Page 99 of Yielding to Love

He laughed hollowly. “Politics is Jasper’s realm. I learned very young not to tread in his footsteps. He casts too big a shadow.” God. He told this woman things he would never tell anyone else. “He is perfect, you see. You must agree.” If she denied it, he would know her for a liar.

She leaned closer. And kissed his cheek. Then she murmured, “Perfection is boring.”

He had hoped they would reach this point, though they had taken a circuitous route—by way of Jasper’s perfection. Moreover, he’d envisioned himself initiating. For once. Ha! With Camellia, he was never in control. He turned toward her, put one arm around her to draw her still nearer, then plucked off her bonnet and slowly pulled the pins from her hair. Like silk running through his fingers, it tumbled past her shoulders, soft and lustrous. Then he tilted her chin upward and kissed her. They kissed until they were both breathless.

In the back of his mind, these past several weeks, he’d been pondering his life. What was the point of it? Renovating a home to rattle around in alone? Scrutinizing every morsel he put in his mouth, just to live one more day scrutinizing every morsel? Why? But now, he was embracing the woman he loved in the moonlight. If one could have a moment like this, life was worth living.

“There is a boathouse.” His voice hitched. He didn’t know how to ask. Coaxing and compliments were beyond him. He pointed down the shoreline. “You can just make it out through the trees.”

“I see it.”

He cleared his throat. The boathouse had also been renovated. It was patched, painted, and spider-free. “There are cushions. In the boat. But we could take them out and put them on the ground.”

Her head turned. She stared at him, wide-eyed, yet did not ask the obvious question: why on earth would they?

He wanted to lie with her. That went without saying. He wanted to redeem himself for his previous failure. He wanted her to experience pleasure. With him. But his mouth was dry, and his palms were sweating, and he couldn’t say any of those things.

Instead, he said, “You won’t be trapped. There are no obligations.”

“If there is a child—”

“Then we marry, of course. But there won’t be. I—I have a French letter. It’s reliable. Do you trust me?”

She regarded him a long moment. Then she scrambled to her feet and held out her hand for him to take. “Yes.”

*

They walked hand in hand along the shoreline to the boathouse. They didn’t speak. Crispin imagined they were both afraid any words might break the spell.

He opened the door to the building, and left it propped open for light as he ushered her in. She stood along the wall next to the door, arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself as if cold. Or afraid.

He pulled the cushions from the rowboat and laid them together on the ground. In his mind’s eye, they had been longer and wider. In fact, they were too short to serve for a mattress and too narrow for two people to lay side-by-side. He stripped off his coat and spread it on top, then frowned.

“Maybe we shouldn’t.” The last thing he wanted was for her to have another miserable experience with him.

Camellia set her jaw, walked forward, and lowered herself to the cushions. He followed and sat beside her.

“If you want to stop, at any time, Camellia, tell me. If I do anything you don’t like, tell me to stop.”

She gave a shuddering sigh and nodded. “Please be quiet and kiss me.”

He did. Running through his brain were the maneuvers performed by the protagonist of the Amours, but he shunted those rather fantastical exploits aside, in favor of what seemed right for them. Kissing her, he stroked her silken hair until her shivering calmed. Then he removed her pelisse and loosened the layers beneath to glide his fingertips over her shoulders and breasts, as she had done with him. She hmmmed appreciatively. When her breath quickened, he explored further, with his hands and his lips. Slowly. Listening all the while for her response. Sensitive to her movements, closer or away. Trying to ignore his own arousal, even though that became increasingly difficult.

The book had mentioned, over and over, a woman’s bud of pleasure. He had his doubts such a thing existed, until he trailed kisses down her body, between her thighs, and she suddenly arched her back and moaned his name. He groaned in concert, wanting to take her right then. But he continued what he’d been doing, in part because she pressed her hand to his head, making her wishes delightfully clear. Her breath came in stuttering gasps. She cried out, and then went still.

He waited a moment, torn between triumph, relief, and desire, before kissing his way back up her body. “Camellia, my love, I want you.”

She nodded.

He unbuttoned his jacket and fumbled in his purse for the French letter. He had a moment of terror, thinking he might have taken it out and stored it somewhere, but thankfully found it. In too much of a hurry to undress, he simply dropped his trousers and smalls and pulled on his “armor.”

“Don’t let me hurt you,” he said.

“I won’t. You won’t.”

“Oh, lud.” He rolled on top of her. “I love you, Camellia. You can’t know how desperately I do.”