Promise Me Heaven (39 page)

“Please… Thomas! Stop! No. Don’t. Please, I—”

He knew what she begged for, even if she did not. Here at last, his past could offer a boon. He stroked her, his finger pressed within her, his thumb circling with deep caresses the small, sleek nub pulsing between her nether lips.

Her eyes glazed. Her breathing became harsh. She clutched at him. He nipped the underside of her breast before closing over her nipple, drawing on it in counterpoint to the rhythm of his finger.

Cat couldn’t think. Twisting, her hips lifting and falling, she unconsciously sought the cadence of fulfillment. And the buildup of sensation swirling through her flesh, her breasts, centering where his thumb played, went on and on.

“Give yourself to me.” He breathed against her breast. “Surrender to it.”

Anything to end the torment, to take her up over the edge toward the culmination that tantalized her just beyond reach.

He slid down over her, his rock-hard body an agonizing slide against her sensitized skin.

He withdrew his hand, and she sobbed in frustration. She was beyond shame, beyond confusion. Arching to meet him, she pressed her hips forward in a quest for surcease.

Thomas felt her buck in her passionate search. Clasping her hips, he held her still as he pushed the heel of his hand hard against her mons. Suddenly she sobbed, bowing up, her legs straining rigidly, her hands clutching fistfuls of satin bed sheets, her head flung back. A sound like pain but more like pleasure, of both ecstasy and effort, rasped from between her lips, and she hung for a moment, impaled on the physical pinnacle of her climax. Slowly she wilted and fell back, panting shallowly.

He wondered if he could leave her now, limp and drained, while his own sex, stiff and distended, throbbed. Feeling the brush of her hand, Thomas looked up to see an expression of amazement in her green eyes.

“Kiss me.”

He needed no further encouragement. He devoured her lips with his own. “Want” was a living force now, rending his self-control to shreds. Her legs had fallen open, and he found himself cradled between them; he could feel her heat through the straining fabric of his pants.

Her hands roamed over him, down his ribs, touching with teasing hesitancy his buttocks then flowing up his back, urging him closer.

Thomas’s urgency was palpable. Cat recognized that the thing that had spurred her a short time ago now rode him. He wanted her with something akin to desperation. The controlled savagery of his passion was more stimulating to her than all that had gone before. Desire, so recently satisfied, erupted anew.

She felt an unfamiliar, hard bulge pressing against her sensitized mound. The flooding, building feeling would not be denied and she rubbed against the pleasuring hardness.

Thomas groaned.

Cat’s movements were devastating. Always in the past, women had been erotic partners. He would satisfy them because it increased his own enjoyment. But in the ultimate act of penetration, Thomas was removed, ultimately alone, going deep within himself.

With Cat…? With Cat, he could not forget for one instant that it was Cat’s satiny skin beneath him, Cat opening her mouth for him, Cat’s tongue meeting the thrust of his, Cat’s thighs spread to fit around his hips.

He sought the usual oblivion, thinking to cool his ardor by disassociating the act from the actors, thinking in this way he might not frighten her with the intensity of his desire. He could not do it.

He tried. God knows he tried, as he fumbled to release himself from his pants. But the brush of his knuckles against her downy curls was impossible to discount. It was Cat’s heat he lay against. He tried to slow his breathing, burrowing his face into the curve of her throat and shoulder, but it was Cat’s scent invading his sense, so musky, so replete with satisfaction, so female.

With a shaking hand, Thomas positioned himself between her thighs, easing himself into her, trying desperately to ignore the unmistakable frisson of fear on her face. But it
was
Cat. He could not ignore, not for one instant, the trust and desire and uncertainty he saw there. So he moved slowly but deeply into her, to her maidenhead and beyond…

He saw her eyes widen in surprise, a brief flicker of discomfort. He stopped, impaled by contradictory needs. Every muscle in his body trembled with restraint and hunger. Then her arms pulled him in and her teeth were sinking eagerly into his shoulder, and he knew with sudden awed certainty that Cat wanted this, too.

He drove deeply, slowly, within the tight, velvety embrace, joyfully aware that her small fear had died before it had fully lived.

He felt the thickening pleasure of it, the erotic pumping, the thrust and retreat. Grinding his teeth together, he felt her legs strain about his hips, taking them both to the flash point. He lifted his head, baring his teeth with the exquisite, driving sensuality of it. And so, his body pulsing, his thrusts culminating in a shattering release, finding he could not lose himself while making love to Cat, Thomas finally found himself.

Chapter 31

A
nd you shall allow me to turn the library into a sumptuous Oriental pagoda,” Cat said, catching Thomas’s hand in hers. “I will strew the floors with pillows, and hang stuffed, gilded cranes from the ceiling. I’ll have Bob affect a pigtail. Or maybe you.” She was flirting outrageously, a saucy gleam in her eye as she tugged at Thomas’s long hair.

As usual, he was confounded by the response her slightest touch elicited from him. Even here, in the circumspect confines of a fabric broker, in the full light of day, he felt his attraction grow. Gently, he replaced her hand on his forearm, safely adding the barrier of shirt and coat material between their skin At least, it
should
have been safe.

