The Bride Wore Pearls (26 page)

She removed her hand, drew a little away, and set her cheek to the back of the sofa. “Then we will remain the dearest of friends,” she whispered, gazing at him. “And I will listen to your advice always, because that’s what friends are for. But in the end, I will do what I please, and you will have no right to be angry with me.”

She was offering him a choice that was no sort of choice at all.

For a long time, he thought about what his response should be. His elbows propped on his knees, his hands dangling, he tried to form the right words—words about respect and selflessness and promises. But the words would not come—perhaps he, too, had grown weary of them—and when at last she leaned into him again, her warmth and exotic scent embracing him like a living thing, Lazonby felt himself shudder.

Her hand caught his shoulder and pushed him back against the sofa. “Close your eyes,” she whispered, just before she set her lips to his throat.

And he did, God help him.

In a rattle of silk, he felt the sofa give under her weight as she came astraddle him. “Close your eyes,” she said again, her mouth moving over him, setting his skin ashiver.

“
Anisha,
” he whispered.

But he did not open his eyes, and instead let her hands and mouth roam over him. They were simple gestures; innocent, really. Her fingers stroking over his chest, along his waist, through his hair. Her lips on his eyes, his cheeks, under the turn of his jaw.

He stilled himself to it unflinchingly. And yet despite the simplicity, the powerful thread of desire began to run through him, to twist and to pull him like molten metal deeper into the heat of her.

She opened her mouth, warm against his cheek, then skimmed it down until the tip of her tongue stroked a ribbon of moisture along his bottom lip. She caught the swell of it between her teeth, nibbled and sucked, then moved on. Beneath the snug wool of his trousers, Lazonby’s cock began to harden and throb, but it seemed an almost secondary thing; the sensations he felt were something deeper and more primal than mere lust.

He felt her mouth move along the bone of his eye socket, then his temple, until her lips hesitated, feather-light, upon his ear. “Take me upstairs to my bed,
meri jaan,
” she whispered. “Take me upstairs. Join your body to mine.”

“Anisha—”

“No.” The word was soft but sharp. “Don’t speak. Just . . . for one night,
don’t
.”

Her words falling away, Anisha shocked him by easing her hand down the fall of his trousers. With the tips of her fingers and the firmness of her palm, she rubbed back and forth along the ridge of his erection, causing him to suck air through his teeth.

She made a little sound of feminine satisfaction in the back of her throat. “Now
that,
” she whispered, “is unmistakable desire.”

“Did you have any doubt?” he rasped.

For an instant, she hesitated. “Not much, but one never likes to assume,” she murmured, her mouth skimming round the turn of his throat. “Desire can be so . . .
complicated
.”

She was thinking, he suddenly realized, of Jack Coldwater. Of the compromising position in which she’d seen him—
must
have seen him—else she would never have wondered . . .

It had not been his proudest moment. And that recollection served only to further frustrate him, like lamp oil hurled onto a banked fire. He had nothing to prove, damn it.

And yet . . . and yet . . .

If was as if something inside him snapped. With one arm he lifted her, feather-light, from his lap, scooping beneath her knees with the other arm as he dragged her up. She gave a little cry of surprise, her arms lashing round his neck.

She did not want to talk, by God,
he thought, striding from the parlor.

She did not want to take no for an answer.

Even having seen of him all that she had seen, and knowing all that Ruthveyn had likely told her, she was nonetheless bent on this—whatever
this
was going to be, in the end.

And tonight—just for tonight—he was weary of doing the right thing, for restraint had never been his strong suit. So he would give in and ruin her, he thought, going relentlessly up the stairs. He was going to give her—this one night—just what she was asking for, and damn the consequences.

It said something, he supposed, about his standing in this house and in this family that he knew to the very door which bedchamber was hers. He’d always known—but had he not, tonight’s frantic search for Luc would have revealed it—for Anisha’s very essence, her scent, her opulent colors, her tidy habits, all of it had been apparent in the room.

After shoving open the door and kicking it shut again with his heel, Lazonby strode in to deposit her onto the bed. By the light of the lamp turned low upon the night table, he watched her blink up at him, all beauty and innocence.

Then she held open her arms.

He waited long enough to strip off his coat. Hurling it to the floor, he followed her onto the bed, loosening the fall of his trousers as he went. Already his cock was hard as a constable’s tipstaff, the blood thrumming through his loins and his brain in an urgent drumbeat.

“Anisha,” he managed.

She clung to him and he settled against her, rucking up her skirts with his knee. His mouth found hers and he kissed her too roughly, thrusting deep into her mouth. Anisha did not hesitate but kissed him back, arching hard against him as her hands plunged into his hair.

On a groan, her head went back into the softness of the pillow. He thrust deep again, then more rhythmically, telling her plainly his intent. Half hoping, perhaps, she would push him away.

She did not. Instead, her fingers slid from his hair and went a little desperately to her skirts. She inched them up higher and he heard a stitch rip. She curled one leg hard about his waist.

He shifted his weight, settling himself fully between her thighs, his buttons already half undone. “Rance,” she whispered, her eyes closed. “Oh, just . . .
please
.”

He found the silky fabric of her drawers and pressed his fingers deep into the wet softness between her legs.

“
Yes
,” she said. “Now.”

Oh, his body wanted
now
. But his heart wanted slow.

She was Anisha, the beautiful, perfect thing he had desired from afar for so long he thought himself a little maddened by it. Whatever this was between them—this searing, just-once passion—he wanted it to be perfect; wanted to draw out her desire like a fine silk thread spun by the cleverest of hands upon the most delicate of wheels.

