The Desires of a Countess (20 page)

She stared at him with wide eyes for a long moment
before she took a step closer to look up into his face. “Do you
still want all of me?”

“God help me, yes,” he whispered as he tried in vain
to control his wildly beating heart.

Her trembling fingers caught his hand and she slowly
brought it to her breast. “Then take me. And let me be clear, I am
offering myself to you.”

With a groan, he gathered her into his arms and
kissed her again. Hot blood clouded his mind as thought departed
and feeling took over. But before he lost all his sense, he drew
back from her.

Panting, he said, “First tell me that you really
want me, that you aren’t using this just to avoid going to the
ball.”

She shook her head as she continued to smooth her
hands along his shirt. “Make love to me and I’ll go anywhere you
want me to afterward. This is because I need you, Simon.” She met
his eyes. “I want you.”

He nodded as he let go of all his doubts and
returned to worshipping her body. This time there would be a bed
and time to examine every inch of her. He wanted to find the places
where touching her would bring her a shock of pleasure. He wanted
to taste her skin until he was so familiar with it that he could
conjure the memory in an instant.

In one sweeping motion, he lifted her into his arms.
She let out a startled, “Oh!” that quickly turned to a purr of
pleasure when he returned his lips to hers. Somehow he found the
bed and laid her across it. He shed his formal jacket and his shirt
before he took his place beside her.

Ginny arched up when Simon’s hands brushed across
her buttons. They were still half undone, but it wasn’t enough. She
wanted to feel his body pressed against hers with no hindrance to
skin on skin. But he seemed determined to go slowly, pushing her
hands away when she tried to help him unfasten her dress.

He pressed his palms against her belly, and she
could have sworn her nerves actually crackled with desire at his
touch. With torturous slowness, he eased the gown down over one
shoulder, then brought his lips to her exposed skin to place a hot
kiss there that turned her legs to jelly and made her slick with
desire.

“I’m going to kiss every inch of skin I reveal,” he
promised in a husky voice that struck a primal cord in her. “Every.
Inch.”

His blue-green eyes came up to hers and she saw he
was serious. He would keep that promise just as he seemed to keep
all his promises. She shivered with anticipation of what being
kissed all over would feel like.

He inched her dress down and left a trail of fire
down each arm with his lips. She trembled as he dragged just the
tip of his tongue across the inside crease of her elbow. Then he
brought his face back up until it was even with hers.

After he’d kissed her long and deep, he whispered,
“Breathe.”

“I can’t when you’re doing that,” she answered,
massaging his shoulders as his hot mouth went to work on her
throat, then dipped lower.

“This?” he teased as he pulled her chemise down to
expose the gentle swell of her breast. “Or this?” He pulled it down
further and bent his head to take her nipple into his mouth.

She bit her lip to keep from screaming her delight.
As he suckled the sensitive tip, then dragged his tongue around it
in a circle, she arched up.

Simon grinned as he lapped at the underside of her
breast and pushed her dress and chemise even lower. Need or not, he
wasn’t through yet. Not even close. He’d only begun.

He rubbed the short stubble on his cheek against her
smooth belly and she let out a little mewl of satisfaction that
struck him to his very core. With little fanfare he pulled off the
rest of the dress and went to work on her stockings.

Soon she lay on the bed naked, blinking up at him
with eyes that pleaded for him to take her. But he held back. He’d
promised to kiss her all over. He kept his promises.

Pressing a kiss against her ankle, he eased her legs
apart to kneel between them. He sucked his way up her leg, draping
it over his shoulder as he inched nearer and nearer to her
core.

She was panting by the time he reached her thighs,
begging him to hurry or to slow down, but never to stop. And he had
no intention of stopping. Not until they lay satiated in each
other’s arms.

He breathed in her woman’s scent before he parted
her nether lips and stroked his tongue across her.

