A Perfect Hero (16 page)

Sitting up, her heart lodged high in her throat,
she reached for the hem of her chemise. There

was a rustle of fabric as she bared her body.

And perhaps she bared her soul.

Holding herself utterly still, she felt his gaze pour over her skin, a slow, scorching appraisal that set her pulse all a-clamor. Beneath his un
bending regard, her breasts grew heavy and achy. There was fire in her blood, she decided hazily. A blaze in her heart.

There were reasons this shouldn’t be happen
ing, but none of them seemed to matter. She was offering herself to him. In some far-distant part of her, perhaps she was amazed. Stunned at her own daring. She didn’t care. This wasn’t London. They were alone. There was no one but the two of them. No one to please but themselves. No one to see. No one to care. No one to gossip in snide, hurtful ways. No one to whisper behind their hands and eye her in that sad, pitying way she had always detested. Here there was no one to
please
but herself.

No, the strictures of society had no place here. The rules were her own. The rules were
theirs
. Here with Dane, it was different.
She
was differ
ent. She trembled with a yearning unfulfilled. She wanted to know what she would never know oth
erwise. He made her feel strange. Daring. She al
most felt as if she didn’t recognize herself.

And she wanted to be bold. She longed to be
adventurous and uncaring, to give in to her de
sire, to be all those things she had never allowed herself to be.

And so she allowed herself no time to think. Indeed, thought suddenly seemed . . . superflu
ous, here in this cottage. Here with Dane. For when he touched her—when he kissed her!— time and space and the world itself eroded to nothingness. She felt ...so many things she’d never felt before! Alive as never before. Free as never before.

Dane had pushed himself to a sitting position as well. A lone fingertip traced a nerve-shattering path around the border of one nipple; almost ere she drew a tremulous breath, it was joined by the other. A tremor shot through her as the heat of his palms slid over her breasts, replacing his fin
gers. He played with the tips, the wispiest caress.

“Lovely, my sweet Julianna. Absolutely lovely.”

He murmured his praise, his voice exquisitely low and rich, almost as mesmerizing as the sight of his hands on her breasts, so lean and brown, intensely masculine. She was tingling, especially there at the tips of her breasts.

Suddenly he shifted. She couldn’t look away as he leaned forward and trapped her nipple in his mouth; his tongue circled an avid pattern, and he sucked hard like a babe hungry for milk. The sensation was unbearably sweet ...nay, nigh un
bearable. Feeling giddy, with a gasp she caught at the hardness of his shoulders. Everything inside went weak and utterly boneless. She was melting, she decided dimly, both inside and out. Of their own volition her hands fitted to the contours of his shoulders.

He caught her in his arms as she slid down, snaring her close. Her eyes were soft and dewy and dazed, as blue as a sunlit sky after a morning rain, an expression that only ignited the fires with him. His features twisted in a grimace that was part pain, part pleasure, he gritted his teeth, squarely in the middle between the throes of heaven and the blackest pits of hell. Her mouth hovered just beneath his, tempting . . . ah, so tempting! Her body, slim and lithe and naked, aroused him almost past bearing.

He should have let her be. He should never have touched her. Held her. For where the lovely Julianna was concerned, it seemed his self-control was almost nonexistent. Almost ...but not quite.

He wanted her. He wanted her so badly he was shaking. Not with fever. But with need. Want. Like an untried boy. A lad. A screaming desire clamored throughout every part of him. But espe
cially, there in the part of him he could not hide. He ached for her. More than anything, he wanted to curl her small hand around his burning flesh, feel her stroking, seeking. In his mind’s eye he
conjured up vivid, sensual images. Of Julianna above him. Astride him. Of him above her, her legs spread wide to receive him as he drove him
self home. The very thought made sweat pop out on his brow; his pulse raced apace with the throbbing of his staff. Yet if she touched him— sweet Lord, if she touched him, he would surely spill himself on the spot!

He could not contain the rampant desire that seized hold of his body, his every sense. Nor could he yield to it. Reason urged retreat. No, warned an insistent voice in his mind, he could not have her. He longed to plant himself deep. He ground away the thought. Nothing should hurt her. Nothing would, he concluded, including himself. But by God, he could please her. Plea
sure her without breaching her.

Almost desperately his mouth closed over hers. His kiss was half-wild, only barely under control, but she knew what he wanted. Her lips parted, open and avid beneath his. With a tiny little moan, her tongue sparred with his, a wantonly evocative rhythm. Both the sound and her warm, welcoming response spurred him over the edge.

A shudder ripped through him. His fingers skimmed the plane of her belly, pursuing a relent
less path downward. For one stark, breathless moment he paused, the heel of his hand resting possessively on the hollow of her belly, his finger
tips poised directly above her nest of chestnut
fleece. With unerring boldness he claimed her as his own, intent on seeing to her gratification.

