God, she was beautiful. Reeve wondered if she had any idea how stunned he was by his own desire. By the way her robe pulled taut over her untethered breasts, the way they jutted high and full against the strain of sumptuous fabric. How the slight lift of one knee caused the overlap of her robe to slide open so only her thin nightrail covered the gentle rounding of hip and thigh. The way she looked with such yearning toward the evening sky and scattering of distant stars, wistfulness softening her features, moonlight gleamed pearlescent upon the sweet curve of her cheek and sleek line of her bared throat—by the time he remembered to breathe, his chest was clogged tight and aching with want. He released it in a gust as shaky as his will.
Afraid she’d catch him gawking down at her like a lovesick pup, Reeve sat himself beside her, then lay back to pillow his head atop laced hands. Easier to keep them out of trouble that way. While Patrice lounged next to him as languorous and mellow as warmed custard, he was strung taut as a rope around the neck of a wild horse. Only one thing could fulfill him, and he was as scared of frightening her with the forceful demands of his body as he was of her rejection. It was hell to be so close and not touch. Torture to hear her soft breathing and not swallow it up with an urgent kiss. The self-control it took just to lie there shook like a fever chill to the bone. She made that airy sighing sound again, and he nearly groaned aloud with the struggle it took not to roll himself on top of her.
He could feel her studying him. He didn’t dare glance her way, certain she’d see the cauldron of need roiling red-hot all the way to his soul.
“Reeve?”
“Hmmm?”
“You are a good listener. I’d forgotten how easy it’s always been to tell you anything because you don’t push your own opinions and you never judge. I’ve missed our talks.”
He went completely still, muscles tensed. He jumped at the light touch of her fingertips beneath his chin, refusing to look at her until she caught his face in the vee of her hand and angled his head toward her. Then he opened his eyes, wary, ready to leap away at the first sign of weakening.
And then she struck his will a shattering blow by saying softly, soberly, “I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?”
He was afraid she’d take that as a challenge, but
hostility never surfaced. Instead, she edged closer to rest her head upon his arm. He froze, not daring to pull away because he could guess how long it had taken her to reach this juncture, to speak with such openness, such trust.
“We parted badly when you went off to war, and I was so afraid I’d never have the chance to tell you how sorry I was about that.”
“ ‘Trice—”
She shook her head in a silent plea for him not to stop her. “I didn’t know how to treat you when you came home. I was so relieved and, at the same time, so damned mad. It was easier to stay mad than to say I was sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
She rolled onto her back, but not before he glimpsed the depth of anguish in her eyes. He knew then she was ready to speak about the subject they’d kept silent between them. It was Jonah. But she didn’t tell him more. Instead, her lips curved with a poignant smile.
“Remember how the three of us used to sneak out here to watch the stars?”
“I remember.” He shifted slightly, twisting his arm around so that she rested within its easy loop. An instinctive gesture though not the wisest. It brought him up onto his side so he looked down upon his every dream. “And the two of us.”
I’ll love you until the day I die, Reeve Garrett
She’d said that to him here, on such a night as this one.
Her smile grew even more melancholy. “And my birthday when you made me cry because you wouldn’t come inside and have cake with everyone else.”
He remembered the scald of those eight-year-old’s
tears and how pride prevented him from telling her that her father had forbidden him to follow the other children into the Manor. He’d understood even at that young age even though she hadn’t; one’s servants were allowed to romp in the yard, but were not guests to be invited within the home. He hadn’t told her the truth then because he wanted to protect himself. He didn’t tell her now because he wanted to protect her.
“How could you have missed me with all those other boys trying to steal kisses?” He tried to lightened her mood with teasing but her features remained solemn.
“You were the only one I let kiss me, Reeve. Why didn’t you come inside?” The emotion behind that question went far deeper than an eight-year-old’s disappointment. Her eyes darkened. “I was afraid it was because you didn’t like me.”
Finally, he was able to say, “I was afraid I’d like you too much.”
She gazed up at him, stars shining in her eyes. “What about our kisses?”
“What about them?”
“Were you afraid you’d like them too much, too?” she clarified in a whisper.
