Lessons of Desire (17 page)

She grew more lovely as the sun set. Dusk's light gave her dramatic coloring a cool cast, softening her. Elliot permitted himself some poetic sentimentality while they finished their meal. The flowers in the garden formed a deep circle of blended jewels around the terrace where they sat.

They had spent the long supper talking about their visit to the temples of Paestum the next day. Now Phaedra grew quiet as night closed in. He sensed that she contemplated the following hours and those chambers upstairs. Her eyes reflected her awareness of the anticipation tightening between them. She tried to hide it for the first time, but she was not well practiced in that.

One by one the other guests left the terrace. The innkeeper brought out coffee, served it with elaborate deference, then retreated into the house.

"The sun is gone, Phaedra. The others have left. You can remove the hat now." He did not know if the hat had been a symbol of compromise or merely a precaution against a recurrence of sun sickness. Now its brim cast a deep shadow, obscuring her bold eyes. He wanted nothing hiding her desire from him.

"You sound as if you are giving me permission, Elliot. Or making a demand." All the same she unpinned the hat and set it on a nearby table. "Whatever you think about our situation, you must not heal me like a wife. I will not like that."

How would she know? She had never been one she had not even grown up in a household with one.

He trusted his vague smile would be read as agreement so he could return to enjoying her company in the waning light. She gazed at him expectantly, waiting for a more official affirmation. She appeared determined to settle this now. He guessed they would not be leaving this terrace until she did.

"How should I treat you instead, Phaedra?'' Like a mistress? Like a brief flirtation?"

"Like a friend."

"We were friends last night. I look forward to treating you like that as often as you will allow it."

He was sure he saw a blush, despite the dimming light. "Not exactly like last night. That is part of my concern."

"You did not seem concerned at the lime. However, I am willing to change. Tell me, how do your friends treat you?"

"Willingness
...
It need not, as you spoke of it last night, be a surrender or a victory for either one of us. It need not be a matter of submission and possession. And a man need not—one need not intrude on the others spirit so much." She seemed oblivious to the implications of her last words.

He instinctively reacted lo these references to her past lovers. Badly, despite her admission that there had been no spiritual intrusion with them.

Jealousy cracked through him. It was not an emotion that had claimed him much in the past. Both awed and repulsed by its dangerous power, he tried to push it back into the dungeon of his soul. No doubt among all the
need
nots
that Phaedra had decided men had no right to feel about her, this topped the list.

He controlled its violent madness, but he could not leash it completely. His annoyance sharpened into anger. "I can see that you have contemplated what this need and need not be at length, Phaedra. You have given it far more attention than I have, and your philosophy is too sophisticated and calculating for me."

"I know that tone. Do not get rude and sardonic with me, sir. I knew you could never—it is possible to share pleasure and —"

"And what? Face the dawn indifferent to the body beside you? If a man seeks mere carnal relief he can buy a whore. I would say you are a generous woman to demand nothing more, except that I think you speak out of ignorance. You do not face the dawn with your friends at all, do you? I*II wager you send them away long before that so there can be no claims on you."

"I was not indifferent. But I was not owned either. Not bound by the false ties that passion can create. And I was not dominated in the act itself."

He did not want to hear about her with
other
men. "Your friends decided it was in their interests to hide their true thoughts and reactions from you, that was all."

Now she was angry too. Well, if they were going to have a row over whatever principles she thought he had violated last night, they might as well let hell fly.

"These are not fools or scoundrels we speak of, but good, honest men. They were not
like you
,
that is all."

Her words came clipped and light and cold. A wise man would retreat now. Damned if he would.

"If they were men at all, they were enough like me. A man does not stop thinking like a man because he is with a woman who does not like the way men think. Your friends merely pretended not lo think like men in order lo have your favors. We men do things like that all the time."

"I think I would have noticed if they were dissembling."

"Perhaps you were too intent on taking your pleasure and on avoiding those inconvenient spiritual intrusions to notice."

Her expression fell in shock at this criticism of
her
behavior last night.

"I had hoped
...
I can see my mother was right. Most men are not enlightened enough to comprehend what I describe and they cannot be changed" She picked up her hat and stood. "I regret that you cannot be one of my friends. Elliot. You are not suitable."

She marched through the garden to the inn's door. The queen had made her choice. This particular bee could buzz elsewhere.

