He was playing with fire every time he asked her a question, every time he gave her a chance to say no. If he were colder, more calculating, he would just press on with his seduction, and he could sweep her away before she could even begin to consider her actions. She’d be lost on her wave of passion, and before she knew it he would be inside of her, and she would be, finally and indelibly, his.
But something in him could never be quite that ruthless, not with Francesca. And he needed her approval, even if it was nothing more than a nod or a moan. She’d probably regret this later, but even so, he didn’t want her to be able to say, even to herself, that she hadn’t been thinking, that she hadn’t said yes.
And he needed the yes. He had loved her for years, dreamed about touching her for so damned long. And now that the moment was finally here, he just didn’t know if he could bear it if she didn’t really want it. There were only so many ways a man’s heart could break, and he had a feeling his couldn’t survive another puncture.
“Do you want me to stop?” he whispered again, and this time he did stop. He didn’t remove his hands, but he didn’t move them either, just held still and allowed her a moment of quiet in which to make her answer. And he pulled his head back, just far enough so that she had to look at him. Or if not that, then at least he would be looking at her.
“No,” she whispered, not quite raising her eyes to his.
His heart jumped in his chest. “Then I had better get to doing everything I talked about,” he murmured.
And he did. He sank to his knees and he kissed her. He kissed her as she shuddered, he kissed her as he moaned. He kissed her when she grabbed his hair and pulled, and he kissed her when she let go, her hands scrambling wildly for purchase.
He kissed her in every way he’d promised he would, and he kissed her until she almost climaxed.
Almost.
He should have done it, should have followed through, but he just couldn’t manage it. He had to have her. He’d wanted this for so long, wanted to make her scream his name and shudder in his arms. But when it happened, for the first time at least, he wanted to be inside her. He wanted to feel her around him, and he wanted to . . .
Hell, he just wanted it this way, and if it meant he was out of control, so be it.
Hands shaking, he tore open his breeches, finally allowing his manhood to spring free.
“Michael?” she whispered. Her eyes had been closed, but when he moved and left her she’d opened them. She looked down at him, her eyes widening. There was no mistaking what was about to happen.
“I need you,” he said hoarsely. And when she did nothing but stare at him, he said it again. “I need you now.”
But not on the table. Even he wasn’t that talented, so he picked her up, shuddering with delight as she wrapped her legs around him, and set her down on the plush carpet. It wasn’t a bed, but there was no way he was going to make it to a bed, and frankly, he didn’t think either of them would care. He pushed her skirts back up to her waist, and he covered her.
And entered her.
He’d thought to go slowly, but she was so wet and ready for him, that he just slid inside, even as she gasped at the intrusion.
“Did that hurt?” he grunted.
She shook her head. “Don’t stop,” she moaned. “Please.”
“Never,” he vowed. “Never.”
He moved, and she moved beneath him, and they were both already so aroused that it was a mere moment later that they both exploded.
And he, who had slept with countless women, suddenly realized that he’d been nothing but a green boy.
Because it had never been like this.
That had been his body. This was his soul.
Chapter 18
. . . absolutely.
—from Michael Stirling
to his mother, Helen,
three years after
his departure for India
The following morning was, to the best of Francesca’s recollection, quite the worst of recent memory.
All she wanted to do was cry, but even that seemed beyond her. Tears were for the innocent, and that was an adjective that she could never again use to describe herself.
She hated herself this morning, hated that she’d betrayed her heart, her every last principle, all for a spot of wicked passion.
She hated that she had felt desire for a man other than John, and really hated that the desire had gone beyond anything she’d felt with her husband. Her marriage bed had been one of laughter and passion, but nothing, nothing could have prepared her for the wicked thrill she had felt when Michael had placed his lips to her ear and told her all the naughty things he wanted to do with her.
Or for the explosion that had followed, when he’d made good on his promises.
She hated that this had all happened, and she hated that it had happened with Michael, because somehow that made it all seem triply wrong.
And most all, she hated him because he’d asked her permission, because every step of the way, even as his fingers had teased her mercilessly, he had made sure she was willing, and now she could never claim that she’d been swept away, that she’d been powerless against the force of her own passion.
And now it was the morning after, and Francesca realized that she could no longer differentiate between coward and fool, at least not as the terms pertained to herself.
She clearly was both, quite possibly with an immature thrown in for bad measure.
Because all she wanted to do was run.
She could face up to the consequences of her actions.
Truly, that was what she should do.
But instead, just like before, she fled.
She couldn’t really leave Kilmartin; she’d just got there, after all, and unless she was prepared to carry her northward flight straight past the Orkney Islands into Norway, she was stuck where she was.
But she could leave the house, which was precisely what she did at the first streaks of dawn, and this after her pathetic performance the night before, when she’d stumbled out of the rose drawing room some ten minutes after her intimacies with Michael, mumbling incoherencies and apologies, only to barricade herself in her bedroom for the rest of the evening.
She didn’t want to face him yet.
Heaven above, she didn’t think she could.
She, who had always prided herself on her cool and level head, had been reduced to a stammering idiot, muttering to herself like a bedlamite, terrified to face the one man she quite obviously couldn’t avoid forever.
But if she could avoid him for one day, she told herself, that was something. And as for tomorrow—Well, she could worry about tomorrow some other time. Tomorrow, maybe. For now all she wanted to do was run from her problems.
Courage, she was now quite certain, was a vastly overrated virtue.
