The Kiss (20 page)

God, what was happening?

This was
Georgiana,
for Christ's sake.

He knew it with crystal clarity. And he was enraptured.

After tasting and touching every soft inch of her, he was overwhelmed by the desire to possess her fully. His mind was as coldly aware as his body was drunk with a primitive desire to mark her as his own. And now she was crooning encouragement for him to enter her and possess her fully.

He couldn't have torn himself away from her at this point even if his conscience had demanded it. All of his bodily desires would have bound and gagged his scruples, without question.

Her skin was so soft. He hadn't guessed it. Even in the pitch of night he could see she was very bronzed from the sun and her body was supple and strong. And yet touching her arms, her breasts, and the flesh between her thighs, he had felt sleek femininity and downy softness. The taste of her flesh and the scent emanating from her skin was as intoxicating and fragile as a wild rose after a spring shower—equal parts sweetness, rain, and earth. He couldn't get enough of it.

As his painfully intense arousal demanded knowledge of her, he prayed he had at least proved to her that her scars did not make her ugly to him. Just the reverse. God, she was so womanly, and yes,
beautiful,
and he wept for the agony she had endured. He cursed himself inwardly for never having fully seen her magnificent splendor until tonight.

She was Venus's muse. Her scars, if anything, added to her allure. They were harsh proof of a bravery few women, few people, possessed.

He caressed her for long moments, ignoring the raw desire coursing in his veins as best he could. It was nearly impossible to hold off.

The sweet plea and the sound of his name on her lips drove away the last of his reservations. He settled his weight fully between her slender thighs, pressing her deeply into the moss carpet.

His last thought before he plunged his entire length into the depths of her tender body was that he could at least be grateful she wasn't an innocent.

The whisper of her shocked intake of breath pierced his conscious at the same fraction of a moment as he registered a barrier callously breached. He stopped, dropping his head forward until his hair brushed the tops of her beautiful breasts.

My God.

It was impossible. Perhaps he had imagined it. Perhaps she was just nervous and her body had clenched against his, protesting against the invasion.

The rationalizations stopped. He had never been any good at rationalizing. Every fiber of his being revolted against it.

His body strained against his mind. He needed to move, but he refused to move a muscle for fear of hurting her further. A fine sheen of perspiration escaped his skin. She was impossibly tight and his body reacted by lengthening and pulsing dangerously.

"Georgiana, I've hurt you," he said his voice almost gone from strain. "Don't move. We should stop."

"No,"—her voice thin—
"please."

His body won the war over his mind and he gripped her tightly to him, thrusting involuntarily into her exquisitely taut well, trying valiantly to control the tide of passion.

Oh God. His usual cast-iron control was slipping. It had just been too long and her pulsing internal caress was irresistible. She made a small movement that only served to wedge him more deeply inside her, if that were possible. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple.

"Don't move," he gritted out. "Georgiana, please."

"I'm so sorry . . ." Her voice was unnaturally high-pitched. She tried to rise up and his control broke like a dam before a flood-swollen body of water.

He involuntarily rooted himself deeper still and held at the edge, teetering on rapture. He felt her had clenched against his, protesting against the invasion.

The rationalizations stopped. He had never been any good at rationalizing. Every fiber of his being revolted against it.

His body strained against his mind. He needed to move, but he refused to move a muscle for fear of hurting her further. A fine sheen of perspiration escaped his skin. She was impossibly tight and his body reacted by lengthening and pulsing dangerously.

"Georgiana, I've hurt you," he said his voice almost gone from strain. "Don't move. We should stop."

"No,"—her voice thin—
"please."

His body won the war over his mind and he gripped her tightly to him, thrusting involuntarily into her exquisitely taut well, trying valiantly to control the tide of passion.

Oh God. His usual cast-iron control was slipping. It had just been too long and her pulsing internal caress was irresistible. She made a small movement that only served to wedge him more deeply inside her, if that were possible. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple.

"Don't move," he gritted out. "Georgiana, please."

