Passion (26 page)

With his free hand, he lifted and sipped from
the bottle, eyeing Harry as she slowly stood and unlatched her
gown. It slid to the floor, leaving her in nothing but black silk
stockings and her velvet shoes. Her sleek body caught the light
while she draped the gown over her chair back, and then reached to
take off her shoes.

The fire crackled. A thick rain had
started.

Harriet stepped toward him.

Jules’s gaze went from her creamy upper
thighs to that strip of curls between them, up her flat stomach and
ribs, to the hard nipples. She was looking down at him, her eyes
bright, face flushed, and lips slightly parted.

He set the bottle down, reached for her,
pulling so she stood astride his thighs, the low chair giving him a
nice view of her sex as well as allowing him to lean back, and eye
her face.

That same hand now moved to her curls, his
fingertip parting them and rubbing lightly, while he kept fingering
his own sex.

Lazily, huskily, he murmured while watching
her arousal reflect on her face, “You knew, all this time, and you
could have told me.”

“I could have.”

“Yet you let him keep blackmailing me.” His
finger slid down, up all the way into her sex.

Sucking in a breath, she merely leaned over,
hands on the chair by his shoulders, and face very close. “I
thought it might….shake you…loosen your control. Teach you
something.”

Jules plunged his finger in and out of her
several times, feeling her thick, silken juice flow as he rubbed
the walls. “That’s not the way to teach me something, Harry. You
helped perpetuate a very unpleasant period in my life. That—angers
me.”

He moved his finger from her and grabbed her
hair then brought her down for a kiss, open, hot, erotic that left
her breathless. When he let up, he latched onto her breast. While
he laved, bit, teased, and tormented her, he used his hand to feel
her, to mold her pert ass and trace the seam, then to cup between
her legs hard.

Leaving the nipples wet, rigid, and quivering
from his attentions, Jules took several kisses she gave him, both
of them breathing searing, intense, fast, and feverish.

Jules sat up enough to move her back, turn
her, and then bring her firm little backside to him for nibbling
and teasing. He heard her moan, gasp, while fingering, rubbing in
the hot honey.

He laughed low when Harry cursed and then
started begging.

Bending her slightly, he thrust his tongue
in, scraped his teeth on her, and suckled. When Harry grasped his
sex, he slid down enough to accommodate her hold and strokes, but
she got the head in her hot and silken mouth, and Jules did some
moaning curses of his own.

His finger going in and out of her, he played
at the seam of her buttocks while her tongue laved over the crown
of his sex. She kissed it. Kissed all around it, and then rimmed it
again with her mouth, sucking in, rolling her tongue in ways that
was driving him mad. For the next tense, lusty moments, they worked
each other to climax with fingers, mouth, tongues. The pad of his
finger chaffed her swollen clit, his tongue, and other fingers
massaging in and out of her hot sex. It erupted fiercely, and
flowed on a moan of pleasure.

Jules lost little time rising and cleaning up
with his handkerchief, before he picked up Harry, the bottle of
whiskey, and carried them up to her rooms.

After he’d set her down, Harry went to light
a cheroot and watched him remove the rest of his clothing via
reflection in the mirror.

Jules smacked her bottom hard when he took
the cheroot from her.

“What the bloody hell was that for?” She
rubbed the spot, watching him blow a stream of smoke.

“I told you, Harry. I don’t like being
manipulated.”

“What would you call the life you live, the
ordinary one, if not that?”

His lashes dipped. “My choices.” He laid the
cheroot in a tray. Jules grabbed her bottom and smacked it again
before she found herself turned, so that he was behind her, his arm
around her tightly.

Looking at them in the mirror, he was hard
again. His eyes pure green, glittering, he began entering her,
filling her, pushing the thickness and hot sleek shaft inside by
inches.

Grasping the edge of the vanity, she held his
gaze in the mirror. “I ask him about it. Asked him, if he enjoyed
you.”

“Harry.” He grated and slammed into her
several hard thrusts. “You’re a bitch!”

“Yes.” She reached back and grasped his hair
so they could kiss, though it was more scorching mouths and tongues
having the same sex their lower bodies were.

