Cheryl Holt (17 page)

An alluring tear fell and slid down her cheek, and she swiped it away. “He scared me.”

A low grumble—whether of disgust or resignation, he wasn’t sure—erupted, and he snuggled her against his chest. The top of her head tucked neatly under his chin. Her rounded breasts, the two beaded nipples erect and alert, poked into his ribs. Her stomach gently cradled his phallus. Despite his recent exploits with Pamela, his body sizzled to attention, wild to dabble with a new partner.

He was a wretched excuse for a man! A detestable human being! She’d been tossed about, violated, and, even as he smelled of the sex he’d just had with another, he could only ponder what a precious carnal haven she would be.

At a previous time in his life, he could have promptly curbed his libidinous proclivities, but no longer. He was out of control, incapable of curbing his conduct, and he was afraid of what he might initiate. Not willing to risk alarming her further, or accomplishing something he oughtn’t, he set her away, putting plenty of space between them.

Not comprehending why he’d declined to render consolation, she gazed up at him, making him yearn to comfort and soothe, which was terrifying.

Never before had he been compelled to offer solace to a distraught female. The women with whom he typically consorted didn’t generate concern for their predicaments or woes. In contrast, he recognized Sarah as a dangerous adversary, for she instigated all manner of appalling sentiment, until he yearned to protect and revere, to treasure and nurture.

He didn’t want to be ensnared by her dilemma or problems, yet here he stood, rabid for the slightest excuse to furnish assistance.

What a precarious path he’d trod!

“It is the middle of the night.” He fought to remain calm. “Why were you out in the hall?” Lord help her if she’d been sneaking to an assignation with a lover. He really wasn’t certain what he might do if that was her response.

“I was looking for you.”

“Me?”
Again? Why on earth
. . . He bit off a curse. “I apprised you of the hazards of this house. Why didn’t you heed me?”

His temper flared, but he effectively reined himself in. Not intending to be acrimonious. Not planning to lambaste her with his furious comments. He’d just been so . . . so . . . bloody
frightened
when he’d seen the mess into which she’d stumbled, and he’d been deliriously and foolishly anxious to charge to her rescue.

“I didn’t mean to cause any bother,” she quietly declared. “I simply had to find you.”

“With all the blackguards residing under this roof!” He repressed a quiver of abhorrence. “What was so idiotically consequential?”

Glancing at her feet, she was suddenly shy and embarrassed. “I didn’t want you to keep your appointment.”

“What appointment?”

“The one scheduled for two o’clock in the hidden room where you . . . where you . . . dally with those women while
others spy on you.” Avoiding him, she went to the corner, untying her cloak and hanging it on a hook. Her back to him, her shoulders sagged. “I couldn’t stand for you to meet with another lover tonight. It seems terribly wrong. When you behave so, I fear for you; I really do. I had to stop you.”

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. She knew about the Viewing Room? Frantically, he tried to recollect his current misdeeds. In the preceding days, he’d cavorted there on at least a dozen occasions. Had she beheld every episode?

“How . . .” he sputtered.

“There’s a peephole. In my dressing room.”

Feeling ill, treading like an automated machine he’d once viewed at a museum, he walked to the smaller chamber, casting about to get his bearings. Then he noticed the footstool, the visible dark hole with its shaft of light shining through.

As opposed to Sarah who was shorter, he didn’t need the stool, and he toed it away, then flattened his eye against the opening. The room was empty, but a lamp still burned, the wick turned down. Barely breathing, he surveyed, letting the sordid surroundings register, remembering how he’d performed with the women who’d deigned to frolic.

The vista was tawdry, sleazy. What must Sarah have thought? He felt soiled, impure, unworthy to be in her company, yet in a daze, he blundered to her bedchamber. She was perched on the edge of the bed, patiently awaiting him, and though he’d resolved to keep his distance, declining to approach and sully her further, he couldn’t stay apart. He loitered at the foot of the bed, using one of the frame’s carved poles for balance.

What could he say to justify his actions? Why was an interpretation necessary? She was a stranger, an irritation, who’d been nothing but trouble from the minute he’d met her, so where did this overpowering desire spring from to mitigate and account?

