To Have and to Hold (15 page)

She dropped her head, and he could see the white nape of her neck, the little bump that was the first vertebra of her spine. He brought his lips to her temple, letting strands of her hair tickle his mouth. Soft. Through the arm he had around her, he felt a new awareness slowly seep into her body. She didn't move, but the softness retreated; he could almost hear her hoping against hope that she was mistaken, that this wasn't the inevitable moment she must know it was. He thought of prolonging her uncertainty, keeping her on this exquisite edge a little longer. But either sympathy or impatience made him end the suspense by drawing her closer. "Mrs. Wade," he said quietly. "Mrs. Wade, I think it's time."

"Time." The word came out on a wispy breath. He saw deep resignation in her wet-silver eyes. Which wasn't quite the same as acquiescence, but for now he deemed them close enough. If there was dread there as well, he chose not to notice it.

"Past time." He tipped her chin up, so she couldn't look away while he slipped his other hand inside her nightgown and caressed her soft round breast.

How like her not to give him the satisfaction of reacting. Her lips flattened slightly; the slow slide of his thumb across her nipple elicited a tiny gasp, nothing more. But she was twisting his wet handkerchief in her lap with both hands. She tried to dip her head, but he kept his hand under her chin. Searching her lovely, tear-streaked face, he asked, genuinely curious, "What is.it you hope for, Mrs. Wade?"

"I hope . . ." She licked her salty lips. "I hope to be able to bear it."

She didn't mean only this. She meant her whole life. Her fatalism had the usual effect of making him want to take her, and making him want to set her free. His baser side won, as it had been doing regularly of late. He bent and kissed her, scraping her bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth.

Her eyes glazed. She made a low-pitched sound in her throat that set him on fire. "I don't want this."

Did he hear her right? Any resistance, even this weak, whispered one, warred with his image of her as a hopeless stoic. Before anything as subversive as bis conscience could surface, he said, "Do you think I could let you go now? I'm afraid it's not possible." And it wasn't.

Her lips curled in faint but unmistakable derision. "A condition of employment?" she asked, with a sneer in her low voice, her face turned away.

The phrase nettled him; he thought they understood each other well enough by now that such labels weren't necessary. But he answered without hesitation, "Precisely." And then for some reason he added, "There's no need to be afraid." He slid his hand under her knees and rose from the window seat, holding her in his arms.

He didn't go far, only to the leather couch in front. of his desk. She was disturbingly light, and as stiff in his arms as a sack of sticks. He set her on her feet, because it was easier to undress a woman when she was standing. The candlelight was dim here; he could barely see her. That must seem like a blessing to her. To him it didn't much matter; he would see her soon enough, and often enough, in as much light as he wanted.

Her silence and her manner—completely with-drawit—suggested that their first time together was not going
to
be particularly transcendent, and that his best course would be simply to get it over with. That was one way. Another would be to exploit her provocative unwillingness, use it to heighten his pleasure—and hers, too, if she would let it. For the hundredth time he wondered what her husband had done to her. Since he didn't know and she wouldn't tell him, it seemed he had no choice but to enjoy her in any way he liked.

A cold-blooded resolve, but he didn't stick to it for long. Because what he would have liked at that moment would have been to say, "Take off your clothes," and then watch-her—himself fully dressed, of course—while she stripped for him. She would tremble and blanch, she might even refuse, and he would find her resistance a potent aphrodisiac. But even as the libidinous image took shape in his mind, his hands went to the collar of her modest night robe, and he began to undo the buttons himself.

But he couldn't deny himself the pleasure of watching her face while he undressed her, even though it would've been kinder to hold her close, let her bury her head against his chest, eyes shut tight to deny what was happening. She was unique among his current female acquaintance in that her mind fascinated him every bit as much as her body. He felt a compulsion to know what she was thinking while he seduced her.

