Beyond Innocence (44 page)

He felt himself swell to bursting; felt the sweet, throbbing ache gather at his base. "
Florence
," he moaned, knowing he should stop her. Instead, his hips thrust towards the strong, clinging heat of her mouth.

One more, he thought, his nails scoring the bedposts. One more heavenly drag and he would stop.

She seemed to sense what his body wanted. Her hands tightened, then her mouth, cajoling him to succumb to the killing urge.
Sparks
danced before his eyes and reddened and then his cock turned inside out. He bent forward at the waist as if someone had punched him, hips jamming forward, muscles convulsing all at once. The orgasm was a tight, throbbing blaze of feeling, endless, intense. He gasped with shock as the pleasure poured from him into her. He couldn't even groan until it finished, until his stolen breath returned. His legs sagged back onto the mattress, no longer able to hold his weight.

"
Florence
," he panted.
"My God."
She giggled against his chest and he discovered he was holding her.
His hands were free. He hadn't even felt her untie him. Still breathing hard, he spread her glorious hair across her shoulders. One last pin scattered to the floor.

"That," she said, hugging him back, "was wonderfully entertaining. I can't imagine why women aren't supposed to do that."

He tipped her head to kiss her, deeply, wetly, his cock going weighty as he realized he could taste himself in her mouth. His seed was salty, bittersweet. That they were sharing it was alarmingly erotic. A sound broke in his throat, helpless and sharp. The noise did something to
Florence
. Her hands clutched the back of his neck and her soft bare breasts wriggled deliriously against his chest. Abruptly short of breath, he broke the kiss. Her weight was nestled against him, between his legs. From the way she squirmed, he knew she was hoping for a quick recovery.

With a low, easy laugh, he swung her into his arms and tossed her on the bed. She shrieked as she landed, then smiled through tousled hair. To see her naked, in his bed, was a pleasure he had not
thought to know.

He crawled up after her, slowly, predatorily, feeling very much the animal he sometimes feared he was. He loomed above her on all fours, his shaft hanging, beginning to thicken even as it swayed.

"Edward?"
Florence
said, tentatively touching his belly with the back of her hand. Her voice shook as if she
were
afraid, but her face was deeply flushed.

Edward bared his big sharp teeth with great enjoyment.

"Now, Little Red Riding Hood," he said, "let's see how entertaining
you
can be."

As it happened, she was quite.

CHAPTER 17

Florence
trembled on
the verge of an almost terrifying happiness. Edward loved her. Edward trusted her. Edward smiled each time his eyes met hers.

Like children, they had raided the kitchen for a
midnight
snack. "I need my strength," he'd said, goosing her through the shirt—his shirt—which was all he'd let her wear.

This playful Edward delighted her: the softness of his smiles, the ease of his wolfish chuckles. He seized on any excuse to touch her, playing with her fingers and her hair, squeezing her knee, touching his mouth to the tip of her nose. Having restrained himself so long, he could not seem to keep his hands to himself.

Now they sat cross-legged in the shelter of his bed, the hangings pulled around them, picking at their pilfered tray of fruit and cheese and honey-slathered bread. Edward fed her a slice of apple, eyes
glowing as he eased it past her lips. "I have a sudden hunger," he said, "to know everything about you."

She blushed at his tone and let her teeth scrape gently, daringly, down his thumb.
"Everything?"

His lashes drifted a fraction lower.

"Everything," he insisted, his hands sliding languorously down her neck.
"First word.
Favorite color.
The name of your very best friend when you were twelve."

The warmth of his touch was wine pouring through her veins. He seemed to like the look of her swimming in his shirt. He clasped her upper arms, forcing the starched white cloth to bunch around his fingers. She had to struggle to think past the pleasure of his nearness.

"My first word was kitty," she said. "Blue is my favorite color. And Papa was always my best friend. He had the silliest sense of humor.
Puns and practical jokes.
No one could make me laugh the way he did."

Edward's mouth twitched as if the mention of her laughter called to his. "Ball," he said.
"Cherry red.
And Freddie, though Plunket my pony came close."
"Plunket?"

"Named him myself.
Looked just like one of our tutors." He smiled at her then, his eyes as kind as the icon on his wall. "Would you mind,
Florence
, if I asked how you lost your mother?"

"I was three," she said, covering his hand to reassure him the question had not hurt. "She died in childbed and the baby, too. It would have been a boy. I don't remember her except for Papa's stories. They were born in the same little town.
Never loved anyone else, either one.
Papa said she was the sweetest, wisest woman he'd ever known and she could never get anywhere on time. He never really recovered when she died. He didn't say so, but sometimes— when he thought I wasn't watching—his eyes grew terribly sad." She looked away, not wanting to dwell on that now, not with Edward so near and dear. She forced a smile. "When I met Freddie, I thought, 'Here's the brother I never got a chance to have.'"

