The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (23 page)

“I am not sure that I would enjoy such a night. I might feel horribly out of place,” she said. “And I think this room, full of people and all the candles lit—I think it might be ruined. I like it just as it is now, with tiny flame lights dancing all over the mirrors and gilt, creating this very pale golden glow. It is a magical place when it is empty and mostly dark.”

“Then you must enjoy the magic as long as you like.” He carried the candelabra to the center of the chamber and set it on the floor.

The candles’ new position increased the effect. The crystals above picked up the reflections, and the room sparkled all the more.

Southwaite walked into the shadows. A scraping noise preceded his reemergence. He pushed a satin chaise longue toward the candelabra. “You can even sleep here if you like.”

“If I did, perhaps I would dream of faeries.”

He took her hand and backed up slowly, cajoling her into the center of the room as well. “I was hoping that you would dream of me.”

He lured more than pulled. She had only to keep her feet still to stop herself, and him. The dim light hid nothing of his intentions. If anything, the flickering pale gold emphasized his eyes, and the magical glitter almost appeared to emanate from them.

Caution whispered in her, but the danger titillated more than frightened. Various ways to end this marched through her mind, but every objection died on her lips. Thrill after thrill coursed up her arm from where he touched her. The power he could spin ensnared her without mercy.

It was a slow path to the candles. She ceased to notice
that she even moved, he so captivated her. The more she entered the light, the more the chamber shrunk. The dark corners disappeared, and the far ends, and all of it except the center beneath the hundreds of crystals dangling over the ten tapers of the candelabra on the floor.

She found herself in the center, her hand still in his. It was magical here. Unearthly. She might be immersed in water that reflected a thousand stars. It appeared like no place she had ever seen. She felt like someone she had never been.

His arm lowered, drawing her closer to him. Her heart rose and began beating desperately. She stopped a foot away, but it was already too close. She felt him. Sensed him. Her body reacted as if they embraced.

He appeared too wonderful in this light. All darks and golds and eyes that burned. The magic suited him too well, and made him handsome and mysterious and commanding.

He laid his palm against her face, then cradled her jaw and chin with his hand, looking at what he held. She wondered if, perhaps in these twinkling dim reflections, she might be beautiful.

“Are you thinking of seducing me, Southwaite?”

A slow, small smile formed. “You are nothing if not direct, Miss Fairbourne.”

“If you think to seduce me, perhaps you can call me Emma.”

“In truth I have not been thinking about much at all the last few minutes.”

“Not about much, but about something?”

The space between them disappeared and his sudden closeness caused her body to tremble. His head lowered and his lips brushed hers. “Yes, Emma. About something.” Another teasing kiss, one that made all the glitter dance. “About you, and about how I have wanted you ever since you cut me at your not-so-final final auction.”

If he had said anything else, she might have called up some fortitude. If he had murmured that he had been thinking about how the light transformed her, or how the chamber
obliterated the real world, or made a magic he could not resist—if he had said anything at all, other than admit he had wanted the ordinary, not very beautiful, and sometimes headstrong Miss Fairbourne, she might yet have denied him.

Instead his words touched her profoundly. Even if he lied, it was the right lie.

He pulled her into his arms. She knew there were things she should consider and weigh about the why of this, and about the what that would come later, but she proved helpless against the excitement he created. The sparkles on the walls and floor entered her blood. The fearful masculine power of his will and caress overwhelmed her.

The manner in which he kissed her and handled her said he knew she had surrendered. He knew she was his now.

She released her last hold on reserve. She embraced him and felt the tension rise in him as he ravished her mouth with demanding kisses. She abandoned herself so thoroughly to the magic and to him that she did not even startle when he began unbuttoning the front of her brown pelisse.

Who would have guessed that getting undressed could be so erotic? Wonder after wonder amazed her as the pelisse fell to the floor, then his coats. He kissed and caressed while he worked this service effortlessly. He embraced her, and the tapes on her dress’s back loosened.

He drew her to the chaise longue and sat, with her standing in front of him. He lowered her dress so she could step out of it. She finally experienced shyness then, standing in only her chemise and hose. Even the magical lights could not hide that she was almost naked.

He kissed her body through the chemise and she startled. He did again, right below her breast, and a shriek of pleasure astonished her. Then his mouth moved to her breast itself, and it felt too delicious to bear. He caressed while he kissed her, his hands smoothing on her thighs high beneath her chemise. He seemed to know what would shock her, and let her accommodate one invasion of her modesty before assaulting another.

She did not know how they came to lie together on that
chaise longue. A kiss drew her to his side, then an artful turn, and then she was looking up at the crystals, and him. His mouth closed on one breast and his hand on the other and he drove her to distraction with a wonderful torture. He enticed her breasts to increasing sensitivity until the slightest touch or breath created fluid thrills inside her. She was beyond modest soon, and did not mind at all when the chemise slid up and off and floated away.

She lost sense of time then, of what came first or later or which seductive art did what to her. She sensed movements, then the new feel of his body against her, skin on skin everywhere. With a series of devilish kisses on her thighs and legs, he bent to remove her hose so the connection was complete.

He took control of her after that, with touches and intimacies intended to madden her. His caresses covered all of her without restraint. She accepted each one, and reveled in the tightening, climbing pleasure. Her arousal kept getting more intense, more focused, more aching. Desire became a series of thrills never quite finished, never resolved, always building one on the next and reaching for more.

In a long caress he stroked up her body and between her legs until his hand cupped her bottom and his lower arm pressed against her mound. She pressed down hard, finding brief relief from the hard contact. Then a burst of intensity sent a hundred tiny trembles through her body, making her breath catch. He pressed more until she squirmed against him shamelessly. Rich, deep pleasure quaked through her over and over, each one stunning her more.

