Seductive Wager (10 page)

Kate stared resentfully at him but continued to sit up straight in her corner, her mind occupied with thoughts of what had almost happened. She was completely lacking in any practical knowledge of the feelings that could exist between a man and woman, but she knew enough to realize that what had occurred between her and Brett must have happened to many others. Yet how was she to know what was right and what was not? Her mother had never talked to her, certainly her aunt never had, and it would never have occurred to her father that a girl needed to be told anything. All she knew was what she could guess from the scraps of conversations she had overheard between Martin and Isabella, but she could not bring herself to take either of them as a model. Even though the thought of being alone in a strange city nearly frightened her to death, she desperately looked forward to meeting other girls of her own age in London.

After four years of virtual imprisonment, she was nearly starved for companionship. She needed someone to gossip with, someone with whom she could share confidences about men, clothes, and all those things girls enjoy talking about so much with other girls. But most of all she needed someone to talk to about the strange and unmanageable feelings that this man caused in her. They frightened and shocked her badly, but at the same time enthralled her.

London also meant parties, dresses, and lots and lots of people. She wanted to go to all the best parties, flirt with the most handsome men, dance every dance with a different partner, and stay up till dawn.

She dreamily imagined herself dancing with a handsome man under the moonlight, an orchestra playing softly in the distance, and the soft June breezes murmuring through the trees and mussing her hair. Her dress billowed behind her in weightless folds, her eyes sparkled, her hair was dressed with ribbons, and jewels beyond price lay on her white and heaving bosom. Her warm velvety skin glowed like living pearl in the moonlight. She sank even deeper into her pillows savoring the delicious sensations.

Mesmerized by her beauty, her partner held her tightly and whirled her round and round to the strains of the forbidden waltz. Shyly yet eagerly, she lifted her head and looked deep into his eyes, an enchanting smile playing across her inviting lips. As she stared ever deeper into his eyes, they danced faster and faster, and his eyes held hers in a hypnotic trance. It would have been impossible to look away even if she had wanted to. He held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. She could feel every inch of his body against her, her breasts pressed hard against his granite chest, his lean, muscled thigh against her leg. With a start, she realized his face was Brett’s face, his magnificent body, too, and his great comforting strength.

He lowered his head slowly and his slightly parted lips met hers in a kiss of such shattering intensity she felt weak, barely able to stand on her own feet. His tongue raked her mouth and his hands played up and down her back creating patterns of dancing fire and making her body warm in response. As the kiss swelled in intensity she was overcome by its force, and a great lassitude came over her. She was unable to resist the force of his kiss, unable to separate herself from him. Kate smiled and snuggled further down in the bed. She drifted over the border into sleep on this feeling of disembodied passion.

Chapter 6

Both man and woman slipped into uneasy repose, victims of turbulent emotions heated to the point of eruption and then cooled with the agonizing abruptness of volcanic lava plunged into an arctic sea. Awake, they fought the passions that threatened to consume them, but in slumber, they succumbed to dreams of desire’s torment.

Kate was the first to fall asleep and the first to cry out. Her lips formed Brett’s name silently at first, but as her need became more urgent, a dry whisper of entreaty evolved. Her voice, reaching him through the mists of a deep sleep, seemed weak and far away. At first his mind tried to drive away her importuning cry, but it sounded again and again until an answering restlessness was ignited within him which threw off the armor of his exhaustion. He crossed the small space between them, and their bodies entwined like long-separated halves of a single whole.

Brett cradled Kate in his arms, infusing her with his heat; his lips found hers, and he kissed her with growing warmth until he had kindled an answering fire within her. Her supple form melted into his embrace and her lips clung hungrily to his.

His hands caressed her shoulders, the column of her throat, roamed freely over her smooth, soft skin until they found and uncovered her breasts, caressing and teasing them into hard peaks of desire. His hot, dry lips found them, too, and his scorching tongue traced little arabesques of scalding heat on her silky skin. His hands burned the surface of her body like branding irons claiming every part of her as his own.

