The Pursuit of Pleasure (33 page)

“I will make you ache for me, the way I ache for you. It’s past time you had a quiet lesson in admitting your desire, I think. A nice,” he wedged his knee between her tightly clamped legs, “hard lesson in grown-up desire. On the proper way one fucks one’s husband.”

For all his force, his knee came against her precisely, touching her with the exact amount of pressure needed and in exactly the right place to send shivers of want cascading down the backs of her legs. That was his real power, the precision with which he could scale her defenses, and the ease with which he demolished her resistance. Clever, clever bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing.

She tried to wriggle away, uncomfortable with the turbulence of her conflicting feelings.

“No. Hold still.” He whispered it as if he knew she wouldn’t. Knew she couldn’t possibly obey. Knew she was already moving, trying to put her arms out and push up.

He was waiting as soon as she so foolishly obliged him: he grabbed her wrists and held them pinioned above her head, stretched out flat before him. His to control.

Her heart was pounding with exertion: a hammer inside her chest. Her own uneven breath was roaring in her ears. She was definitely, entirely out of her depth, treading on very dangerous ground.

“Can you feel how much I want you, Lizzie?” He pushed the full weight of his long, sculpted body atop her and breathedthe words into her ear. “I’m bigger, I’m stronger, and I can make you
want.
I can make you
need.
I might even make you beg. Beg me to have you raining your honey down over my hand and my cock.”

She would have gasped if she had any air in her lungs. Even his quiet threat was full of erotic promise.

She fought the urge to cry in frustration and confusion. She swallowed the hot tears pressing at the back of her throat. How could she hate him and want him at the same time? Want to let him do such things?

“All right, go ahead, make me, you swiving bastard.” She wanted to enrage and arouse him the same way he enraged, aroused, and confused her. “See if you can make me.”

Oh, but he was subtle, her Jamie. While he held her completely and exactly still, he let her feel the harsh rasp of his breath against her ear, as he pushed aside her hair to tease the sensitive side of her neck with his open mouth. He gave her no choice but to experience the unrelenting domination of his big, masculine body surrounding hers and to feel the tensile heat of his chest against her back. He invited her to discover the careful, powerful strength of his hand holding her wrists.

He left her no option but to suffer the bitter truth of the want curling slowly through her bones. He plucked her strings like an instrument attuned to his touch. He had only to move his hand slightly to the downward slide of her rib cage and she was moaning with need, aching to experience the intimate touch of his mouth and his hands on her breasts.

She could not see him. He was a dark shadow behind her, a constant unyielding presence. Under the adamant onslaught of his arousal, Lizzie felt the ties that tethered her to herself loosen and fall away. “Yes, take me. Take me with you.”

Behind her, Jamie let out a low rasp of surprise. But still, his rough hands sent tendrils of anticipation trailing down the backs of her legs as he dragged up her skirts and bared her to the cool night air. And then his strong, purposeful fingers were kneading into her bottom, arranging her for his pleasure. Longing spiraled through her belly, and she moved, undulating into him to ease the terrible tension coiled at her center.

She could hear the harsh cadence of his breath as he worked to position the wide head of his cock against her and to push the length of his engorged flesh into her. She shut her eyes and opened her body to welcome him, to take him in and let him fill her.

His groan of pleasure shuddered through her chest, and he began to stroke in and out of her: long, hard thrusts she felt from the pebbled, sensitized tips of her breasts all the way down the tender inside of her thighs and on to her toes. It was too much and not enough. Not nearly enough.

Yes, more. She was becoming ravenous. She wanted to consume him and be consumed by him, swallowed whole and taken away from all the pain of this truth he forced upon her. But she had the strangest urge to tell him he was wrong. She couldn’t beg. She couldn’t even ask. She could only demand.

“I need more. Give me more. You promised.”

A growl echoed out of his chest as she tightened her muscles on him again and again, greedy for the sweet friction of his cock. She arched her back and tilted her hips, desperate to take him deeper inside her.

“Damn you, Jamie Marlowe. Damn you.”

