Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 (14 page)

“I know. That is what is giving me the courage now. After Helen was born I didn’t want to put you through childbirth again, but you persuaded me. This time I will not do it. Never, ever again.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“There is a chance. A very small chance, he said.”

My heart sank. He must have asked him separately. “I don’t think so.”

“I consulted elsewhere to confirm it. The possibility is remote, but it is there.” His voice lowered, cracked on the last word, but his gaze remained clear and steady.

He was persuading himself out of it. I wouldn’t let him. “I refuse to believe it. Even if we did conceive, I can birth a child fairly easily. It was the childbed fever that nearly killed me, not the births.” The fever hadn’t struck until a day after I’d given birth and the doctor and
accoucheurs
had declared themselves happy with my state of health.

“Besides, it’s the wrong time of the month.” How many women had said that only to discover they were wrong? But I would use anything to keep him here, keep him passionate, keep him wanting me. There was one way to ensure that. Stop him thinking, keep him aroused and needy. I happily set myself to the task, and he didn’t object.

When I moved the sides of his robe, a tantalising vee of skin revealed itself. Since he’d removed his stock and neckcloth, his shirt gaped open down to his breastbone. I leaned forwards, tasted his skin with a flick of my tongue and let him hear my moan. “You taste so good. I’ve missed that so much. Your taste, your texture.”

I found the belt that held his robe together. It should have been held closed with the frogged fastenings at the top, but Richard often merely used a silk belt he’d had made, knowing it would come off soon enough, and the frogs could be an impediment that took too long.

He sucked in air through his teeth. “Rose, oh God, you can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what? Touch you? Taste you?” I pushed his robe off his shoulders and tugged his shirt free from his breeches. I wanted it off. Pausing only to ensure he’d undone the buttons at the now-plain cuffs, his valet having removed the fine lace ruffles he’d sported earlier, I drew it up and over his head. He helped, running his hands through his tousled blond waves to push his hair back from his face. The shirt dropped to the floor, unheeded by either of us.

I kissed his chest, loved that hardness, the sheer masculinity of him. His chest hair was slightly darker than that on his head, reminiscent of the hair that surrounded his manhood. The thought of it made me moan again. I touched a nipple with the tip of my tongue, and it responded, hardening to the size of a small button, the kind that fastened secretly under a garment, the tiny, unseen ones that kept the whole garment together.

He cinched his arms around me again, pressing me against him, his powerful body shuddering with need. “God help me, but I can’t hold back anymore.”

“I don’t want you to. Don’t. Take me, Richard, just as you used to.”

Growling low in his throat, he bent and swept me up before carrying me the couple of strides that brought us to the bed. Nichols had already turned the sheets down, so he placed me on them and followed, lying beside me. That in itself felt good, but I would savour that later. Now was all about passion and need.

I let all my barriers down, all my yearning free. He could see anything he wanted, take what he wanted, but I would take in return. The time for waiting was over. Now was ours.

He bent to kiss me and I embraced him, slid my hands over his skin, the satin heat tantalising me, promising more. I loved the way his powerful muscles flexed, the changing textures poetry under my hands. He moaned as my hands mapped the beloved area so long lost to me. In truth I had not done this for half a year, as I’d grown very large with the triplets and I couldn’t bear his weight. Or much else, for that matter. Now, down to my old self, or rather, less than that, I felt him like I was coming home.

But not in a comfortable, soothing way. That might come later, but not now, God, not now. I arched up to him, and he lifted off me, his legs bracketing mine. “I want to see you now. See what I have.” He smiled. “You’ve changed, and I’ve not seen you properly.”

True enough. He rolled off me and helped me with my robe, but I wouldn’t let him remove my shift until he’d taken off his breeches and underwear. I feasted my eyes on his body as he exposed it for me, his taut, rounded buttocks, the dip above it always one of my weaknesses. I loved to shape it with my hand, feel the smooth curve with the leashed strength beneath. He groaned and half-turned his head, smiling at me. “Your turn.”

