Passion Over Time (13 page)

The way he looked at her, the way he said that, made her realize the necklace was far, far more expensive than she had assumed. A slight wave of lightheadedness washed over her.

It was almost like a declaration.

A declaration of what, she wasn’t quite sure.

Her heart had begun to beat very rapidly. Young women were always warned about the dangers of seduction. But seduction itself wasn’t where the danger existed. It was in the talking afterwards. That was where a woman lost herself. Beth drew in a breath, determined to keep her composure.

“You were married once.” The words had rushed out with her next exhalation. Her mouth parted slightly. In shock at herself.

Oh, you silly girl. You shouldn’t have opened that discussion…

He dropped his hand from the pearls. “Everyone has at least one bad judgment to his credit.” He looked up and his expression sharpened. “I envy you.”

She laughed. “You envy me?”

He nodded, gravely. “You were smart enough to avoid marriage.”

Sadness crushed her, squeezing her heart. “You regret your marriage that much?”

“I don’t regret my son.” Affection resounded in his voice and warmed his eyes to shimmering silver.

But it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Goodness, what an evasive answer.”

“As you have said, Beth, let us not bore each other with our pasts.” He took the edges of her wrapper and began to pull them apart. “We should simply share ourselves and enjoy the moments we can share together.”

She wanted to know more about him. She wanted to know
him
. “Your son is grown?”

His eyes were focused on her bared breasts and he traced a fingertip between them. “He’s almost eighteen but I cannot say with any assurance that he has matured to manhood.”

“That sounds like a very stern judgment.”

“He seems to delight in vexing me.” Grey dropped to his knees in front of her and pulled the wrapper open completely. He bent close and put his lips to her belly.

The beginnings arousal pulsed in her blood, but distantly. She still wondered. “Why did you marry her?”

He lifted his head away from her and looked up at her with such a severe, warning gaze that her heart seemed to jump into her throat. “Beth, let’s not.”

She took small, shallow breaths to summon her courage and then pressed her question. “But I want to know.”

“You want to know what?”

“More about you.”

“But you’re not asking about me.”

“I just want to know what made you marry her…I—I mean, you seem so set against it now.” God, she was stammering like a silly girl.

“I was only eighteen when—”

He stopped so abruptly. His voice had resonated with such deep emotion, like currents under the surface. He had been about to reveal something monumental, she was sure. She sat there, wanting him to continue, wanting so badly to hear what he had been about to say that she believed she might burst at any moment. Long moments passed.

He took a deep breath.

She held hers, willing him to speak.

“I suppose I was infatuated.” He laughed so coolly that she had to suppress a shiver. “I believed myself to be in love.”

The self-mockery, the self-disdain in his voice chilled her further.

“She was very pretty?”

He laughed again. “Yes, Beth, she was absolutely beautiful. And cold and incapable of giving a woman’s love to a husband.”

“You mean she was cold in your bed?”

“Not exactly. I mean she was incapable of giving the love of a woman’s heart.”

He wasn’t looking at her. He was tracing small circles on the skin of her stomach. But the emotion lurking under his calm tone seemed to reverberate within her own bones. Feelings for him seemed to stream through her, carrying such an intensity of emotion as she’d never felt for anyone ever before. She longed to touch him, to offer him solace. But she knew if she did, he’d withdraw. Yet how empty his marriage sounded. Sadness, compassion, sympathy, it all kept flowing through her. “And then she died?”

“May God rest her soul.” He sighed, a long, lingering sound. “I don’t want to talk about her any longer.”

A pang of remorse hit her. “I only wanted to know more about you.”

“You would do better to examine my present rather than my past. I was a different man then. I expected different things from life and those around me.” He reached up and touched her cheek. “I try never to mislead anyone about what they may expect from me in return.”

“Yes, your obligations. For anyone who meets your expectations.” She spoke the words woodenly; suddenly the stream of emotion had frozen inside her.

“I like to have things understood, spelled out.”

Her throat began to burn and she swallowed and blinked hard. He made it sound like just another business contract. A merger for mutual pleasure.

He stood then offered her his hands. She took them and arose from the windowsill. He took the scalloped, lacy edges of her wrapper and stripped her. Evening sunlight bathed the chamber in pink and gold tones and touched her back, her buttocks. It reminded her of being a naughty child again, stripping off outside. The warm rays were like the most sinful, soft caress over her skin.

Yet she felt like ice inside.

Inwardly, she shook herself and walked determinedly into the bedchamber and lay upon the bed. As he approached, at the sight of his handsome face, her heart seemed to catch.

She didn’t want him to forget her.

Ever.

She wanted to engrave herself upon his memories so that he couldn’t look at another woman without thinking of her.

She could never be his wife.

But she could have this.

Beth let her look turn purposefully smoky and parted her legs. He froze and stared at her, his expression growing rigid. She ran a caressing hand over her nipples, over the pearls he had gifted her with, and then drifted down to her belly and slowly, ever so slowly, lower to her mons.

Softly, she trailed her fingertips over her outer lips, teasing herself. And him. A jolt of excitement pulsed through her, so thrilling, she couldn’t hold back a moan. All the while holding his gaze, she let her fingers delve into her slick inner lips then flicked her nub.

His eyes darkened. He removed his banyan and let it drop the floor. Then he came to her and covered her body with his own. He growled in her ear, sending fiery shivers down her spine and into her belly. She moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist. He entered her on one strong thrust.

