After the Kiss (16 page)

“Touch me,” he said. “With both hands.”

Fire traveled through her, made her skin feel tight.
Her nipples contracted, her body felt as if it would burst into flame.

“Not yet,” she said. “Perhaps later. Think orange,” she said. She bent over, blew a warm breath on him, watched as his erection responded by seeming to grow larger, to reach for her lips. His hips arched as if he wished her to swallow him.

“Orange. Red. Blue. Green,” he rasped. “What else?”

“Patience,” she said, smiling.

She stroked him softly with fingers that were growing more adept at the task. With each of his harsh breaths, Margaret felt more skilled, more competent.

“A magnificent instrument of pleasure,” she murmured. “That is what one of the women in the
Journals
said.”

Montraine muttered something, a curse, a moan she wasn’t sure which.

The modiste had brought a selection of ribbons and laces. Margaret walked to the case, and withdrew a long blue ribbon, returned to his side. She knelt in front of him on the floor.

He stood above her, aroused and heavy, his flesh hot. She reached out and slid one trembling finger up the length of his erection. “Why do clerics say that Eve tempted Adam?” she asked. “Adam was the one with more allure.”

“The true meaning of the serpent?” he asked, his voice tight.

Her smile broadened.

“Perhaps Eve seduced him with words,” he said. “And colors,” he said.

He bent and pulled her up by both arms. Her head tilted back. Their kiss was a melding of open mouths, entwined tongues and heat.

“No,” he said harshly, a moment later. “It was Eve.”

She looked up, met his glittering gaze. His cheeks were flushed, his smile thin.

“Lie down on the floor,” she said, her breath tight, her blood thrumming through her body in a flush of heat. “Please.”

He stared at her for a long moment, a silent stretch of seconds. She was surprised when he complied, so fierce was his look.

He lay on the floor in front of her, a banquet for her lips, a feast for her senses. One arm was bent beneath his head, one leg slightly drawn up. A picture of indolent perfection. Except, of course, for his tumescence. Exquisitely large and almost throbbing.

“Put your arms over your head,” she told him. “And cross your wrists.”

One eyebrow rose. He smiled, a particularly rapacious expression and held out his wrists to be tied. Margaret only shook her head. She pressed his arms back into place over his head, then leaned down and began to lace the ribbon around him, the ends wound around each of his thighs and tied with a bow. Her fingers were exquisitely gentle, barely touching him. The ribbon’s placement pulled his erection upright, a magnificent phallus adorned in a spiral of blue.

She glanced at his face. His eyes narrowed, but his hands remained crossed over his head.

“The most experienced courtesans in the
Journals
had a challenge,” she said, slowly tracing the spiral of ribbon with one gentle finger. “It was only offered to the most talented of lovers.”

He remained silent.

“It’s called the Hundred Licks of Love,” she said. “Shall we test your stamina?”

Her tongue traced around the ribbon, up and around the head of his erection. She circled it slowly, deliciously prolonging the pleasure. Finally, Margaret raised her head, looked at him. “That’s one.”

Michael closed his eyes.

A few minutes later, she pulled back. His hands had flattened against the floor, the muscles of his arms flexed. His eyes were still closed; there was a look of such fixed purpose on his face that he appeared almost pained.

“A lover who thought himself skilled could master only ten licks,” she said, returning to her exquisite task. A moment later she spoke again. “A man learning to prolong his pleasure could achieve thirty. But only the greatest and most proficient lovers could achieve forty or more.”

She counted out each lick as she finished. At twenty-eight, she heard him moan, then cut off the sound with ruthless restraint. At thirty-three his hips arched up from the floor. His feet pressed against the floor and he pushed himself against her lips. She admonished him with a particularly intense thirty-fourth lick.

“Thirty-seven,” she said a moment later, speaking against his flesh, trailing her lips and tongue across him.

“Margaret,” he warned gutturally.

“Thirty-eight,” she murmured.

He was so hot that it was like touching fire. Her fingers slid to the base of his erection, felt how tight his scrotal sac. The ribbon was damp now, straining against his hardness. It felt as if he’d grown longer and harder in the intervening moments.

“Forty,” she said a few moments later, raising her head and congratulating him with a smile. The ex
pression on his face was feral, unrestrained. This was not a man who spoke of restraint and planning and schedules.

