A Passion for Pleasure

chapter Nine


Sebastian paced to the hearth. He’d spent a sleepless night wrestling with everything Darius had told him the previous evening. By morning he had still come to no satisfying conclusion. So rather than dissect the problem of his mother until his brain ached more than it already did, or surrender to his festering anger toward Darius, Sebastian would concentrate on the fact that he was to marry Clara Winter two days hence.

Ought to be interesting explaining that to the rest of his family.

He gave a hoarse chuckle and scrubbed his sore eyes. It might have been better if all his relations had remained in London. Then none of this would have happened.

Clara wouldn’t have happened.

His heart stung. He dragged a hand across his chest, his mind flaring with pictures of her blue-violet eyes shimmering with heat and determination. He didn’t want to imagine his life if she hadn’t entered it. Couldn’t.

Sebastian ordered the carriage, shoving his arms into his greatcoat as he descended the steps. A half hour later he was opening the door of Blake’s Museum of Automata and facing Mrs. Fox, who rose like a dark sun from behind her desk.

“Welcome to Blake’s…oh. Mr. Hall.” A gray thread of disapproval knotted her voice.

“Good morning, Mrs. Fox.” His attempt at a smile felt as if it might crack his face. “Lovely to see you again. Is Mrs. Winter at home?”

“She’s in the studio, as usual.”

He started down the corridor. With a swiftness that belied her redoubtable severity, Mrs. Fox stepped into his path.

“The fee, Mr. Hall,” she said, “is one shilling.”

Sebastian laughed, undiluted amusement coursing through him. It was the first genuine laugh he’d experienced in more than an age. The sound of it, booming and sudden, startled Mrs. Fox, who retreated a step and stared at him in astonishment.

Still chuckling, Sebastian went back to the carriage. He retrieved five shillings from the footman and returned to Mrs. Fox. He pressed the coins into her gloved hand and closed her fingers around them.

“Well worth the cost of admission,” he assured her with a wink.

The woman gaped at him, a pink blush bringing a welcome color to her pallid cheeks.

Sebastian’s spine straightened as he continued to the studio. He found Clara folding swaths of silk and stacking them in colorful squares onto a shelf. Granville sat at a table, adjusting an automaton of a crouching tiger. Brilliant stripes of black and orange decorated the animal, its pointed teeth gleaming white and its face twisted into a snarl.

Clara and Granville both looked up at Sebastian’s entrance. A faint tension crackled the air as they exchanged glances. In an instant, Sebastian knew Clara had confided all to her uncle.

Irritation needled him. Unwarranted, he knew. He himself had solicited their aid in not only finding the plans, but relinquishing them to him.

He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and folded his arms. “I don’t intend to see my mother again,” he said. “My only hope is that her presence in London remains a secret so as not to cause my family further harm.”

Granville wiped his greasy hands on a cloth, his gaze on the machine. “We’ve no one to tell, Mr. Hall.”

“Even if we’d wanted to,” Clara added.

The snarled knot in Sebastian’s chest loosened, easing the tightness of apprehension. He couldn’t confess any of these recent events to his brothers, but here stood two people with whom he’d been acquainted for less than a fortnight…and he knew to his bones that Clara and Granville would guard his confidences with steadfast dedication.

Words of gratitude stalled in his throat. He gave a short nod and turned to leave, forgetting the reason he’d come.

“Come in,” Clara said. She smoothed wrinkles from a bolt of silk and beckoned him to sit. “Have you taken breakfast yet?”

“I…no.”

“I’ll ask Mrs. Marshall to set another place.” Granville twisted a key on the automaton. The tiger pushed back on its hind legs, then lunged forward across the circular platform on which it crouched. A tiny door in the platform sprang open, and a delicate, painted gazelle leapt out in a graceful arc. A growl emerged from the mechanism as the tiger landed on the hapless creature, bringing it to the ground between two large paws.

“Well,” Clara remarked, “at least it works.”

Granville chuckled. “Commissioned for a man who enjoys hunting, I suspect. He’s sending someone to pick it up later this morning.”

He pushed away from the table and left in search of Mrs. Marshall.

“I’m sorry,” Clara murmured to Sebastian after her uncle was gone. “I shouldn’t have forced you to take me with you last night.”

