Jess Michaels (13 page)

“Hear this, Miss Clifford,” he growled, moving closer to accentuate his words. “You know nothing about my intentions when it comes to Cassandra. So why don’t you simply do your best to assist her with her business and let us worry about what we are and aren’t doing?”

Elinor opened her mouth for a sharp set down, but Nathan turned away before she could speak.

“I’m going back to Cassandra now. You are no longer needed today.”

He opened the chamber door and shut it in her face, turning the key so that she could not intrude upon them again. When he moved into the room, he stopped.

Cassandra still lay on the bed, the cold cloth resting on her eyes. But even without seeing them, he could tell by her steady, deep breaths that she was asleep. He had a choice. He could leave. Or he could climb into the bed beside her and stay. Not for passion, not for sex, not for blackmail. Just because he wanted to be with her when she woke. To make sure she was fully recovered.

The latter was his only choice. Drawing a deep breath, he pushed his boots off one after the other, being careful so they didn’t clatter against the wooden floor. Then he carefully took a place on the bed beside her. For a long time, he simply stroked her hair as she slumbered.

The quiet of the room was as good for him as it was for her. Because everything had just become far more complicated.

C
assandra lay in her bed, her eyes still closed. It was too luscious to lie under the warm sheets and heavy coverlet. Once she opened her eyes, she would be forced to get up and work and fight with Nathan and do a hundred other things she dreaded with all her heart.

For one, she would be forced to remember that she had fainted like a ninny. She groaned. Of all the people to collapse in front of, she had to do it in front of Nathan. Now he likely saw her as weak, he’d probably marked this down as another way to manipulate her.

Except that he had seemed truly concerned in the carriage. And he had told her how afraid he was here in her bed. The memory made her shiver and her eyes came open, only to find that she wasn’t alone. Next to her, lying on his side just like
she was, facing her, was Nathan. His eyes were shut and his breathing was deep and steady in sleep.

She stared. She couldn’t help it. When he was awake, they were constantly at odds, battling for control and the upper hand. She didn’t dare just moon away at him for fear he would take ground from her if she did. Now doing so was perfectly safe.
Nathan
was safe, unable to seduce and manipulate and push.

By God, he was beautiful. His black hair was so shiny and thick that she couldn’t help but reach out and catch a strand between her fingers and rub its silkiness. Relaxed in sleep, his face seemed younger, kinder…far closer to the young man she had loved all those years ago.

Slowly, his eyes came open, revealing startling blue so bright that she sucked in a breath. His eyes had always been a draw for her, even from the first moment she met him.

“It’s been so long since I woke up beside you,” he murmured, his voice still heavy with sleep. “Too long.”

She shivered. They had spent the night together only once all those years ago, hiding out in the hunting lodge on his father’s estate. They made love all night, talked into the dawn, and then he had asked her to marry him.

It had been the best night of her life. Nothing, not even the glittering balls she had attended as a mistress or the fantastic theatre shows, could compare to the joy she had felt as Nathan dropped to his knees and begged her to be his forever. At that moment, she had believed they could overcome everything. Anything.

“That night was from another lifetime,” she whispered, stroking his hair one last time before she let her hand drop away to the space on the bed between them. It was only a few inches, but suddenly it felt like a canyon.

He nodded. “Much has happened since then, in both our lives, the good and the bad. We’ve both changed.” He tilted his head slightly. “And yet here we are, somehow still together, still drawn to each other with the same intensity that we were then.”

“But not the same feeling,” she said, her voice soft. This was dangerous territory they were entering now.

His lips pursed, but not in anger, as she expected. Instead, he seemed to be contemplating that statement, analyzing if it were true. What he could be analyzing, she couldn’t say. After all, Nathan had made it more than clear that he felt nothing for her beyond a drive to make her pay. Being with her was simply a way to fulfill his angry vow to force her to feel what she had lost by throwing him away.

“No, the feeling is not the same,” he agreed, and she hated how disappointment flooded her. “But that is to be expected. I couldn’t feel the same way for you as I did before I went to India. So much has happened since then. I’m not the same man, as you point out regularly.”

