“Y-yes.” Here they came. She could feel the tears gathering beneath her eyelids. A second later, the room grew watery, as she tried to blink them away. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t bear it.”
The hurt tone returned to his voice. “Couldn’t bear being touched by me?”
“No!” She reached up with her free hand, the one he wasn’t still holding, the one he wasn’t caressing with his thumb, and wiped away her tears with the back of her wrist. “No, that’s not it at all. It’s just that I’m engaged to be married, and it’s very upsetting to be engaged to be married to someone . . . and yet think you might be . . . in love with someone else.”
There. She had said it. Admitted out loud, for the first time, what had been weighing so heavily upon her shoulders.
And then Braden Granville was clearing his throat— was it her imagination, or did he sound very uncomfortable indeed?
“That’s very interesting,” he said. “Because I too find it upsetting to be engaged to be married to someone . . .” He paused, and Caroline, tears still trembling on her eyelashes, glanced up at him questioningly. . . .
And was completely unable to look away. Something in his gaze held hers to it, surer than the strongest magnet or glue.
“And I
know,”
he said, deliberately, “that I’m in love with someone else.”
This time, when his hand moved toward Caroline’s head, she didn’t flinch. Nor did she draw breath to protest. Instead, she sat perfectly still as Braden reached for another pin, gave it a gentle tug . . .
And her hair, in all of its dark blond glory, came spilling down her shoulders.
“That,” Braden said, in a voice so deep, she hardly recognized it, “is much better.”
32
A
nd then his fingers sank deeply into the heavy fall of her hair, and he was bringing her face up toward his . . .
And Caroline didn’t protest. How could she? He loved her. Every fiber of her being was pulsing, vibrating,
singing
with this newfound knowledge. Her heart was beating in time to the words. . . .
He loves me. He
loves
me.
He loves me.
Which was why it was perfectly all right for him to bring his mouth down, with a good deal of proprietary savagery, over hers. And why it didn’t bother her in the least when he released her hand and snatched her instead around the waist, bringing her body up hard against his. And the fact that there was only that thin layer of material separating her skin from his? Entirely forgivable.
In fact, Caroline found herself feeling quite relieved that she was wearing so little clothing. Because unhampered by corset or crinoline, she could, for the first time,
feel
things she’d never felt before . . . or at least, hadn’t been able to feel in so much fascinating detail. There was the reassuring hardness of Braden’s chest, against which he was crushing her own, much softer one. There was the tight wall of muscle that made up his stomach, his skin singeing her, right through the material of his waistcoat and shirt.
And, most interesting of all, there was that rock-hard lump between his legs that last night—had it really only been just twenty-four hours ago?—she’d been so shocked to feel against her, but which now she was rather curious to inspect. It had felt so
strange
. . . and continued to feel strange, since even now she could feel it pressing rather insistently against her, through the thick material of Braden’s trousers. . . .
Then Braden, who’d been kissing her more deeply, more intrusively than ever before—until the room was spinning all around her, and the only stable thing in it was him—lifted his head, and whispered down to her, in a voice that wasn’t in the least bit steady, “Take this off.”
And with his fingers, he plucked at her dressing gown.
But Caroline shook her head, so that the golden highlights in her thick hair glimmered in the firelight.
“No,” she said, her voice not quite steady, either.
“No?” he echoed, looking a little shocked.
She gave his waistcoat a pluck of her own. “Yours first.”
With an alacrity that caused her to lean back in surprise, he stripped off his coat, waistcoat, and shirt, almost in a single motion. Caroline heard a good many buttons pop, and some material being torn, as well.
And then, the firelight bringing into high relief the peaks and valleys of his muscular torso—the golden swell of his biceps, the deep indentations along either side of his stomach, the crisp, dark hair with which his chest was matted—he reached for her again, and this time, when he dragged her toward him, and her fingers touched, for the first time, bare flesh, and not material, Caroline’s breath caught in her throat, and her heart began a frantic beat that she could feel being echoed thunderously within the walls of his own ribs.
He was kissing her again, but now it was with more urgency than savagery, and his hands, instead of being around her waist or in her hair, were busy with the ribbons and buttons that held her nightclothes together. For a moment, she thought he was going to rip the garment from her the way he’d ripped his own, but he was more gentle than that, his fingers seeming almost reverent as they brushed her skin. In less time than Caroline would have thought possible, she was naked before him.