Normally he would accept a woman's rejection with humor and grace. Normally it would not really matter to him except for a brief physical discomfort.

This woman's imperious renunciation mattered a good deal for reasons he was in no humor to examine. She had thrown down a gauntlet again, and he could not ignore it. The ground between them had changed a lot since the last time he had permitted her to walk away.

The man was impossible. How could someone so obviously intelligent also be so stupid? How dare he insinuate—no, not insinuate, but bluntly imply—no. not even imply, but outright accuse—that she was no better than a whore in her dealings with her friends?

She scolded and cursed him all the way to her chamber. He probably had no female friends. No doubt Lord Elliot Roth well only had mistresses and the whores he seemed to know about suspiciously well.

She grabbed the latch of her chamber door. He was hopeless. Now she was stuck with him for days on end and he would just be there, intruding in that irritating way that did not take physical intimacy to experience, making her heart do stupid little jigs just by walking into a room. He made her breathless but she dared not yield to temptation again.

She threw open the door. Moist heat greeted her. A servant curtsied and started moving fast, lifting big pails from the cinders of a low fire in the hearth and spilling their hot water into a waiting metal tub.

Suddenly she felt every ache accumulated the last two days. Her body seemed to reek of last night s scents. The odor hung sultry and sweet near her nose, reminding her of the pleasure and the power of what she had just rejected. It would be good to wash the last few days out of her life.

The servant finished with the tub. She sent the girl away and did for herself as she had for years. She removed her dress and chemise and announced with each movement that she was no pampered possession that a man protected for his own selfish reasons. She was Phaedra Blair, free and self-sustaining, bound by no rules except those that she made for herself.

She audibly groaned when she lowered herself into the bath. The water's heat actually cooled her skin. Her body went limp in perfect relaxation. Tiny waves soothed away the tight anger that she had carried out of the garden.

She floated a long time, then sat up, unbound her hair, and washed it. She used the fragrant soap on her body and played with the foam. Lightheaded, cleansed, and confident, feeling more herself than she had in days, she stood in the tub and let the night breeze lick at the water dripping down her body.

The sensation captivated her. She dwelled in the pleasure of being truly cool for the first time in days. She considered scooping more water onto her body.

A click of the door latch destroyed her isolation. Another presence intruded, physically and spiritually. Deliberately. She stood immobile for a moment, awed by the change in the chamber and in herself, stunned by the excitement that aroused her body and so quickly compromised her mind's careful choices.

She reached for the towel lying on a stool beside the tub.

A bronzed male hand closed on it first.

He had assumed she would be done with the bath by the time he sought her in her chamber. He almost retreated after he opened the door. Not to preserve her modesty. They were beyond that.

The vision of her standing naked in the tub made his mouth dry. She appeared like a statue, still and calm. Time slowed while his gaze slowly followed the perfect curves of her back and hips and lingered on the charm of the dimple at the base of her spine. The erotic, soft roundness of her bottom dipped away to hidden shadows. Her squared shoulders reflected her pride even now, in this most private moment.

It was not his physical response that made him pause, but instead a reaction even more visceral than the ferocious desire he felt for her.
Mine
.
The instinctive declaration sliced through him, ruthless and determined.

Desire was familiar but this proclamation was not. Like the jealousy in the garden, he fleetingly acknowledged its danger. He also instantly understood things that he had avoided comprehending before. His hunger for Phaedra exposed truths that he was not sure that he wanted to know.

He walked over to her. She had not moved during the long pause while he admired her body, but now she did. When he reached for the towel she did too, with desperate quickness, as if she were afraid.

Tiny crystals of water still shimmered on her bare shoulder and outstretched arm. Her pale fingers clutched the cloth beside his own hand's hold. They froze like that, the towel becoming ground she did not want to yield.

Mine
.
The declaration repeated unbidden, a testimony to the impulses Phaedra unleashed in both him and herself. It spoke with calm confidence now. She had not ordered him to leave. She had allowed him to enter and look at her. She had done nothing to dispel the mood of teasing sensuality pulsing like a silent, primitive beat in the chamber.

She had already surrendered even if she did not know it yet.

He released his hold on the towel. She snatched it up and draped it around her nakedness, clutching it closed in front of her. She stepped out of the tub and faced him.

Her bold gaze lingered on his face long enough to incite madness. He had never before understood men who wanted women so much that they acted irrationally, recklessly, but right now he did. She glanced to his shirt and rolled sleeves, to his trousers and bare feet.