How could he taunt her when such naked vulnerability glistened in her eyes?
“Too much not to want more of them.”
Her lips parted as his callused fingers skimmed her cheek. He breathed in her soft gasp of anticipation as his mouth lowered, closing over hers. Ah, the sweetness he found there. He was drunk with her taste, her nearness. Intoxicated by the willing way she invited him inside with the timid touch of her tongue to his. Her fingernails rasped against his
stubbled jaw as she reached for the back of his head. Drawing him closer, half over her in her eagerness, drawing on his mouth as if his each breath provided the sustenance of life.
Patrice closed her mind to thought and concentrated just on feeling. Too much thinking, too much rationalizing, kept her from reaching for this particular paradise the moment he’d come home. Worrying that he’d reject her. Fear over what people would say. Wondering if her motives were ones of true passion or a rebellious response to her father’s restricting rule. She matched Reeve kiss for kiss, swept away by glorious expectations fully met, giving herself over to the desperate arousal always rumbling between them. The raspy sound of his rough palms snagging over the silk of her gown was enough to incite an anxious trembling, a fear that if he stopped now, she would go out of her mind with want. He didn’t stop, and she moaned against his mouth as he captured her breast beneath the spread of his hand.
He wasn’t gentle, but that was all right. Patrice didn’t want gentle, she wanted the thrill of his impatience, his urgency, the raw, unfettered proof of his desire for her. He kissed her hard, bruising her lips beneath the slanting pressure of his own, his tongue plunging deep to conquer. Harsh stubble abraded her skin with a wildly erotic prickling as his mouth scrubbed down the taut arch of her throat toward the tender mound he’d been shaping with the strong rhythmic flex of his fingers. First, she felt the moist heat of his ragged breaths scorching through the bodice of her gown. Her nipples beaded with unbearable sensation. Then his mouth fastened upon one turgid peak, sending hot tremors
streaking through her. It was too much, too intense. Her head rolled wildly side to side, the clean scent of crushed grasses filling her nose. Her legs shifted restlessly, encouraging him to settle hard and heavy between them. He rocked into her, prodding her thigh with the exciting and alarmingly large evidence of his need.
He took her mouth again, groaning her name in a hoarse, thick voice she would never have recognized. The sound provoked an even greater urgency. Her palms pushed over his tense shoulders, rubbing hard, pressing him into her so that her breasts flattened beneath the solid wall of his chest, pinning her, dominating her with his weight. As she yanked at the back of his shirt to free it from his trouser band, his hand slid down between them, his caress insistent, seeking, tunneling within the wrap of her silk gown between the juncture of her thighs until he discovered the heat and startling dampness the thin fabric couldn’t hide, pressing into it until she gasped and strained against him. Helplessly, she cried out his name.
The sound of her voice was the shock it took to awake her to the reality of what he was doing. Abruptly, she pushed away from him, dropping him over onto his back. Stunned by her own willingness to surrender up more than kisses, Patrice closed her eyes, her breath laboring against the tide of runaway passions.
“I’m sorry, ‘Trice. It didn’t mean for it to be more than talking.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault, too.” She took a shaky breath and confessed. “I wanted it to be more than talking.”
He was silent, not knowing how to respond so she continued.
“It’s just that my heart and mind are so confused.”
“Because of me?” A brief pause, then a husky, “Or someone else?”
She looked at him them, admiring his strong profile, the hard set of his jaw, the rapid way his chest rocked with agitated breathing. “It’s not because I don’t want you … you’re the only man I’ve ever wanted. You know that.”
He glanced at her warily. “Is it Jonah?”
“Not everything has to do with what was between you and Jonah.” She smiled sadly. “It’s me, Reeve. I can’t give you the only thing that’s left for me to give. It wouldn’t be fair to my family … or me. I’ve lost everything else.”
“So,” he stated in an expressionless conclusion, “you’re going to let your family hold you for the highest bidder.”
She came up over him, her eyes ablaze with fierce sincerity.
“No. It’s my choice. And I’ll make it when I’m sure, when I’m thinking with my head instead of my—my—Oh, Reeve, I can’t think at all when I’m alone with you.”