"I'm so sorry . . ." Her voice was unnaturally high-pitched. She tried to rise up and his control broke like a dam before a flood-swollen body of water.

He involuntarily rooted himself deeper still and held at the edge, teetering on rapture. He felt her trembling hand stroke the fine hairs at the base of his spine and he couldn't stop the heavy rolling of his body, instinctively plunging forward like the unstoppable incoming tide.

Her sighs lured him deeper into her heat and she widened her knees to accept more of him.

He groaned. He'd never experienced a woman so intimately or exquisitely, and holding back was killing him.

When he finally heard her keening cry of pleasure, he let himself go, pumping fiercely into her. He stretched his muscles to the limit, and his seed exploded into her body in endless pulses.

A feeling of peaceful lethargy enveloped him. Yet, the corporal sensation was fleeting as he absorbed the fact that they now had complete and irreversible knowledge of each other.

Undeniably, she had been a virgin.

Oddly, for one of the very few times in his life, he didn't question for a moment her honesty. He wasn't sure what had happened on her wedding night with Anthony, but it most certainly had not been this.

He'd been the first to take her—widow or not— and that made all the difference in his turbulent mind. He must do his duty by her. For some reason his mind didn't rebel against the notion. It wouldn't be a burden. Not in the least.

She was his dearest and most beautiful friend.
His Georgiana.

A cascade of emotions tumbled through her— the intense pleasure—pain of possession, the joy of holding him to her breast, his loving response when faced with her great deformities, the unforgettable bond they shared. She had never felt so close to anyone in her life—or so supremely happy. It freed her from the grip of earthly worries. Quinn had given this immense gift to her.

Joy radiated around her and she gloried in the weight of his body, which soon relaxed in slumber on top of hers. He had tried to move off of her but she had not let him. Instead she had pressed his head against her shoulder and gently twined her fingers in his dark hair while she listened to his breathing grow slower and deeper. He had been fast asleep for many minutes.

"I love . . ." She swallowed awkwardly. "I love you," she said on a quiet exhale.

His breathing changed and she fought a feeling of panic. He had been asleep—she was certain.

Suddenly he lifted and turned his head, resting it near her ear. "Oh my dear," he said quietly. He gently brushed her hair from her face. "My dearest Georgiana."

She held her breath and prayed with all her heart that he would tell her what she most longed to hear.

The silence that followed nearly killed her. He uttered not another word—no murmurings of love, no mention of sweet affection. The air was filled with the unrelenting whir of crickets and an odd string of calls from a night-loving mockingbird, which seemed to take pleasure in laughing at her in its scornful fashion.

She swallowed hard against the lump growing in the back of her throat. She would not cry. She wouldn't.

With each swallow, her heart shriveled inside its shell a little more and it took every ounce of self-will not to curl from under him and run away so she could feel sorry for herself in private.

God, how could he explain himself to her? He had no heart to give. Not to her, not to anyone. If he did have a vessel within him at all, that withered organ perhaps was best known to his daughter. Even with Fairleigh he tried to tell himself he was not overly attached. Everyone knew the grim reaper claimed a fair portion of children via illness more than anything else. Hadn't his brother and sister and his own parents all died within a week of one another when he was but eleven?

Lying there in the darkness, surrounded by the whispers from the sea and the rustle of leaves, a memory washed over him—something so deeply buried he wasn't even certain it was true. It was the voice of Molly, his parents' maid of all work, exhausted from caring for the family, now all dead save he. On the other side of his chamber door, Molly was weeping and moaning her worries to the vicar.

"Perhaps 'tis for the best, sir. Master Tom was the favorite of 'is mum, and Miss Agatha of 'er pa. It fair near broke Mr. Fortesque and his lady when those two little angels died. I swear 'twas heartbreak that killed them—simple heartache. God have mercy on poor little Quinn—his Ma and Pa didn't have enough love left over to try and live on for him."

Quinn's heart pounded in his chest. The vicar had told Molly she was speaking nonsense and had tried to comfort the weeping woman.