He wrapped his free hand across her lips and put his mouth next to her ear, his words a low, gravelly rush. “Shut up, Lizzie. Hold your tongue or I won’t fuck you anymore.”

He sounded wounded, in pain. But how could that be, when nothing but pleasure surrounded them? When they had nothing to do but give in to the insistent demands of their bodies?

She turned her head into his palm and, with her tongue, found the tip of his finger to pull into her mouth to suck and worry and bite. His chest was heaving with the effort to breathe, crushing her into the grass, but still he rocked into her, lunging now with erratic strokes, desperate to find his release.

He finally let go of her hands, and when she pushed herself up just that fraction of an inch, his hand reached around her hip to flick a finger at the very center of her being.

“There. Touch me there. Yes.”

“Lizzie. Lizzie!” He jerked hard against her back, a mixture of pleasure and pain she welcomed. And then, she felt his release roar through his body and hurl her over the edge, and she lost herself in him again.

It was savage, and it wasn’t pretty, this dark roiling need within him, but he didn’t care. He was long past caring. She was still wet and pulsating with the last vestiges of her orgasm, and he felt something bound up inside him fall free.

He was still somewhat stunned, unsure of exactly what had happened. Of exactly who had taught whom. The only thing he did know was Lizzie was like opium: debilitating in small doses and damn near fatal at any greater strength.

And still she would not go. And, it seemed he could not make her.

He was hopelessly in love with her, his maddening, defiant little wife. She was too clever to struggle fruitlessly, too alive, too much of a natural hedonist to fight pleasure when she could grasp it with both hands. He had used every ounce of power and control at his disposal to bring her to a shattering, explosive climax.

He would happily make himself old trying.

He had only been furious at her, at her dismissal, because he wanted her. Wanted more than just the sweet friction of her body. He wanted her to need him and want him, because he needed her. Because he wanted her to love him.

He wasn’t going to accomplish that by shoving her face into the damp grass and dirt. God, what an unmitigated cad he was.

“Lizzie, are you all right? Come here, love.” When he rolled his weight off her, he brought her with him, cradling her snug against his chest as he lay sprawled on his back, filling his lungs with air and gazing in stupid awe at the stars. His breath was still crashing in and out of his chest like waves against a hull, and it was a long while before either of them could account for themselves.

Lizzie roused herself first. She sat up slowly, and then stood, brushing her hair back out of her face and then bits of grass and twigs from her damp skirts.

“Lizzie.” He reached out to take her hand, sure of the words he needed to say, knowing honesty was the only place to begin.

“I never want to see you again,” she said.

The words carved a hollow place inside his chest. It would kill him never to see her again. It was impossible. The truth of what was between them was too big to simply dismiss. It was too strong to walk away from. They had both already tried, and failed.

“Lizzie. Please. You can’t mean that. No matter what, we mean too much …”

She flicked that wrist to stop him. He watched as she collected the parts of herself he hadn’t ever really noticed, dignity and restraint and even regret, like flotsam on the beach she’d somehow overlooked, forgotten and adrift until this moment of rediscovery.

When she spoke it was unlike her, quiet and low and devoid of any inflection. He could see the quiet, painful determination on her face.

“I don’t want to need you,” she said. “It hurts too much. And I don’t want to see you again. You of all people, Jamie, should know I always mean it. Always.”

C
HAPTER 20

L
izzie hadn’t slept. How could she? It was ludicrous to think she could after what had happened in the lane. As a result she was inordinately tired. And incredibly sad.

She wandered out of the breakfast room into the little octagonal room at the southeast corner of the house. Perhaps it had originally been intended as a small conservatory or orangerie, with its tall, arched windows looking out over the circular drive and east lawns. It almost felt as if she were out of doors. She could see all the way across to the woodland, over across the riot of color blooming in the disorderly perennial borders, and beyond, to the walls of the kitchen garden. And the gardener’s cottage.

No. She would not do this. She would not concern herself every minute of the day with Jamie and his whereabouts. She would concern herself with the caves and their access to the house. She would meet with Maguire this morning and they would go to the caves. Afterwards, they would decide what to do and how to proceed to protect Glass Cottage and its growing number of inhabitants.

