Izzy caught Lord Stretton's eye from across the ballroom. Gesturing vigorously with her fan, she urged him over. After wending his way through the dancers, he approached, smiling in amusement.
"I see you have mastered the knack of hailing a hansom," he teased, casting a look at her fan.
"It does come in handy, doesn't it? I loathe them, though. I am forever leaving them about." She smiled up at him. Such a dear man, and a true friend. Wrapping her arm around his, she urged him toward the large double doors leading to the gardens. "Come Eric. I wish to speak to you, and I cannot be heard in this crush."
He laughed outright and, after a brief glance over his shoulder, guided her to the exit.
"Do you ever do what's expected, Izzy? You are supposed to fight tooth and nail before allowing yourself to be dragged to the gardens in the moonlight."
"Bother that. I have been caught with a gentleman in my bed, seen racing in the park, and spied mingling with the riffraff in Vauxhall. This is nothing." She grinned mischievously at him as they passed into the cool evening. "Tonight, I am simply getting some air and saying thank you to a good friend."
"There is no reason to thank me, Izzy," Eric protested. "I enjoyed fleecing that spineless cousin of yours. Although I really don't know why you need your inheritance. Blackworth and his father could buy half of London."
But not my freedom, mused Izzy. Smiling mysteriously, she said, "It was the principle of the matter."
"Pesky things, principles," Stretton commented dryly. "Always avoid 'em, myself."
Laughing, Izzy tapped him on the shoulder with her fan. "You do not. You are one of the finest men I have ever known." Sobering, she took his hand, "In all seriousness, Eric, thank you. It was very important to me. Maybe you'll understand why, one day."
Staring down at her, Eric placed her hand over his heart and gave her a look she didn't immediately comprehend. "Are there any more out there like you, Izzy? I fear I have waited too long and you have all been snatched up by blokes like Julian."
"You are sweet. You'll find her, Eric. Someone just for you." Standing on tiptoe, Izzy placed her palm against his nape to pull him down for an affectionate peck on his cheek. She was astonished when he quickly turned and caught her lips with his.
Holding her breath, Izzy waited for the rush of knee-weakening passion she had felt with Julian. The two men were much alike, and she cared for them both, but the touch of Eric's mouth on hers was just that. A touch.
When Eric pulled her into his arms, Izzy went, curious about the differences between the two kisses. When Julian had held her, her heart had pounded and her breath had quickened. His embrace had made her ache with passion. Eric's mouth was warm and pleasant, his kiss expert, yet it left her entirely unmoved.
Raising his head, Eric smiled wryly. "I just wanted to see if it was possible you were the one just for me."
Chuckling, Izzy patted his chest. "I'm not, am I? And neither are you. And now we know—"
Eric was suddenly wrenched away from her with a force that sent her to her knees. She grabbed up her skirts and rose on the run.
"Julian, no! Stop it at once!" She pulled on his arm with all her might, drawing him around, away from the fallen Eric, who was shaking his head and rubbing his chin.
Julian glared at Izzy, his eyes slits of fury. Grabbing her arm, he towed her away. "You're lucky I don't love her, or you'd be meeting me at dawn!" he shouted back at his friend.
"So you say, Blackworth, so you say," came the sardonic reply.
Julian only growled, yanking a furiously resisting Izzy farther down the graveled path into the dark gardens. Turning a corner, he abruptly stopped, flinging her roughly before him.
Keeping her feet with difficulty, Izzy came to rest against the trunk of a large oak. She put her back to it, watching Julian warily as he paced before her. This was a man she had never seen before. Wild with rage, he passed before her again and again, repeatedly running his hands through his hair.
The satisfying crunch of his fist against Eric's jaw had only slightly abated Julian's fury. Dragging a twisting, struggling Izzy away was the best he could do to keep from killing a man he loved like a brother.
Anger and hurt, jealousy and fear warred within him. Stopping with his head down, breathing hard, he tried to make sense of his thoughts.
In his head he could only see, again and again, the way Izzy had pressed herself so ardently against another man. He couldn't believe it. Izzy was his!
