Rebecca Hagan Lee (32 page)

His smile matched hers. “I wouldn’t say that. But I understand your point. You are a woman who enjoys a wager. . . .”

“I enjoy wagering with
you
,” Julie amended. “Ordinarily I’m not the wagering kind.”

Holding on to her, Will gently rolled with her onto their sides, then reached around her for one of the cards scattered about. He lifted it and grinned. “Ace of diamonds . . .”

Julie reached down and plucked up the card that was sticking to his muscular thigh. She looked at it, then held it up for him to see. “Seven of diamonds.”

“Lucky seven,” he said, “but not as lucky as my ace.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she threw his words back at him as he untied the knot at her waist. She shrugged out of her robe as he reached up and cupped her breasts.

“Clever girl.” He dipped his head and sucked one luscious little nipple into his warm, wet mouth.

She reacted instantly, arching her back, turning and pushing her breasts into his face. She sucked in a breath at the wonderful sensation. Desire gripped her. Eager for more, Julie reached up and threaded her fingers in Will’s thick brown hair, and held his head to her breasts. “Again,” she ordered.

Answering her demands, Will rolled to his knees. Leaning forward, he continued his erotic exploration, touching and tasting, gently nipping at the hard bud with his teeth. And then he suckled her, and Julie thought she might die of the pleasure as her nerve endings became gloriously alive and sent tiny electrical currents throughout her body, igniting her.

“Touch me,” he told her. “Please.”

“Where?” she whispered.

Will took her hand and guided it between their bodies to the place he wanted it most. “How about the not-so-subtle part of me standing erect and dying for attention?”

She laughed, then gently wrapped her hand around him.

Will quivered with pleasure and came very close to spilling himself in her hand as Julie stroked him without shyness, but with a gentle enthusiasm that had Will thinking that he must have done something right to find a woman like the one who held him. He swallowed a lump in his throat, then paused in his tender ministrations to her breasts to ask her one question: “Still want to stay the night here with me?”

Julie glanced down and looked him in the eye. “What I want is you, Will Keegan.”

“You understand the consequences? What it means?”

“I live in San Francisco. I’ve seen what goes on between men and women in the boardinghouses and cribs,” she told him. “I’m not as innocent as you think.”

“You’re every bit as innocent as I think,” he said between kisses. “But if you stay the night here with me, you won’t be innocent in the morning.” He kissed her again, deeper this time.

“I don’t want to be innocent in the morning,” she clarified. “I want to be your lover. I want you to be mine.”

Mindful of her injuries, Will ran his hand down her side, to her waist. Keeping one hand over her flat belly, he moved the other one to the triangle of red curls between her legs.

Slipping his finger between her soft folds, Will discovered she was wet.

He rubbed the moisture over her, spreading the liquid honey over and around her labia to the hard little button at the center of her and massaged.

She sighed and squirmed and dissolved into a world of unimaginable pleasure as he worked his magic against her. She grew hot and achy and tense. She called out his name in wonder, in need, and finally in complete surrender as he gifted her with a magnificent release.

Opening her eyes, Julie gasped. “I didn’t know. . . .”

“And there’s still a lot you don’t know.” He smiled at her.

“Teach me, Will. Teach me all there is to know about pleasure. About pleasuring you.”

He kept his word. He took his time, following the path his hands had taken with his lips and tongue, offering her more pleasure when she climaxed a second time and then a third as he tasted the essence of her. And then, when she was quivering and on the cusp of a fourth incredibly intense release, Will positioned himself between her legs and carefully pushed inside her.

The effort cost him. His arms were shaking from the strain of holding himself back and easing himself inside her warm, tight opening. Will leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers, giving her time to adjust to the size and feel of him inside her.

Just when he believed he might die from the wait, Julie put her arms around his back and urged him on, lightly squeezing his tight buttocks. His muscles bunched and rippled under her hands as Will held her tightly, half lifting her off the bed as he ground his hips into hers and rocked his throbbing erection deeper inside her. She scored his buttocks with her fingernails in a little bit of pleasure-pain that telegraphed her need.

“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he instructed, kissing her cheek, then her eyelids, and finally her mouth. He kissed her gently, tenderly, reverently, and held her as if she were precious and fragile.