No, she shouldn’t have, but she knew the truth now—and perhaps that was for the best, considering she was poised to become his wife. He’d been the one to insist the marriage would encompass more than mere legal ties.

Now revealed secrets scattered between them like packages ripped open, surrounded with torn paper and bits of string. Now there was nothing left to hide.

Sebastian went to the automaton and rewound it to watch the gruesome scene play out again.

“Why don’t you want to see her?” Clara asked.

“Because she ruined my family.”

“Your brother appears to be granting her another chance.”

“My brother is a fool if he thinks anything good will come of this.”

Clara was quiet for a moment, though he felt her perceptive gaze peeling through all the hardened layers of his soul. “Don’t make a decision now that you will later regret, Sebastian. Especially where your mother is concerned.”

“For God’s sake.” An old, long-buried anger surfaced. “If anyone should regret their decisions, Clara, it is Catherine Leskovna. Not me.”

“That may be so, but when someone has wronged you and then wishes to make amends…”

“What makes you think she wishes to make amends?”

“If she’d wanted to hurt you, she wouldn’t have gone to Darius first and asked him to facilitate a meeting. She’s giving you the chance to refuse, even though I’m certain she wants more than anything to speak with you again.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“I’m a mother. And I would give my blood to have my son again.”

Sebastian lifted his head to look at her. A pang cut through his chest at the sight of the fathoms-deep longing coloring her eyes.

“You…” A curious knot tightened his throat. “You are nothing like my mother, Clara. You did not make the choice to desert your family. Aside from separation, there are no similarities between my relationship with her and your relationship with Andrew.”

“Separation is a breach, no matter the cause. You have the opportunity, and choice, to cross it and see your mother again. Andrew does not.”

A choice. Sebastian’s fingers curled into his palm. He hadn’t chosen to end his career. Wouldn’t have chosen marriage had it not been for his father’s threats. Hadn’t had much of a choice to help Darius, not when he’d needed the money and, as Darius had bluntly reminded him, he’d had little else with which to occupy his time.

He had, however, chosen Clara. A brilliant, glowing fact he still feared to fully acknowledge in the event it was taken from him.

Clara was right that he now had a choice to see his mother again. The idea that he had another choice felt good, even if he had no plans to take a step in her direction.

The tiger folded back onto its haunches. Sebastian set the machine aside and moved to where Clara stood. He put his left hand on her warm nape, rubbing the tight muscles. A sigh escaped her as she tilted her head to the side to encourage the manipulation of his fingers.

He stepped closer, inhaling her scent of oranges and spice. The muscles of her neck became pliable, softening under his touch and easing a soft groan from her throat.

Sebastian pressed his mouth to her temple, right beside the birthmark at the corner of her eyebrow. The pulse there, quick as a sparrow’s heartbeat, strummed against his lips. Warmth unfurled in his blood along with something else, something more, that rich, sea-blue satisfaction of knowing, even before their vows, that Clara was his. And that, even if she didn’t yet realize it, he belonged to her.

The idea of belonging to a woman would have wrung a laugh from him a year ago. He’d never have allowed anyone to weave into his soul the way Clara had, never have gone to any lengths to help her, never have admitted she could fell him with a harsh word.

But now he had. And he would. And God knew she could.

She shifted, stretching her body upward to press her cool cheek against his. She murmured something against his stubbled jaw, then turned her face and sought his mouth with hers. He slipped his hand to her shoulders, his fingers kneading the tension still lacing her supple muscles, and yielded to the sensations washing over him.

Clara wound her arms around his waist, splaying her hands over his lower back as she angled her head to allow him to deepen the kiss. Her body softened against his. Heat arced into his groin as her breasts pressed into his chest and her tongue danced with his.

Sebastian curled his right hand into her side, crushing the fabric of her skirts and petticoats. He stepped forward and guided her back against the wall, then pushed his hips against her. The hard ridge of his cock nudged her skirts, an ache already building at the base of his spine. He wanted her naked, wanted to rub his stiff flesh against her bare thighs, wanted her cool hands sliding over his skin…

Clara gasped, her mouth breaking from his with a rush of hot breath. She tucked her face against his shoulder, her body rippling with a moan before she slid her hand down to curve with tentative curiosity around his erection.

