He’d never guess these things because imagination wasn’t enough to compass the distance between his world and Bethnal Green. Nothing could span that distance. Had any bridge existed between the two worlds, one or the other would have burned already.
He said, “My apologies for keeping you waiting, milady”—speaking lightly, playfully.
“That’s all right,” she said hoarsely. She felt herself balanced precariously on the edge of something. At the next step, the step onto new territory, that bridge behind her would collapse.
His head tipped, his temple coming to rest against the door frame. He tested the title against the sight before him: “Lady Rushden,” he murmured.
She wanted to take the step. It scared her and it drew her. They were married now—before God and man, as the saying went. She wanted to stay on his side of the bridge. She wanted to be done with hunger, with cold, with fear. He was as beautiful as the world in which he lived. She wanted to stay with him forever.
She took a bracing breath and rose. Her limbs felt stiff. He need never know what the other side was like. He need never learn of the rats, of the bitter nights and begging. He was hers now and tonight would make it official. Nobody was taking him away from her.
Only he hadn’t moved an inch from the door.
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. He wouldn’t be backing out now. They would see this through. “May we get on with it?”
He laughed at her. “Goodness. Will it be so bad as all that?”
That laugh lit her temper. To have waited in this chair all night for him, ill with worry—she realized now, in an instant—that he regretted the marriage, that he was out conferring with lawyers on how to undo it—only to have him laugh at her? And all the time she’d waited, like a worried, faithful dog. What right had he to keep her waiting?
Every right.
She caught her breath. Aye, now that they were married, she had no choice in anything, did she? For the rest of her life, whenever the mood struck him, he’d do with her as he liked, would require her to walk through that door in which he lounged right now and bare herself to him.
Or to wait. It would be his choice, not hers.
But one choice did remain to her. A small one, but a choice all the same.
She walked toward him. He straightened off the door frame, interested, alert. She focused on the spot where his hair brushed his collar, inky black curls that lay this way and that over the crisp white cloth. Her hand slid through those curls, soft and warm, and felt the heat of his skin as her palm closed over his nape. She pulled his head to hers.
It was the second time today that she’d kissed him, and this time he was ready for her: his hands came around her waist, his lips firm. She stepped into him and forced him back a step. She would be a different kind of wife. She wouldn’t wait on his decision. She was deciding.
Simon had been trying to decide on his approach—absurd exercise; he’d put more time into thinking of how to seduce his own wife (his wife, he was married) than he’d ever given to seductions rightfully more complex, of wives whose husbands kept unpredictable schedules, of women with jealous lovers and important political connections. He’d nearly had her last night on his billiards table but today, it had seemed so important to show restraint. To prove to himself that he could be restrained.
He’d kept himself away from his apartments (mindful, constantly and despite himself, of the door that joined his sitting room to hers) through the postdinner brandy, through an hour or more of staring sightlessly at piano scores sent to him by somebodies or others in search of a patron; and then, having advanced up the stairs, somehow (he didn’t recall his passage) he’d found himself in his sitting room waiting for the strike of the clock. Hanging on the silence, waiting for the chimes to puncture it, like a trembling child on Christmas morning, congratulating himself for this fine show of self-control: eleven o’clock, a fine hour to bed one’s wife. A very respectable specimen of restraint, those three hours he’d passed in chaste absentia.
But now his efforts looked less noble than ludicrous. Seduction? He was being seduced. She came at him like a storm, her mouth hungry and hot, her small hands gripping tightly as an animal creature’s, her body writhing up against him.
He was willing, delighted … puzzled, for a fleeting moment. Very fleeting.
He cupped her by the elbows and drew her into his rooms, away from that chair where she’d been cuddled up with Herodotus—God save him, he’d taken a guttersnipe bluestocking to wife; what were the odds of that? Guided her into the safety of his less scholarly confines, where behind him a fire crackled and every preparation—champagne, wine, a pot of chocolate, she liked chocolate—had been laid to woo her. Only she did not require wooing. Of course she didn’t. Whom had he imagined he’d married? She’d kissed him today in front of his entire staff; it had been all he could do not to push her against the wall at that moment, before everyone.