I dragged my shift over my head and cast it aside.

I was never ashamed, afraid or shy with Richard, but this time apprehension tightened my throat. I had changed, and not for the better. My stomach was now completely flat, if not concave, my breasts smaller, and I had hollows inside my hipbones. My collarbones were too prominent for beauty, and I constantly tried to disguise them these days with jewellery and fichus. I had few of those silvery marks that come as the skin shrinks back to its usual size after pregnancy, so I was lucky there. The hairs on my arms prickled as my self-consciousness increased.

Richard stared. We had retained the two branches of candelabra on the night table and the dressing table, and the candles in the holders above our heads were also lit, so I was too brightly illuminated for comfort. I had wanted him to fall on me, take me with hunger, but the pause while he removed his remaining garments had provided a natural break. Now he looked at me.

A smile spread slowly over his lips. “You are so beautiful. Always. I’ve missed you so much, missed seeing you, touching you.” He hid nothing, his erection proudly displayed, the flesh darker than the rest of his skin. As I watched, a bead of clear moisture seeped from the tip. I wanted to lick it off, and my tongue touched my lower lip as I thought it. He groaned, low in his throat. “Don’t, sweetheart. You’ll unman me.”

I wouldn’t draw attention to my drawbacks, but I was in hope that now that I was taking regular exercise and returning to my old ways, my appetite would return and I could regain some weight. I wanted to alter my pose to conceal the points that I was less than proud of, but he stepped forwards and lifted his knee to rest it on the high mattress.

“You’ve changed. But you’re always you, and you’re the woman I want above all others.” He knelt and swung his other leg up so he could join me on the bed, lying by my side but not touching me. He laid one hand on my waist, softly, as if afraid to touch me. “We’ll get there, Rose. Between us, we’ll have all we lost, and more.”

“Yes.” That sounded good to me. It sounded wonderful.

He gave me a little push. “Now lie back while I become reacquainted with your beautiful self.” His smile turned more wicked, an edge of intent sharpening his gaze. I rolled over onto my back, and he leaned over me. “You, my dear delight, are still as alluring as ever, still as frighteningly seductive. Frightening because I find myself thinking of you at the most inopportune times and find it difficult to suppress it. Even when I was at my most concerned for you, the darker, deeper side of me wondered if anyone could ever compare to you in bed. The answer, in case you were wondering, is no. I can barely remember them now. I don’t try anymore.”

I felt secure enough to scoff. “And you with all that experience?”

“Experience is nothing.” He punctuated each word with a kiss, dropping them on my mouth like morning nectar. “Not when we improve every time we’re together, every time we touch. Knowing that, I had to suppress what I wanted to do, what I
needed.
”

“You don’t have to anymore. Richard, my love, never do it again, please.”

He bent lower so my nipples grazed his chest. By the increase in sensitivity, I knew they’d hardened for him. I yearned for more, wanted him to touch them with his hands, tease them as he knew so well how to do.

“Anything for you,” he murmured, and as if unable to help himself, took my mouth in a deep, ravishing kiss. He explored my lips, my teeth, caressed my tongue like he’d never tasted them before. I answered. Now that I had permission to touch him, I wanted everywhere, everything. All at the same time. I wanted to saturate myself in him so that no part of my body wasn’t covered by his.

I sighed in sheer delight when he moved down to my belly and circled my navel lazily with his tongue. “It’s like making love to a fairy,” he said, the hum of his voice creating delicious vibrations on my skin. “And do you still taste the same?”

I tensed because he headed so slowly down that I thought I might go mad. He gripped my thighs when I wriggled, wouldn’t let me lift up to hasten the tasting. His chuckle told me how much he was enjoying the tease. Without further warning, he swiped his tongue from front to back in one savouring lick. I squirmed and cried out, “Oh, God!”

