All I Ever Needed (30 page)

Without protest, Sophie allowed herself to be turned on her back. He found her mouth and kissed her deeply, and she gave herself up willingly to the pleasure of it. Her hands slid over his back, and she felt the bunching of muscles and the retraction of skin, sometimes in response to her touch, sometimes in anticipation of it. Exploring, she found two small dimples at the base of his spine and a raised crescent scar on his shoulder. He shivered when her thumb tripped lightly down the length of his vertebrae, and the vibration of his body was felt by hers.

Sophie was aware of nothing so much as an ache of wanting. Her tender breasts felt heavy, the tips engorged to such sensitivity that even the lightest pressure hovered as close to pain as it did to pleasure. He seemed to know what she could bear and what she could not, and the trail of his hand went lower, caressing her hip and the curve of her thigh, rising again to the flat of her abdomen. His fingers made a spiral around her navel and dipped low into the copse of dark honey hair on her mons. His knee insinuated itself between hers, and there was space enough now for him to slip his hand between her legs.

She gave a little start at this unexpected intimacy but did nothing to deny it. When he bid her open to him, she did, raising one knee slightly and lifting her hips at the first press of his fingers inside her. She pushed against the heel of his hand, and the movement gave her such intensity of pleasure that she immediately shied from it. Her grip on Eastlyn's shoulders tightened, and she drew a great breath of air, which only seemed to lodge as a lump in her throat.

East's hand stilled, and he nudged her lips with his. "You are very quiet, Sophie. You don't have to be so quiet."

"I do," she whispered. "Else I shall scream."

He grinned because her beautiful distress was so clearly not from pain. Kissing her full on the mouth, his fingers moved again, and this time she tightened around him. She was warm and wet, so ready for him that he could have slipped a third finger inside her and she would have only welcomed the pressure of it.

He withdrew his hand instead, slipping it under her bottom as he moved between her thighs. The slightest urging of his fingers had her lifting for him. He reared back and pressed his entry.

Sophie let her hands fall from Eastlyn's shoulders and curl into the sheet instead. Her breath caught, and for a moment her body went rigid, and then she found she was taking him, all of him, into her, and the size and length of him was not too much to bear. There was pain, not unexpected in its degree or duration, but not so much that she wanted him to leave her. She watched his face, the shadowed, tautly held features that were evidence of his effort not to hurt her. Where she gripped the sheet, her fingers slowly unfolded. She raised her hand to his cheek and caressed it with her knuckles. One caught the corner of his mouth. His lips parted on a soundless expulsion of air as she drew the knuckle across the lower curve.

"You are very quiet, Eastlyn," she said. "You do not have to be so quiet."

He wondered if she even realized that she had finally deigned to use his name. The intimacy of that seemed as substantial to him as the joining of their bodies. "I do," he said. "Else no one will hear you scream."

He pushed himself deeply into her then and heard the cry she could no longer restrain. Her body contracted around him: her arms, her knees, her thighs, and again where she held him in the most carnal embrace.

Sophie felt as if the beat of her heart was changing to match the rhythm demanded by East's body. Her hips rose and fell in a cadence that was unfamiliar to her but wholly natural. Her throat arched, and she felt his mouth on the curve of her neck, sipping her skin. He drew up again and thrust hard, pushing her back as he ground against her, and the ball of heat that was centered at their joining simply exploded.

Every muscle in her body that had been pulled taut was pulled tauter yet. She hovered on the edge of pleasure, seeking purchase, and finally gave into it because no other possibility existed. She threw her head back and lifted her spine, and the scream she might have made was swallowed by his mouth hard on hers.

Eastlyn felt the same rush of pleasure a moment later, as if it were something that could be absorbed from her. He braced his arms, lifting, arching, his hips making a final thrust. Pinpricks of sensation skittered across skin that no longer seemed to fit him as it should, and he spilled his seed into her.

It was only then that Sophie felt the full import of what she had done. There was no sense in it, she thought, that she should be so aware of the consequences now when they had been in plain view at every juncture. She might have never opened the door, or upon opening it, she might have told him to leave. She could have remained at the fireplace when he entreated her to come closer or kicked him with her slipper rather than let him remove it. She could have said no each time she said yes.

Sophie let her breath out slowly and lay very still. Eastlyn's weight was not uncomfortable, and the steady thud of his heart gave her ease. He could have stayed joined to her much longer and she would have made no protest, yet when he left her to rise from the bed she did not protest that either.

She turned away as he poured water into the basin at the commode and washed himself. A cold gust of air swept the room when he opened the window to discharge the contents of the bowl. Sophie pulled the quilt up to her shoulder. She heard him pouring water a second time and then the soft approach of his footsteps as the floor creaked under him. The mattress depressed behind her.

"There will be some blood, Sophie," he said quietly. "And you will want to remove the—"

"Yes," she said, loath to let him finish. "I will."

East held the basin steady while she sat up. He noticed that her movements were awkward as she would not allow the quilt to fall below her breasts. Reaching over, he pulled the blanket free from where it tangled under her legs and effectively ended her tug-of-war. He made no comment, and she did not thank him.

"Will you turn aside?" she asked when he pushed the basin toward her.

"If you wish."

She said nothing, but simply waited.

East faced the fireplace. He heard her dip the flannel in the water and wring it out. He did not dwell on her ablutions after that. Leaning over the side of the bed, he picked up his drawers and put them on, cinching the drawstring at his hips. He gathered Sophie's nightshift and robe and laid them behind him on the bed, then took up the remainder of his discarded clothes and set them on the chair where his coat was drying. He stayed at the fireplace, adding tinder and coals to warm the room again, and waited for Sophie's approval to turn around.

