Captive of Sin (28 page)

He thrust again, and she clenched in barbaric possession. Every parting and joining jolted her body. Vaguely through the gathering storm, she felt him dip one hand between
them. Then the press of his palm at the juncture of her legs, the flick of his fingers.

Her eyes fluttered shut as fire engulfed her world.

Consuming flame rushed along her veins. Every muscle tightened to an agony that was the greatest pleasure she’d ever known. Nothing existed except the roaring inferno.

Through it all, one thing alone anchored her. The man who thundered into her as she convulsed with ecstasy. She held on to Gideon while unshakable love filled her. Indelibly part of the shining bliss, but somehow separate, immortal, and immovable like the sun.

Gideon was her sun. Her moon. Her sky. He created her anew in the fiery kiln of his passion.

Love flooded every particle of her body with liquid gold. The connection was transcendent, eternal, unbreakable.

Gradually, her shuddering calmed. Reality slowly returned. The earth became the place she lived in instead of a mere memory to someone lost in the stars. But radiance lingered like the last glow of light on the horizon after a perfect summer day.

Opening dazed eyes, she found Gideon staring down at her in wonder. His lips tilted in a smile that, did he but know it, told her he loved her as she loved him.

She was exhausted, spent, lost in languorous joy. Her joints were so loose, she felt like a rag doll. He could pound her into oblivion now, and she wouldn’t utter a squeak of protest.

He looked equally strained. She suddenly realized he hadn’t yet found relief. Shocked, she made an almighty effort and reached out to touch his chest. One glancing contact, and her hand flopped back to her side. Her muscles had the resistance of woolen stuffing.

She quivered from the extraordinary conflagration that had swept her up into blissful oblivion. She’d had no idea. Nothing in her life had prepared her for those transforming moments in his arms.

Gideon released a shaky breath and began to shift in and
out of her body in a leisurely glide. The soft friction soothed. He bent to lick the peak of one breast.

“I can’t…” she protested on a dying whisper.

“I know,” he soothed, drawing her nipple between his lips.

Sluggish response trickled down to where his body joined hers. He slid out and, with excruciating slowness, slid back in. He bit down softly on the pebbled peak.

She sighed, and this time when he moved, she rose to meet him. Immediately she felt new heat. The joining was deep and essential. An expression of love as much as desire.

Again, she stifled words he didn’t want to hear. But her every heartbeat declared she loved him.

Instinctively, she rolled her hips, testing the sensation. He groaned against her breast and released her nipple to trace kisses across her collarbone. She laced her fingers in his thick hair, then gasped as he dragged her up to sit before him, still joined flesh to flesh.

He gazed into her face with the fixed concentration that was now familiar. A premonitory thrill shook her, made interior muscles tighten. His hands were ruthless, demanding, as he grabbed her hips and began to slide her up and down.

Her fog of satiated exhaustion, so overwhelming only minutes ago, vanished in an electric instant. Her legs automatically curled around him. She gripped his arms for balance. Desire bloomed in her belly.

She soon caught the rhythm. With a velvety laugh, he let her have her way. He leaned back on his hands, yielding to the summons of her pleasure.

The pleasure was astonishing.

Until now, it had never occurred to her that she could control what happened between them. The power, the delight made her head swim. She arched back, relishing the push and release inside her. He made her feel like a goddess. He made her feel like a woman in love.

Her breath escaped in broken gasps. She edged closer to another of those extraordinary peaks. Closer but not
there. She sobbed and twisted, struggling to reach what she wanted.

“Not yet, my darling,” he whispered. He rolled and pressed her down into the mattress. She cried out and twined her legs around his hips. Still, he moved in and out of her body. Relentless as the tide.

His bare, scarred skin was hot, slippery under her clinging hands. He groaned and trembled.

For her.

That knowledge shuddered through her like a cannon blast. With every thrust, he stole another inch of her soul.

Except he’d owned her soul from the first.

Soon, his movements became faster, wilder, less controlled. His chest heaved as he fought for breath.

