Rexanne Becnel (24 page)

It felt good. She let her lips part. It felt sensuous, like being kissed by James…

She opened her eyes, blinking her damp, clumping lashes. She was dreaming of James; was it any wonder? Her every waking moment was filled with thoughts of him. Why wouldn’t her sleeping self turn to him as well?

Again she blinked, and his face came into view. It seemed so real, him leaning over her with a smile lifting one side of his face, and the glitter of love in his eyes.

Love. She smiled back and her eyes drifted closed, filled with a contentment she’d never known. He loved her.

His finger smoothed over her lips again, and this time she opened for the kiss she so desperately wanted. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Please.”

“With pleasure,” he answered. His finger dipped briefly between her lips and she felt a jolt of pure pleasure. Oh, but it felt so good. Then his hand cupped her cheek and she curved her face into it.

So good. So real.

Too real.

It wasn’t until he tilted her chin up that the truth struck her, as stingingly as one of her mother’s slaps. She jerked fully awake, sitting straight up when her legs stiffened. The water sloshed over the rim of the tub. He grinned down at her suddenly revealed breasts, and with a horrified squeak, she sank down again, sending even more water splashing onto the floor.

He was here and it was no dream!

“Don’t look,” she ordered, caught somewhere between shock and anger and an utterly insane sort of joy. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Close your eyes.”

James shook his head at each comment and instead braced his elbows on the edge of the tub. He was in his shirtsleeves, with one cuff rolled halfway to his elbow.

She stared at him in confusion. “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough,” he said. “I needed to see you.”

“To
see
me?” Phoebe rolled her eyes and let out a strangled laugh. “I think you’ve seen quite enough.”

“No.” He bent nearer and a lock of his hair fell across his brow. Ridiculous how golden his hair looked by firelight. He needed a haircut. He probably hadn’t had one since his arrival in Yorkshire.

She closed her eyes against such perverse thoughts. His hair was not her concern. Let Lady Catherine admire its color and curl and length, not her.

She turned her face to the fire. “What do you want, Lord Farley? Is there a problem with the children?”

“Only that they miss you.”

“You’ve wasted your time coming here, then, since I fully intend to return in the morning. I’ll see them then.”

“I didn’t come on account of the children, Phoebe. Surely you know that.”

She didn’t bother with a reply. Of course she knew. He’d come for her, for the privacy her lonely cottage afforded them.

If only the idea didn’t send such a powerful frisson of excitement humming along the surface of her skin. If only she could be angry and insulted at his assumption that she wanted him here. Instead she was flush with anticipation and passion. After their last confrontation here—

No, she wouldn’t dwell on that. Heavens, but lust had overtaken every facet of her good judgment.

One of his hands dipped into the water and stirred little ripples against her protruding knees. “I have something to tell you.”

She didn’t want to hear it, not his reassurances about her continued place in his life after he wed, not his promises about the children or her position in the household or the depths of his regard for her. She’d already made her decision to return to Farley Park, and she wasn’t foolish enough to pretend she didn’t know where that would lead. If only he wanted her for his wife instead of his mistress.

She let her head fall back against the tub.
Don’t talk. Just love me. Make love to me.
Unable to speak the words, she showed them instead by relaxing the defensive posture of her arms. His eyes fell to the peaks of her breasts, barely shrouded by the sudsy water. When he looked back at her face, his pupils dark and wide, she knew he understood her silent message. Unconsciously she parted her lips, breathing through her mouth in shallow pants.
Kiss me.

She felt his hand move against her thigh, first the outer slope, then around to the sensitive inner side. With only the slightest pressure he parted her legs. Head, arms, legs, she now rested lax and open to him, supported entirely by the tub and protected hardly at all by the watery curtain that covered her.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are like this?” His voice was low and thick. Aroused. It excited her to know how easily she enflamed his passions. It was only skin, she wanted to say, the same familiar skin she’d lived in all her life. She knew she was far from the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with.

