Beyond Innocence (32 page)

She liked the sound of that: made for love. Grinning back, she craned upward for his kiss. Her joy was
all the giddier for having begun in pain. She gave herself over to it, over to him, as if she'd never in her life known fear.

"Sweetness," he murmured, sensing her surrender.

He slipped his hand down her belly and through her curls,
then
moaned at the heat that greeted his caress. Clearly seeking more, his fingers slid between her folds. She felt the delightful ache she'd known before and writhed beneath him, wanting what she knew he could give, thrusting with her hips when she could no longer be still.

This time he watched her climb until she had to close her eyes.

"Yes," he praised, rough and heated by her ear. "Come for me, sweetness, come."

The pleasure broke more sharply than before. She cried out at the startling liquid tremor, and again when his fingers worked her harder still. Lovely wavelets rolled over one another, ebbing and building, lapping deep inside her core. When he finally let her go she was boneless, heated through and through with satiation. As if it were a dream, she felt him stretch against her side. His arm jerked quickly, wildly, until he gasped and stiffened and a burst of something warm splashed her hip.

He sighed heavily when the wetness finished spurting, like a man who'd set down a burden.

He spilled his seed, she thought. He brought himself to pleasure with his fist. She touched the sweaty
arm he'd draped across her waist.

"Why did you do that?" she asked. "Why didn't you let me?"

Still breathing hard, he nuzzled the crook of her neck. "I'm sorry,
Florence
. I wasn't sure you'd want to and I couldn't wait. Watching you was too much. I had to come."

"Then you'll have to teach me to do it quicker."

He rose over her on his elbow. Crinkles spread out from his smiling eyes, warm and reassuring, as if he saw
every insecurity
she'd tried to hide behind her matter-of-fact tone.

"No," he said, his lips whispering incitingly over hers. "I want you to do it slow."

He showed her how, his organ beginning to grow as soon as he wrapped her fingers around it. He showed her the places he liked to be touched: how a lick of the tongue made her palm slide more deliriously; how his cock rooted deep inside him and could be rubbed behind his sack; how a gentle squeeze at the proper moment left him gasping with delight.

She did all he showed her and gloried in his groans. They excited her more than she could have dreamed: the wild chuffing of his breath, the tight, pained twist of his face as he tried to make the pleasure last.
The climactic burst of seed was a revelation, not its quantity so much as the suddenness of its appearance. What a marvel men were. She did not protest when he pressed his mouth between her legs
,
though her nakedness made the act stranger than before, and the climb to pleasure tired her so greatly
she could not stay awake.
"Sweet as honey," she heard him murmur as she drifted off. He held her to his warmth, his arms wrapped protectively around her back. In spite of all she'd been through, she slept as peacefully as a child.

* * *

He held her
as she slept, his heart slowing, his body blissfully at ease, his mind held from the press of reality by force of will. One night, he thought, one night until the dawn. Then he would do what he must. Then he would return her to his brother. He knew it was wrong, maybe even impossible, for this night to be forgotten. But what choice did he have? Marry
Florence
himself and abandon Freddie to the wolves? The lure of doing precisely that was almost stronger than he could stand. But even if marrying him might make
Florence
happier, that path was primarily selfish: abominably selfish, in fact. How could he live
with himself, knowing he'd destroyed his brother's last chance to be saved?

He could still make this work. He could. None of them would have precisely what they wished, but neither would any of them be ruined. And in the meantime, he would have his night.

What could one night matter when the damage already was done?

Done but not compounded,
said his conscience.

He ignored the nagging voice, easing out from under his love to find the bath. He would not regret this night no matter what.

He pushed aside three dusty velvet curtains before he found the hidden door. The marble floor was cool beneath his feet as he looked around, taking in the memories. It was a rich room, shining with Moorish tile and gilt, the crowning luxury of the pavilion. Spiders scuttled in the plunge bath, but water still flowed from the taps. He did his business quickly, splashed his face,
then
hesitated as his gaze
struck an Indian prayer cabinet. The wood was covered in statuettes, each carved to represent the positions of love. Some were only possible for contortionists. Others he and
Florence
had done tonight. He and Freddie had sniggered over this cabinet when they were boys, but now Edward remembered what it contained: velvet ties, rolls of long velvet ties.

He glanced over his shoulder to the room where
Florence
slept. He'd said he wanted memories. Why not a memory of the fantasy that had been haunting him since that day at the ruins? He opened the cabinet's folding door. Inside, beneath a smiling cedar
Buddha,
was a chest he'd never seen. The baroque French coffer was gold, encrusted with ornamental flowers. It was locked, but the key lay beside it. Curious, he opened the lid.

The contents included a collection of brittle letters, the packets bound with red satin cords. Next to these lay a chased gold locket, big enough to fill his palm. Opening it gave him a start. The portrait inside was the spitting image of Imogene Hargreave. For a moment, he suspected someone of playing a nasty joke. Then he realized the picture couldn't be Imogene. For one thing, the clothes were too old-fashioned. The subject's flaxen hair was scraped close to her head,
then
coaxed into shining coils. Though the face was familiar, the eyes were different from Imogene's: softer, easier to hurt.