Charis lost contact with everything but the hard male body that ruled her. Tension wound around her until it was unendurable.

Tighter and tighter.

Still he plunged in and out. Her fingers dug into his arms so deeply that they hurt.

Blackness pressed down. Surely it must end. Yet still the need built higher, red-hot copper wires that stretched every sinew.

She gasped for air. Her lungs ceased to function. Blindly, she pressed toward Gideon, the source of her agony, her only hope of release.

This was stronger, deeper, more overwhelming than what had happened before.

Could she survive this?

Her breath escaped in a long, tortured moan.

“Please, Gideon, please…”

Did he reply? Her ears were deaf to all but the endless clamor of desire.

Still, he moved inside her.

She whimpered and bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. She closed her eyes, helplessly seeking refuge in hot darkness.

The pressure climbed higher. She felt like she burst out of her skin. She felt like her bones crumbled to dust. She felt as if the world must end any second. In a blinding, endless cataclysm.

The unceasing friction between her legs was maddening. She shifted, seeking freedom from torment.

She opened blurred eyes and saw his face change.

“Now,” he growled.

One mighty thrust, and the ceaseless anticipation peaked, broke, scattered in shards of flaming rapture. She dived through darkness into a landscape of shimmering light.

Her body spasmed in an unbearable wave. She screamed as pleasure threatened to crush her. Vaguely, through her crisis, she was aware of Gideon’s groaning release.

For an eternity, she remained suspended, stretched on a rack of infinite joy. Doused with unearthly pleasure that made her cry aloud in delight. Her nails dug hard into his back as she clung to him like a rock in a sea of fire.

Dazed, changed, amazed, she returned to the world to find Gideon kissing her face, her neck, her shoulders. Tenderly. Sweetly. The sweetness all the more poignant for the violent storm they’d passed through.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, glancing kisses across her cheeks and nose and forehead. Kisses like the enchanting ones he’d given her this afternoon.

For a long moment, she lay acquiescent. Her chest heaved as she sucked great breaths into empty lungs. Her muscles trembled with reaction.

Then she lifted her face toward him for more kisses. The innocence pleased her, warmed her to the heart. Even as his body rested in hers, and she quaked after that earth-shattering climax.

Gideon rolled to the side, taking her with him, still kissing her. Softly, he separated from her. She stifled a whimper of discomfort. After the uninhibited passion, she ached. Every muscle was tired, tested to its limit.

She’d never felt so good.

“Are you all right?” he murmured against her neck. His arms encircled her loosely, and his hands rubbed lazy circles on her bare back.

How could she describe the wonders she’d discovered? Words were inadequate to convey the glory. When he raised his head, she kissed his mouth very gently, trying to say with action what speech could not.

Oh, such joy to touch him freely, naturally.

His mouth moved upon hers. The kiss was warm, comforting. A thousand miles from his turbulent lovemaking.

Slowly, reluctantly, she drew away. “It was beyond anything I imagined.”

His fingers combed through her tangled hair. Like every gesture in this glowing aftermath, his touch was tender.

His expression became serious, and his hand cupped her face. For a long moment, he stared into her eyes. “It’s not always like this, Charis.” He paused, and she saw him swallow. “I’ve never known anything to match what we just shared.”

She blinked away tears. Her heart was so full, she thought it must burst. “I’m glad,” she said in a thick voice. “I want you to be mine forever.”

A shadow crossed his face, and with it, a hairline crack appeared on the shining surface of Charis’s satisfaction. “Let’s not tempt fate.”

He bent to nuzzle her neck. Heat flared as he bit down on a sensitive nerve running up from her shoulder. She closed her eyes in willing surrender. But even as need surged, his answer troubled her heart.

I
t’s midnight,” Gideon said softly, his breath ruffling the hair on Charis’s crown and disturbing her from her warm half doze.

