Lady Beauchamp's Proposal (21 page)

But she needn’t have worried. He was gazing
at her, his eyes tracing her curves and hollows with a potent
combination of awe and hunger. Yes—there was definitely hunger. His
eyes were molten black. She shivered, her nipples pebbling. And
then he smiled, his wide, perfect lips stretching into a lazy,
lopsided tilt. “I would say you were a vision straight from heaven,
except for the fact that you are as tempting as sin, my love.”

My love
. Surely he didn’t mean that.
He’d only used the endearment in the heat of the moment. She
confirmed this to herself when she glanced at his eyes and saw they
were still smoldering with unabashed lust. Indeed the air around
them was heavy with it.

It had never been like this with Hugh. But
she didn’t want to think about Hugh anymore.

All she wanted to think about was James. And
that was proving very easy to do as he cupped her breasts, and then
lowered his head to suckle on one achingly tense nipple then the
other, his teeth, and tongue, and lips working her into a frenzied
agony that was coalescing into one throbbing point between her
thighs. Head thrown back with her eyes closed, she could barely
stand, and clung to his iron hard biceps lest her knees buckle
beneath her.

As if attuned to the havoc he was so happily
wreaking upon her, James suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist,
and with the other cradling her buttocks, he lifted her and bore
her backwards onto the bed, all the way up to the pillows. She
opened her eyes and saw that he was looming over her, smiling his
slow, lazy smile again.

Damn him, he was enjoying this far too
much.

“I think you are a tad over dressed for
bed-sport,” she managed to say, although her voice was little more
than a husky whisper. She wanted to touch him again, feel the steel
and heat of him under her hands and against her body.

But he simply grinned. “Well perhaps I shall
dispense with my boots for now. I wouldn’t want these bed clothes
to get too dirty.” He moved to the side of the bed and she heard
the clunk of heavy leather on the floor. Somehow, she had already
managed to lose her slippers, but her stockings had stayed in
placed.

It was something James noticed too, as soon
as he returned to her side. He loosened the ribbon garters, and
then slowly peeled off each stocking in turn, his hands running
over her legs all the way down to the tips of her toes.

“Even your ankles and feet are beautiful,
Beth.” Cradling one foot in his hands, he then glanced up at her
with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

Oh no. Surely he wasn’t going to—

But he did.
He was
. He trailed a path
of kisses from her calf to the arch of her foot. She squirmed, but
he had her firmly trapped in his grasp. With horrified fascination,
she watched him kiss her toes in turn until he arrived at her big
toe and sucked it into his mouth. She cried out and bucked, but he
didn’t let go. It was wrong, it was depraved.
It was
delicious.

By the time he had finished with her other
foot, she was nothing but a quivering mass upon the bed.

“This is what you call pleasure?” she
panted, looking at him dazedly through half-closed lids. She tried
to look affronted, but she knew that she probably looked anything
but that.

“Not even close,” he whispered, shifting
back up the bed toward her head. Lying alongside her, he propped
himself up on one elbow before leisurely running a finger from the
indentation between her collar bones, down the valley between her
heaving breasts, then along her abdomen to her navel—where he
stopped. She sensed his gaze on her face again, and she glanced up
at him. He was studying her, and a lump formed in her throat. The
look in his eyes—it was almost as if he cared for her.

She swallowed. She couldn’t stand the
intensity of his gaze. It hurt to see such naked emotion. Yes,
that’s what it was. He was looking at her as if his heart was in
his eyes.

“James,” she breathed, and brushed a lock of
silky black hair back from his forehead. “What is it?”

The expression in his eyes immediately
lightened and his mouth tipped into a rakish smile. “I’m just
planning what I’m going to do next.”

