Wallflower (Old Maids' Club, Book 1) (33 page)

“
You’re perfect to me.”
His eyes were still pinched closed. He couldn’t even bring himself
to look at her as he spread his falsehoods. “You’re perfect
for
me in every
way.”

Tabitha turned away. “I’ll believe
that when you can say it while looking me in the eye. When you can
look at my body and all its imperfections, and then say it straight
to my face.” James had never been able to look at her, either; he
had always extinguished the candles before he would touch
her.

“
Look at me,” Noah
commanded softly.

But she couldn’t. She didn’t want to
see the disgust in his eyes while he tried to appease her. It might
break her to the point she could never put herself back
together.

She felt him come up behind her before
she heard him. “Tabitha,” he pleaded.

His warm breath fanned over her ear
and neck, sending tiny tingles of awareness coursing over her body,
though he didn’t touch her anywhere. Even now, when she was more
certain of her repulsiveness to him than she’d ever been before,
her body betrayed her with a disloyalty so rapid her neck might
snap. She couldn’t stay there with him. Not when he couldn’t bear
to touch her. Not when he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
Tabitha started back toward the meadow without looking back, as
fast as she could go in her gown and slippers without tumbling to
the ground.

“
Wait.” Noah caught her in
a few long strides, grabbing her arm and holding her firmly in
place. She tried to pull herself free, but his grip was
unrelenting. “I’m not going to let you run away from me, Tabitha.
You can’t always run away from the things you don’t want to face.
It won’t solve anything.”

The velvet heat of a tear landed on
the bodice of her gown. Blast, she didn’t want to cry. Not now. She
desperately brushed the growing flood of tears away with her free
hand.

Noah placed both his hands on her
upper arms and forced her to face his direction, but she refused to
look up at him. “Christ, how am I supposed to do what you asked if
you won’t even look at me?”

Fine. If he could live with himself
for lying straight to her face, if he could look her in the eye and
tell her bald untruths while fighting off the revulsion he surely
must feel, then she could force herself to watch as he did so. It
would be far from the first time she’d seen such an expression in a
man’s face, and she doubted it would be the last. Tabitha slowly
lifted her gaze to meet his.

Noah released her arms and used the
pads of his thumbs to skim over the dampness covering her cheeks.
“You are so beautiful to me, Tabitha.” His tone and eyes were
sincere, not filled with disgust. He leaned down to kiss first one
of her eyes and then the other, before trailing feather-light
kisses over her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, across her
cheekbones, and along the line of her jaw. Then he returned to
stare ardently into her eyes.

“
I don’t know why other
men have failed to see you the way I do—why they neglect to see
your beauty and intelligence, why they refuse to acknowledge your
wit and charm. But they are the ones who must live with the loss.
My only disappointment where that is concerned is how their actions
have evidently hurt you.” With a scorching kiss, his tongue met
hers in a fevered dance. “I love you, Tabitha. I don’t know how
else to tell you—what else I can do to make you believe
me.”

Tabitha wanted to believe him. Deep in
her chest, tiny little cracks were forming along the surface of her
heart; it would shatter into a thousand pieces if she allowed
herself to trust him and then his words proved false.

“
But you don’t,” he said
after long minutes of silence elapsed between them.

The first of the evening’s display of
fireworks exploded overhead, lighting the night sky with a burst of
color that seemed to rain down over their heads. “We should go
back,” Tabitha said. They should have returned already. Jo and Lord
Leith would find their absence conspicuous, even if no one else
did.

She turned and started to leave again,
but his arms came around her and he pulled her tight to his chest.
His arousal pressed into her bottom, hot and hard and
pulsing.

“
Stay with me,” he
murmured into her ear. “Let me show you. If you can’t believe my
words, let me show you.” His lips met the sensitive skin on neck,
just at her nape, and a frisson of electricity surged to her
stomach, matching the display bursting overhead in a torrent of
fiery hues flooding the sky.

Everything inside her begged to do
just what he asked, but she couldn’t help but think it would be a
mistake. “I thought you wanted to do this properly—to wait until
we’re married.”

A rumble sounded in his chest. “I do.
But more than that, I want you to believe you are as beautiful, as
ravishing, as enticing as I find you.” The palms of his hands
flattened over her stomach, pressing her backside to more fully
nestle into his hips. Then he slid his hands along the torturous
path up her torso, settling over her breasts to knead against her
already distended and sensitive nubs. “I thought you wanted this. I
thought you wanted me to look at you and tell you how perfect you
are for me. Let me.”

Tabitha’s traitorous body melted a
little more at his every touch. When one hand left her breast and
moved to the top of her thigh, she nearly lost her ability to
stand. His tongue flicked against a spot just behind her ear, just
where the heat always gathered when she blushed. That proved to be
her undoing. “Damn you,” she breathed, spinning around in his arms
and pulling his head down to meet her in a kiss.

Noah struggled to remove his coat, and
she tugged at the sleeves to help him out of it. When he finally
had it free of his arms, he spread it out over a patch of freesias,
then set to work unclothing her. “Damn me, indeed.”

In a flurry of kisses and heated
touches beneath the flares and bursts painting the midnight sky, he
undid the series of buttons holding her gown in place while she
fumbled with the flap of his breeches, pulling desperately at his
shirt to loosen it from the waist of his pants. He finished his
task before she had done more than remove the neck cloth and pull
his shirtwaist free, and in a single motion, he pulled her dress
and shift from her body, leaving her in only her stays, drawers,
and stockings.

Another flash lit up the sky,
illuminating her to his gaze. She covered herself, an instinctual
move, before she could think better of it, but Noah pulled her arms
aside. “I need to see you, Tabitha. All of you.”

