Always a Temptress (26 page)

“Please,” she sobbed. “Oh, please.”

“Trust me, Kate,” Harry murmured. “Give yourself over to me. Trust me.”

She wasn’t thinking. She was feeling. She was battling for something, desperately seeking the far land she could barely remember, even now with her body threatening to splinter apart. She was bracing herself for the moment Harry moved over her and blocked the light. When all the hurt returned.

“Relax,” he said again and again. “Just relax and enjoy it.”

She tried. She tried, warming her hands on his belly and reassuring herself with the breadth of his back. Trying to let her defenses go. And finally, just when she’d given up hope, when she almost shoved Harry away and ran to hide alone where she didn’t have to face her failure, it happened. The lightning he unleashed with his fingers, his mouth and clever tongue, coiled in her, tightening, building, glowing like the trenchant core of an inferno, taking her breath, her heart, her mind, until all of her seemed to glow, to pulse, to swell, until she cried out, furious with impatience, and Harry laughed.

And suddenly, as if his laugh had been the trigger, her body disintegrated into light, into sound, into color and music. The explosion took her by surprise, shattering through her, to the very tips of her fingers, forcing the air from her lungs, melting her body and re-forming it as something completely different. Something soft and pliant and glowing. Something she had never thought to feel again as long as she lived.

She laughed. She couldn’t stop laughing, even as tears rolled down her cheeks and Harry crushed her to him and called her his brave girl and laughed with her, as if they had both just rolled down a steep hill together. She wrapped her arms around him and hung on for dear life, knowing that she had just walked through a door only Harry had known how to open.

Everything changed when she realized just how hard the pressure of his rod was against her. It had to be painful. She couldn’t let it end like this. It wasn’t fair. Harry had given her a miracle. The least she could do was accommodate him.

Just the thought, though, stole the rest of her breath. The incandescent joy that had swept her body dulled and winked out.

Harry noticed right away. “What’s wrong?”

She felt new tears slide down her cheeks. “It was so wonderful. But it’s you who should be…comforted. Not me.”

Harry held her tighter. “I can think of nothing more comforting than feeling you come apart in my arms. I promise. The rest will follow, Kate. But tonight is too soon. I took you much farther than I had a right to already.”

She shook her head. “It’s not fair,” she insisted.

She wasn’t sure if she was reassured or infuriated by the gentle smile on Harry’s face. “And will you enjoy it?”

She froze. “Of course,” she said, knowing it was the right thing to do.

He laughed. “Oh, Kate. How do you ever win at cards? You would rather have your toenails pulled out.”

She couldn’t quite face him. “So what? I’m sure all women feel the same. And yet, from the size of the British population, they obviously get the job done.”

Harry hugged her tight and kissed her forehead. “I don’t want to sound smug, my dear, but no woman has ever had to ‘get the job done’ with me. I make sure of it.”

She shuddered again, still not certain what from. She did know that her body had begun to feel restless again. “Braggart,” she told him.

“I refuse to make love to a woman who isn’t enjoying herself.”

Kate looked down at the obvious strain against his pants. “I think you might just be too chivalrous for your own good, Harry.”

He laughed and set her on her feet. “To bed, young lady. Tomorrow is a busy day.”

But Kate couldn’t rest. She knew without asking that Harry was still painfully hard, even after they had both climbed into bed and he’d tucked her beneath his shoulder. She was beginning to realize that Harry would wait forever rather than frighten her again. And she couldn’t let him. She had to be braver than that.

She looked up to see his eyes closed. But she knew he wasn’t sleeping. Not with his heart still thundering away and his chest slick with sweat. He wouldn’t sleep until he found relief. Kate was shocked to realize that she wanted to be the one to provide it. As long as they stayed lying just like this.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached down and laid her hand against the straining placket of the breeches he insisted on wearing to bed.

Harry jumped a foot. “What the…”

He reached down to pull her away, but she batted his hand away. “Please, Harry. Don’t forbid me. I want this.”

His hand stilled atop hers. She could feel his member twitch and swell even more beneath her palm. “Are you sure?”