Cat frowned, disappointed he wouldn’t join in her play, hurt for a moment by the gentle, unvoiced rebuke before leaving him to join the Brighton merchant in exclaiming over his tables of brocade, satins, and silks.

Thomas felt like a satyr.

He had spent their wedding night cradling her love-dampened body close, watching her as she fell into deep, exhausted slumber. He had let his hand flow over her recumbent form, savoring the luxury of being able to do so, telling himself it was enough. Liar, his conscience had whispered, as excitement exploded amidst simple appreciation.

Thomas had thought he knew how keen a blade desire was. But this cut deeply and mercilessly, paring away the veneer of discipline he struggled to maintain. And he could not control it, could not bring peace to the hunger that burned in him. God knows, he tried. For the past ten days he had tried.

For, he told himself, though he had wed Cat, he had yet to win her. Promising himself he would woo her tenderly, he set out to gain her trust, her respect, and ultimately her love. He had to. Having given his own heart absolutely, he could be satisfied with nothing less in return.

He escorted her to the various places he thought would interest her. They discussed Mr. Coke’s progressive land practices, politics, economics. And during the day Thomas managed to disguise his craving, proving to himself he could be an undemanding suitor.

It was a temporary reprieve.

He appalled himself with his need of her. He would force himself to leave her after dinner, stalking the darkened streets of Brighton for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, before he would allow himself to return to her, striding with unseemly haste to her door, holding his breath as he waited. Would she welcome him as she had before? Would she greet him with that joyous smile, the shimmering, fully aware gaze of a lover? Could it happen again?

And each night had been a gift. Throughout the insufficient hours of darkness, Thomas made Cat burn for him as he burned for her, using every bit of his expertise to ignite within her the flames with which she so effortlessly seared him.

Cat strode back to him, a victorious expression on her face. “The shopkeeper has promised delivery within a fortnight. At
my
prices.”

“As always, m’dear, you drive a hard bargain,” Thomas replied, opening the door to the street and bowing politely as she passed, giving the gossip mongers no cause to turn their avid gaze on his self-possessed manner toward her. He could give Cat the days, as long as she allowed him the nights.

Cat twirled slowly in front of the mirror. Her new French maid, Annette, stood behind her, thin hands clasped, a smile of approval on her sharp-featured face.

“Madame looks
most
ravishing!”

“You think so?”

A soft rap alerted her to Thomas’s presence at the door between their rooms. He had made arrangements for the adjoining suites the day after their wedding. Cat had been delighted, eager to experience all the familiarities of marriage. She wanted to be allowed the intimacy of waking up and finding Thomas beside her, his long hair rumpled, the bleached white of the bed linen contrasting with the dark tan of his strong body.

Each night he came to her and she felt she would expire in his embrace. He called forth from her body a pleasure that was devastating in its intensity.

The hours became a timeless maelstrom of explicit gratification. And each culmination was only a precursor to the next until, tender and swollen with his possession, her muscles exhausted with tension and release, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

But each morning she awoke to find Thomas had left while she slept. Then, shortly after Annette had arrived to dress her, he would appear at her door, knocking softly, asking politely if he might enter. Thus began their days.

It was as though she had wed two different men. The daytime Thomas was controlled, amusing, reserved; the midnight Thomas was a hot-eyed lover who impelled her along the rapier-sharp crest of pleasure, demanding and spurring her to erotic action.

She had thought she knew Thomas. But in his role as her husband, he was nearly unrecognizable. And she felt awkward. She had always taken pride in her unblushing pragmatism, her hardheaded logic. But now she felt vulnerable. She was confused by his attitude and unwilling to broach the subject of his demeanor, at least until she felt surer of his feelings.

That he wanted her body was obvious. But did he
love
her?

Cat wanted that. She wanted that hot-eyed lover to come to her door in the day, convention be damned. She was certain that none of his other lovers had made Thomas forget himself, had been able to push him past his perfect self-containment. Cat wanted to do that, too. For, as much as she gloried in his body’s possession, she wanted his heart.

Just once she wished he would look at her with something other than considerate attention—damn society’s eye—and kiss her. Indeed, right now she’d be happy if he just would forswear knocking on the drat door every time he was about to enter.

She toyed with the idea of allowing him to stand there until he got tired enough to enter without asking her permission. Abandoning the notion, she sighed and called for him to come in.

She smiled in greeting until she saw his startled expression. “What is wrong?”

“Your outfit, m’dear,” Thomas said, “it is most… youthful.”

Doubtfully, Cat looked down at the heavy flounces of white muslin gathered in tiny satin rosettes. The high, conspicuously modest bodice was inset with a pristine section of palest pink lace. Long sleeves ended in the same. Rosebuds peeked out of her carefully controlled coiffure.

“You don’t like it.”

“It is very ingenuous.”

Cat wrinkled her nose. “In other words, you feel as though the curate’s lady has shown up in place of your wife.”

Thomas grinned.

“You are right, Thomas,” Cat said, answering his thoughts as accurately as if he’d spoken aloud, “We have given society enough entertainment without now offering them a comedy.” She turned to Annette. “I am sure your intentions are most laudable, Annette, but I am a married lady and cannot suddenly appear in a debutante’s getup. It would only excite untoward comment. The bottle green dress, please.”

Cat started to loosen the fastening at her neck.

“Would you like me to leave?”