Hold Me Close Read online

  Only when the bunched blue silk of her gown around her waist blocked his path downward did he give himself permission to move to the bottom of the divan and grasp the hem of her skirts and begin to push the fabric upwards. So much silk and fine linen—underskirt and petticoats and the lower part of her chemise, so much more than he was accustomed to with the ladies who made their homes in the heat of India. It made him feel like a treasure-seeker.

  And the treasure within was worth risking any penalty, any harm, any curse to find.

  Her legs were slender, but supple, her calves gracefully curved, gleaming in their fine silk stockings. He slid off her blue silk slippers slowly, carefully, as though he were the royal attendant of a queen, then brushed his fingers inch by inch up the length of her lower leg, kissing as he went, stroking and massaging her flesh, letting her know every inch of her was precious and glorious and worthy of his worship.

  Reclining as she was, her hands could not reach him now, and he watched her fingers dig into the leather of the divan, needing to clutch onto something.

  Her skirts pooled still between her thighs, preserving some measure of her modesty—the sweet treasure there still hidden, and he schooled himself to patience, giving his attention first to the sensitive place at the backs of her knees, and the soft flesh of the lower part of her thighs where the stockings left one last barrier between her skin and his tongue.

  He teased her by licking at her through the silk and blowing soft puffs of air against the moisture. The sensation made her twist beneath him with mewling cries, her fingernails scrabbling against the cushions of the divan.

  For the longest time, she made no effort to hurry him, or to sit up so she could touch him in return. She seemed to understand that he was concerned only with giving to her, with letting her feel the beat of warm blood beneath her skin, helping her remember that she was made not of shadow and fog and cold, but of muscle and nerve and living flesh.

  At last, though, her patience wore thin. “More, Marcus!” she cried, her voice thick with need. “Please!”

  He chuckled softly, and moved to oblige her, just as he had with her breasts.

  His hands slid upwards, past the top edge of her stockings, and caressed the bare flesh of her upper thighs. And his mouth quickly followed suit, nuzzling and kissing and nipping at the tender curves there until her hands were buried in his hair once more, and the sounds coming from her mouth no longer seemed to come from a civilized being.

  And then, and only then, did he push her skirts all the way to her waist, and part her thighs with his hands, and let himself gaze on the most private part of her, at long last bared completely to his view.

  He held himself motionless for a long moment, taking in the whole length of her body, her hair spilling wild across the pillow as her writhing worked it free from its pins, her eyes shut tight, her lush mouth open, her lovely breasts glowing in the lamplight, the nipples still taut with need. Her thighs were like a fine carving in alabaster, the dark curls between her legs glistening with her desire.

  It was a sight he never in a million years could have thought would be granted him to see. To be here with her like this, after all his years of hopeless yearning, seemed impossible, and yet somehow inevitable, the most natural thing in the world.

  And then he could restrain himself no longer. He bent his head between her thighs and put his mouth to the hot, slick core of her.

  This tender flesh he lavished with all the passionate attention he had given to her breasts, and more, stroking and laving her, gently parting her folds, teasing the most sensitive nub above them with flicks of his tongue and long, firm circling caresses with the pad of his thumb.

  The sweet musky scent of her filled his senses, firing his need, but he did nothing to slake his own desires. He pleasured her on and on, until her thighs trembled and her hips bucked wildly upward, and at last she was clutching at his shoulders, begging him, “Marcus, now, please! I want you, here, with me. Inside me. Please.”

  This time, he didn’t hesitate—he was all too eager to obey her command.

  Pushing his breeches lower on his hips, not stopping to try to wrestle off his boots, he stretched himself out above her. She reached up to embrace him, and her eyes were glowing again with brilliant, vital light—a light he would do anything to keep burning there.

  “You’re alive, Julia,” he told her, low and urgent, “Very much alive.”

  “Alive,” she answered fervently, and she wrapped one of her arms around his waist, drawing his hips down to the cradle of her thighs.

  A rush of tenderness went through him, mixed with wonderment and desperate, ravaging need. He would have stayed there forever, just drinking in the sight of her face, but his blood was turning quickly to fire. The head of his cock already jutted against the hot, wet entry of her cleft, and it throbbed with urgency to thrust inside her.

  She seemed more than ready.

  He used one hand to guide the head gently between her silken folds, groaning at the sweet feel of her.

  She moaned in answer. “Please,” she pleaded again. “All of you. Everything, please.”

  He was the one trembling now, fighting the urge to pound hard inside of her. Her husband had been a far smaller man, far more civilized by his very nature, and Marcus didn’t want to hurt her or terrify her with his size or with his passion.

  And he was wise to be cautious with her. Slick and ready as she seemed to be, he’d slid only a few inches into her before her sheath clenched too tight to admit him easily farther.

  “Oh,” she said, gasping, “there’s—there’s a great deal of you.”

  He reared back on his elbows. “Am I hurting you?”

  “Yes, a little,” she admitted, and bit at her lower lip. “No…I don’t know.” Her head writhed again on the pillow.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, keeping his weight on his elbows, kissing her gently along her temple, along the line of her jaw, giving her time to adjust to his breadth. “We don’t have to rush anything.”

