He could not care. The rush of desire and need was unlike any he had ever experienced. He needed to take her, to possess her, to feel the softness of her flesh as he pushed inside to be lost in warmth.
He rocked slightly, guilt buried beneath want. And then he rocked again.
Chapter Three
She felt the bud of excitement, the near promise of something she had never known. Breathing in, she whispered a name.
‘Taris.’
His name.
The answering curse pulled her fully awake, his face close, the darkness of it lightened by the line of his teeth as he spoke.
‘Beatrice-Maude? Is there a name that you are called other than that? It is long, after all, and I thought—’
‘Bea.’ She broke into his words with a whisper. ‘My mother always called me Bea.’
‘Bea,’ he repeated, turning the name over on his tongue and she felt his breath against her face as he said it. So close, so very close. He held his hand across her waist when she tried to pull back.
‘Bea as in Bea-witching?’
His fingers trailed down her cheek, warm and real.
‘Or Bea as in Bea-utiful?’
She tensed, waiting for his laugh, but it did not come.
‘Hardly that, sir.’ She felt the heavy thrump of her heartbeat in her throat. Was he jesting with her? Was he a man who lied in order to receive what he wanted, who thought such untruthful inanities the desperate fodder expected by very plain women? She tried to turn from him to find a distance, the sheer necessity of emotional survival paramount.
‘What is it? What is wrong?’ A thread of some uncertainty in his voice was the only thing that held her in place. If she had heard condescension or falsity she would have stood, denying his suggestion of more, even knowing that she might never in her whole life be offered anything as remotely tempting.
Again.
‘I should rather honesty, sir.’
‘Sir?’ The word ended in a laugh. ‘Surely “sir” is too formal for the position we now find ourselves in?’ He did not take back his compliments and another bark of laughter left her dazed.
‘Are you a celibate widow, Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke?’
She started to nod and then changed her mind, not sure of exactly what he alluded to.
‘Then I suppose there is another question I must ask of you. Are you a woman who would say nay to the chance of sharing more than just warmth together here in the midst of a storm?’
His voice was silken smooth, a tone in it that she could not quite fathom.
Her brows knitted together. ‘I don’t understand.’
He pushed inwards and the hardness of his sex made everything crystal clear.
A dalliance. A tryst. One stolen and forbidden night. For twelve years she had wondered what it would be like to lie with a man who was not greedy or selfish. A man who might consider her needs as well as his own. Always lovemaking had hurt her; he had hurt her when she had tried to take her pleasure in the act. Frankwell Bassingstoke and his angry punitive hands.
What would Taris Wellingham’s touch be like, his slender fingers finding places she had only ever dreamed about?
Lord, but to dare to take the chance of one offered providence and the end of it come morning.
No strings attached, no empty unfilled promises to lie awake and worry over come the weeks and months that followed. Only these hours, the darkness sheltering anything she did not wish him to see. And then an ending.
Twenty-eight and finally free. The heady promise of it was as exhilarating as it was unexpected.
‘You mean this for just one night only?’
She needed to understand the parameters of such a request, for if he said he wanted more she would know that he lied and know also that she should not want it.
‘Yes.’
Freedom. Impunity. Self-government and her own reign.
Words that had been the antithesis of all she had been for the past twelve years and words that she vowed would shape her life for all of those still to come.
Her husband’s face hovered above her, his heavy frown and sanctimonious nature everything that she had hated. At sixteen she had not been old enough to recognise the faults and flaws of a man who would become her husband, but at twenty-eight she certainly did.
He had been a bully, an oppressive domineering tyrant and with his bent for religious righteousness she had never quite been able to counter any of it.
She shook her head hard. Nay, all that was over. Now she would do only as she wanted so long as it did not harm any other.
‘Are you married?’
Her question was blurted out. If he said that he was, she would not touch him.
‘No.’
Permission granted. Placing her hand flat on his chest, her forefinger found his nipple. With deliberation she lent down and wet it with her tongue, blowing on the cold as she caressed it into rigidity.
