Always a Temptress (25 page)

“Harvest moon,” Bea muttered.

Kate laughed. “Darling girl. Not at all. Nature doesn’t have the wherewithal to be wearing a fortune in diamonds.”

“I will write a poem,” young Luddy Clarke said, hand to heart for his goddess. “The legendary beauty rewarded for her faith by the return of her love after ten long years. I will call it, The Return of Odysseus. Cannot you see how your story parallels that of that great hero? Kept away for ten years, while the faithful Penelope weaves?”

Kate caught the wicked glint in Harry’s eye and saw the perfect opportunity to distract him from Ian. “Oh, Lord, Luddy, don’t compare me to Penelope,” she objected. “She was a ninnyhammer. And she waited twenty years, Luddy. Not ten.”

Harry chuckled. “Why, Kate. You used to think
The Odyssey
the most romantic book in literature.”

“You’ve read
The Odyssey
?” one of the court asked, looking a bit flummoxed.

“In Greek,” Harry said, an amused twinkle in his eye. “She loved to quote it.”

Kate scowled. “I was also fifteen. Everything is romantic at fifteen. After further study, however, and—” She cocked a wry eyebrow at Harry. “—
much
experience, I’ve decided that after what Odysseus did, Penelope should have fed him to her own pigs.”

Now they had an audience. But Kate was focused on Harry, the exhilaration of debate rising like champagne bubbles in her blood.

“After what he did?” Harry echoed drily. “What? Win the Trojan War?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m talking of course about how
quickly
he dashed home to be with his ailing mother and faithful wife, who, silly nit, kept herself chaste for him while he caroused with every siren and witch in the hemisphere. He didn’t deserve her, and so she should have told him.”

Harry’s eyes were twinkling. “But he was ensorcelled. He couldn’t help it that he was Calypso’s lover for seven years.”

Kate snorted. “How like a man. ‘Couldn’t help m’self,’” she barked like an old general. “‘Bewitched me and all that. You understand, old girl.’ Pull the other one, Harry. And then he has the gall to test Penelope’s faithfulness. I repeat. Pigs.”

Tommy blinked. “I say.” Luddy looked vague, as if already translating her diatribe into rhyming verse. Someone clapped.

“Don’t encourage her,” Harry protested, laughing.

“He doesn’t have to encourage me,” Kate retorted, giddy with the sly challenge in Harry’s eyes. “I’ve been saving up opinions for ten years.”

“God’s teeth,” he groaned. “And I married you before I knew it.”

They were still both sizzling with exhilaration from their challenge when the next waltz struck up. Harry swept her onto the dance floor, and she felt her spirits fly.

The music seemed sweeter suddenly, the room a lovely kaleidoscope of color and fire from within the safe enclosure of Harry’s arms. She could get used to this, she thought.

“You underestimate yourself, Harry,” she said, her eyes closed with the sweet pleasure of the moment. “You have a real talent. I insist you only waltz with me.”

“Is that the only thing you’d like to reserve?” he whispered, bending his head to her ear.

She almost stumbled. “Pardon?”

She opened her eyes to see a dark smile on him. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I believe it’s time I taught you a new lesson.”

She felt a flush surge up her throat. “Lesson.”

There could be no mistaking the smoke in his eyes. “It’s the only thing that’s gotten me through the day. I’ve been working on a plan to reacquaint you with pleasure. I think lesson one should be the breast. Amazingly sensitive things, breasts.”

She swallowed hard. “And here I was just thinking how nice it was to be able to dance without anyone trying to seduce me.”

He gave her a soft smile. “I would never try to seduce you. I would expect your full participation.”

“Why?” she countered, suddenly feeling cornered. “So I can begin to enjoy it? Then what? You go away, and I’ll be stuck here
pining
. I told you, Harry. Pining is beneath me.”

“Is it so awful?” he asked, obviously meaning to be charming. He sounded sad.

She couldn’t disappoint him. “I suppose it’s better than bad poetry. I get a surfeit of that.”

He laughed. “Oh, I can do that, too. ‘There was a young woman from Kent…’”

She smacked him on the chest. “There will be none of that.”

“What about this?” Harry nipped her earlobe.

She almost lost her footing right in the middle of the floor. “Stop that!”