Only the fire was so warm, and his hands so capable, that she didn’t even realize it until she felt the startling sensation of his naked chest against hers. . . .
This was something so unexpected—and so incredibly wonderful—that Caroline, hardly knowing what she did, pressed even closer to him, as his hands, seeming to delight in her nakedness, raced up and down her body, as if he were trying to memorize her every line and curve. One second his fingers were molded to her breasts, his touch hot as the fire that burned beside them. The next, they had moved to cup her buttocks, exerting a gentle but insistent pressure that brought her pelvis up hard against his.
And all the time, his lips moved over her, devouring her, as if he would never stop, not until he had tasted all of her, her mouth, her throat, even the rosy tips of her nipples. . . .
Then, quite suddenly, his ink-dark head lifted from where it had been pressed between the valley of her breasts, and, his gaze locked onto hers, Braden started lowering her, slowly, but inexorably, to the floor. . . .
Or, rather, the thick white fur upon which they’d been kneeling.
And even then, Caroline did not quail. Oh, her heart was pounding, all right. But so, she knew, because she could feel his pulse leap at her lightest touch, was his. No, Caroline did not lose courage . . . not then.
But when he’d successfully navigated her to the floor, and she lay in the thick white fur, so smooth and warm upon her back, with her hair spread out behind her head like a fan, and Braden, still kneeling—only now it was between her legs—reached for the buttons of his pants, and released that part of him she’d felt pressing so urgently against her. . . .
That was when Caroline’s bravery fled, like water from a cracked vase. She simply could not see any physical possibility of what was about to happen . . . well, happening.
Braden, she could tell at a glance, hadn’t the slightest doubt. In fact, he seemed perfectly oblivious to her skepticism. His hands were upon her once again, only now they were touching her in that place—oh, that
place
— he’d touched before, sending her to such glorious heights. And it felt glorious again, only he couldn’t possibly think . . . he couldn’t actually be planning on . . .
But apparently he was, since he was moving over her, the way he had on the swing the night before, only this time, he was naked, and so was she, and the sensation of his flesh against hers was almost more than she could bear, it was so intoxicating, only he couldn’t, he really
couldn’t—
And then he was, and Caroline, feeling the tip of that impossibly large, impossibly hard thing pressing against her in that place, froze, and reached up to grasp frantically at his shoulders, those wide, dangerously strong-looking shoulders, to which she’d clung for stability when his kisses had sent the room spinning around her, and which she pushed at now, to get his attention.
He raised his lips from hers—because through it all, he’d been kissing her as if he couldn’t stop, as if he’d never get enough of kissing her—and looked down at her, his gaze oddly unfocused.
“What?” he whispered, and Caroline, beneath him, bit one of her beard-burned lips, hardly knowing how to tell him . . . not when she could feel his heart pumping so furiously against hers.
She couldn’t tell him. How could she tell this man that she thought there might be something wrong with him, that he was grossly deformed, and that the act of love was never going to be a possibility between the two of them? This was obviously untrue, since he had evidently been making love successfully, despite his infirmity, all over London, for the past decade or so. Maybe it was
her.
Maybe
she
was the one who was deformed. Maybe she had suffered all her life with this hidden malady, and not even known it. Maybe she would never know what it was like to feel a man inside her, because no man, if they were all like Braden, would ever fit—
“Caroline.” Braden’s voice sounded odd, as if he were biting down on something very hard. A quick glance at him—his face, after all, consumed most of Caroline’s line of vision—revealed that he was tightly clenching his jaw.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” Caroline said, quickly. “Only . . .”
She felt him move closer to her, the tip of that hardened shaft prodding her where his fingers had been before, opening her, moving slickly along that damp and tender spot. . . .
And then, as if by magic, he was inside her. His restraint broken, he’d slid into her, lured by the incredible warmth he’d felt emanating from her, incapable of stopping himself.
He’d meant to go slowly. He’d meant to be patient. But his fine intentions crumbled in the actual face of that heat. Clutching her tightly, he moved, just a fraction of an inch . . . or so he’d thought. All at once, he was burying himself in that slick wet heat, and she stiffened in his arms, and cried out. . . .
And then he was consumed by guilt, because where she’d felt only pain, he’d felt the most magnificent pleasure, was feeling it still, as she closed around him, tighter than any fist. . . .