An intensity filled his eyes and he
kissed her again, his tongue mating with hers in a slow, sensuous
dance. Shaking hands lowered her to his coat. Noah lay beside her,
propped up on one arm and undoing the laces of her stays and
drawers with experienced ease.

When he had them both free from her
body, another flash of color split open the night sky as his eyes
traveled the length of her, taking in all of the crevices and
valleys she so detested. But he contemplated her with hunger, not
the repugnance she had expected.

He used a light touch to caress her
with his fingertips, devouring everything he touched with his eyes.
She watched his path, too, growing more aroused by the moment. As
he fondled her breasts, Tabitha’s breaths grew uneven. In
painstaking fashion, he lowered his lips to her taut nipple and
suckled. An inundation of wet heat collected between her legs,
increasing with each flick of his tongue and scrape of his teeth
over her sensitive flesh.

“
So sweet,” he
murmured.

Noah raised his head and resumed his
gentle, torturous path down her body, watching her reaction as he
went. The tips of his fingers danced across her stomach, circling
her navel. Spasms formed in the muscles beneath his tender
onslaught. When he licked her navel, Tabitha’s entire body nearly
came up off the ground.

This was all nice and lovely and good,
but she needed him to get on with it. She would go mad with need if
he didn’t come to her soon. “Stop teasing me.” She grabbed a
handful of his hair and urged him up to kiss her again at the same
time as another firework exploded overhead.

Noah would not be moved. He playfully
swatted her hand away and moved himself lower. “I’ve only just
begun.” This time when he repositioned his hand, he settled it at
the back of her knee, tantalizing the tender flesh there with
spiraling movements, gliding leisurely upward along the inside of
her thigh. A little further and she gasped. Another few inches and
she trembled.

When he stopped just a hair’s breadth
away from touching her most intimate spot, Tabitha threw back her
head and nearly whimpered in need. “Touch me. I need you to touch
me.”

“
All in good time,
love.”

A light pressure from his hand
impelled her to open her knees. Then his fingers twined in her
curls and nudged the folds of her sex, urging them apart as he had
done with her knees. He traced her center, twirling a finger around
her entrance and driving her to the brink of madness.

All at once, he slipped his fingers
inside and took the center of her need into his mouth. “Oh, God.”
Tabitha had never experienced anything like it. James Marshall
would have never done anything like this to her. It felt sinful and
incredibly erotic.

Noah stroked her in the familiar
rhythm of mating while alternately drawing her core into his mouth
and blowing a cool breeze over her until she was writhing beneath
his ministrations. She reached out with her hands to grab onto
something, anything, everything she could. One hand found his hair,
the other his shirt, and she pulled. The lawn fabric of his shirt
tore at the same moment as a moan ripped from her lungs.

Wave after wave of sensation crashed
over her body. She was drowning in sensuality, dissolving in a
gratifying agony she wanted never to end. When she thought she
couldn’t take any more, another, stronger surge collided with her,
and she exploded like the sparkling bursts of color in the heavens,
fading back down to earth in bits and pieces.

She lay there attempting to reassemble
her mind, she knew not how long. Time couldn’t very well exist
while she was fractured into millions of fizzling
fragments.

Noah left her for a few
moments and removed the remnants of his attire. And then he was
above her, kneeling between her legs and leaning down to kiss her
mouth. Naked. Beautiful. Perfect.
Hers
.

Tabitha ran her hands over the muscled
planes of his chest and arms, exploring every aspect of this man
who would be her husband. With her fingers, she followed the trail
of hair from his navel down to his straining erection. It was hard
and hot in her grasp, and she squeezed lightly.

“
I can’t wait any longer,”
Noah ground out.

“
Nor can I.” Tabitha kept
her eyes locked with his as she guided him beneath curls and
inside. The initial contact between his sex and hers nearly
unraveled her again from the heat. His jaw clenched and his arms
shook as he held himself above her, never claiming control,
allowing her to direct their coupling. The effort to hold back soon
produced a sheen of perspiration over his brow.

He eased his hips forward until he was
fully embedded within her, joined to her, and then stayed like that
until she had adjusted to his size. She felt full. Stretched.
Loved. Tabitha wanted more. She shifted her hips and reveled in the
sensation.

Biting his lip, Noah released a
distorted groan. She took his head in her hands, fisting them into
his hair, and pulled him down for a kiss. With her tongue, she
pursued a salty path over his neck and chest, at last arriving at
one of his nipples. Tabitha took it between her teeth and grazed it
as she ground her hips upward to meet him. His sharp, indrawn
breath sounded beside her lobe. Finally, he moved within her,
easing into an unhurried, measured cadence of lovemaking she had
never known before. His strokes were smooth and restrained.
Deliberate. Friction came in a gradual build, ever-increasing,
climbing to higher and higher peaks.

Using his hands, he stroked her
passion to a silky, violent blaze, first teasing her breasts, then
dancing a lazy, circuitous path to the crux of her curls where he
tantalized her. Small sounds came from her, rising in pitch and
unrecognizable to her own ears. Again, he reached between their
bodies and his thumb brushed her over the edge, her cries muffled
against his mouth as he kissed her through the torrent of
release.

Tabitha stroked her hands over his
back, his buttocks, the tops of his thighs. She wanted to touch him
everywhere. She wanted to do for him as he had done for her. The
thrusting of his hips increased, as did her hunger for more.
Somehow, he drove deeper than before as his pace became near
frantic. With one final, firm plunge, he spilled inside her,
filling her with his heat and calling out into the
night.

For long moments Noah lay collapsed
atop her, still buried deep inside her as they both fought for air.
His weight pinned her to the ground, but Tabitha didn’t mind. She
didn’t want the moment to end. For as long as it could last, she
wanted to stay connected to him in this precise manner. They
belonged together.