Temptation & Twilight (27 page)

Yet I cannot help but think it is my concern. After all, I have tasted you, have brought you to shuddering climax.

My body has been deeply inside yours. I know you as no man ever has, Elizabeth. We have a connection, and although you want to deny it, to ignore the fact, the bond between us remains—neglected and dormant, perhaps, but like a bud in spring, is ready to awaken in the heat.” Her head was swimming. “I will never allow you back in.”

He sighed, and Elizabeth felt his chin drop to the junc-ture of her shoulder and neck. He needed a shave, for his jaw was covered in a night beard. The devil slowly brushed his chin against her skin, abrading her, sensitizing it, and her womb responded with a deep ache of want.

Blast him, not even a kiss, only a small grazing touch, and she was already aching inside. She closed her eyes against the knowledge, the realization that she was weak and wanton.

“I am already there, aren’t I? Already so deep inside you. Just as deep as you are inside me. The past might lie between us, but there is something there beyond the hurt. Isn’t there?”

She refused to answer. Couldn’t. Didn’t trust herself to speak for fear she might say yes, or even nod in agreement. No man made her surrender, made her give up her control like Alynwick.

“Damn, but you smell so good,” he murmured as his palm, large and firm, moved from her waist to make a slow progression over her stomach, her ribs, the valley between her breasts, where the tips of his fingers toyed with the bow on her bodice. “I can smell you, the building desire, the struggle within. I remember it from all those years ago, the heady musk of your excitement. The BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 219

12-01-31 4:04 PM

220

TEMPTATION & TWILIGHT

outline of your body before the window. The way it made me feel to look at you, to know you were mine. The way I took you…” His lips brushed softly over her flesh. “The way you gave yourself to me.”

Once before, they had stood like this in the dark of night, when he had crept into her room. She had been watching for him from her window, and he had silently come up behind her, captured her around the waist and tore off her night rail and wrapper, rendering her naked.

He had made love to her like that, with her naked and on her knees, her hair fisted in his hand. Him, behind her, fully dressed, breathing hard—exciting her. He had possessed her, and she had allowed him to. Had given him everything she had, and he’d taken it. Like a man starved, he had greedily consumed her.

“Tell me what you were searching for, standing before this mirror?”

Shaking her head, Elizabeth pressed her lips together.

She refused to answer, to give words to her vulnerabil-ity. But he knew… Somehow the soulless, callous Alynwick always could read her thoughts…. Knew what she wanted, what she yearned for her. He proved her correct when he said, “See yourself through my eyes, Beth.” Coward. Weakling. Silly wanton. No, she could not allow him to show her what she was. She had no wish to see how quickly and easily she could succumb to him.

But, oh, God, his fingers, hot on the bare flesh of her bosom, felt so good. Their trembling against her, the sweep of his mouth across the bounding pulse of her neck… It felt too good to resist, and she allowed her head to fall back against him. It had been so long since she had been touched. She’d had so much of him before—

his mouth, his hands. His body moving inside hers. And then he had left, abruptly withdrawn from her. His touch BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 220

12-01-31 4:04 PM

CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE

221

had been a living thing, a life, and when he had gone, it had been like a death. Hers.

How she longed for this in the night. To be stroked.

Held. Caressed. There was nothing to rival a lover’s soft, reverent touch, and it had been sacred to her. He had made her body his, a supplicant only too willing to obey with just a touch. Then, like all masters do with their slaves, he had tossed her aside when she was no longer of any value to him.

“You are so beautiful.” His lips moved over her neck, his chin over her sensitive collarbone. “You cannot imagine how lovely, Beth. Every man’s dream. My most wicked, erotic fantasy come to life.”

“No.” She shook her head, protesting not his assess-ment, but the way she felt herself falling against him, the way her arm rose up over her head to clutch at him.

She could not stop the action, nor prevent the tears that started to well behind her closed eyes.

