
His long fingers were unlacing her corset, more deftly than any maid ever could, and he stripped away the garment, tossing it to the floor. “The devil,” he swore, confronting her chemise.
“I hate the thing,” she encouraged him, and in the next moment, he had rent it in two and cast it aside.
Her breasts were so tender, yearning for him. Even as Hart knelt before her, Emeline reached for him, bringing her nipple into his mouth. Minutes passed in a blur of blinding sensual pleasure.
As he suckled and worked magic with his tongue, Emeline’s head lolled back, and she moaned.
Finally, lifting his face, Hart uttered, “That’s right, love.
Let go.” With both hands, he molded her breasts and kissed each one, licking, nipping, as they swelled against his palms. With fingertips and lips he traced the outline of her ribcage, her slender waist, the graceful swell of her hips.
He kissed the insides of her wrists, her palms, her fingertips, until it seemed that every inch of her body was aflame for him.
Emeline knew a powerful urge to open her legs to him, to discover what he might dare to do, but she wanted more. “You are still clothed,” she managed to protest, and reached for the waistband of his trousers.
Hart rose and quickly doffed the last of his garments. She stared at the shadowy outline of his male member, fully erect above a nest of black curls. Following her gaze, he laughed again. “Not only a minx, but a wanton.”
“Do you think so?” she teased hopefully, moving back onto his bed. “Please, Hart…lie with me.”
For a moment, she saw stark conflict in his handsome face, and it seemed he might refuse.
It came to her that he had hoped to take her sitting on the edge of the bed, keeping his own body somewhat removed.
If they lay together, it would bring him a step closer to surrender.
But then he was joining her, drawing her soft form fully in contact with his long, powerful body.
Emeline drank in every sensation. She reached up to invite his kiss, and as his mouth covered hers, his questing hand found its way between her thighs.
This time, she opened to him, pushing against his palm, gasping when one finger, then two, found their way inside her.
All the while, he touched her in the most delicious ways, the pad of his thumb stroked her aching sex, driving her mad with pleasure.
Her hips seemed to respond of their own accord, and as she began to spiral higher, Hart’s mouth found her breast again, his tongue swirling, heightening every carnal sensation in her body.
His free hand clasped her bottom as she tipped over the edge, seeing stars, nearly weeping with the keen, shuddering pleasure of her release. Hart turned on his side then and gathered her into his arms. As he kissed her, she felt him throb, hard and hot, against her soft thigh.
Uncertainly, Emeline drew back slightly and looked down, seeking. When she reached out to touch him, he made a low sound, like a jungle cat. She caressed him experimentally, watching his face, until his hand covered hers and showed her how to stroke up and down.
“Yes, love,” Hart muttered hoarsely. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”
This brought a new, thrilling element of excitement, and Emeline loved the thought of giving him a magnificent climax as he had done for her. But…what about the rest of it? Did he hope to fob her off with these…half measures?
“Oh, no, wait…” Angling her naked body, she hooked her leg over his hip until her swollen womanhood brushed against his shaft. “Please.”
She moved her hips so that her slickness caressed him, and as she grew wetter, he thickened more. “Emeline, for God’s sake.” A plea perhaps, but more likely a warning.
“Don’t deny me this.” Had she spoken aloud?
Pressing her breasts against his broad chest, she reached down and brought him to her entrance.
Nudged herself closer, fit herself to him, pushed until he was partially inside.
She could feel Hart shaking his head even as he made an incoherent sound of surrender.
He was cupping her bottom, easing himself further inside her taut, slick channel. “I will hurt you.”
But any pain Emeline felt was overridden by the fiery desire that drove her to fuse their connection. “I want you,” she whispered again. “Hart.”
He eased her back against the pillows then, kissing her, fitting himself into the cradle of her hips, and she wrapped her arms around his back.
Once fully inside her, he moved slowly, as if he feared she might break.
Emeline bent her knees and arched up to meet his increasingly urgent thrusts.
She could smell their mingled perspiration and feel their hearts beating in unison.
But then, confusingly, it seemed that he was drawing back, leaving her, and she instinctively lifted her hips to keep him inside.
An instant later, Hart gave a rough groan and buried his face in her neck, their bodies fully joined.
The world seemed to stop as Emeline savored the feeling of Hart throbbing, deep within her. It feels, she thought dreamily, as if we are connected forever.