Julianne MacLean (8 page)

His fight was gone. He couldn’t do it anymore. He closed his eyes, tipping his head forward to rest upon hers. He still held both her hands in his. They were warm and clammy.

“Please just stay in the room while I sleep,”
she whispered, and he reveled in the feel of her wine-scented breath on his face.

He couldn’t argue anymore. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was adoration. Who would ever know?

But what did it matter
why
he couldn’t argue? All that mattered was that if he slept in the chair in the corner, everything would return to normal tomorrow. Adele would remember her life and become the woman Harold had proposed to. She would be ready to go home to him. Damien would deliver his cousin’s fiancée to him as he had promised. Then he’d be on his way.

He shook his head at the verdict that was about to cross his lips. “All right, I’ll sleep in the chair.”

“Do you promise? I must have your word. I must be able to trust it.” There was force in her voice. Grit and resolve. She would not be lied to.

“I promise.”

She immediately fell back onto the pillows, but continued to hold his hand. “Thank you, Damien. I’ll make it up to you somehow. Honest, I will.”

Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep almost instantly, leaving him tense and worried, and wondering how he was going to resist collecting on that promise. Especially in the hours to come.

T
he innkeeper knocked on the door a short time later, and delivered a key to Damien for the other room, which had been prepared for him. Damien thanked him, and asked that both he and his wife refrain from knocking on this door again through the night, as his sister-in-law was struggling to sleep and could not under any circumstances be disturbed. They would not likely be taking any supper.

The innkeeper gave a sympathetic nod toward the bed. “You have my word, sir. I hope she’ll feel better in the morning.”

The helpful, discreet man walked out and closed the door behind him.

Damien spent the next fifteen minutes sitting in the blue chintz chair, grappling over his
promise to stay and contemplating the worst temptation of his life: he desired his cousin’s fiancée. He couldn’t stop thinking of her; he wanted to lie with her, to hold her. He wanted her wholly and completely, in every way a man could want a woman, even while he knew it would betray the cousin whom he had always felt a need to protect.

Damien sat forward and covered his face with his hands. He despised himself. He knew he had to resist and bury this madness, but he had not yet done so.

Just then, Adele woke again and sat up. Instinct pulled him out of his chair, and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the bed again, wondering how the hell he had gotten across the room so fast before his brain had had any say in the matter.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, hoping, praying that she would.

“Is it morning yet?” she asked. Her eyes looked as if someone had poured salt into them.

“No. It’s been only fifteen minutes since the last time you woke.”

She rubbed her eyes. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

“Yes.”

She tugged at the collar of her dress, buttoned tight around her neck. “The bed is spinning. And I’m not comfortable. I need to get out of this.”

Jesus
. Perhaps this was some kind of test, Damien thought. If it was, he would pass it. He
would
.

“What do you need?” he asked.

She glanced around, looking almost confused, as if she didn’t know where she was. “Nothing. I just need to take this off.” She began to unbutton her bodice.

“Adele,” he whispered quickly, curling his hand around hers to stop her. He heard the warning in his voice. “
Wait
.”

Her bloodshot eyes met his, and her forehead crinkled with frustration over her fatigue.
Wait for what
? he asked himself, realizing he’d needed her to stop only because he wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready for this to be harder than it already was. He took a second to steel himself. He told himself she probably wouldn’t remember this. She was half asleep, and the wine was certainly having an effect.

“How can I help you?” he asked, because no matter how difficult this was for him, she needed his help and he would give it to her, because he wanted her to sleep, and sleep well, so things would be normal again.

“Help me unbutton this.”

He clenched his jaw.
Unbutton it.

He hesitated, then took a deep, slow breath. He would focus on the task, nothing else. Carefully, he reached down and put his fingers on the tiny covered button under her chin, and one by one, with his heart pounding like a steel mallet in his chest, he unfastened them.

“You’re good at taking care of people,” she said sleepily. “You’re very gentle.”

He said nothing. The bodice fell open in
front, and he caught a glimpse of white undergarments beneath. He found himself comparing this moment to all the other moments in his life when he had gazed upon a woman’s undergarments. There had been many times, but he had never felt like this.

“Would you be so kind as to look away?” Adele asked, her voice weak and listless as she began to shrug out of the bodice, hardly giving him a chance to react.