When he stretched out and groaned she felt the control of a woman with power. Feminine power, the feeling unlike any she had ever experienced.
She did not feel guilty as Frankwell had said that she must, she did not feel sullied or soiled or befouled. Nay, she felt the sheer and utter wonder of it, the bewildering rarity of rightness.
Here. With Taris Wellingham. For this one storm-snowed freezing night.
‘Thank you.’ The words slipped out without recognition as to what she had said. A beholden contentment that broke through all that she had believed of herself or all that a husband steeped in damning religion had believed. In just one touch Frankwell’s hold on the tenure of her moral pureness was gone, replaced simply by comprehension and relief.
She smiled as his fingers began to unlace her bodice and the thin lawn fell away.
‘Thank you?’
The restraint that Taris was trying to hold in check broke, the swollen want between them demanding nothing hidden or reserved. Running his fingers down the curve of her arm, he gathered the ties on her lacy chemise and unravelled them, her face tipping up to his own.
He imagined her eyes, surprise and lust in equal measure; he imagined her mouth, the feel of her lips full and tender. When his hands cupped her breasts and held the flesh in his palms, he took a shaky breath out, for this woman did not wait for him to do all the work. No, already her fingers skimmed the waistband of his trousers, slipping into the skin that lay underneath and feeling his erection with as much care and vigilance as he was giving to her.
A balanced taking.
No missish virgin or paid whore. No money between them or commitment sought. Only feelings.
‘Ahhh, Beatrice-Maude,’ he whispered as she pushed the material covering him downwards and her fingers came to other places, more hidden. No green or frightened girl either.
Equal measure!
Touch for touch! Stopping only as his mouth fastened upon her nipple and tasted, the sweet sound of bliss in her voice as she expelled her breath and enjoyed.
The dampness of her skin, and her stark utter heat. The way her hips rocked against his own, asking, wanting, needing more.
His head rose to her mouth, and his fingers felt the way, her chin, her nose, the lay of her eyes and her forehead. No colour but shape, and crowned with a pile of darkened curls. That much at least he could see!
‘Let me take you, sweetheart. Let me take you further.’ His voice did not seem like his own.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Much further…’
Her heavy breasts swayed as he brought her up with him, the fall of her legs opening beneath her chemise. His hand crept under it to her stockings, which he removed, and then to her drawers, lacy pieces of nothing, the unsewn seam leaving easy access.
‘Now,’ she cried and not quietly either. ‘Right now.’ The sweat between them built, the cold of this barn a far-off thought, no time for careful restraint or the foreplay that he was more used to. No time for any of it as he lifted her on to him and drove home, again and again and again, a life-filled, raw loving that was all that was left to seek release.
Which they did!
She had died and gone to heaven! She swore she had. She swore that if her life were to end now, this very, very minute she would leave a happy woman. A fulfilled woman. A woman who finally knew what it was novels spoke of in their flurry of adjectives and superlatives.
This. Feeling.
Spent and replete and waves of ecstasy still sweeping across her. And tears when she began to cry.
Not quietly either. But loudly. Loud tears of wonderment and relief. She just could not stop them.
‘Did I hurt you? Are you hurt?’
She waved away his worry and tried to smile.
‘No. It was wonderful. So wonderful.’ Bruised with happiness and finality. Understanding what it was she had not experienced before.
He lay back against the scratchy grey blanket in the year’s new hay and began to laugh.
‘You are crying…because it was wonderful?’
She nodded, the sniffs now lessened as she sought for her chemise balled beside them in order to blow her nose.
‘I didn’t know…’ no, she could tell him none of her past for she did not want him feeling sorry for her ‘…that a hay barn could be such a sensual place.’
Before her he lay like a prince devoid of clothes and inhibitions. A Greek god fallen into her lap by the will of a Lord who had finally answered her daily prayers.
A whole twelve years of them to be precise, and not more than a month after the death of Frankwell Bassingstoke!
Perhaps that was all the time needed for a powerful deity to recognise the sacrifice she had made to care for her given husband, to obey him, to yield to the orders he had been so fond of giving.