When she touched him again, however, easing her fingers between them, Lazonby realized that perfection was not what she asked. Not what she needed. She had been alone a long time, she said.

And he had been alone forever.

She kissed him again, her small nostrils delicately flaring. Her fingertips rubbed the hard ridge of him while her opposite hand threaded through his hair. Slipping loose the last of his buttons, he took himself in hand and pressed deep into her softness. Drawing up her knees, Anisha tilted her hips, crying out as he entered her.

Lazonby suppressed a jubilant sound from somewhere low in his throat and felt her warmth surround him, drawing him deeper. She was like the moon pulling the tide to shore. Unconditionally. Relentlessly.

Lifting himself a little, he rocked back and thrust again. Her breath seized, a soft, primal sound of feminine pleasure. He thrust and thrust again, then set a pace to match her need. Everything moved as if in a dream. He knew, vaguely, that this was a moment to be savored; that the physical act had never felt so exquisitely perfect to him, and never would be again. But the urgent madness was already upon him; an almost feral need to mate, to claim, to thrust.

Anisha’s hair had tumbled down on one side, her beautiful gown tugged askew such that one breast was fully bared. The breath already sawing in and out of him, he took the swollen nipple into his mouth, teased it with his tongue, then bit until she cried out beneath him.

It was as if the sensation pushed her over the edge. She rose to him on an urgent cry, and he shifted his weight, instinctively intent on satisfying her. The sounds of her breath matched his thrusts, soft in the night, spiraling up as he rocked into her. As he drowned in the sensation of her tight, womanly flesh sliding over his.

When she rose to him at last for those perfect, final strokes, it was with a keening sound of pleasure, her nails digging into the silk of his waistcoat, her eyes shut tight as her head rolled back into the pillow. Lazonby went over the edge with her, felt his bollocks contract and his arms shudder with every thrust until he had filled her with the warmth of his seed.

He fell against her, conscious only of her scent and of a satisfaction so deep that for an instant, his mind was free, his life perfect. Lightly, he let his forehead rest on hers. Anisha opened her eyes and he stared into them, unwilling to blink; unwilling to shut her out in even the smallest of ways. They floated thus for a moment, utterly linked, utterly lost in one another. Perhaps they even slept. He was not certain, for it was as if time did not exist.

But life is never perfect for long. He came fully back to himself to the realization that someone was pecking lightly on the door, and that Anisha now lay beside him.

At the sound, she roused. “Go
away,
Janet,” she managed, her eyes still closed. “Just go to bed.
Please
.”

A moment passed, followed by the sound of the footsteps retreating.

An awkward silence flooded in around them. As if to dispel it, Anisha kissed him again. He rolled to one side, his body leaving hers as he went, then pulled her hard against him.

“Will it be all right?” he murmured, stroking the hair back from her forehead.

“Janet?” she said drowsily. “Oh, she minds her own business.”

He winced. “She knows, then.”

She smiled softly. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have knocked.”

He felt uneasy at the thought, but it was too late to fret over it now. It was not, however, too late to make his apology. “Anisha,” he whispered, brushing his lips over her eyebrow, “you . . . madden me, I think. That was not my best.”

Her eyes heavy and somnolent, she looked up at him. “I do hope you are not apologizing?”

On a small laugh, he rolled a little onto his back, taking her with him until she lay splayed over his chest. He kissed her again, then said, “The first time a man makes love to a woman, it should be sweetness and gentleness. Not rough impatience. Not madness.”

“This wasn’t my first time,” she returned.

“
Umm,
” he grunted, savoring the weight of her atop him. “That’s not quite what I meant.”

She rose up on her elbows, her fingers going to his waistcoat, long, loose tendrils of her hair tumbling over one shoulder. “That fire simmering between us, Rance, had to be put out,” she whispered, slipping loose the buttons as she spoke. “The ancient texts—the
Kāmashastra
—teach us a hundred ways to delay gratification, any of which I would be pleased to share with you, should you wish it. But sometimes—sometimes, perhaps, when desire has been
too
long deferred—a conflagration explodes.”

He looked at her a little curiously, but Anisha had shifted into a seated position beside him, her dress badly crushed. Her elegant, jewel-toned sari lay half off the bed, the other half having slithered onto the floor below.

“Don’t leave,” she ordered, rising. “Whatever must happen tomorrow, don’t leave tonight, Rance.
That
is the one thing I could not forgive. Now keep my bed warm whilst I undress.” With that, Anisha snatched up the sari, trailing one end of it over the carpet as she headed toward a second door.

It was then he remembered Janet. “Er, might I be of some help?” he said after her. “With your . . . ah, your corset?”

Anisha turned, her spine elegantly aligned, her breasts still beautifully high amidst the untidy tendrils of tumbled-down hair. “I do not own a corset,” she said simply.

“Oh.”

She smiled faintly. “I find them unhealthful,” she added. “They restrict one’s vital life forces—one’s
prana—
and that hampers
citta—
”

“Ah,” he said. “Which is . . . ?”

Anisha paused to think. “Well, awareness of life,” she said. “Consciousness.”

“So a woman can’t think straight in a tight corset?”

Again came her odd little half-smile. “There are a lot of things a woman can’t do in a tight corset,” she said, pausing just long enough to toe off her dainty slippers before she vanished. He rolled back down into the softness of her bed, staring into the shimmering silk canopy above.

Good Lord.
Anisha didn’t wear a corset.

And they had made love with their shoes on.

The first was a little arousing. The second was simply lowering.