Couldn’t
promise, not wouldn’t.
Looking into his face, hard, unyielding, yet in the soft moonlight perhaps more revealing, she sensed for the first time that behind his confident, polished exterior lay someone with uncertainties, just like her.
What if he couldn’t promise because he didn’t know? Because, no more than she, was he sure of what lay between them, how it might evolve, what it might become?
What if she refused and walked away, and neither of them ever learned the answer?
She rose, all hesitation falling from her. Leaving the bench, she closed the distance between them; he watched her every step of the way, desire and more naked in his face. Drawing his hands from his pockets, he reached for her as she neared. She stopped only when her breasts brushed his chest.
For one moment, feeling his hands slide about her waist, feeling their heat seep through the shot silk, she gazed into his eyes…and found not the slightest change in his stance—no intention to seize, no inclination to step back. He was waiting on her—on her decision.
He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.
Reaching up, she set her hands on either side of the strong column of his throat, then eased them back; stretching up, she drew his head down to hers, drew his lips to hers, and fused them.
She kissed him, not the other way around, and he let her. Let her press her lips to his, slide her tongue between, and take, let her set the pace, let her explore. He followed, accepting all she gave, offering all she wished in return, angling his head to deepen the kiss when she urged him to do so.
It was intoxicating. To have him at her command, to have him metaphorically by her side, hand in hand, going forward into what she sensed was a landscape as mysterious to him as it was to her.
Desire, warm and now familiar, rose and washed through them, heating, welling, buoying.
Beckoning.
He dragged his lips from hers. In the shadowy light, from beneath heavy lids, their eyes met, held. One of his hands had risen to cradle her head; his other arm held her locked against him. “I don’t know where this will lead, but I want to follow the path on, with you.”
With the fingers of one hand, she traced his cheek. “Yes. I need to know, too.”
She sensed more than saw, felt more than knew, that he was no more in control of “this” than she; he wasn’t dictating it, wasn’t directing it—he was searching for answers, driven to it, as was she.
What lay between them was a shimmering temptation, both physical and emotional; he, too, could see it, and its promise, but the whole was as unknown to him as it was to her, and, it seemed, as confusing. With this, he was no more experienced than she.
That was a potent attraction—to know that if, in going forward, she was taking a risk, then so was he.
His breath brushed her lips and she yearned, not just for a kiss but for so much more.
“You know my decision.” Her voice was low, sultry, the siren he and only he evoked coloring her tone. Boldly, she pressed closer, lifting her lips to breathe over his, “Convince me I’m doing the right thing.”
She sensed his impulse to devour, to take her lips in a scorching kiss, but he refrained. Instead, from under heavy lids his eyes held hers as he raised his hands, sliding his palms slowly up until through the heavy silk he cupped her breasts, then his thumbs cruised knowingly over her ruched nipples.
Sensation lanced through her; a silent, tight gasp escaped her. For an instant he played, then he bent his head, took her lips in a long, lingering kiss, while with his hands, his strong fingers, he pandered to her senses.
When he eventually lifted his head, her body was aflame, senses stretched tight, nerves coiled, wanting. Waiting.
“I will.” In the weak light, she saw him grimace. “But not here, not now.”
She blinked, and returned to the real world, to the clearing by the pond. He was right. Not here, not now; they had to go back, had to thank their hosts and bid them farewell, had to journey home in the carriage with the others.
Her lips throbbed, her flesh ached with sweet anticipation. With one finger, she caressed the corner of his lips, then stepped back, out of his arms. “Later.”
She turned; together, they walked back to the house.
T
he waiting was going to kill him.
Gerrard paced before the windows in his bedchamber, and willed the minutes to tick by. He and Jacqueline had returned to the ballroom, behaved with appropriate decorum, then endured the journey home, opposite each other in the blessedly dark carriage.
Lord Tregonning had parted from them in the front hall. Jacqueline and her aunt had climbed the stairs. With Barnaby, he’d followed; turning his feet toward his room, not hers, had required considerable willpower.
He’d dismissed Compton; the house was slowly settling into slumber. Once it did, he would go to Jacqueline’s room.
How long should he give her to get rid of her maid?
Muttering a curse, he swung around and stalked to the hearth, staring—glaring—at the mantelpiece clock. Not enough minutes had elapsed.
He should have told her not to undress; a great deal of his fondness for her bronze silk sheath revolved about a vision of peeling it from her. He’d give a great deal for the chance to transform that vision to reality, but he doubted she’d realize—
Soft footsteps reached him. An instant later, his door opened and Jacqueline whisked in. She saw him, shut the door, and then she was flying to him—bronze silk sheath and all.
He caught her.
Wrapped his arms about her, lifted her from her feet, straight into an incendiary kiss.
Twining her arms about his neck, she parted her lips, surrendered her mouth, and sank against him.
Without thought, his hands shifted, one splaying over her back below her waist, angling her hips to his, the other rising to cradle her head, holding her steady so he could ravish her mouth.
No holds barred.
He’d warned her; now he could only marvel at his presentiment, for not in his wildest dreams had he imagined it would be like this.
Instant conflagration.
An immediate need more primitive than anything he’d felt before. He was a polished sophisticate, an experienced lover, yet she never seemed to connect with that side of him. The touch of her lips, the feel of her in his arms, the tentative, innocent trace of her fingers along his cheek, and he was lost to all sanity, all gentlemanly dictates, overwhelmed by an urgent and elemental need to make her his.
Totally.
As he’d warned her, completely. In every way.
