What it felt like to desire a man.
To be desired in return.
It was powerful and wonderful and frightening—all the more so because of the man she desired, the man whose kisses had brought her back to life.
“What is it you had forgotten?” he asked quietly, almost tenderly.
The harshness had leached from his expression. Even the angles of his face seemed to have softened. He was no longer the aloof, cool-eyed stranger who had entered the salon. Instead, he was the passionate man whose mouth had moved over hers with such masterful promise.
And whether it was the lateness of the hour or the intensity of the desperate yearning she felt for him, she found herself answering his question.
“What desire feels like,” she answered, searching his countenance for a hint of mockery and finding none. “I haven’t allowed myself to feel it…to feel anything…in a long time.”
“How long?” he asked.
She knew what he was asking—how long she had been a widow.
“Four years.”
The admission made heat rise to her cheeks, for she had revealed a great deal to him with those two words. She waited for his censure. For mockery.
Instead, he leaned into her, pressing his forehead to hers. For the span of a few moments, he remained silent. Did nothing more than inhale slowly and exhale, as if he were taking in her breaths and feeding her his own.
“It has been longer for me,” he said at last.
His own confession startled her. “Are you a widower?”
“No.” He shook his head slowly, then rubbed his cheek along hers, the bristle of his whiskers somehow enticing and comforting both. “It’s not a woman I mourn, but the man I once was.”
His answer was not what she had expected, and in typical Beast fashion, he had left her with more questions than answers. She suddenly wanted to know everything there was to know about him. And that was frightening and foolish, for his presence in her life was temporary. He was not the sort of man to whom a respectable widow should grow attached. He was a gruff, mysterious enigma who would disappear into the shadows from which he had emerged whenever this terrible business with Ridgely was at an end.
“Who were you?” she dared to ask, leaning back so she could study his face.
A muscle clenched in his jaw, his beautiful lips set in a firm, almost angry line. “It doesn’t matter. I am the man you see before you now.”
So he hadn’t always been Beast, then. It was what she had suspected. What she had known instinctively. But who was he truly? What secrets was he hiding? She wanted to understand him.
Pamela did something even more dangerous than what she had already done. She took his face in her hands, holding him still, and then she kissed him. Kissed him not because it was dark and he had kissed her first, not just because she was burning up with need, but because he had shared a part of himself with her that she couldn’t help but to think he didn’t readily reveal to anyone else. And because he had ridden to her rescue earlier that night. She didn’t think now that it had been mere duty which had prompted the gesture.
Nor was it duty that had him taking command now. He angled his lips over hers, deepening the kiss as his hands slid up her back. Just as he had the night before, he cupped her nape, his long fingers cradling her head and holding her as he wanted so that he could feast on her mouth. He made her feel so wanted, so lovely. Made her feel like a woman again instead of a widow who had locked herself away from the world.
Her body hummed with yearning as she moved her lips in tandem with his, taking everything he had to give and demanding more. Of their own accord, her fingers threaded through his thick hair, and she raked her nails lightly over his scalp, a ravenous need to consume him overtaking her. To mark him, to claim him. To make him—even if only for this moment—hers.
After suppressing this part of herself for so long, she was suddenly hopelessly beyond any attempt at reining in her desires. She was a runaway carriage speeding toward a cliff and imminent destruction. But it didn’t feel like she was about to fall to her doom when Beast suddenly rose from the chair as one, holding her in his strong, muscled arms as if the effort scarcely strained him.
She broke the kiss as she felt his footfalls carrying them forward. Such a strange sensation, floating above the air, propelled by a locomotion that was not her own. No one had carried her since she had been a child. And even then, her mother had only deigned to scoop her up and send her away to the nursery. She had most definitely not been treated to such reverent care. Had never felt protected the way she did in Beast’s arms. Not just protected, but coveted, too.
Not even with Bertie had she felt such a stirring, intense passion. She didn’t think it was time which had faded her memories. She and Bertie had been very much in love, but he had been sunshine and ease, sweet smiles and soft touches. Their lovemaking had always been tender and pleasant and lovely in its own way. But it hadn’t been the maelstrom that afflicted her whenever Beast was touching her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, breathless from their kisses and from her reaction to him. “I must be heavy. Put me down.”
He didn’t obey. Of course, he didn’t.
“You’re perfect, Marchioness,” was all he said as he carried her the rest of the way across the salon, until they’d reached the chaise longue she had so recently vacated, what now seemed a lifetime ago.
A lifetime in mere minutes. The woman who had been clinging to her convictions and the weighty guilt of the past had somehow disappeared the moment he had pulled her into his lap. It was as if he possessed some sort of dark, magical powers, some claim on her that was fated.
She thought again of his words, the starkness of them sending shivers through her as she recalled them.It’s not a woman I mourn, but the man I once was.