Sebastian winced, bracing one hand on the wall behind her as the warmth of her hand burned clear through his trousers. His breath stirred the loose tendrils of hair at her temple. He struggled against the urgent need to thrust against her grip, to allow her to wind the tension to breaking point and then let go.

He placed his hand on the curve where her shoulder met the upward sweep of her neck. She eased her head back, her eyes dark purple with arousal.

“Two days,” he whispered.

A shudder rocked her. “Two days.”

He forced himself to step away. Just in time, as well, since Granville reentered the room and announced that Mrs. Marshall had a late breakfast prepared for them.

As Sebastian and Clara followed him from the studio, her gaze met his. Heat still glimmered in the depths of her eyes, and her flushed lips curved with the promise of a shared secret.

A foreign sensation curled into Sebastian’s heart, skeins of color woven into a smooth, endless braid. He sat with Clara and Granville at a wooden table in the morning room, the air scented with fresh-baked bread, while they ate muffins and drank coffee…and he surrendered to the feeling as it spread through his blood, into his soul, and warmed every part of his being.





Chapter Ten



Flowers bloomed from vases around the drawing room of the Mount Street town house. The morning sun lanced through the curtains, glinting off the rose tucked into the lapel of Sebastian’s dark blue morning coat. Clara kept her attention on the flower as the minister blessed their union, his voice deep and solemn.

“Be pleased, O Lord, to regard in much mercy and goodness the parties now before Thee…”

Clara lifted her eyes to find Sebastian watching her. Her heart thumped. A slight smile curved his mouth, the reassuring promise that they had both chosen wisely and well.

“You will please take each other by the right hand,” the minister requested.

Clara, her gaze locked to Sebastian’s, reached for his right hand. She expected him to hesitate for fear that his muscles would falter, but his long fingers closed around hers without wavering. Relief spilled through her, her own anxiety eased by the warmth brewing in his dark eyes and his absolute lack of uncertainty.

“I do,” he said, before Clara realized the minister had moved on to address her.

She gripped the folds of her pearl-gray gown with her other hand in an attempt to still the nervous shudders elicited by the gravity of the minister’s words—“a wife shall love her husband”—but her right hand, the one tucked securely in Sebastian’s large, warm palm, did not tremble.

“I do,” she whispered when the minister stopped speaking.

Her fingers tightened around Sebastian’s. Memory flashed through her—the elaborate spectacle of her wedding to Richard, also a union based on practical ends but one launched with a display of wealth and celebration.

The numerous guests, the music, the extravagant feasting—it had been the opposite of this quiet ceremony in Sebastian’s drawing room with only Lord Rushton, Uncle Granville, and Mrs. Fox in attendance, all sitting with twin lines etched on their foreheads.

Clara avoided looking at them until the minister had pronounced her Sebastian’s wife. Her heart caught when he bent to brush his mouth against hers. She allowed herself to feel the pleasure of the contact for an instant before turning to her uncle. Granville moved to embrace her. She gripped his arms and swallowed past the tightness in her throat.

“I promise you I’m doing what is best for us,” Clara whispered.

“Should you need anything,” he murmured in her ear, “you know where to find me. I will do whatever I can to help you. I regret that I have not done more.”

Sadness swelled in Clara’s chest.

“You gave me a place to live,” she said. “You tried to help with Andrew. There was nothing more you could have done.”

“I only hope that this decision”—Granville glanced at Sebastian—“will yield the result you desire.”

So did Clara. The portent of failure loomed before her. She’d devised no strategy for what to do should she encounter it. She couldn’t. Black as oil, impenetrable, failure would swamp her under and take her last breath.

She looked to where Sebastian stood speaking with Lord Rushton. The earl glanced her way and approached. “Congratulations, Mrs. Hall. I wish you and my son much happiness.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Although Clara had no idea how Lord Rushton truly felt about this union, the fact that he approved of their marriage made the idea of having an earl as a father-in-law less intimidating.

Sebastian moved beside Clara, cupping his left hand beneath her elbow with easy grace. “If you’ll all join us in the dining room, I believe there’s quite an elaborate breakfast waiting.”