“You wanted to know what the meaning of red was,” she said at fifty licks. She trailed her hand from his thighs to his chest. His eyes opened, his narrowed gaze focused on her face. “It’s the color of ecstasy.”

He lunged at her.

Michael had the loathsome thought that he would spill his seed trying to pull off the damnable ribbon, he was that desperate for her. His fingers fumbled on the bows. Finally, it was off and he was free.

There was nothing of skill in this urgency. All he could feel was the pounding need to be inside her. Desperate for her as if she was water for his thirst and food for his hunger. He rolled with her until she was beneath him. When he entered her she was slick and hot, so tight that he thought he saw white suns beneath his closed lids.

Supporting himself on his forearms, he trailed the tips of his fingers through the hair at her temples. Margaret, he was pleased to see, looked nearly as stunned as he.

Her inner walls rippled against him. An intimate imploration. A beckoning to a distant place, one far removed from this sunlit room. His body was eager and more than willing to follow. His will wanted to surrender in the face of this clawing wonder.

“I can feel you tighten around me,” he said roughly. “As if you’re trembling inside.”

His fingers traced over her mouth and she opened her lips. An artless invitation he could not deny. He bent forward and kissed her, inhaled her trembling sigh as he withdrew and then slowly entered her
again. Finally, he broke off the kiss, his breath tight, his blood pounding.

He rose up, pulled slowly out of her. An excruciating pleasure. She made a choked sound of protest that he answered by entering her again.

The sensuality of it, the ecstasy of the moment, was almost too much.

Please, please, please. A mindless petition. He didn’t know to whom he pleaded, or for what. An end to this? It was too acute, almost too much sensation. Please. A breath escaped him and he stilled, captured on the spike of sanity. A moment. A moment, that’s all he wanted.

Desire had an edge to it. The need became waves, undulating currents that swept through every part of him. He wanted this, needed this. Wanted her. More, he needed her.

His fingers gripped her hips tightly and he counted out a cipher in his mind. Something to soothe him, calm him. Prolong this exquisite moment.

He forced himself to still, bent his head and breathed harshly against her neck until he gained some command over his body.

He heard himself murmur against her skin. Idiocies and foolishness. He was being catapulted someplace he had never been before. A world of mindless darkness and pleasure so acute he held his breath.

He began to breathe rhythmically, slowly. The kind of breathing she’d read about in the
Journals
. Words emerged from between his lips. No, numbers that he exhaled against her ear. “17, 35, 14, 49, 12, 57, 6, 97.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m reciting cipher patterns. Do not, I beg you, ask me why,” he said tersely.

The surge of tenderness she felt startled her. It was so powerful that it was almost painful.

She placed her palm against his face, turned so that she could kiss him. Her internal muscles clenched against him. A sharp feeling so sweet that it was almost pain surged through her.

He moved suddenly, no longer calm and restrained. His face was fierce, almost pained. He began driving into her again and again. Finally, she uttered a soft, helpless moan as she felt her body arch instinctively, her arms flung out as if to hold onto the sky. The sensation captured her and made her a prisoner, blinded her.

So intense was the feeling that it was an eternity of exquisite pleasure. She was insensate, reeling from the blackness, lost in it. Captivated by him.

Michael Hawthorne, Earl of Montraine, holder of properties and three estates, Code Master, rewarded with honors by the Crown for his contributions to his country, lay on the floor and felt an almost sotted wonder.

His toes curled in absolute bliss. Dear God, he felt good. He turned his head and watched her. He wanted to kiss her lips off her face, and hold her so tight that there was no clear definition between where he left off and she began.

A warning bell sounded in his mind.

He was a descendant of a long and proud line. An earl. A man of some reputation. He had an obligation to his family to marry, and soon, an heiress who would provide for the financial stability of his earldom. He couldn’t keep doing this.

He was being driven mad by lust.

In addition, he was becoming very familiar with the
ceiling of the morning room. Perhaps he should have it painted, at least, like the library. Some vista upon which to concentrate when he lay here, exhausted, sated, and incapable of moving.

“I have a perfectly good bed upstairs,” he muttered, disgusted.

He turned his head, glanced at her. Her eyes were closed, her arms flung above her head. Her soft smile transfixed him.

The knock on the door was a shattering jolt back to reality. “My lord?” Smytheton’s voice. “The modiste wonders if you are ready for her now.”

