?Show me pleasure.”
Chapter Nine
* * *
Marianne braced for smugness. But she couldn’t mistake the joy transfiguring Elias’s face. The sheer brilliance of his male beauty enthralled her. And soothed the tigers of uncertainty clawing at her stomach.
“Oh, my darling,” he murmured, and encircled her in his arms. “I swear you’ll never be sorry.”
After all those kisses, she should be familiar with his touch. Still her unruly heart leaped. His embrace felt like coming home after a long and dangerous journey. Which was lunatic when giving herself over to his caresses was the riskiest step she’d ever taken.
When he’d described her as a self-sacrificing cipher, something in her soul had rebelled. He’d asked her about secrets. Well, tonight would become her secret. Every woman should have something to dream on when she was old.
Tomorrow commonplace reality would set in. She’d play the dutiful daughter and obey her father and marry Desborough. She’d go to Desborough’s bed a virgin and set her face toward finding purpose as his wife and the mother of his children.
But first, first she’d accept Elias’s gift. Fate gave her this chance. She’d never before been free. A greater gift than pleasure was the gift of freedom.
She closed her eyes against a mist of tears and hid her face in Elias’s chest. His strength gave her a temporary haven from the world’s endless demands.
Gradually her heart’s race calmed. Her blood started to pump sluggish and heavy.
When she’d consented, she’d expected Elias to jump on her. He knew as well as she did that they had one night and the hour was already late. But he held her as if they had all the time in the world. She’d never felt so cherished.
Every night, alone in her chaste bed, when she didn’t need to feign control to herself or anyone else, she’d pretended she was with him. The actuality of Elias Thorne was so much more arousing than her most feverish imaginings.
Eventually she became conscious of things outside the sweet comfort. The crackle of the fire. The edge of cold beneath the flames’ heat. The more alluring heat of Elias’s body. The slap of raindrops against the casement windows. The soft music of his breathing.
All the busy, ceaseless, exhausting requirements of pleasing her father, pleasing the world, faded. Instead, she found peace. Peace that descended like a soft fall of dark feathers.
Gradually her tension flowed away. When his hands began to glide over her body, she stood too spellbound to be afraid. She felt connected to this man in a way she’d never felt connected to anyone. He’d called pleasure his gift to her. She counted the quiet as another gift.
Gently, he stroked her back and arms and shoulders. She leaned into his body. Nobody had touched her like this. Beyond politeness, nobody ever touched her at all.
Elias was right. That seemed a miserable waste.
Was this slow seduction a ploy to force her consent? She couldn’t believe that. His music had created a covenant of honesty. At least for this forbidden interval. She might be making the biggest mistake of her life, but he couldn’t sacrifice this opportunity to discover the touch of the one man she’d ever wanted.
When his hands spanned her waist and slid down to shape her hips, she squirmed. He pressed her against a hard male need that set her instincts jangling.
“Shh,” he whispered without releasing her.
Immediately she quieted, his voice smoothing her prickling timidity. No danger could compare to the promise of his desire, the cessation of bitter loneliness.
Once she left this room, more loneliness waited. Viewed from the circle of Elias’s arms, that prospect was unendurable.
She gasped when he swept her up in his arms. “Elias.”
He smiled at her, teeth white in his tanned face. “I won’t drop you.”
“Actually,” she admitted shyly, “I think if you let me go, I might float.”
“I’ll never let you go.”
Marianne was so lost that not even that sounded threatening. She curved to fit him and hooked her hand around his neck. His hair was a fraction too long and it tickled her fingers, soft and warm from his skin.
He sat in a large leather chair before the fire and arranged her on his lap so that her purple skirts frothed over the arm toward the floor.
“What should I do?” she asked, nerves stirring, although if she had an ounce of sense, she’d be nervous long before this. She slid away, placing her palm flat on his chest to keep her balance.