Page 36 of The Lost Lord
“Our love is real, Miri.” Richard whispered. His resistance hung by a thread, ready to break at the slightest provocation. He wanted her, too. He wanted to taste her salt, drink in the feminine nectar of her skin. His cock throbbed with the unaccustomed sensation of thwarted desire. His feelings were as new and tender with inexperience as Miriam’s body, gentle, fierce, and confusing.
A man who loved his wife-to-be would be honest with her about how their union had come to pass. Richard traced her petal-soft cheek with the back of his knuckle. He could not hurt her, this woman who gazed up at him with all the trust in her generous heart.
Miriam shifted on her feet. Richard released her, but Miriam’s arms wound up and around his neck to pull him closer. Her breasts flattened against his chest. Richard was lost. He grasped the only solid rock he could hold as feelings raged through him. His arms circled her waist. Her wrapper gaped open to reveal a modest white night dress. The row of buttons at the back of her neck dragged over his palm with a thrilling sense of trespass. The tips of his fingers grazed the nape of her neck and burrowed into her hair like a terrified animal, pulling her hard against his front. With his other arm he clutched the key until its metal teeth bit his flesh as he held her close to him. As if he could meld their bodies into one and keep her safe.
Protected.
Wanted. So badly wanted. In ways and for reasons Richard didn’t fully understand. He wanted her forgiveness without telling Miriam what he’d done. No matter how he ached to tell her the truth, he knew that it meant losing her. She must never know even if he had to live with this dark secret for the rest of his life. With luck, in a few years he’d have left this American scandal an ocean behind them.
Best not to think about the way he was abdicating his responsibility. If Arthur Van Buren refused to acknowledge Lizzie’s child Richard ought to take the babe away from her less-than-maternal care. But then, what? Ask Miriam to raise his bastard?
Miriam tipped her face up to his. Their mouths met in a slow sweep of sensual contact. Richard tasted her breath and needed more. He took it with a glide of his tongue. Miriam’s parted lips were wet with warm desire.
Richard took her kiss and returned it with all the words he didn’t yet know how to say.
I need you.
I cannot live without you.
I have betrayed you in the cruelest possible way, and I cannot bear to tell you for fear I will lose you.
Her hands fisted in his linen shirtsleeves. Richard ran his hand back down her body to the small of her back. Then, a fraction lower. Miriam mewled and tilted her hips against him. It would take nothing to lift her, pin her against the wall, and give her what she whimpered for. What she had asked him to do.
Deflower her.
Richard stilled. He could not…would not take her under false pretenses. He grasped at the thin straws of his honor. Miriam wanted to give herself to him, yet he could not accept her gift in good conscience. What a wonderful thing to discover now, after so many years of believing the utility of a conscience limited one at best and served as a liability at worst.
Miriam was the cure he hadn’t known he needed to heal from the yawning gap of loneliness and insecurity that no amount of money or status could ever fill. His belladonna, stopping the bleeding ever since Lizzie had coerced him into this disastrous plan.
Miriam gasped as Richard nipped his way down her neck. “I want more of your touch,” she whispered with hot breath against his temple.
“I want it too. So badly, Miri,” he groaned. Need tightened his body until every nerve vibrated with desire. God, if he could only lose himself in her touch and be reborn a new man—one worthy of her. Not this lying, terrified shadow who was desperate not to lose the only good thing that had ever happened to him.
“Take it,” she whispered.
“No,” he breathed, though his disobedient hand disentangled from her hair and skimmed down her ribcage. His thumb traced the outer curve of her breast. Miriam groaned.
“Please,” she begged. “Come to my room. My father won’t care. Mrs. Kent won’t know.”
“No,” Richard grunted as he flicked his thumb over the tight bead buried beneath layers of fabric. The glorious woman in his arms strained against him. Damn her tight, modestly cut bodice. He couldn’t taste the peaks of her breasts. The key clattered to the floor as he blindly hooked one button through the loop at the base of her neck.
“Yes,” she whispered.
More buttons. Richard’s fingers urged them through the fabric, one after another. “Why do you have so many buttons?” he complained.
“To keep my dress on my body,” Miriam observed drily. “Rather inconvenient at the moment.”
“Agreed,” Richard muttered. His body refused to heed the warning signal flashing in his brain.Stop now, before you make this even worse.As long as he didn’t deflower her everything could go back to the way it was. To protect her he must preserve her innocence. No matter how difficult Miriam made it for him to resist.
He could give them something, though, if he could get past the barrier of her clothing. Their lips met again, hers swollen slightly with the force of their kisses. Richard gentled. Miriam nipped his lower lip as the fabric slipped down her shoulder. Moonlight, filtered through the window, revealed a flash of pure white.
Don’t sully her.
Too late. He was in the gap before the thought had fully formed. Fine. He would give them a taste of mutual satisfaction, the promise of the future he yearned for with all his being. Only a taste.
Richard palmed the curve of her exquisite breast. Once, he’d fancied himself a connoisseur of fine bosoms. The small, plump, pert mound that rolled beneath his touch was delightful, but nowhere near as much as the sigh Miriam exhaled into his neck.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she whispered.
