Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A sh stubbed his toe and swore. Even though there was a full moon, it was still difficult to see in the darkness, and either the path had changed or his memory had faded because things weren’t quite where he thought they were. He rather thought things must have changed. Years ago, he would have been able to do this journey blindfolded. He remembered the twists and turns of the gardens he had to pass through to get to Amelia’s from his own and the short trek through hers to the summer house she had spoken of earlier.
As children, they had played there with their younger siblings, waging battles against pirates and highwaymen, totally plausible in a townhouse garden far from the sea and the highway. Later, Ash and Amelia’s reasons for visiting the place had changed. He could still remember the way his hands had trembled as he had cupped her face for the first time, his fingers sliding along her jaw as he’d lowered his head and kissed her. It hadn’t been good. Or rather, it had been the very summit of all his dreams and longing but he had not known what he was doing. He’d fumbled and clashed teeth with her and generally made a complete hash of it, but it had still been glorious. He’d been touching the very person on whom all his hopes and dreams had been centred for weeks.
Very shortly afterwards, he’d had to return to university, but he’d been a changed man. During that first term, he had occasionally thought of his childhood friend with fond affection but he had hardly thought of her at all. He’d been too lost in forming friendships and discovering the freedom of being away from home but no longer being a schoolboy.
His second term was completely different. He was consumed with thoughts of Amelia, of when he would get to see her again, of when he could hold her in his arms once more. Before, he’d been carrying on a flirtation with the barmaid at the local pub. He’d been fairly certain she’d be the one with whom he’d carry out his first relationship, but now that things had changed with Amelia, he’d realised that would be wrong. He could not make love to one woman while another woman took up a place in his heart. He hadn’t realised it then, but he had been desperately in love with his best friend.
Of course, that love had died when she had married someone else. He’d had to harden his heart because otherwise he would not have been able to function on the battlefield. Knowing now that Amelia had married for financial reasons did change things. He understood now why she had married Mortram, and the anger and betrayal he’d experienced had faded to be replaced by this all-encompassing desire. A need so great, it was sending him out of his mind. His nights were a twisting torment of violent battles and heavy, sweaty dreams that left him longing with unfulfilled desire. He wanted her so badly and yet he was not convinced he deserved her. Hadn’t he let her down when she needed him, just like he had let down some of the soldiers in his care and his family when his financial help had been necessary? No, he wasn’t worthy of her but that had not stopped him coming tonight. He wasn’t sure he could have stayed away, even if he had tried, and he hadn’t. If there was a chance he could hold her in his arms, then he would always come when she called.
Had she really meant what he had thought she had? She’d told him that she did not enjoy what happened between a man and a woman but then there had been that kiss and well…she could not have feigned that level of enthusiasm. He knew women could pretend to be having a good time when they were not. Prostitutes followed the army wherever they went, and men who didn’t know if they would ever live to see tomorrow would take advantage of what they offered with gusto. He hadn’t. He had not wanted to add a terrible disease to the problems he had been facing. Besides, paying for what should be given freely between two adults seemed distasteful rather than erotic. However, a military camp was not a place for privacy and he had seen and heard things that left him in no doubt that a woman could fake pleasure in the most dubious of circumstances.
Somehow, he didn’t think that applied to what had passed between him and Amelia in his study. She’d been shocked by her response, she’d not been able to hide her stunned, wide-eyed stare, nor the way she had raced from his room or how she had clung to him while their mouths were joined.
Even if she had meant to invite him to meet her in her garden, that did not mean that she would follow through with it. This meeting was risky, more so for her than for him. A widow had a certain freedom and he was sure Amelia’s staff was loyal but it only took one loose tongue to destroy a reputation.
But even with all these doubts coursing through him, he was like a moth to a flame when it came to Amelia. It didn’t matter that he had warned himself to stay away from her; he found that he couldn’t. If there was even the smallest chance that she would come to him tonight then he would wait. And if all she wanted to do was talk, then he was happy with that, too. He was a fool who should know better, but for some reason didn’t.
He had to stoop to get through the door and once inside, he couldn’t stand to his full height. He didn’t remember it being so small but otherwise it was the same. Whoever was taking care of it was doing a good job. Besides the cool air, it appeared as it always had with the floorboards still intact. It was only two rooms and it was empty, because of course it was.
It was even darker in the second room; he could barely make out anything other than the shape of an old box. He wondered if that still held their costumes and the things they had used to make the place come alive to their imagination, but he did not take a look. Who knew what creature might have made a nest inside?
He made his way to the centre of the room. It was here that he had first kissed Amelia. His blood tightened as he thought about it. He had been almost wild with desire for her, had thought of nothing but kissing her for days; had wanted to lie with her more than he wanted to breathe. He’d known then that he couldn’t. That kissing was as far as he could take things but it hadn’t stopped the fantasies. He almost laughed at himself because the number of times he had thought about Amelia in that way since it had first crossed his mind must be in the millions. It was why he was here this evening; he might tell himself that she no longer held any power over him but he was lying to himself. He wanted her as badly as he ever had.