But it wasn't to be. Except for anxiety, her colorless eyes gave away nothing, not even when he pushed the robe over her shoulders and began to unfasten her flannel nightgown. The buttons stopped at her navel; he opened the gown slowly, baring her breasts a little at a time. He thought she was blushing, but in the pale light he couldn't be certain. "Very pretty," he murmured, meaning everything about her. She shut her eyes; his appreciation meant nothing to her. He put his fingers on her nipples and pinched—lightly; enough to startle, not enough to hurt. He gave her credit for her sangfroid: she never moved. He increased the pressure playfully, then not quite so playfully. Her lips trembled.

That was all he'd wanted, a reaction. He used his palms to soothe her, stroking back and forth slowly, softly. Her skin beguiled him, the sleekness of it, the coolness; it was tempting to imagine that no one had touched her like this before.

But someone had.

"What did he do to you?" he asked as he pulled her arms, one at a time, out of the sleeves of her nightgown. Of course she didn't answer. The gown slid down her hips and pooled on the floor at her feet, and ■ he forgot the question.

Voluptuous, full-bodied women were his usual passion—if that was the word for the soulless, heartless couplings that had been his lot for the last few years. This woman was anything but voluptuous, and yet her lithe body pleased him. It was shapely, healthy, surprisingly youthful, not quite what he'd been expecting. More than ever, she made him think of a virgin.

She was staring straight ahead, but he didn't think she was seeing him; she'd erected a kind of visual wall to keep him away from her. To test the wall's thickness, he began to take his clothes off, boots first, then shirt, then trousers. Before he finished she turned her face away, gazing off toward the flickering candle flame. So much for her visual wall.

He put his hand on her shoulders, drawing her closer until her breasts touched his chest. Her skin was slightly damp; beneath his fingers he felt her start to shake. The charms of martyrdom were beginning to dim for him. He kissed her, opening her mouth wide with his, using his tongue roughly to force a response. He liked her taste, the sleekness of her mouth. She held still and bore it without a whimper.

"Relax, Mrs. Wade," he whispered. "Don't make it a rape." He opened one of her closed hands and pressed it against his chest, slid it across his nipple.

"If I..."

It came out the barest sigh, possibly not words at ail. "If you . . . ?" he prompted, brushing her hair with his lips. How could he ever have disliked her hair?

"If I begged you..."

"If you begged me to what?"

"Stop,"
she gasped, at the moment he slid her rigid palm down to his stomach.

He soothed her by holding still, not moving her hand lower, where he wanted it. "There are many things I look forward to hearing you beg me for," he murmured against her forehead. "But do you know, stopping isn't one of them.''

He didn't want her flat on her back on the leather sofa, because she would lie there like a corpse. Necrophilia wasn't one of his depravities yet; he wanted her active, not passive. He urged her closer to the couch with a hand on the small of her back, and she went, stiff-kneed and full of trepidation. "I'm not going to hurt you," he promised, but she gave no sign of hearing.

Keeping her hands, he sat down on the sofa's edge. He put his knees together and pulled her toward him, making her open her legs around his. Her eyes went wide with shock; she pulled back with her hands, but he held them firmly. The sight of her pale, wide-apart thighs excited him. There was no point in telling her again to relax. "Lean forward. Put your hands on my shoulders." Rather than touch him, she put them on the high sofa back. But he didn't quibble; the movement brought her breasts closer to his mouth. He took advantage of it immediately, dipping his head and suckling her strongly. The high-pitched gasp she made sounded surprised, not pained. But when he slipped his hands between her legs to push them farther apart, she moaned.

"Don't be afraid."

Useless advice; the tendons in her thighs were vibrating like harp strings. Gently, gently, he cupped her soft mound, fluttering his fingers against her delicate flesh, fondling her. He licked her between her breasts, tasting the salt tang of her sweat. She couldn't stop the trembling in her legs, so he pulled on her knees from behind until she was kneeling on the cushion, straddling his lap. He tongued her shallow navel while he kneaded the backs of her thighs, drawing her up hard against him, opening his mouth wide and using his teeth on the sleek skin over her ribs. She was panting now, but whether from fear or the beginnings of desire, he didn't know. Fear, probably, but he was very nearly past caring. She cried out when he slipped his smallest finger inside her.

