Ruthless Charmer (42 page)

The groan was hers, she realized. Julian smiled lazily, shifting downward so that he might kiss the level plane of her belly as he shoved her chemise aside. Claudia moaned; her body was a raging inferno, her mind numb to all but his hands, his lips, his voice. This was nothing like she had ever experienced; all her burdens, all the darkness that had surrounded her for the last few weeks was gone, vanquished by his kiss and his touch, his whisper of love. She caught his head in her hands as he dipped between her legs, his breath and tongue skirting over the inferno blazing within her, then probing the core of her heat.

"Julian!" she choked, but he seemed not to hear her, too intent on laving her with excruciating deliberateness. The inferno was suddenly blazing out of control, raging through her limbs and her mind. He was relentless, the silkiness of his touch a stark contrast to the intensity of it. Claudia pulled anxiously at his hair as her hips began to move against him, meeting each rush of his tongue until suddenly everything went white. She was flying and sinking all at once, a cry of pleasure on her lips.

Groaning, Julian lifted his head and positioned himself between her legs. He stared down at her, his black eyes almost indistinguishable from the dark of the room as he lightly pressed the tip of his manhood against her sheath, pulsing with need, sending dangerous shocks of pleasure through her. The muscles in his arms bulged with the exertion of holding himself just above her; his lips skimmed the tip of her nose, her mouth. "I love you," he whispered, and with the slightest move of his hips, slipped inside her.

"Desperately so," he added breathlessly as he slid deeper. "And I always will." He paused, withdrew slowly, only to begin the maddening slide into her all over again. Lost in the pleasure he was giving her, Claudia moved beneath him, angling her hips so that he might reach the very center of her being. His hand covered hers, sprawled somewhere above her head, squeezing it tightly as his stroke began to lengthen and quicken. Deep into her he slid, drawn in like the tide, then ebbing out of her, only to swell and rush her again. The experience was staggering; Claudia could feel the roar inside her, as if the surf was actually pounding and pounding against her until she was suddenly plunging headlong into a pool of rapturous oblivion, bathing in wave after wave of pleasure all over again.

She rocked beneath him, flowing upward to meet his body's bearing into her. Her hands roamed his body, feeling the corded muscle of his neck, his back, and then the heavy sacs that swelled in her hand. Julian's breath came as a hiss between clenched teeth; his strokes were suddenly urgent, burrowing deeper into her until it seemed to her they were one body, one being, impossible to discern where one heart ended and the other began. Claudia could feel her body tighten around him as she experienced another shattering release into the dark, and as she lifted her hips to meet his powerful thrust, he tossed his head back and cried out, convulsing violently into her womb, giving over his life's blood.

With a final shudder, he lowered himself to his elbows, panting heavily, and touched his forehead to hers. Neither of them spoke. Claudia tenderly brushed damp hair from his temple, ran her fingers down the dewy skin covering the muscles of his arm, silently praying that this extraordinary moment would never end, that what had happened here would never ever leave her.

They remained that way, silently observing one another like two lovers, until the cold air began to chill them. Wordlessly, Julian left her to light a fire. He came back to the bed, pulled back the linens, and ordered her beneath them with a strong warning that she was to remain just there until he came back. Shoving into his trousers, he disappeared, returning a short time later in a long velvet dressing gown, carrying a tray of bread and cheese and wine. They feasted in her bed, whispering their love to one another, laughing softly about nothing and everything. And then Julian made love to her again, slowly and deliberately, prolonging the ecstasy until she thought she would go quite mad.

When he at last slept, he held her tightly in his arms as if he feared she would leave him while he slumbered. Burrowing into his side, Claudia closed her eyes, dreamily reliving each exceptional moment. Nothing had come between them tonight—it was as if they held the world at bay for a moment in time, and it had been the most wonderful moment of her life.

But as she drifted asleep, she felt the distant tug of reality on her conscience, the faint warning that it was an illusion, that it could never remain so sweet.

