One Week as Lovers (18 page)

Ah, sweet Lord above. He could control his thrusts perfectly from this vantage, and the pleasure of it skittered up his spine as he pushed slowly inside her and pulled just as slowly out.

Her hands fluttered as if she didn’t know what to do with them now that he’d set them free. He watched her fingers clench at air as he slid deep inside her again. One of her hands twisted into the sheets.

Lancaster closed his eyes and told himself not to do what he wanted to do. But once the idea wormed its way beneath his skullcap, there was no setting it aside. And she’d like it. He knew she would.

When he opened his eyes, he found Cynthia biting her lip, head thrown back in pleasure, and he reached for her.

“Cyn,” he rasped, working her fingers free from the sheets. “Here.” She didn’t resist at all, even as he pressed her palm to one of her breasts. He slipped the other hand down her belly to lie snug against her curls.

Her eyes finally opened, glazed with the distance of pleasure.

“Touch yourself,” he growled.

When she glanced down at her body, her eyes widened. Would she refuse? Would she draw back in horror? Of course she must. But then her fingers tightened on her breast and he nearly moaned with joy.

“That’s it.” Horrible lust surged up inside his chest, scraping his words to raw need. “Touch yourself while I take you.”

Shock flickered over her flushed face, but she did as he said, and her fingers closed over her nipple.

“Ah,” she gasped, arching into his thrust.

“Lord, you’re beautiful.”

She closed her eyes and turned her head away as her other hand cupped her sex.

Lancaster watched her fingertips ease closer to that little pearl of nerves. He thrust slow and careful, giving her time to tempt herself into touching just
there
. Just where their bodies met, where his cock fit so snugly into her wet sex.

Her fingers brushed his shaft, sending shudders down his thighs. Could she feel that? How hard he was for her? How wet she was for him? The miraculous perfection of this profane act?

She touched him again, more deliberately this time, and then she found the spot, and her body twisted. A strangled, desperate cry escaped her throat, and Lancaster gratefully increased his pace.

“You’re beautiful, Cyn,” he breathed. “Beautiful.” And she was. Impossibly so. He hooked his arms beneath her knees to hold her firmly in place. And he watched her take control of her own pleasure.

That place inside him opened again, that place where he was real. Not angry or frightened or broken.

Pleasure began to gather too fast, compressing into a heavy weight at the base of his cock. It was too much, being inside her, watching as her fingers rubbed tiny circles into her sex. Her other hand spread wide over her full breast. Her head pressed hard into the soft mattress and her neck strained.

“Nick,” she chanted. “Nick.
Nick.
” The words sounded like a prayer. For him. “Oh, that feels…so…”

He watched as her fingers dug into the flesh of her breast. Her other hand moved faster, faster, and Lancaster drove into her. Too rough. Too fast. But it seemed to ease the ache building up inside her, because Cynthia dug her heels into his arse and arched up for more. Hips jerking against him, she screamed.

He felt the grip of her muscles tighten around his cock and gritted his teeth until the spasms faded. When she finally began to relax, Lancaster let himself go. He fucked her hard. His hips slapped against hers as he pumped himself into the tight vise of her sex.

Pulling free at the last possible moment, he watched his seed splash against her belly and breasts, a sight so vulgar and exquisite that it stole his breath and replaced it with a swelling heat that filled his lungs.

Lancaster let his head fall back and just stood there, rigid, trying to hold on to the painfully strong pleasure pulsing through him.

“Oh, my,” Cynthia sighed.

Lancaster breathed in and out and felt the earth’s slow spin around him.

The sheets rustled. Her body shifted a fraction of an inch.

“Goodness! Is that your seed?”

His eyes popped open, giving him a view of the timbered ceiling. “What?”

He looked down to find Cynthia propped up on her elbows, staring at the mess he’d made of her.

“There’s quite a lot of it.”

“Er,” he answered, face slowly heating to a furnace. He cupped his hand over his manhood. This was entirely unseemly. In fact, it crossed the line to complete and utter absurdity when Cynthia reached a finger out to slide over her stomach. Her forehead wrinkled in curiosity.

“Gah,” Lancaster croaked.

