Everything Forbidden (18 page)

“Do you know what is in my blood?” she whispered. Her voice shook wildly.

He let her go, steadying her before he backed away. “No.”

“From my mother, I have manipulation and a mercenary desire for money and prestige. From my father, I have an out of control hunger for more and more. More of anything. Anything to fill him up.” She wiped at the tears that clung to her cheeks. “But I choose not to let their demons haunt me or control my life. I chose not to follow the paths they laid out for me with their actions.”

She moved toward him, reached for him. Her warm fingers closed around his forearm and her stare was pleading. “We
choose
, Ethan. You can choose to be whatever kind of man you want to be. And if you cared enough for me to give up all the others, you would. If you loved me, not just
wanted
to love me, then nothing else would matter.”

She released him and backed away. “But you don’t. It’s not anyone’s fault. It just is. But if we are speaking honestly to each other, then you must know. I do love you, Ethan.”

Her words, spoken so low, hit him as hard as a punch in a tavern brawl. His breath left him, his stomach twisted, he nearly doubled over in shock. “What?”

She smiled. “I know those aren’t words you want to hear, since you have convinced yourself of all love’s lesser qualities, but they’re true. I love you. It’s no one’s fault. It just is. The offer of marriage you are making to me is almost irresistible. I am so tempted to love you as long as you would let me. But if I did that, I’d curse us both. I couldn’t watch you spiral away from me in guilt because you knew your choices hurt me. And I couldn’t let my desire to save my family from ruin take away my soul. I don’t want that, for either of us.”

Miranda walked to the edge of the pond and looked toward the spot where she had been staring when he came. The place she said she secretly watched him all those years. Ethan couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He was still reeling from her declaration of love. It was still sinking into every pore, changing him beneath the skin.

But when he looked at her, he didn’t feel guilt or remorse or even panic. All he saw was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. All he felt was wanting.

“My sister says I’m selfish because I wanted passion over security. But she’s wrong.” Miranda let out a long sigh. “I am selfish because I want love over passion. And you won’t give me that. Perhaps you can’t. But either way, I can’t take the security in exchange for anything less. Perhaps I could from some other man, but not from you. Not from you.”

Ethan couldn’t look away. His emotions were there. He could feel them bubbling below the surface, but for now he had been shocked into numbness.

“So, you are saying no. You won’t become my mistress and you won’t marry me. You are determined to cut all ties with me,” he said, but the words seemed to come from some other, faraway voice.

She looked at him with the saddest smile he had ever seen. “I must. The other options are simply too painful. But I want one thing from you before we end this affair.”

“What?” he asked, his voice rough. “What more can you ask for after denying me everything?”

She stepped toward him and placed her palms on his chest. The heat from her touch rushed through him like an inferno.

Looking up, she whispered, “I want you to make love to me, here in this place where I learned so much about passion and desire and wanting.”

He shut his eyes as a groan escaped his lips. Even now, knowing she was telling him this would be the last time they touched, his body reacted so powerfully to her. Proof positive that everything he told her about his failings was true.

“Why?” he whispered, even as his mouth moved toward hers because he couldn’t control the kiss.

“Because I want the memory,” she said as she threaded her fingers through the short, crisp hair at the back of his neck. “Give me this last memory. Please.”

His mouth met hers in answer.

From the emotions that simmered in every fiber of Ethan’s being, Miranda expected his kiss to be rough, demanding, even punishing in its passion. But just as he had been surprising her for so long, he took her off guard yet again. He was gentle. His lips brushed hers, hardly touching her for a brief moment before the pressure increased.

He slipped his fingers into her hair and angled her face for better access. She let him lead her, surrendering everything she was, everything she’d ever wanted to a man who had already told her he couldn’t give her the one thing she needed in return. Tears flooded her eyes as his tongue breached her lips and swirled inside her mouth to taste her.

This was the last moment they would have together. That was the only thing she knew for certain. And Miranda was going to make it worth all the sacrifices. She was going to burn every
touch on her memory so that in the future she could relive this last time over and over. No matter what else happened in the lonely future.

She clutched his shoulders, reaching for more of his kiss, for all of his passion, but he held back, continuing the gentle exploration instead.

Her hair fell around his fingers, around her shoulders, a golden curtain that could protect them, at least for a moment, from the outside world. She allowed it to protect her, setting aside her heartbreak and worry so that the harsh emotions wouldn’t taint the experience.

Ethan let her go and stepped back. His eyes were wild, desperate, belying the utter control of his kiss. He looked at the grassy hill.

“Normally I’d have a blanket,” he said, his voice a gruff apology.

She smiled. “I know.”

His gaze caught hers, the wildness lingering beneath a veil of pain. “With you, it was different,” he said softly. “I know that isn’t enough, but it’s true.”

The tears she just fought off returned to Miranda’s eyes and she reached out to touch his arm. “It’s enough for now. For today.”

He stared at her for a long, silent moment, then shrugged out of his jacket. He laid it on the ground, spread wide open, then went to work on his cravat and shirt beneath.

