Pleasure and comfort in equal measure filled her as his arms came around her and his lips, soft and warm, touched hers. He wanted to kiss her. Her. And she wanted him to more than she had ever before wanted anything in her life. Instinctively, she parted her lips under his gentle demand.
"Juliet." He groaned her name as he claimed her mouth and pulled her tightly to him. She sensed he had, at last, stopped trying to control the hunger inside him. Hunger for her. His hands touched her where no other man had ever dared. His lips left hers to kiss her shoulders, her forehead, her neck, until she used her own hands to guide him back where she wanted him — his mouth against hers.
They might have stood there locked together in their embrace all night had the fireworks not blasted noisily and brightly over their heads. Simon and his guests celebrating summer.
Juliet did not mind that she had missed most of the display. She was enjoying the private fireworks R.J. Hopkins had set off inside her much too much to regret anything. For a moment, when he tried to break their kiss, she resisted. Gradually, however, she was unable to ignore the realization that they were outside, in full view of anyone who might wander far out into the gardens.
Without warning, he lifted her off her feet and brought her just inside the doorway, where they would no longer be visible. "We've missed the fireworks," he said, his breath ragged in her ear as he put her down.
He tried to push her away from him, but she resisted, sliding her arms around him, holding tight. "I don't think we have."
The heat of his hands burned through the thin lawn of her nightdress, and his whisper was a half-groan. "You are not even decently dressed. This is unwise." But his hands slid from her waist to her hip in a restless caress that urged her nearer even as he spoke.
Perhaps they were unwise. Yet surely not as much as their namesakes. "It is only a kiss. Nothing more." A kiss was not so shameful, was it? How would it be possible to ever regret this feeling?
"Just a kiss." She shivered at the feel of his lips trailing from her jaw to the cleft of her collarbone. He sighed against her neck, "Juliet, I'm afraid this is not just a kiss ... " He groaned softly once again. She could feel his struggle to control the hunger inside him. He raised his head to gaze at the moon, still visible through the half-open balcony doorway.
"Nonsense. What harm in one kiss?" Stretching on tiptoe, she took his head between her hands and brought his gaze back to her own. "Indeed, what harm in a dozen."
She allowed the fingertips of her right hand to trace along the tight line of his jaw. "Better yet, ask what pleasure to be found." She cupped her hands at the back of his neck and pulled him gently and surely down until he groaned again softly and brought his mouth down upon hers.
With a shudder of surrender, he deepened the kiss, demanding more than gentle acceptance. She responded willingly, slipping her hands beneath his jacket to run her fingers along the firm muscles of his back, evident through the fine lawn of his shirt.
He broke for a moment, leaning his forehead against hers and struggling to master his breathing enough to whisper, "I should not do this."
Should not? Who had the right to say that? He wanted this. She wanted this. This — she didn't even have a name for what she wanted. This thing that her sisters felt with their husbands. That had made her brother willing to die for his wife. She would not lose her chance now, not when she held the answer to the secret in her very grasp.
She could feel the distance he was trying to put between them like a shield. "I should go."
"Don't." She buried her face against his chest, pulled on the loose cravat, grabbed at the unfastened halves of his shirt. Had he unfastened the clasps, or had she in feverish mindlessness? How could any person be so consumed by feelings that the mind ceased to work properly?
He worried that jealous tongues would criticize. What did that matter when her whole being demanded that he continue? She tightened her arms on his shoulders. "If it eases your conscience, I should not want you to do this, yet I will die if you do not."
"Juliet. We can't." He gave a ragged, whispery laugh that made her shiver with want. "I can't. I am only a man. I can't keep you safe, not even from me. Not if we continue this." He felt as she did. His voice, as he said her name, told her so. It was truly madness. A magnificent madness. And he knew it as well as she did. So why did he fight so hard to deny the feeling?
She whispered, afraid if she spoke any louder, she would break the spell that held him to her. "Stay with me. Show me what passion truly is."