For Clara, the next few hours passed with rabbitlike speed, although they lingered over breakfast and then, at Granville’s suggestion, went for a walk in the garden of Grosvenor Square to benefit from the brisk autumn day. Rushton returned to his Piccadilly residence, while the rest of the party took some air.

Clara, knowing quite well what awaited her upon their return to Sebastian’s town house, proposed they take the carriage to visit the Regent Street shops for a few hours. They had lunch at Verrey’s restaurant, then went to the Portland Gallery to view the array of paintings and sculptures, an excursion that Clara hoped would take the remainder of the afternoon.

Embarrassment still scorched her when she remembered her behavior in Sebastian’s carriage, the way she’d thrown herself at him with an utterly wanton lack of restraint. Although Sebastian had given her no reason to feel ashamed, Clara knew well that her behavior fell far outside the bounds of decency.

She couldn’t fathom how Richard might have reacted, had she conducted herself in such a manner with him. Then again, nothing about Richard and his detached, stoic presence had ever inspired so much as a modicum of desire in Clara. She hadn’t even wanted to kiss him.

But Sebastian? He was a man who could turn her insides into molten heat with one brush of his fingertips, one intent look from his dark eyes. All she needed to do was gaze at his beautiful mouth, and she was seized by the urge to press her lips to his, feel the sweep of his tongue, drink the hot sweetness of his breath.

Clara shivered at the very idea, turning to study a landscape painting as she attempted to entrap all her wild, furtive imaginings.

Lock your heart, she reminded herself even as she slanted a glance toward her new husband, so disarmingly handsome in a crisp morning coat and a cravat the color of a sweeping, cobalt-blue Dorset sky. The breeze had mussed his unruly black hair and a corner of his cravat had escaped the lapel of his coat, the loose edge rumpling his appearance just enough to remind the world he would not be contained like other men.

A sudden and sharp ache of tenderness constricted Clara’s chest. She averted her gaze from him and tried to focus on the painting.

Lock your heart lest you give him the power to damage it.

And with Sebastian, Clara knew, the damage would shatter her beyond repair.

She hurried to fall into step beside her uncle as they left the gallery and went back outside. The sunlight was beginning to dim and the shadows to lengthen by the time Mrs. Fox remarked that she ought to be returning home, and Granville summoned a cab for her. After she’d gone, he glanced at Sebastian before turning a worried gaze on Clara.

For whatever reason, her uncle’s concern eased Clara’s own apprehension. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d wed an ogre. Quite the opposite, in fact. She became acutely aware of Sebastian beside her, his tall, quiet presence comforting rather than fearsome.

She kissed Uncle Granville’s cheek. “I’ll call on you tomorrow, yes? I’ve still the sewing to finish for your dancing couple, and I’d like to start on the adornments for the next birdcage.”

“You needn’t—”

“I’ll be there at ten.”

Sebastian stepped aside to open the door of another cab. Granville squeezed Clara’s hands in farewell. Before Granville entered the cab, Sebastian lowered his head and spoke to the other man.

A breeze whisked the words from Clara’s ear, but Granville nodded with what appeared to be satisfaction, then clapped his hand firmly on Sebastian’s shoulder in a gesture of approval.

“What did you say to him?” Clara asked when Sebastian returned to her side.

“That I’ll contact your father tomorrow to discuss the matter of Wakefield House,” Sebastian said.

“Already?”

Sebastian nodded, brushing a coil of hair away from her forehead. “My brother’s solicitor has already started to draw up the papers. I told him to do so the day you proposed.”

“What if I hadn’t found the plans?”

A warm, wicked light flared in his eyes. “Then I would have devised another way to make you my wife.”



Darkness fell. Clara watched the curve of the moon melt against the sky. Her pulse shimmered through her veins, settling into the nervous beat of her heart. She slid her hand across the worn, wooden box resting on the table beside her and unfastened the catch. The tangle of ribbons inside gleamed incandescent, like a pearl embedded in an oyster.

Clara lifted the ribbons from the box, pooling them in a colorful mass on the table. The door clicked open behind her, and then she was no longer alone.

