A Taste of Honey (29 page)

She became annoyed that there were too many layers between their bodies; too many barriers between the melding of their flesh and she slid her arms beneath his jacket searching for the warmth of his skin and scents buried within his clothes.  She worked at the laces behind her back, trying to untie them in her search for some higher peak that she had never experienced before.  She wanted to feel her skin against him, their bare bodies touching and she moaned greedily at the thoughts that filled her head of their two bodies naked and entwined as they sought each other's passion.  She could picture the two of them naked, writhing around on his bed back at the family's townhouse and she wondered if he had imagined the same things before.

Loosening the ties on her dress, she felt him lower the edge of her corset and push aside the thin chemise searching with his teeth for one of her breasts.  She offered the bare flesh up, aching her back against the support of his arm as her tightening nipple inched closer to his waiting mouth.  He pulled the firm crest in, rolling it between his tongue and teeth then releasing it to blow the cool night air against it, making the point even more sensitive than it had already been.

“Please Garrett,” she begged.  He understood what she was asking for, knew instinctively what she needed him to do.  Releasing her breast he lowered her body to the soft, mossy earth beneath them.

Katherine writhed on the ground below him, her hair spilling out of its pins, creating a fan around her head.  Garrett sifted his fingers through the deep auburn hair before he slowly ran his hands along her body, from her neck down to her breasts, ribs, stomach, skirting past that one throbbing area that she then begged for him to touch.  Placing one of his fingers along her lips he hushed her.  “Not yet Kat,” he whispered softly as he continued to rub down to her thigh, calf, and ankle through her skirts until he ended at her tiny shoes.

“I told you not to wear these again.”  Garrett pulled the shoes away from her feet, breaking the delicate laces as he did so.  With his mouth he sought out the tiny red marks that he had seen that night and kissed lightly along the bright red lines, as if he could erase each mark by doing so.  “This is what I wanted to do, the night that you hurt your ankle,” he admitted as his hands slid under her skirts and moved over her legs, only to retreat back down, never touching her quite
where she begged him to.

“I was afraid of that,” she moaned between gasps as his lips and fingers started to crawl up her leg.  Bewildered panic struck her as she realized where his mouth was heading.  “What are you doing?” she asked as his kisses crept farther up her leg, tickling the backs of her knees and his fingers started to push her clothes aside to afford him a better view of her arching body.

“I told you,” he whispered thickly, “this is what I wanted to do.” With a swift tug of hands he tore the seam of her undergarments and she felt the cool night air rush between her thighs chilling the unfamiliar moisture that had been created.

His head shifted up higher as if her body called to him and Katherine tried to push him away.  “You can't mean to really kiss me there?” she asked and received her answer with the feel of his tongue pressing along her opening while his hands pushed her knees further apart.  Her heels dug into the ground as her body strained towards him.  His lips brushed teasingly along the throbbing point, causing her hips to move as if he were a master puppeteer who could control her in wa
ys that she did not understand.

The pressure of his tongue increased with light nibbling bites and she felt the tip of his finger slide gently inside of her.  Sensation burst from that one point and Katherine couldn't stop herself from finding the same rhythm as his tongue as she felt light sparks of energy burst around them.

“I never would have guessed that you were thinking about something this wicked,” she gasped as his tongue continued to lick at the aching point and her hands balled into fists at the side of her body as she fought for some kind of control.  Her entire body began twitching as she felt a climax descending upon her, fiercer than the one that she had encountered previously.

With a suddenness that shocked her, Garrett's mouth went still and the tip of his finger withdrew from her body.  She sobbed loudly into the night air as she tried to pull him back into her.  He placed one last kiss along her inner thigh before rolling off of her and resting on his side to watch her.  Her body shivered like a beautiful instrument after being perfectly strummed.  Gently his fingers reached out and he tucked some of her hair back behind her ear.

“Why did you stop?” Katherine asked as she tried to pull his hand towards her again.

“This isn't the only thing that I want from you, Kat,” he said calmly as he watched her carefully.  Garrett tried to harden himself against the temptation that she offered, and he refused the urge to give into anything that she wanted.  He was willing to do anything to have her, even if it meant that he had to pull away from giving her the kind of pleasure that they both craved.  It might be his only way to have her forever.

“What do you want Garrett?” Katherine purred as she pulled his hand towards her, sucking on the tip of his finger as he had once done to her.  “Anything, I'll do it,” she promised while Garrett removed the tip from her mouth and placed his hand back on the grass and away from her body.

“No, Kat.  I mean that I don't just want this from you.  What we have now, what you have been willing to give me, it isn't enough,” he clarified and watched her stiffen as she realized what he was asking her for.  “I want all of you.  I need you to be my wife.”

Tears welled up in her eyes.  Garrett hated hurting her like this.  He wanted only to make her happy but he knew that neither one of them could be happy with only half of a relationship.  Stolen moments with her would never be enough.

“I don't want to think about this right now.  I don't want to have to decide my entire life.”  She sobbed loudly before covering her mouth with the back of her hand.  “You want me to choose between you and my family.  Don't do this to me now Garrett, please I need...”

“Hush Kat,” he said putting his finger on her mouth to stop her from speaking, from begging him to do what he longed to complete.  It was
already going to be hard to
resist her.  “I know what you need, and I'm willing to give you that every single day and night for the rest of our lives, but only if you will marry me.”

Frustrated tears seeped from her eyes as she turned away from him.  “I don't know that I can promise you that.  I don't think that I can say yes to you.”