So she wasn’t prepared for the sight of the beautiful curricle that bowled around the drive and drew to a smart stop under the shade of the porte cochère.

It was Wroxham. Dressed for visiting and, oh, good Lord, he was carrying a nosegay of flowers.

Lizzie didn’t know whether to laugh or stamp her foot in indignation. When they had last met, it had not been under the best circumstances.

She had screamed like a fishwife. He had been intolerably obtuse.

Yet here he was, leaving his equipage to his tiger and walking around, right past her windows, to call at the front door, very correctly.

Well. Wasn’t that curious?

Lizzie waited in a state of suspicious expectation until Mrs. Tupper finally found her. “Mr. Wroxham, ma’am, has come to call.”

“Has he now? And where have you put him?”

“The music room, ma’am. As it was closest to the door. And I’ve had the new boy, the footman, Stephen, take a place in the foyer, just in case.”

Mrs. Tupper’s memory was just as long as hers.

“Very sensible precautions, Mrs. Tupper. But I do believe I’m prepared to extend Mr. Wroxham the benefit of my doubt. At least for the time being. Let’s see what he wants, shall we?”

Wroxham stood with one hand behind his back and the other resting against the fireplace mantle. He straightened as Lizzie approached, and Mrs. Tupper, sticking to her proprieties, announced her.

“Mrs. Marlowe, sir.”

“Mrs. Marlowe.” Wroxham bowed and smiled charmingly, and Lizzie was again struck by how much he looked like Jamie. And how much Jamie hated him. How this visit would vex him.

Lord, but all this strategizing, all this keeping in and releasing of anger, was so infernally wearying.

She rallied herself anew and gave her guest a careful smile. “Mr. Wroxham, to what do I owe the honor?”

“An apology.” He brought out his blossoms from behind his back, a bouquet of roses and hothouse flowers. “I fear I was greatly imposing upon you and your hospitality at our last meeting.”

“Imposing” was a decided euphemism, but Lizzie decided to let it pass. Wroxham was on his best behavior, and so would she be. She determined not to be awkward.

“You’ve had a long drive out here. May I offer you some refreshment? Tea?”

“Yes, please, I thank you.”

Weren’t they just the most civilized things? Lizzie was so amused at the pretty picture they were painting, she almost laughed. As it was, she gave Wroxham quite the sunniest smile she’d worn in quite some time.

“You look lovely. Quite well, I’m happy to see.” He smiled back, perhaps even a bit surprised by the observation.

“As do you.” And it was true. The caramel-colored coat, immaculate fawn breeches, and brilliantly polished top boots gave him an aura of easy elegance that suited him better than the dark austerity and elaborate waistcoats of his more formal attire. The very picture of an elegant, tamed wolf.

“Will you sit?” She took her seat in one of the yellow embroidered silk bergère chairs flanking the fire.

“I thank you. I must say the house looks beautiful. You’ve done it up superbly. I always thought it could turn into a proper home with the right care and attention.”

He stopped then, perhaps remembering his part in its neglect and inattention, or perhaps because he had at one time fancied himself the person who would one day provide that care and attention. And money.

But no matter the reasons, she took the compliment gracefully.

“Thank you. You are very kind.”

“You seem to have done a prodigious amount of work. The change is remarkable.”

“Yes. Would you care to see the other principal rooms while we wait for tea?”

They wandered out into the foyer, examining and exclaiming over the new circular table with its vase of blooms from their garden, past the watchful eyes of Stephen the footman, and into the dining room. It held only a table and sideboard, as the chairs as well as the drapery were still on order from the draper and upholsterer.

Wroxham said charming and appropriate things, and Lizzie almost began to relax and enjoy his company. Almost. She reminded herself a wolf didn’t often come to the door unless he was very, very hungry. And she seemed to have such an embarrassment of wolves.

They moved on to the drawing room and its sunny north-facing windows, commenting on how agreeable and cool it would be in the summer not to have direct sun. All so uncharacteristically civilized, Lizzie was nearly beside herself with impatience and curiosity by the time they wandered back to the music room to find their tea.