They shared the settle before the blazing parlor fire. She curled into him, one arm loosely around his waist, one resting across his chest. Her palm lay flat over his heart. She loved to feel its steady beating, as though she connected directly to his life force.

“Do you want to go to bed?” she asked huskily, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. This physical closeness still seemed a precious miracle. She never took it for granted.

His sleepy laugh was a deep rumble under her hand, and the arm he draped around her tightened. “I always want to go to bed.”

After so many days of unbridled debauchery, a girl should lose the ability to blush. Nonetheless, heat rose in her cheeks. “You’re insatiable.”

“At least where you’re concerned.” He raised her hand
from his chest and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. She couldn’t help shivering with response.

Over recent days, she’d watched the strain fade from Gideon’s features. He looked younger, less haunted. Perhaps because when not making passionate love to her, he’d slept. Deep, undisturbed rest that she guessed he hadn’t enjoyed for years. His dangerous life had worn him down long before he fell into the Nawab’s clutches.

But while he smiled more often and more willingly, shadows lingered in his eyes. With a pang of sorrow, she realized they probably always would.

Since the night Gideon had shown her the pleasure a man and woman could find together, they’d rarely left their rooms. Sometimes Charis forgot the outside world with its demands and dangers existed. There had been no sign of Felix or Hubert and no warning about trouble at Penrhyn. The hotel servants tidied and brought meals or bathwater. The rest of her modish new wardrobe arrived. Gideon summoned a notary and set out legal safeguards against her stepbrothers. Her fortune was now officially his, at least until the end of June, when it reverted to her.

She’d hoped the change in Gideon would extend to an easier relationship with humanity. So far, she had witnessed no such merciful amnesty. To her sorrow, Gideon’s immediate tension was visible whenever strangers set foot in this private kingdom. Her brief optimism that she’d found a remedy to his affliction faded further every time she saw him pale and recoil from other people.

He wasn’t cured. Not by a long way. She fervently thanked heaven every day that he could touch her. But so far, his recovery advanced no further than that.

She knew when she looked into his eyes that he believed it never would.

That wasn’t the only trouble nicking at the skein of sensual delight entwining her. For all its myriad pleasures, her new life was hollow at its center. The unspoken pain bit most at moments of purest happiness. Like now.

Gideon told her she was beautiful. He told her how much he wanted her. She had no doubts he desired her with endless hunger. But even when she felt they united into one being, words of love never escaped her husband’s lips. She knew him well enough to interpret his silence as deliberate.

Nor did he mention his plans for when they left Jersey. It was as though these weeks they shared now existed outside time.

Coward that she was, she let him get away with avoiding the subject. She’d exhausted her store of courage standing up to him after their marriage. Now she was terrified that too many awkward questions would shatter their delicate bliss. Perhaps because with every day, the threat of leaving him plowed deeper furrows in her heart. She couldn’t bear to hear him say he still meant them to separate. Although his silence on the matter indicated he hadn’t relinquished his original scheme.

Her arm firmed around his waist as she laid an unspoken claim, defying his right to forsake her. But the words insisting he tell her what he intended crammed in her throat.

“Charis, it’s midnight,” he said with greater emphasis, then glanced at the clock. “Five past.”

His unusual obsession with the time pierced her troubled reflections. She looked up in puzzlement. “Is that important?”

He kissed her quickly on the mouth. “You’ve lost track of the days, haven’t you?”

“Lost track…” Perplexed, she blinked at him. Hard to marshal coherent thought when his kisses sent her spinning into dazzling Elysium.

His lips curved in the tender smile that always made her poor adoring heart somersault. “It’s the first of March. Happy birthday, my darling.”

Her birthday…

Stiffening, she drew away. She forced her befuddled mind to calculate back. So difficult to count paradise in minutes and hours. She’d barely been aware whether it was day or night. Gideon lit her life like the sun. She needed no other fire in her heavens.

“You have possession of your fortune.” She couldn’t define his tone. He didn’t sound particularly triumphant. He kissed her again, more gently this time. “We won, Charis.”

