“The pin says ‘in friendship.’”
“Only because I was too put off by the shopkeeper to have him engrave ‘to my love.’ Besides, Isabella was standing right next to me.”
Ian went silent for a long time, looking at her and avoiding her gaze at the same time. She saw his eyes flicker back and forth, restless, never wanting to settle. “I told you I can’t fall in love,” he said. “But you have.”
Her heart thumped. “Have I?”
“With your husband.”
So many people wanted to talk about Thomas Ackerley.
“I did. I loved him very much.”
“What was it like?” His words were so low she barely caught them. “Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand.”
Chapter Ten
Ian waited, his golden eyes burning, for her to explain the mysteries of the world. “It is the most divine thing imaginable,” she tried.
“I don’t want to hear about divinity. I want to hear about flesh and bone. Is love like desire?”
“Some people think so.”
“But you don’t.”
Sweat trickled down Beth’s back, despite the clouds cutting the sun’s heat. The trouble with Ian Mackenzie’s questions was that he asked the unanswerable. And yet she should know how to answer—everyone should. But they couldn’t, because everyone simply knew. Everyone except Ian. “Desire is part of it,” she said slowly. “The love for another’s body. But also love for their heart and their mind, and for all the silly things they do, no matter how absurd. Your world brightens when they walk into a room, dims when they leave it again. You want to be with the beloved so you can see him and touch him and hear his voice, but you want his happiness as well. It’s selfish, but not entirely so.”
“I can feel desire and wanting. I find you beautiful, and I want you.”
She warmed. “I must say, you are quite good for my pride. But when you don’t desire a woman, you feel nothing for her?”
“Nothing at all.”
Beth heaved a sigh. “And that, Ian Mackenzie, is why I said you’ll break my heart.”
His gaze strayed out the window to cloud-strewn Paris. “Wanting is not enough? Desire so strong you’ll do anything to fulfill it?”
“It’s lovely in the moment, but in the long view, I think, no.”
“In the asylum, I learned to take the short view.” She imagined a younger Ian, lanky and not yet grown into his man’s body, bewildered and alone. The bewildered boy reminded her of the girl who found herself abandoned at fifteen with predators roaming, waiting for her to become their victim. Even now, with a respectable name and a fortune, Beth never felt entirely safe.
“I admit that I, too, have learned to take the short view,” she said.
“You feel the wanting.” Ian took her fingers between his, pressing their palms together.
“You felt it at the duchesse’s.” Her face heated. “Of course I felt it. You had me in that sitting room with my skirts up to my ears. How could I not?”
“Do you want to feel it again?”
Excitement whispered through her. “If I were a lady, I’d protest that of course I don’t want to feel like that ever again. But I do, actually. Very much.”
“Good, because I want to see your body.” Beth swallowed. “You’ve already seen a good portion of it.”
He sent her a dark smile. “And it was fine. I wish to see the rest. Right now.”
Beth darted a glance to the door. “Mac might return any minute.”
“He’ll stay away until we leave.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know Mac.”
“The window…”
“Too high for anyone to see in.”
Beth had to admit that he’d answered her most basic objections. She knew she should have other objections, but she couldn’t remember them right now.
“And if I decide I’d rather run away?”
“Then we’ll wait.”
Beth hesitated, her legs feeling like water, but at the same time, she knew nothing would induce her to leave this room short of a fire. A very large fire.
“I’ll need help with the buttons,” she said.
Beth’s clothes came off layer by layer, like a complicated wrapping peeling back to reveal simple beauty. One by one, her garments fell across the studio’s sofa in a multicolored layer: rich blue bodice and overskirt, a brighter blue underskirt, the fabric light for summer. Two silk petticoats, both white, then her corset cover, until at last Ian unlaced the linen corset himself.
Ian’s arousal throbbed, and he knew he wouldn’t be happy until he saw her bared in her entirety. He untied her lacy pantalets, then unbuttoned the chemise. The silk garments floated gracefully to the floor, and Beth stepped out of them, nude for him. She reached for him, but Ian stepped away, and Beth stopped, confused.