She began running her hand up and down, measuring the length of him with her fingers. “Oh, yes.” She was shaking; she knew he felt it. Her hands were undoubtedly cold. But something about having him in her hand gave her an odd sense of power. She was the one in charge. She could please him or she could hurt him. It was her choice.

She reached the first button of the placket and popped it open. “You wear breeches so you don’t frighten me with your…uh…”

“Cockstand.” There was an odd humor in his voice.

“Precisely.” The second button pulled open, and the third. He groaned, which spurred her on. Even shaking, she got the placket open. And there, fitting right into her hand, was Harry, hot and hard and velvet all at once. Sleek. Alive. Pulsing, the plum-shaped tip already weeping just a drop of fluid. She found herself running her finger over it and sliding down the shaft. She was fascinated by the unfamiliar weight of it, by the life in it. By the sudden, breathtaking need for it.

He wasn’t Murther. There was no way she could ever mistake the two.

She felt Harry’s breath hitch, his body stiffen; she heard his heart accelerate. “Are you all right?” he asked, and she giggled.

“Are
you
?”

He chuckled back, although his voice sounded as tight as his body. “Oh, yes.”

She swept her hand down to cup his sac and felt how tight it was, how firm, as if his life forces were vital and strong. She traced contours from base to tip and found that she sought to hear his breathing catch. It made her feel… in control.

She turned a bit, freeing her other hand, and wrapped it around the shaft, one hand still on his balls, and slowly, deliberately, she began to stroke. Tightening, loosening, tightening, squeezing his sac until she heard him groan. Until her own body began to respond again, mirroring the changes in his. She almost bent her head and licked him with her tongue. Instead, she licked his chest. She ran her tongue around his nipple, delighted to see it pucker. And when he began to stroke her, she stopped.

“No,” she said. “It’s my turn.”

Harry’s chuckle was no more surprised than she was. But she was beginning to understand the attraction of performing this act on someone who didn’t demand pleasure, but deserved it. She closed her eyes, savoring the sounds of Harry’s excitement, the taste of salt on his skin, the scent of man and the musk of arousal. She tightened her fingers and pumped, and pumped and pumped, smiling when Harry’s body arced against her hands, as the guttural groans of pleasure mounted in his throat. As his head dropped back and his hand clutched her arm for balance. As his entire shaft began to pulse, and his body rock, and his voice deepen, until in gasping, laughing spasms, he emptied himself against her hand.

When she felt him collapse, she smiled and kissed his chest, feeling a greater sense of accomplishment than she had in years.

“Harry,” she said minutes later as she lay with her hand atop his heart, where it could comfort her. “Thank you. I think you changed my life tonight.”

Harry rested his head atop hers. “I know you changed mine.”

By the next afternoon, Kate was heartily weary of her uncle’s life. Not only was he delaying her return to Eastcourt, but the search was proving fruitless. Surely no man could be quite this boring, she thought as she set aside another folder worth of admonishing letters, these to tithe-skimping aristocratic patrons. The words
the example of my illustrious ducal family
appeared more regularly than
sincerely yours
.

Harry worked next to her. At the far end of the long table, Grace was reboxing everything they’d gone through and conversing with Bea, who was sitting in the corner sewing bees into the tablecloth. Kate could have thought the scene had rustic charm, if she didn’t feel so hemmed in and restless.

The problem was, she wasn’t quite sure where she wanted to go if she could get away. Out to the park or up to bed. Her body was still humming, as if someone had electrified her skin, and every time she looked at a boring letter or even more boring sermon, she saw instead Harry’s expression at the moment he’d spilled into her hand. Ecstasy, agony. Her own body had recognized the power of his pleasure and sung in response.

It was all so amazing. So breathtakingly new, as if she had just walked off a ship into a world she hadn’t believed existed. Was it too much a cliché to say colors were brighter? Sounds sweeter? Every angle on Harry’s face more compelling?

Yes, she thought with a private smile. It undoubtedly was. She couldn’t help it, though. It was how she felt.

“Amazing,” she said, turning over yet another letter to erring clerics. “Uncle Hilliard had the unhappy knack of making even sin sound boring. No wonder Diccan ran.”

Harry grinned. “I’m glad you said it. I keep thinking how glad I am I never lived in his house. Our house might not have been grand, but you can’t deny, it was lively.”