He had not considered that she would leave the bed, but that was precisely what she did. Without an invitation to do so, East glanced over his shoulder at her first footfall. She had slipped into her shift, but not her robe, and was carrying the basin to the window. "Let me," he said.

Sophie did not look at him, but shook her head in firm refusal. She rested the bowl on the lip of the sill and pushed the window open. Rain spattered her arms as she tossed the contents into the yard. The wind pressed her shift against her breasts and billowed the fabric at her back. The chill that went through her went bone deep.

Eastlyn came up behind her and closed the window when she did not move away. He rested his hands on the curve of her shoulders. His chin nudged her hair. "I glimpsed you at this window upon my arrival. Did you know that?"

She shook her head. "I wasn't sure."

"It seemed that you were waiting for me, though I knew you couldn't be. We should not have met here at all. I should not be half this far, and you should be half as far again."

"It did seem unlikely," she said softly, closing her eyes.

"You believe me, then, when I say this end was not designed by me at the Park."

Sophie's smile was faint, a trifle plaintive. "I believe you."

His fingers tightened a fraction, and he drew Sophie back so that she rested against him. His arms slipped under hers and crossed beneath her breasts, cradling her. She laid her hands on his forearms and rubbed the back of her head against his shoulder. "I want you to marry me, Sophie."

The proposal was not unexpected, and she did not remove herself from his arms to refuse it. "No," she said. She tilted her head slightly so that he might look down and see the resolve in her eyes.

"Sophie."

She turned away. "No."

"Things are changed between us."

"Only if we allow them to be."

Eastlyn felt his patience being drawn taut. "You are unreasonable. How can you not see that you must marry me?"

Sophie made her wish known to be released now by tugging gently on East's folded arms. She sensed his hesitation in the brief tightening of his grasp; then he let his arms fall to his sides, and she was free. She stepped away from him and the window and turned again when she was out of his easy reach. "Must? Is that the ultimatum you had in mind when you came to my room tonight?"

"I told you, I did not plan this. I—"

"At Tremont Park," she said. "You did not set this plan at Tremont Park. It came to you here. When you saw me at the window, mayhap. Or when I opened the door to you." Her small laugh was without humor. "I cannot pretend that I was seduced, for I wanted to lie with you. I trusted you, you see, not to use it to force my hand. You made me that promise. Do you remember? When you invited me to leave Tremont Park, you told me that your intention was not to force me into marriage."

A muscle jumped in Eastlyn's lean jaw. "I also said I would not compromise you."

"And you have not. I am only compromised if we are found out."

"I should have let you scream."

She flushed a little at the harshness of his words and the picture they presented in her mind's eye. She refused to look away, however, and kept her gaze steady on his. "You are Mr. Corbett here, are you not? Unknown to anyone except by that name?"

"I used that identity so Tremont might not trace my path to Chipping Campden."

"And Sampson announced me as Miss Barbara Hyde-Jones expressly for that same purpose. You must see the convenience of it. You did not apply to Sampson for assistance when you arrived, but came straightaway to this room. Much as you might like to think otherwise, my lord, we are not yet compromised."

Eastlyn fell silent a moment as he took note of the ache beginning to make itself felt behind his eye. "Can the idea of marriage to me really be so abhorrent?"

"It is marriage to anyone I find distasteful."

"Yet you accepted Mr. Heath."

Sophie wondered what she could tell him. "Mr. Heath did not present the same temptation as you," she said at last.

"I cannot think how I am supposed to take your meaning."

"Any way you like." She hoped he would accept her words in the most obvious way possible and flatter himself into thinking she did not want to be forever beguiled by him. It was not the manner in which she meant the words, but he did not have to know that. His money was the temptation. Her family would only let him live long enough to get her with an heir. She would be a very rich widow, and he would be dead. In the case of Mr. George Heath, she had judged him of insufficient fortune to inspire such avarice, or at least she had hoped it was so. It was perhaps in every way for the best that Mr. Heath chose to make Miss Rebecca Sayers his bride.

Eastlyn searched Sophie's face, but she had thrown up her guard, and he could not divine her thoughts. What he knew was that she did not yet trust him and that he could not accept her words at face value. "You say things that are the truth," he said, "and yet not the truth. It makes for peculiar conversation and certain misunderstanding."

"I will not marry you," she said. "That is plain, I believe."

"Indeed it is."

"Then we are settled."

Eastlyn thought that was the very last thing they were, but he did not disabuse her of the notion. Had North had such a time of it getting Elizabeth to agree to marriage? It seemed to East that once a lady was thoroughly compromised, even if it was not yet all anyone could talk about, she should have the good sense to make a march on the altar.

There was one gambit left to him. "You have considered, have you not, that you might conceive a child by me?"

Sophie nodded and did not tell him how foolishly late she had been in arriving at that consequence. "Should it occur, you may depend that I will not hide the truth of it from you."

"That, at least, is gratifying."

She ignored the sardonic lift of his brow and his tone that was as dry as dust. "There are many places I can go where I am not known and live comfortably with my child. I believe it is done quite often. Clovelly, perhaps, in Devon might suit me very well, and you would not find the expense of a small cottage burdensome."

Eastlyn regarded Sophie for a long moment and spoke only when he knew he would not raise his voice. "You will remember this, Sophie: that as much as I am provoked by you, I have not once raised my hand or caused you to abase yourself by kneeling on a bed of stones."

Slapping her would have been less painful. Sophie almost reeled with the intensity of the quiet anger in his voice and his eyes. She watched him dress from where she stood, making no move to return to the bed or block his way. He did not speak again, not even upon leaving her, and when she heard the commotion belowstairs she knew he meant to quit the inn. To go to the window and throw it open was a temptation. She felt a light tremor in her legs and fingertips as she resisted the urge, and was only aware afterward that it was the slamming of the door beneath her that was its source.