Her hair was mussed from undressing, little ringlets falling from the mass of curls on top of her head. Her arms were soft and round, her thighs also, her waist nipped in by years of wearing a corset.
From her waist her hips softly flared to smooth and firm buttocks. He’d seen her vee of dark hair when he lifted her skirts in the little gilded room, but it was even more beautiful now touched by daylight.
Under his close scrutiny, she blushed and folded her arms over her breasts. Ian leaned against the back of a chair and basked in her beauty. “You don’t need to hide from me.” Beth hesitated, then gave a little laugh and spun around, arms outstretched. She was so beautiful, with her curls every which way, her mouth laughing, her blue eyes flashing in the fading sunlight. The clouds thickened and rain began to fall, but that didn’t dampen the glow inside the room. Beth laughed again. “How strange is life?” she asked.
“One moment you are a dowdy companion without a shilling, the next you are a wealthy bohemian in Paris. One moment a drudge, the next you are buying gifts for your paramour.”
Her words slid over him like water. He’d remember each one in its precise order later, but he would never understand them any better than he did now.
Beth caught up the drape Cybele had dropped and spun it around herself. The gauzy folds caught her hips and breasts, not hiding her in the slightest. She spun around and around, laughing.
Ian grasped the drape when she whirled by, and used it to haul her against him. She stumbled into his arms, still laughing. His first kiss parted her lips, stopping the laughter as she melted to him.
Beth had seen him at his worst, and yet she’d come here today, bleating an apology and handing him a gift. He caught the glint of the gold pin on his chest and his heart warmed beneath it.
Other parts of him were plenty warm, too. He lifted her against him, loving her pliant, bare body in his arms. If she’d been a courtesan, Ian would have already bent her over the chair and taken her without further ado. But while Beth’s husband might have taught her the pleasures of the bed, she’d know nothing of the crude coupling of courtesans. She smiled at him in perfect faith, a flower just opening.
Beth’s fragile trust was in Ian’s hands. He’d growled that he didn’t want to be protected, but the instinct to protect her was strong. Beth was so alone in the world, so vulnerable, and she didn’t even realize it.
Ian rubbed his hands over her warm body, wanting to gather her to him and not let go. The thought of anything happening to her, of other men demanding things from her, wound his thoughts into a frenzy.
“Kiss me,” he said.
Beth smiled into his mouth. She wrapped her arms around him, the gauzy drape coming around his neck. She tasted like warm honey, incredible sweetness. Something deep inside him responded. Ian recognized wanting, but it was more than that. He slid his broad knee between hers, coaxing her forward as he kissed her. He boosted her with his hands on her buttocks until she trustingly straddled his thigh. Ian loosened his hold a little, letting her slide against his rock-hard thigh. Beth looked surprised, and then a soft sound escaped her lips.
r /> Ian held his hands loosely on her hips, rocking her against his hard leg, teaching her to pleasure herself. Her sweet and exciting scent surrounded him. He kissed her, then left her alone to enjoy the strange sensation of the fabric against her cleft. Beth scraped back and forth, her breath coming faster, cheeks pink and damp with sweat. She’d never pleasured herself, he realized. This was new to her, astonishing, delightful. Her head went back, and she closed her eyes. Wisps of hair trickled down her neck, her lips parting in desire. “Ian,” she whispered. “How do you know so well… what I want?”
He knew because her body told him. He liked a woman rising under his touch like Beth did now, eyes softening in delight. Women were more beautiful than ever when they gave in to pleasure. He loved how they smelled, how they tasted, the sound of their breathy sighs, the warmth of their bodies under his hands.