She wasn’t sure where she wanted to go; anywhere that could be termed out would probably do, any spot where she could tell herself that the odds of running into Michael were slim indeed.
And then, because she was quite convinced that no higher power was inclined to show her benevolence ever again, it began to rain an hour into her hike, starting first as a light sprinkle but quickly developing into a fullfledged downpour. Francesca huddled under a widelimbed tree for shelter, resigned to wait out the rain, and then finally, after twenty minutes of shifting her weight from foot to foot, she just sat her bottom down onto the damp earth, cleanliness be hanged.
She was going to be here for some time; she might as well be comfortable, since she wasn’t going to be either warm or dry.
And of course, that was how Michael found her, just short of two hours later.
Good God, it figured he’d look for her. Couldn’t a man be counted on to behave like a cad when it truly mattered?
“Is there room for me under there?” he called out over the rain.
“Not for you and your horse,” she grumbled.
“What was that?”
“No!” she yelled.
He didn’t listen to her, of course, and nudged his mount under the tree, loosely tying the gelding to a low branch after he’d hopped down.
“Jesus, Francesca,” he said without preamble. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“And good day to you, too,” she muttered.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?”
“About as long as I’ve been huddled under the tree, I imagine,” she retorted. She supposed she should be glad that he’d come to rescue her, and her shivering limbs were just itching to leap onto his horse and ride away, but the rest of her was still in a foul mood and quite willing to be contrary just for the sake of being, well, contrary.
Nothing could put a woman in worse spirits than a nice bout of self-derision.
Although, she thought rather peevishly, he was certainly not blameless in the debacle that was last night. And if he assumed that her litany of panicked, after-the-fact I’m sorrys the night before meant that she’d absolved him of guilt, he was quite mistaken.
“Well, let’s go, then,” he said briskly, nodding toward his mount.
She kept her gaze fixed over his shoulder. “The rain is letting up.”
“In China, perhaps.”
“I’m quite fine,” she lied.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Francesca,” he said in short tones, “hate me all you want, but don’t be an idiot.”
“It’s too late for that,” she said under her breath.
“Maybe so,” he agreed, demonstrating annoyingly superior hearing, “but I’m damned cold, and I want to go home. Believe what you will, but right now I have a far greater desire for a cup of tea than I do for you.”
Which should have reassured her, but instead all she wanted to do was hurl a rock at his head.
But then, perhaps just to prove that her soul wasn’t immediately headed for a toasty locale, the rain did let up, not all the way, but enough to lend a hint of truth to her lie.
“The sun will be out in no time,” she said, motioning to the drizzle. “I’m fine.”
“And do you plan to lie in the middle of the field for six hours until your dress dries off?” he drawled. “Or do you just prefer a slow, lingering case of lung fever?”
She looked him straight in the eye for the first time. “You are a horrible man,” she said.
He laughed. “Now that is the first truthful thing you’ve said all morning.”
“Is it possible you don’t understand that I wish to be alone?” she countered.
“Is it possible you don’t understand that I wish for you not to die of pneumonia? Get on the horse, Francesca,” he ordered, in much the same tone she imagined he’d used on his troops in France. “When we are home you may feel free to lock yourself in your room—for a full two weeks, if it so pleases you—but for now, can we just get the hell out of the rain?”
It was tempting, of course, but even more than that, damned irritating because he was speaking nothing but sense, and the last thing she wanted just now was for him to be right about anything. Especially because she had a sinking feeling she needed more than two weeks to get past what had happened the evening before.
She was going to need a lifetime.
“Michael,” she whispered, hoping she might be able to appeal to whichever side of him took pity on pathetic, quivering females, “I can’t be with you right now.”
“For a twenty-minute ride?” he snapped. And then, before she had the presence of mind to even yelp in irritation, he’d hauled her to her feet, and then off her feet, and then onto his horse.
“Michael!” she shrieked.
“Sadly,” he said in a dry voice, “not said in the same tones I heard from you last night.”
She smacked him.
“I deserved that,” he said, mounting the horse behind her, and then doing a devilish wiggle until she was forced by the shape of the saddle to settle partially onto his lap, “but not as much as you deserve to be horse-whipped for your foolishness.”
She gasped.
“If you wanted me to kneel at your feet, begging for your forgiveness,” he said, his lips scandalously close to her ear, “you shouldn’t have behaved like an idiot and run off in the rain.”
“It wasn’t raining when I left,” she said childishly, letting out a little “Oh!” of surprise when he spurred the horse into motion.
Then, of course, she wished she had something else to hold onto for balance besides his thighs.
Or that his arm wasn’t wrapped quite so tightly around her, or so high on her ribcage. Good God, her breasts were practically sitting on his forearm.
And never mind that she was nestled quite firmly between his legs, with her backside butted right up against—
Well, she supposed the rain was good for one thing. He had to be shriveled and cold, which was going a long way in her imagination toward keeping her own traitorous body in check.
Except that she’d seen him the night before, seen Michael in a way she’d never thought to see him, of all people, in all of his splendid male glory.
And that was the worst part of all. A phrase like splendid male glory ought to be a joke, to be uttered with sarcasm and a cunningly wicked smile.
But with Michael, it fit perfectly.
He’dfit perfectly.
And she’d lost whatever shreds of sanity she’d still possessed.
They rode on in silence, or if not precisely silence, they at least did not speak. But there were other sounds, far more dangerous and unnerving. Francesca was acutely aware of every breath he took, low and whispering across her ear, and she could swear she could hear his heart beating against her back. And then—
“Damn.”