Heads turned. Harry chuckled. “Smile.”

She smiled. Oddly, it didn’t take much effort. Something effervesced in her chest, something light and giddy, as if the challenge of a moment ago had metamorphosed into light. She thought she remembered it, long ago. She didn’t know what to do with it now.

“Don’t you remember what it felt like when I drew my tongue over your nipple?” Harry asked, capturing her gaze.

She stumbled over his feet. Her nipples had tightened just with the words.

“When I took your breast in my hand and lifted it to my mouth? Remember how you felt?”

She might have nodded; she wasn’t sure.

“You always loved that, Kate.” His smile deepened. “At least I think you did. You used to make the most lovely little growling sounds in the back of your throat.”

Uncomfortable heat had blossomed in her belly, between her legs. She didn’t like it; she didn’t like wanting it. She hated the wasted energy of hope.

“Please,” she begged, her smile more a rictus. “Don’t taunt me here.”

Harry looked taken aback. “Taunt you? God, is that what you think I’m doing?”

“What else?”

He looked so amazed it made her want to cry. “What else?” he echoed. “Simple. I want to finally make love to my Katie.”

She was already shaking her head. “I’ve told you, Harry. I’m not that girl anymore. There isn’t any of her left.”

He didn’t answer right away, just swept her into tightening circles as if no one else shared the dance floor. Finally, when he settled them back into a smooth pattern, he squeezed her hand. “You’re too strong to let him take away your passion, Kate.”

She jerked her head up, to see a direct challenge in the sky blue of his eyes. Just then the music ended, and they slowed to a halt, face-to-face in the middle of the ballroom, Kate’s heart battering at her chest and her knees weak. She was afraid Harry was only trying to distract himself. She was tumbling off a high ledge, with no safe landing.

“Am I a project then, Harry?” she challenged, afraid he would recognize a retreat when he heard one. “Like the Widows’ Fund?”

He tilted his head. “If you’d like. Would you like to be my project?”

She straightened. “I am no person’s charity.”

“Would you prefer to be my obsession?”

The words lodged in her chest. “I think that might become very uncomfortable.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure either of us has a choice.”

It might have been a distraction for him, something to keep him from fretting about his friend. But when they returned home and Harry sent Bivens off so he could play abigail, Kate couldn’t seem to manage a protest. Was it fear or arousal that had stolen her breath? Did she really trust Harry enough to lay herself open to him again? She looked to the bed with its cheerful chintz and shuddered.

“You’re looking at the bed as if it’s a pagan altar and you’re the daily sacrifice,” Harry said with a slight smile. He’d removed his jacket. He was unbuttoning his waistcoat as if he were used to doing it in her presence.

Kate’s laugh was sharp. “It’s rather how I feel.”

Harry stopped, his fingers on his buttons. “Then tell me what you want to do.”

She was about to beg him to leave when she looked up to see something stark and needy in those eyes. A longing she understood too well. He needed her to need him. Harry, who had spent years planning to escape, wanted nothing more at that moment than for Kate to come into his arms for comfort, for security, for connection.

She instinctively shied. She had never done well trusting in other people, laying her loneliness in their hands and hoping to see it transformed. The idea of trying again terrified her. After all, she was doing all right as she was. Harry was doing all right. What did they need to rely on each other for? What would it change?

Everything. And that was what frightened her.

She could back away. He was giving her the option. She could make a joke of the whole thing and escape. But she could still see Ian’s death weighing on him. She could almost hear the impassioned defense Harry must have made on his friend’s behalf, even knowing it to be futile. How terrible to be forced to defend a friendship forged in the heat of battle to men who had never known the sounds of the big guns or the bowel-melting terror of attack. What must it have been like to be the only one to believe in a person, no matter the evidence? What was he left with when no one believed him?

He needed her.

She hoped she had the fortitude for what Harry wanted. She prayed she would survive the inevitable pain.

“My breasts?” she asked, her voice unpardonably small. “Just those?”

She saw a shudder go through him and felt terrible that she was tormenting him this way.

“Just those.”

She opened her arms and he stepped into them. “Well,” he added, resting his head atop hers. “Your shoulders. And throat…and definitely your ears. I love your ears…”

She actually wanted to smile. “Are you sure you don’t want me to—”

“Yes. I’m sure. I won’t lie to you, Kate. I have been far from celibate the last ten years. I have given and received a great amount of pleasure.”