He stood and went to the window, looking out at the darkening sky. He was completely worn out. He would be glad when night fell. Then he wouldn’t be able to see her. He would go to sleep himself, then he would wake up and it would be morning and he would take her directly to Harold.

He heard the sound of clothes rustling and the bed creaking. “I’m finished,” she said. He turned, and she was under the covers, lying on her back.

Damien returned to the chair. He sat for about an hour, trying to fall asleep, but couldn’t. All he could do was watch Adele in the dim light and imagine with a deep, physical yearning what it would be like to lay beside her.

A short time later he heard footsteps in the hall. He stood up and opened the door. The innkeeper’s wife was passing by.

“Pardon me,” he said. “Would you send up a glass of brandy?”

“Certainly,” she replied with a polite smile.

Five minutes later, she delivered a tray with two glasses and a full bottle. He would only need one glass, of course. But he was very grateful for the full bottle.

S
omewhere low, in the cavernous, darkest depths of night, Damien became drowsily aware of a soft feather of a kiss on his cheek. Still half absorbed in what felt like a hazy dream, he didn’t fight to open his eyes. His consciousness crouched low in the pitch black…

The seasoned lover in him responded with a primitive, highly sexed instinct. He turned his head on the pillow, meeting the sweet, teasing kiss with his mouth. It was only then, as his hand came up to brush the long, curly hair away from her face, that he moved fully from sleep to wakefulness, and realized whose lips these were and whose bed this was. His eyes opened. Then he remembered. He had sat down and stretched out beside Adele not long ago. He
had just wanted to be comfortable for a minute or two…

Gracious lover that he was, he promptly brought the kiss to a graceful and polite finish before he spoke. “Adele,” he whispered firmly, pushing her back and inching away from her while he struggled to squeeze a tight fist around the neck of his desires. He abruptly leaned up on one elbow. “Wake up.”

But as he said the words, the selfish being that lived in his nether regions was raising a disapproving eyebrow at his all too righteous sacrifice.

“I’m awake,” she replied.

He stared down at her for moment. “You were kissing me.”

She lay very still. “I…I’m sorry. I just wanted to thank you.”

For a man who had shared beds with many interesting and experienced women, he found himself staggered, and most assuredly out of his usual range. He was staring down at complete, absolute innocence—virginal and naive beyond any imagining. And so beautiful, she knocked the wind right out of his lungs.

He gazed off to the side and raked a hand through his hair, feeling almost shaky, and still problematically aroused. “I suppose I was kissing
you
. I don’t know.” He shut his eyes.

Her warm hand cupped his cheek again, and she turned his face toward her. “It doesn’t matter. Please, just lie down. Stay. I slept better with you here.”

He knew he should get up and return to the
chair on the other side of the room, but something prevented him from doing it. It was the selfish being in his nether regions—the part of him that wanted her, no matter what the cost, no matter who got hurt. He just couldn’t get up and walk away. Not now. His body wouldn’t let him.

He put his arm around Adele, and she snuggled closer to him. They lay there for a moment in the silence, while a voice in his head kept saying over and over,
You shouldn’t be doing this.

Damien was intensely aware of her slender hand resting upon his chest, as she moved a finger back and forth over the rough wool of his waistcoat. Was she experimenting? Was she curious? Or did she honestly have no idea how dangerous this was?

Damien clenched his jaw. Adele lightly nuzzled her nose over his cheek. He didn’t move. The clock seemed to stop ticking, and instead his body was pounding in its place.

For a moment more, he stared at the ceiling in the darkness, then the lover in him somehow gained a foothold. All at once, physical response dominated thought, and he turned his head to the side again. His blood quickened, and the being in his nether regions smiled like a red devil. Before he had a chance to consider right and wrong, he was rising up and rolling on top of her in one smooth, fleeting blur of movement and consciousness.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him tight, though she didn’t know enough, thank God, to wrap her legs around him.

He devoured her soft lips; her enthralling, silky tongue; and her deep, wet mouth. He became lost in darkness and sensation, out of control with a burning need to possess her, and completely oblivious to the tenets of obligation and loyalty.

He pulled her closer, more snugly to his feverish, roused body, while inside his bones, from the depths of his memory and his childhood, he sensed disaster in the offing. He dragged his lips from hers. He rested his head on the pillow over her shoulder. “God, help me,” he whispered.

