'Twas the Night After Christmas (29 page)

He yanked off his shirt, leaving his chest exposed, and she
caught her breath. She’d guessed that he would be muscular and well-formed, but she hadn’t guessed it would have such an effect on her.

Kenneth had been a bit scrawny, nothing like the feast of male flesh before her. She wanted to touch, to caress, to rub herself all over him. What a wanton she was.

As if he read her mind, he grabbed her hands and placed them on his chest. A bit embarrassed, she avoided his gaze as she spread her fingers over the now tense muscles, reveling in how they jumped beneath her touch and how his heart raced at her caress.

How that made her own heart race.

He tugged loose the ties of her shift. “We could go to the museums or . . . take a boat along the Thames in the summer . . . ”

He trailed off when she slid her hand down to work loose the buttons of his markedly bulging trousers. His breath came in a harsh rasp now, yet he kept talking. “We could even . . . live close enough to the country . . . to keep horses and ride. I’d buy you the finest mount . . . with a beautiful saddle and . . . a neat little curricle for your own use. . . . Then I’d teach you to ride and drive and—”

“Shh,” she whispered. She couldn’t bear it anymore. “Stop trying to buy my affections.” She brushed a kiss over his lips. “You already have them.”

His eyes glinted obsidian in the firelight.

“Would I love for you to teach me all that, and buy me new clothes and the rest of it?” she went on, desperate to make him understand. “Yes. But if I became your mistress, it wouldn’t be for any of that.” Taking his hand, she pressed it against her chest
where her heart pounded furiously. “It would be for
this,
for how you make me feel.”

A shuddering breath escaped him. “And how
do
I make you feel?”

She stretched up to kiss his mouth. “Like I can fly.”

With a groan, he caught her to him and kissed her with such fervent need that she thought her heart might explode. Oh, what was she going to do? She was falling in love with him.

And he didn’t want that.

So she gave him what he did want. She let him pull her shift off her, let him carry her to his bed. She let him lay her down and run his smoldering gaze over her while he finished stripping off his clothes. She didn’t flinch or blush or turn away from that hot, riveting stare.

Until he was naked. Then she had to look at
him.
And what a sight he was, all lean muscle and fine lines, a sweet symphony of a body that she wanted nothing more than to play.

He reached over to pull out the drawer to the little table beside the bed. “Since I promised you I’d take preventative measures . . . ” He drew out a long sheepskin tube, then held it out to her. “Would you like to do the honors?”

She sat up to gape at it. “Do you carry such devices about with you as a matter of course?”

He laughed. “No. But after what happened last night, I figured you might be more amenable to sharing my bed if I could promise to protect you. And you’d be surprised what the tinkers at a county fair have for purchase, if you know how to ask the right questions.”

“
That’s
what you were doing this afternoon?”

“Among other things.”

With a shake of her head, she took the tube from him. “You really are quite a wicked fellow.” Though the fact that he was willing to wear such a thing touched her deeply.

“That’s what you like about me,” he drawled.

“Hardly,” she said with a sniff. “I like you in spite of that.”

But as she smoothed the covering onto his thick, jutting member, so much larger than her late husband’s, and he hardened even more, it dawned on her that their positions resembled those of the characters in that shocking drawing from
Fanny Hill
.

That’s
when she finally blushed.

With a chuckle, he tied off the tube, then slid onto the bed and pulled her down to lie next to him. “For a widow, you sometimes seem very innocent.”

She frowned at him. “Forgive me if I don’t have
your
vast experience. I had only the one husband, and he mostly touched me in the dark when I was half asleep. I hardly ever saw him like . . . well . . . this.”

His gaze turned positively carnal. “You’d best get used to it,” he said in a husky murmur as he filled one hand with her breast. “Because I intend to be naked with you every chance I get.”

Then his mouth was on hers—as was his body—and she shut her eyes to savor it, putting her late husband thoroughly from her mind. Pierce whispered admiring compliments about her hair and her breasts and her belly, kissing each part with a mix of heat and tenderness, making her want and need and yearn—

He kissed her between her legs, and her eyes shot open. “Wh-what are you doing?”

When she tried to pull her thighs together, he wouldn’t let her. “You need to read more naughty books, dearling.” His eyes glittered. “You had your dessert. Now let me have mine.”

And he lowered his mouth to her most private part again.

“But . . . but . . . Pierce . . . ohhh . . . ”

She’d had no idea. The way he was kissing her . . .
there
 . . . seemed decadent and wild and . . . so very delicious that she curled her fingers into his hair to hold him close.

His response was to kiss and suck and tease until she thought she’d go out of her mind with need. It wasn’t long before she could feel her release building, feel it growing and lifting . . . “Pierce . . . oh, dear heaven . . . please . . . ”

“Not yet, dearling.” Dark eyes alight, he moved up over her. “This time we’ll go there together.”

And he entered her with one silken thrust.

Oh, it was magic. He was inside her, around her, driving her once more toward a glorious madness. How would she give this up? How would she give
him
up? He felt part of her. With him, she was herself and it was right. He liked her just as she was.

But he didn’t love her, and that would kill her in time. Because she could never be with him, day in and day out, without telling him she loved
him
.

She did. She loved the dear, complicated man. And she knew, just as she knew everything else about him, that he wouldn’t want to hear it. So she would show him tonight, instead.

As he drove into her over and over, she kissed his chin, his
throat, his mouth . . . anything she could reach. She wrapped her legs about his hips when he urged her, and she gave herself up to the act that until now she’d always thought awkward and embarrassing. Because with him, it was neither of those. It was like . . . like . . .