"Your hair is damp. You already had your bath too," she observed. Her own damp hair hung in a chaotic rumble over one shoulder.

She glanced down to her tub. Dying soap foam still floated here and there. "I dallied too long in mine."

Long enough for her to be having this conversation wrapped in a towel that did not cover her very well. Moist now, it adhered to her curves, obscuring very little.

She turned away and reached for a bell pull. "The servants will want to remove this water tonight."

It only took two strides to stop her. His hand closed on hers before she touched the pull. He circled her body with his other arm and pressed a kiss on her shoulder. The scent of cool water and fragrant flowers filled his head.

She tried to stifle her sensual sigh and halt her subtle, welcoming flex. "I did not invite you here." "No, you did not."

"I think that we should nor—" Her voice trailed into a quiet gasp when he embraced her more fully and kissed the pleasure spots on her neck.

"You are trying to seduce me," she muttered.

"I am not
trying
anything." He pressed her closer and caressed down the towel now molded to her body, seeing with his hands what his gaze had just enjoyed.

She laughed softly. "This is very wrong of you."

"Probably so." Her hands still clasped the towel closed at her chest. He gently pried at them, coaxing her to let go.

She only clutched tighter. Her arousal was obvious, but he sensed a rebellion forming. He slid his hands under the towel in order to silence its voice.

She trembled beautifully but the voice still spoke. "I said yon could not be one of my friends."

"I told you in Naples that I have no interest in being one." He once more coaxed her to release the towel. "You will let go of this now, because you want whatever this is, no matter what you call it."

"I call it the devil's dangerous temptation."

He kissed her neck again. She was small and fragile within his hold. "I am no danger. I want you tonight, that is all."

"I do not believe that is hue" She did not say which part she doubted. Perhaps she thought both statements had been lies.

He did not force it. He kept her clenched fingers under his own, trusting she would release her futile hold on the towel.

Whatever arguments she privately held remained silent ones. Slowly a new softness entered her body. He knew for certain that she had agreed to give herself to him when the fingers beneath his hand loosened.

He slid the towel away so nothing inhibited his caress. Her skin fell cool and luxurious, but an inner fire flowed into his blood from wherever he touched. He cupped her breasts in his hands and played at her nipples until her deep breaths carried soft moans of pleasure. He buried his mouth in the crook of her neck so he could taste the rapid pulse of her need.

Mine
.

She had been thinking too hard about some tiling that required little reflection. She had made more of this liaison than it was or would ever be. She only took and gave pleasure, after all. Nothing more.

That rationalization was the last clear thought Phaedra had before she succumbed to Elliot's seduction. He quickly took her into a state of overwhelming sensation where one did not think at all.

She had been halfway there by the time he embraced her. The fires he incited kept burning away the good sense to which she tried to cling. Try as she might to pick through her fogging mind, she could not summon the sound reasons behind her renunciation of this man in the garden.

Now his hands moved over her, arousing, claiming. With every warm, slow stroke he promised she would again know the ecstasy that she had experienced last night. All her articulations of the danger and the cost became silly and insignificant.

She loved what his hands did to her. She rested against the hard strength of his body and felt every* inch of each confident caress. She savored the rough firmness of his palms on her hips and stomach and the exquisite tease of his fingers on her thighs and breasts. His touch thrilled her in part because he knew what power he possessed.

There was freedom in choosing not to care what it did and did not mean. Mindless, thoughtless, exhilarating freedom. Capitulation came as a relief after trying to deny her carnal hunger. She embraced the abandon and left calculation and debate for another day.

With her surrender his handling became less one of seduction and more that of a man who took what was his by right. She did not care. She was past caring. The eroticism of submission bewitched more than shocked. She let his strength control her. She offered her body, pleading for more, too entranced by the trembles of pleasure to think what they meant.

His arms bound her in his embrace. She parted her eyelids and watched his fine masculine hands on her breasts, glossing slowly over their tips again and again, each son flick shooting an intense arrow down her body. She arched her back, raising her breasts, crying for more and desperate for everything else. All her excitement, all her physical awareness, pooled low and deep, until she could not control how anticipation maddened her.

With one long caress his embrace changed. His hand sought the musky damp between her thighs and ensured that desire owned her.