“Nicholas Cantry, are you blushing?”

“Of course not!” He retreated a step.

“As many naked women as you must have seen, I can’t imagine you’d find this shocking.”

“Not…just…Pardon me.” As he fled to his room to find a towel, he clearly heard Cynthia’s snort of amusement behind him.

It was very strange to make love with a friend, he was finding. Strange and wonderful and…happy.

“I think we’ll find it today,” Lancaster said for the third time.

Cynthia slanted him a doubtful look, but he kept right on smiling into the biting wind.

He could feel the promise of it in his bones, as if a secret layer of the earth vibrated just beyond his hearing. His skull hummed with the sensation.

When Cynthia remained silent, he went back to calculating the amount he would need to extricate himself from a marriage of convenience.

An ideal amount would be twenty thousand. Ten for him and ten for Cynthia. More would be wonderful, but he couldn’t be greedy. Ten thousand would pay off nearly all his family’s debts. Enough so that, with some reasonable economies taken, a few years’ of income from his properties would pay off the rest. And Cynthia would have her own money then. She’d be an heiress. Free to marry him with no guilt or hesitation.

If it were more like five thousand pounds, the path toward marriage would be more difficult. But Lancaster was done with being easy. He should have been done with it years ago. With five thousand pounds, he could negotiate terms with his creditors. They might live close to the bone for a few years, but it would be worth it. The family would still be respectable enough to see his sister make a desirable marriage. His brother could continue his London lifestyle, albeit at a considerably lower level of luxury.

And he and Cynthia would still live happily ever after. Wonderful.

A seal splashed up from the gray water a few dozen feet from the shore before dipping underwater. When it poked its head up again and watched them with dark eyes, Lancaster took it as another good sign. Cynthia glanced toward the animal with no change of expression, but he supposed she’d seen a lot of seals in the past ten years.

“I’d like to apologize again for my ungenerous words about your sketches.”

“Oh, just leave it. I know they’re horrid.”

“I wouldn’t say horrid. You definitely show…emotion.”

“Stuff it, Nick.”

Sighing, he looked back out to find the seal watching them eagerly. “I think that seal likes me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. It thinks you’re a fisherman who’ll begin tossing bait at any moment.”

He tossed her an exasperated glare. “Why are you in such an awful mood today? You seemed perfectly happy this morning.”

When she narrowed her eyes at the path ahead, he thought she’d argue, but eventually her brow smoothed out. A few steps later, she met his gaze and sighed. “I’m sorry, but you’re making me nervous.”

“How?”

“You seem to be deliberately trying to raise my hopes.”

“About our marriage?”

“No! We won’t be married, Nick. And that’s another thing. You must stop thinking about that.”

“Hard not to think about marriage after this morning.”

“Oh, really? Do you think about marrying every woman you swive?”

“Cynthia Merrithorpe!” he barked, shock shifting to anger in the space of one heartbeat. “That wasn’t swiving, damn you.”

“I’m fairly certain it was,” she snapped.

She couldn’t think it meant nothing to him. He’d made clear he was in love with her. So was she trying to tell him it meant nothing to
her?
He stopped in his tracks and turned toward her, wrapping his hand around her elbow to pull her to a stop.

“I’m not going another step until I hear the truth from you. Are you in love with me or not?”

She gasped as if he’d just pinched her.

“Answer the question.”

“I won’t!”

“Why?”

She jerked her arm away. “Because it’s not relevant.”

“I’ve already made clear I’m in love with you.”

“You are
not
in love with me. You think you’re in love with me because I’m a novelty. I’m not like those London women, remember? I’m different. I don’t give a fig about your debts or your standing or whether you can afford the latest fashion. I’m a
reprieve,
Nick. That’s all.”

Unbelievable. How had she become so cynical out here in the country? “That is
not
all, damn it.”

“Oh, really?” She crossed her arms. “What is it, then? What makes me so much better than all those beautiful London women? What makes me better than a pretty girl in a pretty dress with a pretty inheritance? Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he shouted.

“I’m a plain country girl with no education. I’ve no money and nothing to recommend me, not even beauty. Any of those London women would make you a better wife.”