By the time Brett came fully awake to what he was doing, his senses were inflamed beyond control. No hint of caution, no word of warning could have cooled the raging desire that consumed his being. His hands wandered over Kate’s body until he drove her into full consciousness of her own desire and the flood of passion that was overwhelming her.

Her consciousness drugged by an equally insistent need, Kate woke to awareness more slowly than Brett. She tried to resist, even though her mind was surprised by the sweetness of this heady passion, but her body, glorying in its awakening, rushed joyfully toward its fate. The heat of Brett’s manhood against her sensitive skin sent tendrils of flame and pleasure racing along her body. Unable to hold back any longer, Kate clung ever more tightly to Brett, pressing her body against his, pleading with him to become one with her.

Yet even though he was being driven by a need greater than any he had experienced before, Brett moved with caution and gentleness, heedful of her inexperience. It was this small remnant of control that alerted him to danger when he encountered the resistance of her maidenhead. The knowledge that Kate was a virgin and a lady pierced the cloak of desire that enveloped him, and he paused, irresolute, caught between a feeling that he must not proceed further and a raw need that demanded fulfillment. Something deep within him valiantly struggled to stem the onrushing tide of passion, some inner voice warned that he would forever regret this rash action, but Kate arched her body against his, uttering a groan of desire, and Brett was plunged headlong over the precipice of no return.

Still Brett refrained from joining his body to hers, letting his hands, mouth, tongue continue their feverish activity, working to propel Kate to a higher pitch of excitement, to a state of delirium where she would be almost unaware of pain. Finally, he entered her with a quick, knifelike thrust and she gasped with the double shock of pain and almost unbearable pleasure. Her ecstasy mounted quickly and she rose higher and higher to meet his pounding rhythm. She urged him on with a fury he never dreamed possible, demanding that he give her joy beyond her wildest expectations and igniting in him a similar desire to rise to his own pinnacle of triumph.

Brett fought to slow their feverish rush toward fulfillment, to prolong the exquisite pleasure found in the ever-expanding ripples of sensual delight, but Kate, unaware of the even greater bliss to be found in prolonging their union, drove him on with her body, demanding, beseeching him to release her from the almost unbearable torment that enslaved her. Finally, just as she thought she could stand no more, that she must lose consciousness from the jarring impact of this sweet agony, he released his passion within her and she felt that indescribable satisfaction of simultaneous release and fulfillment. Her whole body shuddered and grew rigid with pleasure as the waning pulses of his passion sent ripples of white-hot ecstasy through her. Slowly they relaxed and fell apart.

For long moments neither moved nor spoke. But as the euphoria of their pleasure subsided and the full realization of what had occurred began to sink in, Kate started to shake uncontrollably. She bit her lip hard and held her body rigid, but it was no use. Nothing could stop the onslaught of shock and mortification. The tears came first as glistening dewdrops on the ends of her lashes, then ran down her cheeks in ever increasing rivulets until her pillow became wet with her remorse. Brett attempted to comfort her, but she tore free of his embrace.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, her eyes bright with tears. She put her gown to rights and snatched up a heavy robe which she buttoned up to her chin.

“Keep your voice down,” Brett whispered imperatively. “Someone might hear you.”

“Do you think I care now? Can they ruin me any more than you already have?”

“No one ever needs to know what happened.”

“You’re worried about what somebody else might think, but I’m concerned with what
I
think, what
I
feel. I’m the one who has to hold up my head and pretend to be an honorable woman. I feel
unclean.”

“If no one knows, it won’t be as bad.”