But Quinn knew Molly had been right. Oh, his parents had showered affection on him, but never as freely as his father did for his sister or his pretty mother had done for his older brother. Well, at least he had been the second favorite of each parent.

He had always been alone in the world—as a child, as a young husband, and now as a man. Just as much as he would be when he departed it. He was only glad he had stopped long ago his damned eternal search for something that didn't exist in this temporal plane—permanence and ... love.

A perfect love.
It was simply an illusion—a silly notion found in Banbury tales. Yet he didn't have the heart to disabuse Georgiana of her thinking.

"Quinn . . ." Her voice, devoid of emotion, woke him from his reverie. "I'm sorry, but I think I should get up."

"Oh my dear, I'm completely squashing you. I'm so, so sorry." He clenched his eyes closed, refusing to look in her face as he withdrew that part of himself that was still hard due to his long celibacy. He rolled off of her and immediately tried to gather her in his arms but wasn't fast enough. She had sat up and quickly grasped her shift to cover herself.

"Don't get up, Georgiana," he said quietly. "Don't go yet. Please." He grasped her free hand and held it tightly. "I'm sorry I hurt you. You must be very sore. I would ... Well, I would have been more careful, more gentle, if I had known you were untouched."

"I wasn't," she said firmly. "And I'm fine. I told you Anthony died in my arms. He did much the same as you did, but perhaps, I realize now, we did not fully complete what we started. I suppose I never was in truth his marchioness. But then, I kept telling everyone I didn't want the title. Now you can take comfort that you owe me absolutely nothing. Oh, this is completely mortifying. Do we have to—"

"No. We'll never speak of it again. You will ever and always be a Marchioness of Ellesmere. Everything else is irrelevant."

She was about to argue, but he placed a finger to her lips to stop her, and then dropped it to grasp her chilled fingers.

"No—there'll be no argument on that point. Georgiana, I won't trifle with your tender sensibilities tonight. Especially after you've given me such a gift. You need rest. In fact, I'm grieving about the idea of the harvest festival starting at first light. We shall find a way to excuse you if—"

"No," she interrupted, rising quietly to redress, forcing him to do the same. "I told you I'm perfectly fine."

A nervous sensation seized his mind. "I know I just said I wouldn't trifle with your feelings now, but Georgiana, I find I cannot wait until tomorrow. I don't want this left unsaid." He stopped her as she edged nearer to the exit of their old secret spot. "What I am trying to say, quite inelegantly, is that I am begging you to honor me with your hand in marriage, my dear."

"What?"

He got down on his knee and grasped again her hand, and would not let her retrieve it. He felt irrationally calm. "Will you make me the happiest of men by marrying me?"

She slowly removed her hand from his and said not a word for many long moments. Even the crickets seemed to halt their night song.

"You do me a great honor," she whispered. "But I'm sorry, I cannot. While I have the greatest affection for you and hold you in the highest regard, there are two reasons I can never marry you," she said very evenly. "I should've told you I decided after Anthony died that I would never remarry. You see, I cared very deeply for him."

A feeling of dread and repressed anger coursed through him at the mention of his cousin's name. "That would be understood. Ours would be a marriage of convenience."

"No. I'm sorry but I prefer to honor his memory always.
He loved me."
She paused. "He was
first
in my heart and I shall always be loyal to him. It would not be right even if it was convenient."

First in her heart. Anthony was first.

A cold blast rushed through him and he became lightheaded. Her words weren't surprising. He had always known Anthony was more important to her than
he
had ever been. He shook his head several times as if to clear the dizziness. He rose slowly. "Perhaps you've forgotten our actions might have consequences. I'm sorry if it causes you more pain but I can't allow you to face the censure of the world, and what's more, a child needs a father. We made an unspoken promise to bind ourselves to each other before the church when we lay together." He crushed her fingers within his own. "And I will never, let me repeat, never live apart from a child of mine. Or worse, allow another man to raise my child—even your own father."