She jerked when his first encompassing pass grazed pink, dewy folds, but she did not shrink; the second explored with unerring precision, parting each side of her silken pocket to search out the secret nub hidden deep within, so achingly sensitive she nearly cried out.

“Such soft, lovely curls,” he breathed against the corner of her mouth. “Part your legs, yes, that’s the way. Open to me, sweet, open
for
me. Oh, Julianna, sweet Julianna, you’re damp and so ready, aren’t you?”

With the very tips of his fingers he taunted and teased, his fingers toying with the gateway to her body, discovering plump, pliant flesh. It swelled to a delicious fullness; the glistening evidence of her passion bedewed his fingertips. Elation soared. Her shiver nearly obliterated his control. And then he dared still more.

His middle finger slid inside her.

In shock, her mouth opened against his.

“Shhh. My finger. That’s all.”

By slow, insidious degrees, it worked deeper. Higher, a sweeping invasion of her channel. Her inner walls clenched around his finger, even as her nails bit deep into his shoulders.

“Another,” he whispered.

And it was done.

She gasped, a sound of need. She was twisting
around it ...against him. Her flesh was tight. Wet. Both the realization and the feel of her tested his control to the utmost. Gently he plied her. Stroking. Seeking. Again and again, a tor
mentingly wicked rhythm, deeper and deeper, high and deep. And all the while his thumb con
tinued to ply its magic, circling the delicate nub, indulging in a wild, wanton rhythm of its own.

It was heated. Shattering. Almost frightening, for there was an explosive storm building inside her. Gathering strength until she felt she would fly apart inside. She could feel herself twisting. Writhing. Desperately searching, but for what ...
what?
Shaken, she tore her mouth from his.

His hot whisper rushed past her cheek. “It’s all right, sweet. It’s supposed to happen. Just
let
it happen. Don’t fight it.”

She didn’t. She couldn’t. And then it did... Her eyes squeezed shut. Her body convulsed, again and again, as molten waves of pleasure shot through her.

Her eyes opened, dazed and smoky. Dane’s mouth was on the arch of her neck. A feather
light kiss was pressed upon the peak of each breast. And then his body slid down ...ever downward. His mouth mapped a flaming trail across the hollow of her belly.

Warm fingertips grazed the back of her legs,
lifting—adjusting—until her knees were upright. Warm breath drizzled through her nether fleece; her own grew painfully shallow. His thumbs brushed across curls already damp from the wan
ton play of his fingers.

A stab of dark sensation shot through her. His promise echoed in her mind.
I want to touch you
...
Kiss you. Taste you with my tongue. Everywhere
...Everywhere.

Her mind balked. Her eyes widened. Her en
tire body went hot.

Oh, no, she thought vaguely.
No.

“Dane—” His name was a half-choked sound. Her fingers curled tightly around his where one hand splayed on the hollow of her belly. “You cannot. I . . . it cannot be proper!”

Slowly he raised his head, lifting burning eyes to hers. “Do you trust me, Julianna?” His voice was strangely thick.

She shouldn’t, she thought wildly. Yet she did. Every sense within her—all she knew of him— signaled that he was not a man without princi
ples. Without morals. Without conviction. And the feelings coursing through her...they couldn’t be shameful, could they?

“You know I do,” she said weakly.

“Then let me please you. Let me . . .” Turning his head, he kissed the inside of one slim white thigh.

She inhaled raggedly. “Dane,” she whispered helplessly. “You shouldn’t. Oh, God, you can’t. Not...there. Not
there
.”

The words dissolved into a moan. Her hands fluttered to the sheets. Her heart was pounding. She still could not believe that he would—

He did.

Her mind faltered. Her senses swarmed. Her throat locked. With the bulk of his shoulders he spread wide her trembling limbs.

A white-hot jolt went through her at his first brazenly intimate caress—a kiss so daringly ex
plicit her eyes squeezed shut. Her thighs weak
ened. Her knees drifted apart. She lay open to him, open and vulnerable, open to whatever he sought. Whatever he willed.

It came again, and again, the surge of his tongue nudging, delving full and high within her curls. Blistering heat shot through her. Oh, God, she was melting. Melting inside and out. Against him ...his mouth.

The lapping velvet of his tongue was blazingly erotic. A divine, lazy torment. Retreating. Ad
vancing, circling around and around the nugget of sensation centered deep within weeping pink folds.

Her breath emerged in a rush. She thrust her hips against him in a wanton frenzy.

“Please,” she moaned. “Oh, please.” She was
begging, seeking that exquisite pleasure once more. She was close. Tantalizingly close.

Her breathless cries pushed Dane nearer the edge. He savored each ragged breath, each des
perate gasp. Half-mad himself, at last he laid his tongue full against her cleft, her swollen core. It came then, all that he sought... all that she wanted. A sound that was half sob, half moan, and sheer bliss tore from her throat.

