Unraveling the Earl (31 page)

Desperate to bury his painfully hard cock in her heat, he
grasped her bottom and lifted her off her feet. Taking two strides, he dropped
her onto the chair and tossed her skirts up to bunch around her waist.

“You want me, my lord Henry,” she whispered, her voice
taunting him, daring him to deny it, as she squirmed about on the faded velvet,
her back arching and her hips slowly undulating.

Henry drew a stuttering, raspy breath into his lungs as he
took in the long, lean splendor that was Georgie spread out before him. Blue light
splashed across her face, forming shadows in the hollows of her cheeks and
beneath her winged brows, transforming her eyes to a deep, dark purple. Green
light fanned over the creamy expanse of flesh above the bodice of her gown,
fanned over her breasts rising and falling as she curled her back in blatant
invitation. Red light coasted over her hips, dipping into the hollows above and
beneath the two curling, jutting bones and blazing over the hair at the apex of
her thighs.

Capturing her gaze, he saw desire and something else,
simmering fury or desperation, perhaps even a touch of anguish. Whatever it
was, the gleam in her eyes combined with the soft smile drifting over her lips
laid waste to his meager store of control.

Henry dropped to his knees between her legs. Winding his
fingers through her listing coiffure, he liberated the remaining locks from
their pins and sent the mass of coils spiraling over her shoulders and down her
back.

Tipping her head back he swooped down to find her lips open
in anticipation of his kiss. She tangled her tongue around his, over and under
in a luxurious swirl that had him groaning as he fisted his hands in her hair,
pulling an answering moan from her that vibrated on his lips.

Delving deep and withdrawing only to dive deep once more, he
circled her tongue, curled around the sensitive underside, stroked the velvety
top, again and again. Georgie wrapped her arms around his back, fingers digging
into his shoulders, as she pressed her legs along his hips and thighs to coil
her feet around at the backs of his knees.

Henry dragged his hard length down over her mound and back
up again, parting her folds and finding her wet, so wondrously wet for him.

With a low moan that echoed around the room, Georgie broke
their ardent kiss and Henry opened his eyes to find her looking back at him,
her eyes dark and fierce in the indigo moonlight. Holding his gaze, she arched
against him, swiveling her hips and pressing her slick heat hard against his
shaft. With her hands gripping his back and her thighs tight against his hips,
she twisted and slithered against him from chest to groin, her breathy laughter
urging him onward.

He prodded the opening to her body, slid into her snug
sheath, giving her the engorged head of his cock, groaning when she raked her
nails down his back to grip his ass, squeezing and pulling in an attempt to
take him fully into her body.

“Fuck me, show me how you want me.” A plea, a demand,
accompanied with another rolling twist of her hips, her flesh tightening and
pulling at his cock.

Henry fell on her with a groan, took possession of her mouth
and drove his tongue deep as he thrust his cock, heavy and hard into her body
until he was so blessedly deep within he felt as if he were a part of her, a
missing piece of the puzzle that was Georgie Buchanan.

With one hand entangled in her spiraling tresses, he dragged
the other down her slender back to grasp her hip, his fingers spread across her
ass. He withdrew until only the tip of his cock remained in the tight clasp of
her pussy, tilted her hips, just so, and slammed back into her, grinding
against her folds, pressing against her clit. Georgie moaned into his mouth,
the sound carnal, hungry, desperate, a mirror to the lust burning, writhing
within him. Again and again, he thrust into her, pounding between her legs,
hammering into her body. Georgie met each thrust with wild abandon, her hips
rising, twisting in exquisite torture, taking him deep, and deeper still into
the silken heat of her body, until his orgasm loomed, dark and dangerous,
waiting to consume him.

“Come for me,” he ordered, a snarl of sound against her
lips.

Georgie trembled, her nails bit into his buttocks. “No.”

“Come, damn you.”

“Tell me…”

“I want you.”

“Tell me…tell…me,” she panted into his mouth. “You love me.”

“I love you,” Henry groaned, the words lost and found in the
kiss they’d not broken, the kiss that kept them tethered together as she
climaxed.

With her breasts flush against his chest, her belly pressed
to his, their breaths mingling and their lips and tongues stroking and
suckling, he experienced the release that swept through Georgie with his entire
being.