Julie shifted her hips experimentally and whimpered as the pleasure began to build once again. She shifted her hips and Will understood. He fought to go slowly, fought to maintain control. His body strained with the effort. Julie tightened her hold on him. She put her arms around his neck and held on as he began to move within her.

Gently, slowly at first, then faster.

Julie matched Will’s movements until they began to move in tandem, developing a rhythm of sex that was uniquely their own. She kissed him as they moved together—kissed his arms, his shoulders, his neck, his chin, the corner of his mouth. And she trusted him to lead her to that place that seemed just beyond her reach—the place where she became him and he became her. . . .

The place where the two of them became one.

Then Julie felt it as Will shuddered, shouted her name, and spilled himself deep inside her. She screamed his name and let herself go with him to the spot where there was only Will and the almost unbearable feeling of pleasure spiraling inside her.

Chapter Thirty-five

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”

—SOPHOCLES, 496–406 B.C.

J
ulie woke up some time later to find that Will had pulled back the coverlet, placed her on the soft sheets, and crawled in next to her. She was on her left side. He was behind her, and she could feel him stirring against her bare bottom as she nestled closer to the warmth his big body offered. She liked the feel of him, his large body curved protectively around hers, his face pressed into her neck, his warm breath brushing her ear, his arm draped over her waist, his hand possessively splayed over her abdomen, the tips of his fingers touching her red curls.

She pressed against him.

“Wriggle at your peril, my sweet,” Will whispered in her ear.

“Am I in peril?” she queried.

“I fear you may find yourself sheathing my sword at any moment.”

Instantly intrigued, Julie asked, “Is that possible from this angle?”

“Not only possible, but about to begin.” With that he slipped inside her from behind and rocked them both to the stars and beyond. . . .

* * *

L
ATER, SHE LAY CRADLED AGAINST HIS CHEST, LISTENING TO
the steady beat of his heart. His arm was wrapped around her, holding her close. “Will?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you asleep?”

He gave a little snort of laughter and Julie felt his chest rise and fall with it. “Are you insatiable?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I can’t seem to get enough of you.”

He hugged her. “Then I’m not asleep.”

Julie giggled. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome,” he said, the leer clearly evident in his tone of voice.

“Not just for the lovemaking,” she told him. “Thank you for trusting me with your secret, and for bringing me to Coryville with you to meet your friends. I like them very much.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he told her.

“How do you know?”

Will took a deep breath and gave up on sleeping. “I’ve known Jamie a long time. I know when he approves of someone and when he doesn’t. He approves of you.” He pressed his lips against her hair. “He told me so.”

“How long have you been friends?”

“More than twenty years. We went to school together, then university in London, and then we returned to Hong Kong and started work at Craig Capital, Ltd. I’m a year older than he is, so I started work first and was his boss when he began.”

“But that changed?” She phrased it as a question, but she already knew the answer.

“Yes. As it should have. I’m second in command at Craig Capital. James’s father turned the company over to James on his twenty-fifth birthday. Jamie offered me forty-nine percent of the business if I would help him expand it and to branch out from Hong Kong. I accepted the deal, and Jamie and I became partners. We run the business together and share in the profits. I took over the San Francisco office five months ago and built the Silken Angel Saloon as a front for our rescue operation.” He smiled in the darkness. “It’s turned out to be far more profitable than either one of us expected.”

“I’m amazed you could leave Coryville behind to go to San Francisco. . . . Craig House and its grounds are like a fairyland.” She began sliding her hand up and down his arm.

Will took another deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Jamie built Coryville in honor of Cory, his little girl who died. He wanted it to be the perfect place for children to grow up.”

“I didn’t realize he and Elizabeth had lost a child.” Julie didn’t see how either one of them could bear the loss.

“Elizabeth and James married last year. Cory was Jamie’s daughter with his first wife, Mei Ling. She died before we left Hong Kong.” Will surprised himself with his sudden willingness to talk about Mei Ling and Cory and the life James had had back in Hong Kong, because he’d never talked with anyone except Jamie about any of it. “She’s the reason we left Hong Kong. Jamie nearly went mad from the grief.”