Margaret sat up quickly, staring in horror at the door. Michael instantly began to formulate a way out of this situation. Unfortunately, his mind refused to obey. Instead, it was a numb, gray fog.

Anyone entering this room would immediately comprehend exactly what they had been doing. The fact that he had forgotten the place, the circumstance, and everything other than Margaret was one more peal of the warning bell in his mind.

“There’s nothing else for it,” he said, the truth raw and inescapable. “We’re going to have to brazen it out, I’m afraid.”

A few moments later, dressed, he opened the door. Margaret stood beside him, her garments similarly restored. He smiled at the modiste and nodded at his butler. It seemed to him that Smytheton scowled even more furiously, and the modiste appeared more than scandalized. Affronted, perhaps.

“You’ll have to use the measurements you have, madam,” he said, his voice curt. He left the room with Margaret at his side. Once in the foyer, he turned and beckoned Smytheton to him. A quick instruction, and the butler nodded, returned to the modiste.

“What did you tell him?” Margaret asked, after they had sought sanctuary in his library.

“I paid her for the ribbon,” he said, grinning at her.

They had, no doubt, provided enough fodder for the rumor mills of society for months to come. He should have been irritated by his own behavior. Or cautious about his apparent lack of control when it came to Margaret.

Instead, he began to laugh.

"P
eterson says he cannot spare the cook, your lordship,” Molly said, bobbing a curtsy.

“He did, did he?” Michael frowned at the young maid. His irritation, however, was not addressed at her, but at his mother’s butler.

“The countess is entertaining, your lordship, and he says that he can’t spare him. He says that since Smytheton thinks he can do everything in a household, there’s no need for him to borrow the cook.”

He raised an eyebrow and frowned at her. She bobbed another curtsy.

Evidently Peterson hadn’t understood. Between Molly and Smytheton, they did quite well normally, but Michael wanted tomorrow night’s dinner to be something special. The fact that Peterson was acting
peckish annoyed him, especially since he employed the man.

“You will have to return, Molly,” he said. He finished the note he was writing and handed it to her. It was a tersely worded suggestion that Peterson find some way to accede to the request, that it had come from him, not Smytheton.

She bobbed yet another curtsy and left the room.

Entertaining again?

His mother saw nothing wrong with going through her entire quarter’s allowance in a month and then expecting him to be responsible for her subsequent bills.

Wedding an heiress was becoming imperative. A leisurely courtship would not suffice. He needed an influx of capital now. Knowledge gleaned after he had gone through this month’s expenditures. Shoes, hats, gowns, flowers, a host of odds and ends purchased in order to impress or flatter.

If he didn’t wed soon, there would be no money to pay all these bills.

But the thought of being sacrificed upon the matrimonial altar, while once acceptable, now seemed particularly repugnant.

He couldn’t, for example, conceive of being as abandoned with a wife as he had been with Margaret two days ago. Jane Hestly floated through his mind. She had pale blond hair and rather pinched-looking features, thin lips, and cheeks that sagged like premature jowls. He doubted if she would care to know anything about the
Journals of Augustin X
. Nor could he imagine her wanting to wind a blue ribbon around him.

Margaret delighted him, and amused him, intrigued him, and incited his curiosity. More, he be
came someone he particularly liked in her company, as if she brought out his better nature. True, that man was unrestrained and decidedly irrational, but he’d never before felt so alive.

There were some women destined to remain in a man’s mind forever. He had the somewhat unsettling thought that Margaret was one of them.

But he couldn’t marry Margaret. He scowled down at the bills in front of him. For the first time, he was angry about his fate. Trussed up and delivered to the bride wealthy enough to purchase his title and his family lineage. A damnable future, one that stretched out almost interminably before him.

London life had acquainted Margaret with noise, an almost endless variety of sounds. As if the world visited the City and finding it to be delightful, remained there. But here, in Michael’s house, it was almost as if she were in the country again, it was remarkably quiet. In the morning room it seemed doubly so. Her only companion was the faint whir and click of the mantel clock.

The knock came only seconds before Michael opened the door.

“I am so glad it’s you,” she said, looking up. “I had thought for a moment that it might be that dreadful modiste.”

“Cannot bear to be measured again?” he asked, smiling and entering the room. Today he was dressed in black trousers and a pristine white shirt, neither of which looked the worse for wear, despite the unseasonably warm day. But then, he always looked perfect.