“Are you flying yet?” he rasped as he thundered into her, each stroke bringing her nearer loftier heights.

It
was
like flying. Exactly. “Yes . . . ” she choked out. “Oh, Pierce . . . ”

“Fly then, dearling,” he murmured as he drove her higher and higher. “As high . . . as you can . . . ” He stared down at her, his eyes darkening with an emotion she’d never seen in them before.

Longing. She recognized it because that’s what she felt, too.

He brushed his lips against hers, then whispered, “Just make sure you take me with you . . . ”

And with one great plunge, he sent her soaring into the heavens.

She clasped him to her as he, too, reached his release, and for one precious moment, they vaulted into the highest heights together, wrapped in each other’s arms without a care in the world.

Then slowly they tumbled to earth. And to her surprise, that was precious, too—for although he rolled off her, he didn’t turn over and go to sleep. He drew her close, then held her and kissed her and made her feel like something more than a bedmate.

And as he nuzzled her neck with infinite tenderness, the words she’d fought not to say just spoke themselves.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear. “I love you, Pierce Waverly.”

T
o Pierce’s shock, his heart sang at the words. He would never have expected them to sound so wonderful. Then again, he hadn’t expected sharing a bed with Camilla to be so wonderful, either.

It made no sense. He’d been with plenty of women—more experienced women, younger women, more accomplished women. He’d shared the beds of actresses and whores, opera singers and duchesses, and never once had it been an act of such sweetness that it damned near brought him to tears.

Never once had any of them said those words to him afterward.

Oh, God, didn’t he know by now that love was just a word? That it meant nothing?

Except that he couldn’t believe Camilla would lie to him. He
knew who she was, from tip to toe. She would never say such a thing lightly.

But that didn’t mean it was real.

He drew back to stare at her. “Don’t.”

The pain in her eyes was swiftly covered by belligerence. “Don’t what? Love you? Or
say
that I love you? I can stop the latter, but I can’t stop the former. It’s too late for that.”

With his blood pounding through his veins, he took her hand and kissed it. “Look, I know that you think you feel something—”

“I don’t
think
I feel anything.” She snatched her hand from his. “I know what I feel, Pierce. Don’t try to tell me otherwise.” Pulling out of his hold, she sat up to throw her legs over the side of the bed.

He looped his arm about her waist to keep her there, then pressed a kiss to her back. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

She sat there, her body stiff against his arm, but as he sat up beside her, she let out a long, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I knew you wouldn’t want to hear it. But I couldn’t help myself.” A wry note entered her voice. “It’s been the curse of my life that I speak my mind even when I shouldn’t.”

“That’s what I like about you,” he assured her. Even when what she said set him on his ear. He stared down at her bent head, feeling a welter of confused emotions, not the least of which was hope, damn it. “But I can’t . . . I don’t . . . ”

“I know, my lord,” she said, the formal term cutting him to the heart. “It just had to be said.”

She started to rise from the bed, but he pulled her down onto his lap. “It’s not what you think.” When she wouldn’t look
at him, he turned her face up to his. “I’m not capable of loving anyone.”

She cupped his jaw, her hand infinitely gentle. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Ah, but it is.”

He debated a moment, but the melting look in her eyes decided him. She deserved to know what sort of man she was taking up with. Reaching over to open the little drawer by the table, he drew out a much-creased and worn letter and handed it to her.

When she cast him a quizzical glance, he said, “It’s the last letter my mother ever wrote me at school, right after I was sent away.”

Paling a little, she opened the fragile parchment and read the lines that had been etched on his soul for years. The lines that ended with
And always remember, I love you very, very much. With many kisses, Mother.

“I kept it at first to sustain me through the difficult times.” His voice hardened. “Then I kept it to remind me how little the words mean.”

She glanced at him, tears filling her eyes. “I’m not lying to you when I say them, and I suspect that neither was she.”

“Perhaps not,” he managed. “But that makes it even more obvious that love is just a meaningless fiction. At least I’m wise enough to understand that. And I can’t feel something I don’t believe in. I might have believed in it once, but not anymore.”

“Because of your parents abandoning you, you mean.”

“Not just that.” There were times he hated how deeply Camilla saw into him. “But I’ve experienced too much in my life,
witnessed too many unhappy marriages, and . . . ” He forced a smile. “It’s like Jasper believing in flying reindeer. Once you’re around real deer enough to know they don’t fly, the magic disappears.”

“On the contrary,” she said softly. “Believing in love isn’t like believing in flying reindeer. It’s like believing in rain. Or summer. Or Christmas. Love is real and steady and absolutely essential to any kind of life. Not believing in it doesn’t make it any less so.”

Fighting the seductive appeal of her words, he rasped, “For me, it does, and that’s what matters.”

He braced himself for more of an argument, but she merely shook her head at him. “I know. That’s why I didn’t intend to say the words.”

The regret in her voice knifed through him, and he caught her by the chin so he could kiss her, soft and deep. “It doesn’t change anything. Wanting you, having you want me, is more than enough for me.”

“Is it?” She stared into his face, her eyes luminous in the firelight. Without her spectacles, she looked even more like a maiden waiting for love.

And it hit him suddenly how unfair he was being, to ask her to give up a future with any other man just to be his mistress.

But she’d had her chance at marriage, and she hadn’t liked it. That’s what made the two of them so perfect for each other. They were peas in a pod and wanted the same things, whether she admitted it or not.

Didn’t they?

“Camilla, I—”

A knock came at the door, and he froze. A glance at the clock told him it was long after midnight. No servant would be up here at this hour.