Passion (33 page)

Harry sighed and found her chair again,
raking her hands through her hair, elbows on her knees, she let her
forehead rest in her palms a moment. “I could always hide it. I was
never around him intimately, and he never condescended to speak to
or notice me. And then that night…there he was, and you’d be
shocked, my friend, at what…”

“—
Likely, I wouldn’t. “
Caroline assured her and sat too.

Gabriella asked softly, “How long have you
loved him?”

“Over ten years.” Harry raised her head,
smiling a bit at their shocked faces. “I was a mere girl when I
first saw him, and though I wasn’t always in London, or England,
and I didn’t see him for years. When I did, I questioned why. Trust
me. A woman of my intellect does not like men—who are like that.
Nevertheless, it just grew. He is beautiful. However, it was the
pain too. I sensed it. I felt like I wanted to reach into the cold
and warm him. I wanted to hold him and…” She shook her head and
finished, looking at Gabriella. “I wanted to free him. Does that
make sense?”

“Yes. It does.” Gabriella smiled.

Sitting back then, her head leaned back,
Harry murmured, “I can’t be around him. I told him not to come back
here.”

“Because you thought I—“

“Only partly.” Harry raised her head. “Mostly
because…I know what he will do with his life, and if not you
Caroline, then someone equal his rank and rep. In any case, I will
not be some shadow woman in a man’s life. I don’t mind never
marrying, but I won’t be hidden and made to feel…”

“—
Do me a favor, my friend.”
Caroline cut her off and stood. “Don’t assume. People did that with
me. Even I, did not know what I would do until the moment came.
Jules likely is the same.”

Gabriella stood. “You will stand up with
Caroline week after next? They’ve moved up the wedding, given the
duke’s health, and Raith will be leaving afterwards.”

“You’re her half-sister.”

As Harry stood to walk them out, Gabriella
returned, “Yes. However, a best friend is different. From what she
has told me, you have been a vital part of Caroline’s discovering
herself. Despite this recent set of events, I think the both of you
bring something to each other’s lives. You should be by her
side.”

Harry hugged Caroline at the door, scolding
her over the broken lock. They all laughed. However, on the street,
Harry said to Gabriella while she held Caroline’s hand, “Neither of
us had a mother in our lives, and though I tease her, Caroline has
a poise and self-possession I envy. And she’s loyal.” The woman
smiled. “She’s the first woman friend I’ve truly trusted. It feels
like we should have been sisters.”

Caroline got all weepy. Gabriella said before
they went to the hack, “There you are, then. I get to see to
details and simply enjoy the ceremony.”

On the way home, she told Caroline, “Maybe
you should send Lord Stoneleigh a note.”

“I plan to.” Caroline winked at her.

** * * *

A week later, Harry had received her invite
to the “family dinner” that would be hosted by Stoneleigh. As best
friend to the bride, it was expected she would attend. It was not a
stretch to realize that Caroline had likely told Jules she was back
in London.

Nevertheless, most of that day was taken up
with her trip to the dressmaker to finish the gown she would wear
to the wedding—a lavender silk in plain lines. Caroline’s dress
would be stunning. Harry was tired and a bit preoccupied when she
arrived home. Her hands were full of packages. She climbed the
stairs and entered her room.

Placing the boxes down, she removed her
cloak, smoothing her summer gown of peach linen with a sigh, and
then brushing her windblown hair. She sat on the bed to remove her
walking boots, and had done so when the door to her bathing room
opened.

Harry stared at Jules, at his beautiful face,
his nude, save a towel, body.

Placing her palms beside her hips, she
followed him with her eyes until he stood right before her.

His hand provocatively on the towel, he
murmured, “I know you told me not to come back, but I couldn’t help
myself.”

Mouth dry, she glanced up at him, her gaze on
those sensual green eyes though fully aware the moment the towel
was loosed and dropped.

She watched his lips, saw the heat in his
eyes when he husked, “Will you let me pleasure you, Harry?”

Jules sat down on his haunches then, his
hands touching her legs, fingering the silk, and easing it up
slowly. “I shall go away, if 'tis what you want.”