The tremors that began low in her belly and traveled
outward, down her long legs and deep into her core, clenching and clasping his
cock from head to base in a pulsing, spasming vise of soft, wet flesh.

The breath that stalled in her chest before puffing into his
mouth on an almost silent cry of surprise and wonder, the sound rising and
climbing, transforming into a shout of elation and satisfaction.

It might have been the exultant shout from a woman who’d
given him only laughter, it might have been the tight, milking clasp of her
cunny around his throbbing cock, that sent Henry over the edge into a release
so unbearably, blindingly, agonizingly sublime that he lost his wits
altogether, thrusting and lunging and lifting her clear off the throne as he
spilled inside her convulsing quim.

But somewhere amid his lost wits, his declaration rang out,
adding a heart wrenching beauty, an aching poignancy to their joining and he
knew he was doomed to love this damaged woman until the end of time.

Georgie Buchanan had the oddest sensation that she’d
forgotten something of paramount significance. Took a misstep on a curving
path, miscalculated a complicated mathematical equation, mistimed a nuanced
dance figure, misspoke an errant word in a speech of grave importance. Missed
something crucial, something with far-reaching consequences.

As the last tremors of her orgasm faded, she made a concerted
effort to sift through her feeble mind in search of whatever it was that she’d
forgotten, but her head seemed to be stuffed with wool, matted and gray,
unwashed and uncarded.

Clutching Henry’s heaving back, holding his furiously
beating heart to her breast and twisting a sweat-damp lock of his hair around
her finger, she attempted to blame both the queer sensation of having
overlooked something imperative and her fuzzy thoughts on post-coital bliss.

But only for a brief moment, no more than the time it took
for her lover to drag in a sawing breath and release it against her neck,
sending gooseflesh prickling down her limbs. She might lie to everyone around
her, sidestep and dance around until her toes went numb, but she rarely shied
away from facing her own truths.

She’d bungled things with the earl, mucked something up in
some inexplicable manner.

But she could fix it, make things right with her future
husband, just as soon as she realized where she’d gone wrong.

Georgie intended to marry the handsome earl. She did not
deserve him, not by a long shot, but she’d never allowed such sentimental
claptrap to stop her from getting what she most desired. And she was not about
to start now.

So she’d sent off the missive to the pretty newspaperman.
He’d not yet shared the tasty morsel with his readers. For once time was on her
side.

So Henry had been out of sorts upon realizing her previous
lovers included a debauched social climber with a penchant for pleasurable
punishment and a dissolute lord whose proclivities included the orchestration
of orgies.

Henry loved her, he’d said so, and he would not lie, never
mind she’d all but forced the admission from him.

Georgie had about as much experience with love as she had
with apologies. But surely, like apologies, love came from the heart and once
honestly and truly given, all was forgiven.

As soon as they’d regained their wits they would talk things
out, make up and laugh about all of it.

Afterward they would return to Alice’s Autumnal ball just in
time for Lord Somerton to announce their impending marriage. Tomorrow or the
following day the story would appear in the papers and Henry would bluster
about for a bit, but it would be too late for him to change his mind. He would
be honor-bound to marry her. After the wedding she could spend the rest of her
life endeavoring to deserve him.

And one day she would be riding along in her curricle,
thinking about nothing in particular and it would come to her, like a bolt of
lightning out of the clear blue sky, and she would laugh at whatever silly
misstep or miscalculation she’d made, secure in the knowledge that it had been
neither significant nor consequential.

“You’ve unraveled me, Georgie.”

Henry’s words were soft and just shy of rough and Georgie’s
eyes filled and her lips trembled around a smile. She might have told him she’d
fully enjoyed unraveling him only she had the sneaky suspicion she might burst
into tears if she attempted to speak.

As muddle-headed as she was, she found nothing strange in
the manner with which Henry took hold of her wrists and pulled her clinging
hands from his person. When he lurched away from her and lurched to standing,
yanking up his trousers and fumbling with the buttons, she only watched him,
entranced by the blue light drifting over his bent head and broad shoulders.

“By all that’s holy,” he muttered, straightening his jacket
with a sharp tug to the lapels. “In a fucking chapel.”

Georgie made no attempt to hold back a laugh. “I don’t think
this is a fucking chapel, so much as a storage room that once served as a
chapel that’s been fucked in.”