Ginny arched up with a scream of pleasure. She’d
never imagined such a gentle kiss could feel so good, but each time
he ran his tongue across her, her body roared to life. The pressure
built inside her at a stunning speed, and she found herself begging
him for release. He chuckled against her, sending vibrations
through her that plunged her over the edge. She cried his name as
she thrashed out her climax.

Simon didn’t give her even a moment to breathe
before he kicked off his trousers and eased into her in one fluid
motion. She shut her eyes with a shudder. Being with him was like
coming home. They belonged together like this, intimately
joined.

All her thoughts fled when he pulled her in for a
deep kiss and began to move. In a few, long thrusts he brought her
off one wave and up the next one. They rolled over the bed until
she straddled him and immediately she began to ride. The sensation
was very different from when he was on top. She was in control, and
could decide how fast or slow she brought them both to the
edge.

Almost giddy with this newfound power, she smiled
down as Simon shut his eyes and let out a low groan. Bringing him
pleasure was a new kind of feeling. One that pushed her over the
precipice. She let out a cry of delight as he pumped hot into
her.

Panting, she flopped down on the bed beside him and
threw an arm over her face. She felt lazy and sated and grateful to
the man beside her for the pleasurable moments they’d shared not
once, but twice.

The bed shifted under his weight as Simon rolled
over on his side, then there was a gentle tap on her arm. Slowly
she lowered it and smiled at him.

“There you are,” he teased her as he propped himself
up on his elbow to look down at her. “I was afraid I’d lost you for
a moment.”

“No, I’m very happy where I am right now,” she
promised and was surprised by the truth of her statement.

His teasing grin faded to a soft smile. “I hope you
are happy.”

With a light touch, he dragged his fingertips down
her shoulder and sent a sudden flash of heat back through her.

“I love your skin,” he murmured as his hands brushed
across her belly. “It’s so soft, just like silk. And it tastes like
berries. I could lie here all night and just feel your skin.” He
began to move back up her opposite arm when his hands came to a
sudden stop. “Is that a scar?” he asked.

Ginny sank her teeth into her lip as a chill whipped
through her. She’d almost forgotten the harsh line of a scar that
ran down the back of her left arm. She couldn’t see it when she
dressed and had done her best to block its existence from her
mind.

“Yes, it’s a scar,” she said, but she refused to
move her arm away from his hand. His touch felt too good.

“Where did you get it?” He turned her arm slightly
and looked at the mark through hooded lids. “It’s bad, it must have
hurt a great deal.”

She frowned as she tried to keep ugly memories at
bay. “Yes, it did.”

“And there’s another one here on your side.” Now his
voice grew alarmed and she knew she wouldn’t be able to divert his
attention. She let out her bated breath in a long sigh.

“Simon, this moment between us is so lovely. Can’t
we just let the past be for a few hours?”

He glanced up to look into her eyes. What she saw in
their aqua depths was enough to make her want to weep. His concern
was plain there. Honest and pure, like everything else they’d
shared.

His voice was very quiet. “I want to know how you
got these marks.”

She shut her eyes as she nodded her head slowly. If
he wanted the truth, she’d give it to him. Most of it.

“I thought you would have guessed that already,” she
said, her tone flat and emotionless. “Henry gave them to me.”

“Henry?” he repeated slowly.

His volatile tone touched her. Her eyelids fluttered
open and she looked at his face. His mouth had dropped open in
shock and horror as her words sank in.

“I thought you knew. That the servants had told
you.”

He shook his head. He looked sick. “I knew he was
cruel to you, but never violent.”

She swallowed hard. “Your cousin was a bastard in
more than one way,” she said softly as she took his hand and moved
it away from the mark on her side.

She hadn’t thought she’d be recounting her terrible
history with Henry, but the time had come. If she and Simon were
going to keep giving in to the passion between them, he had a right
to know a bit about her past and why she kept herself so locked
away.

“A year after we were married he began to call me
names. Soon his abuse escalated to pushing me. Shortly after Jack
was born, he raised his hand to me for the first time. I had to
stay inside for two weeks until the bruises healed. After that, he
tried to hit where no one else but my maid would see and he
threatened her to keep her quiet.”

