Part 21 (1/2)
Francesca flushed, not from shame or embarra.s.sment, but from confusion. Many foolish young English gentlemen on their tour had professed great love and desire for her, none of which she'd listened to with any seriousness. But Edward was different, a grown man of the world, and uneasily she wondered if there were something about herself-something she'd inherited from her own rather dissolute father, along with his straight nose, his laugh, and his talent for painting-that made men think of her this way.
”You must not claim all the fault for yourself, Edward,” she suggested hesitantly. ”You are a wickedly handsome man, and you-you tempt me as well.”
”Not the same way,” he countered moodily. ”You're a pa.s.sionate woman, aye, but women are different. You do not have the same base instincts that can haunt a man.”
”But is that so very wrong? Surely most gentlemen must feel the same intense pa.s.sions toward a woman at least once in their lives.”
”No.” He turned abruptly, resting his palms flat on the long table with his back toward her. ”I should have told you earlier, Francesca, before we were wed. My fine, n.o.ble family is as rotten as a barrel of last year's apples. I pray you'll never be cursed to meet my brothers, drunkards and gamblers who cannot keep count of the number of wh.o.r.es they've paraded through their beds, same as our father was before them.”
”You don't have to-”
”No, Francesca, you must hear this,” he said, and took a deep breath, clearly warring with himself. ”You must. As long as I can remember, I have striven to be different from them, to set myself apart by being more honorable, and yet here when I am truly tested, I find I'm not one d.a.m.ned bit better-not one!”
”Oh, Edward, don't,” she cried softly. She'd listened as he'd asked, and heard far more than he'd said, and when she looked at the broad back that still wasn't strong enough to carry all his guilt and sorrows alone, her heart wept with the suffering he felt. ”Santo cialo, you are the best, most honorable gentleman I have ever met!”
Before he could answer or rebuff her again, she came behind him and circled her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his back. She knew how much solace a touch could bring because they'd been so rare in her own motherless life. His back in the kerseymere dressing gown was warm beneath her cheek, which didn't surprise her, but holding him this way was as comforting to her as she wished it to be to him, which surprised her very much.
”You were right to keep apart from me in the beginning, la.s.s,” he said with a groan. ”Haven't you been listening to anything I've said?”
”I have, caro mio,” she said, her fingers spreading on their own to feel the sleek, hard muscles at his waist beneath the kerseymere, feel the way he'd sucked in his breath so sharply at her touch. That surprised her, too; he was vastly different to embrace than her father had been. ”And you are still the best and bravest gentleman I know.”
He covered her hands with his own, lifting them from his body. ”You don't know what you're doing, Francesca.”
”Oh, yes, I do, Edward,” she said, twisting around to face him as if taking steps in an elaborate dance, sliding between his body and the edge of the table. ”I am trying to convince you that you are not nearly so bad a man as you believe.”
She was tempting fate by tempting him like this. She wasn't so great a fool as to ignore the danger, but for now she cared more about easing his unhappiness than holding exactly to their agreement. Slowly she brought his hand to her lips and kissed it, teasing his wrist with the edge of her teeth the same way as he'd kissed hers that first night, and looked up through her lashes to see his reaction.
It was an admirable reaction, too, well worth watching. His captain's reserve dissolved and the hard, stubbled planes of his jaw-unshaven since the storm had begun-relaxed. His eyes filled with wonder and pleasure, and something darker, rougher, more excitingly male.
”Ah, la.s.s, you've a warm nature,” he said gruffly, his breath quickening as he turned his hand to cup her cheek, caressing the side of her throat with his thumb.
”Warm, and pa.s.sionate, too,” she said, turning her head to rub against his thumb like a little cat. ”You said so yourself.”
”That I did,” he growled. ”But I won't be burned by you, la.s.s, even on this cold December day.”
”Not burned, leone mio, no, no,” she said, again echoing his gesture by touching her palm to his rough cheek, cradling his jaw as she threaded her fingers into his hair. ”But you do need warming, caro. You need the merry sun of my Napoli to chase away that English chill from your soul.”
She wasn't sure if she kissed him then, or if he was the one who kissed her first, but when their lips did meet it seemed the most natural, the most perfect thing in the world. This time, she wasn't startled; this time she knew what to expect, what to antic.i.p.ate, what to do.
Eagerly she answered his kiss, slanting her lips to accommodate his. Letting him coax hers apart, she relished the exciting sensation of having his tongue play against hers, the feel and the taste of him. She'd teased him about needing to warm his proper English reserve, but there was nothing cold about how he kissed her, or the desire she felt simmering between them, the same as it had the first time he'd kissed her at their wedding.
But while she'd thought she known what to expect, she soon learned that, however pa.s.sionate, that wedding kiss had been only the beginning. He had more to offer her, and much, much more for them to claim together. Emotions and weariness and denial, too, had worn away at their promise to wait to a degree that she hadn't realized until she felt his hand upon her hip, his fingers spread to caress her as he lifted her easily onto the edge of the table. She felt him tugging the front of her bodice down and his hand slipping inside her s.h.i.+ft to the bare skin beneath. She wriggled, weakly trying to protest more because she knew she should than from any real wish for him to stop.
How could she, when what he was doing was building such a delicious tension in her body? With surprising gentleness, he'd begun by tracing little circles around her nipple with his fingertips, just enough to make her flesh tighten and ache, and when-at last, at last!-he found the rosy nub itself, squeezing and teasing and tormenting it between his callused thumb and forefinger until all she could do was arch beneath him and whisper sweet, urgent nonsense in Italian into his ear, words and promises she'd never dare venture in English.
”Sweet, sweet,” he murmured, feathering hot kisses along her jaw and throat, his unshaven jaw teasing rough against her skin. ”Do you know how much I want you, la.s.s? Do you know?”
”Oh, yes, caro mio,” she whispered, her fingers pressing into the hard muscles of his shoulders beneath the soft red kerseymere. ”I know because I want you more, my brave English lion, coraggioso, coraggioso!”
The rumbling sound he made deep in his chest could indeed have been a great cat's muted roar, or simply a sound of purely male possession, marking her as his. She wasn't sure and she didn't care, not after he s.h.i.+fted lower to find her breast with his mouth, his tongue flicking lightly over and around her nipple until she gasped and twisted with the unexpected sensations rippling through her. His mouth closed over her then, tugging and suckling hard enough to make her dizzy with pleasure, a pleasure great enough that she freely let him unlace the back of her gown so he could slip it over her shoulders. With an impatient twitch and a shrug, she freed her arms from the sleeves so the gown crumpled down around her waist, unabashedly bare for him and his marvelous, seductive hands and lips and tongue.