She turned. He wasn’t looking at her. His dark head was bent, a swath of thick hair covering his forehead, his attention on the knot of his cravat as he tugged at it with his left hand. His right hand remained at his side, the fingers curled toward his palm.

Clara allowed her gaze to wander over him—the breadth of his shoulders and length of his strong legs, the way his waistcoat hugged his lean torso, the drape of his coat, which had managed to collect numerous wrinkles over the course of the day.

A slight smile pulled at her mouth. Good thing she hadn’t expected him to deck himself out in all sorts of finery for their wedding night.

Not that she had, either. Until this moment she hadn’t considered he might expect her to wear a fashionable peignoir of silk and lace. Unnerved, Clara tugged her dressing gown more securely over her plain cotton shift and waited.

He twisted the catch of the pin holding his cravat in place. The fastening gave way, allowing him to tug again at the knot close to his throat. As the folds of cobalt-blue silk spilled into his hand, his eyes met hers. He pulled the silk from his collar and dropped it to the floor before approaching.

“From the studio?” He scooped the ribbons into his left hand and let them stream through his fingers.

“They were my mother’s. She had very beautiful dark hair and she loved to wear colorful ribbons.”

A cherry-red ribbon trailed from his hand as he held it against her burnished hair. “Do you wear them?”

“Sometimes. More often when I was a girl.”

She remembered that her mother had liked to tie the ribbons into Clara’s hair as well, how perfectly she was able to shape the bows. Clara cupped her hand beneath Sebastian’s, catching the tangle of fabric as it fell from his fingers. She dropped the ribbons into the box and closed the lid.

Sebastian’s dark gaze swept her from head to foot and back, lingering on the neckline of her gown, which exposed a shallow curve of bare skin. He was close enough that she could see the gleaming dampness of his hair, his smooth, clean-shaven jaw that she wanted to stroke with her lips.

A tremble coursed through her blood. She’d be lying if she said she had not imagined this moment, the taut, fevered space just before the consummation of their union. But her speculations had been pointlessly twisted with memories of Richard, tangling the fearful, young virgin she’d been with the woman she was now. No longer young. No longer a virgin.

But fearful…?

Sebastian cupped his left palm around her nape, his fingers warm and strong, then reached to loosen the pins restraining her hair. In moments, her hair uncoiled in long skeins around her shoulders. Warm appreciation glowed in his eyes. Her heart hammered.

Fearful still, yes. Not because the dire portent of physical intimacy stretched between them and the bed, but because he aroused such a flurry of emotions, like butterflies spiraling and cascading through her very soul.

Because she wanted him.

Clara still didn’t understand it. She didn’t know its source or its end, this desire sparking in her blood, at once exhilarating and terrifying. All she knew was that it made her crave his lips, his hands on her bare skin, made her yearn with the need to touch him in return.

Sebastian dragged his fingers through a swath of her hair, softly pulling the tangles free. His brows drew together.

“Did he hurt you?” He spoke in a gentle voice, but the implications of his question corded the words with anger.

Clara shook her head, unable to speak past the knot in her throat. No, Richard hadn’t hurt her. Not physically. He’d been dispassionate and methodical and she’d felt like a vessel rather than his wife, but he’d hurt her only after he died.

And never once had he made her feel like this—restless and hot and wanting more, wanting something she couldn’t name.

Before she could speak, Sebastian captured her fingers in his and, with unmistakable intent, brought her hand to the buttons of his shirt.

Clara skirted her gaze to her husband, her pulse jumping at the heat already brewing in his eyes. No swift rut beneath the covers for this man. She steeled her courage, though her hands shook as she unfastened the first button to reveal the triangle of skin at his throat.

If she didn’t look directly at him…she forced her fingers to work as she slipped each button from its entrapment. When the folds of his shirt began to part, she stepped back, her breath quickening in pace as she watched his long fingers release the final two buttons before he pulled the shirt over his head. Mesmerized by the dexterity of his movements, the graceful lift of his shoulders, she could hardly muster any shock as his shirt pooled to the floor.

A riot of sensations fluttered inside her as she gazed at his half-naked form. So utterly different from Richard’s slender torso, which Clara had seen bare only several times during their six-year marriage.