“On the pope’s throne, no less,” he continued, his fingers
plucking at his disheveled cravat.

Georgie slowly came to her feet, her skirts falling around
her as she turned to look at the chair. It was old and superbly crafted, carved
from one tree if she had to guess. The velvet cushion was worn and threadbare,
faded red or perhaps purple. It was difficult determine, what with the painted
moonlight streaming through the windows.

“A pope once sat in this chair?” she asked doubtfully. True
it was large and grand, but no grander than the chair in Killjoy’s great hall.
“Which one?”

“Alexander or Leopold or maybe one of the Medicis,” he
answered. “What difference does it make? It once belonged to a pope and I fucked
you on it.”

“I rather doubt he’ll mind, especially if he was one of the
Medicis, seeing as how they were a lecherous lot.”

“After I gave my word as a gentleman,” he grumbled.

“You gave your word to a dead pope?” she asked in confusion,
not entirely certain which of them was speaking in riddles.

“To your cousin.”

“Oh, well, Killjoy will care even less than the pope.”
Georgie left off examining the possible pope’s throne and turned to find Henry
frowning at her.

“I care.” He placed one hand over his heart. “I care that I
gave my word that I would not touch you again until after the wedding.”

“And you meant to hold to your word?” Perhaps she ought to
have kept the laughter from her voice, but surely he hadn’t truly intended to
remain celibate until their wedding. Why, if she’d been at home to receive him
even once in the last twelve, no thirteen days, they certainly would have been
up to a bit of mischief.

“My word is my vow and I am honor-bound to hold to it.”

“Oh, honor, yes now I see,” Georgie said, striving for a
serious tone, suspecting she’d failed miserably when Henry ran a hand through
is hair, tousling the already mussed curls.

“But you had to strip me of even that.” Henry turned away
and paced up the aisle nearly to the door before turning around to face her
once more.

“I stripped you of your honor?”

“Along with my sanity, my integrity and my self-control.” He
paced back toward her, the words pouring from him as if they’d been bottled up
too long. “And any sense of propriety and gentlemanly conduct I ever
possessed.”

Georgie realized, rather belatedly, that Henry was truly
distressed. No longer angry, exactly, but rather resigned and disheartened and
disappointed.

Georgie was shocked speechless, a rarity to be sure.

“And let us not forget honesty, chivalry, restraint, piety,
good humor, common sense and simple manners.”

Disillusioned.

Shock gave way to horror, washing through her, crashing over
her in waves, drowning her in regret and shame.

She’d been the cause of his disillusionment. She’d given him
reason to doubt his honor and integrity, and all the rest of the wondrously
rare and good qualities that made him the man she’d fallen in love with, the
man she’d only just realized she intended to marry.

“I didn’t…I couldn’t…you still possess all of that,” Georgie
whispered, her hands pressed to her belly, ineffectually trying to tamp down on
the queer fluttery sensation that started up again.

“I fucked you on a pope’s throne, in a chapel, for pity
sake.”

“But, it isn’t—”

“I tied you to your bed.”

“Yes, but only with a ribbon.” Somehow it seemed vastly
important Georgie make the distinction. Even with her thoughts muddled, it took
her only a moment to recognize her error.

“Not with velvet cuffs, you mean?” Henry demanded, advancing
until he stood looming over her. “Cuffs, ribbons, ropes, it makes no
difference. I bound your hands to the bloody bedpost. Christ, I struck you. I
pinned you to the wall and struck you.”

“In play,” she cried, desperate to defend what had in truth
been little more than a light tap, two.

Henry spun about and marched back down the aisle, pressed
his hands to the warped wood and bowed his head and Georgie’s heart
constricted, one hand rising to cover her mouth, to hold back the sob working
its way free of the mess brewing in her belly.

“In punishment for your disobedience.” Henry’s words were
spoken so softly she almost missed them in the quiet of the old chapel. She
wished she had missed them, wished she had let loose her anguish if only to
cover up the sound of his.

“It was a game,” she whispered against her fingertips.

“A game I enjoyed.” Henry slowly turned around and held up
his hand, looking at it as if it did not belong to him at all.

Georgie took two unsteady steps, decided that her legs might
not hold her and stopped, clutching the back of the nearest pew, the wood
smooth and cool, a startling counterpoint to the heated flush crawling up her
chest and traveling down her limbs.