So much pain…. Her heart was aching with it, with the memories of his betrayal. It was mixed with the onslaught of pleasure, so acute, so overwhelming. She was literally trembling with it, her body awakening after years of feeling cold and dead. It wanted to reach out to him.

To live.
The inner struggle was tearing her apart, and she could do nothing more than rest against him and pray….

Pray that he would not destroy her once again.

“Just the other night, I dreamed of you, pale and naked, crawling to me, your body covered in red wine—your curves, the tips of your breasts. You were wanton and beautiful, seductive. And I was your slave, Beth.”

“Iain.” She wanted to beg him to stop, but could not say the word.

“Beth…Beth…” His voice was hoarse, calling to her from a place that sounded far away. But he was here; she BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 221

12-01-31 4:04 PM

222

TEMPTATION & TWILIGHT

felt him, the gentle, seductive slide of his lips along her throat. The moist heat of his breath, the hardness of his erection pressing into her bottom. An erection he took no shame in, but pride, for he crushed it against her, made her feel it. Want it.

It was insupportable, to know soul deep that it was wrong of her to take any pleasure in this. To allow him any liberties. But she was mortal, and mortals were con-ceived in sin. She was at the mercy of her humanity now, not her mind. Even her free will had been stolen the moment his fingers touched her, awakening her like a dormant tree in the spring sunshine. And the first tear slipped down, unchecked. Oh, God, what was she doing?

“Don’t cry…my Beth.” He could hardly believe that hard rasp was his voice. But it was. “My love, don’t.” Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back, her face averted so he could not see her, only feel the slow slide of a tear that slipped unbidden from the corner of her eye, down her cheek and onto his lips.

Holding her tighter to him, his heart pounding, Iain tried to find words, the words that would make her feel safe in the arms of a monster who had ruined her. But he couldn’t. Only after they had made love had he felt able to talk to her. Words had never come easily. His childhood had been one of solitude and silence, and he was comfortable with that. But Elizabeth had always made the silence unbearable. And when he had finished making love to her, he would lie down beside her and hold her, and together they would talk about everything, anything. For him, the conversations after were every bit as intimate as the acts they shared. He still felt that way, and could not summon the courage to just talk, and hold.

There were walls around them, walls that had never been there before.

BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 222

12-01-31 4:04 PM

CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE

223

If he could only tear them down…

“I want to see you.”

She shook her head, denying him.

“Yes, let me.”

Carefully he dragged one corner of her bodice off her shoulder. She was beautiful there, rounded and soft, her skin as luminescent as a pearl, as pale and alluring as moonlight. Brushing his face against her, he listened to her breaths, turned his cheek against her and swiped his tongue, circling the delicate ball of her shoulder until the circles became smaller and he was sucking her, watching her—them—in the reflection of the mirror.

Beautiful angel,
he thought as he pulled the bodice of her gown down as low as he could without unbuttoning the back. He didn’t dare move her, for fear it would break the spell that had woven around them. For there was a spell. Iain had never felt anything like it. A wondrous sensation that slowly wrapped around them, binding them together, thoughts, wishes, dreams merging.

Becoming one. He had to see her, to watch her, and she wanted him, his hands over her, covering her. Her body spoke, and his understood the silent command.

The mounds of her breasts were exposed, pushed up tightly by the constriction of her corset and bodice. He wanted to touch, to see her naked—stroked by his hands.

To kiss. To pleasure her until her tears were ones of sexual satisfaction.

“Iain…”

Her voice was soft, a whisper.
Frightened.
He should whisper back to her. Tell her it was all right, that he would keep her safe. He wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t turn his back and walk away. Never again.

His fingers gripped her skirts, inching them up in a slow slide that tormented him. He could not look away, BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 223

12-01-31 4:04 PM

224

TEMPTATION & TWILIGHT

especially when the pale stockings came into view, followed by the rounded curves of her thighs. There were layers of petticoats, and white lace frothing beneath his hands, and Elizabeth’s fevered breaths rasping against his neck, all coalescing into a beautiful, sensual frenzy that was whipping up like a tempest inside him.