Spurred on by her scalding release, burying his head against her, he shuddered his own.

ulianna was still trembling when he settled her into his arms and covered them both with the blanket. Long, blessed moments passed before she was able to speak.

“My word,” she said faintly. “That was quite...quite...”

He levered himself up and to her side. His laugh was low and husky as he propped himself on an elbow. “Yes, it was quite that, wasn’t it?” he teased.

Vivid images still fluttered through her mind, starkly erotic. The brazen possession of his hand, dark and lean, straying down her belly, sliding over her thighs. Clamped between. The way she lay open to him. To his fingers. His mouth.

Later she would ask herself how she dared. For
now, she gathered every ounce of her courage. “Dane”—her tone was scarcely more than a breath—“why didn’t you—” Her gaze shied away. She stopped short.

“What? Come, out with it now, love.”

“Oh!” she cried, raising her head to glare at him. “You did not . . .
we
did not . . .”

He picked up a chestnut curl that streamed across his chest. “I find the prospect of you blushing all over an interesting one.”

What maddening audacity! Still, the need to know quested restlessly inside her. “Dane! You know very well what I mean!”

His brows shot high. He chuckled. “After what just passed between us,” he said almost lazily, “you should have no qualms about saying it.”

“Very well then! Why didn’t you make love to me?”

His smile waned. He gave her a long, slow look. “Oh, but I did,” he said very quietly. He tilted his head to the side and gazed down at her. “There is more than one way for a man and woman to make love, little one.”

“Yes, yes, but—”

“Ah.” He nodded sagely. “You are divining to tell me you know the how and why and
where
all the proper male and female body parts should connect, eh?”

“Yes, precisely so! And I’m quite aware that—”

He gave her a cool, thoughtful look. “Did I not please you?”

Her cheeks were flaming. “You know you did,” she blurted. “But what about you? You did not find—completion.”

He arched a brow. “Didn’t I?” he murmured.

Her eyes widened. She hid her face against his shoulder. In a way, Julianna realized, what he had done had been more intimate than if he’d been
in
side
her. And yet...“Dane,” she said, her voice half-stifled, “I thought that you would make love to me in—in the customary way.”

A smile lit his eyes. “The customary way?” he repeated, amused. “Oh, my, but you’ve a lot to learn.”

“Do not mock me! You didn’t ...and you could have—” She floundered. “—you could have, and I know you’re quite aware of it!”

His eyes flickered. He laid his fingers against the fiery heat of her cheek. “I wanted to. I wanted to more than anything.” He cast a rueful glance down his body. “I do believe the evidence was without question. God knows I could not hide it, could I?” He traced the line of her jaw. “You tempted me, Julianna. You tempted me almost past bearing. You tempt me still.”

Confusion roiled within her. “Then why—”

With his thumb and forefinger, he turned her face up to his. His expression was utterly grave.

“Listen to me, sweet. I care for you. I care for you more than is good for the both of us. And that is why I will not take what should belong to your husband.”

She stared. “What?”

“You don’t understand, do you?”

Her eyes clung to his. She shook her head.

Softly he spoke. “You, my lovely Julianna, are very much a lady. And I am not without scruples. Your virginity doesn’t belong to me. And how
ever much I am tempted—however much my body urges otherwise—I am not so selfish that I will take it.” He paused. “It should be given on your wedding night ...to the man who will be your husband.”

Julianna’s breath caught. Deliberately, she turned her face aside. “It’s you who doesn’t un
derstand.” She paused, trying to ignore the sud
den pinch in her heart. “I’ll never marry. Never.”

Dane made a sound. “Of course you will—”

“No,” she said tonelessly. “I won’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re fetching beyond measure. You’re young. Why the devil would you believe such a thing? Why would you even say it?”

The wisp of a smile crossed her lips, yet it seemed to hold a wealth of sadness.

“I will soon be eight-and-twenty. In Society’s eyes, I am on the shelf. I have accepted that I will have no husband. That I will bear no children.”

“Julianna,” he started to chide.

Her voice cut across his. “It is not by chance, but by choice.” Her gaze slipped away.

Dane wasn’t so sure. In the instant before she turned her face aside, her expression betrayed a far-different emotion in her eyes.

“That is not what you want,” he said immedi
ately.

“That is what must be.”

He frowned, watching in puzzlement as she dragged the sheet up over her nakedness. Why was she so adamant? he wondered. So certain? And what madness was this that she would resign herself to a life of solitude?

She looked no higher than his chin. “Do you re
member when you asked why I wasn’t married?”

He nodded.

Her voice, when at last it came, was so low he had to strain to hear. “I almost was—once.”

“When?”

“Four years ago.”

“You ended the engagement?”

An expression that might have been pain flit
ted across her features. “No,” she said in an odd voice. “He ended the wedding. Or more pre
cisely, he never appeared.”