How peculiar, he thought, shaken by the coincidence. He teased one yellowed letter from its stack. He opened the final flap. "Yours forever, Catherine," said the girlish signature.

Catherine, he mouthed, his mind working out the puzzle. The writer could only be Catherine Exeter. The letters were not old enough to be his grandfather's and if his father had courted any other Catherine, the people of Greystowe would have known. Old gossip died hard in a town like this.

<>
But what should he make of her curious resemblance to Imogene? They must be related. That was the only reasonable explanation. Perhaps Catherine Exeter was the aunt Imogene spoke of, the one who had warned her about his cold heart. His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. He could guess what Catherine Exeter had to say about Greystowe men. If that bitter old crone were any indication of how 

Imogene would age, he was lucky to be quit of her. He didn't feel lucky, though. He felt as if a goose had walked across his grave. The chill trickled unpleasantly I down his spine. Maybe he had more in common with his farther than he'd thought.

No. He pushed the possibility away. He was his own man with his own sins, one of whom was curled in sleep on i mound of satin pillows. He should not waste this night in •dwelling on someone else's dusty past. The present was all I that mattered, the present and the memories it could bring.  He reached for a more familiar item, a roll of night-black velvet.
When he undid the circling ribbon, eight soft quilted ties unfurled across his palm.
His breathing quickened. Should he do this? Would
Florence
mind? Would
she even know she ought to?

He didn't think she would and that aroused him most of all. With no mother to guide her, and no
married friend her age, she was a stranger to the shapes love could take. She would not know what
was ordinary and what was not. Her questions about women's "feelings" had proved that. But would
she enjoy being made his prisoner? He closed his eyes, picturing the stark black ties against her blushing skin. He could make her enjoy it.
If he were gentle and reassuring.
If he showed her there was nothing
to fear.

He laughed ironically through his nose.
Nothing to fear but the overflowing passions of his heart.
He
was the one who should have been afraid. If she trusted him enough to allow this, he knew it would
mark him forever hers.

* * *

She woke to
a sense of something out of place. Someone ... someone was kissing her naked feet. She curled her toes against the tickling mouth and smiled without opening her eyes.

"
Florence
," said a low, beloved voice. "Wake up and see how beautiful you are, how every part of you is a dream of what a woman should be." The voice drew nearer and the heat of a large male body hovered over her where she lay. "You are my dream of what a woman should be, love, my dream of beauty."

She opened her eyes and thought all the beauty his. His face was close, his cheeks flushed with what she'd come to recognize as desire. His blue eyes burned in their satiny fringe of black. His lips were a curve of heaven. She did not mark his glowering brows or the harshness of his jaw. His haughty nose
was perfect. Her love, it seemed, had turned all his flaws to virtues.

"I'm glad I please you," she said, her cheeks heating at the admission. "You are the first man I ever wanted to admire me."

"The first, eh?"
He hid a boyish smile by trailing kisses up the stretch of her arm. "I hope you're still pleased when you realize what I've done."

"What you've done?" She tried to sit up and look around, but her arms would not leave their place.
They were fastened by the wrist to a pair of columns, spread outward like an
X .
Her legs were tied as well, not to anything but to each other, at ankle and at knee. The ties did not hurt but they were strong. Goodness, how could she have slept through such an alteration?

"Why have you done this?" she asked, abruptly feeling panicked. "Why am I tied?"

"Hush," he said. He laid one hand atop her breast, cupping it in his warmth. "I will not hurt you."

The way he bit his lip belied his sureness. His eyes, always proud and stern, pleaded for acceptance,
but acceptance of what, she didn't know.

"Why?" she said, even as she calmed beneath his touch.

"Because I wish it.
Because I have dreamed of doing it.
Because"—his finger trailed down the midline
of her belly—"because it will make me feel safer."

She had to smile at this admission. "How could I frighten you?"

He lowered his face and rubbed it
slowly against her own
. The scrape of his whiskers made her shiver. "You threaten my control,
Florence
. When you touch me, you push me to the edge. I could love you as
I pleased if I knew you would not tempt me past what can be done." His mouth opened near the bend
of her jaw, his breath beating warmth against her neck, his tongue slipping out to test her pulse.

"What can be done?'" she repeated.

His lips whispered over her brow. "There are limits. Things we must not do. But if you let me love
you this once, this way, we will share every drop of pleasure we can know."

What limits?
she
wanted to cry. What things? But something stopped her, a quiver of superstition. She was the princess in the ogre's castle, free to open any door but one. If she made her prince explain,
would she break the magic spell?

"You truly wish this?" she said, nodding at the ties.

He pulled back and straddled her waist on his knees. The long shadow of his sex flickered against his stomach. It seemed immense in the lamplight, almost grotesque, and yet she found it as beautiful as the rest of him.
Too big to hold.
Too perfect not to.
His palms rubbed up and down his muscled thighs, itching perhaps to touch her. His gaze slid from her left wrist to her right, lingering on the velvet ties. His chest rose and fell as if the mere sight of her bonds excited him. When his eyes met hers, they gleamed like jewels, the pupils huge but steady.