“You’re so heavy, Damien,” she said, ignoring his plea, or perhaps just not understanding it. “No one could take me when I’m under you like this.”

“
I
could take you.”

“But I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.”

They both went still.

“I know this is wrong,” she said shakily, “but I can’t stop myself.”

“I’m having a similar problem.” He lay quiet and still for a long, agonizing moment. “You’re in bed with me, Adele, and I’m not made of stone.” He buried his face into the hair at her neck. “Push me off.”

She made no move. She lay beneath him, clutching on to him. “Not yet.”

He lay still, too. For another long moment.

Then he found himself bending to the whim of his sexual needs again, inhabiting a place where his principles lost contact with the work
ings of his body, and he gently thrust his hips through the clothing that served as a barrier between them.

Once. Very slowly…

Then again. Slowly. Gently. Long and gradually.

If this were real sex and there were no trousers binding him, no shift protecting her virtues, he would be deep, deep inside her.

“Am I hurting you?” he whispered. “Your wound?”

“Only a little. I don’t care.”

He was breathing hard now. Quite unable to stop himself, he slid his hand down to her knee and up under the flimsy cotton fabric of her shift, up the outside of her thigh to her bare, fleshy hip. She felt like heaven—soft and warm and succulent.

With his face still buried at her neck, and his eyes squeezed shut amid the battle that was raging inside him, he stroked her soft skin. How easy it would be to slide his hand around to the front, into the damp depths between her thighs, and discover for himself whether she was a virgin or not after the kidnapping. He could answer the question now. Set her mind at ease.

If, on the other hand, she
wasn’t
a virgin…

A host of possibilities—both glorious and horrendous—loomed wickedly in his brain. What if he made love to her, and they let people presume it had been the kidnapper?
God
. No. He couldn’t believe he was even contemplating such a thing. What was this woman doing to him?

Still breathing hard, he turned his face away from her on the pillow again. He let out a breath. His mind fought hard against his body, now trembling with a fierce need. She felt so good, so supple and inviting beneath him.

He’d never wanted a woman like this before. Perhaps because he wasn’t used to waiting and wanting. He only engaged in this sort of thing with women who were ready and willing. But no, it was more than that. It was deeper than that.

Adele’s long legs began to slide apart on the bed beneath him, opening, making a cozy place for him between her thighs. She truly had no idea, not the faintest, of the peril she was placing herself in.

He
knew, however. He also knew with a crushing wave of frustration that it was long past time to stop. “Don’t do that, Adele. Don’t spread your legs. Push me off. Now.”

Her body tensed at the harsh tone that was now a command rather than a request, and a second later she obeyed. Her small hands moved to his chest, and with open palms, she pushed. He rolled off her onto his back.

“I’ll stay in the bed so you can sleep,” he said, his voice deep and husky, “but don’t touch me again. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He turned his back on her. He was angry. Not at her. She’d been through an ordeal, and she just wanted to be held. She needed affection. Caring. He had taken advantage of that in
nocence and vulnerability. He had been very weak.

He was angry at the situation, at himself for letting this go too far. And he was angry with Harold for sitting idly back with his head in the clouds, while Damien saved the day as he always did. Harold should have saved it himself.
He
should have been Adele’s hero. He had known how beautiful Adele was. He should not have expected Damien to be made of stone.

Damien closed his eyes and vowed to keep his back to her for the rest of the night, no matter how badly she needed to be held. After tomorrow, what Adele needed would be Harold’s problem. Damien would have his own problems to deal with. He would have to forget about Adele, and he would have to live with the regret over his weakness and lack of honor tonight. Not unlike the adulterous mother he didn’t care to remember.

Adele gradually became aware of the backs of her eyelids growing brighter, and felt her mind awakening, little by little, from the murky oblivion of a long, deep slumber. Conscious thoughts began to form. It wasn’t dark anymore. It was morning. She had slept. But what a headache she had.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the white ceiling, remembering suddenly that she had kissed Damien somewhere in the depths of night, and he had lain on top of her in the bed.
Just the thought of it stirred her senses to the thrilling memory of his warmth and heavy weight, and the feel of his lips and tongue when he’d kissed her with an open mouth.