Before she could do or say anything else, he
dipped his head and kissed her, and the poignant spell that had
surrounded them both, instantly dissipated. He cradled her jaw with
one hand while the other began to tease her breasts again, but it
didn’t stay there long. His fingers swept lower, and then he was
cupping the aching mound of her sex. And then one long finger slid
between her slick folds—she was so wet, she was almost
embarrassed—and with a deftness she should have found quite
shocking, he found the very center of her being and stroked, around
and around. And with that one touch her world exploded. She arched
her back and cried out as a lightning bolt of absolute pleasure
ignited her body from somewhere deep within, and shot charge after
charge through her until eventually she melted back against the
covers of the bed, completely spent, floating on a still, black
velvet sea.

The word pleasure did not even begin to
describe what she had just experienced. She couldn’t even think how
to define what James had done for her. She felt as if she’d been
tossed up to heaven. And given the blissful feeling that was still
spreading through her entire body, she rather thought she was still
there.

She wasn’t sure how long she drifted in this
state, but suddenly, she was aware of James stretching out beside
her again. But something was different.

This time he was naked.

Her eyes flew open. The glorious vision
stretched out beside her was enough to jolt her out of her languor.
She rolled toward James so her skin was pressed to his, his long,
fully erect cock pressing into her belly like a silken-sheathed rod
of iron. He was so hot and hard all over, such a perfect specimen
of masculine power and beauty, that her body began to thrum with
anticipation again, and she felt a fresh rush of slick heat between
her thighs.

She raised a hand and ran it lightly from
one broad shoulder, down his heavily muscled arm, across one lean
hip to his firm buttock—and paused when her fingers came into
contact with a long raised ridge—a scar—that slashed downward
across the back of his thigh. To her mortification, she couldn’t
suppress her gasp of surprise in time.

James’s hand covered hers and his brow
creased with concern. “I should have warned you about my battle
scar, Beth. Although it’s far from pretty, I was lucky compared to
most.”

She swallowed. “Does it still hurt? I’m
sorry if I—”

“No, it doesn’t hurt. It was mainly
superficial damage from a bayonet that I didn’t see coming.” His
mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Believe me, the Frenchman that did
it looked a lot worse at the end of the altercation than I
did.”

She frowned. “You make light of it. I don’t
understand how you can do that.”

He gently raised her hand from where it had
been resting on the back of his leg, and brought it to his lips.
“You are helping me to forget,” he said in a low voice, and his
eyes revealed such a raw, emotional intensity that she felt she was
really seeing him for the first time.

“Since you came here, all I can think about
is you, Beth. You are like a balm for my soul. It’s not just
wanting. I need you. And I just thought you should know that.” He
gently pushed her down onto the mattress, covering her body with
his, and kissed her with such gentle reverence, she had to close
her eyes against the sudden sting of tears. A rising tide of
conflicting emotions she hadn’t bargained on feeling, suddenly
threatened to overwhelm her.

This relationship—if one could even call it
that—it was only supposed to be about sex. So why did it suddenly
feel like it was more than that? Her foolish heart surged with an
acute longing at the thought that James needed her for more than
the use of her body. She had never been
needed
by anyone
before, least of all Hugh. The knowledge was powerful, yet humbling
at the same time.

But over-riding all of these sensations was
the sharp stab of her guilty conscience. James seemed to be
exposing his very soul to her, and he didn’t even know her real
name, let alone that she was married. He had been unexpectedly
candid with her, and all she had done, and would continue to do,
was lie to him.

Her duplicity threatened to rise up and
choke her.

“Are you all right, Beth?” James had pulled
away and was staring down at her with concern.

“Yes,” she whispered, not able to meet his
eyes.

He lifted her chin so she couldn’t avoid his
gaze. “I promise I won’t get you with child, if that’s what you’re
worried about. I should have mentioned it earlier. But even if it’s
not that, I’ll stop if you want me too.”

Elizabeth shook her head and placed a
trembling hand on the expanse of his chest where his heart lay. “No
it’s not that. I trust that you’ll be careful. And I definitely
don’t want you to stop.” She reached up and touched his jaw. “I
need you too.”

It wasn’t much, but at least that wasn’t a
lie. It was all she had to offer.

His mouth suddenly tipped into a sensual
smile and one of his large hands closed over her breast. “I’m so
glad you said that, my sweet.”