At first, he thought he was imagining the noise, hearing the sound of light footsteps, because that was what he wanted, but as they got louder he realised that they were real. During his years of campaigning he’d learned to move almost soundlessly and he did so now, reasoning that if it was not Amelia who was approaching then he could slip out undetected.
But when he saw her shape in the doorway, he whispered her name, so as not to frighten her when he loomed out of the dark.
‘You came,’ she said breathlessly, as if she had been running.
‘Yes.’
‘I wasn’t sure if you would.’
‘I wasn’t sure if you would.’
She stepped into the room, her boots softly thudding against the wooden floorboards. ‘It was my idea.’
‘Even so…’ He closed the distance to her and laced his fingers with hers; they were icy cold. ‘You’re freezing,’ he murmured. ‘Here, I brought a blanket with me.’ He dropped her hands and reached into the pack he’d brought with him. He pulled out a thick blanket and draped the material around her shoulders. He pulled her towards him, rubbing her arms up and down to try to get some warmth into her. ‘Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all. You should return to the house, so as not to freeze to death.’
‘I’m not sure if I am cold or if I am frightened.’
Her confession hurt something deep inside him. ‘You do not need to be afraid of me.’
She let out a shuddery breath. ‘I am not scared of you . I…’ She licked her lips and he bit back a groan. She wasn’t trying to be a temptation but everything she did was like a beacon drawing him in. ‘I’m just not sure that I can… I know I’m a widow, but I have not done anything like this before.’
Her words sent a thrill through him, followed by a rush of possession; a possession he had no right feeling. She was not his as much as he wasn’t hers. This wasn’t what this was about. It was about satisfying a desire that should have been sated long ago. It was about showing her that what happened between a man and a woman should be enjoyable, not that he knew that for sure but he had given it a lot of thought. ‘I’m not expecting anything from you.’ He may want something but that did not mean she had to give it. He was not a barbarian, despite the way his blood burned through his veins, urging him to claim her. ‘We were talking about old times when you issued your invitation. Why don’t we sit and do that again?’
She nodded and made to sink to the floor where they stood. Instead, he tucked her arm into his and tugged her over to one of the walls. Leaning against the wall, he settled her between his legs with her back against his chest. It was both a good and bad idea. From this angle he could wrap his body around hers, warming her, which was what he’d intended. But it also meant that her body was pressed against the length of his. He wanted to fill his hands with her lush curves, to feel what his body only remembered. But he knew that he couldn’t. Something had happened between her and her husband that had made her not enjoy a man’s touch, and he was not so gone with desire that he wanted to make her feelings worse.
‘Do you remember,’ he said into the soft curls that brushed his chin, ‘the day I taught your brother to swim?’
Her body shook with laughter, doing exquisitely painful things to his already tight body. ‘I’m not sure anyone could call that teaching.’
‘He could swim afterwards, couldn’t he?’
They traded good-natured barbs, reminiscing about the good times in their shared past, and, as they did so, her body relaxed into his. Eventually, her fingers found his and she linked them. He kept talking as he began to stroke the soft skin of her wrist with his thumb. She shifted restlessly and he wondered if she was feeling the same strange itch beneath her skin that he was experiencing. A sensation that he felt would only be soothed by her touch. But he wasn’t going to take from her what she wasn’t willing to give. He would rather wait for a thousand years than cause her any distress.
He carried on with telling her the story of Ezra and Seraphine and how they’d fallen in love against all the odds. He was halfway through his tale when she stopped him with a soft, ‘Ash.’
His whole body quickened. ‘Yes.’
‘In your study, when we kissed…’
He waited but she seemed to have run out of steam. ‘I remember. What about it?’
‘I enjoyed it.’
Every muscle in his body tensed. He was beyond desperate to see where this was going to lead but he knew that he could not push, that she would retreat from him if he did. ‘I did, too.’ It seemed like such a lame response to his reaction to their kiss. He had thought about it endlessly, had lain awake, hot and heavy and imagining what would have happened if she had not fled.
‘But I am not sure I would like to be groped at.’ For a moment, his desire fled. The idea that her husband had treated her body with anything less than the devotion it deserved flooded him with rage. ‘But if you are agreeable, I should like us to kiss again and maybe I could…you know…’
He wasn’t entirely sure that he did know what else she was suggesting, but he very much liked the sound of kissing, and if that led to something more then his body was more than ready.
She twisted in his hold and tilted her mouth towards his. Their breath intermingled as he lowered his head. His hands were shaking and he was glad for the darkness, which hid his sudden nervousness. His lips brushed hers in the softest of touches and then again. They stayed like that for a long while, slowly greeting each other in a way they had done many times before, but also in a way that was completely new.
His body ached to the point of pain but he would have carried on like this all night if this was what she wanted. She broke the kiss. ‘I’d like to touch you.’ Her voice was husky, as if she had not used it for weeks.
‘Of course. You can touch me wherever pleases you.’