The thrill was crushed quickly, however, by a heavy, devastating awareness of what she had done, what she had wanted, and what she had let herself do. Thank God Damien had stopped things when he had.

Even so, she would never be the same again. She now understood more completely the true basis of attraction between men and women. She felt as if her eyes were now open to a whole new world—a world of men and their so-called charm. It was all about lips and hands and the sweet promise of physical pleasure.

She also understood Damien’s famous allure, and the reason he was able to have any woman of his choosing. There was something seductive and special in his eyes, in his body, and quite frankly, in everything about him. Last night, he’d drawn her to him like a magnet, and she had been pulled in, much to her dismay. It was shocking to think she had lost all sense of right and wrong, and had not been able to find the strength to fight against a temptation.

She felt suddenly nervous and afraid, because she would never be the Adele she was yesterday. Or thought she was. What would her parents think if they knew what had happened last night? Could she blame it on the wine? No, it wasn’t just that.

She glanced to her left. There was Damien.
Still. Her heart began to pound with uncertainty and apprehension. He was asleep on the bed beside her, lying on his back with his head turned in the other direction, still wearing the clothes he’d been wearing yesterday—the loose-fitting white shirt, black waistcoat and trousers, and boots.

Just then, he stirred. He inhaled deeply and turned his head toward her, then opened his eyes and looked directly into hers. They both lay there, just staring at each other. Adele didn’t know what to say. Her stomach was rolling. She wanted to disappear.

Damien leaned up on one elbow and gazed down at her. There was a shadow of stubble on his face. He looked very much like the rugged warrior he had been when he’d rescued her at the cottage—disheveled, rough around the edges, virile. She tried to ignore the strange fluttering in her belly and the astonishing, overwhelming urge to touch his cheek as she had last night in the dark.

His gaze went from her eyes down to her lips, then back up to her eyes again. “Damien,” she whispered, with no idea what she wanted to say. She just needed to say his name. She was confused. She felt the urge to cry.

He shook his head and whispered in return, “No, Adele, don’t.”

She fell silent. This was agonizing. He rose quickly from the bed. He faced the window and raked his fingers through his hair. Adele leaned up on both elbows. She watched him while he
stood with his back to her, not ready to leave just yet.

He faced her squarely. “Adele…”

His dark brows drew together, and his voice lowered a notch. Adele fought to control her breathing. She didn’t know what he was going to say to her. She couldn’t bear this.

“Last night,” he said, “I promised you discretion. I promised I would not tell anyone what happened between us. I am a man of my word, and I will honor that promise, as long as it is still what you want.”

What was he getting at?

“Yes, it is,” she replied, hearing the thunderous crash of reality in her ears. They were going home today. She would see Harold, her mother, her sister. Last night suddenly seemed like a delirious dream, now laden with regret—a dream they could not take back. She was so ashamed.

“Then I
will
have full responsibility for what happened,” he said. “You are an innocent, I am not. I knew what I was doing, and from my perspective, I took advantage of you. You, therefore, should harbor no guilt.”

Her eyebrows pulled together and she sat up. “You did not take advantage of me. You were the one who put a stop to what was happening. Remember? So neither should
you
harbor guilt. In fact, what happened between us was more my fault than yours. I have felt very alone the past few days, and I needed to be close to someone. I was scared and exhausted. That’s all. You took care of me last night, Damien, because I
wanted you to. So you may relax.” She paused and sat back. “Although I thank you for the kind offer to take the blame.”

He nodded reluctantly and turned to the window.

“Should we tell Harold?” she asked.

He whirled around. “No. Definitely not. Last night was a temporary madness. It should be forgotten.”

A temporary madness. That’s exactly what it had been, but for some reason that made no sense, it hurt to hear him call it that. “But you and he are close,” Adele said. “Can you live with a secret between you? Because I’m not sure
I
can, not if I am to be his wife.”

“You would hurt him to ease your own guilt?”

She swallowed uncomfortably. “I…didn’t think of it that way.”

“Well, that’s the way it is. Believe me. I’ve told you before that I am protective of Harold, and I don’t want to see him hurt because of
my
weakness. I will live with the guilt. Besides, this is not real life. Once we’re back at Osulton, things will be different, and I’m sure we will both deeply regret our indiscretion here.”