Chapter 20
Bella stilled. James reached out to caress her face, his touch gentle as a summer breeze. It was the gentleness that was her undoing. Her heart suddenly ached with an emptiness and yearning she’d buried for years. Hidden even from herself.
How strange to feel this way now when all she had craved was solitude after Roger’s death.
Harriet’s words haunted her:
The heart makes its own rules. If only one could control it with logic, it would never be broken. But love and logic tend to stray from each other.
Love and logic could go to the devil. He was leaving. Without Wyndmoor Manor he had no reason to ever visit Hertfordshire, and with the deed to the property in her possession, she had no need to ever visit London. She would likely never see him again. The frightening truth was she was twenty-four years old, and a widow who would soon become a spinster. She had one chance to be with James, one chance to experience what she never had her entire life and what she most likely may never have again—true desire for a man.
She raised her hand to cover his, holding his warm palm against her cheek, anchoring him to her for the briefest instant. Then she stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his.
“Bella?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“Yes, James,”
she breathed.
She had what she wanted then, and he swept her into his arms. He must have sensed her emptiness, her urgent yearning, for his lips were hot as he plundered her mouth. Their tongues met and rich desire curled around her spine.
Still she felt him hold back. A stab of desperation ... and lust drove her. She wanted to unleash his darkest desire, his fiery passion. She wanted to experience his strength and heat and yes—God help her—his notorious lovemaking skills. She wanted to experience all of him before time and duty tore him away.
She pressed against him and her hands slid beneath his jacket. The superfine material of his waistcoat felt luxurious beneath her palms. She grasped a fistful of the fine fabric as she kissed him in silent demand.
More, James. Show me more. Show me everything.
His mouth moved from her lips to nuzzle her ear. She held him tightly as his hot breath teased her lobe. He licked the delicate shell before sucking the lobe in his mouth. Liquid heat spread through her veins like molten fire.
She was vaguely aware of the snooker table brushing her low back. Her hands moved to the collar of his jacket and with a shrug of his broad shoulders, it fell to the floor. But there was his waistcoat. She wanted it off. Her fingers curled around his shirtsleeves, his muscles tightening beneath her hands.
“Do you want this, sweetheart?” he asked huskily.
Looking into the mesmerizing blue depths of his eyes, her answer was sure. “I want
you.
”
Her fingers went to the top button of his shirt. With a low groan he tore off his cravat and with impatient hands, he helped her unbutton his shirt.
She stared in awe, stunned by the changes in him. Gone was the lean patient she had treated, instead, here was a healthy, well-muscled man who had been dedicated to a vigorous routine of physical exercise. The scar was there, an angry ten-inch reminder of what he had suffered after her past came calling.
He caught her gaze. “Does my scar repulse you?”
“Oh, no.” She traced the puckered skin down his side and lowered her head to kiss him there. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered against him.
He made a choking sound, then raised her face to his. “You’re incredible.”
He kissed her, and she felt his fingers at the fastenings at the back of her gown. He undid each button all the while kissing her lips, her neck, the swell of her breasts above her bodice. When the last button came loose, she pushed his hands aside and slipped the gown from her shoulders. The amethyst silk slithered down her body to pool at her dainty slippers. She stepped away from the gown and undid the top bow of her chemise. His gaze glittered as she pushed the chemise down her body, and she stood unabashedly naked before him.
His avid gaze traveled from her breasts to her long legs in the black silk hose and garters. His voice was husky as he looked at her. “I’ve imagined you naked a thousand times, but you are even lovelier than in my dreams.”
Bella’s eyes lowered to the bulge in his trousers. She wasn’t a virgin; Roger had seen to that during the first months of her marriage. But it had been years since Roger had come to her bed, and the memories were abrupt, painful, and distasteful.
Without a doubt, she knew being with James would be entirely different. His kisses proclaimed pleasure and her body cried out for his touch ... for him.
He lifted her up onto the edge of the table and, with an impatient sweep of his arm, ivory balls scattered across the table, some falling to the floor and bouncing across the Oriental carpet. Brushing his lips across hers, he murmured, “I chose to dine here to teach you how to play.”
She eased back, her eyes devouring him, welcoming him. “Then teach me everything.”
There was a wild flash in his eyes, like a predator about to pounce upon its long-stalked prey. A frisson of excitement pierced the base of her spine. The time for words was over. She’d wanted him for so long, she realized.
He stripped impatiently, tossing aside his boots and breeches. Her eyes roved his body. Years ago she’d seen a statue of Ares, the Greek god of war. She’d been fifteen at the time and thought the sculptor had created an impossibly unattainable version of the male form. She’d been wrong. James was broad shouldered and perfectly proportioned. His stomach had ridges of corrugate muscle that trailed down to his hips. Down to his large, rigid manhood.
Oh, my,
she thought. She had imagined what he would look like, but he was different, so different, from her experience. Roger had been a pudgy, hairy man who cared only for his pleasure. But James ... nothing about him looked soft.
At her intense look, he groaned low in his throat and captured her lips in a soul-searching kiss. His hard, muscled thighs pressed between her legs, brushed against her core, and desire like rich wine flowed in her veins and low into her woman’s center. His hands caressed her breasts as he dipped his head to take a taut nipple into his mouth. Her body cried out from the wet friction of his tongue, his expert touch, as he leisurely lavished attention first on one breast, then the other.
