Cheryl Holt (12 page)

“Stroking me. In a sexual rhythm.”

He lifted her wrist and squeezed his fingers around it while massaging back and forth. “Like this,” he described, directing her in the appropriate tempo.

He hadn’t intended to handle her so explicitly, but now that he had, he couldn’t seem to withdraw. She remained perfectly still, staring at the parchment, while he played with her arm. Each manipulation distinctly reminded him
of being fondled lower down, and the sensation was painful.

Eventually, he dropped her hand to her lap, although he maintained contact by linking his fingers through hers. Lady Abigail gazed at their united hands, inspecting them intently, contrasting her pallid skin with his dark, her smooth with his rough. She outlined the ridges, exploring bone and knuckle. Opening her palm, she flattened the heels together, as she noted the difference in proportions, how much larger his was, how wide, how long.

Finally, she slipped her fingers into his once again, and they sat in the quiet, the only sounds the ticking of the clock on the mantel, and their slow, steady breathing. Refusing to pause so he could decide if what he was about to do was a good idea or not, he kissed her.

By anyone’s standards, it was not much of an embrace, but from the minimal impact, his senses careened wildly. He brushed her lips lightly, barely connecting. She was soft and warm, supple, made for kissing, and he had to do it again immediately. He hesitated, offering her one last chance to save herself, but she didn’t grasp it, so he closed the short distance between them a second time, and he was lost.

Effortlessly, he maneuvered her into the corner of the sofa, using only the urgency of his mouth to tip her back. He dared not touch her with his hands. If they so much as hovered over her torso, he’d start removing clothing, which would be a quick disaster, so he learned his way almost chastely—by tasting. She was a heady mixture of peppermint and the brandy he’d given her, and he savored and sampled her honeyed variety of delights.

Unsatisfied, he delved deeper, flicking with his tongue. Asking. Asking. She opened and welcomed him inside, and the strangest perceptions washed over him: that he’d arrived at a special place, that he’d finally come home.

He could not have said how long he kissed her. Their tongues toyed and trifled, as he tarried and let the absolute joy of her flood over him time and again. When he eventually
pulled away, he was permeated by the foreign emotions of loss and regret.

How he wanted from her! Anything and everything, and with scarcely concealed dismay, he blazed a path across her cheek, down her neck, to where he nestled his forehead against her nape.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered, her palm gliding to his neck, urging him nearer.

“Oh, Abby,” he whispered in return, desperate to call her by her name. “We have to.” Closing his eyes, he inhaled sharply, and her scent enveloped him. On some ancient plane, he could detect the aroma she was emitting. She was ready to mate, her body primed for the next step. All he need do was take it, but he couldn’t.

Beginning at her hip, he allowed one hand to drift over her abdomen, her stomach, her chest. At the slope of her breast, he meant to move off quickly, but she captured his wrist and held him just there, and he couldn’t resist spreading his palm wide and caressing against the soft mound. Through all the layers of fabric covering her, he could feel the tight bud of her firm nipple.

Quietly, she acknowledged, “I touched my breasts as you asked me to.”

He could picture her standing in front of her mirror, assessing their mass and shape, observing the nipples as they stiffened under her visual scrutiny. “I wish I’d been with you.”

“ ’T was very disturbing for me.”

“Good! I want you
disturbed”

He stared at her breasts, imagining how beautiful they would be fully bared, how round, how creamy white, how rose-tipped. They would fill his hands to overflowing. Tormented with his need for more of her, he pinched her nipple as much as he was able through her dress, and she squirmed.

“James . . .” she hissed.

“Say my name again.”

“James . . . please . . .” But he couldn’t tell if she pleaded
for him to cease or persevere. Her corset had created an extraordinary cleavage, and he buried his face in it, for a fantastic moment letting the smell of her skin and sweat inundate him while he regained some of his equilibrium.

