Chapter Twelve
Simon knew he shouldn’t stare at Meg across the room, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been able to stop himself. Now, though, she stood with Christopher, and from their expressions it was obvious they were engaged in a serious conversation.
After Kit’s anger in the billiard room, Simon could only imagine what was being said. And he deserved all of it. His heart lurched as Meg said something to the earl, then began to come across the room toward him.
Simon had spent years telling himself to resist this woman. But how could he when she glided through the crowd, her gaze focused solely on him? She was beautiful beyond his capacity for description. And she was his. But only because he had stolen her out from under someone he loved like a brother. Because despite whatever else had happened, he did love Graham.
But he loved Margaret more. That had been all that mattered in the end. That had guided all his selfishness.
She reached him, unaware of his roiling, troubling thoughts, and smiled. That smile lit up the world, lit up his world. “Will you dance with me, Simon?”
He stiffened at the request and the impression it would leave. Them looking happy and light together seemed a cruel slap in the face to Graham.
“Is that a good idea?” he asked.
Her smile faltered, and she swallowed hard before she said, “We’ve always danced before, Simon. Always.”
He shook his head. “And look where it has gotten us.”
Now there was no smile anymore, just a flash of pain and struggle. “Are you determined to be so miserable with where we are?”
“How can I not?” He glanced around the room, at all the eyes that were subtly or blatantly on them. “Look at them staring and judging and whispering. Look at the strain on James’s face as he leaves the dancefloor with Emma. They should be happy and instead they must now deal with this. Look at the way I’ve betrayed all our friends. You talked to Kit—he must have stressed his disdain to you just as much as he did to me.”
She shook her head. “Actually, he did not. Idlewood told me he regretted whatever words were said between you earlier tonight. And he feels, as I do, that you are punishing yourself enough.”
He wished that were true. It didn’t feel true. It felt like he should suffer.
“Please don’t refuse me,” she whispered, and took his hand.
Meg smiled, not the bright, glowing smile she had displayed when she approached, but something soft. Gentle. Something that was for him, only him. He was drawn into it, drawn into her, just as he had been for years. If it was wrong then, he hadn’t cared. He’d still felt it even as he fought it.
He’d lost the fight in the end. When she looked at him that way, he would always lose the fight.
She seemed to sense that and wordlessly led him to the dancefloor. He put his arms around her, shivering as his hand splayed across her hip, his fingers folded around hers so intimately. He wanted her, so very desperately. Touching her had never made that easier. Now that he’d tasted her, taken her, it was even worse.
They swung into the steps, silent as she kept her gaze focused on his. He couldn’t escape the dark brown depths—he drowned in them as always. For that moment, it was only the two of them in the world. Adam and Eve, meant for each other, but brought down by temptation.
That temptation had its price. But as he held her so close, he recognized it also had its benefits. After all, he was holding the woman he loved. In a week, he would be married to her. What he’d always wanted, he would get.
“I have a new riddle for you,” Meg said.
His fingers tightened against her hip and he smiled down at her. For nearly the entire time they’d known each other, he and Meg had challenged each other with riddles, though in the past year they hadn’t played their game. Not since the answer to one riddle he presented to her was love. After that, the game hadn’t seemed as fun.
“We haven’t shared a riddle in a long time,” he said.
Her expression brightened. “I’ve been saving this one. Would you like to hear it?”
He nodded. “Challenge away, my lady.”
“My first descends from yon eternal skies,” she said. “And caused you and me lot of trouble, but that part doesn’t rhyme. A winged weapon from my second flies. And in the whole these colors may be seen, yellow and blue, as well as red and green.”
He pursed his lips as he considered her words. Then he cocked his head. “A rainbow?”
She laughed. “Indeed, it is a rainbow. Good show, Simon.”
He felt his shoulders relax as they fell into their usual rhythm together. In that moment, the dance felt like old times, her smile like old times. They were friends, as they always had been and the drama that followed them presently didn’t feel so painful.
The music ended and he executed a quick bow before he took her arm and began to lead her from the dancefloor. For the first time in a long while, he had a bit of hope.
And then they passed by a small group of attendees. From behind a fan, he heard hissing tones and saw glares as the two of them made their way off the floor. His heart sank, taking with it all his good thoughts. When he looked at Meg out of the corner of his eye, he saw her cheeks flaming red. The glisten of tears in her eyes.
All his fault. He couldn’t pretend this wasn’t his fault. Or that the consequences weren’t real and powerful. When he came near her, he hurt her. That was just a fact, even if he didn’t want it to be true.
“Simon,” she said, turning toward him.