His laughter rumbled in his chest. She could feel the movement on her cheek, and she rubbed against him until he held her away. His eyes met hers. The hunger was still there, but caged. There was uncertainty in his whispered question. "What makes you think I know anything about passion?"
"These last days I saw the part of you that you have buried deep inside. I saw it tonight in your Romeo. I see it now, in you — Romeo."
She could feel him pull away. Not physically. No. He moved not a fraction of an inch from her in reality, and yet she felt she no longer touched him. He said gruffly, "Don't use that name."
"Why not?" She liked saying his name. "Romeo."
So much better a name than R.J. "It is your name." She repeated it, rolling the R sound. "Romeo."
"That cursed name was a mistake." His voice held a harsh note. As if he heard the sound and feared what it revealed, he added, more softly, "My mother was not the most sensible of creatures."
"Neither am I," she confessed, though at the moment she felt blessed by her lack of sense. Women with too much sense must never feel what she did now. "I want to know what passion is. I have never felt this strongly for any man before. My mind is whirling. My skin is all feeling and my heart so full that it could burst."
He seemed startled at her statement, his arms tensing under her fingers. "You have never felt this before?"
"Never," she assured him.
He touched his lips to hers, gently, without demand, as if testing them somehow. "You have been kissed before?"
"Many times." At her answer he moved away, this time physically. She protested. "What does that matter? I am tired of having the admiration of a dozen men who mean nothing to me. I don't want to kiss anyone else. I want you."
His gaze caught hers, and she could see he still had his hunger under control. Barely. "You don't know what you ask."
She would have argued but then thought better of it. He was a man disarmed by honesty. "No, I don't. So how can I judge what I want until you show me what it is I can have?"
He closed his eyes and stood very still. "Juliet — " She sensed the battle being waged inside him, but there was little to show how fiercely he fought on his tightly controlled surface. His jaw was clenched tight; his hands played along her shoulders and down her arms. After a moment, his hands came to rest upon her shoulders. "Perhaps you are right. Let me show you."
She expected that he would pull her close for a kiss.
But he did not. Instead, his hands moved to cup her breasts. She could not help the gasp of surprise that escaped her. No one had ever touched her breasts before, though some foolish men had tried, much to their regret.
She watched his face as his fingers stroked her breasts. The sensations that coursed through her somehow coursed through him as well. She had never guessed such pleasure existed from the simple touch of a man. Then again, she had never been touched by a man before when she wore only her nightdress.
He opened his eyes and gazed down at her. His thumbs brushed her nipples. His breathing had grown ragged once again. There was a storm in his eyes. A storm she had caused. "See what you ask? Now do you understand why this is not wise?"
Intuitively, she understood that the power she held over him at this moment was so strong that he would not leave her unless she directed him to. "Wisdom is sometimes overrated," she said, her mouth dry.
He closed his eyes, but his thumbs continued to incite the delicious sensation flooding through her. "I should go."
She said nothing.
He offered once more. "Ask me and I shall leave you here and now."
She could not. She would not. She closed her eyes and placed her hands over his where they cupped her breasts. She lifted one heavy hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb. "Don't go."
* * * * *
R.J. knew the moment he lost the battle with his good sense. Perhaps if she hadn't kissed his thumb, her lips warm, her breath against his palm ragged. Perhaps — Reason deserted him in a rush.
As if her words were all he needed to take the final plunge off the edge of sanity, he lifted her into his arms and carried her fully into the lamp-lit room. Her bed looked virginal, lace and silk and ruffles no man would allow. He sat her gently upon the counterpane.
Slowly, knowing that the only thing that could stop him now was her protest, he removed his jacket. His bedraggled cravat. His collar. He undid the studs in his shirt one by one, putting each neatly into the pocket of his jacket.
He made each action deliberate. He watched her eyes, certain that she would call a halt. When the last stud was removed, he thought he saw a flicker of doubt cross her face. "This is not wise," he forced himself to say.