“None
of them would. There isn’t a soul in London who knows me. Not
one
person. Do you know why I wasn’t frightened of your haunting? Do you know why I accepted it so easily? Because I was a ghost too, Cyn. I
am
a ghost. And you’re the only one who still sees me.”

Even the gulls seemed to stop squawking in that moment as his words hung in the air between them. He took a step back, shocked that he’d said them, but Cynthia looked far more shocked than he.

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “It’s just…It’s not like it is here. That’s all.”

“I don’t think that is all,” she whispered.

Lancaster stretched his mouth into a smile. “What else could it be? Just homesickness. A craving for the simple life.”

“So you acknowledge that I am only a symbol of that simplicity?”

“I do not.”

The wind whipped a thick rope of her hair free of its ribbon and dragged it over her mouth. Her eyes shifted to the sea for a moment as she tucked the hair behind her ear. It snuck free again to sneak across her cheek, but she ignored it.

When she met his gaze, he stiffened at the hesitation in her eyes. “Nick…What happened when you left?”

The wind seemed to scream against his ears all of a sudden. The cold bit deep beneath his skin as he watched her eyes fill with uncertainty.

“Nothing,” someone answered in his voice. “I went to London. That’s all.”

“That’s not what I mean. There’s something else.”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Don’t lie to me. If you don’t want to tell me, just say so. But don’t
lie.
”

His lungs seemed too small. He parted his lips and tried to hide the fact that he was fighting for air. He meant to repeat his claims. To lie to her as he lied to everyone. But somehow he couldn’t. Not with her asking him for honesty. “I don’t wish to discuss it,” said the voice that sounded just like him. His hands shook at the terror of offering the truth.

“All right.” But her eyes grew more troubled, swimming with fear. “All right, but…”

He spun on his heel and began moving toward their goal. The sand crunched harder beneath his boots with every step he took. Cynthia called his name, but he couldn’t stop, not even for her. He just set one foot in front of the other and kept moving away from his past. And hopefully toward his future.

Fifteen minutes later, Cyn’s knees still shook. She didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand.

Was it true? Had he tried to kill himself? The idea repelled her. Partly because the idea of Nick dead made her gut knot in on itself. And partly because Nick
wanting
to die clashed with everything she knew about him. But he’d said he was a ghost. A ghost. As if he’d come back from the dead.

She wanted to pounce on him, throw her arms around him and beg him to tell her it wasn’t true.

But Nick just kept walking, silence drawn around him like a cloak. And if she threw her arms around him, he’d push away in a panic.
Why?

“This is where we stopped, I think.” His voice was friendly to the point of distance. “I recognize that ridge just there.”

She nodded and swallowed back the tears pushing against her throat.

“Right then. Let’s press on.” His smile looked unnervingly genuine.
There isn’t a soul in London who knows me.
As they rounded a corner of rock, he winked and pointed up to a narrow crevice about five feet off the ground. “I’ll take this one.”

Ever since the incident with the animal skull, Cynthia had let him take the lead on any deep, dark holes. But she wouldn’t have objected regardless. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t behave as if nothing had happened, as Nick did. So she watched him scramble over loose rocks and haul himself over ledges, constantly checking for any deep spaces not visible from the sand.

She kept silent watch for nearly an hour, no longer sure if his good cheer was still feigned or had evolved into his previous genuinely fine mood. Regardless, she began to forget her anxiety and simply enjoy the show of Nick working, his hair mussed by the wind, breeches stretching tight over his haunches each time he stepped up.

He’d asked if she loved him. Of course she did. She loved Nick as she’d always loved him. His hair, his smile, his laugh. The way he brightened whenever anyone spoke to him. His impossibly warm brown eyes. The small kindnesses he offered without thought.

And now there was more. His strong hands and hot mouth. The crisp hair furred over his wide chest. And all the wicked things he did to her in the dark. And the light.

Of course she loved him. As if that made any difference at all. She’d loved him once before. She’d loved her father too, if those hazy memories could be believed. She’d loved her mother her whole life. And none of that love—none of it—had brought her anything but pain. Deep pain that stretched on for weeks and months and years until the ends frayed like worn cord. It never really stopped, it only spread out until the gossamer threads grew thin enough to overlook and deep enough to ignore.

