within her at the knowledge she had done this to him. But her own rising need left little time for contemplation or even a celebration of victory. She was drowning in heretofore unknown sensations and she clung to him for support. Intuition told her only he could provide an antidote to what coursed through her veins.
‘Steady now,’ Paine whispered to her, his hands on the buttons of her gown, expertly freeing her body from its satin casing. Through the thin linen of her chemise, he traced the silhouette of her body against the candles’ flames. His thumbs teased her nipples through the cloth until Julia panted for release. She reached to pull the chemise over her head, suddenly in a hurry to be completely naked, as if by being so she could assuage the pressure growing within her, demanding emancipation.
To her frustration, Paine pushed her hands away. ‘Not yet, my eager one.’ He bent and swept her into his arms. Julia gasped at the sudden movement, but she hadn’t the wherewithal or desire to protest when he laid her on the low bed amidst the silken covers. She made no move to cover herself. She could do nothing but hold Paine’s intense stare. She reached for him to pull him down to her, but he stepped back.
‘Watch me, Julia.’
Did she have a choice? Julia could not muster the fortitude to look away. Paine’s eyes did not leave hers as he lifted his shirt over his head and stood magnificently bare-chested before her, his torso bronzed from years beneath a tropical sun, the strength of the arms that had lifted her evident in the obvious musculature of his shoulders and biceps. Julia groped for a word to describe him. Beautiful came to mind—sublime, masculine beauty, the kind of beauty sculptors carved in stone and for the night it was hers.
His hands dropped to the waistband of his trousers, reminding Julia that he was not done. He was not wearing small clothes underneath and the core of his manhood sprang free of the trousers, straining upright towards his belly in unabashed glory. Artfully, he bent to pull his legs free of the trousers, supplying Julia with an unadulterated glimpse of his backside.
He must be a fabulous horseman, Julia concluded, eyeing the muscled power of his long legs and firm buttocks. The thought was so errant and ridiculous, Julia choked back a giggle.
‘What is it?’
‘I was just thinking you must be a great horseman,’ Julia confessed.
Paine smiled wickedly. ‘I know how to ride.’
The cryptic remark puzzled her. She sensed there was a double meaning, but she could not fathom what it was, too enamoured of the sight before her to do anything else.
Seeing her consternation, his smile softened and he knelt on the floor beside her, the knuckles of his hand grazing her cheek in a caress. ‘Ah, Julia, my innocent.’ He reached for a trifle box on a low table and withdrew an unfamiliar item. Julia watched, amazed, as he fitted it on to his sex.
‘It’s a sheath to prevent us from making a child,’ Paine explained softly. ‘Now, we’re ready for our true pleasure.’
Julia could not imagine more beyond what she’d already felt but Paine knelt at her stockinged feet and convinced her otherwise. Skilful hands rolled down the stockings and discarded them. Lips kissed the sensitive space behind her knees until she thought she would scream aloud from the sensation of it. Heat built inside her, a heat that was damp and scorching all at once as Paine’s hands spread her thighs and his mouth nipped seductively at the tender flesh near her woman’s core, his breath hot against the triangle of her curls.
Then he was over her, covering her with the length of his form, his sex strong against her leg. Without leaving her, he reached again for the trifle box and retrieved a small vial of oil that smelled of lavender when he removed the stopper and poured some into his hand. Julia watched, entranced as Paine moved his hand between her legs and gently inserted his oil-slick fingers inside her.
‘You’re ready for me,’ Paine whispered, covering her again and this time it was his sex that found purchase at her entrance. Julia felt him thrust in, just a little at first, and then, to her dismay, withdraw. She cried out her disappointment. Paine smothered the cry with a kiss and entered again, further this time, and withdrew, then again until Julia realised his rhythm and intention.
Secure now that she was not being teased, Julia fitted her hips against his and joined in the rhythm. She felt him plunge deep, felt a sharp stab of pain. He stilled inside her as she breathed a cry into his mouth and waited until she urged him onwards.
Deep inside her now, their rhythm increased, the pressure grew, spiralled to new levels. Not even his kiss could silence her moans of delight. In this new pleasure, she was free. She was not bound to the earth or to anything on it; beneath Paine Ramsden, she was flying, soaring. When she felt she could not soar any higher, she felt her core fracture into countless pieces, the pressure that had built in her since his first touch finally assuaged. She was boneless and drifting in a new satisfied world, aware only that Paine, too, had seemed to reach a level of fulfilment, contentment. He, too, had cried out at the last and now rested against her, his weight a warm reminder of their intimacy as sleep took her.
Chapter Four
Paine awoke to the scent of lemons mingled with the musk of sex and the warmth of another body cradled against his own, his arm draped over the lush curve of a breast. It was a heady awakening.
Images of the evening came back to him with striking clarity: Julia Prentiss in her delectable aquamarine gown begging him to ruin her, her green eyes shrewdly assessing him as she made her plea; Julia naked on his bed, weeping for his caress as he initiated her to the pleasures of lovemaking; Julia crying out as the final moment of their joining took her to untold heights, her hips arched high into him, her head thrown back on the pillow as she gave way to unabashed ecstasy.
At that moment, all pretence of doing a duty, of thwarting her fate with her madcap scheme, had fled from her thoughts. He’d seen her eyes darken the moment she’d submitted fully to the pleasure between them, when business had ceased. She’d been utterly his, and utterly without artifice.
Everything in that instant had been truth. Not just for her, for him, too. He’d cried out at his pinnacle, feeling his own climax completely, devoid of the usual restraint he practised. It was his wont to give pleasure, not to take his own, not to give in to anything beyond the physical fulfilment of the act.
Last night had been disturbingly different. He’d found he could not hold back the emotional tide that surged at the sounds of Julia’s bliss beneath him. He had given into temptation—a temptation that he rarely felt, if ever—and joined her at the height of her rapture.
The act of doing so was somewhat alarming, perhaps a sign of vulnerability in himself that he had thought long suppressed. Perhaps he wasn’t as changed by his years abroad, his studies of the human condition, his adventures in far-off lands, as he had believed. There was danger in that. He’d been exiled once before for behaving rashly on behalf of a woman. He’d promised himself not to let such foolishness take him again.
Julia stirred beside him, nesting her buttocks against his groin provocatively in her sleep. He flared to life, his body responding immediately to the inadvertent invitation. He tamped it down. He’d taken her twice more after their first joining. She’d be sore this morning. He should refrain until she’d had a hot bath and soaked away the initial soreness. But neither could he lay by her side, playing the neutral eunuch. If he was to grant her a respite, he had to keep himself occupied.
Paine rolled over and out of the bed in a single, quick motion before his body could persuade his conscience to act otherwise. He would see about some breakfast. His new piece of property