He swallowed. Swallowed again. “How many times?”

“Three.”

“Oh, God . . .” He leaned against the bedpost and stared at the floor. Flushing, he felt the wave of heat flash in his nether extremities and fling upward. His cheeks were tinged red with unaccustomed chagrin and something else. Shame, perhaps. Or guilt. “I’m sorry you saw.”

“I’m sorry you were there!”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t, and you could never rationalize it for me.”

“I wouldn’t even try.”

He heard her arise, and he wished he could simply vaporize. Then she was directly confronting him, her skirts twirling about his legs, her body leaning into his. “Don’t go again. Promise me!”

“Sarah . . .”

“Is it a manly wanting? Is that the reason?”

“No . . . no . . .”

“Then, why?”

“I couldn’t begin to explain.” His focus flitted to the wall, the ceiling. Anywhere but into those shrewd, verdant eyes.

“You’re searching, and I’m not sure for what, but you won’t discover it in that room.”

“I’m not
searching
for anything.” He was just fervid to achieve some peace!

“Come to me, instead. Let me be the one to love you.”

Her unruffled entreaty obliged him to meet her gaze, and the intensity with which she regarded him was acute. “I’ve advised you before that there can never be a relationship between us. We’ve a strong physical attraction, you and I, and—”

“More than just physical.”

“Perhaps,” he ultimately allowed, the indications of their ardent connection too clear to deny. “But we dare not act on our impulses. We would be reckless to pursue such a passionate course.”

Her hand was on his chest, and he couldn’t locate the strength required to remove it. He was tempted to hug her
tightly, once more, but Pamela’s scent hovered over him, the evidence of his doomed moral character hanging about him like a damning cloud.

“You won’t be intimate with me. Why? Is it that you think you’re not respectable or reputable enough?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

Detecting what he hoped was a safe harbor, he gripped her waist, and she responded warmly, wrapping her arms around his back and distending herself so that their bodies melded. He cherished having her so near, even as he ordered himself to ignore her marvelous presence. “You are so fine, so rare, and what am I? A man without honor or scruple. You observed my true nature.”

“That’s not who you really are. I’ll never believe it.”

Then, she did the very worst thing he could possibly imagine. She tenderly kissed the middle of his chest, over the spot where his heart ached so intolerably, and he lurched away, her affectionate position agonizing to endure. Accusingly, she stared up at him.

“The scent of a woman is on me,” he mentioned baldly, constrained to display the extent of his failings. “I’ve just lain with another; I’ve just come from bedding her.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

“Then wash yourself; return to me.”

Oh, that he could obey her command! That he could have her in all the ways a man covets a woman! To his very marrow, he cried out to redeem himself in her arms, but how could he befoul her with his attentions when he thought her so extraordinary?

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t.” His rejection of her overture pricked painfully, like a stab from a sharp knife.

“You’ll dally with the others at the drop of a hat. Why not with me?”

“It is different with them.”

“
Different
how?” A hint of ire flared.

“They don’t matter. Not in the least.”

Skeptical, she chuckled disdainfully. “And you’re saying I’m important to you as they are not?”

“Aye.”

His admission shocked them both. He was fascinated and surprised that he’d reveal so much. She was dubious, distrusting of his motives, and she released him and slipped away. Immediately bereft without her, he was impelled to hasten after her, to hold her close where she definitely seemed to belong, but he restrained himself.

She went to the window and studied the night sky, and he fought the urge to talk, to join her. He suffered the strangest compulsion to beg her forgiveness for being the man he was, for not being more suitable or more worthy, but he couldn’t confess what was in his heart. Silenced by impossibilities and remorse, he was transfixed, powerless to make amends, incompetent to alter events. He could only impotently watch as she grappled with the quagmire in which his irresponsible conduct had landed them.

“I’m twenty-five years old,” she finally said. “I’ve never had a beau. Never been kissed, or strolled in the moonlight with a handsome swain. My family’s situation is a mess, so my future is very unsettled; I don’t know what the impending months will bring.”