Julie was silent for a moment. “What about Mei Ling? What happened to her?”

“She died, too.” Will’s voice was hoarse. “Shortly after Cory died.”

“How awful! That must have been devastating for James.”

“It was devastating for both of us,” Will told her. “I was madly in love with Mei Ling, too. I had been since I was seventeen. Watching her die was horrible. It nearly tore us apart.” He pulled Julie closer to him and began caressing her upper arm, running his palm up and down over it. He pressed another kiss against her hair. “She starved to death.”

“Like Su Mi.”

“In a way,” he said. “The difference was that Mei Ling starved herself to death. And it was a bloody wretched way to die. I’ll never forget the sight of her. After.” His voice broke, and Will had to take a moment to compose himself.

Julie gasped, hearing the pain in what he didn’t say. She had seen Su Mi. She knew what starvation looked like. And she would never forget the sight either. “Why would she do such a thing? Was she grieving for her little girl?”

“Who could tell with Mei Ling?” It was easier to talk in the darkness, easier to tell her when he could hold her in his arms. “You grew up in Hong Kong,” Will said. “You’ve heard of the practice of ‘bathing the infant’?”

“Oh, no.” Bathing the infant was a Chinese euphemism for drowning unwanted babies—usually girl babies, but sometimes male babies were drowned, too, by their parents or the midwife or another family member. It was a horrid practice. Newborn infants were drowned in basins and bathtubs, or often taken to the country or to the ocean and left in bodies of water to float until they sank. Julie’s heart hurt at the horror of it.

“Mei Ling left Cory in a pond while Jamie and I were away on business.” Will sucked in a ragged breath, remembering. “Mei Ling starved herself to death because Jamie wouldn’t—couldn’t—forgive her for what she did.”

“And you, Will?” Julie asked, her heart aching for him, for his pain. “What about you?”

“I forgave her,” Will whispered. “I just never forgave myself for not being able to save her.”

“Oh, Will . . .”

“There’s more,” he warned her. “Let me get it out while I can.”

“All right.” She lifted his arm from around her waist and placed his hand on her cheek.

“I left Coryville five months ago because Jamie refused to accept the resignation I tendered. I had decided to return to Hong Kong to help take care of my father, because I believed I was falling in love with Elizabeth.”

Julie gasped once again and tried to roll away from him, but Will held on. She lay quietly in his arms for a long time before she whispered, “Do you still love her?”

“As a friend,” he answered honestly. “But I’m not in love with her.”

“You’re not?”

“No,” he affirmed, turning Julie so he could see her face, so she could see his. “There’s only room in my heart for one woman. I’m in love with you, Julia Jane.”

“And I’m in love with you, Will Keegan.” Julie hugged him.

“And just so there are no misunderstandings, let me say that I want to marry you, Julia Jane Parham, and make you my wife.”

Julie tightened her arms around him. “You are all I’ve ever wanted.”

“You’re certain?”

“As certain as I’ve been of anything in my life,” Julie told him. “I’d love nothing more than to be your wife and to have you as my husband.”

“When?” he asked.

“As soon as possible.”

Will grinned. “There’s just one thing. . . .”

“Oh?”

“Before we get married, I need to know what you plan to do about your missionary work,” he said.

Julia blinked.

“I’m not going to be a Salvationist missionary any longer,” she confided. “I’m giving it up.”

“That’s a shame,” he said. “Some of my favorite people were missionaries. They’ve always held a special place in my heart.”

She snorted. “I suppose you paid them not to sing ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’ in your presence, too?”

“No,” he said. “My mother would have boxed my ears if I’d been impudent enough to try.”

Julie looked up at him.

“Didn’t you know, Julia Jane? My mother and father were missionaries.” There was a twinkle in his eyes. “The joke was on me from the moment I met you. I suppose it couldn’t have been otherwise. I was meant to fall madly in love with a flame-haired missionary.”

She smiled at him, and this time the twinkle was in her eyes. “Can we sing ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’ before the ceremony?”

“Of course.” He surprised her. “It’s always been my favorite hymn.”

“Since when?” she demanded.

“Since you walked into the Silken Angel singing it . . .”