“Do you honestly believe that?” Kate demanded, staring at him like he was some form of exotic beast. “Are you so utterly insensitive you can pretend nothing more has happened than a few moments of harmless pleasure? Tell me, conquering hero, how am I going to face an honest man, should one be so foolish as to ask for my hand? Do I smile prettily and say, ‘I’ll be delighted to accept your offer, kind sir, but I feel I must tell you there is a little something missing. Mr. Westbrook took it, but I won’t mind if you don’t.’ Or should I accept gratefully and let him discover on our wedding night that I’m used goods parading as new cloth?”

Brett was stiff with anger, but he was also honest enough to admit the truth of what she said. “I can’t alter what’s happened, but I’m sure something can be done,” he said with a half-goading tone.

“Something has already been done,” Kate rasped. “You couldn’t have destroyed me any more completely if you had stripped me of my pedigree and proved me of bastard birth. Go away!” she cried, some of the passion and anger wrung out of her voice. “Can’t you see I’m crying, and I hate to cry in front of people I dislike.” She buried her face in the pillows, and gave way to wracking sobs that shook her body from one end to the other.

Brett was trapped. He couldn’t leave the room, but his presence was doing nothing to help calm Kate down; in fact, it only caused her to cry harder. He couldn’t even work off his own rage by hurling curses at the huddled figure in the bed. As much as he hated the appalling muddle, he was too honest to throw the blame on anyone but himself; still, that didn’t prevent his being angry with Kate. Impotent fury boiled within him, but he could find no outlet other than rapid pacing about the small room, the sight of Kate’s huddled figure a continual accusation which further exacerbated his raw nerves.

“You don’t have to cringe in the corner like you’re caged with a rabid beast. I promise I won’t bother you again,” he muttered angrily.

“You’re just as lethal,” Kate said, lifting her head from the pillow. “And you’ve given me sufficient proof of how to value your assurances of safety.” She gave a sob and buried her face in her pillow once more.

“For God’s sake, woman, you’d drive a saint to cursing with your incessant harping.”

“Since we know you’re no saint,” Kate hiccupped, “I guess I’d better cover my ears before they’re violated as well.”

“By God, if I don’t strangle you before the night’s out … !”

“I wouldn’t call upon God so often if I were you,” Kate advised, not the least intimidated by his threats. “If He ever gets a good look at what He’s created, He’s likely to burn you to a cinder.”

“You vixen!” Brett raged, giving free rein to his anger. “I ought to break your beautiful neck. It seems nothing else can still your spiteful tongue.”

But somehow the tension was broken and both of them felt their anger begin to subside. “You’re vile, loathsome, and you have no sense of shame,” Kate said. “You’ve ruined me for a few moments of pleasure, and now you’re threatening to break my neck if I don’t stop reminding you of it. No doubt you would enjoy ravishing me for the rest of the night, but I don’t think I would like it. I don’t see why you cant sleep somewhere else, but I’m too tired to argue with you. Just know that if you so much as come near me, I’ll stab you with this nail file.”

Shaking with rage, Brett opened his mouth to speak.

“And don’t say another word,” Kate ordered, forestalling him. She mounded up the pillows and settled back against them. “There’s nothing more that
can
be said.” Then she wrapped her robe more securely about her and held tightly to a long and very sharp nail file she had taken from the bedside table.

Though she would die before she admitted it to Brett, Kate knew she was as responsible as he for what had happened between them. It didn’t matter that she had been half asleep or that he had refused to heed her pleas to release her, she was painfully aware she had responded to his every move, had even encouraged him to continue when he might have stopped. True, he was more experienced than she and should have been the one to hold back, but she had known the consequences of such an encounter and still she had begged him to continue. It mattered not that she had used no words; her body had spoken a language he could not misunderstand.

Why would she have done such a thing? She had admitted the attraction almost from the first, but that was no reason to throw herself at him in complete disregard of the consequences of such an action. And it wouldn’t have made any difference if she had been in love with him; she was still unmarried and as such was ruined. She had left Ryehill with three advantages—beauty, birth, and virginity. Now she had thrown away the only one which could make the others worthless.