But for whatever reason, he admired her ordinary self, and under his admiring regard she always felt beautiful. She would always owe him a debt, if only for that.

He palmed the inside of her thigh, up and then down. She caught her breath as his hand glided over the web of curls that hid the entrance to her sex. She was so hot inside there, just inches away from where his fingers trailed.

The air caught in her throat, and she saw the faint, satisfied lift of his lips. But he didn’t linger in the place where she already throbbed in readiness. Up the other thigh his palm traveled, up out of the water, over her knee and down her shin to her ankle. Hot and wet. Slippery.

“Are you warm enough?”

She nodded. Oh, yes. Just the sound of his voice drove her fever higher still. He palmed the underside of her foot, then lifted it out of the water. “Beautiful,” he murmured. He bent to lap water from it, and Phoebe groaned. His tongue sipped at her hot, wet flesh—behind her knee, at the inner bone of her ankle, at the sensitive arch of her foot.

He draped that leg over the tub, then turned and gave the same carnal attention to her other one.

Phoebe slipped lower in the tub, until her chin dipped beneath the quivering surface of the water. She was half-floating now, anchored within the tub by her elbows, knees, and head. It was such a deliciously helpless position. But then, she’d been helpless against his appeal from almost the first moment they’d met.

“My water nymph. Did you wash yourself before you took your wet nap?”

Even if she had already scrubbed herself from head to toe, Phoebe would have lied. “No.” She looked straight up into his eyes, breathless for what he intended to do next. “No, not yet.”

“Good.” He found the wash rag and the soap in the dish beside the tub. Lathering the cloth, he began first with her feet. Phoebe flexed her toes. Good gracious, but he made them insanely sensitive. Her toes, the space between them. Everywhere he touched became erotically charged. As he moved past her knees, down to the submerged parts of her, his other hand slid beneath the small of her back, lifting her until her belly floated just beneath the surface of the water.

“My mermaid.” His head lowered to nip the tender skin of her belly, and like an earthquake, everything inside her vibrated. Something in the very possessiveness of his behavior shook her to her core. As if he knew, he looked up, his eyes burning with blue fire. “Enough play. Let me get back to work.”

Employing the rough cloth, he began to wash between her legs. Phoebe didn’t notice when he moved both hands to the task. All she knew was that the cloth abraded her little nub of passion in the most agonizingly wonderful way, while his other hand explored the deeper recesses of her. In his finger went, so warm and slick that she cried out with pleasure.

“Do you like that, Phoebe? Tell me.”

“Oh, yes.” She sighed. “Oh, yes.”

“Faster? Deeper?”

She nodded, struggling to breathe as he increased the pressure of his knowing finger.

“Lift your breasts to me.”

She did it without question, arching up with her head thrown back so that her puckered nipples broke free of the water. The air was cool on her glistening skin, but his mouth was hot. Hot and fierce. He caught the near breast, sucking hard, and she bucked up against the jolt of excitement that shot through her.

Biting, sucking, almost hurting her, he drew her out, his mouth at her breasts, his hands at her womb. Fiercely he pulled lust from every part of her. He turned her into a creature meant only for this moment.

More and deeper and harder he pushed, until like a tidal wave it rose, from toes to knees to belly, to all the extremes of her being. It hit her like a wall of boiling water welling up from inside, like shock waves that came and came and came.

But even then he wouldn’t let it end. He dragged her out of the water and onto the rug, somehow loosening his garments during the process. Looming over her like a predatory beast over his delicious prey, he lifted her legs high. He braced her ankles on his shoulders, then with his avid gaze watching her every reaction, he thrust his molten member inside her.

Again Phoebe came, in a rush of fire and water and electricity. She was swollen inside, so tight around him that every movement felt amplified a thousand times over. Like thunder roaring and rattling the heavens after the strike of lightning.

Yet still he thrust into her, gripping her hips in his hands and thrusting inside her with furious determination.

He was going to get her with child.

Why that thought should lodge in her brain at such a moment Phoebe couldn’t say. But in the middle of their sexual frenzy she nonetheless was certain of it. He put too much of himself into it. He drew too much of her out of it. What else could possibly result?