“I don’t think I can ever look at the woman again,” she admitted.

They shared a conspiratorial smile. It had been a difficult moment, but they had weathered it. The only result was that Smytheton had been even more formal ever since.

“She no doubt feels the same way about us.”

Margaret shook her head. “There is a rule in commerce that personal feelings do not matter. The fact that you may not like a customer is not important. You must still sell to him.”

“A odd parallel to society,” he said. “Many times you may not wish to converse with an individual, but are compelled to by good manners.”

She smiled. “What, then, is the comparison when there is but one book and two customers wishing to purchase it?” she asked.

“That’s easy,” he said, smiling. “One dance, two partners.”

“Not enough money to pay for a purchase?” She entered into their game with a smile.

“A suitor who does not come up to snuff. There is nothing to do but put the goods back on the shelf.” His smile broadened.

“A book that has not yet arrived, and a customer who is anxious?”

“You really must give me a more difficult challenge,” he chided. “A spinster waiting for a suitor. Regrettably, her eagerness is wasted.”

She thought for a moment. “An author whose book does not sell?” she asked, smiling.

He smiled. “An anxious mama with one season wasted and a daughter still to be wed.”

“I give up,” she said, laughing.

“Whatever her personal feelings,” he said, still smiling, “the modiste has sent one of your dresses,” he said.

“One? There is more than one?” She shook her head at him.

“I confess,” he said, not looking at all repentant. “I ordered a few.”

He studiously ignored her look. Instead, he strode to the settee and bent over to kiss her lightly. “I was feeling very generous,” he said huskily.

Heat traveled through her body at memories of that day. She had never done something so wanton. So thoroughly brazen. Her own wickedness had surprised her, almost as much as the stunning enjoyment of their loving.

“What are you reading?” he asked, glancing at the book in her hands.

“Something entitled
Biographia Literaria
by Samuel Coleridge. He calls himself a poet but styles himself a critic. But I think him rather impressed with the sound of his own words, more than with their meaning.”

“Why do you think that?”

She opened the book, and glanced up at him. “Listen to this. ‘Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, which will itself need reforming.’ That is only chapter one. He does go on. ‘No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.’ I do think he is talking about himself.”

“I know little of poetry,” he said. “I have studiously avoided it in the past. But it seems to me that there are only two types of poems. Either the meandering ode that doubles as the poet’s search for himself, or poems dedicated to nature, urns, and Homer.”

She closed the book and smiled at him, amused. “And you think neither is worthy of merit?”

“A soul is an intrinsically personal thing,” he said. “God is too vast to be contained within meter and rhyme. And once a tree has been mentioned, it needn’t be expounded upon again.”

“And love? A great many poems are dedicated to love.”

“Love is one of those emotions that differs in the experience of it.”

“And is therefore incapable of being described?” she asked.

“Doesn’t it have a different definition according to the person you ask?”

“Perhaps it is better simply to look into someone’s eyes and know that despite whatever failing or fault that person has, you will never turn aside or betray him.”

“Acceptance?” he asked.

“Unconditional,” she said.

“As a definition of love? Not entirely logical,” he said.

“Life itself is not always logical, Michael.”

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “Else I would not be here now, arguing the merits of love. Instead,” he said smiling, “I’ve come to take you boating.”

“Boating?” Her eyes sparkled, her mouth curved in an altogether delicious smile.

“Henry the Eighth did it all the time.”

“Should I be reassured? I seem to remember that he had a penchant for disposing of women.”

“Only wives,” he countered.

It was the wrong thing to say. It reminded him of his duty, the shortness of a week. Very well, he would restrict his remarks to those of an impersonal nature. They would simply enjoy today and think of nothing
more solemn than the shape of the clouds in the sky.

The directions for their outing had been furnished to him by Smytheton, who had consented to address him for the first time in a day. Despite his forbidding scowl, he had prepared a hearty lunch for them, a heavy affair in a straw basket.

A picnic, then. It surprised Michael to realize that he had never before done something like this.

They took the carriage to a small town about an hour’s ride outside London. There, along the gently sloping bank, exactly where Smytheton had indicated, was an inn where Michael was able to hire a flat-bottomed skiff.

Both of them looked at the vessel dubiously. Margaret, however, was the first to express doubts.

