The Pursuit of Pleasure (14 page)

“I go out to entertainments very rarely, although I do like the occasional musical performance. But unless it is really superior, and the audience comes to actually listen rather than gossip, I much prefer to amuse myself with solitary pursuits.”

“And why is that?”

She shrugged away any further explanation.

“Lizzie, come back to me. Come back and tell me what you do, and what interests you. I know,” he teased, “you’ve become a follower of Hannah Moore. You’re a hidden religious evangelical, and you spend all your time reading improving tracts.”

“Heavens no.” She sauntered back towards him, her good humor improving with his lighthearted teasing. “There is nothing so annoying as moralizing. I can’t abide an upright character.”

He laughed out loud. If only she knew the full truth. Well, she would in time. He had no illusions on that account.

He shot out a hand to tumble her down into his chest so he could nuzzle the soft, scented, side of her neck. Her head slouched over to give him greater access. So sweet, so soft.

“I’m very glad to hear it, Lizzie. Let me see if I can assist in returning you to the horizontal.”

C
HAPTER 8

H
e concentrated all of his energy, all of his senses, on the taste and feel and smell of her. On the soft, warm, exquisite slide of her skin along her jaw. On the springy orange curls of hair falling over her shoulders. On the drugging scent rising off her body and on the velvet warmth of her mouth. On Lizzie.

He kissed her, letting her set the pace and have her way with his mouth, while he explored the unmapped horizon of her body. He ran his hands over her pearly curves. Over the delicate knobs of bones at the top of her shoulders and down her arms, his thumbs sliding down the soft, vulnerable skin of her inner arm.

She wasn’t idle either. Her hands were touches of curiosity, skimming lightly across his sensitized flesh, until she was stroking his chest and kneading into the muscles of his upper arms and back. Her hands were everywhere, sliding across his shoulders easily, but the force of her touch swept across his body and under his skin, and slammed into him like a gale. The simple contact of her skin against his left him drenched.

His eyes slid shut and he wondered if it would always be like his. If her touch would always bring this overwhelming longing.

The answer clawed at his gut.

Yes. Always.

She was like a wild otter, all smooth, sleek, limber muscle and fierce interest. God, she was exquisite. This was why he had talked his way into this marriage—this crashing wave of need and desperate possessiveness.

This woman.

His Lizzie. His.

“Lizzie.” His voice held need and wonder, and it was indeed a wonder that he was there with her, and they were finally alone together, that she was finally letting him, wanting him to, make love to her. His hands stroked up, softly brushing the underside of her breasts. She sighed in pleasure and the sound almost broke his restraint. Almost.

He turned her slightly and pulled her back in against his chest, nestled snugly against him. She was easier to persuade when she was in his arms. And persuaded she must be.

“I don’t like the idea of you staying out here alone after I’m gone, Lizzie.” He kissed the soft, downy spot on the nape of her neck, his voice low and humming into her ear. “Why don’t we go into town in the morning and call on my man of business, Mr. Harris, and see if we can find you a house you’d like. You’ll be much happier there.”

“You’ll be much happier if I’m there.”

“I own I will. You know now how I feel about this. Promise me you’ll go back into town. Promise me.”

A long moment passed while his words sunk in, then Lizzie tried to wriggle away. She didn’t want to talk about his leaving, nor examine her own bittersweet feelings on the subject. To have the one thing she had for so long desperately wanted—her independence—she had to lose Jamie.

Whom she also wanted with a different kind of desperation altogether.

She hated to lie, but she could not give him what he wanted. Of all the things he could ask her, it was the one thing she was not prepared to do for him. All the things she wanted for herself, freedom, independence, and purpose, were here at Glass Cottage. Why should she leave?

But she didn’t want to argue. She’d had more than enough of that for one day. She didn’t want to break the fragile truce between them. So she said nothing and waited for the moment to pass. Perhaps if she kissed him, he’d become distracted.

He wasn’t. Tenacious man.

