Page 19

R uthlessly, Alistair tamped down his need, pulling his body away from hers just a fraction of an inch. “If you’re sure.”

Constantia’s eyelids dropped closed as a shudder of longing passed through her slender frame, and she nodded her surrender.

“First things first,” he said, rocking back onto his heel, with his bent knee pressed into the cushion of the chaise between her thighs. “Help me take off this coat.” It was elegantly cut, more tight-fitting than he was accustomed to wearing, and nothing he could afford to spoil.

Her smile returned as her hands skated from his waist, over his rib cage, and up his chest. “If I must.” Despite the layers of silk and cotton still between them, her touch left a trail of heat. Slipping her fingers beneath the collar of his coat, she slid it over his shoulders and down his arms with surprising ease. “A pity,” she murmured as it landed on the floor with a soft fwump . “You look well in it.” Mischief twinkled in her eyes. “Though I confess I am eager to see what lies beneath.” Her fingers went to his cravat.

“Ah,” he said, catching them in a firm grip and bringing them to his lips for a kiss. “All in good time. But since you’ve been making it your business to study my figure for months”—he raked his gaze down her body as she lay supine before him—“I think it’s only fair now that I get to study yours.”

Pink rushed into her cheeks and toward her hairline as a breathy “Oh!” escaped her lips.

With a tug on her hands he urged her back to an upright position and ducked his head for a kiss, soft at first and then firmer as she leaned toward him and let him wrap her arms around his neck. So much could be conveyed with the press and parting of lips: desire and hunger and a connection that went deeper still, pinning together two lost souls who had been running away from something all their lives and anchoring them to this place, this hour.

When he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue, she opened to him readily and he sank into the sweet, wet heat of her mouth. And she, wary but never timid, explored him with equal fervor, their tongues soon sliding over one another in a sensuous dance until the kiss grew so deep it was impossible to know where his breath left off and hers began.

He plucked loose the pins holding the bib of her apron in place and dropped them to the floor. Breaking the kiss, he studied the gentle swell of her bosom and watched his fingertips trace along the edge of her bodice. With a tug he discovered an unexpected smattering of freckles hidden just beneath the narrow hem. Possessiveness surged through him, catching him off guard with its force. He wanted to be the only man ever to have seen them, the only man who ever would.

Lowering his head, he traced them with his tongue, like the path marked out on a treasure map, and felt her chest rise and fall with increasingly ragged breaths. At the same time, he let his free hand follow her figure from just above her knee, over the curve of her hip to her narrow waist, finally stopping to cup her breast and tease her nipple with his thumb. Then, pressing a kiss to the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, he reached behind her to untie the apron and unfasten her dress.

It was the same one she had been wearing the day of the accident, and the evening he had helped her undress in the makeshift inn. That night had given him proof of what he’d already suspected: She wore no corset. As it had then, the bodice now gaped slightly to reveal only her shift. Unlike that night, he no longer needed to fight the temptation to trail his fingertips slowly over each vertebra—unless withholding his touch would further ratchet up her sensual need?

But in the end, he hadn’t the strength to deny either of them what they wanted.

He reveled in the softness of her skin, the delicate strength of her spine. Sheffield steel, had she said? Of that, he hadn’t a doubt. But she was still pliant beneath the warm stroke of his fingers.

When he sat more upright, she followed, both drawn by his arms and chasing his embrace. “Stand up,” he told her in a voice gravelly with lust. She stumbled but didn’t hesitate, and with a sweep of his hands her dress and shift and petticoats slithered down her arms and over her hips to puddle at her feet. She stood before him, bare but for her stockings, the Grecian statue of his fantasy.

And yet more than any fantasy, for her lean form was soft and warm and touched here and there with a peach-pink blush, her diamond-hard nipples a shade darker yet, and her mound covered with auburn curls. His swallow was audible in the reverent stillness of the room.

She made no motion to cover herself or hide from his greedy gaze. “You like to be looked at?” he asked.

“I like what I see in your eyes.”

Regardless of the picture Miss C. had made of him, he was neither a closet sensualist nor a man who denied himself all physical pleasure. But at present he felt as unsure as a randy schoolboy reaching for his first woman with trembling hands. Anchoring one at each of her hips, he brought her close enough to kiss her belly button, then set his mouth to her breast.

“Aah!” Her hands rose to grip his head, his hair, steadying herself, holding him there—as if he had any desire to pull away. Every time he glanced upward, she was watching him, eyes bright with wonder, as he licked and sucked her small, pert nipple until it was the color of wine. Yes, that’s right! Store away this memory, he thought, shifting his ministrations to the other breast. Someday, when you’re alone, think of me thus.

