The Price of Pleasure (16 page)

He didn't know what he would do if she appeared disappointed that he'd showed up instead of Ian. Luckily, she didn't. She seemed to light up.

“Grant! Are you to take me out today?”

“I, uh, was supposed to tell you that Ian wasn't coming.”

“But you'll take me out?”

He would feel like a bastard if he turned her down. He reminded himself that she probably missed the beach. “I'm to escort you, yes. To the beach.”

She gave a little squeal and then settled on his arm. “Wonderful,” she breathed.

He tried not to stiffen to her, not to enjoy her touch. She smelled delicious, like the scent that surrounded him in bed.

They walked to the stable where he'd secured two horses, and though Victoria did nothing consciously to draw attention, every male eye stayed on her as though taking a bead. She wasn't aware of it, but her sultry laugh and the sinuous movements of her body exuded sensuality. Victoria unwittingly gave men the impression that she was a woman who wanted to be made love to. And they responded to her.

Grant responded to her.

Victoria unleashed in London? He couldn't imagine the consequences.

Shaking away that thought, Grant untethered her horse, then moved to assist her into the saddle.

“I can do it myself,” she said archly, as she snagged the reins from his hand to lead her horse to the mounting block.

He hesitated, but when she made a shooing motion with her hand, he mounted a strapping chestnut gelding. She did no more than stare at her horse. Hell, he should have thought of this. “You weren't taught to ride?”

“Of course I was!”

He gave her a disbelieving look.

She batted hair out of her face. “I just thought the horse would be smaller. With nicer eyes than this one.”

Grant wanted to groan. “How are her eyes not—? Forget it. I don't want to know. If you can't ride, we can't get to the beach.”

A panicked expression crossed her features. “No! I-I'll remember.”

She soothed the horse and, after several attempts, made it into the saddle—leaning precariously to one side, with her skirt caught in something and bunching around one knee, but in the saddle. Her hands clenched on the reins, she shimmied into position, but the horse got edgy before going out of control altogether. The mare gave a half-jump, then advanced to the closest pole to scrape Victoria off.

“Grant!” she yelped in a broken voice.

He couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying. He reined his mount around to her. Her horse plowed sideways into his. Both horses shrieked at each other in warning.

“Oh, for God's sake.” He reached over and, gripping her under the arms, plucked her off her horse and into his lap in one sweeping motion. He snagged her dangling reins and whistled for the stable boy to retrieve her horse. Her body shook with laughter.

“Oh, my Lord. Did you see me? Was that not the funniest—?”

“Get down.”

Her face fell and she laid her hands on his chest. “Let me try again. Please!”

Grant exhaled loudly. “Get down, and I'll help you up behind me.”

And just like that, her face grew bright again. She slid down, immediately raising her arms to be lifted. He hid a smile, grabbed an arm, and helped her behind him. “Hold on to me.”

She squeezed her arms around his torso and rested her head against him. He was certain he felt her smiling against his back.

G
rant leaned back on a blanket, letting the late afternoon sun warm his face. He was full from their lunch of cold turkey, cheeses, and apples—though they'd skipped the two bottles of wine that had managed to find their way into the basket, no doubt under Ian's direction.

He was content to observe Victoria exploring the beach, running in the sand, fleeing from approaching waves or studiously examining shells. In fact, time had passed too quickly today. He hated to tear her away, but they needed to get back. He stood, stretched, and collected their blanket. A wind was whipping up and had driven all the locals back to the city. He looked down the strip both ways. Deserted.

“Put on your shoes and pack your things,” he called. “We need to get back.”

When she waved and ignored him, concentrating on something in the water at her feet, he muttered a curse, then started for the horse to pack up.

The basket clattered to the ground.
There was no horse.

After rushing both ways up and down the beach, searching, he realized their transportation was gone, and—he'd wager—not coming back. Stifling a vicious curse, he returned to meet Victoria.

“Where is he?” she asked. She had her hand to her forehead and was scanning the shore.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Stolen? I don't know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We can walk back.”