He lingered above her, one knee resting on the sofa cushion. She was trapped between his arms, and she looked thoroughly ravished as she reached out to tenderly lay her palm on the center of his chest. He clasped it and guided it lower, so she could feel the hard jut of his erection straining against the front of his trousers. Showing her how to please him, he used her to fondle himself, dipping her down, having her coddle his balls before coming back up. Deftly, she explored his severe magnitude on her own. Gritting his teeth, he held himself motionless as she investigated.

With a flick of his thumb against one of the buttons, his trousers could be open, and he could be fully exposed for her ardent perusal—a dangerous idea for both of them—so he relented and removed her hand from his person much sooner than he would have demanded it gone.

Determinedly, he advised, “I don’t know if I can carry through with these lessons.”

“Whyever not?”

“I desire you too much. I hurt with lusting after you.”

Concern marred her features. “I don’t mean to—”

“ ’Tis simply the way of these things,” he curtly cut in. “I’ve pilfered a small taste, and I will only steal more and more from you until I’ve had all.”

“I don’t mind. I fancy the same outcome.”

“But you don’t understand about what we’re truly talking.”

During their fervent embrace, the stack of pictures had fallen to the floor, and he grabbed for it, leafing through to the next portrait. Lily had returned to the etching, and she was serving him with her mouth, and he was buried deep. As he remembered the tension of that long-ago episode, he hardened further. Pierre had asked them to remain stationary as he’d struggled to get the facial and bodily expressions
just right, but once he’d told them they could move, James had come so forcefully. Almost violently. And Lily had happily accepted all he’d had to impart. He craved that style of raucous passion now.

“I want you kneeling before me. As Lily did,” he declared coarsely, angry that she aroused him so acutely when she could do nothing to assuage it. “I want to make you suck me so far inside that you are choking with the size of me and begging me to quit. I would demand that you swallow my seed, then I’d have you licking the tip until I decided that I’d had enough.”

Unaffected by his display of temper, she stared at the sketch, then at him. To his horror, she was brimming with anticipation. “I would like to do that to you. If you would just show me how to—”

Moaning with frustration, he leapt from the couch lest he take her up on her insane offer. Huffing and puffing as though he’d run a long race, he stalked to the window and stood with his back to her. Ominously trying to calm himself, he pushed against his vertical phallus, unsuccessfully attempting to alleviate his pained situation. Only when he’d regained minimal restraint did he turn to face her again.

“I have to go.”

“Will I see you again on Thursday?”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I don’t know if I can proceed.”

“I didn’t mean to disconcert you. I didn’t realize I was.”

“ ’Tis not anything you did,” he assured her. “Of a sudden, I want you without regard to any consequences, and I understand what will happen if we forge ahead.”

“But I want it to happen, too.”

“You say that now, but one of us needs to keep a level head.”

Flashing him a weak smile, she said, “I guess we can both see that it won’t be me.”

“No, I don’t think it can be you.”

So it must be me
, he warned himself, wondering why he was so upset. After all, when he’d commenced this affair,
he’d suspected that her body would betray her, that he’d be able to lead her down a carnal path.

Yet now, as they contemplated this fork in their road, he couldn’t fathom continuing. Though he hardly knew her, and had scarcely passed any time in her company, he cared for her and about her, and he couldn’t commit a dastardly act against her.

While she might wish they could become lovers, it was no more than the nebulous, romantic fantasy of an untried woman. She had no clue what she was actually proposing, and from his past experience, he appreciated only too well that a physical relationship would lead directly to heartbreak. He was totally incapable of offering a woman more than limited sexual interplay, so if he deliberately compromised her, she would eventually grow to hate him, just as he would ultimately grow to hate himself. He simply couldn’t behave so badly toward her.

So . . . he had to call a halt while the opportunity was ripe. But try as he might, he couldn’t imagine missing their next assignation. Already she’d wheedled under his skin to the point where he didn’t know how he could ever be shed of her.

“I have to go,” he repeated. “Now. While I still can.”

After a lengthy equivocation, she nodded, accepting his determination as the only possible course. “When will you decide if you’ll come again?”

