Page 22 of Liaison with the Champagne Count
He shrugged out of his long riding coat and she realised belatedly that he still wore his outerwear. He’d come straight to her in the library, not stopping to even take off his coat. He’d been thinking of her, wanting her. The knowledge that he’d come to her primed for passion carried its own thrill and whittled away her doubts. He wantedher, not the madness—the person, not the emotion.
This was all for her, this wicked, decadent show of masculinity revealed. He drew his shirt over his head and her breath sucked involuntarily at the sight of his sculpted torso exposed in the soft flicker of firelight. She had a sudden urge to run her hands over the planes of his skin.
‘Later,ma cherie.’ He gave a low laugh, reading her thoughts. Her face had become glass. ‘This is for your eyes only. Later will be for your hands, your mouth if you would like, and we’ll both enjoy that very much.’ His hands dropped to the waist of his trousers and her eyes dropped with them. Whoever thought a man could not be a temptress—or was thattempter, her riveted brain could not decide the right word—did not know Julien.
His trousers dropped and he gave them a gentle kick aside with a flick of his foot. He was all bare now, all for her. She’d thought him gorgeous last night, thought she’d seen quite a bit of him, that she’d paid attention. But it was nothing compared to now, to seeing the manly sculpture of him, the carved definition of his upper arms, the chiselled symmetry of his abdomen, the squared angles of his iliac girdle, tapering downward, leading the eye to the magnificence of his phallus jutting upward, the divine architecture of man on perfect display. ‘I doubt Michelangelo could have done better,’ she breathed.
He came to the bed and for a moment her heart leapt and she reached for him. But he laughed, drawing her up to her feet. ‘It’s your turn now,ma cherie. Shall I instruct?’ He took her vacated place on the bed, lying on his side, a leg propping up a hand dangling dangerously near his erect phallus. She had sudden, erotic visions of him pleasuring himself as she undressed. Perhaps he meant to—perhaps that was part of this feast for the eyes.
His hand wrapped about his phallus and gave an experimental stroke. ‘Would you like that,ma cherie? Would you like to watch?’
She blushed, her body prickling with an embarrassed, wanton heat. ‘How did you know?’
He laughed. ‘You give yourself away too easily tonight. Every thought is written on your face.’ He dropped his voice. ‘I love it. I want to know what you want.’
She moved to him and disengaged his hand, pushing it gently aside, taking him in her hand instead. ‘I want it and I don’t want it. If you spend yourself now, I will have to wait that much longer for you to spend yourself for me.’
He leaned forward and nipped at her neck. ‘You’re a selfish minx, and a tease, too. I thought you were supposed to be getting undressed.’
‘You expect me to be able to concentrate on undressing when you’re putting on quite a show just lying there?’ she scolded. She lifted a leg, resting it on the chair near the bed, and pulled back her skirts to reveal a stockinged expanse of long, slim leg. Then she began to roll.
She was killing him with her slow seduction. Women wore too many damn clothes, especially English women. Julien bit back a groan as she finished with her stockings and instead of releasing her skirts, she moved to her hair, taking out one pin at a time. Vixen! She was going to make him pay in anticipation for every inch of skin revealed and he was loving every moment of this exquisite, seductive torment. But what he was loving more was Emma’s confidence in her sexuality. He had had a taste of that last night when she’d taken the lead in their lovemaking, riding him astride. Tonight was yet another course in the feast that was Emma Luce’s sensuality and he meant to see that they both ate their fill.
At last, she discarded her dress, a plain, dark work dress that buttoned up the front. She’d not dressed for dinner and he gave a silent thanks for that. There’d not be layers upon layers of petticoats and fancy corsetry beneath a work dress. He did not think he could have withstood an elaborate siege to his senses tonight. He’d been aroused before he’d even reached home. That arousal had only ratcheted at the sight of her drowsing in the chair. Coming to this room, watching her watching him remove his clothes, had done nothing to diminish it. Now he was flagrantly rock-hard on her bed, and she was teasing him with every button.
At last, the dress fell from her body and the firelight played with the thin fabric of her chemise and pantalettes, outlining the high, full curve of her breasts, hinting at pebbled nipples beneath the linen, lining the flat plane of her belly between her hips, the trimness of her waist. Emma Luce was a woman who kept herself in good shape. Over her head went the chemise and the pantalettes fell with far less resistance than last night, no teeth ripping required.
He went to her then, when the last garment fell, to hell with his self-imposed rules about no touching. That part of the game was over now. He wanted his hands all over her, wanted to scoop her breasts into his palms, to feel the weight of them in his palms, wanted his mouth on them, his tongue on her skin, tasting the salt and jasmine of her.
She wanted it too. There was no demur from her when he picked her up and carried her back to the bed; no cries of unfair play when he laid siege to her body with his mouth. She begged just the once, dragging him over her, and he complied. There was nowhere he’d rather be than inside her, pushing them both towards that incredible place they’d discovered last night.