Of course, he did not love her, but she belonged to
him
. And what was his, he kept, by God!
Ignoring the jolt of anguish that swept him whenever he considered that she might prefer another, he convinced himself that it was injured pride that drove him. Yes, this pain was simply outraged ownership.
A whisper of cloth crossed the night air and his head jerked up. Focusing on the slim pale figure before him, he advanced slowly, like a stalking tiger. Izzy watched him approach with wide eyes, as if poised for flight.
"You!" he spat out. "You kissed him!" He stood before her, leaning into her face, hands on hips brushing his coattails back. "Well?" he demanded.
"Yes," Izzy whispered. "Yes, I did," she said more firmly.
He whirled and resumed pacing, his hands fisted. Suddenly, he stopped, arm raised, finger pointing accusingly at her.
"Why?" he asked. To his own ears, it sounded slightly pleading.
"I was curious. I wanted to see…" Izzy faltered. She was not truly frightened of Julian, but something alarming was happening to them.
They stood in silence but for the heaving of their lungs, watching each other warily in the moonlight.
"Curious?" he asked. "Curious about kissing? About men? About lust?" As he slowly advanced on her, he snarled, "Any curiosity you have, you will explore"— stopping close before her, he pressed her close to the tree with his hands on her shoulders—"with
me
!"
His mouth came down on hers in a punishing kiss, his body trapping hers to the rough bark of the tree behind her. Hips grinding against her, he grabbed Izzy's chin, forcing her jaw open to gain access to her betraying little mouth.
She writhed under him, her hands caught against his chest. Her movements only inflamed him further. Lust, rage, and jealousy roared in a maelstrom within him, deafening him to her whimpers of distress.
Izzy fought him desperately, overwhelmed by him, by his touch, by his fury. She had longed for his attentions, but not like this! Anything they gave each other now would be tainted with wrath and distrust. But her struggles were to no avail, only escalating his rage and desire.
Acting on instinct, she changed her approach. Gently kissing him back, she pressed steadily against his chest until her hands were freed. Sliding them up to his face, she stroked his hair back with her fingers, framing his jaw with her palms. Caressing gently, lovingly, kissing him softly, she tamed his hard demanding mouth, transmuting his passionate rage into raging passion.
He gave a cry of surrender, pulling her to his chest, away from the cruel bite of the tree bark. His grip on her jaw eased and he slipped his hand into her hair, teasing it free of its pins to tumble down her back. He buried both hands in the wildly curling mass as his mouth left hers to kiss and nip her neck and shoulder.
Her own passion stirring now, Izzy threw her arms around his neck, clinging breathlessly as her limbs weakened. Darts of heat shot through her from the flesh that his teeth gently worried. Boneless with the force of her desire, her neck arched back, exposing her throat to his hot mouth.
His hands slid from her hair, over her shoulders to cover her breasts. She shuddered from the new sensations crowding her awareness. As one large hand swept down her body to below her belly, pressing wickedly between her thighs, her tremors increased. Fear and longing combined into a heady brew and she was drunk with it.
Returning to her lips, he kissed her deeply, caressing her tongue with his until the world whirled about her and she found herself on her back. He was above her, covering her, and she loved it. Being sheltered by his body made her sigh with pleasure.
His weight and warmth stirred her senses, the scent of him and the spicy smell of the grass crushed beneath them combining to make her dizzy. The moonlight shone dappled through the trees, adding mystery and magic to the sight of him above her.
Julian looked down at Izzy—this infuriating, challenging, endlessly surprising woman—and saw the newly awakened passion shining in her eyes. Her dark hungry look, her mass of tousled hair, and her kiss-swollen lips suddenly struck him as the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld.
Beautiful. His
Izzy was beautiful
. Some wall crashed down within him, a door he had obstinately kept locked burst open, and his heart melted at the sight of her beneath him.
With lust pulsing through his veins, he struggled to collect himself. He wanted to remember that this was Izzy, his sweet Izzy, an innocent who deserved better than to be tossed to the ground in a moment of heated lust.
He shook his head. He was hard, harder than he had ever been, and he could not think past plunging deep into her tight moist heat.
