Promise Me Heaven (38 page)

What was going to happen now
? She cast about, looking for something to occupy her hands as she heard Thomas dismiss the maid. He strolled over to the hearth and stirred the embers. The room already seemed unaccountably warm.

Spying a piece of needlework lying on a chair, she snatched it up, plopping down and stabbing the needle into the silk stretched over the small hoop. She knew Thomas approached but kept her eyes firmly fixed on the brilliant threads. His proximity was like a physical sensation.

With sudden, startling accuracy, she remembered the exact feel of his skin, its fine-grained texture, the satiny warmth of the flesh sheathing the hard, unyielding muscles of his chest. Her cheeks burned.

“I did not know you numbered needlework amongst your accomplishments,” she heard him say.

She took a deep breath. She loved Thomas. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to kiss him and she wanted him to kiss her. And she wanted everything else that marriage meant.

“I don’t,” she answered decisively, letting the hoop to fall to her lap, the few uneven stitches she had poked into it glaringly obvious in the otherwise flawless pattern. “This must be the maid’s.”

Thomas smiled at her, obviously pleased by her honesty. “Cat, let me be unchivalrously frank. I know I told you I want our marriage to be a complete one.”

She nodded, her eyes riveted on his face.

“But I am not some randy sailor.” He teased her with the remarks she herself had used to provoke his embarrassment in Dieppe. Cat felt the corners of her mouth quirk in memory of her outrageous impersonation.

“I shall not force an intimacy on you when the first opportunity that presents itself.”

“You won’t?” she asked blankly.

He was all tenderness and consideration. “No, I won’t.”

He just stood there, smiling at her, while her own mind stumbled about blindly for a suitable response to his statement. Was she supposed to
thank him
, for God’s sake? He certainly looked as though he was expecting gratitude. But she didn’t feel thankful. She felt disappointed—No, she felt cheated!

“Oh,” she managed to mumble.

“I shall be more than happy to wait until you feel sufficiently accustomed to our marriage before we consummate it.”

“That’s good of you.”

“Not at all. I want you to be happy.”

“Oh.”

“I want you to be comfortable.”

“That’s nice.” He frowned, clearly not receiving the response he’d envisioned and it was just as clearly causing him some anxiety.

“I do not want you to feel you are being coerced.”

“I see.”

“You must tell me when you feel ready.” His frown deepened but he only bent down to press a chaste kiss on her forehead.

He turned from her, a peculiar smile pasted firmly on his devilishly handsome face. “I will send your maid to you directly.”

“I’m ready.”

He stopped. “I’m sure you are, m’dear. It’s been a long day. She’s probably just outside or downstairs. Perhaps Bob knows where she has gone—”

“No. I mean
I am ready
.”

Thomas turned, slowly releasing the handle of the door, disbelieving the meaning of her simple words. But her expression was serious, never more serious and it wrenched from him all of the half-truths he had built in order to contain his simple, essential need of her.

It was more than the longing to hear her voice, to keep her safe from anything and anyone threatening her happiness. It was more than just the hunger to be with her, talk to her, tease her, be instructed by her, debate with her. It was his heart’s final response to everything that had gone before. His wife.

In granting her a temporary reprieve, Thomas had hoped to accustom himself to the giddying fact that now he could touch her, be with her, whenever she allowed. Time, he trusted, would blunt the intensity of this physical craving.

But he had lied to her. No randy youth was as rife with urgency as he was right now. His hands shook as he came to her, placing two fingers slowly beneath her upturned chin to look into her candid gray-green eyes.

“Do you know what this entails?” he queried softly, afraid she would say no, afraid she would say yes.

“I lived on a country estate,” was the only answer she could manage. His eyes were so steady, so intense, even though his touch of her chin was the smallest whisper of callused fingertips, less than a caress.

He grinned at that. “Aye. But I am not a stud. You are no breeding mare.”

“I realize that.”

He reached down and captured her wrists, pulling her inexorably up until she stood before him, her eyes on a level with his tanned, strong throat.

“I would touch you.” He tried desperately to make the words sound debatable, knowing it was already beyond that.

“Yes.”

Dropping his hands lightly to her shoulders, he brushed his thumbs along the creamy column of her throat. His fingers cupped her delicately molded head, testing the sumptuous texture of her hair: cool and silky and thick. He indulged himself with the small pleasure of drawing the pins from her coiffure. Her tresses fell in a rippling mass over the backs of his hands. He had no words to tell her. No way to explain how he felt, how the feel of her was as frightening as though he had been given some priceless treasure and told to balance it on the head of a pin. Her breathing pattered against his throat, making him wonder if he was already alarming her.

“Turn around. Please.”

She looked at him questioningly, but did as he asked. Silently, he reached for the back of her ivory gown. His fingers felt unwieldy as he pushed each small hook from its clasp, slowly uncovering her slender back as the cloth slipped to her hips.

With a single knuckle, he followed the shallow valley of her spine. He reversed the sensuous journey with his fingertip, his breath coming unevenly as he traced the flare of her shoulder blade, the sweep of her rib, to the vale of her waist and gentle swell of her hip.

“My Lord, you are so lovely.”

She twisted, unaware her unlaced gown fell from her shoulders, gaping wide to reveal her tip-tilted breasts to his hungry eyes. He dropped his hands from her waist, freeing her, vexing her with his sudden withdrawal. But his eyes! She felt devoured by him, riveted by his scalding gaze.

Acting purely on instinct, she raised her arms, settling them around his broad shoulders. The quivering in his massive body increased, and her eyes widened.

She had no way of knowing how to go on from here. He was so near. The absence of his touch was nearly a physical discomfort.
Wanton
, whispered a voice within her, which she immediately ignored. She could not stop herself.