His hand slid forward in a long stroke that sent a cry through her head. Then another intimate touch, and another, each provoking more intense feelings, each one moving her further from any thought except an unending, frantic song of need.

He moved over her and settled between her thighs. With his weight braced on an arm pressed against the furniture’s rolled side, he slowly entered her. Her breath caught again and again as a series of shocks split through the pleasure.
The raw intimacy of this act stunned her. A stark awareness of her vulnerability would not abate. Even so she accepted the masculine power taking possession of her.

He moved. Within the soreness, despite it, the pleasure returned. Not the same as before. Not desperate and mad but poignant and deep. More than physical, the new sensation permeated all of her, body and heart, while she clung to him and watched countless tiny lights dance on crystals above.

E
mma woke up naked in the middle of a huge, bright ballroom beneath a massive chandelier. The shock of her situation brought her to full attention fast. She took stock, breathless at her own audacity.

She might have accommodated the starkness of both her nudity and the morning’s reality if she were not also nestled against a totally unclothed Lord Southwaite.

She lay there silently, trying not to move at all, while her senses took in how very everyday the morning seemed except for her current situation. She tried mightily to reconcile their shocking embrace with the utter ordinariness of everything else.

She closed her eyes again, and was able to capture some of last night’s magic. The problem was that she could not keep her eyes closed all day, could she?

She spied her clothes in a heap on the floor right beside her. Ever so carefully she eased her arm free. If she could reach her dress, or his shirt, or
anything
, she might be able to at least cover herself somewhat, or, better yet, cover him.

With painstaking care not to move too much, she
stretched out her arm and grabbed the edge of her dress. Ever so slowly she dragged it toward her and—

The skin of a hard male chest pressed her shoulder. Southwaite leaned over her, grabbed the dress, and draped it over both their hips. That solved the worst of it, but still left her breasts completely exposed.

He turned on his side, propped his head on his hand, and looked at her. She glanced his way enough to see his expression. She could not avoid the thought that he appeared to be wondering how in the world he had ended up here with her, of all women.

“The servants…” she said, imagining some poor maid finding them like this.

“They will not enter,” he said. “Not if they want to live, that is.”

She looked around the massive ballroom. Their bed in its center was diminished by its proportions this morning. She caught her reflection in one of the mirrors. Then another and another. All she saw were her breasts, over and over, everywhere she turned her gaze.

He kissed her cheek, as if to reassure her. She took a deep breath and managed to avoid seeing the mirrors at all.

“You are probably thinking that we were quite rash last night,” she said.

“Not at all. I am thinking that I am grateful that
you
were rash last night.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I would hate to think that I led you into that which you might regret.”

He smiled at her irony, but responded most oddly by lowering his head to kiss her breast. “I am also thinking that you appear as lovely in the light of dawn as you did in that of the candles.”

“It is going to be hard to blame you for ruthlessly seducing me if you keep saying things like that.”

“Is that what you are thinking about now? My ruthlessness?”

“I do not know how I feel about this yet, Southwaite. It is all too new to me, and quite startling at the moment.
Perhaps when I am not naked beneath a ballroom’s chandelier I might know my mind better.”

“Are you saying that I must allow you to dress?”

“I think that would be wise, don’t you?”

“I am not in the mood to be wise.”

She almost asked what mood he was in, but she guessed from the way he looked at her. She rather wished the notion did not stir her the way it did, although those sensations helped the night and morning connect more, and not seem two slices from separate worlds and lives.

He stretched over her body again, covering her while he reached for his breeches. He sat and, somehow, put them on. She took the opportunity to use her dress to cover herself better.

“Hand me your chemise, and I will get you dressed if you want,” he said.

“It would be better if I rode back to London with some clothes on, don’t you think?”

“I think it would be better if you did not ride back to London at all today.” He sat on the edge of the chaise longue and sorted through the garments, eyeing hers with a bit of confusion. “I can see that removing them is easier,” he mused.

“I will do it. I can be dressed in a few minutes.”

“I would not hear of it. I put you in your current state and I will get you out of it. Now, stand here and we will figure this out.”

He urged her to her feet and once more she stood in front of him as she had last night. Only no shadows obscured her and no dancing lights softened her. Or him. He sat there, still half-naked, his chest and shoulders right below her chin, acting as if what had transpired last night made this normal.

Perhaps it did for him, but she remained awkwardly aware that she wore nothing at all. She gripped her dress to her body while he fussed with her chemise. When he had it untangled and ready, he turned his attention to her and must have noticed her dismay.

Smiling to himself, he gently tugged at the dress, pulling
it away. “Surrender it now, Emma. You are giving me nothing that I have not already had.”

The dress slipped away, leaving her stark naked to his view in the morning light. And to her own. The looking glasses sheathing the walls displayed her without mercy, over and over. Her face warmed. Her whole body did.

“Do not be embarrassed. You are even more beautiful this morning than you were last night.” He rested his hands on her hips and drew her closer, then gently kissed the side of one breast, then its other side, then its tip.

She stirred, violently, as if the night’s pleasures had not ended but only subdued to rest. He looked up at her, seeing and knowing her reaction as surely as if she had described it. Teasing lights entered his eyes. Carefully, ruthlessly, he closed his teeth on her tight nipple.

A sensual shock shot down her body, fast and hard. She had not expected such an intense reaction with so little preliminary love play. He used his tongue, wickedly, to make it even worse. She grasped his shoulders so she might not lose her balance as her legs turned liquid.

Closer now, one hand on her hip holding her in place. The other ventured between her legs. She tried to back away.

“I know you are sore. I will not hurt you,” he murmured, not letting her go.

He did not caress the slight soreness that still felt the echo of his fullness. Instead he sought another spot of shocking intensity and began torturing her with touches designed to madden her.