She could barely stand. She could hardly breathe, and each short gasp carried an impatient cry. She tried to turn in his embrace so she could hold and touch him the way her body yearned to.

He would not let her. Instead he pried her grasp off his forearms and placed them on the top of the bed's footboard. Suddenly his support was gone. Her hands clutched the carved wooden edge.

She pictured what he saw as he stood behind her. The vulnerability of her nakedness and passive position assaulted her.

She looked over her shoulder. He was undressing. Already he had stripped off his shirt. She began to turn.

"No. Do not move. You are
beautiful
there."

Her heart beat heavily. Beautiful and accepting and waiting. Her excitement took on new colors, dark jewel tones of astonishing depth. A different arousal licked at her body, creating a sly, unbearable torture.

She closed her eyes to contain this new desire that felt so primitive. Its power frightened her. It contained too much of what made this man a challenge and a danger.

He shed his lower garments and stepped closer. A savage excitement shuddered through her, like a quake of wicked anticipation. He covered her without touching her. He dominated her without even trying.

She felt his firm palms on her, smoothing from her shoulders, along her arms, and slowly back again. "Do not turn your head. Stay like that so I can see your face."

His caress moved down her back and around to her breasts. Their tips were even more sensitive now the slightest touch sent wonderful shocks through her.

She did not turn her face but she kept her eyes closed. There was some safety in the darkness. Some denial. She could not retreat to a private place of all pleasure and sensation, however. He was there, like the second time in the tower. He made sure she knew who did this.

She thought he would move to the bed but he kept her there, arousing her breasts with delicious effectiveness, pushing her toward an insanity born of infuriating need. He left her clinging to the footboard, trembling. Her body waiting for more. Only when she was moaning again, only when she instinctively arched her back down and raised her hips in offering, only when she thought she would weep or scream, only then did he embrace her again.

One arm came around lo support her and one hand cupped her breast his other hand's fingers followed the cleft of her bottom lo the pulsing heal deep between her thighs.

She had never experienced anything like it. She dug her fingers into the wood but every oilier reality was eclipsed by the pleasure tightening and becoming more focused and more necessary. She neither saw nor spoke nor heard but in her mind there were words,
needful
words, unstoppable mad incantations of demands and pleas.

He finally took her. There could be no denying how it was. He positioned her hips with a firm hold and entered hard. She reached for completion but he prolonged the heavenly agony, using his hands lo arouse her even while he teased her with the promise of fulfillment.

He seemed to know when the most profound trembles began. The deepest pleasure throbbed into her blood and shivered throughout every part of her. She felt him hard then, thoroughly filling her, guiding and pushing her into the pulse until it merged with the beat of her heart and the breath of her life. He was with her all through it, refusing to leave, controlling her even when the trembling turned to a roar and burst through her in a torrent of bliss.

Then she was in his embrace again, surrounded by him, bound to him by their bodies and their sweat. His deep breaths sounded near her ear while the cries of her last crazed moments still echoed in the chamber. She felt his heart beating behind her, its rhythm matching the throbbing in her body.

Elliot watched strips of light begin forming through the slats of the shutters on the windows. Phaedra would wake soon to prepare for their visit to the temples.

He would much rather spend the day in this bed. He had already seen the collection of temples at this colonial outpost of the ancient Greeks. The remains served as illustrations to what the ancient texts told about the way the aesthetics and proportions of the temples developed over time. It was all there, from the heavy muscularity of the columns of Paestums Basilica to the more elegant, later Temple of Hera.

He had seen those ruins before but Phaedra had not. She had hardly objected to their long night, not even when he reached for her the last time for a union so slow and relaxed that they conversed all through it. However he did not think that she anticipated continuing like that for days on end, much as he would like to.

They should probably settle a few things about this liaison, although he had no idea what those things should be. This was not a typical affair. Normally by now he would be requiring at least temporary fidelity. With any other woman this passion would have a name and some kind of understanding and arrangement.

Mistress
.
Lover
.
Beloved
.
She would reject any of those labels, nor did any of them actually fit. Still, he speculated about keeping her. He would enjoy dressing her in gowns that fit her beauty and providing the servants that she could not afford.

Wife
.
Out of the question, and guaranteed to provoke a row, even if it might actually be accurate.

Whore
.
Sinner
.
The world might see her that way, but no one who understood her mind could characterize her behavior so wrongly.