Kate laughed, suddenly wistful. “Chaos. That’s what I remember. Unbridled chaos.” Most of it involving laughter. “Although I do admit that when I set up my house at Eastcourt, I did model a few things on your mother’s design. Especially the kitchen.”

She set aside another file. Harry looked over at her. “Tell me about Eastcourt.”

Kate paused, her hand on the box. “Oh, I think you’ll like it. It’s a rambling old place, all warm and yellow, of Cotswold stone, with dormers and a lovely little cottage garden. When I saw it, I felt as if for the first time in my life, I’d come home.”

She could remember so clearly that moment she’d first stepped out of the carriage and looked up to see the house, as untidy and cheerful as an ugly granny, and thought,
Finally
. It had been one of the few times she’d allowed herself to cry.

“No wonder you’re so fiercely protective.”

She graced him with a bright smile. “Edwin has no idea the fight he’s let himself in for. Eastcourt is everything to me.”

Except the minute she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. Not anymore. She wanted Harry to see it; she wanted him to love it as much as she did. She wanted, for the first time, for a man to share her home, and it frightened her.

Not nearly as much as the arrested look on his face, as if he’d just run into a wall. Kate was afraid all of a sudden, and she couldn’t say why.

“Tell me about where you plan to go,” she said on a wild hunch.

Immediately his head came up and she saw a flash of guilt. She was suddenly afraid he would never see Eastcourt as home.

“I’d start with Europe,” he said, returning his attention to his work, as if he couldn’t quite face her with the dreams he feared were slipping away. “Lisbon, Oporto, Madrid, Salamanca, I want to wander cities that aren’t under siege for a change. Paris, Prague, Rome. There is so much magnificent architecture to study. Centuries of it. And after that, I’d study the great Mohammedan architects, the Hindus, the Far East. There is so much to learn.”

Kate felt his words collect in her heart like stones. He sounded like she did when she spoke of Eastcourt. Dreamy, passionate, infatuated. For a long time, she couldn’t even look at him. She focused on her box instead and contemplated the idea of wandering the world with him. She wanted to want it as much as he. Anticipating what would be around the next bend, savoring a warm Italian sun, feeding on his passion as he looked upon the Pantheon like a rake would a beautiful woman.

But the idea frightened her. She’d just found her home, just made it completely hers. How could she abandon it? Where would she feel safe? And what about Bea, and Thrasher and Finney?

“And after that?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “Didn’t you plan to study?”

File in hand, he stopped, as if struck. “Study. Yes, I imagine I will. John Nash has seen some of my work and has offered a place. He’s working on the Regent Street plan.”

Kate came far too close to reacting.
Perfect!
she wanted to say.
Stay here and learn. Build your new world from a base at Eastcourt.
 It terrified her how much she suddenly wanted it.

“It’s funny, though,” he said. “It’s been so long since I’ve thought past getting as far from the army and familiar old England as I can, I can hardly imagine it.”

Kate saw the naked yearning in his eyes and thought of those nightmares, and she turned away. She couldn’t take that away, could she? Even the profound experience of the night before didn’t erase ghosts.

At the bottom of her box lay a small pile of pens, sanding boxes, sealing wax, a letter opener shaped like a bishop’s staff. And, Kate saw, gathering them up to catalog, a small jeweler’s box. Hmm, she thought. Could Uncle Hilliard have had an inamorata he hadn’t wanted Aunt to know about? Secret meetings in the manse, maybe, a tidy little house in Chelsea?

But when she popped open the box, it was to find no more than a bouquet of tie pins. She should have known. Uncle Hilliard would never waste his resources on someone else. Setting the pens aside, Kate lifted each pin. A topaz, an onyx, a ship copying the Livingston crest with a diamond at the prow, and one that was a large intaglio cabochon carnelian that looked like a signet. A copy of the Livingston signet, maybe, for a second son jealous of his brother’s rank?

Just to make sure, Kate hopped up and ran to the library, where she kept a magnifying glass.

“Did you find something?” Harry asked when she got back.

“I’m sure I didn’t,” she assured him, plopping back down in her chair and picked up the pin. “It’s just my blasted curiosity, that’s…”