“Lizzie, promise me.”

“The house is fine, Jamie, it just needs some repair and how else—”

“No, this is not about the house. This concerns you. You can’t be out here alone. It’s not safe.”

Why was he so insistent? Why didn’t he see she’d been taking care of herself for years? It was charmingly male of him, but quite ridiculous. “Jamie—”

He cut her off by tipping her face up to his, holding her still before him with those luminous, all-seeing eyes.

“You promised to love, honor, and obey, Lizzie. You took an oath and you always, always keep your word.” His eyes pored over her, into her, holding her to the truth.

There was nothing for it. He was not going to let her be. So, for once in her life she would attempt to do the graceful thing. She would try to accommodate her husband in this request. God knew when, or even if, she’d have another chance.

“I’ll go into town.”

His chest slowly expanded with a long, deep breath. “Thank you. Thank you.” He drew her back against him. “I can leave with some semblance of peace.”

Good Lord, so heartfelt. Her heart twisted painfully as if someone were wringing it dry. Next she’d be blubbering into her fichu. She couldn’t have that. “Peace, when you are going back to war?”

Jamie smiled a little at her arch tone, the ends of his mouth tipping up briefly, but his eyes had gone dark, and very serious, as they had been the first time he’d told her he was likely to die on this voyage. Trying to resign himself. But the pain he tried to hide made her ache.

“When must you go?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“On the morrow.”

She tried to quash the little sound of distress that winged its way out of her throat, but she’d given herself away, for he turned her in his arms and gathered her close against his chest. His lovely broad chest that smelled of spices.

“Hush, Lizzie. I didn’t think I’d say this, but I very much regret I must leave you. I wanted you to know that.” He passed a light hand along the line of her jaw. “I wish …”

He didn’t finish the thought.

Lizzie all but willed the words into his mouth, and waited. Waited for him to tell her what she longed to hear, so she could speak herself. She felt like a door inside her was being cracked open, spilling light into her from the other side.

This was what it was to love. To feel the light inside. To want to share that light with Jamie.

She should tell him. He was too important for her to let pride come between them.

“What do you wish?” she prompted. She hoped her voice didn’t sound as wobbly and off balance as she felt.

“It’s strange, but I almost wish I didn’t have to leave. I’ve never
not
wanted to go. Before. But we’ve just come to know one another again. It seems such a … shame to have to leave. But I have a sworn duty and I must go.”

“Gotten to know one another” seemed a strange euphemism when they were half undressed and lying in each other’s arms. But it was true. They had had only four days to canvass the immense changes ten years had wrought. He was an officer now, a gentleman. A man who had become devoted to his profession, to his duty. Of course he should be anxious to go back to the sea.

Wasn’t she just as anxious for his departure as well? Her entire reason for entering into the marriage had hinged and depended upon his absence: she could not be independent if he did not leave.

She stopped her mind at this point, purposefully, willfully ignoring the second half of the original proposition—his death. The idea was abhorrent.

She swallowed down the stupid sob brewing in the back of her throat and turned her face against his shoulder, folding herself into his warmth and strength. How could anyone this strong, this vital, be about to die? It was impossible. Unthinkable.

All she had to do was whisper his name and he was there, his mouth warm and firm. And she would be firm. She would be strong. She would not tremble. So she took his lip carefully between her teeth and worried at it for a long, sweet moment before she bit down. Lightly, so as not to draw blood, but enough so he should know. She wanted him.

It was trite and predictable and oh, so very missish to want to feel his arms around her. But so it was. Confronted with death, she would cling to life. To love. She would love him.

He felt it, too, the compulsion to love. His hand closed around the back of her neck, strong and compelling, full of his will, his need. Jamie pulled her close, holding her still against him. He framed her face carefully and kissed her tenderly. He tasted bittersweet, full of regret.

A helpless little sound fluttered out of her throat, but this kiss felt different. As if he wanted very much to get it just right. As if somehow, it mattered. She mattered.