That meant that Ian could stand in Mac’s studio, fully dressed, and have Beth go crazy with pleasure. He liked the power of it, and the joy of watching Beth’s eyes widen and hearing her gasp turned to frenzied cries of delight. Ian took a curl at her forehead between his lips. He wanted her in every way possible, but he was enjoying slowly spinning out the seduction, giving her one taste at a time, watching her learn to want him. One night, he would have her. By then, Beth would want him so much he could make her his forever. Ian didn’t understand love, by his own admission, but he knew having Beth in his life was something worth striving for. She’d said no the first time he’d asked her to marry him; she’d explained in her sensible manner that she had no inclination to marry. But Ian would change her mind. Ian Mackenzie had learned to be good at getting what he truly wanted. Beth’s cries rang against the studios high ceiling. She clasped his face between her hands and kissed him, hard. “Thank you, Ian,” she whispered. Ian sank his fingers into her bottom and returned the kiss, tasting her as her orgasm wound down. She’d thanked him in the duchesse’s tiny sitting room, yet she was the one who stilled the beast inside him. He should be thanking her for giving him this peace, if only for a few precious moments.
I have become a truly wicked woman, Beth wrote in her journal a few days later. I find myself looking forward every day to what naughtiness Ian and I might do together. Yesterday he escorted Isabella and me to Drouant’s, that very fashionable new restaurant where everyone goes to see who is there and with whom. Ian doesn’t speak much in company and never minds that Isabella and I gossip like magpies—or rather, Isabella tells me all about the people she sees, and I inhale it with too much enjoyment. Ian held my hand under the table the entire meal. Isabella knew—of course she did. She seems quite enchanted with Ian’s attentions to me. But if she knew how Ian held my hand, she might not be so sanguine.
Ian cannot do something so simple as hold a woman’s hand. He moves his thumb up my wrist and under my glove, finding points that shoot wild heat through my body. He caresses the inside of my palm with soft fingers, and then he threads his fingers through mine and holds hard, as though teaching me that my hand belongs there with his. He calmly eats his sole meuhiere, or whatever exotic concoction Isabella has insisted we try, and says not a word. Ian and I are lovers—how strange for me to pen the word. And yet, we have not consummated our affair, not in the way of the marriage bed. I had thought, in Mac’s studio, that he would remove his clothes and couple with me on the couch. But he did not. He didn’t take off one stitch, not even loosening his collar, while I lay against him in my altogether. Quite disappointing.
However, my bare skin against the fabric of his coat was a strange but pleasing sensation. I never thought myself so depraved, but it made me feel rather wild and wanton. I would have done anything in that room, anything he wanted me to, but he gently suggested I dress and go before Isabella worried where I was. I did, but the way he kissed me before I departed promised more adventures at a later time. And good heavens, did I, have an adventure today… Beth paused in her writing to listen to the rain beating at the windows. Paris had come in for a series of summer storms, rain and wind gushing endlessly through the city. It had ruined Beth’s morning walk and put paid to her and Isabella strolling along looking at shops.
Ian had said he’d take Isabella and me driving in the park today, and he arrived at the appointed hour. Isabella took one look at the slate gray sky and flatly refused to go. If we wanted fresh air so much, she said, Ian and I could go without her. Ian didn’t look as though he minded one way or another, so I found myself climbing into the carriage alone with him. Was Isabella a bit too easily put off by the weather? Did she too readily press her hand to her head and declare she felt a migraine coming on? She seems to want me to be improper—perhaps to encourage Ian to propose? But Ian and I are grown-up people—he is twenty-seven, Isabella tells me, which puts him two years younger than I am not a virginal debutante sheltering behind her mama’s skirts, and he is not a dark villain. We are simply a widow and a bachelor of the same age enjoying each other’s company. When the carriage began moving around the park at a fair clip, I boldly told Ian how much I’d liked feeling his clothes against my body in Mac’s studio. He smiled that warm, melting smile of his and said that if I liked that sort of sensation, I could pull down my drawers then and there and sit bare-buttocked on his lap. The thought aroused me instantly, and Ian knew it, drat the man. I believe he delights in putting me in this state. I did not obey, because I could imagine the coach having an accident and me scrambling to safety with my lacy drawers about my ankles. Paris is a more permissive place than London, but I think even here I’d never live it down. Ian smiled at my fears and told me that nearly getting caught was part of the fun. I countered by mentioning that he had seen quite a lot of my bare skin, while I hadn’t seen a bit of his.
He then asked me which bit I had in mind.