No restraint now. He wanted to devour her. He turned her around, slouching a little to prevent their separation; she was not short, but he was tall—too tall, perhaps. He had vague intentions of steering her through the next door, into the bedroom; these small questions of height could be neatly resolved once they both were horizontal.
But then her hands found his shirt and gave it a yank, and the ripping sound—a button flew off, the tab broken—seemed to startle her. She froze. All at once, he was holding a block of wood.
He pulled back, torn between a snort and a laugh when he beheld her expression: rounded eyes, rounded pink lips. She was shocked by herself.
“Only a button,” he murmured, reaching out to hook a finger around her little ear, her hair falling in wisps over his knuckles.
She blinked. A delicate blush spread through her cheeks. “I’m sorry about that,” she said.
“I can afford a new button.”
She bit her lip, chastened, childlike in her guilt, in the confession that followed: “I think I ripped your trousers, too.”
He laughed, delighted by this. “I have others.” In fact, he felt grateful for the interruption, for the way it had slowed them. There were wonders here to attend to. Her skin was warm and resilient, her cheek soft beneath his stroking fingers. He watched his knuckles chart the side of her throat, knocking away the robe. The gown beneath it was sleeveless, light: a gown for a bridal night.
He traced the smooth curve of her shoulder. “Bend your arm,” he murmured.
She blinked at him, puzzled and wary, but obeyed: her hand rose to grip his elbow. So finely muscled, her limbs: he rubbed his thumb along the small bulge of her bicep, then bent down to take it in his teeth, as he’d longed to do from the moment he’d seen it bared. Her inhalation was soft but distinct. Her muscle contracted further as she tensed.
He flicked his tongue along her skin, then pressed a kiss there. Whoever had decided that muscles were not beautiful on a woman had been a fool, ignorant of the variations in nature’s genius. He felt down to the sharp point of her elbow. Amazing how his palm covered her so completely, cupped her so wholly. Her presence was so outsized that one easily forgot how narrow, how finely fashioned were her bones. How fragile in the flesh she was.
It came to him that she was trembling, her breath coming faster. He straightened. Her flush was deepening, her lips parted.
He watched those lips as he slid his hand down to her waist, then around to the curve of her lower back. What peculiar pleasure there was in charting someone’s, no, this woman’s angles and curves and planes, she who’d resisted him so stridently now watching open-eyed, breathless, as he made himself free with her body. It had been sweet to touch her before, but now her consent was wholly his, and her willingness worked its own power on him, lending even the brush of his skin against hers a carnal complexity: she was going to be his. There was no question any longer where these touches would lead.
He stroked her spine with his thumb as he leaned down. Her eyes drifted shut; she lifted her face to his.
Her cheeks were rosy, her lashes long, sable. A trembling bride, awaiting her husband’s first kiss. He did not even want to mock the thought.
He took her lower lip gently in his. She tasted of chocolate. She drank chocolate as a child would, delighted, gleeful, as if each sip tasted better than the last. He could feed her pots of it, perhaps, before she grew tired of it, or failed to glow at the taste. As he tasted it on her lips, he could understand her enthusiasm. He licked into her mouth, looking for more of the flavor. Her tongue met his, shyly; he felt her hands slip around his waist.
He smiled against her mouth, delighted with himself, with how unexpected this moment was becoming: a hundred cliches came to mind as their tongues tangled, cliches made vibrant by the wondrous truths they suddenly appeared to contain. He closed his eyes, fighting the urge to gather her to him, to push himself up against her, into her, to crush her beneath him. My God, she is sweet.
Her body came against his anyway, of her accord. The kiss deepened. He cupped her nape and walked her backward; she followed his lead pliantly, elegantly, graceful as a woman raised to complex dances. Together they crossed the threshold into the bedroom, sat onto the bed, still kissing, so earnestly, yes, this was earnest; he would have kissed this woman for hours no matter where he found her. He swept his hand up her back, into her hair, and realized his hand was trembling. Hot and desperate and gluttonous and hesitant and uncertain and tentative as a boy with his first woman: this moment, this simple bedding, was turning into something strange.