When he freed her mouth, she panted, “You
cannot blame him. Both sexes are attracted to you, even those who’d
never admit it.”

“There’s no excuse for blackmail.” He thrust
hard and fast. Jules finished having held her hips and drove
himself deep until she felt him end to end.

Later, after a hot bath, one which he had
first, so was on the bed in a towel, when she emerged in her
robe.

Jules watched her leave. She returned later
with coffee. He accepted it, drank, but soon had her on her
stomach, the robe lying at her feet. Leaning over her, his palm
traced her sleek back and derrière, then her legs to the ankle.
With her head turned, he could kiss her, nibble her ear, and lave
it. Jules leaned back to study that small sensual smile on her kiss
puffed lips. He let his palm slide between her legs.

“You’re hot and wet.”

“I can’t help it.” She sucked in a breath.
“I’m not going to try and resist.”

He grit, aroused, “It wouldn’t do either of
us any good, with the mood I’m in.”

Jules moved to crouch over her, using his
tongue, lips, and hands to caress and taste, feel her, from nape to
toes. He breathed her unique scent, liked hearing her murmurs while
watching her subtle seeking movements.

Turning her to her front, he kissed her long
kisses, sensual and silken. Harry had a soft mouth, a wicked little
tongue, and he gave, took and teased her, getting a whispered plea
when she had had enough of that and wanted his tongue in her
mouth.

Jules was enjoying the lack of hesitancy, the
surety in her, as she cupped his head or touched his body, and took
kisses for herself. There was no pretense in Harry.

Making a foray down her again, he suckled her
breasts for a long time, rolling her nipples with his tongue,
pulling, laving, and letting them beg for his attention. When he
had kissed down to her stomach, she parted her legs.

He peered up at her through half shielding
lashes.

Her head was back, body arching.

Jules spread her legs wider, parted her
curls, and used his tongue the way she had used her fingertip on
her aroused clit, liking her scent, her flavor, and the utterly
soft flesh of her there. He learned by her movements, her sounds,
and his efforts were rewarded with a climax from Harry that came
with low moans and her hands pulling at his hair.

This time when he positioned between her
legs, he folded her knees high, went deep, and took his time.
Circling his hips slowly then pulling back, doing it repeatedly,
the head of his sex went deep. Jules savored sex as he never had
and felt every second of carnal pleasure. He eased back enough to
kiss her, and groaned as she suckled his tongue to the cadence of
their bodies.

Jules stayed inside of her longer, and did
not rush his climax. He then spent an hour kissing and caressing
her. He watched, listened, felt her feminine responses to pleasure.
He found it stirred and aroused him when she bit her lip and
arched. He loved the way her eyes shone looking into his.

Harry was affectionate, always touching him,
stroking, and whispering things he would not have thought would
feel the way they did hearing it. There was a combination of her
sexual hunger, sweetness, and the aggressive woman, who would
murmur when she wanted more, harder, or asked him to touch her,
that Jules enjoyed more and more as the night wore on.

Just before dawn, when he would leave and
have that money for Sir George, he sat in the warm back kitchen,
having helped her prepare a simple breakfast and brew fresh coffee.
Harry was dressed in a man’s shirt, nothing else, and other than
bathing again, finger combing her hair, she had not fussed with her
appearance. Yet, her face glowed and her intelligent eyes shone.
Sitting across from him, the evidence of his kisses still had her
lips puffed. She had his passion marks on her throat. Jules
realized—she was beautiful.

She caught him studying her and arched her
brow. “You’ve the oddest expression on your face, Stoneleigh.”

He laughed in the process of sipping from his
cup, and then lowered it. “Do I?”

Her own cup cradled, her gaze skimmed him,
coming back to his eyes. “You—do not keep a mistress or have
affairs.”

He lost his own smile and glanced away from
her, finally finishing his coffee. Yes. That was true, and that was
what he had said to her. Jules stood, regarding her once more while
he tied his cravat and pulled on his jacket. “I can’t quite decide
if you brought that up because you think less, or more of me,
Harry.”

