Chapter Twelve #2
“Well,” she said with a wide-eyed laugh, “you must make love to me again to learn if that is true.”
“An invitation I cannot refuse,” he said against her lips as he opened her to his hardened cock. “You are my ecstasy.”
“And you are mine.”
*
He rose up on one arm and stared at the naked beauty beside him.
He’d slept, exhausted. They’d had each other three times, and he could not recall if he’d been responsible that first time and left her before he had his climax.
The irresponsibility of that tore at his good spirits. He would not shame her.
He remembered she had come fully to her own completion each time they had loved. Pride blossomed in his heart at that. She was as irresistible now that they’d united as when he first saw her, truly saw her, on the beach.
He smiled to himself. Was that only days ago?
She sighed in her sleep and snuggled against him. Her midnight hair curled around him like silken threads. Her complexion was pure, her cheeks—dare he say?—darker, rosier since they’d found delight together.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed himself along the elegant lines of her body. Her throat, her pointed breasts—her large, luscious nipples, soft belly, and shapely legs were perfection.
How had he won this lady to her bed?
From the intrigue of spying her on the shore to her rescue of Bella, he could not seem to see enough of her.
She filled his sight with her uniqueness, her frankness.
Her odd venture that first night when she waited for someone who did not appear mystified him.
With that, he sought to find in her the reasons for such an event.
Yet his view of her colored more brightly each time they met.
His perspective of her nature widened as he saw she had facets to her nature that raised more questions. Who was she that she took such risks?
Then in the ballroom, he’d seen her in that gown of ethereal purple and nearly lost his footing. His head had spun. She was beautiful to him before the ball, but in that crowded hall, she was an angelic vision—and he had to have her.
Have her in his arms. To dance, yes. But more, more. And he had forgotten how to properly court a lady.
A widower of two years now, he was a respected single man.
Many young ladies and their eager mothers had set their sights on him.
Still he had not found any who interested him.
But he was a man who had viewed a woman whom he desired only once before.
A man who had rushed to judgment and asked her to marry him.
A man who’d regretted the proposal and spent years lost to his wife’s indifference to his infatuation, his seduction, and any charms he assumed he naturally possessed.
Loath as he was to leave Giselle, he should. Hotel staff would be up and circulating the halls before dawn. He would not wish to have gossip spread among them of his night here with her.
“You think of leaving,” she whispered in husky, sleep-filled distress.
He pulled this darling lady against him. Craving her luscious body and priding himself on her desire for him, he dropped a kiss to the crown of her hair.
She stretched her long legs, then looped one over his. Her head turned up toward his, and her dreamy eyes held longing.
“I did not mean to wake you,” he whispered.
But she kissed him. “I felt you watching me.”
“Wanting you,” he corrected her, and took her lips again. “I must go.”
Sorrow turned down the corners of her mouth.
His conceit that she could crave him grew a thousand-fold.
She turned petulant and rubbed her breasts against his chest. “The music has ended. They’ve all gone to bed. What time do you think it is?”
“I’ll get my watch in my frockcoat.” He began to push away.
“Don’t look.” She drew him back, curling her fingers around his nape. “I don’t care what time it is. Stay. Stay, won’t you?”
“Sweetheart, you know that is not wise. Servants may soon be in the halls. Guests, too.”
She pressed her lips to his throat, her thighs opening, her hands pressing him near. She was all wild, willing woman, and she was his.
He could not resist her squirming invitation. He was hard again.
“You want me,” she announced with a little giggle and a firm press of her center to his cock.
“I dare not. I fear if we do this again, I may never leave.”
She slid her hand down to cover him. Her caress was firm, rhythmic.
She had him shaking his head. “We must be prudent.”
She fell back to the bed, her eyes squeezed shut. “You’re right. And you’ll think me a wanton.” She took his words as rejection for all they had done.
He could not allow that. “I think you daring and lovely and wise to want me.”
She smiled at him, her torment gone. “Wise, eh?”
“I am a good catch. I have everything you could need.” Was he a fool to offer himself so baldly? He did not care.
She embraced him, her breasts rising in hot invitation against his chest. “We know so little of each other.”
“But we learn more each day and night.” He traced the frilly line of her ear.
“I know you are a widow who has lost her husband and her child. A sorrow that still stings. I know you see my Bella as the sweet child she is. But I also know you desire me and give yourself with an abandon that fills my soul with gratitude. Come for a picnic today with Bella, my sister, and her beau, Langley, too.”
“I’d be happy to.”
For once, she did not argue. He rejoiced at the small victory. “Noon, then?”
“I must leave after an hour.”
He cocked a brow, teasing her with a wariness he, happily, did not feel. “An engagement with another man?”
“There is no other man.”
He threaded his fingers through her long, silken waves. “I’m very glad to hear that.”
“Is there another woman?” Her words held fear, but also in her expression was a distaste for her arrogance to ask.
“No. Not for the longest time.”
She swallowed hard. “Why is that?”
“I’ve been waiting to be enchanted by you.”
She took the compliment with a grin and hugged him, her glorious hair trailing down her back into his palms. “I like picnics. Little sandwiches and cakes. Grass and sky. A kite.”
He grinned. “And you.”
Her lips parted, her blue eyes limpid with tears.
He inhaled, fighting for sanity. “I must stop kissing you.”
“Then I will kiss you.” She laughed and blessed his mouth with that sweet caress of hers.
He was lost to her, in her. Such bliss he’d never known.
Only when she fell back to the bed, once more exhausted with their mutual climax, did he shake himself to leave. He gathered his determination just as he gathered his clothes from the floor and took them into her sitting room to don.
Before him stood her easel with a panoramic sketch of the Brighton waterfront.
The candles that had burned as they made love had guttered.
The light in the room was dim. But dawn broke.
He could see her work. A glimpse told him she was talented.
Another told him she worked at perfect depiction of the elevation of buildings to seashore.
The longer he stared at it, the more he frowned.
He’d visited this seacoast town so often for business and pleasure since childhood that he immediately recognized the scope, from the eastern fringes to the newer developments to the west.
His darling lady was talented. An expert landscaper, she had the skills of an expert draftsman.
He was buttoning his waistcoat as he felt her arms go around his chest. He turned to embrace her tightly to him. She’d wore a diaphanous wrap that felt like cream beneath his fingertips.
Drowsy, she lifted her face to his. “This was no escapade.”
He put his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. “Not for me either. Let me go, my darling. I will return. I promise. Noon.”
“Noon.” She looped her arm through his and led him to her door.