He hesitated and his face and voice took on a faraway quality. “But even if we hadn’t parted on poor terms, the years still would have changed our feelings for each other.”

She nodded. Yes, he was right about that. When he left without even trying to find out what had kept her from him,
she had realized that it wasn’t love he ever felt for her. A fondness, a desire…perhaps even a way to rebel against his over-bearing family. But not love.

If nothing had kept her from him and they
had
married that night in Gretna Green instead of being parted, at some point she would have realized his lack of true emotion toward her one way or another. That would have broken her heart. Not to mention that eventually, Nathan himself would have realized he didn’t truly love her. By that time, he would have been trapped in a marriage with a woman far beneath his station in life. He might have come to resent her.

In the end, it was better this way.

She sighed and moved to roll away. It was far past time to rise from the bed and return to normalcy after these few brief moments when she could pretend nothing had changed. But Nathan caught her wrist, pulling her closer rather than letting her move away from him.

“I imagine sometimes what it would have been like if you hadn’t made your choices.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Do you, Nathan?” she managed past tight lips. She would
not
reveal the truth, not just because he riled her with his false assumptions. “And what do you imagine?”

He cupped her cheek, his rough fingers gliding along her skin and into her hair. He inched her closer and moved toward her so that their bodies were pressed against each other. Chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis, leg to leg. There wasn’t an inch to separate them.

“You as my wife,” he murmured, his voice rough and seductive as his lips moved to skim along her throat. Cassandra clenched her fingers into fists as pure pleasure followed in the wake of his kiss.

“I imagine what it would be like to wake beside you like this every day,” he continued, his fingers massaging her scalp while his other hand glided down her back to cup her even closer. “To know that you are mine. I imagine what it would have been like if
I
had been the one to introduce you to all those pleasures you learned from your lovers.”

She shivered as he rocked against her and she felt the hard, thick length of his cock nudge her even through the layers of her gown and chemise. Her body revolted against her reason, opening instinctively, growing wet and exquisitely sensitive in preparation for the invasion sure to come.

She fought the tide, though she knew it was in vain.

“But you weren’t,” she said, hoping to anger him enough that he would storm out.

He continued nibbling at her throat, though she thought he hesitated just a fraction. Then he shook his head, the beginnings of rough stubble making her back arch.

“No, I wasn’t. So I merely get the benefit of all that experience, don’t I? Don’t we?”

Then his mouth slid to hers and she lost all hope that she could deny him. Not when his tongue slid past her lips gently, softly exploring her with a slow cadence that told her he was in no hurry to end this.

For the first time, there wasn’t even a hint of anger in his
touch, no erotic punishment. There was only pleasure, only desire.

He pulled back. “I thought long and hard about what I could have lost when you fell into my arms outside your carriage today. And then I thought of what I did lose when we parted ways all those years ago.”

She swallowed. When their faces were so close together there was no way to hide from each other. She could see his desperation, his fear, and deeper…the fact that he still cared for her, despite everything.

Which meant that he could see all she sought to hide. Her desire. Her need for him. Her sense of loss. And her love. Because she had never stopped loving him. She had tried to do so, fought to do so, forced herself to pretend she had managed that impossible feat. But now, their bodies pressed so close that they were almost one, their breath mingling, with him whispering such sweetness in her ear, she couldn’t deny her feelings any longer.

She still loved this man. And it brought her no pleasure, only pain. She buried her head in his shoulder, kissing his neck so he wouldn’t see her heart. She couldn’t bear that now.

“I want to be with you,” she whispered against his skin. “I want to feel you hold me.”

She didn’t add that it would be for the last time. Because now that she had acknowledged her feelings for him, there was no way she could let this blackmail, her surrender go on. She would have to end this.

But she shoved those thoughts aside and instead crooked
her knee over his hip. He ground up, his erection finding her entrance through the layers of clothing. She sighed as he arched into her, rubbing her clit and sending tremors of pleasure through her.