She stared at the expanse of Sebastian’s flat stomach, the layer of dark hair over the sculpted planes of his chest, the smooth musculature of his shoulders. A strange, urgent pulse flared in her belly.

Dear God, but the man was beautiful.

He closed the scant distance between them, his hand moving to cup her face and draw her closer.

“I promise,” he murmured in the instant before his lips touched hers, “I will only bring you pleasure.”

And then she was in his arms, his mouth crushed to hers, her hands trapped between their bodies. Clara breathed in a gasp and sank against him, opening her mouth to allow him access, drowning in the flood of sensations that swept over her. She unclenched her fists and let her hands spread tentatively over the expanse of his naked chest.

Warm, taut skin and soft hairs tickled her fingers as she pressed her hands against him and slid them upward. The steady beat of his heart quickened against her palms, delighting her with the knowledge that her touch could inspire his reaction.

The pulse in her belly beat harder, sliding heat through her veins and winding around her lower body. Sebastian’s hands stroked her hips, his fingers digging in as he urged her even closer, close enough that the bulge in his trousers nudged against her belly.

Rather than alarm her, the sensation flared a new spiral of heat. He wound the thick mass of her hair around his hand, tugging her head back for ease in deepening his potent kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth as his hand grasped her wrist and guided her to touch the hardening evidence of his arousal.

She hesitated, uncertainty warring with desire, before she allowed her fingers to curve around him. A hiss of pleasure escaped him, hot against her lips, and the sound emboldened her to tighten her hold. Even through the material of his trousers, he throbbed heavy and hard against her palm. A blaze of white-hot lust coursed across her skin. She moaned into his mouth, closing her teeth on his lower lip, swimming in the increasing urgency to see him stripped naked.

Tension rippled through his lean frame as he lifted his mouth from hers. His eyes blazed. He yanked at the ties of her dressing gown, the knots surrendering easily to his adept fingers, and pushed it away from her shoulders. A part of Clara’s mind remained aware that he was using only his left hand, his right immobile at his side, but so deft were his movements that his infirmity seemed negligible.

Although her shift concealed her from chest to calves, Clara had never stood before a man wearing so little. Sebastian’s gaze moved lower, to where the fabric outlined the taut points of her breasts. Her breath hitched as she moved to cross her arms, but he was swifter and caught her wrist in his hand to prevent the concealment.

“Oh, no,” he murmured. “This time, I will see everything.”

Everything?

A shudder shook Clara to her core. Sebastian began to retreat, still grasping her wrist, compelling her to match his footsteps as he guided them both to the bed. He fell backward, bringing her down on top of his long body and locking his mouth to hers once again.

Clara’s blood quaked as her breasts rubbed against his chest. Her hair fell in thick veils on either side of his face, enclosing them both in shadows dappled with shards of light. When she lifted her mouth from his to draw in air, she placed her trembling hands on his cheeks and stared down at him.

His dark eyes flared with heat—no self-restraint this time, only the hot, heady burn of desire. For her.

He captured her hand again and guided her palm over his chest, down his muscled torso to the thickness straining between them. Again she spread her fingers over his hardness, a fever filling her throat as he swelled against her hand.

“Take them off,” he murmured, moving her fingers to the buttons.

Clara’s breath hissed out in a rush. She sidled downward, her hair trailing like a paintbrush over his bare chest before she straightened, her bottom pressed to his thighs and her hands placed flat on his hips.

He was watching her. She felt his gaze like a hot kiss as he cast it across her crimson skin and the curves of her body beneath her shift. The faint thought surfaced that he was giving her a measure of control, as if to atone for the helpless subservience that had pervaded her life.

Until now. Until she’d purposefully asked Sebastian to marry her.

With a tremulous gathering of courage, she released the fastenings of his trousers, her urgency and trepidation stretching, then snapping like an electric wire. She let the trousers drop to the floor, a strange mixture of shock, curiosity, and pure want filling her like a cloud.

Sparks flew through her body when he nodded at her questioning glance, and she curled her hand around his smooth, taut shaft. They both watched her fingers, slender and white against his flesh, as she moved them in a hesitant rhythm that soon had Sebastian pushing his hips upward.

