“So hot,” he rasped. “So wet. So delectable.” He skimmed the intimate length of her. “Softer or firmer?”
“Firmer.”
The pressure increased and her body tingled far beyond where he touched. How could she grant him such power? Why was she not frightened of what he could unleash? Because she trusted him. He hadn’t kissed her at the club because she was a member of his household, but she was no longer. They both knew it. Tonight signaled the end of one relationship and perhaps the beginning of another.
“Faster or slower?”
“Slower... no... faster... I don’t... know. I can’t think.”
He teased, changing the pace, going from leisurely to frantic to somewhere in between. His strokes long and short, circular, winding. Pleasure coursed through her. Her body trembled as the tension built. She gasped.
His breaths grew harsh, not as harsh as hers, but she was aware of his muscles tightening as though he was following her on this journey. Then she escaped the confines of flesh and bone, and his mouth was blanketing hers, capturing her screams, holding tight as her cries turned into whimpers and she went lax in his arms while the intense ecstasy ebbed and floated away.
She had an overwhelming urge to thank him. She was grateful for the darkness, even as she resented it for not allowing her to see his face. To see if whatshe’d felt and experienced had transferred into him. She didn’t know how she’d support herself when she got out of the carriage because her entire being felt like warm jam and she simply wanted to spread herself over him.
Carefully, he eased her legs off his lap and helped her to sit up straighter. His lips landed on her throat just before he went to work securing her buttons. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice a low caress along her nerves.
She wanted to laugh with joy and happiness. And a measure of awe. “Very.”
Finished with his task, he slid slightly away and, based upon what she could feel and detect of his movements, was putting himself back to rights. But she also sensed something else. A pulling apart, a separation, the erecting of an invisible wall.
She remembered the question she’d asked earlier, in that room that should have been tawdry, but instead was comforting, the inquiry he’d ignored in favor of kissing her. She’d let the answer go, welcoming his lips instead. When she’d asked about the affairs, he’d distracted her with his yearning mouth and questing fingers.
Suddenly it seemed imperative to hear the answer from those lips that had taunted, teased, and satisfied her. To have confirmation that she had deciphered that matter correctly. “Those other ladies, the ones you take to your bedchamber, are you the same with them as you were with Mrs. Parker? Do you simply play cards?”
She was aware of him stiffening, tension radiating out from him, and she feared she’d gotten it wrong.That Mrs. Parker was merely the exception. And he’d just added Daisy to his list of numerous conquests.
Jesus. What had he done?
He hadn’t regretted kissing her in the bedchamber, but here in this carriage he did have regrets. He’d lost control. Knowing where they were headed, he never should have crossed over to her, taken her in his arms, been welcomed into hers, and allowed himself to be spurred on by her eagerness.
He never lost control, but with her from the beginning, he’d had a tenuous hold on it. For the past few moments, being with her had been like having the reins on a team of horses snatched from his grasp, giving them the means to send him careening over a cliff.
Even now he couldn’t bring himself to return to his place across from her. Nor could he provide her with the answer she wanted. He’d already told her more than he should, more than he’d ever revealed to anyone. He had to hold everything else close because he’d given a promise to Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Mallard. He’d see it through.
In addition, and more importantly, he’d made a vow to his mother on the morning that he’d placed a bouquet of violets on the freshly turned earth that marked her grave: he would help those who needed him. No matter the cost. At the time, he hadn’t realized how steep the price might be. He wasn’t quite certain that he’d actually understood it until a moment ago. When he’d had only a taste of the glory that was Marguerite Townsend. But it wasn’t her place to pay for his sins. And she would if they continued on. Just as he’d told Mrs. Mallard that first night when she’d come to him,his reputation would ensure it. “I won’t discuss my relationship with the others.”
He could sense her studying him within the velvety dark confines of the vehicle.
“You don’t trust me,” she said quietly, and yet the words struck him like a bullet fired straight into his soul.
He didn’t know if he trusted anyone completely, not even his fellow Chessmen. He’d never told them the truth of his relationship with his women, because he couldn’t risk a stray word compromising what he was striving to accomplish. In the end, atonement was all he sought.
“How can I, when from the beginning you lied to me?”
“As though you were honest with me? I would say you went so far as to purposely lead me into believing you were having an affair with Mrs. Parker. I went to no great effort to deceive you or to convince you to believe something that wasn’t true.”
“You pretended to be a servant.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, perhaps because the truth of her words struck a little too close to home. He had sought to deceive her every single time she opened the door to his bedchamber.
“Iwasa servant.” Her tone carried a pique that he was unaccustomed to having women direct his way. “Up before the sun, dusting, and scrubbing, and polishing. Cleaning without being seen until my back ached.”
“Gathering your information.”
“Observing.”
“Spying.”
“Reporting what I saw. I’m not the one who created a fairy tale in that damned room, determined to entice someone into believing it. If you’re looking for deception, Mr. Blackwood, look no further than yourself and your actions.”