I, of course, want to see all of him. The feel of hard muscle beneath his suits suggests a body well honed, and the thought of viewing any part of it makes me pulse with excitement. Unfortunately we were in a moving carriage, and Ian removing all his clothes, then resuming them wouldn’t have been practical. He told me I could view any bit I wished, but I’d have to open that part of his clothing myself. Depraved thing that I am, I reached over and began to unfasten his trousers.
Ian sat back and let me, his eyes closing to slits of gold. He spread his legs but refused to help me. This vexed me, because men’s clothes are wretched things. I don’t know how they manage. I had to unbutton and untie and move several pieces of fabric before I finally found what I sought. Ian was shaking by the time I finished—with laughter, I believe. At last his clothes parted, and I was able to reveal that part of a man’s anatomy that is the cause of so much wickedness. I am pleased to say I felt no embarrassment or timidity as I closed my hand around it and drew it forth. Ian did not need to be embarrassed either. He is perfectly shaped. His shaft is smooth and dark, very warm in the cool carriage. It ends in a wide tip, like a cap with a tiny slit in its middle. I stroked my finger over this slit, and Ian made a hungry noise. Realizing he liked this, I moved my thumb over the tip in a circular motion until he groaned again. I played with him thus, enjoying my power. I varied my technique, grasping his shaft and stroking my fingers up and down it, or tickling my way around the flange.
Ian put his hand over his face and wrapped his other arm tightly around me. I rested my cheek on his chest and kept up my play with his fascinating appendage. After a while, I wanted more. The carriage was moving smoothly, so I slid from the seat to my knees. I studied him a little while at eye level, enjoying looking over every part of him. Then I leaned over and took him into my mouth. Ian jumped like I’d stung him. I feared I’d hurt him, but when I tried to back away, he laced his fingers through my hair and pulled me to him again.
I’d never tasted a man’s shaft before, and I licked it, assessing what it was like. I found the taste faintly salty, but darker, different from his lips. I speculated whether I could put a love bite on him here, and when I began to try, he moaned out loud. He moved his l
egs farther apart while I worked, and his feet flexed in his boots. I heard him whisper my name, but I couldn’t reply, my mouth being far too full of him.
I couldn’t quite leave a love bite, though I tried for a long time. When I finally gave up, I pushed my mouth back over his shaft, as though I meant to swallow it entirely. The thought excited me. I wanted to devour him. I didn’t understand the wanting, but I pushed him into my mouth as far as he could go.
I know he liked this, because he wrapped his legs around my middle, and the sounds that came out of his mouth were incoherent. His hips moved, making him rise out of the seat. I felt gleeful that I could torment him this way, just as he’d tormented me. I now knew how to give him such pleasure he couldn’t keep still.
I dipped my hand between his spread legs to find the round firmness of his balls, and entertained myself moving them gently in my palm. I felt him shudder, felt the pulsing inside him, and then suddenly he let out a loud groan and filled my mouth with his seed. I was surprised and nearly pulled away, but my heart beat swiftly, and I decided I wanted to stay put. Ian tasted like fine cream with a little bite, not at all a bad concoction. I slid my tongue around my mouth as he eased himself out, and I swallowed him, happy to keep some part of him for myself.
Ian dragged me up into the seat without bothering to refasten his trousers. He kissed me hard, despite what I’d just done, as though he wanted to taste what lingered on my lips, He looked at me and said nothing at all, but his grip on my face softened. I saw his gaze try to meet mine and fall short every time.
Finally he growled a little and gathered me into his arms. He held me thus, stroking and kissing my hair, until the carriage slowed again in front of Isabella’s house. Ian refused to come in, which I understood, though he’d of course fastened his trousers again. I expected him to say some good-bye, to let me know when we might meet again and continue our wanton entertainment, but he remained silent. He was breathing hard, though, and I believe he’d not had a chance to compose himself. Isabella greeted me without the slightest trace of the headache she’d affected before I left. In fact, the deceptive young woman raced upstairs and dressed to attend a salon, even though the rain hadn’t slackened one whit. I declined to attend with her, because Ian wasn’t escorting us, and I couldn’t imagine any delight that could match what I’d experienced in Ian’s closed carriage on this wet day.