As she grew weak with need, he found the strength to stand. She gripped his shoulders to steady herself as he unknotted his cravat and unbuttoned his waistcoat, kissing her thoroughly all the while. Then, with gentle pressure at her waist, he turned her back toward the settee. Snatching away the rough linen sheet—she deserved nothing less than velvet against her skin—he urged her back to the chaise. While she sank down, he swiftly divested himself of everything but his breeches, knowing that once he gave in to his desire to match her nakedness, this golden hour would too soon be over.

Sunset colors of pink and violet streamed through the windows, bathing them in magical light and restoring the studio to what it had once been: a holy place.

Blasphemy it might be, but he was determined to worship her.

He knelt, the stone floor softened by the pile of their discarded clothes, and let his eyes drink in every inch of her. Her body followed the languid curves of the chaise, one hand draped along the curved arm and one knee raised, her legs falling ever so slightly apart.

“Constantia,” he breathed, lightly painting her with his touch from her collarbone to her knees. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He wanted to follow his fingers with his tongue, but not more than he wanted to see her reaction as his fingertips danced over the delicate skin of her inner thigh, rising slowly higher until they brushed along the seam of her sex. Her silky petals were already dewed with desire, inviting him to probe deeper. When his thumb nudged her clitoris, she gasped.

“Alistair!”

Hearing his name on her lips—not Ryland , not my lord —was almost his undoing. He rewarded her with two quick circles of his thumb. She rasped out his name again and splotches of color appeared on her throat and chest. Slipping a finger into her hot, tight channel, then two, he urged her toward bliss, reveling as her pupils flared and her nails dug into his biceps and her hips lifted in a frantic rhythm, chasing his touch. Triumph surged through him as he watched her shatter.

He might have tried to tell himself it was enough if he hadn’t heard her murmur of disappointment as he slid his fingers from her body. Leaning forward, he nuzzled her ear and whispered, “More?”

Her coppery curls tickled his nose as she nodded. “Everything.”

That breathy word shot straight to his cock. It took him less than a moment to shuck off his breeches and kneel between her spread knees. Even the creaky old chaise did not protest. Her hands slid over his chest to his shoulders and looped behind his neck, drawing him closer.

The arm supporting his weight shook with barely leashed desire as with the other hand he fitted himself to her entrance. With a strength he had not been sure he possessed, he restrained his aching need to thrust into her wet heat. Slowly, advancing with firm but gentle nudges, he eased his hips forward until their bodies were fully joined.

“All right?” he asked, searching her gaze for any hint of discomfort.

For answer, she hooked one of her stocking-covered feet around his calf while the other leg slid to the floor, splaying her hips and giving him greater access. Even as lust spurred him onward to completion, something very like regret made his heart twinge.

She was wrong for him in all the ways that really mattered—at least, when it came to fulfilling his duty—but he also knew as surely as he had ever known anything that he would never feel this terrifying yet blissful sense of being perfectly vulnerable, perfectly matched, perfectly seen with anyone else.

So he held off as long as he could, until his breath sawed in and out of his chest and perspiration beaded on his brow. Until she pleaded with him in wordless moans, and the fingers twined in his hair began to tug. Until the clenching of her sex became an irresistible beacon to his own climax, which tore from his body with a shout.

He pressed his forehead to hers and they lay together in a sweaty, satisfied tangle. After several minutes, he found the will to take most of his own weight onto his arms. “I must be crushing you.”

She laughed, a deliciously throaty sound. “Not quite.”

Still, she shifted almost restlessly beneath him. Though he knew their interlude must soon come to an end, it was with great reluctance that he heaved himself upright and let her slip free.

Whatever he had imagined had been her motivation for rising from the cozy chaise, he could not have been more surprised to see her dart to the easel, still absolutely naked, and begin to draw. “I want to remember,” she said, almost to herself.

Oddly flattered, he stretched like a cat in the fading sunlight and propped one arm behind his head. “Don’t think this is quite what Aunt Josephine had in mind,” he teased.

“No.” Her answering smile was somehow both wicked and sad. “This one is just for me.”

Not being an artist himself, he would have to content himself with storing away a mental image of her in that moment, her soft, wild hair tumbling over her bare shoulders and her face aglow from within.

As he lay watching her, he thought of the portrait of her mother, of beginnings and endings, of art and mystery and stories told and untold. Perhaps it was in Constantia’s nature to try to create symmetry out of chaos.

He closed his eyes and let the whisper of her pencil lull him into something like peace.