The Seduction (44 page)

"In anger! What the deuce do you care what
my emotions are? Concentrate only on your own needs, as you usually do. Your
flesh is ready enough. This need be nothing to you but another episode, like
all the others. What use is a rake to me, otherwise?"

"I promised not to give you hypocrisy,"
he said, frowning.

"Why? Why think you must do anything more
than pretend? Ι don't want you to! Don't pretend tenderness. Don't pretend
that you care. Just do it. Burn into me, burn into my body!"

Pain flared deep in his eyes. "If you wish
it, you shall have that. You want skill? You can have it. You want
potency?" He glanced down at his erection, then back into her eyes.
"Ι am on fire for you, in spite of your hatred. But ask yourself
first, Juliet, if that's really what you want. Because once we have gone down
that road, we can never go back."

"Good. Ι want it to be too late. Ι
want to be free of you forever."

"You have been hurt," he said, opening
his hands. "This won't free you."

She took the hem of her nightgown in both hands
and wrenched it off over her head, before she threw herself back on the bed.
She felt repulsive, her limbs twisted like tree roots, her breasts horrible.
Perhaps he would spin on his heel and leave, or perhaps he would obey that
imperious sexual demand between his legs, push himself over her and thrust her
thighs apart.

Either way, she would win.

Alden did neither.

"This is not an episode," he said.
"It never was. If only you will let me, Ι will prove it."

He bent to retrieve her nightgown. Before she
could move, he tossed the fabric over her and wrapped her securely in its
capacious folds, pinning her arms to her sides. Panic burst like a thundercloud
as he slipped onto the bed next to her and pulled her against his chest. Juliet
fought, trying to knee him. He trapped her legs with one of his and held her
pinioned.

"Now, hush," he said. "We aren't
enemies, Juliet. I'm on your side. Look at me."

She stared up into his lean face, framed in gold.
Candlelight blazed, adding to the warmth of the summer night. With sure, gentle
fingers, he stroked the hair back from her forehead.

"There," he said. "That's better.
Now fit your head against my shoulder and let me hold you."

"Hold me?"

He grinned, but something else burned intently in
his eyes. "Women like to be held. Every rake knows that."

Alden lay back, fitting her head against his
shoulder, holding it there with one hand, while he rubbed the other over and
over down her back. Juliet drew up her knees like a child, while he pulled her
closer into his embrace. She didn't have the energy to fight. If he wanted to,
he could seal forever into her soul the stain of Bill's assault.

"I have liked being a rake." His voice
feathered away into the bright room. "I have reveled in the way women
soften when Ι glance at them, the way they blush and melt if Ι give
them a certain smile. To bring that look to a woman's eyes whenever Ι
wished - it made me feel Ι could conquer the world. Power is very
addictive, Juliet. But it's the power to win willing surrender, not the power
to coerce that is headier than wine. You don't need to coerce me. Ι am
willing. Ι surrendered to you a long time ago."

He kissed her earlobes and temples, before again
finding her mouth.

The frantic anger still beat at her heart, yet
Juliet heard a moan. Her moan, shivering up from her lungs. His lips touched
tenderly, to the corners of her mouth, to her tongue, to her upper lip only,
then to the lower one. Tears sprang, stinging her eyelids. His lips brushed over
each eyelid in turn, as if he would kiss away her pain.

"You want brightness, Juliet, the body's
brightness - but that's based on pleasure, on the mutual delight of skin to
skin. You are beautiful, rare. Ι am confounded by the depth of my desire,
but your body belongs to you. The power is all yours."

"I am defeated," she said. "I
cannot take charge any longer. Help me, Alden."

His lips pressed gently on her forehead.
"Relax. You are safe with me."

He picked up her plait. Deftly, he untied ribbons
and unraveled her braid. One by one, long strands slipped through his fingers,
drifting over her breasts in a warm, familiar skein of mahogany.

She felt protected, wrapped in a cocoon of her
own hair.

Saying nothing, Alden took her right hand in both
of his. His palms rubbed firmly, from elbow to wrist, his fingers seeking each
knotted muscle, each concentration of ugliness. He massaged steadily, rubbing
away tension and pain with calm certainty.

Juliet lay helpless and let it happen.

Almost as if her bones sighed and relaxed, her
arm seemed to grow longer, like a bud unfurling from a dry, wrinkled seed buried
too long underground. The dicot unfolded, the true leaves sprang strongly from
the stem. She was a spring plant, running green with new sap.

As if reaching for the sun, her forearm grew
straight and strong. Her left arm, in contrast, still felt like a monkey's,
shriveled against her side.

At last he kissed her palm and laid down her
hand, before he took her left forearm in both hands and began to work the same
magic.

His face was almost stern, concentrated and
intent. Light scattered in her eyelashes. He burned in bright threads of
golden flame, a sheer, breathtaking splendor - even his hardened sex,
magnificent and tender in the candlelight.

As if the dawn sang to a sunflower, her arm shed
its warped distortion and turned evenly, fearlessly to his life - giving heat.

He laid her hand down, almost reverently, and
rotated her onto her stomach. Her nightdress slid away. Juliet flopped like a
fish, trailing her tight legs behind her, yet her long, blissful arms seemed to
float.

His hands brushed her shoulders as he gathered
her hair and stroked it aside. A shivering sensation thrilled over her skull,
as if her hair sang.

She pressed her face into the pillow, robbed of
the sight of him, as he began to work down each side of her spine, pressing
with both thumbs, forcing away the demons of disfigurement. Her skin softened
beneath his palms. Her back became limber. Her bottom sprang supple beneath his
fingers. She was becoming expansive and lovely, her back strong, her legs
stretching away to infinity, her feet sighing in bliss.