"No, it is not," she agreed to his sharp disappointment. And then she rose from the bed and pushed his shirt down over his shoulders. It fell to the ground in a soundless crumple he did not bother to remedy as she began to undo the fastening on his trousers.
He must be dreaming. That was the only explanation for what was happening. R.J. fought against the urge to crush her to him, to make love to her with a savagery he had never known before. What had she done to him that he could ignore a lifetime of self control? He shuddered as her fingers brushed against him.
She looked up at him with a question in her eyes.
As he pushed down his trousers and carelessly left them behind, she turned and doused the lamp. The darkness surrounded them, pierced only partially by the moonlight from the balcony's open doorway. He welcomed the dreamlike air of moonlit darkness.
"Juliet ... " He could not have said whether he meant it as plea or protest.
But he rejoiced when she returned to him. Her fingers traced across his chest and said in a voice that vibrated with nascent passion, "I want to learn the shape of you in darkness tonight. The light saps my courage."
"And no wonder. The light reveals the truth. This is insanity."
"If it is, let us thank the moon for such wonderful madness." Her hands touched him gently, hesitantly, then more boldly.
He did not bring her to the bed at first, somehow believing she might still change her mind and stop this madness. For he could not. He would not. He stilled her questing exploration. Gently, slowly, he pulled the ribbons of her gown until the neck gaped loose enough to push from her shoulders just as she had pulled his unfastened shirt from him. He felt the gown brush his bare knees as it glided to the floor.
She pressed herself full against him, pulling back in momentary surprise when she felt the full measure of his desire for her. For this moon-driven, misbegotten dream she shared so generously with him.
Like a child with a new toy, she reached for him.
He sucked in a startled breath at the firm touch of her fingers. She laughed softly and continued her gentle, insistent caress.
For a moment he gave himself to the sensation. He copied her earlier actions, putting his own hands over hers and guiding her in the motions that gave him the most pleasure. To his chagrin she learned so quickly, he had no choice but to divert her or he risked disappointing her altogether.
He pulled her close and brought her hands up so that he could kiss each finger and the palm of each hand. At last, acknowledging that neither of them would call a halt, he lifted her into his arms and carried her the short distance to the bed. His arms shaking ever so slightly, he brought himself as gently as possible down upon her trembling body.
When she would have arched up into him and ended things between them, he pulled away from her to whisper, "Wait." The gift she offered him was too great for him to take it before she knew the full pleasure she had asked of him.
"I can't," she pleaded, moving restlessly against him. "I can't wait."
He stroked her gently. "You will not regret it, I promise." She moaned a soft protest but allowed him to explore every inch of her with his mouth, with his hands. And when he could feel that she was on the edge, he pushed her over with a brush of his thumb. The same thumb she had kissed so sweetly earlier. As she cried out in release, he stretched himself over her and joined with her in one swift motion.
His kisses muffled her cry of surprise, and then her kisses muffled his as she arched up to meet him and his control shattered into a thousand brightly colored lights. A fireworks of pleasure followed all too closely by a firestorm of regret as passion drained from him and reason flooded back.
"I had no idea . . ." She breathed into his ear. "Thank you, Mr. Hopkins ... thank you ... thank you ... "
He braced himself for the recriminations. For the tears. But all she did was press a kiss to his chest and arrange herself comfortably against him. He knew he should go now, before they were discovered together. But he could not leave her to face the aftermath alone. He must wait a little, until she realized what they had done. What the inevitable consequences of their actions were.
Incredibly, as he waited for the tears to come, her breathing became even and shallow. He shook her slightly, but she only moaned and burrowed against him more snugly. She had fallen asleep. Without a single tear. And she had thanked him.
As long as he lived, he would not forget that thank you. "Thank you, Mr. Hopkins." He held her close, pushing aside a burgeoning sadness to enjoy the feel of her, warm and sated, in his arms. Recriminations would wait until tomorrow. Regrets always waited patiently. But they would not disappear.