“At least I can give you some protection,” he explained as he pulled the linen over his head.

Miranda stared, still mesmerized by the beautiful lines of his body. By the way his lean muscles worked beneath his skin with every motion. He spread the shirt out beside the jacket and then turned to her, eyes on fire with potent desire.

He reached out to feather his fingers along the ruffles at the neckline of her gown. Her eyes fluttered shut as his knuckles grazed her sensitive skin.

“Ethan,” she breathed, grasping at his bare arm to remain steady.

His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her against his warm, naked chest as he continued to caress her skin with featherlight touches that served to drive her mad. She lifted her mouth in mute offering, but he ignored that, staring intently at the way his fingers looked splayed out across the paleness of her skin and shabby fabric of her gown.

“Turn around,” he ordered, his voice husky.

She did so, unable to deny him anything when her body was craving his touch and her legs were shaking with anticipation. He cupped her arms, first sliding his palms up to her shoulders, then back to the little buttons that closed her gown. She arched, moving closer to him in a quiet demand that he strip her out of her clothing.

But he wouldn’t be pushed to do anything faster or differently than he seemed to have planned. Instead, he pushed her hair out of the way and pressed a warm kiss against her neck, just above her gown’s edging. Then another. Another.

Miranda let out a little cry. She’d never realized her back was so sensitive, but those gentle caresses lit her body on fire, sent
shock waves of wet heat through her to settle between her trembling legs. Ethan could have flipped her skirt up and had her right there with no resistance from her body.

In fact, that was what she wanted. But he wasn’t going to give her that. It was his final torment. This last time they came together wouldn’t be swift and passionate. It would be gentle and slow, like he wanted to linger over her.

He slipped one button free and parted the fabric to reveal just a tiny sliver of skin. His lips touched the top of her spine and Miranda lurched back. Her backside rubbed against his pelvis and she felt the hard, ready thrust of his cock against her cheeks. It was little consolation knowing he was just as needy as she was.

“You’ve made clear your demands already, Miranda,” he whispered as he slipped the next button loose and revealed more skin. “If this is to be the last time I touch you, then I have no intentions of rutting with you like some animal.”

Miranda couldn’t help a little moan at that image, but she stopped rubbing against him. The action didn’t relieve her desire in the least, in fact it only ratcheted up the overpowering need that he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to relieve.

The next button slipped loose and now he’d come to the top of her chemise rather than bare skin. He sighed as he kissed her through the thin fabric.

“I still say you deserve satin.” He pushed the last few buttons loose and kissed her to the very base of her spine. “Silk. I wish I could have seen you in them.”

Her breath caught at the longing in his voice. “But every time I wear that chemise,” she breathed, “I’ll think of you.”

A slap of emotion hit Ethan and his fingers faltered. This was
the
last
time he would ever touch Miranda. The concept choked him, but he pushed the unpleasantness aside. His hands slipped beneath her gown and he pushed. The fabric fell forward. Miranda did nothing to keep it from folding over her waist and she didn’t resist when Ethan pushed the gown over her hips. He pushed it away and turned her to face him.

“Your skin is finer than any satin,” he murmured before he dropped his mouth back to hers.

He felt her shiver as she opened to him. Her arms came around him and she clung so tightly, so hard. Like she didn’t want to let him go. But she was. Despite all his offers, she intended this to be the last time they would be together.

He hated it and his initial reaction was to take her hard and punishing. To make her come and come and come until she was weak beneath him. But beyond that anger, the one emotion he understood and didn’t completely shun, was something else. Something more powerful.

He wanted to let her feel that he did care for her. The only way he knew how. That he recognized it wasn’t enough, but that he would give her all he had before he did the unthinkable and let her go.

Miranda’s hips tilted, brushing his erection with a smooth, grinding motion. Damn, but she knew how to make him wild, even when he wanted control. He found the hem of her chemise and tugged, pulling it up and over her head with suddenly shaking hands.

Stepping back, he laid the thin fabric beside his discarded jacket and shirt, a makeshift blanket to protect her from the prickly grass.

Then he wrapped one arm around her back and one around her waist, cradling her as he dropped her down to lay across the discarded clothing. He took a place beside her and stared down at her blonde hair spread out against his dark jacket, bright eyes misty with emotion and desire. He drank in every detail, burning the image of her into his mind.

“The first time you saw me,” he murmured. “What was I doing?”

Her eyes darkened with a little flash of wickedness. Instead of answering, she parted her legs wide and beckoned to him. It didn’t take much coaxing for him to take a place between her thighs. She smiled as she placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed down.

He grinned as he began to kiss his way down her body, stroking his tongue over her nipples. They beaded as a soft breeze blew in over the lake and Miranda groaned, kneading his shoulders and urging him even lower.

Ethan rubbed his rough cheek against her flat stomach, darted his tongue into the indentation of her belly button, and then he settled between her legs. She brought her knees up and over his shoulders, spreading herself wide for their mutual pleasure.

