Jo Goodman (34 page)

"Like tonight."

She nodded. "Your drinking... I didn't know what..."

"And when I asked you to stay with me..."

"You didn't ask," she corrected him.

"No, I didn't, did I?" Colin fixed his eyes on the ceiling. "That's what I was trying to tell you when I came in. I want you to know that you don't have to be here."

"I know."

"Then you're here because you want to be."

"I didn't say that," she said.

Colin's eyes darted from the ceiling back to Mercedes. He could make out the serenity of her expression even in the darkness, but there was something else, something she was holding back that made her lower her lashes and avert her eyes. "Then why?"

She regarded him steadily now. "I'm here because I know it's where you want me to be."

Colin raised himself on one elbow. "I'm not sure—-"

"I am." She raised her hand and placed two fingers against his mouth. "Don't say anything. Just accept it. I have." Her hand slid over his cheek and her thumb traced his lower lip. She watched him closely, drawing him nearer with her eyes and the parted invitation of her own mouth.

Colin bent his head but it was Mercedes who initiated the kiss. She laid her mouth across his and tugged gently on his upper lip. Her tongue slipped along the sensitive underside. Groaning softly, Colin rolled Mercedes onto her back. Her fingers were in his hair, dipping into the thick thatch at his nape. Her nails drew lightly across his scalp and his entire body contracted as sensation swept the length of him.

She deepened the kiss, thrusting her tongue in his mouth, tasting the hint of alcohol that remained. She stole his breath. Her hands moved down his neck and across the broad beams of his shoulders. She lightly scored his arms with her fingernails and raised another shiver under his skin. Mercedes felt her breasts swell, the nipples harden to tiny stones, then she moved under Colin, letting him feel the changes in her body against his naked chest.

She raised her knee. Her nightshift rode to her thigh. Colin's palm was warm and getting hotter as he let it trail from knee to hip and back again. On the third pass her hips lifted of their own accord as the need to have him there, moving intimately between her thighs, overwhelmed her.

Mercedes let her fingers slip along the edge of his drawers, dipping just below the material a time or two, lingering long enough and with enough carnal intent so there could be no mistaking she meant to do it.

The straps of her nightgown were pushed past her shoulders. Colin's mouth touched her neck, her shoulder, then sipped at the skin at the base of her throat. He drew a whimper from her and felt her arch beneath him. He sucked her nipples through the thin cotton nightshift. The damp abrasion of his tongue on the material caused her to cry out.

He covered her mouth with his again. His hips pressed against her and they rocked together, restrained only by the barrier of their clothes.

Mercedes pushed at his drawers. He lifted her shift. Her hands slipped between their bodies and she grasped and guided him into her. His sharp thrust secured them but not as much as the arms she slid around his back.

Watching Mercedes closely, Colin held himself still. She returned his look from eyes that held only a hint of gray at the rims. Dark black centers mirrored his wanting. Her lips were soft and damp and parted. The first faint flush of desire colored her cheeks.

Restraint tightened Colin's body and lent his voice a raspy edge. "Tell me this is because you want it," he said.

Mercedes caressed the length of his spine and felt the involuntary thrust of his body against hers. Her body contracted around him and when she saw the effect, the next contraction was by her will.

Colin was not proof against this pressure but he held himself back long enough to make his demand a second time. "Tell me," he said.

Mercedes moved under him, raising her hips to begin what he was denying them both. When his head lowered, she whispered against his ear. "I want what you want."

It was not the answer he had asked for. It was all she was willing to say, and his choices were two: he could accept it or he could leave her.

Colin did not think he could leave her.

Mercedes cradled him as he rocked her with the force of his thrusts. She could not make him raise his voice, or threaten her, or lift a hand against her, but she could bring him to this edge where his body was pressed hard to hers and where she finally had to yield to him.

Her hands dropped away from Colin's back and found purchase in the sheets. At the point of their joining there was heat that was spreading across her skin. She felt it in her fingertips, in her breasts, in her belly, and where she touched him he felt it, too.

"It's not supposed to be a punishment," he said against her mouth. "Never that."

She gasped a little at his perception. "I don't—"

He kissed her hard to cut off the lie. "Yes, you do," he whispered. "It's exactly what you think." Now when he held himself still it was Mercedes's voice that rasped as she called out his name. Colin kissed her again, gently this time, and said softly against her lips, "It's not being done
to
you, Mercedes, but
for
you."

Chapter 10

Sleep eluded Mercedes. Her limbs felt languid, her lashes heavy, in the aftermath of Colin's loving. She was deliciously sated, warm and comfortable in the large bed. Colin slept beside her, one arm thrown over her waist and his leg flush to hers. His breathing was even, the regularity soothing as the ticking of a clock. Mercedes thought it was impossible to be more replete.

Her mind was the thing on edge, a tangle of thoughts so twisted she envisioned a skein of yarn she could never unravel.

Colin's voice came to her again, soft and faintly challenging, "It's not being done
to
you, Mercedes, but
for
you." She had stiffened then, struck by the realization that an act she had vaguely considered selfish, could be done in the spirit of giving. He hadn't given her time to think more than that. His mouth took hers again and the thrust of his body filled her deeply. She held him close, not wanting to have him apart from her for even a moment. Her breasts were achingly sensitive to his touch and she arched to prolong the contact and friction of their flesh.