He broke the kiss, sitting back, breathing deeply, uneasy suddenly. The scent of her was lilies and lavender. Her eyes met his. Dark blue, ageless in their depths, they swallowed his attention. She reached out to touch his face, silent, her expression solemn, and parts of him, his skin, his lungs, expanded, prickling with sensation. He felt her touch low in his gut, like the contraction before a sharp blow.
He opened his mouth to speak, then bit his tongue, battling some sudden, low urge to break the moment with a comment he would not be able to take back. The silence felt too weighty. Her eyes pressed too keenly on his.
“It’s all right,” she said softly.
A knot formed in his throat. He spoke from old, defensive reflex, dry and sharp. “Yes. I’ve done this before.”
He regretted it instantly. He sucked in a breath and she started to pull away. You goddamned fool. He caught her hand beneath his and turned his lips into it in apology, shutting his eyes, wrestling with a peculiar sensation of embarrassment. In the darkness behind his eyes, sitting here with his thigh pressed to hers, she did not feel like a stranger to him; she did not feel merely convenient. She did not feel convenient in the least.
Silk rustled. He felt the heat of her skin, smelled the lilies more strongly, before her lips touched his throat. Some soft noise escaped him. He folded his lips together to prevent another, wondering at himself, unnerved.
Her foot came atop his, a warm, slight weight, as though to pin him in place. She moved against him, a languorous undulation that brought her breasts into his chest and made his breath catch. Her tongue flicked lightly along the bare skin where his throat and shoulder joined.
He felt his balls tighten. The heaviness, the lift and contraction, was all it took: animal hunger simplified his view. His uncertainty now a dimming memory, ludicrous, he knew what he wanted: to cover her, hold her down, and penetrate her as she moaned.
Simple.
He took her beneath her arms and lifted her across the bed. She lay back, her dark hair streaming around her, as he came over her on hands and knees. He drew his open mouth from her lips to her throat, setting his teeth, very lightly, against the tender skin there. Her sigh lifted the hairs on his nape. A woman like this, so yielding, her skin silk-soft, her hands clever and unpredictable, her nails turning into his back as her hips lifted beneath him, was a rare gift: a dream to lead a man home from the dark.
He brushed aside the neckline of her chemise. To think he’d not even seen her breasts fully bared until now, that imagination could never have compassed their beauty, when all the time they’d been waiting for his attentions: small but perfectly shaped, sweet now beneath his tongue. He put his mouth to her stiffening nipple and she gasped.
He suckled, taking her between his teeth, flicking his tongue to draw, like magic, another sound from her throat—higher, almost desperate as she writhed beneath him. His hand skated down the uneven landscape of her ribs, the sharp curve where her waist indented. Her belly’s smooth slope carried his palm farther yet, until he touched the soft curls between her legs, a slick, hot delta cradled, protected, by the tensile strength of her thighs. She bucked harder, the audible rasp of her breath sharpening to almost a keen. She was hot, so hot. He lifted his fingers to his mouth to taste her.
Nell dragged in a breath. He was bent over her like some mythical creature, a succubus, a vampire, feasting on her. His mouth released her and he looked up the line of her body, his eyes finding hers, glittering. A cloud slipped free of the moon and cold light poured through the windows, bathing in silver the hard set of his features, the flaring of his nostrils. He was breathing hard, long deep rasps like a man who’d been running.
He did not smile at her. Their eyes locked and he stared, his mouth a flat, fixed line, his expression so intense, so dark, that for a single moment she felt a flutter of fear. Spread out before him, helpless—
His hand closed over her wrist, holding it to the bed. Stopping her before she even recognized the intention to push herself up. “It’s me,” he said.
She froze, panting herself, helpless in his regard, trapped in it.