“If you think that's best.” She seemed less than thrilled at the prospect. It had taken them two hours over rocky terrain to get here. She glanced down at the shoes in her hand. She was having trouble getting used to them again.

They'd also be walking through a patch of Cape Town he'd rather not venture into after dark. Escorting a beauty with no weapon. He swore under his breath.
Just the way to protect her.

Yet when faced with his other choice—staying alone with Victoria until some people from town returned in the morning—he actually was considering it. She might be safer chancing the docks than a night with Grant.

“There are some bathing huts in the next cove. We'll stay there until someone returns.”

Victoria exhaled in relief. “Thank you! I wasn't looking forward to blistering my feet.” Her tone was animated. In fact, she appeared so excited about the situation, he wondered if she'd untied their only transportation. He narrowed his eyes. Would she do that?

He gathered up their basket, then led her past the wall of rock separating the two beaches. Since the tide had risen, they had to wade past, and the waves crested up to her hips, but she slogged through.

Grant found the first three shelters in the row of brightly colored huts locked, but on the fourth, the door eased open. When he ushered her in, she tripped on her sodden skirts.

“Are you all right?”

“There's a reason women shouldn't wear all this,” she said in a bright tone, though she was shivering.

“You need to get out of that.” He noted he sounded less than pleased with that proposition.

“Sutherland?” she said in a small voice.

He exhaled loudly. “Turn around and I'll undo the buttons.” She twisted around and lifted her hair. Each button revealed more creamy skin, lightly dewed with water. His hands were unsteady by the time he was finished. “Done.” His voice was low.

She stood and slipped the dress down her body. This time he didn't turn away. He acted as any other man on earth would when confronted with an enticing woman disrobing, admiring her, wanting her. When she wore no more than a shift, he forced his eyes away to look for something warm she could wear. The best he could find was a pile of folded towels. He handed a couple to her. “Dry off.”

She nodded and took the offered cloths, drying her legs and stomach. He never took his eyes from her intimate task as he forced off his boots, throwing them into the corner, and stripped off his soaked shirt to dry his chest. Though uncomfortable, he decided to leave the trousers on. Grant sat on the small floor space, resting his arm on an upright knee, and tried not to think of the fact that he was alone with a nearly unclothed Victoria.

She wrapped a cloth over her shoulders, spread their blanket on the ground, and then sank back down next to him. She rooted through their basket and brought out one of the bottles of wine.

He cast her a chiding look, but when she couldn't open it, he helped and even shared it with her. They sat shoulder to shoulder, passing the bottle back and forth, behaving like the very people he sought to avoid by staying here.

After turning it up a last time, she stowed the bottle, then ducked down and butted her head under his arm. He raised it, wondering what the hell she was doing, and as soon as he did, she settled in under it.

He stiffened, but let his arm rest around her. She laid her head on his chest. And it felt natural. Right.

“I love listening to your heart. It's so strong and calm. Wait, it sped up.” She looked up and smiled.

A kind of fatalism crept over him. They were in a cabin, separated from the rest of the world. Fate, destiny,
or Victoria
had conspired to situate them together here in this isolated place. Grant was tired, so tired of fighting what now struck him as inevitable.

“Will you kiss me?” she whispered against him.

What man on earth would fight this? Why try? Ian had asked him that. Grant had given him an answer, but right now, with Victoria's soft breath fanning across his chest, he'd be damned if he could remember it.

She moved to her knees before him and caught his gaze with her own. Before he'd consciously decided to, he reached out and stroked the curve of her cheek, and from his tiniest touch, the merest whisper of contact, her lips parted and her eyes slid closed. She trembled and her breasts pouted just before him, with her nipples tight against her damp shift.

He groaned low in his throat and ran his thumb over her lips. They felt so moist and soft, he knelt in front of her and replaced his touch with his own lips. She sighed against his mouth, the sound making his erection jerk below them in a sudden flood of heat. Her belly teased him, pressed against the steel of his arousal.