Dane looked at her sharply. “What?”

She shrugged. Her attempt at a smile was valiant but an abysmal failure. Sensing how she’d
been hurt, he caught her hand in his; her fingers looked small and pale trapped within his. “What happened?”

“I had known Thomas for nearly three years. He asked me to marry him several times, but I wanted to wait. After the wretchedness of my parents’ marriage, I wanted both of us to be sure it was
right
,thatitwas what bothofuswanted. I was ecstatic. I wanted everything to be perfect. I’d always dreamed of being married at St. George’s in Hanover Square. And as I walked into the vestibule, my heart was singing. It was the happi
est day of my life, Dane, and I was so certain it was just the beginning ...The last thing I ex
pected was that Thomas would not appear. But I waited and waited. Everyone in the church began to turn and stare. And whisper...”

Dane’s heart went out to her, for she cringed with the memory.

“Yet even then I did not doubt Thomas. I was convinced an accident had kept him from me. But then his brother came, and I learned the truth. That Thomas had eloped to Gretna Green with another woman—Clarice Grey—the night before.”

Dane uttered a furious exclamation. “That blackguard!”

But Julianna was shaking her head. “He is a good man. Truly. He is kind and compassionate,
and perhaps that made it harder to understand, harder to accept. When they returned, Thomas came to see me, to explain. Clarice had come to him earlier in the day. She was carrying his child, you see. They’d known each other since child
hood. It was a moment of weakness, he said, for both of them. He could not abandon her, and so they eloped. We—we both cried, Dane, for he knew how he’d hurt me. I felt like a fool for trust
ing him, for trusting my feelings—my heart! I thought I knew him so well! But then I felt like I didn’t know him at all.

“I was so ashamed. Embarrassed. I hated the whispers, the stares, wherever I went. It was as if all of London knew. I wanted to hide from the world, and so I ran away to the Continent. I stayed for months. I was such a coward—”

“You are not a coward, Julianna. And I dare-say, most women would not be so forgiving.”

“Forgiving was easy. Understanding was not. I used to wonder...Perhaps I waited too long. Perhaps I should have agreed to marry him ear
lier. Perhaps he grew impatient. Perhaps I wasn’t pretty enough.”

Dane made a sound. “That is nonsense! You should hate him, but you don’t, do you?”

“I did for a time,” she admitted. “But Clarice was...
is
the mother of his child. It was only right that he marry her. His obligation, his duty was to them. He did the honorable thing. I re
spect his decision far more than if he had wed me knowing another woman carried his child.”

So she said. But Dane wasn’t so certain. For all her bravado, he sensed an elusive pain.

“You have no regrets? You do not wish you had married him?” Why it mattered, he didn’t know. It shouldn’t.

She hesitated. Her eyes avoided his.

An odd sensation gripped his chest. “You still love him, don’t you? You still love Thomas.”

Her gaze returned to his. Her lips parted. “No.
No!
But I miss what I will never have. I could never have married him knowing he betrayed me. I could never have married him knowing he had deserted Clarice. I could never countenance a man who lied to me. I would far rather be alone.”

He persisted. “What then? What are you thinking?”

She took a deep breath. “A year later,” she confided, her tone very low, “I was walking in the park. Thomas and Clarice were there. It was the first time I saw his baby, a boy. And I held him, his baby . . .
their
baby. I held him and I”—there was a tiny break in her voice—“I shouldn’t have.”

He toyed with her fingertips. “Why not?” he asked softly.

Her eyes squeezed shut. When they opened, they were dark and glistening. “I didn’t expect it to hurt. But it did, Dane. It hurt so much I could
have screamed aloud. And I’ll never forget, as I cradled him in my arms, but one thing went through my mind.”

He could almost feel the ache that battered her. “Tell me, sweet.”

“That he could have been mine. That he
should
have been mine. And it wasn’t that I wanted Thomas.” Sudden tears glazed her beautiful blue eyes. “It was just that my arms were so empty. They’ll always be empty.”

“You are a beautiful woman, Julianna. It’s not too late. You can still have babies—”

“No.
No
. I won’t marry a man who doesn’t love me, a man I don’t love! I—I’m content with my life. I have my family for companionship. I have a home in London, a lovely house in the country. My finances are assured. A woman need not have a husband to be happy. And I don’t want my child born out of duty. Out of obliga
tion. I’d rather my arms were empty than wed a man I cannot trust. And I’m not sure I can trust any man again! A husband should be faithful and true. But how will I know? How will I know?”

This last was a stricken cry full of anguish.

Understanding dawned in a flash. She said she was content with her life. But was she? He ad
mired her strength, her independence, her spirit, the way she had gone on with her life despite the shame and loss. But she refused to let herself love again. The experience had shattered her trust in
others. Her faith in herself, whether she knew it or not.