What more could she possibly want?

She stared up through a haze of satisfaction and desire, of love and longing, and watched his face as he approached his peak. His eyes were narrowed to straining slits, but she could see the light of pure arousal in them as they fixed upon hers.

“Show me you like it,” he muttered, even as he grimaced, trying to hold his own culmination at bay. “Show me one more time.”

With merely those harshly uttered words he drew new earthquakes of pleasure from the deepest part of her. He might not love her, but he always put her pleasure first. Always hers. It was no surprise that so many women adored him. Did she really think she could run away from this man? Did she really believe she could live without him?

“I like it,” she whispered, every word a groan catching in her throat. “You know I do.”

His shirt hung loose. She slid one hand beneath it and up his chest. His heart thudded a maddened tattoo beneath the hot damp skin. The muscles of his chest worked to hold her to him as he raced to his peak. “I love it,” she confessed, her eyes fixed with his in a moment of supreme honesty. “But what I love most…is you. You.”

For a moment he faltered, just a brief hitch in the perfect rhythm of his lovemaking. She almost missed it, because it was followed by such a burst of frantic thrusting. He gave a guttural cry as he stiffened. His thighs strained, and every muscle on his chest and arms bulged as he half lifted her off the rug.

Phoebe felt the pumping of everything he had into her, a hot and possessive font of life. She cried out and clenched around him over and over, as if they must always be joined thus.

The bathtub climax had been incredible enough. Every time they’d been together it had always ended in a physical relief beyond her ken. But this time the release of emotions layered pleasure upon pleasure. The truth lay exposed between them now. She loved him and there was no going back on that.

With a final thrust he collapsed over her, trembling as if he’d spent everything he had. In the overheated silence that fell over the cottage, there were only the harsh gasps of their breathing, and the comforting pop and snap of the fire. It was the most perfect moment of her life: physical and emotional completeness. She luxuriated in the rare contentment of body and spirit, and felt him relax into it too.

She could stay like this forever, she decided—
if
they’d been on a bed instead of this lumpy rug over a hard stone floor and
if
he’d not been so heavy on top of her.

She twisted her shoulders, seeking a more comfortable position and he responded with an easy roll to the right. Now she lay on top of him in a naked sprawl of wet limbs and tangled hair. Her whole backside was bare and exposed.

But there was no one to see but them. Besides, the room was warm and she was pressed onto a wonderful, warm body. It was only a sudden bout of shyness that made her shiver. He knew she loved him now. Would that change anything between them? Would he even care?

She turned her head to the side, resting it on his chest.

“Is it true?” he asked. Every rumbling word vibrated in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

She knew what he referred to. She mustered her unraveling courage. “Yes. It seems that I do.”

He said nothing, as if he were considering what to do about her and this unfortunate emotional attachment she’d formed. Panic seized Phoebe as the silence stretched painfully long. What happened now? What should she do?

Why couldn’t he love her back?

She started to slide her legs off him, but his arms tightened around her. “Let me up, Lord Farley. I’m…I’m cold. I need my dressing gown.”

Back he rolled, covering her with his overheated body, trapping her in place beneath him. “Don’t ever call me that again. From now on I’m James to you, Phoebe.”

Braced on his elbows, he cupped her face with one hand. With the other he fingered the unruly tangles at her temple and brow. She had no choice but to meet his probing eyes. “And from now on I’ll keep you warm. I’ll keep you warm always.”

She managed a smile, though it must have looked more like a grimace, for he went on. “I will. And since you love me—You weren’t lying, were you?”

She closed her eyes, utterly miserable. “I wasn’t lying.”

“Good. Under the circumstances, then, I think we’d better get married.”

Get married?

Phoebe’s eyes popped open. “You mean you and me? Us?”

“Yes, Phoebe. You and me. Will you marry me?”

She was dreaming, of course. There was no other explanation. It could not be this easy: She confessed her love and he immediately proposed to her.