And then he did the most astonishing thing.

He raised his head and held himself perfectly still, and looked at her. Searching her face, looking for something. Heopened his eyes, those beautiful, endless seas of gray, and saw her. He saw her. He looked at her and she knew, as his eyes probed and pressed open the doors to her soul, that he loved her. And she loved him.

Loved him strangely, madly, in spite of herself. Perhaps she always had loved him, right from the first, from that day when she had come across the tall, shy boy fishing in her secret part of the river, the place that had been hers and hers alone. In that moment he had become hers and hers alone as well.

How strange she should think of that sun-dappled bank at this moment, with him poised above her. How strange the simple act of showing her that he saw her should make her love him.

Heat began to prickle behind her eyes. She screwed them shut tight.

In that moment she knew she did not want to be touched gently or with tenderness. It would undo her. The fabric of her heart would unravel, all frayed edges and loose, broken strands of yarn. She needed him fierce and living, laughing and snarling into the face of fate.

She pressed hard into his mouth, sucking and biting as he opened for her, letting her have her way, letting her take as much of him as she wanted. He understood her fierceness, or if he didn’t, at least he acted as she wanted, drawing her hard against the length of his body. His large palm moved into the small of her back before lowering to grasp her buttocks. He pulled her tight against him and she could feel his body through the layers of skirt and fabric, feel the length of him jut against her belly.

And she wanted him there. Now, inside her. Easing the ache that welled up from her very soul. But the clothes. They had to go.

She let go of his neck to tear off the scarf at her waist and fling it to the ground. It was an encumbrance, as was the voluminous column of muslin that made up the gown. It had to go. All of it—everything.

Again he seemed to understand without being told. His hands were at the ribbons of her neckline, and then on the close of his breeches. And then she was back at him, her hands burrowing through his thick hair, as she grappled his mouth to hers, each kiss full of promise and desperate surrender.

His hands came up to grasp her face and angle it more to his liking. She obeyed willingly, turning towards his mouth so he could fill her. She was so empty. A vastness had grown within her, an aching void only he could fill.

She launched herself at him, into him, with enough force he lost his footing in the fold of the blanket and went down, taking her with him.

Crockery and glass clinked and rattled as Jamie pushed them away. Just as well. He had turned her against his chest so he took the brunt of the fall and now she was on top of him, straddling his belly.

Yes, this was what she wanted. This contact, skin against skin. Sensation building upon sensation. She ran her hands up and across his bare chest. She loved the look and feel of him, the lean whipcord strength, and hated that his beautiful chest was marred by the shiny dots of scar tissue. Evidence of his mortality.

Her fingers skated across his surface, across the arc of warm muscled topography, across his hills and plains, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to be pressed hard against him, to consume him. To be in him.

Such a strange, almost masculine thought. Perhaps this was what it felt like to be him. To want and need to be in her.

And the emptiness was a dull ache where he was not in her. She groaned from it, a sound of pain and frustration.

He heard her, and somehow he understood. He rolled her over onto her back. His hands and body pressed her down intothe hard floor. She welcomed his weight, his force upon her. She could feel him all along the length of her upper side, warm and smooth, just as she felt the solidity of the floor at her back. She wanted to feel it all.

She wanted to be naked beneath him. She wanted him naked as well, pressing into her, making her
feel,
so she wouldn’t have to think.

It was in him, too, these feelings. He kissed her hard. It was rough, almost harsh, his possession. And she liked it. She wanted more of it. More of his possession of her body.

And then he moved away. He came up off her, breathing hard. The comfort of his weight was gone and she was bereft, adrift without him anchoring her to the earth. She sat up, to reach for him, to bring him back. But he was reaching for her shift. She peeled it off, over her head as he had done, and let him take it, to lay beneath her.

She was impatient with his care. She had no need of such comfort. It did not matter, so long as she could feel. The press of the hard floor, the press of the fabric—it made no difference.