As his mind slowly began to cast off the veil of sleep, Julian reached for her, but found the bed empty. Forcing his eyes open, he pushed himself up to his elbows with a groggy harumph and looked around. Claudia was crouched in front of the hearth wrapped in his dressing gown, her hair wild and flowing down her back, poking at the dying embers of the fire he had left flaming a few hours ago.

"Come back to bed, my love. I will warm you," he said, yawning.

She flashed a smile at him over her shoulder. "The sun is up," she informed him, and continued poking at the embers.

Damn.

Still smiling, she stood up and carefully wiped her hands on the outer folds of his dressing gown. Julian beckoned her to him. "Come here," he said gruffly. She obeyed him, moving gracefully across a floor strewn with clothing and wine bottles and a tray of stale bread and hard cheese to sit on the edge of the bed. Julian came up on his elbow to nuzzle her neck.

Claudia giggled, squirming away from him. "That tickles," she pleaded.

Reluctantly, Julian lay back against the pillows, letting his hand slip inside the voluminous sleeve of his dressing gown and drift up the inside of her arm over skin that felt like silk. She seemed awfully pensive, he thought, especially after the night of extraordinary love-making they had shared. He himself was feeling rather randy at the moment. "What is it, Claudia?"

"Nothing!" she declared, a little too adamantly. She blushed immediately and looked down at her lap. "All right," she said slowly. "I will not pretend. Last night was
. . .
it was the most beautiful, wonderful thing that has ever happened to me."

His groin responded to that with a faint reverberation. "That, my darling, is an understatement," he said, and absently fingered the end of a long strand of her hair.

"And nothing will ever take it from us—"

"Or those nights yet to come," he murmured, chuckling softly when she turned an appealing shade of pink.

"It was
. . .
wonderful," she said again, absently plucking at the piping of the dressing gown.

A warning flagged in Julian's brain—he suddenly sat up, put one arm around her and with the other forced her to look at him. "But?"

"But_.__ . ._ but there is so much yet between us. . . and
. . .
and the world," she muttered miserably.

Panic. Small but certain, it was panic that made his stomach dip as if they had just encountered a rut in the road. "What do you mean?" he asked, trying hard to keep his voice even.

She dropped her gaze again, and he stared at the thick lashes fanning her cheeks. "Well . . . there is the matter of Sophie's running away, and . . . and the, ah, scandal. And my father's position with the king, which I must stress is paramount to all else in his mind," she said with a helpless glance to the ceiling.

"I don't care!" he said roughly. "I love you, Claudia. As long as I have you—as long as you love me, I don't give a damn what Redbourne or anyone else thinks."

She lifted her gaze to him, blue-gray eyes brimming with sorrow. "Oh, Julian," she whispered. "I do love you. More than my life, I swear it."

"All right, then!" he blustered, but the uneasiness in him was swelling. "What more is there to say? Come to bed now," he said, and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her head to his shoulder, unwilling to hear any more of her dangerous talk.

"But_.__ . ._ but eventually we must rise, and when we do, there is scandal and disgrace to be borne. And for me, I_. . ._" Her voice trailed off; she pressed her face into his shoulder.

"What?"

"I've lost all credibility," she mumbled helplessly.

The image of the house on Upper Moreland Street suddenly invaded his mind's eye and he realized that in the last weeks, as he had suffered through some of the darkest moments of his life, he had never once thought how it all affected Claudia. As he stroked her hair, he recalled the sense of wonder he had felt as he had walked through that little house, the burgeoning sense of pride. He thought of the dozens of drawings of a schoolhouse that littered her sitting room, the many little speeches he had heard her give at more than one supper party on the subject of girls' education. He had agreed with her to gain her attention, never really giving any thought to the cause itself. But those things had meant something to her, and he knew she was right—between the humiliation of their forced marriage and Sophie's ruination, she had no credibility.

Hell, even her own father would not keep her.

She sighed into his shoulder, and Julian turned his face to her, kissing her temple as his hand floated to the slender column of her neck. "It will be all right," he whispered, but the words sounded empty. Brushing the curls from her face, he kissed her cheek
. . .
he would give anything to put this to rights for her, anything to make it all right.