They’d vanquished her stepbrothers. She was safe. Relief filtered through her. And fear that now the threat passed, everything would change between her and Gideon.

She forced herself to speak though she knew he wouldn’t want to hear what she said. “Because of you.” She swallowed and continued in a voice that vibrated with emotion. “I owe you everything.”

“I don’t want your gratitude.” His expression hardened, and he sat up. His arm slid away from her. Worse, his emotional withdrawal was unmistakable as frost in the air.

“Well, you’ve got it. Forever.” She mustered the courage that lately had been so sadly lacking. The murky currents swirling beneath the bright surface would no longer be denied. Her tone developed an edge. “I can be grateful to you and love you. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

She hadn’t mentioned love since the morning he’d surrendered to lust and leaped on her. Always, even at the peak of sexual pleasure when her whole world was Gideon, she’d bitten back the words. His silence had fed hers.

Her wisdom in restraining any declaration became abundantly clear. He surged to his feet and regarded her with the wary expression she’d hoped never to see again. The hollow in her heart resonated as if a huge mourning bell clanged inside it.

“Charis, it’s our last night on Jersey,” he said somberly, ignoring her challenge. Although his guarded eyes told her he’d heard her. “Tomorrow we sail for Penrhyn,”

No, no, no, no, no.

“We’re leaving?” Her question rang with dismay.

Could the tenuous bond she’d established with him outlast a return to daily life? Here she was the center of his existence. She wasn’t vain enough to expect that to continue forever. But she needed longer to make him completely hers.

Did he even intend to keep her with him?

Grim foreboding swamped her. Was this her ration of joy, these few glorious days on Jersey?

Reluctant amusement quirked his lips. “We have to go at some point, you know.”

Blindly, she lurched up and turned away, fisting her shaking hands in her skirts. His attempt at lightness grated, hurt. He treated her like an easily distracted child. “Not yet.”

She heard him approach, then his hand curved around her arm. She felt the roughness of his scars against her bare skin. His touch reminded her of his suffering and how far he’d come since they’d married.

Had he come far enough?

His voice was warm, encouraging. “There’s no need to be frightened. You’ve reached your majority. The Farrells can’t harm you. We’re free.”

He misunderstood her reaction. Of course the threat of Felix and Hubert had darkened her days. But more important by far was her endless battle for a future with Gideon.

“We’re not free. We’re married,” Charis said in a muffled voice, bending her head.

He released her with an abrupt gesture and stepped away. She felt the distance like the blow of an ax. “If I could have devised another way to save you, I wouldn’t have forced you into such drastic action,” he said curtly.

The sweet concord of minutes ago was only a bitter memory. The suddenness of the change left her staggering in its wake. She turned to face him, knowing her pain was naked in her face. “You know I’m always grateful for…”

“Enough!” One ruined hand sliced the tense air. “If I hear the word
grateful
once more, I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

“But, Gideon…”

“Devil take you, Charis, stop!” He paused, visibly fighting for composure. Bitterness frayed his voice, and his shoulders were ruler straight with tension. “Really, you shouldn’t
thank me. As it’s turned out, our marriage was precipitate. Your stepbrothers haven’t traced us. We didn’t need to take such permanent measures. I can only offer my profoundest regrets.”

The sharp slap resounded like the report of a bullet.

Gideon’s head whipped back, and his expression registered shock rather than anger. The red imprint of her hand darkened his cheek.

The grim, echoing silence extended. And extended.

Shaking, Charis lowered her arm and backed away on unsteady legs. She wasn’t frightened. She was so furious, her vision turned black.

“How dare you?” Her voice lowered to trembling vehemence. “You’ve had me in your bed. You’ve been so deep inside me, you’ve touched my soul. Yet you have the gall to talk about regret?”

“What I’ve done to you is unforgivable,” he said harshly. As shock receded, rage lit his black eyes. “And yes, I do regret that I’ve hurt you.”