  “No—don’t stop,” she said, her blue eyes locking on his. “Keep going.”

  He thrust a bit harder, and, sweet heaven, the tight, tight clench of her around the head of his cock was almost too much to bear. He was like a cannon primed and loaded, where one small spark could be enough to set his fuse blazing.

  Beneath him, she was panting, gasping, her legs and arms tensed, her fingers biting into his back.

  He pressed his kisses along her throat, up against her ear. “Relax, Julia,” he urged her. “Just relax. Relax and trust me.” He slid one hand beneath the curve of her bottom, tilting her hips upward to let him angle into her more gently, then used the other to stroke her again at that sensitive peak just above where they were joined.

  He stroked and kissed and whispered, and a little at a time, her inner muscles eased. Then all at once, her passage gave up its fierce resistance, and he slid deep.

  “Oh!” she cried.

  He froze. “Am I still hurting you?” he gasped. “Did that hurt?”

  “No,” she answered on a moan. “That’s good—that’s so good.”

  “Thank God!” He didn’t know if he could have stopped himself from thrusting now no matter what she said.

  He pushed himself into her to the hilt, into the deep, hot core of her, and it stunned him to think he was inside of her, fully inside, after all these years of wanting. He let himself relish that sensation for a moment, the perfect tightness as her sheath gripped him, before he pulled himself backward, partway out of her again.

  And then he rocked forward, feeling her flesh part for him, caress him, embrace him fully. He went in harder, and out, surfacing and diving deep over and over, everything in his universe focusing on those sensations, the slide, the heat, the slippery clench of her muscles inside, the intimate, utter contact between these most private parts of themselves.

  She gave herself without hesitation, trembling beneath him, moaning, her nails raking his back, an
d her passionate response made him burn all the more.

  He pumped into her, into her heat and tightness and wetness, and soon bursts of lightning seemed to race outward from his hips, all along his spine. The main force of it gathered heavily in his belly and in the small of his back. His shoulders strained, his cock grew harder and longer, seeming ready to burst.

  Her legs clamped around him, her calves urging him on, and he could feel her sheath tightening once more, in the best possible way this time.

  She was crying out, close to reaching her peak, and as his hips rocked against her, he made sure she felt the pressure where she needed it, at that place where he’d made her moan earlier with his touch. His back arched now, as the sensations shook him.

  It wasn’t going to take either one of them much longer.

  “Marcus,” she cried, seeking out his mouth with hers, and thrusting her tongue past his lips to tangle with his.

  He drew her tongue deeper, scraping it lightly with his teeth, suckling it, admitting her into him as she had let him so deep inside her.

  His hips rocked against hers, again and again, harder and harder, finding a rhythm that seemed to come from somewhere beyond them, where he could scarcely tell who moved, who gave and who took. He was lost to himself, lost in her.

  It seemed they might go on forever that way, the barriers between them melting, rippling together into one flesh, one energy. But then at last Julia’s head fell back, her hands convulsing against his shoulders, her thighs shuddering, and she cried out in ecstasy as her sheath gripped and pulsed almost violently around him.

  “Julia,” he gasped as he felt her give herself over to him so completely, so unreservedly. But what he was thinking was I’m home, I’m home, I’m home.

  He held back from his own final pleasure until her spasms slowed, but then he was at the moment of crisis himself, irreversibly, and desperately as he wanted to pour himself deep into her, he found the discipline somehow at the last moment to pull out from her, snatch up his fallen shirt from the floor, and spend his seed hard into the cloth.

  And then he could do nothing but fall atop her, utterly spent, and let her bury her face against his throat. She was breathing hard, still, and he thought perhaps he felt the wetness of tears against his neck.

  Her held her tight as whatever emotions working through her found their release, stroking her hair back from her temple with one hand.

  He had no words to say. He couldn’t stop his head from spinning, much less decide what on earth they were supposed to do when they came back to their senses again.

  It was enough now—it would have to be enough—just to hold her, and breathe with her, and drink in the scent of her hair. Just let himself sink into the wonder of having her in his arms, having her pressed up so tight and warm against him, still clinging to him as though she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her.

  That was an illusion, surely, but it was the sweetest illusion he had ever known.

  He could allow himself to indulge it just a little longer.

  But, of course, the universe would never be so kind to him. Just as Julia seemed to be calming again, her breathing slowing to a more natural rhythm, her grip on his back becoming gentle rather than tense, he heard hurried footsteps outside in the conservatory.

  And Lady Lambert’s worried voice.

  “Julia!” she was calling. “Julia, dear, where on earth have you gone? Are you hiding here somewhere?”

  A jolt of adrenaline went through him, and Julia stiffened in his arms and quietly gasped, “Aunt Margaret!”

  He laid a finger across her lips. “The door is locked,” he breathed against her ear. “Even if she tries it, she’ll assume some other couple has snuck off to avail themselves of the privacy of this room. She won’t think it’s you.”

  “Couples don’t behave like that in Devonshire!” Julia whispered back.

  He gave an ironic glance down at their half-naked, entwined bodies. “In fact, I believe they do,” he said. “It’s quite the scandalous place.” And he had to stifle a laugh at the look of shock on her face.