At the veiled reference to her brother, he shifted uncomfortably but offered no comment. There was nothing to be gained by reviewing her wayward sibling.

“What are you implying?” he queried instead. “That your personal life is a muddle so you’d like to complicate it further by consorting with me?”

“No.” She turned to face him. “I’ m saying that I’ll be here for two more weeks, and then I journey home to odious alternatives and extreme choices”—she stalwartly mastered a wave of emotion that made her eyes glitter with what he suspected were unshed tears—“. . . and I am so desperately unhappy.”

“Oh, Sarah . . .” He couldn’t stand to hear her tragic disclosure,
or to witness her anguish, but he had little remedy to contribute.

“But you’re here, and I’m here, and something remarkable could ensue in the next fortnight. I feel it in my bones.”

She was correct, yet he lied. “Nothing good could ever come from a liaison between the two of us.”

“You’re only fooling yourself, Michael,” she unwaveringly asserted. “This affinity”—she gestured, indicating what couldn’t be put into words—“you sense it, too.”

“But I’m a grown man,” he indicated, “and just because I lust after you doesn’t mean I have to act upon it.”

“It is more than mere lust, and you know it.” She left the window and cautiously moved in his direction. “My entire blasted life, I’ve done precisely what was required of me, so this once, I’d like to reach out and seize some joy. I truly, truly would.”

“You won’t find any
joy
with me.”

Scrupulously, she assessed him. “You’re afraid to determine what it could be like.”

“No, not at all.”

“What is it, then?” She was growing angry, defensive.

“We’re drawn to one another, so I grasp how it would be. There are physical ways in which I would use your body.” Doggedly, he chided, “What I would take are gifts you should save for your husband.”

“But I never intend to marry,” she declared with a ringing finality. “So where does that leave me? Should I never learn of these secrets that transpire between a man and a woman? I admit that I’m selfish, and I crave some of your mysterious bodily titillation for myself. Should I deny myself this contentment?”

Michael was in agony. What man had ever been presented such an enticing feast? She was a mature virgin, primed and ready for sexual initiation. If he acceded, he could excite and stimulate her, teach and disclose to her the sexual methods he enjoyed. A devoted, zealous pupil,
she would wield her distinct skills with lethal precision for his exclusive benefit and delectation.

His weary spirit wept in anticipation of how much succor he would obtain. His cock swelled from conjecturing how it would be. Still, he valued her too much, treasured her too much.

“The fact remains that you are a maid.” He was reminding her—and himself.

“Your lovers”—she blushed, her chaste condition profusely apparent as she courageously forged ahead to discuss inappropriate carnal proceedings—“they do things to you with their hands and their mouths. You could instruct me.”

Peeking down at her slender, adept fingers, then back up to those lush, moist lips, he could conceive of her kneeling before him, stroking and cupping him, while her tongue imparted dazzling pleasure.

“I touched you in a forbidden manner, once before,” he pointed out. “You didn’t like it.”

“You’re mistaken. I loved it; I was simply overwhelmed.”

They’d gradually migrated across the floor until they were, once again, toe to toe. Her gown twisted around his legs, his boots dipped under the helm. Their frank conversation had elevated her pulse, her breathing was labored, her breasts toiled against her corset the outline of her nipples conspicuous against the bodice.

Vividly, he remembered every detail of those two breasts, the shape, the size, the color of the solid tips. How firm they’d been! How sweet they’d tasted! With a flick of his wrist, he could have her bared to suckle and play, taunt and tease. He could introduce her to sensual gratification and, in the process, seek his own, but he simply couldn’t behave so badly toward her.

He couldn’t commit a despicable offense against her. As an untried woman, she didn’t fathom the full implications of her proposition. If she was to bestow her virtue on some lucky fellow, he should hardly be the one. Practically any the
other gentleman of her acquaintance would be more deserving.

“You are curious. You’ve seen much that has your body eager and your mind intrigued.” He slipped his hands into hers, and he felt as if he was holding her protected and safe. “But this is not the place, and I am not the man with whom you should indulge these whims.”