Her fingers fumbled with his cravat, and she tugged at it in frustration. “Can I? Please, I want…”

“Madam, I could teach lessons in hell on the subject of ‘want.’ ” Ruthlessly, he jerked the cloth from around his neck. The studs on his shirt burst open, and her eyes fell on his chest, the heavy planes of his muscles rising and falling in a harsh, deep rhythm. He shrugged out of his coat, tearing his shirt from his body and casting it to the floor. “Touch me. Merciful heaven, touch me!”

He was as superbly male as any statue of idealized virility she had ever seen. Everything about him bespoke mature strength, tempered and fine-honed, from the pale golden skin of his chest to the tanned flesh cloaking all of the hard sinew, tendon, and thew of him.

Her hands fluttered out, ungovernable in the need to feel his sleekness once more. He was as warm and densely plush as she remembered. With innocent luxury, she explored the mystery of his powerful male chest, sliding her fingertips to the long, hard bulges of his biceps.

He watched her study him, closed his eyes when he felt the first caress. Her touch was a benediction, a slow, barely endurable pleasure, scorching in its artlessness. He was confounded by desire and restraint. He had never before made love to a virgin. No, he thought, he had never before made love.

She laid her cheek gently upon his bare chest. The gesture was so luxuriously trusting, so intimate. She stroked her chin against his naked flesh, a sound like a purr trilling from deep within her throat. He was undone.

His touch was sin. Dark, dangerous, irresistible, impelling her toward pleasures she had never dreamed existed, let alone experienced. Luring her to give herself over to the deed, to relish it, savor it, embrace it, and follow it.

“Thomas.”

“Yes, my love. And yes. Yes.”

Her breasts tantalized him, their pink tips touching him briefly with each breath she inhaled. He cupped his palm high on her rib cage, on the silky vulnerability beneath her arms, his thumbs just brushing the heavy, full billow of her nether breast.

She made a sound like a sigh, and he trailed his hands lower and forward, gently cupping her breasts, testing their weight, their texture, the nearly imperceptible jiggle with each movement she made.

It was mind-destroyingly erotic, this intensely hesitant exploration of her. Moving his hands downward, he flattened them as he reached the shimmering slip of material draped low on her belly, crumpling the fabric in his fists, needing to slow down.

She pressed more fully against him, and he dragged the dress and underlying petticoat down, past the full, curved mounds of her buttocks, dropping the cloth so that she stood naked in a pool of lace, muslin, and silk. He spread his own legs, widening his stance, urging her closer, so he could more fully encompass her with his arms and thighs. He drew her softness and silky texture against him that he might feel her smooth belly beneath his hard one, her long, satiny thighs between his heavy ones.

Thomas cautioned himself to go slowly as her fingers slipped through his hair and she rubbed her cheek sensuously against him.

Cat hadn’t known a man could be so exquisitely gentle, so tender and measured. She felt precious, cherished by him. Never before had she been so aware of her own womanhood, of the dramatic difference between her curves and his planes, her softness and his hardness.

Raising her mouth to the strong pillar of his throat, Cat opened her lips ever so slightly against his hot skin to explore the rasping slant of his beard-stubbled jaw. She relished the salty taste of him, the warm, unmistakably male scent of him.

As if in a dream, she felt him bend down and swing her easily up into his arms. Awash in drowsy sensuality, she gazed up at him. His eyes were brilliant, black onyx rimmed by velvety brown.

He strode to the bed and deposited her there, following her down and bracing his forearms on either side of her. He did not say a word, his breath a quick, harsh sound close to her ear. He closed his eyes, the dark fringe of lashes lying upon his cheek. Slowly, he lowered his head, resting his forehead against her shoulder. She stroked the broad span of shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and slip beneath his skin. How exotically alien he was. How perfectly in proportion his breadth and depth and long, clean lines. How fascinating the ripple of muscles along his upper arm, the flexing of his back.

It was too much for Thomas. He felt her body quiescent beneath him, felt her hands on him, and he was lost in sensation. Reaching up, he bracketed her face with his hands and took her mouth. She opened for him, eagerly, instinctively. He answered her offer with his tongue, touching the warm, sleek interior of her mouth, then groaned, delving deeper.

His hands searched her arms, stroking her sides, catching the jut of her hipbone, sliding upwards to the plump roundness of her breast. He found her nipple, a hard pebble, and let go her mouth. She tried to pull his head back down but he slid his lips across her collarbone, nipping the elegant line, trailing down to her breast and opened his mouth over her nipple. Delicately, he sucked in the hardened bud. She gasped and arched beneath him, her hands fluttering over him.

Languor died instantly. The deep pulls at her breast were a too intense, ravishing stimulation. Writhing, Cat sought to escape, but his tongue and mouth promised too much, and instead she pulled his dark head hard to her breast, seeking to find where such carnal pleasure could lead.

Thomas tried to pace himself, to go deep within and distance himself from the act, but it was too overpowering, his fulfillment too imminent. He was in danger of overwhelming her. Nothing had ever compelled him like this. Nothing in his many joinings had prepared him for this. His desire had a life of its own, an incendiary, scalding imperative. He licked the satin curves of her body, the shadowed contours and gleaming swells, the velvety stroke of her flesh against him an urgent, driving force.

“Cat,” he whispered, laying his fingers against the down-covered mound between her legs. She moaned at that brief touch, her head swinging fretfully, her hands still on his body, still touching him, still moving with torturous fascination over him.

Sliding his hand between their bodies, Thomas found the silky curls. Parting her with a single finger, he found her sleek and damp.

She arched, the movement causing his finger to enter her more deeply. Thomas lifted his head to find her silver-green eyes upon him. Confusion and eroticism and trust mingled on her flushed face. Her mouth was parted, her breath shallow and uneven.