His free hand slid under her robe and cupped her breast through the nightgown. His fingers made a slow spiral path toward the nipple. He heard her suck in her breath sharply as his thumb hovered over the sensitive flesh. The anticipation aroused her as much as the touch.
Nathan’s knee nudged the hem of Lydia’s nightgown upward. She pushed at the material, trying to lower it again, until Nathan captured her wrists and pinned her to the bed. His grip was loose, but Lydia would not struggle against it. Instead she glared at him.
“Have done with it, Nathan,” she said tightly, marshaling her defenses.
“No,” he said. “Not like that.”
Lydia averted her face as his mouth tried to capture hers. He accepted the line of her neck and touched her skin lightly with his mouth. She moved restlessly against him, wanting and not wanting, and when she turned her head to tell him what she thought he was waiting for, his lips closed over hers and he pressed the opening she gave him. The kiss was deep and hot and the contact of their mouths was punishing.
Nathan felt the change in Lydia’s response. Her anger transformed her and she wanted him to know it. She arched against him, breaking the hold he had on her wrists. Her arms curved around his back and she brought his weight full against her.
“You want me?” he asked. His voice was whiskey smooth.
“Iwant,”she said.
Lydia’s fingers curled like talons and she felt Nathan’s shudder as her nails caressed his back. Her movement under him was graceful and feline, the sound at the back of her throat part seduction, part contentment.
Nathan sat up. His hands were impatient as he parted Lydia’s robe and pushed up her gown. He knelt between her thighs and leaned forward, kissing her first on the lips, then between her breasts where the last button on her nightgown had been opened. His mouth moved lower as the gown inched upward. She felt his lips on her skin just above her navel, then his tongue making a damp trail across the taut plane of her belly, and finally his mouth was exploring her intimately, touching and tasting her with such sweet purpose that Lydia’s fingers stopped clutching the sheet and threaded in Nathan’s hair.
She was moist and hot, ready for him, but Nathan’s attention remained unrelenting, forcing another response from Lydia so that while she was urged closer to the edge she was never quite allowed to reach it. She raised her knees, pressing her heels into the mattress, and just when she thought he only meant to torture her with his touch, he raised himself up and unfastened his trousers.
Lydia wanted to deny him, deny herself. She did neither. When he thrust into her she met him and when he began to withdraw her long legs wrapped around him, holding him to her. She moved with him, her body arching almost violently as he came into her deeply and drew out her hunger and her need.
She marked his back with her nails as he came at her harder and harder, as if he were angry, too. The set of his features was harder than his thrusts. His skin was pulled taut over the bones of his face, and his eyes were silver and piercing, dark mirrors at the center and like shields at the outer edge. A cord in his neck stood out as his throat was arched. He closed his eyes and his entire body shuddered release. Lydia felt it, thought it was passing from him into her, and then realized it was her body that was shattering, her senses that were igniting and sparking and exploding.
Her eyes were dry and gritty, which was odd, she thought, since she had never felt more like crying. She turned her head aside as Nathan moved away from her. She shoved her nightgown back over her legs while Nathan fastened his trousers. Reaching to the bedside table, she turned back the wick so the room’s muted yellow light was extinguished, then shifted completely to her side so that Nathan’s piercing eyes couldn’t see any part of her face.
Nathan sighed. He lay on his back, his head cradled in his palms, and stared at the ceiling much as Lydia had done earlier. What had any of it proved? He’d forced a response from her but not for him. He hadn’t been able to make her say she wanted him. How had it been possible on theAvonlei?Until the end, when frustration and anger at her denial had overridden his good sense, he had touched her just as he had on theAvonlei.He had caressed her in the manner he knew she enjoyed, kissed her in just the way that gave her the greatest pleasure. He knew every inch of her body, delighted in it, worshiped it, and yet he hadn’t been able to make her say she wantedhim.
He turned on his side and drew the bedcovers over himself and Lydia. She remained stiff and motionless beside him, flinching only momentarily when he laid his hand over her hip. He let it rest there, allowing her to get used to it rather than remove it.
He had no clear idea of what he wanted to say to her, only that he couldn’t let things stand as they were. “Lydia?”
She didn’t answer. She forced her breathing to be even and calm.
“I know you’re not sleeping.”
“I’d like to,” she said.
He hesitated. “I could promise you now that this won’t happen again,” he said softly, “but I think it would probably be a lie.”
There was such a long pause before he continued that Lydia thought it was all he intended to say. “I’m listening.”
Nathan drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know you thought it was your money that brought us together. I suppose there’s even some truth to that because it was as Irish’s daughter that you were important to me. But all that was ever required was that you take my name, and I’ve known almost from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be enough. I find you desirable, Lydia. I always have. You’re so beautiful to me that I ache when I look at you.”
The tears that would not come before fell now. They dripped out of the corners of Lydia’s dark eyes and splattered silently on her pillow. How long had she wanted to hear someone say she was beautiful and mean it? All her life it seemed. And now, hearing it, she understood at last how unimportant it was. She did not know if she was crying for herself, or for Nathan, or from the pain of this new awareness. Lydia jammed her fist against her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud.
Nathan was saying quietly, “I don’t want a marriage in name only. I can’t live like that. Not with you here in this house. Not even for a year.”
She nodded once and when she had control she whispered, “I understand.”
It wasthe middle of the night when Lydia turned to him. She had been laying there, her buttocks cradled against his thighs, and she could feel the hardness of him pressing against her. He was naked now, in both his body and his need, but he made no move to touch her. She thought he was sleeping until she turned and saw that his eyes were open. The silver-blue veil of moonlight caressed the planes of his face and his shoulder. His eyes darted over her, grazing her mouth once, then again, longer the second time, before lifting to hold her gaze.
“I’m not going to do anything about it,” he said, thinking of how much he wanted her right now.
“Even if I asked you to?”
Nathan’s entire body jerked in reaction as her hands disappeared under the covers and sought out his arousal. She stroked him the way he had taught her to and when it wasn’t enough for either of them her mouth replaced her hands. She loved him as she had onAvonlei,with the tenderness of feeling that had engaged her heart and soul, and only one of them understood that everything she did for him was in the way of saying good-bye.
