Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance) (27 page)

“It may be too late for us, but I cannot stand idly by and watch you endanger your life. Despite all the other terrible mistakes I have made, if there is one thing I must do, it is make sure you are safe.”

“Why do you care, sir? I am just another
servant
girl. There must be another dozen or more to whom you can turn your attentions.”

“You are not a servant girl. You are the woman I love.”

Her entire body quivered. Her legs felt as though they would give way beneath her.

“Your wife will not be happy to hear that,” she said as angrily as she could.

It was a test. She did not think he could be married and still traipse after another woman so far from home, but she had to know.

“I have no wife.”

Her heat skipped a beat. “Fiancée, then.”

“There is no one but you, Marian.”

Her body shook. She could feel tears stinging her eyes.

He took a step closer and gently took both her hands. “I love you.”

She wanted to cry out, to fall into his arms –

But her pride and her anger would not let her.

“Well I hate
you
,” she said, her voice both furious and on the verge of tears. “I would have done anything for you – anything! – and you ripped out my heart and ground it under your heel. You were the only man I loved – that I have ever loved – and you treated me despicably. You shattered my heart, you nearly broke me in two, and if you think that you can come back into my life now and make me do anything but throw you out in the street, you are sadly mistaken, because I
hate
you. I
hate
you! I
hate –
”

He took her into his arms and kissed her.

The shock of it swept all thought from her mind. There was only the heat and gentle pressure of his lips on hers. The taste of him she had yearned for without knowing it and thought she had forgotten so long ago. The strength and firmness of his body pressing against her own.

For a brief second, she forgot herself, and yielded completely and totally to him.

Then she remembered who she was, and what this man had done to her.

She pushed him violently away, and when he broke his lips apart from hers, she slapped him as hard as she could.

His hand flew to his cheek.

She expected to see the Blake of old – and she did for a brief instant, as a fiery anger rose up in his eyes.

But immediately it died away, leaving only tremendous pain.

Not from the slap. But from what he knew it meant.

He stood there for almost ten seconds in silence.

Finally he spoke.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he whispered. “Please… someday… forgive me.”

Then he turned to go.

All the fury had gone out of her when she slapped him.

And when she heard the pain in his voice, and saw the suffering in his eyes, it was a mirror of her own.

Her heart broke once more – for him, for her, for all they had lost.

And now she was going to lose it all again.

“Wait!” she cried out, and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t go – ”

He turned towards her again.

Their eyes locked.

At the exact same moment, he reached towards her as she rushed into his arms. They kissed again – violently, passionately, with a scorching heat and flame that filled her body from head to toe.

His arms encircled her, and she cradled his face in her hands as her lips parted and she took him inside her again, her heart soaring higher than she had ever felt in her entire life.

They stumbled into her apartment. Her servant had most probably gone to bed. Even if she had not, she had experience enough to know not to come out when she heard a visitor late at night.

Marian pulled Evan into her bedroom and shut the door. The tiniest bit of moonlight came in, letting her see enough to find a candle by the bed. As she lit a match, Evan stood behind her, kissing her up and down the right side of her neck, letting his lips caress her ear like velvet, tracing his fingers ever so softly across the tops of her breasts. Her body felt like it would explode with heat and longing.

“Wait,” she half-giggled, half-sighed as she lit the candle.

“Why?” he whispered in her ear.

“Because I want to see you,” she whispered back. “All of you.”

She undressed him first, batting away his hands and not letting him touch her anymore. She slid his jacket off, feeling his broad shoulders beneath her hands. She undid his cravat and pulled his shirt over his head, breathing in his masculine scent and marveling at the deeply etched shadows around his muscles.

She looked down at the front of his pants, where a sizable bulge strained against the material. She stroked it softly with the tips of her long fingernails. The shape grew even harder and longer as Evan groaned under his breath.

“This will never do,” she whispered, and undid his pants button by button.

She knelt on the floor before him and slowly pulled his pants down. She greedily watched the cloth slide over the firm muscles of his belly until finally his manhood began to appear, starting at the thickest part of the base where it emerged from his thatch of dark curls. His rod pointed straight down under his pants, which was obviously quite uncomfortable for him. It was so stiff and so hard that she had to take great care not to hurt him as she pulled down the cloth and uncovered that glorious shaft, inch by inch.

Finally the cloth cleared the swollen head, and his entire manhood sprung up, bobbing once or twice, and then curved pink and swollen in an upward arc.

Between her legs, she felt a hot, wet, almost unbearable desire.

He groaned and flexed his pelvis, moving his manhood closer to her face.

But she was not going to let him off that easily.

She had waited a very, very long time for this… and she was going to enjoy it.

He stepped out of the pants and stood before her completely naked, a gorgeous statute of flesh etched in shadow and candlelight. She knelt before him, completely clothed. Because of that – because of his complete vulnerability, and her lack of it – she felt like she owned him. Like she could do anything she damn well pleased with his body.

She reached around him and cupped his ass in her hands. Those firm, full, powerful haunches that she had so loved to grasp as he drove himself deep inside her… her fingers softly caressing their surface, and she smiled as she felt his entire body tremble.

She was so close to him that his shaft brushed her cheek. The heat beneath the satiny skin was scorching hot, and the touch of her skin made him tremble all the more. Softly, slowly, she turned her head and traced her lips along the side of his throbbing member.

She did not take him into her mouth, though. It was a gentle brush of her lips against his skin, nothing more.

He sounded like he was going to die.

She smiled again. He was her slave, totally and completely.

She took the tip of her tongue and ran it along the underside of his manhood, her touch soft as silk. His rod pulsed with every beat of his heart.