He shook his head. He loved her. He had always loved her. But James had been right in choosing someone else for her. Simon had never been good enough for her, and he still wasn’t.
“Excuse me, Meg. I must go,” he said, then turned away from her and left the ballroom as quickly as he could.
Meg stared as Simon left not just her side, but maneuvered his way toward the exit of the ballroom. When they’d danced, she’d felt a connection to him. It hadn’t just been that renewal of their friendship that had occurred when she told him her riddle, but something more. He’d stared down into her face and she’d seen his heart in his eyes. She’d seen something deeper than friendship, more potent even than desire.
He’d let the connection stand, she’d felt him lean into it and into her. And then the crowd had whispered and he flinched away.
She clenched her fists and stepped forward, knowing that everyone in the room was watching and not giving a damn about it. She followed him, ten steps behind as he departed the ballroom. She followed him up the stairs. She followed him to his chamber.
He was so distracted that he clearly had no idea she was behind him. He was shutting the door to his chamber when she reached out and caught it, pushing in behind him before closing the door. She reached back and locked it as he turned and stared at her, eyes wide. But also filled with wanting.
Her body responded to that wanting and her hands began to shake at her sides.
“You should not be here,” he whispered, his voice rough and husky.
She lifted her chin. His desire for her was the only weakness he allowed himself. The only way they could be close without him putting up barriers created by his guilt. Perhaps one day making love to her would allow him to feel something deeper for her.
It might be her only path to the future she so wanted.
She moved forward and wound her arms around his neck, lifting up on her tiptoes to kiss him. He muttered a curse against her mouth, but then drove his tongue deep inside, pushing her back against the door with all his weight and pinning her there as he ravished her with deep, desperate kisses.
“You should not be here,” he panted again, but his hands bunched her gown, lifting it inch by inch as he slid his mouth down the side of her neck.
She pushed at his jacket, tossing it on the ground behind him before she lifted her hands to the complicated knot of his cravat. His fingers grazed her bare thigh and she gasped with the sensation of his warm hands on her naked skin.
He froze at the sound, staring down at her with war in his eyes. Then he stepped away and her heart sank.
“You should not be here,” he said for a third time, this time his voice quiet and low. She expected him to force her out, to turn away.
Instead, he unbuttoned his shirt and cast it away with his jacket. Then he reached out and stripped open the buttons on her gown with just a flick of his wrist. He tugged her dress and chemise down together, and suddenly she stood before him in naught but her stockings and slippers.
He shook his head slowly as he looked her up and down, leaving her wondering how he judged what he saw. This man who could have and had had anything he wanted from women. Was she good enough? Desirable enough?
The answer came when he unfastened his trousers and revealed the hard length of his erection. He kicked away his trousers and leaned in, caging her against the door and brushing his lips back and forth against hers.
He drew a breath as if to speak again, and she lifted her hand to cover his lips. “But I am here, Simon.”
“Yes, you are,” he whispered, then caught her hips in both hands and lifted her.
She latched her legs around his waist, clinging to his shoulders to regain her balance. He smiled as he pushed her hard against the door and then thrust, sliding inside of her with one smooth motion.
She gasped at the invasion, so different from the last time when there had been pain. Tonight there was only pleasure, intense and instant. She ground her hips out of instinct, and that pleasure multiplied.
His eyes shut and he let out a long breath before he began to pulse into her. Deep thrusts that always ended with a perfect circle of his hips so he hit her clitoris on each movement.
“Oh God,” she murmured, her vision beginning to blur as everything in her world became focused on the place where they were joined.
He pressed harder, faster, watching her face with intensity, changing his rhythm when her expression changed, keeping her ever on the edge of release but never letting her fall completely over. This was pleasure, but it somehow also felt like punishment. As if he were showing her how he could give or take away, how he could make her want to beg for him.
If it was meant to make her question her decision to come to him, it didn’t work. She lifted into him, rubbing her bare breasts against his chest as she drove her tongue into his mouth. She tasted mint, whiskey, some other sweet essence that was just Simon and nothing else. She was drunk with it all, and that was when he let her fall.
Three perfectly timed thrusts and her body erupted with the pleasure she’d been seeking. Her hips jolted against his, her inner muscles rippling against his hardness.
“Christ, you test me,” he murmured, setting her down at last and separating their bodies.
She stared at his still-hard cock, glistening from her slick release, and then looked up at him. “You aren’t going to—to—”
“To come?” he finished for her, giving her a name for what had just happened. “Oh yes, Meg, I’m going to come. After you do again.”
She caught her breath. Her legs were already shaking from what had just happened and her entire body felt spent and relaxed. She didn’t think she could take a second round of such intensity.
“Can I…do that?” she asked, her voice shaking as hard as her hands.