She turned fully until she was kneeling in front of him, her hands resting on his shoulders ‘Would you mind if you didn’t…that is to say, I would prefer it if you didn’t touch me, for now at least.’
‘I will keep to myself unless you change your mind.’ It would be a strange kind of torture, pleasure almost to the point of agony, but he would not break her trust.
Her hand slipped under his jacket and she made to push his coat from his shoulder. His whole body hummed with appreciation as he shrugged out of it. The warmth of her touch through his shirt was bliss, her movements languid and slow, as if they had all the time in the world for this moment. Their heavy breathing filled the air as she undid one of his buttons and then another, moving down his chest and his stomach. The cold air hit his skin as she parted the material, a delicious contrast to her touch, which burned his body.
Her mouth found his again as they worked together to divest him of his trousers. Her hands continued their gentle exploration over his hips, his thighs and the backs of his knees. His kiss was becoming frantic, even as he kept his hands by his sides. It was the only way he could show her what her touch was doing to him. And then, her hand skimmed over the length of him, and his hips bucked off the floor. ‘Amelia,’ he growled into her mouth. ‘You can have no idea…’
She did it again and he lost all coherence as she stroked him. He knew he shouted words but nothing made sense as his body took over. Amelia was everything in this endless, splintering moment.
Afterwards, the silence of the room was almost shocking. All he could hear was his ragged breathing. The only sign she was present was her weight against his side as he stared unseeingly at the wooden ceiling, his whole body trembling after his intense release.
Next to him, Amelia shifted, a boot dragging across the floor, reminding him that she was still fully clothed. He turned his head, his mouth seeking hers. Their lips touched but he could sense her hesitation in the gesture. ‘Amelia?’ he whispered, her name a question.
‘Did I… Did I do it right?’ she asked softly.
He choked on a laugh and he heard her quick inhale of breath. ‘It was perfection,’ he said, before she could roll away from him. ‘Utter perfection.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded smug as she settled her head on his shoulder. ‘I thought you were enjoying yourself but I wasn’t sure.’
He almost laughed but managed to stop himself in time. This was not a joking matter to Amelia. He didn’t know what had gone on between her and her husband, and he really didn’t want to hear the details, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that it had not been good, perhaps worse than even she realised. ‘It was sublime,’ he reassured her.
He ran his fingers through her hair, wishing it were daylight so he could see it loose about her shoulders.
‘Ash.’
‘Mmm?’
‘Why do I feel this way?’
‘What way?’ God, he hoped that she wasn’t going to say she was repelled by his simple touch.
‘Sort of heavy and achy and also as if my skin has a strange itch that needs to be scratched.’
Ash had very little experience with women, almost none, if he was entirely honest, but he recognised her description; it was how he felt when he was around her. He shifted on his side. ‘Would you like me to touch you now? It might help ease the feeling. I can stop at any point.’
The pause as he waited for her to respond seemed to go on for a lifetime. She shifted against him again and for a moment he lost his train of thought. It appeared his body was ready for her once more but it could wait, forever if need be.
‘I think I would like that,’ she said finally.
Thank God .
‘If there’s anything I do that you don’t like, please stop me immediately. I would rather die than hurt you.’ It was true, he would. As dramatic as that sounded, her enjoyment of this moment meant so much to him.
‘I will,’ she murmured, holding herself still.
Slowly, he undid the tie of her cloak. As it loosened he pushed it from her shoulders. She shivered and he stopped. ‘Too cold?’
‘No, I…’ She sat up and pulled the cloak off completely, dropping it to one side. She paused and then began to yank at her dress. The material got stuck around her neck, her arms wedged close to her sides.
He tried very hard not to laugh but it was a very hard-won battle. ‘May I help?’
She flapped her hands around. ‘I feel a little ridiculous.’
‘Well, you don’t look it. You’re the very picture of sophistication.’ He saw her body shake as she laughed and his heart clenched. It had been so long since he’d made her laugh all the time, that he’d almost forgotten how much he enjoyed it when she giggled…almost.
‘Here, let me.’ He gently tugged the material from her body and all humour fled as his breath left him. In the dim light of the room he could see the thin cotton of her shift clinging to her soft curves. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said softly.
‘No… I…’
He reached up and ran his fingers along the length of her jaw, sliding into the hair behind her ear. ‘You,’ he said, dropping a soft kiss against her lips, ‘are the most beautiful woman in the world. I have always thought so and I always will.’
Her breath whispered against his lips and he kissed her again and then again, softly and slowly, building the pressure with every pass of his mouth. Gradually, she became pliant against him, leaning her body into his. Gently, so as not to spook her, he traced her neck with his fingertips, following a path down around the curve of her generous breasts, the softness of her stomach and the length of her legs, until he reached the hem of her stays. He carried on kissing her as his hand encircled her ankle.
His whole body was at war with his mind. He longed to touch her smooth skin everywhere, to send her as out of her mind as she had him, but he knew that he had to take it slow, that she had to be the one who gave permission for this to go further. This was as much as giving her back control of her body as it was giving her pleasure. So he lifted his head and asked, ‘Do you want me to stop?’