Her fragile happiness shattered around her with a sharp crack that sounded like a heart breaking. Her lips felt stiff as she voiced her worst fears. “You can’t mean to follow your original plan, that we should lead separate lives?”

His jaw set like stone. “The basic difficulties remain. It still seems the best solution.”

Agony stabbed her, stole her breath, made her stumble back a step. She felt betrayed, devastated, lost. Somewhere, she found strength to speak. “Is that what you want?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m trying to do what’s best for you.”

She clenched her fists at her sides. Either that or batter at him like a madwoman. She loved him more than her life. And at this moment, if one of his pistols had been in reach, she’d happily have put a bullet through his thick skull. “So these last days mean nothing? You can’t expect me to believe that. You’ve found happiness in my arms, Gideon. Don’t ever lie about that.”

The skin on his face tightened. She braced to hear him say the words that turned her dream of love into a travesty.

His throat worked as he swallowed and he avoided her gaze. “I should never have touched you. It was wrong. It was cruel. The fact that I can’t stay away from you is no excuse. It’s only an indictment of my own damnable weakness. You should curse me with your every breath. One day you will. Even if we take the sensible course and part now.”

He blamed himself for what happened but couldn’t deny the bond between them. She should find that reassuring, but she knew how obstinate he was. Obstinacy had kept him alive in India. How tragic that obstinacy now made him surrender his chance of happiness. And hers. He tried to do the right thing, the noble thing, but all he did was condemn them both to a lifetime of loneliness.

Charis had prayed love would wash away the poison of Rangapindhi. She saw now her prayers hadn’t been answered.

Her voice rang with resentment. “You’re such a fool, Gideon.”

“One of us has to keep a clear head without getting lost in the romance of it all,” he said with wounding sarcasm.

He wanted her to let him go to perdition in peace. Well, he’d picked the wrong wife if he expected her consent to that. Still, only the knowledge that he loved her, however much he wished he didn’t, kept her fighting. This battle was dangerous—it could destroy both of them.

Her nails dug deep into her palms, the slight sting nothing compared to the way he lacerated her heart with his stubborn rejection. He was the cleverest man she knew. And when it came to her, the stupidest. “We desire each other.”

She saw him consider sidestepping the statement. After these days of passion, she knew him so well. Why didn’t he know her in return?

Something in her face must have convinced him evading the issue wasn’t an option. His lips lengthened in a grim smile. “Yes, there is desire. Enough to set the world on fire. But desire isn’t enough.”

As her false paradise disintegrated around her, she stopped lying to him and to herself. “And there’s love. I love you, and you love me. You told me once.”

A compressed line of guilt and sorrow replaced his smile. “I had no right to say that. I hoped you’d forgotten.”

In a different universe, she would have laughed. Forgotten? Those words were permanently carved on her heart, even if he never said them again. “No chance.”

He looked ill and tired and tense. He looked like a man contemplating the end of the world. “I’ve wronged you so deeply, I can never make recompense.”

Her temper spiked. “How have you wronged me? By showing me a man can be more than a selfish brute? By saving me from rape? By teaching me about ecstasy?”

He was so pale, the mark on his cheek where she’d hit him stood out like a beacon. “By making you believe we could have a life together. By coming to your bed night after night when every principle dictated that I stay away. By tying you with bonds of
gratitude…
” He spat out the word like a curse. “…you’ll never break, even when you realize what you feel now is illusion.”

She flinched. Surely he didn’t still think her love was sickly hero worship? Not after all they’d shared. The accusation hurt more than acid flung in her face.

She drew a shaky breath and reminded herself that he loved her, hard as it was to believe when she confronted his anger and derision. She fought for her life here. She couldn’t let him defeat her.

“I forget you’re so much older and wiser than I.” Gideon wasn’t the only one with sarcasm in his arsenal.

His expression closed. Once, she’d have retreated from his bristling hauteur. But she’d held him gasping with release too often for the mask of control to dupe her. He wasn’t controlled. He was anguished and angry and desperate.