“Only me,” he said. He came up over her and rolled his hips against her and the breath escaped her, catching on her vocal chords, a low, startled moan that made her flush all over.
She sounded like an animal. She felt like an animal, pinned beneath him. Her body knew what to do. She bucked against him and his hand loosened on her wrist, his thumb tracing a firm line. “Yes,” he said, very low.
His other hand closed on her ankle, sliding slowly upward, turning so the edge of his nail drew a whispering line up her calf. She laid her head back to the pillow, staring up at the blurring ceiling. Pulses beat everywhere, behind her knees, in the tips of her breasts, most intensely, most deliciously, between her legs, at the spot his slow hand now, finally, reached, as he eased his hips away just enough to permit himself access: he cupped her very lightly, too lightly, and then, all at once, firmly, possessively, the heel of his palm rolling against her.
A guttural sound burst from her throat. Now she didn’t care. Her consciousness was too heated and swollen for delicacies such as words.
His thumb prodded, finding the source of her throbbing, circling it once. He leaned down, his long body lowering against hers everywhere, his hand trapped between them, his mouth finding her ear, hot breath, low voice: “I am going to put my mouth here.” He drew back, giving her the devil’s own smile. It faded, replaced by a dark, concentrated look as he studied her, devoured her with his eyes. Then, silently, he moved down her body.
And oh sweet God in heaven, he did put his mouth there. First the briefest touch of his tongue, teasing, just the lightest flick—a notice to her: this is where I will touch you—and then a long, hungry stroke that made the top of her head lift off. She lay back, helpless to do anything else, and clutched his head as he made good on his promise: as the pleasure built within her, pulsing, pulsing harder, spiking and splintering her into hard, fierce contractions, she did not think of anything at all; she simply gloried.
Her eyes closed, panting, she heard the soft sound of cloth sliding. For a moment he withdrew from her. She was limp, too drained almost to open her eyes, but when he lay back down over her, the shock of heat from his skin against hers jarred her back into a building tide of want.
“Yes?” he said softly.
He made some slight adjustment of his hips and she felt him come up against her, a solid, blunt pressure, poised to invad
e her. But he was asking, and if she said no … he would listen.
The idea moved through her like electricity, this piece of faith in him she hadn’t known she possessed. But he deserved such faith. He’d never misused his power with her.
She lifted her head to kiss him, the contact hard, almost bruising, the feeling in her almost violent. “Yes,” she said against his mouth. “Yes.”
He cupped her head in his broad palm, cradling her for his kiss as he pressed his hips into hers. She tensed at the discomfort, sharp, not pleasant; then he filled her, pressed into her, the burn fading. She was full beyond measure, pinned beneath him, penetrated, her head still encompassed in his cradling grip. Her own hands skated down the broad, strong plane of his back, slipping down to the flex of his buttocks as he moved inside her. The sensation took her breath. He thrust steadily at first, such a curious feeling. She felt … possessed.
She lifted her hips and his mouth broke from hers to coast down her throat, softly biting the crook of her neck. His groan made a shiver run through her. With their bodies joined, his flesh communicated directly with hers. She turned her lips into his hair. The smell of his skin was like the woods on a moonlit night; it made the wild parts of her waken.
“Harder.” That hoarse voice was hers; her nails sank into the solid flex of his pumping buttocks, directing that power, those muscles, into his use of her body; he rolled his hips against hers and thrust harder, and she felt it coming again, the pleasure: she would melt into the bed or leave him raked bloody.
The pleasure of being human, of being vulnerable: as her muscles contracted around him, he lifted his head to look into her eyes, and something passed between them. She fell into him as though into a dark, soft silence, everything in her going still. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, unsure for a dizzying moment where she ended and he began; boneless, liquid against him, so much at home that her own body seemed superfluous.
His expression hardened. Briefly, it puzzled her; his look seemed so close to pain. And then his eyes closed and he shuddered, a soft moan announcing that he felt the furthest thing from pain—that he was lost in pleasure as overpowering as what she had felt.