It was her turn to shiver.

“But I think that means,” he continued, lifting her face to him, “that you have ten years to catch up on.”

It was too much. Her body felt suddenly insubstantial, a fragile shell of light and sensation, held together only by his arms, by the assurance in his voice. Taking a deep breath for courage, she lifted her head. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t know how.

Harry’s smile absolved her of cowardice. Bending down, he swung her into his arms. Kate held on as he carried her over to the sofa by the fireplace and settled her into his lap. When his arms came around her, she panicked. But he was just reaching around to untie the tapes at the back of her dress and then the corset beneath. By the time he dropped a kiss on her shoulder, she was dizzy.

He leaned down and nibbled at her ear. “It’s much more fun if you breathe.”

Kate chuckled, a high, thin sound. She needed to close her eyes; she felt as if she were balanced at a great height. But if she closed her eyes, she couldn’t brace herself against surprises. Against blows, even though she swore Harry wouldn’t hurt her. It seemed protective instincts couldn’t be shed like so much clothing.

She watched as Harry slipped her bodice off her shoulders and down her arms. When he followed with her chemise, trapping her against him, she panicked. She didn’t like being held down. But then he kissed her, a lingering, delicious kiss that somehow stole her resistance. And when he raised his head again, Kate realized that her dress was down at her waist and her breasts bared to the night air.

She saw the brands, of course. She wanted to turn her head. But again, Harry kissed them. And instead of lingering, he moved on, dropping kiss after kiss up the line of her throat, behind her ear, across her shoulder. His lips unleashed cascades of chills, sparks, sunlight. She could barely stand to hold still, and was finally glad for the arm that held her close.

Oh
, she thought, her heart stumbling,
I remember this
. The delicious abrasion of whiskers against her tenderest skin. The erotic chill when air cooled skin laved by a tongue. The almost painful jolt as nipples tightened, as breasts filled, as breath and tongue and lips followed fingers down the slope of a breast, cupped the bottoms, then, finally, slowly, maddeningly began to circle closer and closer to the nipple.

She almost shouted at him.
Please! Now!
But she didn’t. She curled her hand into his hair and brought his head closer, his heat, his clever tongue. And then, oh, then, yes, there, his tongue, circling, bathing, flicking her nipple, his mouth, oh God, his mouth. Had it been this sweet before? This unbearably sharp? Had she begged him to take her nipple in his mouth and suckle?

Lightning ripped through her; exquisite explosions. She felt sparks skitter to the tips of her fingers and deep, deep into her belly, sinking between her legs, there where Harry swore she would like to feel his mouth. She couldn’t seem to hold her knees together. They seemed to want to open as her body began to bow, to arch into his hands. She heard the oddest whimpering and realized it was her.

Harry left off one breast and then took the other. He stroked and explored with his big, rough hand. He held her close with his free arm and smiled into her eyes, his own so dark with arousal the blue all but disappeared.

“Will you let me show you, Kate?” he asked, laying his hand against her ankle. “I want you to remember how much pleasure you can feel.”

All she could think to say was yes. Her body was trembling, her heart galloping, her body alight and wanting.
Wanting
. And he gave it. Slowly, so he didn’t frighten her, he slid his hand beneath her skirts: up her leg; her knee, the tender skin of her inner thigh, lingering just long enough to make her want to scream. She could feel herself hot and weeping, dying for his touch. She remembered the frantic need, the breathless pause at the brink of the precipice. She let her legs fall open, and Harry rewarded her. His mouth at her breast, suckling, nipping, licking, he parted the wet, curling hair with his fingers and slipped inside of her, and she thought she’d die. She was panting, scrabbling at him, yanking at his shirt to be able to feel his skin, to run her hands up and down his chest, wrap them around his back and measure his arms. She wanted to comfort herself with his strength, to delight herself with his beauty. She wanted to share this mad, reeling passion.

She couldn’t bear it. Her body was screaming for relief from the pleasure that had become pain, from the sharp edge of uncertainty. He was tormenting her, his fingers circling, diving, sweeping, pinching. He tortured her with the rasp of his tongue.