Chapter 15 #3
He had offended her, had shown her she was at his mercy and he was a beast not to be trusted with her.
After three and a half years of executing perfect, and perfectly craven, propriety in relation to her, he had lost control.
In a matter of two hours, he had gone from having no expectations to having every expectation to once again being shut off from the physical closeness and affection he craved with every ounce of his lonely being.
He screamed inside.
As Alasdair ravished her mouth with his wilder and wilder kisses and leaned into her, she heard him groan, and the ache between her legs that she had felt all day, ever since that first very tentative kiss, that ache became overwhelming until she felt she was on the brink of pulling up her skirts and begging for him to touch her wetness with his hand, his phallus.
Anything.
She would do anything for that.
She trembled, remembering she had felt the same, years ago, also in a carriage. She would do anything.
And then he stopped. Not abruptly, but gently. He kissed her face with great tenderness and their bodies were apart, but the tension between them still hummed.
She did not want him to leave her side, but surely she was headed in the very same direction that had caused her such anguish before. She thought her ardor should be quieted for a moment. Banked, like a fire.
But when she suggested they stop kissing, she could feel his body stiffen.
“Just for now,” she said.
His look of anguish was transformed into such a grin of relief that his dimples had dimples.
She reached up to put the tip of her pinky in one of his dimples. It fit perfectly. Then she did the same on the other cheek.
“I have not seen your dimples in a few days. I have missed them.”
He took her hands and kissed the back of each one.
“The dimples will always appear on yer command. Ye need only say Open, Sesame.”
A startled and shamed look in his eyes. He put her hands down.
“I apologize, Miss Lovelock. Ye asked for nae more kissing, and I kissed yer hands quite without meaning to.”
His politeness was so sweet. But would he beg forgiveness for everything? Surely, he knew she wanted him to take liberties with her. She wanted his attentions. He did not need to apologize for that.
“I think,” she said, smiling, hoping to encourage him, “hand kissing is allowed.”
He picked up her hands again and began to pepper her palms and her fingers and her knuckles with tiny, dry kisses.
“Within reason.” She laughed.
“Ah,” he said and paused for a moment, but did not move her hands from his lips, “that is the problem. I have nae reason when it comes to ye.”
If Alasdair only knew how little reason she had, as well.
“Then you will have to sit across from me!” But as he obediently went to move, she clasped his arm and kept him in his seat. “I will be too cold, Dr. Andrews.”
“I suppose I had better stay here.”
He put his arm around her again, and she couried or nestled into him, keeping her head bent down so she would not be tempted to reach up with her lips and kiss him again.
And although the insulated contact with his body, he in his thick wool coat and she in hers, did not arouse her as his kisses had, it was wonderfully comforting.
She felt safe.
She had not felt that way for a long time.
Even before she had left England, she had felt unsafe to herself.
Wild. First, wanting him and his love beyond all reason.
Then foolishly wanting anything that had to do with love.
But, now, in his arms, knowing he was here and he wanted her, she felt nothing but peace.
She had not known how badly she wanted this feeling. She cried a little in his arms and hoped he wouldn’t know.
The kissing was not over. The kissing would return, and, for now, that was enough. And he could sit next to her and hold her down in the carriage seat so she did not jounce—a privilege that two days ago had seemed fantastical and out of reach and now seemed perfectly natural.
She fit into his side as if she had been made for it.
He certainly felt like he had been made for holding her.
Dauntless Arabella, in his arms. And the removal of the excitement of kissing let his mind wander to that which he had been pushing away since their first kiss.
When should he let her know his intentions?
That he wanted to hold her like this forever?
Not yet, he decided. Tomorrow. If she only wanted kissing and nothing else, if she wanted no part of his heart, let him have this one day of happiness.
He was delaying again. But only a day, he told himself. Did he not deserve a day of joy?
He held her and bathed in that joy.
Hours later, Alasdair held his breath as Arabella looked at his watch. She then looked out the window, checking the position of the sun, he supposed. It had grown colder still, and the sky was still clouded. It was about an hour before they would stop for the evening.
She turned to Alasdair.
“A half an hour,” she said. “A half an hour only for kissing and then a half an hour of no kissing for us to calm ourselves. I do not want to get out of the carriage in front of Ewen MacEwen with my lips swollen again.”
“Half an hour,” he repeated solemnly and then reached out and drew her to him with a calm that belied his inner excitement.
He used his lips, his tongue, his hands.
Her face, her wrists, her hands he lavished with attention.
But then she thought she heard a noise outside the carriage and she turned her head and her white throat was exposed to him and he kissed her there and was rewarded by a breathy high-pitched noise that hardened his cock to stone.
He thought he had never heard a more beautiful sound than the sound of her arousal.
But as he kissed her throat, he did not know what to do with his hands.
He could not hold her hands, her arms were around his neck, buried in the hair at the back of his head.
When he had been kissing her face, he had used his hands to hold her head, but that was awkward now while he was kissing her throat.
He thought for a very long time about touching her breasts through her coat. Her breaths were coming quickly now, and her chest was heaving up to him. But he remembered how his feverish use of his tongue in her mouth, his pushing her down, had made her tremble.
Let him advance cautiously, gradually. Let him explore his new territory thoroughly before sending out another vanguard.
Her throat, for example. This was his new dominion.
And it was fertile, lush territory, at that.
Her neck was beautiful, the skin luxuriously soft and warm and fragrant, and he could feel her pulse quicken under his tongue.
And, even more importantly, as he had already discovered, the front of her throat was extremely sensitive and she made all kinds of sounds when he was not covering her mouth with his.
The half an hour turned into three quarters of an hour and then into just a minute before the carriage wheels came to a complete stop, and Arabella’s and his own lips were quite swollen, their faces flushed, when they climbed out of the carriage to go into the coaching inn.
They were extremely decorous throughout dinner, and he walked her to the door of her bedchamber after dinner.
She did not kiss him in the passageway of the inn, but she held out her hand and he took it and was surprised to have her shake it, just as if they were two men who had greeted each other or made a bargain.
“I will see you on the morrow, Doctor.” She lowered her eyes and looked up at him through her lashes. “In the carriage.”
“Yes,” he said, knowing the expectation of a kiss outside or inside her bedchamber was greedy. He did not mean to frown or look disappointed, but he feared he did.
She went into the room, and, as she was closing the door, she peeked around it with an impish look on her face and said, “Open, Sesame.”
He grinned and showed her his dimples. After the door closed, he went off to his own bedchamber, heartened by the prospect of more kissing tomorrow.
He would allow himself a full day with her in his arms. He would not press his suit until tomorrow evening.
Then he would find out if she wanted any more from him.
And if she didn’t . . . he would not think on that now.