Jacqueline sensed the passion in him, felt the barriers dissolve before its power, tasted its rapacious urgency on his lips, felt it in the flagrant possessiveness of his hands, of his body hard against hers. The thought of quailing before that elemental hunger never entered her head; instead she exulted, gloried in the knowledge she could provoke him to that, that she, her body, could be desired like that.
Beyond reason. Beyond all words. Where they now were, only deeds spoke, only actions had meaning.
His tongue dueled with hers; surrendering wholly to the moment, she clung to the passionately intense exchange. His hands shifted over her back, a minute later, her bodice loosened. He’d undone her laces.
She drew in a tight breath as his lips left hers; he skated kisses along her jaw, then nudged her head up, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot beneath her ear before dipping his head to follow the long line of her throat to where her pulse thudded at its base. He laved, lightly sucked; heat rose through her and spread in a melting wave beneath her skin.
Flushed, nerves coiling, she felt his palm slide, gliding over bronze silk to cup her breast. His fingers closed, kneaded provocatively, then rose to trace the neckline of her gown; she felt immeasurably grateful when he eased the heavy fabric down. Once clear of her breasts, the silk fell in folds to her waist. The tiny, off-the-shoulder sleeves were mere scraps of gauze across her upper arms. Sliding her arms free, she draped them over his shoulders.
She could barely breathe as he lifted his head and looked down. Her breasts were still screened by her filmy chemise, gathered just above them.
One tug, and the drawstring was loose. He hooked his fingers in the fine fabric and drew it down.
The room was filled with shadows; he hadn’t lit any lamps. Yet there was light enough for her to see his face, to make out his expression as he blatantly surveyed what he’d uncovered.
He’d seen her breasts before; she reminded herself of that, yet as, starved of breath, lungs inexorably tightening, she studied his face, she saw something far more potent than approval in the harsh planes.
Absorbed, he lifted his hand and cupped one breast, weighing, assessing, then he closed his fingers and kneaded knowingly, tightening her nerves still further, then he eased his hold and stroked, not simply observing but learning, as if the texture of her skin was a wonder, as if her tightly ruched nipple was worthy of his most earnest attention.
Enthrallment. She sensed, all but saw him fall under the spell—her spell, the fascination her body, it seemed, held for him.
She stood unmoving, watching him examine her; a feminine power unlike anything she’d known slowly welled within her.
A true sign, surely, that this was right. That this, here and now, was the way forward for her.
The joy swelling inside her assured her it was so.
He bent his head and pressed a hot kiss to the upper curve of one breast, and any thought of retreating, of doing anything other than going forward with abandon, slid from her mind. His lips trailed over her now aching and swollen flesh, then he took one tightly furled nipple into his mouth, and lightly suckled.
Then he feasted.
She gasped, let her head fall back. Eyes closed, she clutched his shoulders, then eased her fingers and slid them to his nape, then into the silky wonder of his hair, gripping tight as he pleasured her, thankful that his hard hand pressed to the small of her back held her to him, and kept her upright.
Her senses started to spin; a kaleidoscope of sensations buffeted her mind. There was an emotion in his touch that went far beyond wonder, that was more intense, more ruthless than simple desire, a driven passion that, innocent though she was, she recognized as possessiveness.
Gerrard was far beyond thinking, far beyond disguising his feelings or his intentions in any way. She’d come to him; that was all the agreement he needed, all the encouragement his demons required to slip their leashes and devour.
The only thing holding him back from summarily stripping her, laying her across the bed and sheathing himself in her softness, claiming her, branding her in the most primitive way, was a strange and novel merging of the two halves of himself. The demons of his maleness, driven by passion and rampant possessiveness, were, with her, being directed, not overridden but working in concert with the more subtle demands of his aesthetic mind.
She and only she had ever called to both.
While his demons still slavered, turning his every touch demanding, making every action a command, a seizing, no request, he was conscious of a greater fascination, of a need to go slowly, to fully explore and experience every shred of passion, of desire, that her surrendering herself to him evoked.
To wallow in the physical, to gorge on the sensual.
He was more educated than most in both.
When he finally drew his lips from her breasts, she was heated, urgent, driven beyond innocence to make demands of her own. He acquiesced to her tugs, shrugging out of his coat, first one arm, then the other, letting the garment fall unheeded to the floor. His waistcoat followed.
Her hands spread across his chest and he caught his breath, not so much from the touch itself as the urgency behind it. At the feminine desire he glimpsed in her eyes as she reached for his cravat, at the focus in her face as with unsteady hands she unraveled the folds, then drew the long linen strip away.
She dropped it, and stepped closer, eliminating the last inches between them as she boldly tugged his shirt from his waistband and slid her hands, small palms to bare skin, beneath. She touched, then spread her fingers and ran her hands up his chest. Leaning in, she lifted her face; he lowered his head and their lips met. Melded.
For long moments, he savored the taste of her escalating passion, sweet, hot, and exquisitely female. An evocative blend of the innocent and sultry, of untried promise.
His. All his.
His to educate, to awaken.
To possess.
Closing his arms around her, he slid one hand down, over her back, down over the curve of her hips, pushing the stiff silk lower, then down.
The gown fell to the floor, sinking about her feet, taking her chemise with it. He closed one hand over her bottom, drew her fully to him, and settled to explore. To arouse her still further. Tracing, fondling, he felt the dew of desire rise to his touch as he caressed the sweet curves, felt her initial shock drown beneath a wave of heated yearning.
Of increasingly urgent desire.