Chapter 8 #2
Instead of bristling, she grimaced, her shoulders sinking for a moment.
“Many young ladies go about doing charity work to feel good about themselves. They go out, feed the poor or knit caps, and then they don’t give another thought to the less fortunate as they revel in their gilded lives.
I confess I do not know what to do about it.
But if you have any doubts about my motives or how I make sense of my life, I shall not try to convince you.
You must come and see for yourself, and then you will understand me. ”
“I think I should like to understand you,” he murmured, loving the dark shadows that tumbled over her form as the candlelight flickered.
“I find that I should like to understand you more. You were about to tell me something,” she said. “Weren’t you? About why you have eschewed the house of the Duke of Roseford on the river?”
He paused. “I live here because I don’t ever want to forget. It’s so easy to forget.”
“Forget what?”
“The pain in people’s lives. You see, when you have so much and you become so far above everyone else, it’s quite easy to forget what you’re fighting for, and I’m fighting for these people. All people. All should be truly free. It’s why I came…home.”
She took a step towards him. “You came here to free people? You are like your father then.”
He looked away for a moment, surprised by the pain he felt and the way she saw inside him.
He swallowed, then forced himself to meet her gaze.
“Yes, perhaps I am. It’s true. He fought for people and it killed him in the end, even though he didn’t die on a battlefield.
” He swallowed and before he could stop himself, he said something he had never dared say.
Something truly terrible. “Sometimes I wish he had.”
“That’s a very strong thing to say,” she said gently and without judgement.
That lack of judgment stole his breath away. How did she do that?
“Yes, I know,” he whispered. “But I think he would have been happier if he had died with his friends, if he had died doing something noble, but that’s not what happened.
He died in a small room in Savannah after the celebration and remembrance of his friend, Major-General Nathanael Greene.
And it was as if that celebration made it possible for him to finally exit this world. ”
“Tell me more,” she urged, taking another step towards him.
He had no idea how she was coaxing these words out of him. She was like a siren. Tempting him not to the rocks, but to salvation through truth.
He sucked in a shuddering breath, for he did want her to understand.
“It was but a few months ago. When the celebration was held to remember Major-General Greene, my father saw the Marquis de Lafayette, another friend of his, another revolutionary who was disenchanted and brokenhearted by the results of his endeavors.” Dominic’s hands curled into fists.
“By the fact that humans cannot be free, no matter how hard people fight and try to make it so. But when the celebration was done, and my father was left in that city, right in the middle of where so many people are not free… His heart…gave out. I think he would have been much happier if he had died with his friend, Count Pulaski, at the Siege.”
She sucked in a soft breath. “My goodness, your father fought with legends. He was a legend too, wasn’t he? Bold, incredible, a brilliant man?”
His heart ached. For he had never gotten to know his father at the height of his ideals. He had only seen them wither, leaving him a husk of the man he must have been.
“Yes, he was all of those things.”
“And what kind of a father was he?”
He winced. “A good one,” he said.
“You certainly hesitated there,” she breathed.
He swallowed. “We are not here to talk about whether my father was a good father or not. He was a good man, and that is enough.”
She nodded, even as shadows that had nothing to do with the night danced across her eyes, and he was terrified in that moment that she had read far too much into what he said. More than he had intended. That she could see every secret of his soul.
His father had been a good man and sometimes he had been an excellent father, but he was heartbroken, and heartbroken people sometimes…
It was very difficult for children when their parents were truly heartbroken because children always knew, and when Dominic was small, he had been certain it had been his fault somehow, his limitation, his failing, but, no, it hadn’t been.
It had been life’s.
Well, he wanted to seize life right now. He wanted to feel and be alive and not be brought down by the grimness of it. “Now it is your turn to bare your soul. Why are you really here?” he asked. “Tell me. For I think I know.”
The energy crackling between them in the small room was intense, as wild as any lightning strike. She’d never been a dormouse or a wallflower. She’d lived to her fullest, just as most of her family did, but in her own way.
Now, she wanted to keep living grandly, and she knew what that meant. She wanted him. And she’d have him.
Celia licked her lips as she faced the window. “Tell me what you think you know,” she murmured. “I’m certain you are right.”
And he did know, though she had not known it entirely herself when she’d first climbed the stairs of the building and entered his chamber.
For it was in the way he slowly crossed to her, his big body sliding up behind hers.
For a moment they stood like that, her back pressed to his front.
Their clothes lightly skimming each other.
It was the moment before a storm broke, and the air was alive with it.
She closed her eyes, savoring the moment. The moment before she knew her entire life was about to transform. That she wanted it to transform.
Gently, he lifted his broad hand and touched her wrist, then slowly dragged his fingers up her forearm, over her shoulder and the curve of her neck. He took her chin between his fingers and turned her face up towards him.
It was a vulnerable pose, and her lips parted as she opened her eyes and met his gaze.
Her destiny waited in that hot gaze.
Her breath pressed her breasts against her gown, and her body ached for him. The sensitive spot between her thighs called for him and him alone.
Dominic lowered his head and took her lips. It was the softest of caresses, the first drop of rain before the downpour. Then he swept her into his arms, their bodies melding, her curves meeting his hardness.
They kissed again and again, tilting their heads to be better swept up into passion.
She parted her lips, allowing his tongue to meet hers. His hands pressed over her body, raking over her ribs, cupping her breasts, then massaging her hips.
Then he began to slowly pull her skirts upward, until he could slide one hand under her petticoats.
He stroked her thighs and she parted her legs, giving him better access. She wanted him. She needed him.
Not once did his lips leave hers as he slipped his fingers into her wet, aching folds. She gasped when he found the spot that was the seat of her pleasure. He let out a low growl against her mouth. And just as he kissed her, he stroked her petals, teasing, caressing.
Her legs shook when he brought her over the edge and she crested into bliss.
He held her upright then, keeping her from collapsing as her knees buckled.
When the last pleasure had been wrung from her, he let her skirts drop and turned her in his arms.
His face was wild with his own unfulfilled hunger, but he didn’t seem displeased. Quite the contrary.
“You know this is just the beginning of us, don’t you?” he rumbled. “You know that I want all of you. But I’m going to let you go now. When you want me… When you want this, truly, I want you to come and get me. And when you do, there will be no going back.”
She nodded, hardly able to speak. No going back? She wanted to laugh. It was already too late for that.