Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
One Week Later
Harriet could not quite curb her nervousness.
For a week, she’d been treated like an invalid, cosseted and cared for and terribly restricted.
All the while, Benedict had dealt with the local gossip about Selby, death with having Crandell quietly arrested and likely transported.
It was a cleaner solution than hanging or imprisonment in a local jail where he could spread the tale.
Mrs. Mercer had threatened her if she dared to get out of bed until the last vestiges of dizziness and an aching head had finally faded.
And that evening, she had finally been permitted to go down to dinner.
And as the evening meal had finished, Benedict had informed her he would be joining her in her room later.
Did that mean they would finally consummate their marriage? Did that mean they would play chess and talk like they had before? Would he at least kiss her again? Because she’d decided that she liked kissing very much, indeed. Or at the very least she enjoyed kissing him.
The maid brushed out her hair, careful of the fading bruise on her forehead. When she started to braid it, Harriet halted her. Perhaps it was vanity, but she wanted her hair loose.
The maid did as instructed and then quickly exited the chamber just as the connecting door between the chambers opened. Benedict stepped inside. Like the first time he’d come to her room, he wore only breeches and his shirt. It was casual. Informal. Intimate.
“What is on tonight’s agenda?” she asked.
He shrugged. “There is no agenda. There is only us enjoying one another’s company. If you are feeling up to it.”
Harriet nodded. “I am quite recovered, thank you.”
He strode toward her, halting only when the hem of her nightrail was brushing against his clothing.
For a moment, he merely looked at her, studying her with intensity.
Then he smiled. “Harriet, we have known one another for all of your life and the vast majority of my own. I have not transformed into some ravening beast who will pounce upon you. Yes, I am in your room. Yes, I very much would like to kiss you, and perhaps more. But I will do nothing that you do not wish for me to.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “That’s the problem. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what comes next. It’s frustrating and maddening to feel entirely ignorant.”
It was at that point, he simply dipped his head and captured her lips in a searing kiss that left her breathless and reeling.
But he didn’t stop there. He lifted her in his arms and carried her, not to the bed, but to the same chair he occupied when he would come to her room.
When he settled there, she was sprawled across his lap and all of it was accomplished without ever breaking the kiss.
Once they were seated and he was no longer carting her about, it freed his hands for other things.
And they roamed over her—along her spine, her ribs, down to the curve of her hip, along the length of her leg.
Then one hand delved into her hair, closing the mass of it firmly in his fist. It wasn’t painful but it was very much directional.
It tipped her head back, arching her neck.
Only then did his lips leave hers. They pressed against her jawline, her neck.
His tongue swept over her skin. His teeth scraped against it afterward, eliciting a shocked gasp from her.
But it was not a protest. Anything but. The sensations it had created within her were shocking and tantalizing and she desperately wanted more of it.
Harriet wasn’t entirely certain how it happened, but the belt of her wrapper had been freed and the garment was slipping over her shoulders, exposing the fine lawn nightrail that covered her.
His mouth moved lower then, pressing kisses over the arc of her collarbone and then the upper swells of her breasts.
Heat had bloomed within her. From the very center of her body outward, she could feel that warmth spreading, that feeling of anticipation and also yearning.
But what did she yearn for? She could not name it, but instinct drove her, arching her back as his mouth dipped lower still, this time pressing against the hardened peak of her nipple.
He closed his lips around it, drawing it into his mouth.
Harriet let out a gasp of shock and pleasure.
It felt divine and torturous at the same time.
And all the while he was doing those wicked things with his mouth, his hand was drifting beneath the hem of her nightrail, coasting up her calf and over her knee.
When his fingertips grazed her inner thigh, she instinctively clamped her knees together.
“Let me touch you,” he whispered against her skin. “Let’s remove some of the mystery surrounding all of this for you.”
It was precisely the right thing for him to say.
Forcing herself to relax, Harriet felt his hand inching upward—further and further.
When he pressed his palm against the dark curls at the apex of her thighs, that firm pressure sending jolts of pleasure through her, she wrapped her arms about him, holding onto him to anchor herself as her world seemed to shift with each passing touch.
His hand dipped lower, his fingertips brushing against her cleft, then he pressed in.
Touching the most sensitive place, stroking tenderly.
Tension gripped her, her muscles drawing taut as it built, climbing ever higher.
Then he pulled her mouth to his, kissing her deeply even as he continued to touch her so intimately.
And it was all simply too much. Too intense.
Too achingly perfect. The tension in her simply shattered, her cries lost in the kiss as she trembled against him.
When the last tremors had subsided and her body was simply limp, resting against his, he drew back from the kiss. “I think that was rather enlightening. Don’t you?”
“Don’t be smug. It’s very unattractive,” she told him. The reprimand lost some of its bite since she was barely able to form the words. “It has certainly been edifying, and yet I think I am still quite in the dark about other things.”
He smiled. “There is more. So much more. But I would not ask for more than you are ready to give.”
Harriet considered that for a moment, and then she made a decision. “Surely, if I can trust you with my heart, I can trust you with my body. I cannot imagine I will ever be more ready than I am right now.”
He rose, once more lifting her in his arms, and without hesitation, walked toward the bed.