“You don't have to answer now,” he assured her, pulling her clothing back into place and lacing her back up as efficiently as any ladies maid.  He even tried to reattach her shoes despite the broken laces that hung limp and tattered.  “I'm willing to wait for your answer.  But I want you to know that there will be no more of this,” and unable to resist he slid his hand beneath her dress, his finger delving inside of her again in one smooth motion.  Garrett felt her moan, nearly screaming with pleasure before he withdrew his hand.  Her eyes brightened with the tears as release flitted away from her view.  “Not until I have my answer.”  He pulled her up to straighten her torn drawers and tie the little ribbons that held them in place.

“I'll hate you for this,” she pouted as she stood beside him, watched him through slitted eyes.

Garrett looked at her sadly and held out his arm for her to take.  “I know,” he answered once she grasped a hold of him and they started to walk back to the house.  “I'm hoping that you'll hate me enough that you just might say yes.”

Garrett stopped at the entrance to the house and refused to follow her inside.  Katherine looked too disheveled and ravished to return to the dance with the others, so he had helped sneak her around the gardens to a back entry that few guests would have noticed.

“Aren't you going to help me to my room?” she asked, worried that there might be more people along the way, or that she might even run into Mrs. Brentley who would surely not approve of seeing her in such a state.  Katherine wondered then if her sponsor would feel more or less betrayed by the fact that it was her son that Katherine was sneaking around with.

“Right now, I shouldn't be anywhere near your bed,” he warned her lightly.  His hands remained in his pockets as if it was the only way that he could force himself not to touch her.

“This might be your only chance to be near my bed,” Katherine warned as her hand reached out to touch the visible bulge in his pants that jerked in response to her touch.  She felt the power
within his body that
emboldened her beyond reason.  Pulling her hand away Garrett playfully slapped the back of it.

“I have more faith in us than to believe that this is my only chance.  We belong together,” he said before kissing her forehead in the way that an old friend might, and turning to leave while he was still able to resist her.

Katherine took the stairs up to her room two at a time, then paused before opening her door.  Looking around to make sure that no one would see her; she moved down two doors and carefully opened the door to her sister's room.  She needed to talk to someone about what she was feeling and she hoped that on this occasion she could convince her sister to listen to her.  Maybe if she was open about her own emotions it might open Robin up to discuss Victor with her.

The door barely creaked as it swung in on its hinges.  “You have no idea what kind of woman I am,” Robin screamed at someone else in her room.  “None of you understand enough about me to know why I would be willing to do anything to get what I want.”

“It's not worth it,” a deep voice replied.  Katherine gasped as she realized that her sister was already entertaining strange men in her private bedroom.  “Whatever it is that you want, Victor is not worth the sacrifice.”

Robin's laugh sent shivers into her spine as she recognize the sound as someone who already knew they were damned and therefore unafraid to laugh in the face of the devil.

“If I marry him, I could have whatever I want.  Are you trying to confess that you're jealous?” she accused.  “If you're worried about my marriage to Victor making me unavailable, you're wrong.”

“That is not what this is about,” he argued.

“Tell me that you don't wish that you had his money.  Better yet, kiss me and tell me that you don't wish that I was yours instead of his,” Katherine peeked around the corner to see that her sister had caught the large man in her arms and was kissing his lips.  For a moment the man did not react to her, as if he were too surprised to do so.  Suddenly with an almost violent movement his arms banded about her sister as he tipped her head back and kissed along her neck. 

Katherine shook her head as she slowly exited the room.  Robin had become a woman that she didn't even recognize and it frightened her to see it.  With a soft click that she knew neither of the lovers had heard, Katherine shut the door behind her.  She started towards her own room when she noticed a soft yellow light escaping Winnie's room.  With one last attempt at finding comfort, Katherine lightly knocked on the door.

“Stay away,” Winnie pouted from inside.  “I don't want to see you ever again.”

“Winnie, it's me, can we talk?”

She heard the distinct sound of the door lock clicking open before it swung wide and Winnie pulled her in, looking up and down the halls to make sure that no one else was seeking entry.

“Why did you lock the door?” she asked.

Winnie waved the question away, “It doesn't matter.” Winnie quickly noticed Katherine's disheveled hair, her red and puffy lips, and her flushed cheeks.  Winnie knew that something had happened.  “Who were you with?” she asked and led Katherine to sit beside her on one of the small day beds.  “You're shaking, what happened?”

Covering her eyes to shield some of the mortification Katherine admitted everything, even letting Winnie know that they had gone farther than they should have and that she had begged him for more.  “But he stopped suddenly.  He said he wouldn't do anything like that with me unless I was married to him and I wish that I could say yes, I do.  I just don't know if I can handle the consequences.  I even think that I'm falling in love with him but I just don't know.”

Winnie bit at her lip before pulling Katherine's hands from her face to look her in the eye.  “I'm not going to let you keep secrets from me any longer,” she declared sternly.  “You need to tell me why you can't marry Garrett.  It seems to me that you both want each other and I know that he has fallen in love with you too.”

Katherine groaned and hid her face again at having Winnie reaffirm what she had already started to guess.

“What is it that's holding you back from saying yes to him?  Is it that you still want Kent as well?  Are you trying to choose between the two of them?”

Katherine laughed mirthlessly at the thought of Kent.  “No, I don't want Kent.  I never did.  We only worked as a couple in our imaginations, I'm afraid.  I don't love him and he would never be able to love me.  He says he doesn't even believe that there is something like love out there.  Kent is far too cynical and jaded for me or anyone else.”

“That's very sad,” Winnie sighed as her mind seemed to wander on that point for a moment.  “But if it's not him, then what is it?”

Taking a deep breath Katherine looked Winnie over.  She was precisely the kind of sister that she needed, someone that she could trust but who could also be straight with her and say what she was thinking.  Shrugging her shoulders in defeat she decided that there was no choice but to tel
l Winnie everything and glean f
r
om
her any bit of advice.