  Well, better to laugh about their situation than to weep.

  They waited, then, nearly holding their breath, until Lady Lambert’s footsteps retreated back in the direction of the ballroom.

  When it was clear they were truly alone again, Julia looked him in the eye, squaring her jaw stubbornly. “Well, I’m not sorry,” she said fiercely.

  “And you have no need to be,” he assured her. But in the morning, you may feel differently, he thought, and felt a knot form heavily in his gut.

  There was nothing for it then but to rise and dress as quickly as they could manage, before Lady Lambert thought Julia had truly come to grief, and raised a general hue and cry. The last thing Julia’s reputation needed was all her friends and neighbors crowding into the hothouse room to find her en déshabillé with a lower-class lover.

  That truly wasn’t the way Julia behaved, at least not in her life until this point.

  And somehow he couldn’t imagine her making a habit of it.

  He’d been there to serve—to protect her, as she put it—in a time of desperation, that was all. And now it was done. And he had no right to expect anything more.

  She’d given him her body tonight, because she needed some physical demonstration of her survival—the human, flesh-and-blood part of her had needed that. But she’d been very clear about her heart. That could never be his. Her heart still belonged to Christopher Grantleigh, whose lady she would forever be.

  So he helped lace her back into her gown, found her slippers, made his uniform as presentable as he could manage. “You make your way back up to your room by whatever private means you can,” he told her. “I’ll find Lady Lambert and tell her I found you seeking a breath of air out in the gardens, and that I sent you back inside. She can send a maid up to check on you.”

  Julia nodded absently, her cheeks still flushed, as she pushed a few pins haphazardly back into the tumbled chaos of her hair. Her eyes had a slightly wild look.

  “Are you all right, Julia?” he asked her. “You—you don’t really think you’ve—”

  “Gone mad?” she finished for him. “No. Not mad. Perhaps I’ve lost my head in other ways tonight.” She flashed him a small, tight smile. “But I’m sane enough.”

  She looked down at her rumpled skirts, licking at her lips, clearly at a loss for what else she ought to say or do. The inevitable regret, he feared, was already beginning to take hold of her.

  He longed to brush his hand across her cheek, to kiss her one last time.

  He wanted to make her promise she would speak to him again on the morrow, not hate him forever for what they’d just done. But touching her, kissing her, asking her for promises—those things seemed as forbidden to him now as they had been on the day they’d first met, the day he’d fallen irrevocably in love with her.

  Maybe even more so, somehow.

  So, as she hovered in the doorway, he sketched her a formal bow and bid her good night, giving her the easiest excuse he could to turn and hurry out the door.

  And he watched in an old, familiar, quiet agony as she slipped out of the room, and out of his arms forever.

  6

  The next morning, Julia woke with a start.

  Though she was in her own familiar bed, it took a moment to make sense of her surroundings. She was alone, and for the first time in many months, that fact surprised her.

  Her thighs ached, her cheeks stung from the scrape of beard stubble, her breasts felt a tenderness almost like bruising. And her pulse still thrummed in her veins.

  She was most certainly not numb, not a phantom. Her body felt more real and solid than it had in months. Perhaps ever. Lord, Christopher had made love to her a thousand times during their marriage, but she’d never felt the aftermath so clearly the next morning.

  Christopher.

  The thought of him made the breath catch in her throat.

  What would Ch
ristopher think if he knew what she and Holsworth—what she and Marcus—had done last night?

  Would Christopher forgive her?

  Would he condemn her?

  Would he understand?

  Her chest felt strange and heavy as she rang for her maid Peggy, and picked up the rosewood hairbrush Christopher had given her, to begin to work the unaccustomed tangles from her hair.

  Thankfully, when Peggy arrived, the little maid chattered cheerfully as ever as she helped Julia bathe and fastened her into a new muslin frock—a soft shade of yellow, Aunt Margaret would be pleased to see, not black. She seemed blissfully unaware of her mistress’s shocking behavior the night before.

  The sun was shining outdoors, the other servants could be heard bustling about the other chambers just as usual. No sulfurous stink of retributive divine thunderbolts emanated from the conservatory.

  In the light of day, it seemed almost impossible last night had even happened.

  But it had happened. Flashes of the memory pulsed through Julia’s mind, making her shiver, making her jolt—her body stretched out beneath Marcus’s, her palms gripping his enormous shoulders, his great glorious weight pressing her down into the leather of the divan, his hands stroking her everywhere, and his mouth and his…

  “My lady?” asked her maid, letting go of the sleeve she’d been fastening. “Did I stick you with a pin?”

  “What?” asked Julia, startled.

  “You gasped, ma’am. Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” she said hastily, trying to smile. “No, of course not, Peggy. I just—it’s just that I feel so odd wearing colors again.”

  The lie made her throat heat. She had no business just now playing the loyal widow. She’d debauched herself quite thoroughly last night under her husband’s roof, with a man her husband had considered as close as a brother. And, as clear as her reasons had seemed to her in the moment, she couldn’t quite recall them now. Just that, at the time, she’d felt she must either use her body, or go cold forever.