He pushed his impressive erection against
her belly and she arched her back slightly, reveling in the feel of
him sliding against her skin. How would it feel when he was inside
her? She began to part her legs beneath him, suddenly impatient
with the overpowering need for him to fill her.

“Soon, my angel, soon,” he whispered against
her ear. “I don’t want to go too quickly in case I hurt you.” He
suddenly lowered his head and suckled her taut nipples in turn,
whilst one of his hands slid between her legs; his fingers stroked
her already dripping folds, teased her aching core, making her
writhe and moan all over again. She opened her legs even more, and
he slid two fingers deep within her to stroke her passage, and a
desperate sound—something between a cry and a deep guttural
groan—escaped her throat.

“James,” she moaned. “Please…I want
you—”

He covered her mouth with his, thrusting his
tongue deeply as he pushed her legs slightly farther apart with his
own. And then, at last, she felt the head of his cock nudging where
his talented fingers had been only moments before.

He pushed into her with a long slow thrust,
and despite her readiness and willingness, she cried out at the
sudden unfamiliar incursion, the intense burning friction. It had
been so long since she’d had sex, and James was so big, much bigger
than Hugh. She realized she was panting, her breath a frantic rasp
against James’s shoulder.

James immediately stopped and stroked her
face. “Beth, do you want me to stop?”

“No…” She tried to smile through the
discomfort. “As I said before, it’s been a while. I just…need a
moment. That’s all.” She secretly prayed that she was right. She
couldn’t bear it if she didn’t enjoy this, and that her worst fears
would be confirmed after all; that there was something wrong with
her. Or that James was too big for her. That all this had been for
naught.

“Of course.” James stayed perfectly still,
resting on his forearms so that he was suspended above her body.
She could see how much this cessation of movement cost him; he was
gritting his teeth, and the thick tendons of his neck stood out.
She closed her eyes and deliberately tried to relax her protesting
muscles; she adjusted the angle of her hips slightly, and wrapped
her legs around his. The intense pressure immediately began to
ease.

James seemed to notice too. “Better?” he
murmured against her temple.

“Much.” She arched her back, encouraging him
to move again, and with a shuddering groan he surged all the way
into her to the hilt of his iron-hard shaft.

“Aaah.” Her cry of agonized pleasure was
loud even to her own ears. She gripped his shoulders as he buried
his face in her neck.

“Beth,” he panted. “Oh, God…you feel like
heaven.”

He flexed his hips backwards, slowly
withdrawing, and this time the sliding friction was exquisite. He
thrust into her again, and her hips pushed back against him, the
muscles of her inner sheath greedily clenching around his hot, hard
flesh, not wanting to let him go.
Yes
.

He started to stroke in and out of her with
a surer, steadier rhythm, and for the first time ever, she began to
feel something—a deep coiling tension that pulled tighter and
tighter as James thrust faster and harder.
Yes
. This was
what she had been missing.
Yes.
This pleasure that almost
bordered on pain. She clawed at James’s back and her ragged gasps
mingled with his equally frenzied breathing. This feeling couldn’t
go on much longer; she almost couldn’t bear it, this white-hot
whirlwind of sensation.

She screamed as her womb suddenly convulsed,
and she was lost in a storm of blinding ecstasy, as wave after wave
of spasmodic pleasure coursed through her. She was lost, yet she’d
never felt more whole or alive in her life.

She was barely conscious of James tearing
himself from her, and calling her name as he shuddered with his own
release on the bed beside her. One of his heavy arms was flung
across her belly. The smell of his seed, her musk, and their sweat
mingled to create the intoxicating scent of desire fulfilled.

She had to swallow past a sudden lump in her
throat. James had shown her all that she had been missing. And it
had been glorious. So why did she suddenly feel like crying?

Because he is everything you’ve ever
wanted and this bliss cannot last,
her conscience
whispered.

And when the time came for this to be over,
as it had to be, she rather suspected someone’s heart would be
broken. Perhaps hers had even started to crack a little
already.