So yes, she loved him. And there was nothing for it but to go on with her life. She could love him from afar, just as she had before. As long as she knew he would be all right.

But she no longer knew that.

“Cyn!” he called from somewhere far ahead.

Blinking, Cynthia realized she’d been staring at the foamed rush of water sneaking into a little pool between the rocks.

“Cynthia!” Nick waved to her from a perch about four feet off the ground. “I need your help!”

She’d have been alarmed if his wave hadn’t been so blatantly cheerful. Instead she felt a spurt of excitement.

“What is it?” she panted when she skidded to a stop before him.

“There’s a cave up there. I can’t get to it, but if I boost you up, you should be able to reach the edge.”

She took his hand when he reached for her, and stepped up to join him on the wide ledge. The next flat surface was at least seven feet up.

Nick laced his fingers together and leaned over to offer a step up. That fall he’d taken a few days before had changed her perspective on heights, but Cyn gulped back her fear and settled her boot into the cradle he’d made.

“One, two,
three.
” Nick tossed her up high enough that she could get a firm hold on the edge of a rock. Then he put the heels of his hands beneath her boot and pushed her higher. Cynthia simply rose up on the strength of his arms, until she could get her hands beneath her and hook a knee onto the surface.

Crawling quickly away from the edge, it took her a moment to realize what was right in front of her, but when she rose up to her knees, Cynthia froze.

“How does it look?” Nick called.

It looked…like a
cave.
A real cave, not some hollow in the rock pretending at cave-dom. Her knees shook when she rose to her feet.

“Cyn?”

“It’s a cave!” she screamed, jumping up and down. Only a tiny bit though. The open air hovered a foot behind her.

“Good,” she heard him call from below.

“No!” She spun around and edged forward so that she could see him. “It’s a real cave, Nick! You’ve got to get up here.”

His eyebrows flew nearly to his hairline. “Is there something solid you can tie the rope to?”

After glancing around, she gestured for the rope, then tied it to a narrow outcropping that climbed nearly vertical at the mouth of the cave. Within moments, Nick was standing beside her, panting.

“You weren’t kidding,” he gasped. “That really is a cave.”

“I know!” Forgetting the tension that had stretched between them all morning, Cyn grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the opening. He tugged her just as quickly behind him.

“Let me go first. We have no idea what it’s like in there.”

Once they got past the bright reach of daylight, Cyn was glad she’d conceded the lead. The roof of the cave sat low, so that even she had to bend her head. Any time her cloak brushed the ceiling, shards rained down, peppering her shoulders with rock. She tried very hard not to notice the spiders that scrambled away as her feet slid on the rough debris littering the floor. If there were cobwebs, Nick was clearing them for her.

“Keep close,” he ordered, tightening his hold on her hand.

“Don’t worry,” she muttered back. The air around them grew dimmer, the walls crept closer.

“Ow.” Pebbles rained down as Nick rubbed the crown of his head. “I think the end’s ahead. Either that or the floor drops out completely and that’s why I can’t see anything.”

“You’re not making me feel better!”

His chuckle rumbled through the cave like a dragon awakening. His foot slid loudly against the floor, and she hoped that meant he was feeling his way carefully and not tumbling over the edge. She squeezed his hand even tighter.

“Definitely the end.”

Peeking over his shoulder, she could just make out the shape of his fingers resting against a pale surface. Her eyes adjusted as she stared, until she could see his fingernails too, and the pockmarked texture of the rock. A musty odor filled her nose as she turned carefully to look around her.

“Smells like something died in here,” she murmured. “Do you see anything?”

“Not yet.”

She watched in amazement as he began running his hands along little ledges without any hesitation at all. Aside from the spiders she knew were there, she suspected more bones. Or maybe something not quite dried out yet.

“Eek,” she choked out, shuddering at the thought.

Nick glanced over at her with a smile. A smile that didn’t waver when he reached out a hand to brush at the hair at her temple.

“What?”

“Nothing.”