He caught her beautiful, bewildered face between hands that were far from steady, pulling her down, claiming her lips with a kiss that went quickly from savage to aching sweet. He kissed her chin, the tip of her nose, her forehead, then he pushed her off of him. “Does that help you decide?”
The fire in her eyes told him with graphic clarity what she’d wanted. But she held to her resolve even as her palms pushed over the front of his shirt,
charting the firm terrain of his chest and shoulders. “Don’t confuse me, Reeve. I need time to sort through things. I—I need you to be my friend.”
Reeve smiled slightly as he pulled the gaping front of her robe together and retied her belt. “I’ve always been that. And more.” The throaty quality of his vow increased her frustration.
“I want to be more, Patrice.”
“Not now.”
“When?”
“Give me time. Why start something we may not be able to finish?” She pushed up off of him, wobbling to her feet, staring down in an almost panicked dismay at him in his untucked and all too inviting sprawl.
“Oh, we’ll finish. I promise you.” He gripped her wrist and tugged her down on top of him, rolling her beneath him to still her struggles. She gave up the fight as soon as he began to lower his head. Her lips parted to welcome the press of his, and the curl of her arms about his neck held him there longer than she’d planned. Long enough to be dangerous. He sat back, breathing hard.
“You don’t kiss like you want me for just a friend.”
Reeve’s smiled faded. “You have more to give than just the Sinclair name. What makes you think I hold any value there? It’s not the name I want.”
Her cheeks reddened, growing hot as she explained, “I wasn’t talking about the Sinclair name. I was talking about my virtue.”
His eyes narrowed into glittering slits. “What else is there to hold on to, Patrice, that Jonah hasn’t already taken?”
“Jonah? Where did you get such an idea?” Her
features tightened with hurt and annoyance as she surged to her feet, brushing the grass from her robe. “Jonah never so much as opened his mouth when he kissed me. He wanted to wait until we were wed out of respect for me and my family. He valued both my name and my virtue, Reeve Garrett. You apparently place little regard on either thing.”
Reeve was too surprised to try to stop her angry retreat back to the house. He lay there under the stars, slowly piecing together a truth that stunned him. He’d gotten the idea from Jonah, who’d told him flat out before he rode off in Union blue that he and Patrice were already lovers.
Reeve couldn’t believe it, even as understanding finally dawned. Aware of the attraction between his brother and Patrice, Jonah said the one thing that would keep him forever at a distance. A lie that sent him off to war with no hope of anything to return to. With the certainty that Patrice could never be his.
If he’d known that Patrice had given no more than her pledge to his brother, he would have fought their union to his very last breath, instead of letting Jonah have the woman he loved without a single protest.
He’d been tricked into a premature surrender.
Now he was ready to do all-out battle for the love of Patrice Sinclair.
Even bolstered by elation and a pint of whiskey, Tyler Fairfax hesitated before entering his family’s home. He knew the instant he opened the door that smell would come rolling out; sour mash, thick and strong enough to intoxicate just by inhaling. That stink permeated his every childhood memory, now
compounded by the old, stale odors of musty rooms too long without light or cleaning and the lingering decay of death. Taking a deep breath, he clenched his stomach muscles and stepped inside. The place was closed up like a tomb, and in a way, that’s what it was. Inside its dim, deteriorating walls, his father was dying by slow degrees.
“Daddy, where you at?”
He called out from habit. He’d learned early on that his daddy didn’t like unexpected intrusions. Especially when too often it meant surprising Cole Fairfax in the midst of diddling one of the terrified chambermaids. Those kinds of surprises were followed by a swift session in hell, not something he cared to invite if he could avoid it.
So even though he knew his invalid father was holed up in the men’s parlor room, which had been converted to his bedroom, he made the obligatory call before opening the double doors.
The space within reeked of disease and incontinence. Tyler couldn’t enter it sober without needing to retch. Since he was rarely sober these days, it wasn’t quite so hard to take. He forced a smile and walked into the heavy shadows.
“Heya, Daddy. How you feelin’ tonight?”