He moved to touch her head, to force her mouth down on him –

“No,” she said sharply as she jerked away. She stood up in front of him and stared reproachfully into his eyes, which were lost and helpless in their longing.

She pushed against his muscular chest and forced him down on her bed, which was situated within an alcove in the wall. He lay on his back, the shadows dancing across his rippling muscles in the candlelight, and watched her with haunted eyes.

With one hand she lightly traced his chest, his stomach, his thighs. Every so often she drifted her palm across his manhood, which had swollen to a length and girth that nearly took her breath away. Occasionally she would encircle it with her fingers, loving how huge he felt in her hand, and delicately stroke his shaft from end to end.

With the other hand she undid the ribbons and laces that held together her dress and corset. It was incredibly slow going: what took minutes with her maid took three times as long by herself. But she luxuriated in the power she held over him, and exulted in the feel of his body under her fingertips.

Finally, after an eternity, she shrugged off the last bit of her clothing and stood beside the bed completely naked. Her nether lips were completely drenched, and her innermost places ached with need.

He reached for her breasts, but she grabbed his wrists and shook her head ‘no.’ His face was puzzled, but within seconds he understood as she got up on the bed and straddled him.

He fought against her the slightest bit, but still she denied him. Finally he settled back and watched.

She lowered herself down against his long, thick shaft, which lay flat against his belly, and began to slide her soft, wet flesh against his iron-hard member. The sensation was pleasurable torture – she wanted him inside her so badly, she could have cried – but from his face, he was in even greater agony. He bucked against her, trying to angle himself inside her, but she raised up so that paradise was out of his reach.

He
would
submit. She would
make
him. She
would
have him, body and soul.

After a few futile attempts, he lay there, allowing his powerful arms to be restrained by her delicate hands, and let her have her way with him.

She eased back down against his staff and slowly moved back and forth, sliding along the entire length of him, feeling her lips caress the massive shape between her legs. He moaned as she eased back and forth, back and forth, drenching him, preparing him.

Finally she could stand it no more. She released one of his hands and reached down, took hold of his manhood, held it up at an angle, and eased herself slowly onto the tip. It felt enormous between her lips. She pressed down slightly more and gasped as she felt him fully enter her – but only the head. Even that alone gave her more pleasure than most of her lovers.

She rocked back and forth, a tiny bit up, a tiny bit down, taking him further and further inside her with each successive movement. His face was strained with agonized waiting, but he let her do what she wanted; he had learned his lesson.

For her part, the wave of desire that had been building inside her seemed to double and treble by the minute, rising higher and higher. Tiny single contractions fluttered through her muscles as she continued easing him inside her.

The full act of penetration seemed to go on forever, he was so long. And thick. She had forgotten how lovely he felt, how completely he filled her, how perfectly his body fit inside her own.

She had almost completely taken him inside her when the first waves of ecstasy racked her body. She breathed harder and deeper as she rocked back and forth, rotating her hips, feeling the joy of being totally and completely filled up as waves of pleasure shimmered through her back, her belly, her thighs, and her sex.

She eased up higher and angled herself so that the soft, pliant head of his shaft pressed against the most pleasurable parts within her. When Blake had made love to her in England, he had done so many things right, and she was so inexperienced, that she had not know exactly
what
it was that he was doing right. Only in the intervening years had she discovered enough about her body to determine what gave her the greatest pleasure – and now she was determined to do whatever the hell she wanted.

His shaft was only several inches inside of her when she began rocking faster and faster, hitting the spot inside her that made her lose control the fastest. After only a minute she felt another crashing wave of pleasure, this one even more intense than the first. As her legs trembled, she plunged deeper on his shaft and gasped as his girth filled her again. She began to grind her hips, loving the overwhelming sense of fullness. She had also forgotten how deeply he could go inside her, a sensation she had not had since the last time they made love.

Finally she allowed his hands to rove over her body. New delights added to her euphoria as he caressed her chest, lightly rolling her nipples between his thumb and forefinger until they were hard as his manhood. He began to grip her breasts more firmly, cupping and squeezing them in his palms, and his own raging desire for her body drove her to even greater heights.

She arched her upper body over his face, allowing her breasts to dangle tantalizing before him. He leaned forward hungrily and sucked first on one, then the other. A thrill shot straight from his lips, down her spine and deep inside her belly.

She took one of his fingers and put it all the way in her mouth, wetting it, sliding it in and out of her lips in the same rhythm as she slid up and down on his manhood. He was penetrating her twice over. Actually, she was enveloping
him,
swallowing
him,
twice over. She loved feeling the length of his finger across her tongue, the tip of his finger stroking and tickling the roof of her mouth, even as she plunged his massive prick deeper within her.

He began to breathe faster.

She stopped moving.

“No,” she whispered huskily, and raked her nails across his bare chest. “Not yet.”

He nodded, not entirely convincingly, and gritted his teeth as she began again.

Within another minute, wave after wave of pleasure began to throb through her body, coming one on top of another, so quickly that she could not tell where one ended and the next began. She arched her hips so that she could feel the pressure of his shaft wherever she wanted it, wherever it felt the best from moment to moment, second to second, using him for her pleasure with no thought of his. After a few seconds she heard someone moaning, and realized it was her.

It went on for so long, this slow, rhythmic, blissful dance, that she finally could not keep going. Exhausted, she looked down into his pleading face and realized he still had not come.

“All right,” she whispered with a smile, “it’s your turn.”

She was surprised when he reached up and, overcome with passion, pulled her down against his chest, his lips crushing against hers. One hand clasped her back and pressed her down against him, and the other hand cupped her right buttock.