She drew in a shuddering breath as images hit her
from all sides. Henry above her calling her all matter of whore and
ice queen. His hands swinging and connecting. His drunken voice
echoing through the halls as he announced his intentions to take
his husbandly rights. The looks of pity from the servants who were
helpless to come to her rescue.

At her shiver, Simon’s fingers laced through hers.
She forced herself to look at him, expecting to see horror.
Instead, she saw sympathy. And anger.

“Why didn’t you tell your family?” he asked softly.
“I can’t imagine your brother allowing that to go on.”

“No.” She let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “Noah
would have killed Henry with his bare hands if he’d known. But I
was so estranged from my family by then that I felt I had nowhere
to turn.” She sighed. “I wish I had told him. If I had it wouldn’t
have escalated to-”

She bit the sentence off, but it was too late.
Already her mind forced her to relive images from the night Henry
had died. The pain as he hit her. The fear when he’d turned his
rage on their son. The sharp smell of alcohol on his breath.

Simon tilted her face toward his and pressed his
lips down on hers. The kiss was gentle and her demons fled,
replaced with warmth and joy. When he broke off the embrace, she
smiled at him. He could do that for her. He could take away the
pain, even if it were only for a moment.

“If they had known what was happening to you, don’t
you think they would have helped you?” he asked as he dragged one
finger across her lip.

She shivered, but forced herself to concentrate.

“Yes. But communicating was difficult. Long before
he raised a hand to me, Henry isolated me in order to wield more
and more control over me and my son. And I couldn’t see past my own
pride until it was far too late. Too much damage had been
done.”

Simon drew her closer and his
warmth enveloped her. “But it
isn’t
too late. You can reconcile with your family now
that Henry no longer stands in the way. But you’ll have to start
over. You’ll have to let them in.”

She snuggled closer to him. She’d been having those
same thoughts herself since she saw her mother and siblings
standing in her foyer. Yes, she’d been furious at first, but when
that had faded she longed to go back in time to when they’d been a
family. When she hadn’t been so angry or so lonely.

“I will let them see my son. And I’ll be polite to
them if we pass each other at parties, but I can’t make a promise
to you that I won’t be able to keep,” she whispered in a broken
voice.

He smiled as he tiled her face back toward him and
kissed her again. This time, he traced her lower lip with his
tongue and she found herself arching against him. She managed to
pull away and take a deep breath of air to calm her pounding heart.
She just had to know one thing before she gave in to the seductive
feel of him beside her in her bed.

“Simon?”

“Yes?” he asked as he nuzzled her throat and stole
her thoughts again.

“Did you make love to me in order to talk to me
about allowing my family back into my life?”

He let out a low chuckle as he trailed his hand down
her body. “No.” Slowly, his fingers found their way to the warmth
between her legs and he began to stroke her. “I came here fully
intending to drag you to that ball.”

She let out a muted moan as stars began to shimmer
in front of her eyes. “And now?” she choked out.

“I never guaranteed you’d make it to the party,” he
said with a smile as he quickened the pace of his fingers. “I think
I’d much rather stay here.”

She let out a strangled moan as she approached
another climax. The things the man could do with just his
hands.

“Yes, I’d much rather stay here and do this.” With a
twist of his wrist, he sent her soaring over the edge. He caught
her cry with his mouth as he rolled over on top of her and slowly
inched his way into her body.

As Ginny wrapped her arms around
him, she thought of his words. If she could gain so much from
letting this man into her life, perhaps it
was
time to open herself back up to
her family. It was a risk, but it could be one worth
taking.

Chapter Fifteen

Ginny held back an unladylike yawn as she paused at
the door to the parlor where Simon awaited her. Of course she was
tired, how could she not be? She’d been up all night making love to
the man, but there had been no way to tell her maid that when Nora
had come in to wake her not three hours after Simon had snuck away
with a heated kiss filled with promise for other nights.