Chapter Seven
Ewan knew he should feel relief that Charlotte was acquiescing to his request. If she didn’t expect more, she wouldn’t be hurt when this was over. But that wasn’t what he felt. Instead, he couldn’t deny the disappointment that gripped him. He had to turn her away from the future he could see glittering in her stare. But once she accepted that, he knew from bitter experience that she would find someone else to give her a different future. She would marry again and then she would be lost to him forever.
This was all he had. And he so desperately wanted to make it good for them both.
He reached out and tucked a finger into the front of her towel, then tugged so that the fabric fell away and left her naked. She reached for him, lifting her mouth to his. He took it, driving his tongue between her lips, tasting her pain and her desire as they merged into one emotion that felt too powerful to deny.
With a groan, he swept his arms beneath her knees and carried her to the bed. As he settled her back against the pillows and took a place beside her, he looked her body up and down. He was going to memorize every inch of her in the time they had left. When memory was all he had left, he’d be glad he’d done it.
She kissed him again and her legs parted ever so slightly. When he pulled away, he looked down her body. In the tub, she’d spoken of a man putting his mouth on a woman. It was all Ewan had thought about since she’d said it. To taste Charlotte so intimately…
He wanted to know her flavor too, for reference in his future fantasies. He drew his mouth down her body, tasting the sweet, clean essence of her freshly washed skin. He swirled his tongue around one puckered nipple, and she arched beneath him.
He looked up her body at the ecstasy on her face and smiled. Oh yes, he wanted to know all her flavors. He licked, mimicking the way she liked to be touched by his fingers. It was so easy to learn her pleasure, because it was such an equal pleasure to him. When she groaned beneath him, her fingers coming into his wet hair, massaging his scalp and drawing him even closer, that was heaven. Pure heaven.
He suckled harder and she panted beneath him, her legs shaking wildly. His cock was already rock hard again, throbbing in time to the pulsing of his tongue around her flesh. But he ignored it. Ignored the part of him that told him to push her legs open, to plunder and take and claim and mark.
Right now he just wanted to pleasure. To learn. There would be plenty of time for the other. He pulled away from her nipple with a pop as her wet flesh left his lips. Slowly, he nibbled a trail to the opposite breast, tracing the curve of her with his mouth and then taking her nipple deep inside to swirl his tongue around and around.
She was lifting her hips now in time to his mouth and he let his hands drift lower as he continued to pleasure her breasts. He reveled in the smooth softness of her skin across her ribcage, the swell of her hip. His nails lightly abraded there and she made a cry of pleasure.
He smiled against her skin and repeated the action as she trembled beneath him. Her responsiveness drove his own and the ricochet of her pleasure hit him in his entire being.
He wanted to touch her intimately. He drew his fingers across her hip, down her thigh, and she opened to him with a shivering sigh. He continued to lick and suck her nipple as he parted her folds and found her entrance slick and ready. Slowly, he smoothed his fingers across her, testing the way her hips jolted when he dipped the tips into her sheath, or the way she shuddered when he grazed her clitoris.
He broke his mouth from her breasts as he teased her with his fingers and let his tongue continue down her body. He licked her, making her body jolt against his hand as he moved his mouth on the same path his hand had taken.
Finally, he settled between her legs, pushing them open wider as he looked at the sweet heaven of her wet sex. She glistened in the firelight, and he could scent her arousal, earthy and sweet. No wonder men did this. He hadn’t even begun yet and his mouth watered.
“Open me,” she murmured above him.
He glanced up to see her watching. Her face was lined with tension and flush with desire. He frowned and shook his head.
“Your way, is it?” she said with a laugh, reading his expression perfectly. “Very well, but know that you are likely going to kill me from waiting.”
He smiled as he returned his attention to her sex. He opened her wider, examining the flesh he revealed. Slowly, he leaned in and slid his tongue across her.
She was clean from her bath, slick from arousal. She cried out his name as he repeated the action, licking her from top to bottom in one swift swipe. Her flavor burst on his tongue, sweetness that was nothing he’d ever known. He dove into the act, stroking her with his tongue over and over as she writhed above him. He wanted to be lost in her, but fought to remain aware. To give her pleasure, he needed to mark every single reaction, to understand what made her moan and arch.
And he found it, after a long while of exploring every inch of her sheath. He found that nub of her clitoris and every time he sucked it, she let out a cry. He began to focus there, swirling his tongue around her, pushing hard with the flat of it, sucking it gently. Her legs began to shake and hands fisted in his hair as she lifted into him.
He felt the flutter of her orgasm just a fraction of a moment before she cried out, and licked her through it, never ceasing even as she thrashed and jolted and called out his name. Only when she collapsed back on the pillows, her glazed gaze unfocused, did he crawl up the length of her body.
She tugged him to her, crushing her mouth to his and grunting at the flavor of herself on his lips. She opened wider and he needed no further invitation. He sank into the wetness of her sex, shuddering as she gripped every inch of him. For a moment, he sat still that way, kissing her as her still-fluttering inner muscles massaged him lightly.
But it was too much and he could no longer hold back. He flexed his hips, rolling deep inside of her before he withdrew and repeated the action. She lifted beneath him, her breath short, her face twisting in pleasure all over again.