“It doesn’t look like it will hold us,” she said.

“You must be more confident in my abilities, Margaret,” he said.

“I have faith in your abilities, Montraine. It’s the boat that concerns me.”

He pulled it closer by the rope, glanced up at her. “Politeness decrees that you enter first while I steady it.”

She sent him a quick glance of remonstrance. He grinned.

“I would much rather be impolite and have you test whether or not it will float,” she announced.

“So the gentlemanly thing would be to go down with the ship?”

She nodded vigorously. “Absolutely,” she said.

Margaret stood on the bank, her hands clasped behind her. He had never heard her giggle. The sound seemed unlike her, almost girlish. One thing he could most definitely verify was the fact that Margaret Es
terly was no girl. But the sound charmed him all the same.

He stepped into the skiff and held his hands out for her. The boat rocked beneath his feet. For a moment, Michael thought he was going to be overturned.

She placed her hand trustingly in his, a gesture at odds with her sudden laughter. Together they stood in the boat as it shivered beneath them. If he leaned one way the boat rocked in that direction. He tested it only to have Margaret grip his sleeves for balance.

“Don’t you think you should sit down?” she asked, laughing.

“Why should I sit when I can have a beautiful woman holding onto me?”

“I am not beautiful,” she countered.

“Are you certain?”

“Most assuredly.”

He stroked his finger down her nose, tapped the end of it gently. “Perhaps it’s because of your nose. I’ve seen more aquiline noses.”

He stared into her eyes. “And I will confess that your eyes are an odd shade. Sometimes I think they’re hazel. Sometimes they seem almost pure green. Perhaps if you had different-colored eyes you would be considered truly beautiful.”

Because they now stood so still, the boat only rocked gently with the current. Even so, her hands still gripped his upper arms tightly.

“And your hair…”

“What about my hair?” she asked, indignant.

“It could be a more normal shade. Something blond, perhaps. Less red.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this a lesson, then? Not to question compliments?”

He smiled, amused.

“On the other hand,” she said, studying him, “I have often thought you beautiful. Almost lovely. A very pretty man.”

He began to laugh, thoroughly routed.

A moment later, both of them seated in their proper places, he began to row away from the inn’s dock.

The inn itself was a squat building, perched on the edge of the river like a broody hen. It had been painted red years ago, the color now a shade that reminded him of burgundy. From the carriages parked in its side yard it did a brisk business. In addition, there were several boaters out on the river. Couples, for the most part, the ladies shaded with their parasols, the men acting with more skill than he possessed at the oars.

After a while, however, he managed the rhythm of it, drawing away from the bank and heading into the river. Here the Thames was surprisingly clear, the current strong, not yet affected by the tides.

It was a perfect day, the blue sky only occasionally dotted with fluffy white clouds. Trees lined the river and the sloping green banks attested to a wet spring. A scene of bucolic beauty.

Margaret leaned back, let her fingers trail in the water. Closing her eyes, she tilted her face to the sun. He had the sudden feeling that she had not spent many moments in indolence either.

The moment was perfect, silent and hushed.

“Do you ever wonder what the rest of your life will be like?” Margaret asked.

The question surprised him, but he answered her
honestly. “Not really. My life is ordained within certain strictures. I have a duty to my family, and an obligation to my country. It leaves few opportunities for extemporaneous living.”

Such as choosing his destiny.

“That can be both very comforting and very constraining.”

He had been rowing steadily. Now he rested the oars and sat with one knee drawn up as he removed his coat and waistcoat.

It occurred to him that he would never have been in Jane Hestly’s presence similarly dressed. But then, he wouldn’t have carried her from a cottage and loved her in a coach. And he doubted he would be laughing much in her presence.

“What of your own life, Margaret? What will your future bring?”

She looked discomfited by the question. As if he had pried into a province that was none of his concern. Her attention was directed to a tree not far from the shoreline. She looked at it as if she’d never viewed a tree before. Nor even seen a bird like the one that flew from one of its branches.

She turned suddenly and looked at him, her direct glance rendering him vaguely uncomfortable. “What happens when something occurs in your well-planned life that you do not expect? What do you do then?” she asked.

“Nothing has,” he said.

“You live a charmed life, Montraine,” she said, smiling enigmatically.

Was he destined to think her forever a mystery? The more time he spent with her, the more puzzling she became.