He struggled with the question, mulling it over, but there was no viable answer he could give her on such short notice. “I suppose I’ll either be here on Thursday—or I won’t be.”

She nodded again.

Before she could respond, before
he
could do anything more rash, he hastily crossed the room, snatched up his pile of erotic pictures, and raced from the chamber and down the stairs as though the very hounds of hell were chasing him.

James sat behind his desk, staring at the papers Michael had placed there, but he couldn’t make sense of what they said. They might as well have been written in some strange hieroglyphic, for he simply could not concentrate long enough to decipher the details, despite how pressing the subject appeared to be.

His thoughts were too distracted by other weighty matters. By things like the smell of Abby’s perfume, the creamy color of her skin, and the thickness of her glorious blond hair.

What was happening? Had he gone mad?

They had only passed but a scant number of hours together, had conversed about hardly any topic other than sex, but he was thoroughly infatuated. In his mind, she’d jumped far past the cool, sophisticated Lady Abigail with whom he was barely acquainted, and she’d quickly and easily become
his
hot-blooded, sexy Abby in a manner that was as unusual as it was frighteningly possessive. He couldn’t quit thinking about her for a mere second. What would become of his mental faculties if he continued to meet with her?

That was not to say that his physical condition was faring much better. Behaving like a randy lad of thirteen again, he was ready to spill his seed at a moment’s notice. Just from kissing her, he’d grown so hard that, all these hours later, his body was still reeling from the aftereffects. He was surly and short-tempered, his balls were aching, and all he could contemplate was how he wished he’d taken her up on her offer to relieve his carnal distress.

He should have unbuttoned his trousers! He should have made her reach inside! Instead of hesitating, he should have taught her how to stroke him, lick him, satisfy him. With the desperation of a starving man, he’d hungered to have
her touching him and fondling him, perhaps sucking him between those ruby lips. If a tiny bit of her feminine attention had been directed his way, he wouldn’t now be suffering so terribly.

She was eager to leap beyond the steady pace he’d initiated, but he crazily resisted. Why? The only answer that occurred to him was: He liked her. For some reason, he simply did, and he didn’t want to hurt her.

If they became lovers, he realized exactly how it would go. They would enjoy a glimmer of romance, a brief sizzle of erotic assignations, but then the newness would wear off. As always transpired, his fascination would gradually wane, his desire for her cool, and he would be inclined to move on to another. That had been the sorry state of his sexual life; a woman never retained his interest for long.

But where would that leave her?

In her world, true ladies believed that love and sex were inextricably bound, that one created an unbreakable responsibility regarding the other. Unfortunately, she wasn’t like the other women with whom he dallied, so she didn’t grasp that, sometimes, sex was just physical release and nothing more. She’d never been instructed as to how deeply lust could penetrate, how fiercely it could burn, or how readily it could diminish. Nor could she possibly understand how horribly a sexual relationship could end, with hurt feelings, recriminations, and harsh words.

He didn’t want her to suffer through any heartbreak. So . . . what to do?

Obviously, he couldn’t keep meeting with her; he was on a fool’s errand. Yet, as he pondered how wonderful it had been to finally hold her and kiss her, when he remembered the sparkle and longing in her eye as she’d asked if he would return on Thursday, he couldn’t imagine not going. To never see her again was an impossibility. To continue, the greatest folly.

He was a smart man, who prided himself on always being in control, who never allowed himself to wander into hopeless situations, so how had it eventuated that he now
found himself in this predicament? And how, pray tell, was he to extricate himself?

His options were few. He could simply never show up again, forcing her to forlornly wait on him until she deduced that he wasn’t coming. She’d likely conclude that his decision had been her fault, that she’d offended him in some manner, which he hated to consider.

Or, he could make his meaning more rudely clear by sending her a parting gift. It would be some meaningless token of his affection, a worthless trinket that she could stare at occasionally so that she would always be reminded of what a cad he truly was. She’d forever recollect how he had entered into an important agreement with her but hadn’t had the fortitude to follow through.