He ignored my increasingly frantic protests and continued in his self-appointed task. He tasted me thoroughly, tracing his tongue over every part of my most intimate flesh. Prickles of sensitivity increased to shards of sheer sensation, making my back arch and my breath arrive in short, hard gasps. When he took the pearl of flesh at the front fully into his mouth and sucked, it was a matter of seconds before I screamed his name and exploded in sharp, violent pulses.

I lost sense of time and place. Richard spun me into a world I hadn’t visited for some time, one I had yearned to come back to, one that belonged to us alone. And I went alone. I had wanted him to come with me, but next time we’d go there together. A place where colours were more vivid, touches more intense, where it was never cold.

He lifted, and I felt a momentary chill before the heat of his body covered mine. Then I was deliciously enclosed, surrounded by love, the hard muscle of his sex pulsing between us.

It pulsed a little more than it needed, throbbed against my stomach then came a warm, wet gush as he released his long pent-up desire for me.

With a groan, his head dropped, his damp hair tickling my forehead, his breath heating my cheek. “Ah my love, my love.” His regret sounded all too evident in his words. “I’m so sorry.”

I swallowed my disappointment, which wasn’t as great as his by the sound of it. “Don’t be. Please. You’ve given me such pleasure already.” I put my hands on either side of his head, urging him to look at me. His bright blue gaze bored into mine, but he said nothing. “We’ve begun. We have all the time in the world. We just left it too long, that’s all.”

He laughed, but I heard the tremor behind it. “You mean
I
did.”

“No. Whatever we do, we do it together.” I wouldn’t let him take the blame he seemed so eager to shoulder. “You took time to pleasure me beforehand, and if you had just decided to pleasure yourself and try to take me along with you, it wouldn’t have happened.” I didn’t know that, but I didn’t care. “We may wake later.”

He smiled, but I hadn’t completely dispelled his concern. I could see it in his eyes and in the tiny crease between his brows. “We may,” he agreed smoothly and rolled off me. I reached for the handkerchief Nichols always left by the bed and put myself to rights, deliberately keeping my actions practical and efficient. Then I performed the same office for him, cleaning him as I might clean a child, with gentleness but no emotion of any kind. I dropped the cloth over the side of the bed without looking, and before he could turn away from me or leave the bed, I curled into his arms.

I couldn’t prevent my sigh of pleasure when his arms closed about me. I wouldn’t have suppressed it had I been able to do so. I wanted him to feel my happiness. With the release he’d given me came ease and relief because of our togetherness. I had felt increasingly separate from him in the last few months, and it had scared me. Very much. I couldn’t bear not being with him, but being with him and yet apart would, I realised now, be far worse.

He held me tightly, and although his tension remained, we would recover from that soon enough. I knew it. When I raised my head, he bent to touch his lips to mine in a gentle kiss. I lifted my hand to cup the back of his head and feel his hair, and I deepened the embrace, trying to show him how much I loved him.

The last of the tension left his body in a deep wave of relief, and I tucked my leg between his, feeling his strong protective embrace like coming home.

We slept.

I awoke a few hours later, when dawn had begun to seep through the darkness of night. I lay on my back and watched the sky outside, wondering what was wrong, what had woken me. We always slept with the bed drapes open and with the curtains open too, when we could, because Richard preferred it that way. I had learned to enjoy the sight of dawn on the occasions that I woke. I had missed the sight, for when I slept on my own, Nichols closed the drapes for me. That was one way I’d known when Richard visited me in the night, when I woke and found I could see out into the sky. I suspected he had sat in the chair by the fire and watched me, but he hadn’t done that recently. Only during the first month of my recovery.

He could have closed them before he left, but I think he wanted me to know he’d visited me. Trying to keep some path open between us, afraid of closing it. Now I had him—I lay in his arms, mine encircling his strong torso—and we were together once more.

A stirring in my belly made me roll over and head for the dressing room. As well I remembered where it was in this strange place, because I barely had time to get there before most of my dinner returned.