Their eyes were locked as he took her, and the intimacy revealed so much of her. He saw how deeply she cared for him, how much she wanted this to never end. He felt the same in himself, even if he knew it couldn’t be. That made these moments together even more powerful, more special. They couldn’t last and so he had to savor them.
He drove harder, sensation rushing up his cock, tightening his balls. He saw her inching toward release, too. He wanted to take her there, he wanted to give her that while their bodies were joined. He circled his hips and she gasped, her legs tightened around him, and she whispered, “Ewan, Ewan, I—”
He dropped his mouth to hers and her words were lost against his lips, as were her cries of release. Her body milked him and he pounded harder and harder until his balls tightened and his vision blurred. Only then did he withdraw and pump his seed away from her.
He collapsed down on the bed beside her, gathering her against his naked chest. Her arms came around him and she burrowed her head against his shoulder. They lay like that for what felt like an eternity.
And Ewan could think of only one thing. He had silenced Charlotte a moment before because he knew her. He knew what she was going to say was that she loved him.
And he couldn’t let her say it. He didn’t want her to feel it. It could lead to nothing except pain and heartbreak for them both. Things had already changed between them, he couldn’t allow them to change even more.
Somehow he had to distance himself from her. But not in this moment. Not right now.
Charlotte walked the perimeter of Ewan’s library, staring up at all the books with a smile. How anyone could ever assume he was anything but brilliant was impossible for her to understand. There were well-read tomes on his shelves on every possible subject, from science to astronomy to current novels of the day. And she knew he’d read them all. They’d spent many an hour discussing books in the years they’d known each other.
Just one more way they connected to each other.
“It was a wonderful supper,” she said, turning toward him.
He was standing at the sideboard, pouring them drinks, and he lifted his gaze with a smile and a nod.
“Don’t tell my staff, but I think you might just have the best cook in England. Perhaps in the entire empire.”
He handed over her sherry and signed, “I agree, but we shall keep it between ourselves or the entire world will know and someone will steal her away from me.”
She laughed and her heart was lighter. Although she was over the moon about the passionate connection she and Ewan had begun to share here, it was really this that she loved most about it. It was how easy their friendship was. It was how much she liked spending time with him. How much they had in common, but how much their differences complemented each other.
If only he could allow himself to see that.
“You must be looking forward to seeing Baldwin and your mother,” he signed, apparently oblivious to all that was in her heart.
She forced herself to focus on his statement. “I am. I left London over a month ago, to see Simon and Meg, so I have missed them both. It will be good to see them and share the holiday with them and with the Duke of Tydale and your aunt.”
He nodded, but she thought she saw a flicker of regret in his stare. Did it come from the fact that once the others arrived, this thing between them, whatever he wanted to call it, would change? Or was she reading too much into the twitch of his cheek or the flit of his eyes?
“Once they arrive,” she continued, carefully choosing her words. “I suppose things will be very different.”
He jerked his face toward hers. “We will have much holiday merry-making to do, yes,” he signed.
She swallowed. “That isn’t what I meant, Ewan,” she whispered.
He turned away and she reached for him, slowly placing a finger to his chin. He looked at her and her heart ached. Ewan had always been complex. She had been able to read him even when others couldn’t. His pain. His fear. His anger.
Tonight all she saw was his regret. Regret that cut her deeply, for she knew there were two sides to it. The regret she shared that they couldn’t remain isolated in this dreamland forever. But also regret that he had allowed things to go so far.
“What will happen to you and me?” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for his answer.
There was a pause that felt like it lasted an eternity and then he lifted trembling hands and signed, “I thought we had agreed that this was not permanent. That this is all we can have?”
“Is that what you really want?”
He pulled away and paced to the other side of the room before he dug into his pocket and pulled out his paper and his pencil. Her heart jumped. Ewan rarely wrote to her to communicate. Their secret language kept there from being a need.
That he wished to do so now meant he was trying to distance himself even more than she had feared. She stared as he scribbled an answer and then held out the response.
“What I want is irrelevant. This is a stolen moment out of time, Charlotte. I will look back on it with great pleasure, but it changes nothing.”
She lifted her gaze back to him, but he’d turned his back to her and was adding logs to the fire. She wanted to lunge forward and scream that she loved him. She wanted to demand that he see what could be, that he allow for hope and a future in his heart.
But she knew this man far too well. He didn’t respond to demands. If anything, they sent him further into his shell. If she wanted him to see the future, she had to show him the future. Demands could come after surrender.
She stepped closer and reached out to touch his shoulder. He jolted a little, just as he had the first night after they made love. Slowly, he faced her, his expression hard and unreadable.
She forced herself to smile. “No one has arrived yet. Let’s go upstairs, Ewan. Make more memories for us both to look back on. Perhaps you’re right that now isn’t the time to worry about the future.”
His lips tightened just a fraction and she could see him warring in his head. That was what she wanted, really, for him to battle with himself, because that was the only way his heart had any chance to win over his head.
And tonight, in this battle, it did. He reached out and took her hand. His big fingers folded around hers and he led her from the room, up the stairs, to his chamber.
She sighed as he let her in. This wasn’t perfect, but it was a step. With every step closer to the life she wanted, she knew there was more reward possible. And so much more risk to her body, her heart and her soul.