Night of Pleasure (16 page)

The quick sound of running steps made him pause and glance up.

To his surprise, Clementine rushed into the room, her cheeks flushed.

He stared as she bustled over to him.

Coming to a halt before him, she hesitated, as if struggling to admit to something, and then grabbed his face and kissed his cheek hard.

He staggered, his very skin feeling sparks.

She released him. “I have thought about you and us. Send me a missive as to how I am to come. Then after our night, I will go. I trust you to let me go. It’s the only reason why I’m doing this. Because I trust you.” She nodded, turned and hurried back out, disappearing as quickly as she had come.

A shaky breath escaped him as he grazed his fingers across his shaven cheek where her mouth had been. He couldn’t believe it. She admitted to having thought of him and wanting him. But if that were true, why was she leaving him?

It made no sense.

But then again, she never had made any sense. She was very much a beautiful fairy one came across in a forest, whose existence one always refused to believe in, but upon seeing its wings had to embrace it without being allowed to ever ask it any questions.

In some way, he knew his father had wronged him. His jolly and overly optimistic father had raised him on a grand scheme to believe that life and the world was anything and everything he wanted it to be. And that when a good man laughed and smiled and made the most of life by giving his heart and soul to what he believed in, good things unfolded. Especially when one passionately fought for what one wanted most.

But not everything could be fought for. How did one fight to change a woman’s heart if it had remained stoically the same for seven years? What more was he, as a man, to do? Bleed through his knees waiting for another seven years to pass?

One night in her arms was clearly all he could hope for.

As opposed to the countless nights he had always imagined.

Up until that moment, he had imagined long snowy nights spent in the quiet country making passionate love to her before the hearth and then drowsily waking up to find their children piling into the room. He had imagined that his brother would come out during the winter with his own wife and children in tow and together, they would all gather into open sleighs, bundled in furs and ride through fields toward a frozen pond so their children could skate.

It was tragic. Because getting over three million bank notes shoved into his right hand was completely worthless if it couldn’t buy him the one thing he’d always wanted most: her.

Thursday, a breath after midnight

If Derek was the flame, then she most certainly was the moth. But unlike all moths, Clementine had no wings left to burn, for she had long removed them and locked them away into a box not even she was permitted to touch. Selfish though it was to go to him, cradle him and then leave him, this was her one and only chance of ever truly knowing what, if anything, could have been possible between them.

Because once she followed Nasser to the throne, her life would be exactly what she had always wanted it to be: free of any and all choking emotions that always turned even the most civilized of people into simple-minded savages unable to control their own minds, their own bodies and their own breath.

Tightening her hold on her moonstone cashmere shawl, given the chill of the April air that pushed its way into the old estate house, Clementine quietly followed the footman down the vast candlelit corridor. The silence of the night and the falling rain beyond the windows was amplified by the clicking of her slippers and the rustling of her primrose evening gown. A tall, broad shouldered figure dressed in a long green-velvet night robe lingered at the far end, intently waiting, his husky features blurred by the shadows.

Pausing before him, her heart jolted realizing his hair was down, barely brushing his muscled shoulders. The golden light of the candles within the corridor illuminated the contours of his lean, smoothly shaven face and glinted across the thick strands of his wavy brown hair, which fell around his face. It was a face that had always haunted her in her youth and a face that was haunting her now. A part of her didn’t want to let him go.

She quietly noted the naked smoothness of his broad muscled chest where the open neckline of the robe veered down to the belt on his narrow waist that held everything in place. It was obvious he was naked beneath that robe.

Her own fear of passion, which she had clung to since she was old enough to understand it, urged her to turn and run. But her mind whispered that this one night of passion was far better than eighteen thousand, two hundred and fifty nights of passion she wouldn’t be able to control. Which was what fifty years of marriage amounted to.

His gaze skimmed her appearance. “Thank you, Wallis. You may leave. Please don’t mention this to my mother.”

The footman inclined his head and quickly departed, disappearing around a corner.

Derek’s brown eyes softened. “You came.” He said it as if it were a blessing.

Her stomach flipped. She wished she could control the way his voice and his eyes made her feel. She wished she could control how he had always made
her
feel. Because that is what truly scared her. Her inability to control what she knew beat within her. The very thing she didn’t want to trust. “My father is off on the town somewhere,” she quickly offered. “So it was rather easy for me to slip away. Heaven only knows where he is. He didn’t tell me where he was going, although I imagine he is off trying to meet women or…I still had to get past Mrs. Langley, seeing her room is adjoined to mine. Fortunately, she sleeps rather heavily, so it was easy. Hopefully, she won’t wake up.” That was pathetic. She was babbling.

Searching her face, he smiled. “Don’t be nervous. How long do you have? Can you stay until morning?”

It was like they were discussing dinner plans, not her ruination. “I have to be back well before morning. My father and I always have breakfast together. Earlier than most. At seven.”

He half-nodded. Intently holding her gaze, his large frame stepped toward her.

She braced herself for having her clothes ripped off right there in the corridor.