“I watched that young couple grapple against the wall until
they’d reached completion and the sight aroused me,” he muttered. “Christ, I am
no better than Clive and Carlton.”

“Oh, Henry, you are nothing like them…not that they…that
what we…what I…coupling is an odd business…” Damn and blast, but she could not
find the words to soothe him, to make him understand that he,
they
had
done nothing wrong, or even out of the ordinary.

“Quirks and predilections,” he said with a shake of his
head, his voice a low rasp. “I never possessed such quirks and predilections
until you came along and introduced them to me. Was that it, then? Was simple
lovemaking not enough for you?”

“There is nothing simple about our lovemaking.” Georgie
forced her shaking legs to move toward him, using the pews for balance as the
room spun and lights flickered in her vision, red, blue and green. “It is more
complicated than any loving I’ve ever known, beautiful and honest and true. You
must believe that, if you believe nothing else I’ve ever said to you.”

“You’ve unraveled me, Georgie.”

His words took on new meaning, the pain in them glaringly
obvious to her now, when it was likely too late.

She’d taken the sweetest, kindest, most loyal and honorable
man she’d ever known and forcibly pried his eyes open. He’d been happy living
in a world where honor and truth and decency were more than just words. They
were a code of conduct, a moral map by which good men found their way about on
the twisting paths life presented.

She’d pushed him from that path, pushed him beyond that
comfortable life and he was no longer blissfully ignorant of the perils to be
found on the other side.

And she’d done it intentionally. Not with malice, never with
malice, but with a selfish desire to peel back the layers of the complex man,
part reluctant rake, part charming boy, to expose the hidden depths of his
passion.

“From the beginning you picked at the seams of my life,”
Henry continued relentlessly, his word jumbled, his voice a low, tortured rasp.
“You could not be satisfied with the cut of the cloth, you had to make an
adjustment here, tear away a stitch there, until I no longer fit in my own
skin.”

Georgie wanted to cover her ears so as not to hear his
words, cover her eyes so as not to witness his torment. She was powerless to do
either. Her limbs were heavy, weighed down by remorse and a terrible grief, her
eyes painfully dry and hot. Sorrow, vast and boundless, surrounded her, heating
her skin until moisture beaded on her brow and a trickle of perspiration
trailed down her spine.

“Christ, Georgie, why?” he demanded, whirling away to pace
before the door without waiting for a reply that would never come as she was
long past anything so simple as speech. “Since the moment I met you, you’ve
done nothing but play with me, with your lies and schemes and seductions, and
I’ve done nothing but pursue you, begging for more of the same.”

Georgie let out the breath she only just realized she was
holding and couldn’t catch another. Spots danced before her eyes and she
swayed.

“For two bloody months, you’ve led me on a merry chase. But
enough is enough.”

“No,” Georgie gasped. .

It wasn’t a misstep, or a miscalculation, or even a mistimed
move or a misspoken word.

It was all of that and more.

It was bad timing, worse luck and the worst possible
consequence imaginable.

Two bloody months.

Two cycles of the moon.

Two missed visits from Aunt Flo.

And a man who continued to rant, entirely unaware that a
bolt of lightning had just split her world in two.

“Oh, yes, Georgie, I’ve had more than enough. You’ve undone
me, turned me inside out, twisted my guts into knots and my heart into a
misshapen lump until I don’t even know who I am or what I’m about anymore. But
it ends now, tonight, by God.”

Henry stood framed by the old, warped door, his tawny curls
in disarray, his blue eyes shadowed, his jaw clamped tight. His chest rose and
fell, his nostril flared as he dragged in a breath, the low hiss the only sound
in the odd little room filled with shifting and overlapping jewel-toned light.

Georgie knew she ought to say something, anything before he
spoke the words that would forever alter both of their lives, the words she
could almost see forming on his lips as they parted, almost hear echoing off
the stone walls.

She had only to drop her hand and open her mouth and they
would come tumbling out. It hardly mattered what words she spoke, she had only to
give him one truth out of many.

I love you.

I’m truly sorry.

I’ll endeavor to deserve you.

I am carrying your babe.

Any one of the phrases would stop him from giving up on her
and walking away, abandoning her to a future without him.