His cock pierced her soul deep. She threw her head back and let loose a shriek of pure joy. He buried his face in her shoulder and made a harsh, deep sound. It was almost a sob.

Her heart seemed to swell, filling up with emotion.

He began thrusting in and out of her, so savagely that the headboard knocked against the wall.

A hard, almost angry fucking.

The force of it rocked her whole body. His cock thumped against the mouth of her womb, sending waves of delight deep, deep inside her. As though of its own accord, her pelvis jerked upward in convulsive movements, seeking to meet him stroke for stroke. Wetness gushed from her and she was trembling all over.
God.
No man had given her this type of sensation.

And this was the last time.

The very last.

Tears welled in her eyes and she reached out to him, clinging to him, hugging him, squeezing him with arms, legs, and cunt.

Everything inside her pulled tighter and tighter. And he kept thrusting into her, grasping her hips, holding her still and then pounding into her with new resolve. She became aware that she was screaming.

Pleasure burst within her. A thousand silver stars. Her very soul exploding into so many pieces. Too many to count or put back together the same ever again. She lay panting, raw-throated, and completely exhausted.

With a harsh shout, he withdrew and spilled his seed on her stomach.

* * * *

Leaning against the headboard, Grey tapped his fingers upon the coverlet.

“You want to smoke,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. “Go ahead.”

Her perception unsettled him. He knew it came from experience with men. In bed. When he returned to New York, she would find other amusements. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

“I can smoke later.”

“Why should you wait?”

“Because a gentleman doesn’t subject a lady to smoke.”

“But I am not a lady.”

“I hold you equal to any lady I know.”

“You needn’t mince words with me. I am your soiled dove. I have no tender feelings to protect.”

“I admit, upon our first meeting, I didn’t know what to make of you—and your frankly inelegant approach.” He chuckled. “Though, in retrospect, it holds a certain ingenuous charm. I admire your audacity.”

“You mean my harlotry?” There was a distinct challenge in her voice.

“Beth, I spent several years at sea. Believe me, I know a harlot when I see one. A harlot will lie with any man for coin. You wouldn’t lie with just any man, would you?”

“No, but—”

“You’re a young woman who possesses a rare, and frankly delightful, appetite for sexual congress. Without a husband, you simply had no outlet for such energies. It doesn’t make you a harlot. Or any of those other epithets you chose to deride yourself with.”

“My mother was a harlot.”

“Because she shared herself with a man other than her husband? That might make her an adulteress but it doesn’t make her a harlot.”

She arched a brow. “Many would strongly disagree with that statement.”

“It matters not what others think or even what they say. This is between you and me.”

She glanced down at the coverlet. “You know I have had several lovers?”

He resisted the urge to ask for a number. His jealousy could only shame her at this moment. “Yes, I realize this.”

“Even as they took their pleasure from me, I could sense their discomfort with
me
. With my nature.”

“Yes, I can see how a young or insecure man would feel that way about a woman with your audaciousness, your carnal honesty. However, an experienced man could be very happy with a woman of your nature.”

Her eyes had widened and she looked strangely young. Vulnerable. “It isn’t just how I behave in bed. Sometimes my emotions become so strong, I cannot control my response to them. Oh, I can pretend to be modest and meek for a time. That’s how my family knows me—as Elizabeth, the gentle younger sister. But I cannot keep up the pretense without doing things that I should not. I have to find some experience, add some adventure to my life or I fear I shall go mad—or explode!” Her voice rose with her cresting emotions. “Oh, I just cannot be a lady.”

“We all do this. We act as our families, society, wishes us to be. And in private we find ways to release the pressures.”

“But this wild streak I possess, it is more than just the average person’s need for self-expression. It is wild blood, inherited from my mother. It is a frightening, self-destructive force.”

She sounded as though she were repeating words she had been told by another. Someone had pounded this notion into her. Anger rose within him though he had no target for it: he had no idea who had maligned her. She seemed so harsh with herself. And he knew this was where her idea of sacrificing herself to her family must have come from. He wanted to soften things for her. To free her from these self-imposed chains.

“An experienced man would be able to summon the tolerance to help you manage these two sides to yourself.” Even as he spoke, he knew that he was on the brink of disrupting his carefully ordered world. “But Beth, I think if you had a regular outlet for your carnal energies, you might become a calmer, more self-possessed young woman.”

She raised her brows, a skeptical look in her eyes. “I don’t think it could be that easy.”

“Of course, nothing worth having is ever easy.”

She studied him for several moments. The sadness that entered her eyes seemed to strike him straight in the guts. “Some things just aren’t possible.” Sighing, she rolled away and onto her side, the soft, seductive curve of her arse moving beneath the sheet. He reached to caress it.

“It’s ridiculous for you to deny yourself the pleasure of a cigar just because I happen to be sharing your bed.”

“I told you before, a gentleman never smokes in the presence of his lady.”

“But I am not a lady.”

His hand froze and he retracted it. Hadn’t she listened to a word he’d said? Did she think he took opening his life to her lightly? How could she continue to do this? Turn something simple like smoking a cigar into a statement of her self-professed lowly status in life. ”Beth, don’t put this issue between us. I don’t judge you in that manner.”

She sat up with such speed, the bed rocked. “I must go soon anyway.”

“I know.” The shortening of their time together lessened his ire. He traced a fingertip along the pearls, wanting to take her dainty pink nipples into his mouth until they were stiff peaks again. However, they had something to discuss.