‘Help me get us there,’ he whispered, his mouth against her throat. Her legs closed around his hips, her hips rising to meet his own in welcome. He felt the sweet clench of her muscles squeezing around him, the silken slide of her channel as his phallus entered. A soft moan escaped him, a sound to mirror the relief that came with being inside her. The fanciful notion swept him that somehow when he was with her, he was home, that there was a completion he could find nowhere else, with no one else. It was nonsense, but it fit the moment and he didn’t challenge it, he went with it, followed it, gave himself over to it as their bodies picked up the rhythm. It was slower than last night. There was a poignancy to this lovemaking, his body aware of every nuance from the rise and fall of her hips, to the little adjustments of her body to accommodate his, to the catch in her breath as her body gathered itself.
He lost himself in the prelude to climax. They were in a world of their own making, a world they were building moment by moment, a world where there was no time nor room to think about the vineyards, about hisoncle, about his secrets. There was only the two of them, only their pleasure. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. Climax took him like a thunderclap, sudden and strong, a cacophony of the senses that overwhelmed him. He let himself be overcome, carried along the current of release. Peace would come later. For now, he let himself revel in the unbridled explosion of pleasure coursing through him and her.
If a man could climax twice in succession, watching Emma claim her pleasure would have sent him over the edge yet again. She met her pleasure head-on, eyes wide open as it took her, and tonight there was a special sense of manly pride in knowing he’d given this to her, that it wasn’t a product of the night, of unleashed emotions out of control. Tonight, everything they’d done had been by deliberate choice and still the ending had been spectacular.
Peace came, the hard current of climax releasing him into a quiet pond where he could float. With her. He gathered her to him. She made a soft sound in her throat, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, a place that seemed uniquely made for her. This was what had haunted his day. This was what had brought him home tonight.
‘This is new for me,’ she whispered after a long while, her words an intimate confession in the dark.
‘What is?’ he felt compelled to ask, although he could guess, with some trepidation, where the conversation might go. He’d had widows as lovers before. There was always that moment of comparison, that brief glimpse into the marital bed and how their husbands had failed them by contrast. He’d rather not have that moment with Emma. Garrett had been a friend. But more than that, he wanted this to be just between himself and Emma. He wanted no intruders.
‘Being reckless, letting myself be overwhelmed, caught up in the moment.’ Her answer surprised him. ‘I never thought...’ Her voice trailed off. ‘I never thought a lot of things,’ she started again. ‘I never thought I’d be a widow before I was thirty. Never thought I’d be facing so much of my life without Garrett, without a family of my own. I thought there’d be plenty of time.’
That was not what he’d expected to hear. He ran an idle hand down her arm in a gentle caress. ‘Do you feel guilty?’ He hoped not. It would taint the pleasure and he didn’t want that for either of them. If she felt guilty, he would feel guilty, too.
‘No. I’ve squared my conscience with that. There is no shame in seeking comfort or consolation.’ She sighed. ‘May I be completely, bluntly honest with you?’
‘Yes,’ he said solemnly. ‘Please do.’
‘It is the overwhelming pleasure I am having trouble countenancing. I had not thought to feel that way so soon, or to feel the pleasure so deeply with someone else.’ She paused here and worried her lip. ‘If I am being truthful, it’s not just that I felt the pleasure deeply, but that I felt itmoredeeply.’ She gave a long exhale and Julien waited, patient. He could guess what she wanted to say, but he would not say it for her. It was something she needed to say for herself.
‘That’s where the guilt comes from: feeling with a stranger what I did not feel with my own husband whom I loved with all my heart. Or at least thought I did.’ Her gaze met his. ‘What does it mean about the quality of my love if I found pleasure so soon with another? It is something of a surprise to me to be swept so entirely away by someone I didn’t know a month ago, and I don’t know where it leads or what it will accomplish, and all of that unnerves me.’
Of course it would. The pleasure, the planning, the purpose—or lack of purpose—in their lovemaking. She was a planner and Garrett had been all that was good and stable, the personification of reliability. But what was happening between them bore none of those trademarks. ‘Is it any consolation to know I don’t know where this leads either?’ Julien offered. If she needed the consolation of promises, or the reassurance of a future together, he could give her neither. They were not his to share with any surety. All he could give her was the moment. At some point in the future, she would turn from him. She would hate him, feel betrayed by him. Perhaps these moments would offset the depth of that hurt, unintended as it was, when it came. Perhaps she would know that he’d not meant to hurt her.
She sighed and drew a circle around his nipple with the tip of her finger. ‘When one is married, one takes a lot for granted without realising it, because imagining anything else is too horrifying. I assumed Garrett would always be there for a long time because anything else was unthinkable. A stable marriage blinds one to the reality that nothing is guaranteed; not for tomorrow, not a year from now. We had dreams and we never thought we wouldn’t get to them.’ He felt her smile against his chest. ‘But this is hardly seemly conversation for bed. I’m sorry.’