Closing his eyes against the questioning longing in hers, he battled his passion. Rigid, his chest heaving, he had almost won against it when he felt small deft hands undoing the studs of his shirt.
It was as if Izzy knew that he was close to her, available to her in a way he had never been before, and she simply could not allow him to stop. Aware of his withdrawal, she reached out to Julian using her hands and lips to convey her need in the ways that he had just taught her.
Shuddering with the effort of resisting, Julian was undone by her hands sliding over his bare chest, stroking downward over his belly, and finally, hesitantly, caressing his swollen erection through his trousers.
He fell on her ravenously. He had hungered for her softness and he was starved for her sweetness. The empty crevices in his heart fed on her freely offered tenderness like starving hounds, offering up only his body in return. He had nothing to give her, nothing of himself to spare, only empty words.
And need, great hollow need, carved out by all the years without gentleness. His hands roamed savagely over her, tearing aside the barrier of her clothing until she was nearly naked beneath him, with only the bunched skirts of her gown lying across her midriff.
Izzy tried to help him, any thought of resistance now gone. Panting with the intensity of the sensations and emotions overtaking her, she rose up on her elbows to better reach his mouth with her own. The feeling of his warm hair-matted chest brushing against her tender nipples made her shudder with need.
Then his large hands covered them, and the heat from his palms on her cool flesh made her cry out. Her head hung back as his mouth left hers to work its way down to each moonlight-silvered breast.
He savored them. He ravaged them. Devouring the silken mounds that had haunted his imagination for weeks, he moved rapidly from tip to tip, sucking and teething the pouting nipples until she writhed with abandon.
Izzy was lost in a blur of erotic thrall. Her body had been taken over by a side of her nature she had never known before. It was what she had dreamed of. It frightened her. It thrilled her. And she gave over to it freely, awash in pleasure. The heat and force of him were all she wanted, the lambent touch of his hands and mouth all she knew. She could feel the aching want pouring from him, and she answered with all her innocent heart.
He moved up her body, tasting his way back to her lips, and lay between her thighs. Izzy's hands tightened spasmodically on his muscled shoulders as she felt him press into her. Through the haze of her passion she felt a jolt of amazement.
Yes
. She wanted him there,
needed
him there—at the center of her womanhood. Biting her lip, she let her head fall back over his arms, surrendering willingly to his invasion. He was as large as she was small, and for a moment it seemed impossible.
The pressure built with every breath until she thought she could take no more. She had never felt anything so powerful as his body striving to be one with hers. Even as he broke through her barrier and she gave a shocked cry, she felt awe that the man she loved lay within her.
And around her. She was wrapped in his arms, held gently by his strength even as he lost himself to the fire, his eyes closed, his jaw clenched. Each thrust of his hips drove him deeper until she was completely enveloping him. The tears in her eyes were as much from emotion as from the ache of containing him.
This shouldn't be so right, she thought dimly. It shouldn't be so astonishingly, magnificently beautiful to feel him inside of her. But it was. Oh, dear God, it was.
It was right because she loved him. And it stunned her that she had hidden that from herself for so long.
She loved Julian
. And Julian desired her. Relaxing into the rhythm of his body, she slid her hands up his corded arms and clasped them behind his neck.
Looking up at him, she saw the agonized pleasure on his beautiful face. As his tempo sped to catch up to the beat of her heart, she felt his thrusts clear to her fingertips. Each pulse-beat was a connection, a binding of her body to his.
Then she was lost once more, the pleasure sliding beneath her and lifting her, carrying her away on a throbbing stream of sensation.
She was on the brink of something, she knew. Some mystery, some answer, if only she could reach a little farther…
His hands fisting in her hair, Julian gasped and thrust one last shuddering time. Izzy cried out as she was pierced by a single sharp lance of exquisite rapture that blinded her and stole her breath clean away.
He collapsed upon her, his heart pounding and chest heaving.
She wrapped her quivering arms about him and nestled his face into her neck, soothing and stroking him all the while. The powerful thudding of his heart resonated within her.