Then Grant had his hands on the back of her head, his tongue sweeping in, urgently, wanting to punish her for making him want her so badly. Without thought, he palmed one nipple through the cloth, and she moaned softly. He brushed the straps from her shoulders, baring her, and when he took both her breasts in his hands, she lapped her tongue against his. She moaned again, and her fingers lighted on his chest, scratching their way down his torso. “Teach me,” she whispered against his lips as she dipped down into his trousers to find his swollen flesh, and grasped him.

Now. Now he remembered…deep down, he'd never truly wanted to fight it.

Something—locked away in him—snapped. With a defeated, brutal groan, he pulled her eager hand away and laid her down, pulling her legs to him, spreading them.

“Grant?”

“You want me to teach you? I'll show you something I think you'll like.”

He inched her shift up her legs, kneading her thighs and bending down to her.

“I don't know—”

He growled against her inner thigh,
“I know.”
But he sensed her continued hesitation. “Do you trust me?”

“But I thought you would—” She cut herself off. “Yes,” she whispered. “I do.”

His voice was raw.
“Then let me kiss you.”

Her hands went from holding his face at bay, to threading her fingers through his hair. He groaned again, and then, as he'd fantasized for weeks, he kissed her blond curls, slowly tasting her, merely outlining her sex. She cried out in pleasure, then panted.

Her taste drove him to a thoughtless state of desire, but he fought the need to set upon her like some starved beast. Using his thumbs to part her to his greedy mouth, he ran his tongue against her, stiffening it in her.

He dimly noticed her pulling him closer to her as he licked and savored, growling against her in frustration because she still wasn't open enough to him. He shoved her shift to her waist and held her legs wider. She gasped. “Grant!”

“Trust me,” he grated as he clutched her thigh, placing it on his shoulder. There'd be no barriers between him and the taste of her on his tongue. With more force, he seized the flare of her backside to lift her. He'd dreamed about her curves, taut yet lush, and now they melded perfectly into his splayed, gripping fingers.

She grasped his shoulders, his hair, cupped his face and grew wetter beneath his lips. Her body began quivering, her legs clenching around him as she neared her climax.

“Oh, God,” she bit out as she panted. “Grant, don't stop.
Please—”
As she cried that word, the pleasure took her, with a swift, pulsing power that awed him. Her back arched and her hips undulated, pushing her sex to his lips. Greedier still, he wrung her until she went boneless, lying dazed on the blanket beneath them.

He dared to move, and nearly spilled his seed when his cock pushed against his trousers. He must have groaned in pain because she was on her knees before him, naked and still quivering, bringing her breasts back against his chest and her hands on him. He was so close.

She undid his trousers with quick fingers. Then without hesitation she took him in her palm, her fingers tightening around him. He bucked against her grasp and almost came instantly. There he was in their makeshift bed, on his knees, barely freed from his trousers.

“
Don't touch me.
This was only supposed to be for you.”

“Do you think I could actually stop myself,” she whispered, “from feeling you as you are now?”

He groaned. “You don't understand—”

“So hard, so heavy.” She stared at him as though spellbound. “All I want in the world is to touch you.”

She stroked his length. The need for release became a maddening pressure. There was no stopping this. No control…

“Don't look, Victoria,” he bit out. As though it would be less wicked if she didn't see him. Would the sight of his seed spilling out of him frighten her? “Don't watch me….”

No, she was bold. The question no longer mattered.

Vulnerable. She was about to see him at his weakest. She mastered him with just her fingers working over his throbbing skin.

She pulled him and put her lips against his neck. Her tongue flicked out, and she breathed against his skin. His hands shot to her breasts, grasping them, cupping her, and it was she who moaned as he felt the beginning tremors.

When his release rushed through him, he shouted out from the force of it. Violent. Pumping out into the space between them as he ground his hips into her hand. He wasn't weak. She made him feel like a god.

In seconds, they lay together, her head cradled on his chest. Though the moon had risen, impossibly bright, and bands of white flooded in through cracks, he was asleep in an instant.