Heat that had blossomed between them danced along the length of her limbs and she took short breaths, sipping the air, as Colin surrounded, held, and joined her. Tension kept her body taut and at the moment of coming she tried to hold back her inarticulate cry of pleasure. Colin did not let her keep it to herself and laid his mouth on her breast, tugging gently so that the cry spilled from her.

There was satisfaction for him in her surrender. His movements quickened and the contractions of her body pulled him over excitement's edge. He buried his face in the curve of her neck and filled his lungs with the fragrance of her hair and skin. When he began to shift his weight off her, she stopped him and kept him close to her awhile longer.

They said nothing. They felt the quieting of their hearts and the ease of each breath. The sheets rustled as Mercedes adjusted their cocoon. There was no other sound in the room and the silence took on a certain weight and comfort, like another blanket to cover them.

Colin had fallen asleep then. Mercedes had not.

She turned on her side toward him and nudged Colin's leg aside. Moving his hand from her waist, Mercedes sat up. She leaned against the headboard with her shoulder, her legs curled to one side. Colin didn't stir.

Mercedes studied the shadowed profile of his face, the strong lines that were softened slightly by sleep. Reaching out, she let her fingertips trace his hairline from temple to temple, sweeping lightly across his forehead and pushing back a heavy lock of sunshine-bright hair.

He was an astonishingly handsome man. His features weren't refined or classically molded in the way Severn's were, but there were firm, patrician lines that lent him a certain authority even in sleep.

The backs of Mercedes's fingers brushed his cheek then lay without pressure against his neck. She could feel his pulse, faint and steady. Her fingers trailed along his shoulder. His skin was warm. She laid her hand on his chest and kept it there.

Colin didn't wake until Mercedes left the bed. He knew himself to be a light sleeper as well as requiring little of it. This sensation of rising from deep, almost drugged sleep was new to him. He opened his eyes only a fraction, just enough to watch her progress from the window where she had been standing to the wing chair where she curled in one corner. Her light cotton shift gave her a wraith-like appearance. When she moved she seemed no more substantial than mist rising from the sea.

"Are you going to sleep there?" he asked.

Mercedes gave a start. His voice was deep and faintly raspy and it was exactly that voice that had whispered in her ear while he held her so intimately. The memory was suddenly so powerful she could actually feel him inside her, holding himself still while his mouth and hands drew another response from her. The shiver that coursed through her was one of pure pleasure.

Colin raised the covers. "Come here," he said. "You're cold."

She didn't deny it. To do so would have forced her to tell him about the pinwheel of sparks that had just skittered across her skin and the bone-deep heat it had left in its wake. Mercedes rose from the chair and crossed the room in a delicate, graceful glide of which she was perfectly unconscious. She slipped under the covers that were lifted for her while Colin moved over to make room.

It wasn't until she was beside him that he wondered if she wanted to be there. "You can go to your own room," he said rather stiffly, rising up on one elbow. "If you want."

His less than gracious offer raised a small smile. "No, there's time for that later. I can be back in my room before morning. It's only half past three."

Colin was struck by how long and how deeply he had slept. The last thing he remembered was slipping his arm around Mercedes's waist and the natural curving of her body to his. He tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear and asked quietly, "Have you slept at all?"

"A little, I think. Off and on." Mostly off, she thought, but she kept this to herself. "I didn't mean to wake you. In fact, I was trying to avoid it. I was restless so I left the bed."

He knew the kind of restlessness that could keep a body awake for hours on end. Until Mercedes came to his bed he had never known there was respite for it. "Can I get you something?" he asked. Colin remembered her earlier trek to the kitchen. "Warm milk?"

Mercedes shook her head. "No. I'm fine." She hesitated, her eyes darting over his face.

"What is it?" Colin asked.

"Nothing," she said. Again there was a hesitation. "It's just that... no, nothing."

Both of Colin's brows kicked up and he let a lengthy silence do the talking for him.

"Well, I've been wondering what you meant earlier... about the promises... about keeping them." Mercedes noticed the change in him immediately, the shuttered expression, the guarded look. The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened and where his body touched hers, she could feel his tension. "I didn't think you'd want to tell me," she said.

"I had too much to drink."

Disappointed, she nodded. "I thought it would be something like that."

Colin sighed. "None of it was about you."

"I know. I believe you." She glanced at him again, her dark eyes uncertain. "But if it wasn't about me, I wondered, you know, who it might be about."

Colin lay on his back. The last thing he expected was for Mercedes to move closer and place her head on his shoulder. Her arm rested lightly on his chest and the fabric of her nightgown was soft against his skin. She was warm and smooth and restful. Unlike him, her silence was completely undemanding.

"They came for the baby first," Colin said at last. He knew he had captured her complete attention. In a low, steady voice devoid of most inflection or feeling, he told Mercedes about Decker and Grey and Cunnington's Workhouse. There were some things he kept to himself—the mindless cruelty of the older boys, the abuses he witnessed and was almost a victim of, and how he had nearly starved himself to make certain his brothers had enough to eat. He knew Mercedes was not naive about the conditions in workhouses like the one the Cunningtons operated. The few questions she asked proved that she was quite able to elaborate on descriptions when he did not.