He raised his head to capture her mouth with drugging kisses as his hands ran up her legs past her garters and caressed the soft flesh between her thighs. She moaned in delight, trembling with the flood of new sensations, and when his hand brushed the curls between her legs and his finger slid inside her, testing her wetness, she uttered a choked cry.
“How do you feel, sweetheart?” he asked.
“Hot. Hot and wicked,” she panted.
He groaned. “Wicked is good.”
He entered her slowly, giving her body time to adjust to him, but she was past the point of wanting him slowly, she wanted all of him ... needed to feel his size and weight. She arched up, gasping, her nails raking his back and buttocks. Blessedly, he understood. Lifting her hips, he fully embedded himself in one smooth thrust. She cried out at the fullness of him and clung to his damp shoulders.
He stilled above her. “God, Bella. You’re so tight,” he groaned. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, yes ...
yes.”
He began to move, and Bella was quick to meet his thrusts. She was gloriously aware of the muscular cage of James’s arms on either side of her and of the soft felt of the table beneath her. Staring up into his face, she knew she wasn’t the only one lost. James looked just as intense, just as impassioned. He kissed her lips, her neck, her breasts as his thrusts increased in tempo.
Her body tightened like a bow and met his rhythm until her inner muscles contracted, and her pleasure peaked in an exquisite climax. Her pleasure triggered his. His head dropped forward, his body went rigid, and he released a growl that reverberated through her heart and soul.
James carried Bella across the room and laid her in front of the fireplace. He stretched out alongside her on the soft carpet. Spooning her body with his, her lush buttocks pressed against his groin, he placed a kiss on her shoulder. She sighed and rested her head on his bicep, her eyelids fluttering closed.
An unfamiliar feeling of tenderness swelled in his chest. He swallowed and tried not to think of what had just transpired between them, but to no avail. Nothing had prepared him for the real-life experience of making love to Bella. Not his erotic fantasies, not their heated kisses, not even the passionate thrilling encounter behind the stables the day of the fair.
She was splendidly uninhibited in her passion. Watching as she climaxed, her glorious dark red hair spread out on the table, her long legs clasped tightly around his hips, had heightened his own pleasure to a fevered pitch.
For the first time in his life, he had experienced a strong connection to another person. An invisible web that bound them. It petrified him to feel this intimacy—he who had learned early on to remain aloof or suffer the pain of rejection. She had managed to pierce his armor, to thaw the long-ago frozen glacier that he identified as his heart.
Somehow she had gotten under his skin, and he had become obsessed with Bella Sinclair. A part of him—the helpless part—accepted this obsession as inevitable, just as the rising and setting of the sun, and suspected where it was heading. But the rest of his emotions were a jumbled mix of foreign and fearful feelings.
He should rise and help her dress, carry her back to her room and walk away. Use his power and influence to make her dreams come true—whatever they may be. Instead he ran his hand up the smooth curve of her hip and traced the side of her breast. She stretched sinuously and turned her head to look at him.
“Are you going to fall asleep?” he asked.
She smiled up at him. “I don’t suppose Harriet would approve.”
He laughed, and trailed his fingers across her breast. Her nipples instantly hardened into rosy peaks and she turned more fully in his arms. His arousal responded. He wondered if he’d ever have his fill of her.
Her eyes widened at the feel of his erection against her thigh. “What would Coates say if he found us like this?”
“I’m no longer ill. Coates knows better than to interrupt.”
Her brow furrowed, and he inwardly cursed himself at his hasty response.
“You’ve made love to other women that frequently then?” she asked.
Made love? No, he never called the act by that name. He’d been with many women, but he’d only made love to one ... to her. How to phrase it without sounding cold? “I won’t lie about my past, Bella. Celibacy has never been my strength. I’ve never desired an emotional commitment.”
She pressed against him, until their hearts beat as one. “You were right when you had said there was no passion in my marriage. Roger was much older and ... and he only came to my bed in the first months of our marriage. He was always drunk, and it was painful ... not pleasant. He had tried thereafter ... but he was unable. He said it was me.”
Anger simmered in his veins. He had come to his own conclusions regarding her lack of experience, but not that her husband had been an abusive alcoholic who had blamed his impotence on her.
Sick bastard.
The thought struck James that as a young bride Bella had known a sharp betrayal. A betrayal similar to his own. They had both been let down by those whose intrinsic duty required that they protect and care for them. James pictured her, a scared seventeen-year-old bride at the mercy of a sexually deviant older man.
What else was lurking in her past? Had Roger Sinclair physically abused her regularly? No matter how horrific, such was not uncommon.
His voice was a velvet murmur. “You are not lacking in any way. You are a beautiful, desirable woman.” It was true. He wanted her again, wanted to be buried deep inside her, make her cry out with pleasure.
She ran her palm down his chest, her eyes wide orbs of jade as she studied his body. “You are beautiful. And your skill is quite extraordinary. For the first time, I can understand why Byron and his fellow poets are so popular.”
“Then allow me the pleasure of welcoming you to touch me at will.”
She was hesitant at first, watching his face for any signs that she did something wrong. Her fingers traced the corrugated muscles of his abdomen, then, lower, to wrap about his hardness. The pleasure was so intense, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
He rolled onto his back, taking her with him until she straddled him. When her softness rubbed against his cock, she gasped.
“Let yourself go, Bella,” he urged.
He shifted his hips, rubbing more fully against her, until she was gloriously wet with wanting. She grew wild then, nipping his shoulders, kissing his chest, licking his nipples. Her hair trailed over him, sending exquisite sensations in its wake. He gritted his teeth, forced himself to remain still, allowed her to experience him at will.