Page 29 of Better Love Next Time
Julian checked his watch, his pulse heavy in his chest. Ten minutes later, he was bounding up the stairs. Would he take her on the bed or against the wall? The bed, he decided as he knocked on her door. On her stomach so he could feast on herarse or on her back? Definitely her back with her breasts free of her stays and heaving with his thrusts.
The door opened, and she was stark naked, the most magnificent, load-spilling sight he had seen in years. He stared at her outstretched hand.
“Julian?”
At Kitty’s call, he excused himself, shut the door, and swiveled to his wife standing alone in the corridor encased in a mourning ensemble.
Her close-bodied gown of black damask silk shimmered in the hall lighting. She wore his triple strand of pearls. Her hair was pinned, one black lock draped over her right shoulder.
Kitty peered at the closed door and back at him. They fixed upon his breeches.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Julian knew he could get Kitty gone. That if he knocked on fifteen’s door, in minutes, he would be celibate no more. He would know pleasure, the euphoria of a woman who didn’t expect the burden of love.
If Kitty had once approached him through their marriage without spewing how much she loved him, and thus reminding him of her betrayal and how easily she thought to put it behind them, he might have obliged their needs. But no, it was all about profoundness of feeling for his wife.
Kitty took two steps backward. “Let us tour the yard tomorrow after we both have—have sufficiently rested.”
He started to agree with her.
“No, no. Please.” Her fingers clenched at a letter halfway in her velvet purse looped on her wrist with her cloak. “I am quite tired, you see.”
Let her go.
Julian lunged toward her as she turned. “I would much prefer touring the yard with you.”
This needed to be dealt with.
The Southampton sky was vast, much like the sky Kitty had lived under in the county of her birth. But without clouds, with the heavy summer sun following them along their eastward walk to the river, it felt almost oppressive. In truth, it was a weight upon her heart, reminding her of what she had bargained for a month ago. And what she had given away to keep living.
She tried not to be awkward or to brood or to fall into silence. She thought back to the girl she had been, who had met challenges with a smile, who giggled and loved the color pink to exclusion. But she couldn’t smile. She was dressed in mourning black, and while she walked the cobbled road which gave way to a wooded path, she was terribly awkward.
Julian said nothing of the door numbered fifteen. Oh, but she knew, as they had stared each other down in the corridor, the blond woman had waited behind the door. And it had been the blond woman who had made him thick and long with desire.
Her chin quivered. She was a widow. Her husband was dead. They had shared a grand love. But all good things came to an end, and after sorrow came new beginnings.
Dipping her chin, she studied Julian walking at her left. His brow was as heavy as the sun. His strong jaw and strides were determined.
What if she became like the woman in room fifteen? She had Anthony’s list and knew the act. Quite well, though it had been years since she had reveled in the physical beauty of love. She could kiss Julian with abandon. Open herself to him. Clasp his hard body to hers, feel him move inside her. Touch him. Stroke him.
“Julian?” She spoke in haste. “What if—what if you and I?—”
He halted. “What if we what?”
Humiliation pinked her cheeks. Why had she opened her mouth? Loose women didn’t ask if they could be wanton, they simply did it. She pulled the purse from her wrist and pushed it in his hand. “What if you and I became true partners?”
He held the purse without taking his eyes from hers. “That was your meaning?”
“What else could I mean?”
“Well…” He cleared his throat. “Shall I be honest?”
“Aren’t you always?”
He shrugged. “I thought you wished to lay with me. Like the woman in room fifteen.”
Was she that obvious? Stretching to her full five feet and one-half inch, she barely reached his shoulders. “Why would I ever offer to have another woman’s seconds? Or whatever number she is.”