Best to get it over with; erotic preliminaries only tortured her more. He considered stopping everything and letting her go, but only for a split second, before the thought flew off to wherever bad ideas go. After that, there was nothing left but the need to possess her.

Murmuring soft, specious comfort, he coaxed her down, guiding himself into her gently, slowly, and when she stiffened and balked he let her pause, allowing her the illusion of control.

But not for long. He wanted all of her, now, and he wanted it quite badly. His own control was slipping, which was new. He made himself hold still inside her, embracing her with all the tenderness of a real lover, and she quieted, as if she had given up. She let him hold her, let him feel the pounding of her pulse deep inside.

Even now her husband obsessed him. He lifted his face from the hot hollow between her neck and shoulder to ask, "Did he hurt you, always? Was there never any pleasure for you?"

She wouldn't answer.

He studied her tense face, so close to his. The wall was back, but as ineffective as before. She had the look of a saint enduring unspeakable tortures rather than betray her religious faith. He cupped the sides of her face and pressed slow kisses to her lovely, lovely mouth. She wouldn't close her eyes. He thought her lips began to soften, but just then she turned her head aside; her hands, which had been resting on his shoulders, fisted against his chest.

"A martyr to the end," he murmured in her ear, making her quiver. "I think you would find a way to hate this no matter who your lover was."

"Let me go, then," she whispered unexpectedly, into the air over his shoulder.

"Don't be childish," he admonished her gently. "Now I would like you to rise up on your knees, like this. And down now. Again, and don't stop." But she wouldn't continue unless he made her, his hands holding her hips steady, guiding her. He reached out and patted the fat round arm of the couch. "Would you rather I bent you over the sofa, Mrs. Wade, and took you from behind?"

No response; he might as well have made his intriguing threat to a mannikin.

"Very well. It's immaterial to me, and we have all night."

She brought her hands to her face as if to hide it, but she kept pushing her fingers back into her hair, folding in on herself, hunching over, trying to wrap her body up in a ball. It was worse than weeping, worse than screaming. She was grinding the top of her head into his breastbone, growing smaller, tighter, doing her best to disappear, and still not making a sound.

"Don't do that," he whispered, aghast. "Stop it. Stop now." He lifted her off his lap and turned her, made her unwind and lie flat on the sofa. She didn't even try to close her legs, and he covered her and slipped back inside her with an unexplainable sense of relief. Not possession—relief. Her eyes were shut tight, but she wasn't crying. "Now you're all right," he murmured. "Shh, Rachel, you're all right." He kissed her until she sighed, until he couldn't take any more, and he slid his hands underneath her body and began to move in her.

She was so hot, so tight, and there was no sense in trying to make her like it but he did anyway, courting her with his body, harking to the soft clues of her breathing. Hopeless—he would only end up hurting her if he continued. "Hold on to me," he told her, and she did that at least, clutching his sides with stiff, loveless fingers. He took her as gently as he could, and until the last second it was a cool, controlled act of sexual release. Then he lost his head. He saw the light around him dim and recede, objects disappear. In absolute blackness, he drove and drove into her, conscious of nothing but pure sensation, impossible pleasure, storming and raging in him, until he surrendered and let it take him over the blinding white edge.

9

Lord D'Aubrey had lit a fire in his bedroom, even though it wasn't cold. "Come here, please," he said.

Rachel moved toward the marble hearth and stood in front of the sparking grate, careful not to let any part of her touch him, not even her clothes. She felt his eyes on her as he went to a side table and poured something into a glass. She hated his peremptory tone, the same one he'd used a few minutes ago in the library. Only then he'd asked, "Where are you going?" while he lounged, still nude on the floor, his back against the sofa where they'd lain when he ... raped her? Not exactly. Seduced her? Not that either, although she thought that had probably been his intent. "To my room," she'd answered in a careful monotone. But she hadn't been able to keep the gruff edge from her voice when she'd added, "You've finished with me, haven't you?"