He caught her waist and dragged her forward, tight against his hard body. “That sounds like a challenge. And that means you come two more times before we’re done.”
“Simon—”
He cut her off with a hard, driving kiss as he hauled her across the room. He released her in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. She blushed as she stared at herself, hair still perfectly done, but utterly naked and trembling from release.
He grabbed a chair from in front of the fire and placed it before her, its upholstered back to her front. The chair blocked some of her view of herself, but there she still was with Simon looming up behind her in the reflection, his naked body nearly touching hers.
He caught her hands from behind and guided them to the back of the chair, gently closing her fingers around the top. “Hold on,” he ordered, his tone thick with desire. “And watch. You think you can’t take more? I’ll show you that you can.”
She caught her breath at this new side of the man who would be her husband. Simon was dangerous now, and yet she was anything but afraid. His driven desire was something she craved, not dreaded.
He positioned himself behind her, lifting her hips slightly before he spread her open and slid easily back inside her waiting body. This new position, combined with watching him curled over her, knowing that he was taking her, made her body flare with new and more powerful pleasure.
Her eyes widened as he began to thrust into her, hard and fast. He was hitting some place inside of her, some hidden place that felt just as good as when he touched her clitoris. She clutched at the back of the chair harder, staring at his straining face, mesmerized by her own parted lips and wanton movements of her body as she arched back to meet his thrusts. This was animal and lustful and oh, so very perfect.
He cupped her breasts from behind, lifting them, teasing the nipples as he watched them writhe together in the mirror. She dipped her head back, resting it against his bare shoulder as he continued to take her.
He let out a low moan and then caught one of her hands, gliding it away from the chair and down between her legs. He pressed her fingers against the slick nub of her clitoris and massaged there. Pleasure shot through her and she bucked against him.
“Just like that,” he whispered against her ear, thrusting harder now as he released her hand and left her to touch herself without his help. She ground down against her clitoris and back against his cock, reaching, reaching until for the second time her body spasmed in pure release and ultimate pleasure. This time it felt even more intense and she barked out a cry as she watched herself come in the mirror. Watched him as he made her come, a wicked smile tilting his lips.
Her pleasure had only just faded when he slid out of her and turned her into his arms. His mouth ground against hers, sucking her tongue, swirling his own around it. He pulled away and turned around the chair where he’d been taking her. He gently pushed her back until she sat, staring up at him in pleasure and confusion and utter surrender to anything and everything he would ever want to do to her.
He dropped to his knees before her, opening her by draping each of her legs over the chair arms. He dragged her forward to the very edge of the chair and met her gaze as he lowered his mouth and began to lick her. Her body was only just coming down from the edge of her previous two orgasms and his tongue swirled over her clitoris, taking her right back to the harsh edge between pleasure and pain.
She drove her fingers into his hair, pushing him in, rising like a wild wanton against his tongue and finding orgasm so quickly that her body nearly shook off the chair. He pressed his hands into her hips, holding her steady as he forced her pleasure further than she thought she could survive.
He watched her as she came the third time, and as her tremors faded he lifted her from the chair edge, pushing into her body as he carried her to his bed. He rested her against the edge and held her gaze as he stroked hard and fast just a handful of times. His face twisted and he growled out her name as he spilled his hot seed inside of her.
For a moment, they remained like that, bodies joined, him bracing himself over her, staring down at her. Then his eyes widened and his stare shifted. Almost like he had been caught up and now he truly saw what he’d done.
“Simon?” she whispered.
He stood up, backing away. His face was pale as paper. “I’m sorry, Meg.”
“Sorry?” she repeated as she gingerly lowered her legs and found she could, somehow, still bear her own weight.
“I treated you like a common—” He cut himself off. “This is what happens with you. I lose all reason, all sense.”
“If that is losing reason, I am all for it,” she said with a shake of her head.
“But look what it does. You heard them whisper, Meg. You know the cost.”
“Simon…” she began.
He raised a hand, turning his face away from hers. “Don’t,” he murmured. “Please don’t, Meg. I’ll—I’ll leave you to dress. To…fix yourself. I’m sorry.”
He said nothing more, but turned and strode through the adjoining door to his dressing room. She heard the key turn in the lock once he was gone and was left staring at the barrier now between them.
She was upset that he’d left her, of course. Every time he turned away it stung. But there was also hope inside of her. Simon was fighting a war inside of himself. A war that, if she won, might mean they could be happy.
So she picked up her chemise from the tangled mess of her gown on the floor, and went about planning for their next skirmish.
“I plan to win, Simon,” she said as she shimmied the thin fabric over her head. “I plan to win.”