Seduced, enthralled by him, she thought—(as
if) I could turn away this beautiful man. Even did she not love
him.

His palms skimmed under and up her legs. He
leaned forward, eyes dipping to her mouth, “I’ve missed you. Do you
know what a revelation that is?”

Finally wetting her lips, she parted her legs
for him, trying to play at her usual boldness. “Yes, actually. I
know your self imposed aloofness, Jules.”

“You also know, there is nothing planned or
expected between myself and Caroline.”

“Of course.”

His hands reached her thighs. They were warm,
strong.

Fingers moving to tease the strip of curls
over her sex, he drawled, “We betray no one, cross no lines, by
being lovers, Harry.”

“No lines but my own.” She sucked in a breath
when he touched between the curls. Harry stopped his hand and
nudged him back so she could stand. She disrobed and lay on the bed
in her stockings, loving that flash of his masculine form when he
joined her.

He half sat near her hip, his hand and
fingers lazily busy between her legs.

“You have some objection to being my lover?”
He used her slick dampness to glide his finger up, using the pad to
circle her clit. Leaning on his elbow, watching her face, Jules
knew exactly what he was doing.

“No. save that you yourself said, you have no
mistress. That doesn’t leave a place for lovers either,
Stoneleigh.” She panted and then arched, reaching down to move his
hand, lowered it, so that one of his fingers sank inside of her.
“Oh, yes.”

He gave her several moments of thrusting
before he got to his knees and spread hers, dipping his head down
to worry her clit with his tongue and tease her with his
fingers.

Harry was burning hot, aroused, and half out
of her head when she realized he’d said something to her.

“What?”

“I said, you are in love with me, Harry.”

She froze, and then she pushed him away and
sat up, staring at him.

He laved his lips and again got up to pour
her a drink. Handing it to her, ignoring the fact he was fully
aroused, his sex flushed and thrust.

Harry drank it, eyeing his face. “You’re
arrogant Stoneleigh.”

“Yes.” He sat down by her hip and smiled.
After taking the empty glass, he began lightly fingering and
kissing her nipples.

She squirmed.

Jules lifted his head. “You’re aroused, hot,
and hungry. You aren’t a woman to deny yourself pleasure.”

“Neither am I able to ignore…”

“…
.That I know what you feel
for me?”

For the first time in her life, her face
flushed. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“I saw it. I saw it when you slapped me.”

She sucked in a breath, feeling her body
tremble. “I see. Well, do not assume anything I feel guides my
life. I won’t be secondary, hidden, partaking of some…clandestine
existence.”

His fingertips rolled her nipples. After
leaning down to kiss each one, Jules stretched, kissed her quite
sensual and breathlessly, then he whispered in her ear, “I have
never in my life wanted a woman like I want you. I have never felt
so challenged, so excited, so aroused. You do that to me, Harry.
You make me feel more than I ever have, and pleasuring you,
watching you…stirs me.”

She groaned and closed her eyes, her hands
coming to his hair. “That is not… fair, Stoneleigh.”

He laughed and bit her ear, his hand
smoothing over her hip, and then finding that spot between her legs
again. Breathing in that ear, he murmured, “Wouldn’t you rather
climax than talk?”

He moved down and did not give her time to
think or speak. Jules laved, kissed, pleasured her, and moaned when
she shuddered through her climax. Then moving up between her lovely
legs, he looked into her dreamy eyes, feeling his whole body
sensitize as each inch of his sex sank into the silken heat of
hers.

Those eyes rolled back a moment, and she held
to him.

Jules held deep inside though he wanted to
thrust. He savored the moment too. He felt the ripples, the squeeze
of her muscles.

Once he began to move, he was hard pressed to
stick to his plans. But at a moment, he got to his knees, holding
her hips to him and catching his breath, he stared at the woman
under him, at the emotions in her eyes, and the damp mouth where
she had kissed his shoulder and throat.

“I’m yours, if you want me, Harry. I want to
be.”

“Jules.” Her gaze was suddenly wide and
seeking.

He smiled, a bit awkward. “I have never
said…I love you.”

“Do you?” Her hands skimmed up his arms.