Beneath him, Caroline opened her eyes, which she’d screwed shut as he’d entered her, and blinked like someone waking from a trance.
“I’m sorry,” he said raspily, moving to cup her face in his hands, raining tiny kisses down upon it. “I’m so sorry, Caroline. I love you so much. . . .”
But Caroline, as if she’d come to understand something, responded only by moving beneath him . . . just slightly, but enough to cause him to suck in his breath, amazed all over again by the sweet, enveloping warmth that clung to him so tightly. For Caroline, though she hadn’t been able to help crying out at the size of him, at the disturbing length of what he was filling her with, knew now that those times he’d touched her with his fingers, and she’d felt an empty craving within her, that it was
this
she’d craved,
this
she’d been longing for, almost since the moment he’d first touched her.
This realization must have shown on her face, because with a muffled moan, Braden lowered his mouth to hers again, and began to move within her—and not gently, either. He moved like a man who’d come to the end of what precious little control he’d had over his baser emotions, and now, with her surrender, he was abandoning himself to them. He dove into her, as if with each thrust, he could somehow pour more of him into her. One of his hands even curled around her hips, lifting them, so that he could plunge more deeply between her thighs, pillage her more thoroughly.
And then Caroline, both her arms wrapped around his neck, her breath coming in ragged gasps, felt her entire body go taut, as if she were a string on an instrument a musician had chosen at that very moment to tighten. Her heart racing so fast, it seemed it might burst, she pressed herself to Braden as closely as she could, letting him fill her, letting him plunder her.
And then the string broke, and she seemed to go flying in a million different directions at once.
Truly. Suddenly, she was soaring across mountaintops and plains, whitecapped seas and barren deserts, through stuffy British drawing rooms and incense-filled Japanese temples, airy Indian palaces and colorful Bedouin tents. Flying, quite literally flying through them, as if she were a bird, or a passenger on a magic carpet. It was incredible, the most incredible thing she had ever known.
Until, with a jolt that was at once violent and infinitely gentle, she was back within herself, and Braden Granville had just collapsed, with a sort of a shout, on top of her. They were, she saw with a shock, in the Stanhopes’ country house, lying across Lord Woodson’s polar bear skin rug, where they had apparently been all along.
Braden, not breathing particularly steadily himself, nevertheless asked her, with a curious expression on his face, “Are you all right?”
Caroline, her heart having returned to something like a normal rhythm, was aware that his, pulsing very fast and strong against her bare breast, hadn’t yet. She hoped he wasn’t going to suffer an apoplexy, and answered worriedly, “Yes, of course. Are
you?”
He seemed to think her question amusing, since he was smiling as he reached out and smoothed some long strands of her hair from her face. “I,” he said, “am very well indeed.”
And they lay in companionable silence for a moment, listening to the fire crack and hiss, and the rain, which had slackened somewhat, beat upon the windows.
“This wasn’t,” Braden said, a bit apologetically, after a while, “exactly how I wanted this to go, you know.”
Caroline, very interested to hear that the professor had erred, struggled up onto her elbows, and eyed him brightly. “Wasn’t it?”
“No.” Braden spoke with a good deal of self-reproach. “Of course not. A young lady’s defloration ought to take place in a bed, not on the floor.”
“Ought it, indeed?”
“Of course. You’ll have to forgive me, Caroline.”
She said gravely, “I’ll certainly try.”
“And now,” he said, moving from her, and reaching for her dressing gown, which lay twisted beneath them, “put this on—oh, no perhaps you’d better not, it appears to have absorbed some, er. . . . Have you got another?”
“Indeed,” Caroline said, observing the evidence of their sin with raised eyebrows. “Upstairs, in the first bedroom to the right.”
“Very good. Stay here, and I’ll fetch it for you. Then we’ll find our way to the larder, and see if there’s anything to be had for supper.”
Caroline, feeling quite lethargic, made no move to hide her own nakedness as he struggled back into his trousers. She’d already revealed to him the innermost secrets of her heart. Why on earth would she bother hiding her body from him?
“The servants all live out,” she informed him, apologetically.
“Thank God,” was Braden’s prompt reply.
“Yes, but you see,” Caroline explained, “we shall have to fend for ourselves in the kitchen. And I must confess, I’ve never cooked a meal in my life.”