He opened her with his thumbs and when a second breeze wafted over them, she twitched, her moans growing louder and merging with the far away chirping of the birds and sound of the water lapping against the shore of the pond.

When he brought his mouth down on her, the moans turned to a cry. She was already quaking by the second stroke of his tongue, her hips rising to meet his mouth and her sheath trem
bling and clenching. He sucked her clit and she burst honeyed sweetness over his tongue as she screamed out his name.

Miranda panted as her body’s trembling subsided. Here she was, living out the fantasies she’d painted in the shadowy darkness of her wooded hiding place. She was lying along the lake shore, being pleasured by Ethan. Like a wanton out in the open where anyone could stumble upon them.

It was everything she had ever imagined or hoped for, but it was also less satisfying than she had dreamed. Because it was a way to say goodbye. Somehow the consequences had never been part of her wicked fantasies.

They were most assuredly part of reality. Pleasure and pain, mixed together.

Ethan slid up her body and kissed her. She tasted the sweet essence of her release on his tongue and the hint of his desperation. It mimicked her own.

When he drew back, his stare was intense and focused. “I wish I’d known you were watching.”

She smiled. “I was afraid you would discover me, but also sometimes wished you would. I wondered what you’d do if you found me there, spying on you and being incredibly aroused by everything I shouldn’t see.”

He cupped her breast, stroking her sensitive nipples with his thumb. “What did you imagine I would do?”

“Send me away,” she gasped as pleasure lit through her body. “Or dominate me like you dominated all those other women.”

He chuckled. “Who’s to say I wouldn’t have let you take control?”

She looked up at him through cloudy vision. “No one controls you, Ethan. No one ever has.”

After he’d stared at her for a moment, he cupped her hips. He rolled to his back, dragging her with him, pulling her onto his body.

“Try,” he whispered as he cupped the back of her neck and brought her mouth down to his. She kissed him, reveling in the feel of his body beneath her, the hard thrust of his erection probing at her bare stomach through his trousers. She shifted, opening her legs and straddling his trim hips.

The kiss grew deeper, hotter and she couldn’t help but rock in time to the thrust of his tongue, whimpering as the apex of her thighs stroked over his rough wool breeches.

He slipped a hand between them, even as he pressed his lips to her throat and freed his erection. It sprang up between their bodies, hot and hard and ready.

Their eyes met, gazes holding. Ethan searched her stare and saw everything she had declared for him earlier. Her love. Her pain. Her loss. It awed him to think that a woman like this could give him so much. And he wished he was capable of giving her the same and so much more in return. But he knew himself too well. For now he cared for her, but in a month, a year…his cravings would be too overpowering.

But he could give her one thing now. The thing he had denied every other lover.

“Take the control, Miranda,” he whispered, grasping her hips and dragging her into a better position. She lifted up on her knees and the tip of his cock nudged at her wet sheath.

Her gaze never faltered as she eased down. His cock slipped
in, inch by slow and painful inch. She clenched around him in a wet, welcoming glove and he groaned out pleasure. He wanted to pull at her hips and drive her rhythm. He wanted to lift up and spear into her body until she cried out. But he’d offered control, so all he did was grit his teeth and let her do what she pleased.

She took him to the hilt, engulfing him in heat so pure and blazing that his vision blurred, but then came to a stop. She wiggled experimentally, growing accustomed to the new position and a yelp of pleasure pushed past his lips against his will.

“Ride,” he managed to grind out.
“Please.”

She smiled at the
please
and obliged him. Her hips bucked and she set a soft, rolling rhythm. When his fingers dug into her hips, she caught them with her hands and lifted them above his head, lacing their fingers together and holding them against the grassy ground.

Her movements became faster and her breath caught. He watched her face twist with pleasure, with power and his cock swelled even harder. He had always been so consumed with taking control over her, he’d never paused to witness how beautiful she was when she took control herself. She was like a goddess, writhing above him in ecstasy, driving him to the edge even as she careened toward madness herself.

A cry burst from her lips and her hips pumped harder, faster, pulling him along and milking his orgasm from him in a blinding burst of explosive heat and pleasure. He poured himself into her with a roar of release and she collapsed against his chest, pressing her mouth to his as their bodies merged one final time.

The breeze stirred Ethan’s hair and he opened his eyes. He looked around for Miranda, but he was alone. After their powerful joining, they had lain in the grass together, bodies entangled until he drifted into sleep. But sometime during his nap, she had gone.

Forever.

The reminder clenched like a fist around his heart. He sat up. She’d covered him with his wrinkled, grass-stained shirt and he tossed the linen away. He didn’t want the reminder of her anymore. Not when she was gone.

It shouldn’t hurt this much. Losing Miranda had been inevitable. He’d known it from the start. He’d been aware of it when he offered to be her protector and even her husband. But now the truth of the situation was like salt in a gaping wound.

Cursing, he swept up his clothing and began to dress. It was time to return to London. In the city, with the pleasures of women and friends and drink, he would forget the little innocent who had changed his world. The one who made him offer her things he vowed he would never share. The one who had refused anything less than the one thing he could not give her.