He would have her. Right now, on the floor, lying before the mirror.

Slowly, he placed his thigh between her legs, wrapped one arm around her waist, anchoring her to him, then lifted her thigh to rest over his.

“Open to me.”

The sweet exhalation he heard was made all the sweeter by the sight in the mirror. Elizabeth wore no drawers. Beneath her gown she was naked, bared, exposed to his gaze. And his hand, trembling, left her knee, slid up the soft expanse of her inner thigh until his palm cupped her, felt the heat and moisture. He touched her and watched her response in the mirror—the parted lips, the tip of her tongue creeping out, until he caught it in his mouth and sucked, opened her lips wider, kissed her with everything he had as he circled his thumb over her, feeling the slick flesh beneath his fingertip, the quiver of her body, the long beautiful sigh of a lover surrendering.

Her fingers were in his hair, tugging and pulling.

The kiss turned deeper and his fingers smoothed down her sex, stroking her, building her up until he slipped them inside, filling her. He felt and heard the vibration of her moan.

“Beautiful, beautiful Beth, evening has fallen, the blues of the sky filtering in through your window. You are temptation in the twilight and I can no longer resist you.”

“You must, Iain,” she murmured, pulling away from BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 224

12-01-31 4:04 PM

CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE

225

him, the blue of her gown slipping away from his black trousers, until all of her was concealed from him.

He pulled her back, turned her in his arms and lowered his mouth until he could place a kiss on the apex of her breast. “Do you really want that, Elizabeth? For me to leave you like this? Aching? When I could so easily appease you?”

He reached for her hand, kissed the tips of her fingers, and lowered it between them, fitting her palm over the engorged length of his cock. Closing his eyes, he dropped his head until it was resting against hers. He kissed the bruise and small cut on her forehead, savoured the feel of her pressed against him. Impossibly, he was growing harder and thicker behind his trousers.

“Beth…” He cupped her face in his palms, tilted it up and brushed his mouth over hers. “Take it. Let us find our way back to each other. Let our bodies say what we cannot, or will not, allow ourselves to tell each other.” Cupping him, she stroked the outline of his stiffness with her thumb. He was damp behind his trousers, ready to spill, ready to tear open the fastenings and free himself into her palm. “Beth.” It was a deep, painful plea, said against her mouth. “Take me.” The barest second of hesitation flashed between them.

He was aware of holding his breath, of pressing his cock into her, of murmuring next to her ear, “Take it all, Beth, take it deep inside you.”

“No, Iain.” Her voice held a steely conviction. “No.”

“It’s what we both want.”

“No, it isn’t.” She did not look at him, but instead twisted in his arms, averting her face. “I am done with you. Quite done.”

“Are you?” he demanded, anger rising up inside him.

BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

9780373776627_CS5_txt.indd 225

12-01-31 4:04 PM

226

TEMPTATION & TWILIGHT

“Well, that is unfortunate, Elizabeth, because I have not even begun with you.”

He left then, afraid his pride, arrogance and fear would rise up, take over, and he would say something damag-ing and reprehensible. It was just another block in the road, he told himself. A fight she knew she must wage, and one he knew he must wear down. She would give in, would allow him in; he just needed to give her time.

The right inducement.

As he left her, he saw the book on the bed and reached for it, opening it. This was the way. The secret to unlock-ing Elizabeth.

“Don’t waste your time with Sheldon on this diary,” he announced suddenly. “He can’t help you. But I can.

I will. I have knowledge of the Veiled Lady you seek.”

“For a price no doubt,” she snapped.

“Yes,” he answered. “A price. It won’t be so steep that you can’t pay it.”

“What if I don’t want to? Pay the price, that is?”

“How badly do you want to know who she was, Elizabeth? How badly do you want to know
her
story?” He left her like that, a nearly impossible feat. He wanted nothing more than to go back to her, drag her to the bed and kiss her, love her, mend the past until it melted away and there was nothing but a future between them.