He rolled, sliding her beneath him as he laced his fingers through hers. Holding her hands against the sheets, he dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her.

It was unlike any kiss they had ever shared before. Sweet and filled with longing, tasting of pleasure and deep desire. She drowned in his kiss, lifting herself into it, tangling her tongue with his.

When he drew back, his eyes were glazed, as surprised as she was. He pinned her with his stare.

“You are mine,” he whispered.

She nodded. There was no denying that. She would never love another man like this. She would never touch another man like this, or be touched by him in this way.

In some way, she would be forever Nathan’s. Even when he married another. Even when he forgot her.

He glided his hands down her sides, his palms cupping and lifting her breasts as he eased lower. He found the buttons along the front of her wrinkled gown and slowly unlooped each one from its hole. She arched into each moment, waiting breathlessly to be revealed to him, and to reveal him in return.

Her gown parted, the fine silk folding back to expose her sheer chemise beneath. Nathan muttered a curse at what he saw and she smiled. She always felt beautiful with him, like
some goddess that he was driven to worship. Her lush body, which was not in fashion currently, was still something to be proud of when he looked at her with glazed eyes and shaking hands.

“I want to taste you,” he moaned, his mouth coming down to her collarbone. “All of you.”

She jolted at the suggestive words. A heated gush of moisture flowed through her, settling between her thighs, pulsing at her clit. She had no doubt he would make good on his promise that by the end of tonight she would be highly pleasured in every way.

And she could show him her love in the process. Even if she could never vocalize it. Her body would say what was in her heart.

He glided his mouth down her skin, pulling at her gown and her chemise to bare her more, but the fabric would only stretch so much. Finally, he gave a frustrated growl and sat up, pulling her along with him.

“Too many layers,” he muttered, hardly coherent as he opened the remaining buttons on her gown and then pulled it down around her waist, followed by her chemise. She shivered as his hands brushed her skin as he worked. The side of his palm along her breast, the tips of his fingers brushing her stomach.

He didn’t seem immune to those grazing touches either, for his voice was rough and strained when he said, “Lie back now.”

Again she followed his instructions without argument or
comment. She liked him taking control. To be at his mercy as he urged her to lift her hips so that he could slide her dress and underthings away. Now she was naked aside from her stockings and her slippers. He caught his breath as he tossed her gown away off the side of the high bed.

“I could stare at you all day,” he murmured, as he settled next to her and stared at her body from head to toe. “I could have someone paint a portrait and never tire of it.”

He reached out and stroked the back of his hand against her collarbone. She stiffened, unable to stop herself from arching up into his hand. He chuckled softly and began to glide his hand back and forth, swish by swish, down the length of her body.

“But an artist could never capture your beauty in reality,” he said, his fingers teasing over her distended nipples just for a moment before he continued his journey downward. “And I wouldn’t want anyone else to see you posed like this.”

She smiled despite herself, but her smile faded as he swept his hand over her lower belly. She tensed, ready for the pleasure of his touch at the juncture of her trembling thighs, but it never came. Instead, he scooted down the bed and wrapped his big, hot hands around her thigh.

“Nathan!” she gasped, jolting as he found a new sensitive spot that she hadn’t realized existed.

He chuckled, wicked as he began to roll her stockings away, first on one leg and then the other.

“I believe you are the most responsive woman I have ever had in my bed,” he growled. “You will sob with pleasure with
just the lightest touch. I think you’ve even come before without stimulation.”

She nodded, still shivering from his touch. She had almost come just then and he had only stroked her thigh in a new way. But she couldn’t just let him be the wicked one tonight. She wanted to make
him
pant and beg and shiver like he did to her.

“Nathan, I have come a few times just from thinking about you. No touch necessary at all,” she purred, raising herself up on her elbows and giving him her best come-hither look.

Her words clearly affected him, for his hands fumbled as he pulled her stockings over her knees. He looked up at her, blue eyes bright and focused as a bird of prey.

“Have you?” he whispered. “Show me.”

She arched a brow. What she had said was true, but she wasn’t totally certain she could reproduce the powerful, unexpected moment on cue.