Each limb stroked, then gently shaken, scattering
all the misshapen ugliness and replacing it with serenity. Every surface caressed,
every muscle cajoled into luminous surrender. When it was complete, when there
was nothing left to unravel, as if every limb had burst into radiant bloom, he
lifted her in his arms to smile down into her dazed eyes.

"You are as lovely as daylight," he
said. "I am honored to touch you."

Juliet put her arms about his waist and burst
into tears.

He held her, stroking her back. His kisses
pressed on the top of her head, on her ears, on her temple. As her tears dried,
she tipped her head and smiled at him. He smiled back.

"Let us make love, Juliet. Not fight. Not
fornicate. Make love. Now, kiss me again."

His mouth found hers as flames of brilliance
burned cleanly through her blood.

His ready body discovered hers a few moments
later, in a plunge of slippery, throbbing sensation. With wild jubilation, she
cried out, a gasp of delight, as if her lungs and throat emptied any last
shreds of corruption. An image of his ecstatic face flooded her mind: his hair
rimmed in gilt, his skin golden. Perhaps Jupiter ravished her in a torrent of
luminous coins. Lord of the gods – witty and clever, sinful and noble - making
love to her with the powerful demon wisdom of a rake, until she felt beautiful,
glorious, and emptied of hatred.

SHE SLEPT, EXHAUSTED, AGAINST HIS CHEST, WHILE
ALDEN LAY and stared at the ceiling.

This need be nothing to you but another episode,
like all the others. What use is a rake to me, otherwise?

He had spent his adult life pursuing nothing but
episodes. The stimulation of the chase. The intensity of its inevitable culmination.
He had never failed to seduce a woman he wanted. Never. One after another,
those safely available women had fallen into his arms and his bed. He had of
course chosen only women who were experienced and dependable: married women,
secure in their miserable but necessary marriages; cynical widows with no
desire to marry again; even professional courtesans, as long as they were
exclusive, sought-after and hard-to-get.

He had thought Juliet a widow, safely attainable.
She had turned out to be trapped in a miserable marriage, which ought to make
her all the more perfect for a brief - or preferably lengthy affair. He had
never achieved quite this level of physical ecstasy before and he was loath to
give that up. Why the devil was it so impossible to foresee a future where she
would live as his mistress?

The candles began to die, one by one. The last
few cast small, dancing shadows over the uneven plaster. The building creaked
as it settled down for the long, cool hours until dawn. Alden pulled the covers
over Juliet and himself, still holding her.

The light flickered. Growing steadily darker, the
room smelled of smoke and wax, overlain with the musk of their lovemaking. The
last candle went out. His arm had gone numb, cradling her, but he did not move
a muscle.

ALDEN WOKE TO Α GLIMMER OF LIGHT. Α FEW
BIRDS twittered outside.

Barely dawn.

As he turned his head his blood surged. Juliet
slept soundly. Her hair gleamed in the pink-tinged half light. Her arm was
cushioned by his; her breasts pressed against his chest. He wanted to kiss her
awake, bring that contented, soft look once again to her eyes. As he reached to
move a strand of chestnut from her cheek, her eyelashes lifted.

"Good morning," he said.

She looked shy, as if she were surprised to find
herself naked, her legs entwined with his. "Ι wondered if Ι
dreamed it," she said.

"So did Ι" He ran a strand of her
tangled hair between thumb and forefinger. "Did it work?"

Α small frown pulled her brows together for
an instant. "Work?"

"Did we chase away the dark memories? Can
you go freely now
into the arms of any man you choose?" He tried to make it light, an
easy banter, the way he would talk to any lover.

"
Yes,
"
she said.
"
Yes. You made me feel
beautiful."

"You
are beautiful."

She sat up, allowing his
hand to settle
on
the curve of her waist,
where the slim back flared into her woman's hips. Had she noticed his erection?

"Perhaps it worked
too well," she said. "
Ι
don't want us to do it
again."

Astonishment robbed him
of breath, until he remembered how easily he could make her change her mind.

"Why not?"

She sat
in
silence for a moment, as if debating with herself. He
traced up her spine with his palm.

"Very well,"
she said, twisting to face him, covering her naked breasts with her arms.
"
Ι
have nothing to lose
from the truth. If we do it again, you will make me fall
in
love with you."

"
And that would be a mistake?"

Juliet bent to retrieve
her nightgown from the floor. His hand slipped away from her waist.

"
You're not a man with whom it's wise to fall
in
love. You break hearts. You always move on." Her
back was lovely, fluid and slender. Female. She pulled the nightdress over her
head, hiding her glorious breasts, her lovely woman's belly. "Why have you
never married?"

His retreat from the
question was automatic - from this sudden invasion into his privacy, into
something that was none of her business

"Nature calls,"
he said. He didn't mean it to sound so sharp, but his disappointment that they
wouldn't immediately make love again was bitter. "May
Ι
answer her queries first?"

He slipped from the bed
and grabbed his dressing gown, before he went into his own room to use the
chamber pot. He had to allow his arousal to die away first. Alden watched
himself, slightly bemused. Did women understand such simple, primal facts about
men: that the average male usually woke from sleep
instantly aroused, ready to tumble the nearest wench foolish enough to be that
close?

The physical impulse to
make love to her again dominated his thinking. He desired her with an almost
painful ferocity. Why must she demand more of him than he wanted to give? He
had seduced scores of women. He had never lied to them, but neither had any of
them truly become friends, privy to his secrets, aware of his inner life.