He gripped her gloved hand and tugging her close to his body, touched his bare hand to the back of her waist, guiding her through the open door of his bedchamber. He closed the door behind them with his heel and released her waist and hand, turning the key in the door. “Remove your shawl, bonnet, and gloves. I want to show you something.” He strode past, toward the other side of the room, his robe flowing around his muscled body.

She was genuinely surprised as to how everything was unfolding. Not at all what she imagined. Knowing how eager and hot-blooded he was, she rather thought he’d get straight to stripping her down to her silk stockings and shoving candies into her mouth.

She paused.

A massive hearth across from his mahogany four-poster bed had a cheerful fire blazing, warming the large bedchamber while casting shadows and light with the movement of its flames. Countless lit candles set in various silver candelabras were scattered around the room, whispering of a man who enjoyed being surrounded by light.

He paused before an easel that had a white canvas placed onto it. Set beside the easel was a small walnut table with several inlaid wooden boxes filled to the rim with oil paints in small glass bottles and a large jar of mineral spirits. Everything was angled into the far corner of the room, clearly planned.

He wagged a finger. “I pulled out all of my old paints and my easel from the attic. I checked the oils and they’re still good. I was hoping you could paint something for me.”

A breath escaped her at the unexpected request. She removed her shawl, her gloves and bonnet, and draped them all onto the bed in an organized manner, the idea of painting something for him making her feel more at ease.

Gathering her skirts from around her slippered feet, she walked toward him. She edged in beside him, grazing a hand across the large blank canvas. “What would you like me to paint?”

His husky features stilled, his skin visibly flushed. “Us naked. In an embrace.”

Her hand drifted away from the canvas. Why was she not surprised? “Before or after we…?”

He searched her face. “After. You can’t very well paint what you don’t know.” He shifted his jaw and edged his entire body closer.

Spiced ginger nipped the air, warning her of what was about to come.

Her face grew unbearably hot knowing exactly what he wanted. After some intricate prodding, Mrs. Langley had
finally
gotten around to telling her what
really
went on between men and women. And it only made her more apprehensive. Because it was very involved.

Quickly turning, Clementine faced the canvas, giving him her back in an attempt to remain as blank as that canvas. “I was finally told more about what happens between men and women. Aside from what we discussed.”

His large hand slid down the sleeve of her arm, shifting the material of her gown. He now lingered from behind, the heat of his body penetrating hers as he pressed himself closer.

She closed her eyes and swallowed, listening to the rush of her own pulse. She touched his hand, stilling it against her arm and gripped it tight. She was fine. She would be fine.

The warmth of his masculine lips softly touched the exposed skin of her neck. Gently. As if to assure her that she was still very much in control.

Her pulse hitched. She swayed as his lips delicately wandered across the curve of her exposed neck, prodding her into a secret world she didn’t expect.

His tongue slid across her exposed shoulder, nudging away the lace around the trim of her gown as both of his hands slid down and around her waist. He gripped and bundled the material of her gown while still sliding his tongue back and forth, delicately tracing and teasing her skin.

Her head rolled back as the heat of his mouth and tongue overtook her ability to think. She finally knew what it was like to turn all of his fire-ridden words into reality. It was strangely beautiful. Far more beautiful than she ever expected.

The tip of his tongue slowly probed and traced and teased as his hands slid down to her corseted waist. Gripping her sides from behind, he ground his hips into her backside. His lower half was already rigid. She could feel his erection pushing through his robe and into her gown.

He sucked on her throat hard, taking skin in between his teeth.

She gasped, an astounding sensation rippling down the length of her entire body. It was too much. Everything about him was too much. He made her want to kneel to not only his passions but her own. The ones she had always tried to bury in fear of them turning her into something she didn’t want to be.

He dragged and rubbed his lower half against her even more, his breaths fanning her throat as he sucked her throat harder. She felt his hand stiffly jerk his erection a few times, bumping her backside as he groaned against her skin. His hands trailed their way up her back, digging into the fabric as if he had every intention of shredding it with his palms. He edged back and quickly unpinned and unlaced the material of her gown, his fingers pulling and tugging and stretching the satin away from her body with an intensity and fever that made her stagger. He worked his way, down, down through the lacings.

Her chest rose and fell in an effort to breathe knowing he was undressing her as if she were a doll. Her eyes snapped open at the thought. The blank white canvas mocked her, telling her nothing of what was about to happen next or what she was or wasn’t supposed to feel. All she knew was what she had always known whenever around him: she was too overwhelmed. Wasn’t that exactly what passion did? Erase one’s ability to breathe and think until the person became nothing but an animal reacting to its environment?

Turning toward him, she dragged in several breaths in a desperate effort to ease the unbearable sensation of being overwhelmed. “I can’t breathe.”

His rugged features stilled with need. “You’re not the only one.”

That didn’t lessen her panic. “I need to get used to this. Can we take this slower?”

His chest rose and fell. His erection protruded against the velvet fabric of his robe, angling toward her. He raked his hair back and said hoarsely, “Go sit on the bed and give me a moment.”