"It won't be all right—"

"It will," he insisted, cupping her face and staring down at her.

Claudia smiled tremulously. "It's the way of things, Julian."

She said it so calmly and with such innocent belief that his heart wrenched. "I will find a way to make it all right." He kissed her quickly, before she could see by the look in his eye that he had no idea how he would fix this, no idea at all.

They made love again, reaching another pinnacle of bliss together. But when Julian heard a stirring in the corridor, he reluctantly rose, knowing that he could not put off the inevitable and that he would, eventually, be forced to face the reality of their life, just as she had said, and all that had gone on between them.

In the days that followed it seemed that there was no going back to the moment in her darkened bedroom when she had fallen into his arms, finally surrendering to him. Oh, they made love just as fiercely and quite often, as if there was an unspoken need between them to make up for lost time. Claudia blossomed in his arms, allowing herself to experience the magic of love, returning his desire with a fervent passion of her own that suddenly knew no bounds. She delighted in his body, torturing him with light caresses and the tantalizing trace of her lips on every conceivable part of him. The climaxes they shared were marked by a furious intensity that left him reeling.

But he could not, no matter how hard he tried, recreate the same freedom or unfettered feeling of euphoria that there had been that night. Not with everything that weighed down on them.

For Julian, of course, it was the abominable task of seeking Sophie's divorce, and in the course of it, he learned firsthand how very contemptuous the ton as a whole could be. Men who had known his father acted as if they had never met him. Mothers who had once offered money, lands, and anything else they thought might entice him, now made their daughters walk in the other direction when he approached.

Julian didn't give a damn for himself, but he did for Ann, who, had it not been for her confinement, might have suffered the worst of it. And he gave a damn for Sophie. It would be a long time before she could return to England, if at all.

But it was Claudia who was suffering their downright abandonment.

He realized just how frightfully true it was when he found her going over her ledgers. Frowning, she tapped the pen against the page, unaware that he had entered the room. The moment she realized it, however, she quickly shut the book and shoved it away. When he asked, Claudia had waved her hand dismissively, insisting she was merely passing the time. He had dropped it, but much later, after she had left to call on Ann, he withdrew the books and had a look.

With the exception of the four debts he had called in on behalf of her school project, there had not been a single donation made in two months, in spite of the fact that she had gone out almost every day to call on potential benefactors. She never spoke of it, and tried to seem unaffected by it, but Julian could sense her deep disappointment. Moreover, the drawings of the school disappeared—one morning, as he passed her sitting room, he felt as if something was different, as if a chair or table had been moved. Then he realized that the dozens of drawings were gone.

He wondered about the house on Upper Moreland Street, recalling that Sophie had said that contributions were dwindling. But when he tried to talk to Claudia about it, she wouldn't discuss it, insisting it was nothing and pretending that it was not an important part of her life—an important part of her.

What Claudia did want to discuss was Sophie, which was not a topic Julian was very keen to resurrect. He did not like being reminded of Claudia's role in Sophie's downfall, and worse, privately he wasn't com-pletely certain he had forgiven her. He had forgotten it, certainly . . . but forgiven it? Yet she insisted, and one night, as they lay entwined in one another's arms, she forced the issue. Julian resisted as strongly as he could, but he was helpless against her soft voice and even softer lips. She pressed him until he was so very frustrated with her that he agreed yes, he was still angry and hurt by it.

Incredibly, Claudia had smiled. "At last, then!" she had exclaimed cheerfully, and in a sudden state of derangement, insisted that they speak of their respective feelings about what had happened, the reasons for their anger and distrust. He had done it for her, gritting his teeth and rolling his eyes quite frequently. But he had played along, listening to her ridiculous theory that he would have interceded and sent Sophie back to Stanwood, and the equally absurd notion that he was angry with her for doing what he had longed to do himself. Naturally, he argued with her, explaining to the little featherbrain the nonsense in her theories, and with a theatrical flare, even accepted her apology.