It occurred to her
then,
and perhaps to Edward, that.if she accepted his proposal, she could have Freddie for a brother. Whatever his thoughts, Edward gathered her hands into the dip of silk and skin where his ankles crossed. His fingers rubbed comfort into the hollows of her palms. "I'm sorry you lost your mother so young."

"I was sorry, too," she said as the furrow between his
brows melted what was left of her heart.
"But Papa was good to me. Our parishioners used to call him Father Fairleigh: the mother hen. He was forever fussing over his flock, making sure the little old ladies had someone to look out for them."

"Little old ladies?"

"We had quite a few in Keswick. Papa liked to call them our first, best crop." The memory warmed her, her father's voice suddenly as clear in her mind as Edward's. How could she have forgotten how optimistic he was, and how little of his life was lost to mourning? "He was a kind man," she said firmly, "and a wonderful father, just not very clever with money."

"Thought God would provide?"

"Well, He did!" she said, laughing at the quirk of Edward's mouth. "He simply didn't provide extra."

"And this attraction you hold for animals—"

"Just cats," she interposed.

"Oh, yes, just cats," he agreed, an entirely unexpected dimple appearing in his cheek. "You always had that effect? Even as a girl?"

"I'm afraid so. The children at school used to call me Little Miss Sardine because, well, sometimes the village cats would follow me home en masse."

"A great embarrassment, I presume."

"Quite. When the local toddlers took to trailing after me as well, I nearly refused to leave the house."

Edward was unable to keep his mirth inside. It escaped in snorts from his aristocratic nose. "Poor
Florence
!" he cried. "What a trial!
Unable to walk down the street without her retinue of small,
adoring subjects."

"It was a trial," she protested even as she grinned. She hadn't felt this easy telling a story since she'd had Freddie for a listener. "You can't imagine how mortifying it was."

Edward reached out to tweak her nose. "You're a dear,
Florence
, but I must admit my sympathies lie
with the cats and toddlers."

He grew contemplative then, his smile fading to a gentle curve as he ran his hand along her lower leg.
The gesture was absentminded but oddly comforting.
Possessive.
His hand belonged there, she thought: close and easy and warm.

"Your childhood sounds very rich," he said, his expression hidden from her gaze. She knew
his own
must have been different. A cold father, a fragile mother, and probably more servants than friends, at least while he lived at Greystowe. She knew he wouldn't want her to feel sorry for him and yet she did. One person to love you unconditionally was more important than any amount of privilege. Of course, Freddie had loved Edward that way but, being much younger, he could not have made Edward feel safe.

She stroked the silky top of his head. "What about your childhood? Freddie told me a little, but not everything."

He shrugged one shoulder. "There's not much to tell. Freddie was the best thing about growing up. Tormenting our tutors—"

"Teaching him to swim."

"He told you about that, then." He squeezed her ankle. "Yes, that's a happy memory. At the time, of course, we were both quite miserable. Not to mention half drowned. Here." With unconscious grace,
he rolled from the bed. "I think I still have his first trophy."

He rummaged in the bedside cabinet,
then
emerged with, a triumphant "Ha!" He handed her a round medal, most of the gold worn off, which hung from a frayed blue ribbon.
Florence
ran her finger around the burnished laurel wreath, wishing—as she had with Freddie—that she could have known Edward then, not as a girl but as a woman. She would have liked to protect the boy he'd been from a father who could only love a memory.

"You really kept it," she said, her eyes filling.
"All this time."

Edward had returned to his seat on the bed. He laid his fingertip next to hers. "Yes. Young as I was,
I knew that was a day I would want to remember."

"You were a good brother."

<>
A shadow crossed his face, but he covered it with a smile. "Freddie was a good brother." He brushed her hair behind her shoulder. "I imagine our upbringing was different from yours, but Father made sure we never lacked for anything.
Anything material, at least."
He paused to gather his thoughts, his gaze distant but calm. "I suppose that was the only way he knew to show he cared. He kept the estate together. Made sure we'd never have to struggle to get out of debt, the way his father had to."

"You needn't feel guilty for admiring what was good in him."

Again, one shoulder lifted. "He taught me the value of responsibility. And discipline." His mouth slanted with sudden humor.
"Though I fear I've shown precious little of that with you."

"Perhaps not tonight," she said, and they exchanged a smile.

"Oh,
Florence
."
Impulsively, he clasped her hands. "I love you so much. I'm sorry I ever gave you
reason to doubt me."

"I love you, too," she said, the words new enough to call a flush to the surface of her skin.

He made a sound, low and hungry,
then
leaned forward to brush his lips across that building warmth.
"I want to finish what we've begun," he said against her cheek. "I want to lie with you, to come inside you, to make our
bodies
one."

Heat spread through her in a pulsing wave, pooling in her breasts and belly. The reaction was so intense she had to drop her eyes.

"Please," he said, his grip tightening on her shoulders. "Tell me you want that, too."

She slid her own hands up his chest, over his robe, feeling through silk and muscle the hard, swift beat
of his heart. It pounded as if he feared what she would say, as if her agreement were a matter of grave importance. Her fingers curled into the cloth.