“I must. I have never felt so good, alive, as
when I am with you. And so wretched, when you went away.”

“I don’t believe you.” However, her gaze said
she desperately wanted to.

He began to move, thrust, circle his hips,
holding her gaze while he did so. “Don’t reject me, Harry. Please,”
The request, the sound of it, was so unlike the arrogant and aloof,
Stoneleigh that it broke down every wall inside Harriet. It was a
plea, admittance from a man who needed his pride because of his
past.

She felt tears, could not help it.

He leaned up, thrusting hard. It was
emotional, fast, deep, until they lay side by side, panting for
breath.

Harry leaned up, staring at his flushed face,
the closed lashes. “I have loved you for years, Jules. No matter
how much I protest, or what I say, I would spend my life doing
so.”

His lashes lifted, eyes a clear green.

She swallowed and touched his cheek. “I
fantasized about you.”

His grin almost made her want to smack him,
until he returned, “I’ve been doing that since that first night you
pleasured yourself for me. You excite me, Harry.”

Leaning up, he pushed her to her back, saying
quietly, more serious, “I’ve lived my life very deliberately,
Harry. Someday…I will explain to you why. You brought impulse,
passion, that something that was missing to it. I am sorry I did
not notice you before. You are quite the loveliest and graceful
creature I have ever seen. I cannot go back. I can only live in the
now and plan differently for a future.” He cupped her cheek. “I’ve
had a busy week too—but for a month, I’ve been falling in love with
you.”

She did not stop the tears, and did not stop
Stoneleigh from gathering her, holding her for the next hour. He
held her, as no other man, and Harry knew he would do so for the
rest of their lives. She would spoil Stoneleigh with affection,
because she knew in her heart, arrogant, cold, on the surface, he
needed to know and feel that she loved him.

It was dark, later in the night, when they
arose and managed something to eat, and sharing of a coffee. Back
in her rooms, Harry tossed everything out of the chair and set him
in it.

Herself, dressed in his unbuttoned shirt, she
sat astride him, her hands touching his face, fingers sifting
through his rich black mane. He was too beautiful for words, and
freeing himself to passion, it melted her inside, his
expressions….

His sex deep inside of her, Harry held his
head back, laving the full veins and sinew of his neck, and feeling
the flex of his hands on her backside as it aroused him further.
She was sexually rough, aggressive, and purged as many of her
emotions out in the next half hour, as she gave to him leave to
enjoy her. She bit and teased, pulled his hair, and held his hands
on the arms so he could not touch her while she ground and lifted
and rode him.

Teeth clinched, face a study of erotic
pleasure, with eyes glittering, Jules cursed when she summoned his
climax. It was intense, amazing and dizzying.

“You’ll marry me,” he murmured holding her in
the bed spoon fashion.

Harry grunted.

He said bluntly, “Wed me, or be my
mistress.”

“I’ll be your mistress.”

Under the covers, he fit his hand between her
legs. “Meeting two or three times a month, when we could do this
anytime of the day or night. Are you sure, Harry? I thought you an
adventurous woman. I was looking forward to you showing me just
what you like…perhaps exploring my own…”

“I’ll marry you.”

He grunted. “You made that sound like a
difficult choice.”

“I don’t want to become someone else,
Stoneleigh. I like who I am. I won’t stop living the life I love
and enjoying the things I do…”

“I’ve no intention of changing you. It’s your
uniqueness that attracts and fascinates me.”

She leaned up and looked over her shoulder at
him.

He said as if reading her mind, “No. I do not
need a long betrothal to be sure. I am well aware we will clash on
occasion. I would wager, we will argue often and passionately. But
when we aren’t, we will be exploring the world in a new way, and
discovering each other—with that same passion too.”

He turned her and held her to him a moment.
“You think I don’t need you, Harry. But I do. I need you more than
I can articulate, in more ways than I can….”

She knew that. She had always known that.
“Next month then?”

“Yes.”

“Not fancy, just the family?”

He rolled her to her back and kissed her,
hard, deep, possessive. “We’ll wed as soon as Blaise and Caroline
return from their honeymoon. If you like, we will wed in the
country.”