She snorted, getting to her feet. Her back
was to him when she said, “I think of you, Stoneleigh. To either of
us….that’s enough to be disturbing.”

Jules studied her a moment and then walked
over and leaned down, softly kissing her nape.

She whirled and slapped him. Hard.

The sound hung in the small kitchen—stayed,
in the air whilst the sounds of carriages and coaches could be
heard outside the window.

His glass-green eyes holding hers, her
fingerprints staining his patrician cheekbone, Jules had
instinctively grabbed her by the arms on that slap, and he did not
loose her just yet.

Fire, and tears, in her eyes, her breathing
rough, Harry grit, “That is for betraying Caroline. For you, and
for me. It matters not a whit why, or to what degree. A friendship
should mean something—it should mean more than we’ve made of
it.”

Fingers flexing on her upper arms, Jules let
his hands fall from her, his gaze though, unable to look from the
emotions in her eyes.

Then, Harry’s hand covered her mouth. She
shook her head, as if she could not believe what she had just
done.

Dropping it, she whispered, “Other wrongs or
people’s assumptions, dictates we obey, does not make it right. All
of my life, I have lived with honesty, prided myself, on a lack of
subterfuge—or pretenses. My relationships have been honest. Until
you—.”

She swallowed and licked her lips where two
crystal drops rolled over them. “I have been right here, right
there, in your sight for years—and you never saw me…never saw it.
And whilst you remained the icy, arrogant, Stoneleigh I could prod
and mock and hide behind that indifference you showed.” She dashed
the tears from her cheeks roughly, “But you’ve touched me, kissed
me, and made love to me. In the passion, we stripped each other to
the bone. And I couldn’t pretend...”

Turning her back to him again, she braced her
hands on the edges of the heavy iron sink, her eyes looking out the
dust-streaked window. “I won’t become what I most loathe, Jules. I
would rather be an honest whore, than a woman who pretends for
everyone else. I know what you will be, what your life will
be.”

She sighed, shuddered, and then rasped, “What
threw us in each other’s lives so intimately is over. I shall leave
for a while. Don’t, come back here, again.”

Jules stared at her for long moments. “You
started this fire, Harry.”

“Yes.” She rasped. “I had you to myself.
Intimate. Alone. I captured your attentions. I did that before I
knew you and Caroline... so I am a fool.” She laughed pitifully.
“But no. Any fool knows you are perfect for each other. Even if you
are not. Even if….” She shook her head. “The point is deception.
Pretense. A life I refuse to partake of, and one your façade of
control demands. It is fortunate that you do not have mistresses or
affairs. I could not…with you, Jules. I cannot.”

Silence settled again. At length he turned
and quietly left. Jules went home and withdrew the money from his
safe, and was in the park when Sir George made the pick up.
Standing a bit distant, hands in his coat pockets and aware some of
the first riders were entering the paths, Jules nodded slightly
when Sir George passed him. Sir George gave a slight wave.

Walking to his carriage a bit later, he
wondered why he did not feel a great sense of relief. Where was
that absence of tension and the, all is perfect in my world again,
sensation? Where was the usual things about money and power and rep
making a man untouchable that he could tell himself— and believe
them…

Jules could consider where he had spent the
night, and how he’d felt with Harriet—how he’d felt in that cramped
kitchen looking into a woman’s eyes for the first time in his life,
and seeing real emotions—feeling her emotions. A part of him
quickened at knowing someone felt something that… intense, for
him—but aside from that, was the raw truth. He would have gone to
Harriet’s even had she not given him that note.

Jules had sensed Harriet wanted something
from him, and he could not pretend to not understand what that was
now. She had wanted him to feel, to see, to experience. He’d been
pushing away any thoughts of his risk in following through on what
he felt with her—he hadn’t thought of Harriet’s either, until he
saw it in her eyes this morning.

It all made sense now. Harry had, for however
long—loved him. Where it took forever for him to accept that word
from his father’s lips, it hit him to the core, seeing it, feeling
it, from Harry. It washed over and through him and part of that
sensation was because of her ability to see beyond what others
could or cared to. He instinctively knew that. Somehow, Harry had
always seen through him.