He made a muffled noise, half-groan and half-laugh, and flung his arm across his eyes. “Wait.”

Clara stopped, enthralled by the push-and-pull cadence of her stroking and his thrusts. “Are you all right?”

He gave another hoarse laugh and reached to ease her fingers from him. “More than all right. Come back here.”

She stretched the length of her body beside his, pressing her thighs together to quell the ceaseless throbbing that had begun the moment she unfastened the first button of his shirt.

Then he gathered the folds of her shift in his hand, his eyes never leaving hers as he pulled the cotton over her calves, her thighs, her hips…higher…higher…

Cool air brushed against her skin, knotting a tangle of trepidation in her belly. She’d never been so exposed, her slender limbs and hips bared to the dancing firelight and the heat of Sebastian’s perusal. He put his hand on her thigh, the intimate contact wringing a gasp of stunned pleasure from her as his fingers brushed the dark curls between her thighs then circled the shallow indentation of her navel.

Then he stopped suddenly, a ripple of tension coursing through his body, and Clara knew without needing to ask what had happened. She surfaced from the haze of passion and reached for his right hand, rubbing and kneading the stiff muscles until his fingers became pliable under her touch.

Holding his gaze, she placed his hand back on her body in a silent urge for him to continue his sensual ministrations. He did, his shoulders relaxing as he stroked his hand back down to the apex of her thighs.

God in heaven, she had never known the touch of a man could wind such a tight spooling of bliss. Her body strained as heat consumed her, beading perspiration on her brow and in the valley between her breasts. She wanted to arch against Sebastian, rub their naked bodies together with heedless abandon, beg him to touch her in shockingly intimate places. She wanted him to fill her and soothe the aching emptiness.

He murmured a request, lost in the sound of her heartbeat pulsing inside her head, but she knew what he asked and lifted her arms so he could slide the shift up over her head. He tossed the garment aside and levered his weight onto one elbow, a hard breath expelling from his lungs as he gave her body a slow and thorough appraisal.

Clara crushed the bedcovers in her fists, fighting the urge to cover herself—an urge that dissolved like salt in hot water when hunger fired in Sebastian’s eyes.

Then, in a movement taut with masculine grace, he rolled to straddle her, his knees hugging her hips, his lean, muscular body rippling with carnal tension above her.

Clara gasped, succumbing to her body’s urge to squirm beneath him, swimming in arousal at the sensation of his shaft throbbing hard and ready against her belly. She cried out when his long-fingered hand cupped her breast. Pleasure spiraled into her core as he caressed her tight nipples, rubbed his fingers into the warm crevice beneath her breasts.

He shifted on top of her, uncoiling the length of his body as his knee eased between her thighs. Placing his hands on either side of her head, he levered his weight onto his forearms and pressed his mouth to her right ear.

“Open for me,” he whispered, his breath a hot shiver against her neck.

Clara’s throat quivered with a swallow as she curved her hands against his hips and parted her thighs to allow him to ease into place. His hard, slick length breached her body, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from them both. Sebastian paused, sweat beading his chest, the cords of his neck taut with restraint.

Clara couldn’t speak past the burn cascading through her. She coiled her legs around his in invitation and gripped his hips, knowing that only he could ease the urgent ache expanding outward like surging waves. Then with a muffled groan, he pushed forward, filling her, stretching her in one smooth motion.

“Oh!” Clara gasped, her eyes seeking his, stunned to the depths of her being by the desire crackling from him and into her, the promise of untold pleasures evoked by the thrust of his hips, the pressure collecting in her loins.

He lowered himself onto her, sealing their damp bodies together as he buried his face in her neck and thrust harder. Drowning in sensations and heat, Clara instinctively arched her body to meet his, her broken cries flowing through the crackling air. She clenched her fingers into the smooth muscles of his back, reveling in the flex and pull of his body as he urged them both toward an explosion of pleasure that Clara knew would be her undoing.

When it happened, a cry tore from her throat as a tide of bliss overwhelmed her, as her world distilled to nothing but the rocking of their bodies together, the grip of his hands and delicious, increasing press of his shaft inside her. His own groan was muffled against her neck at the moment of his hot release, his hands digging into her thighs to spread her more fully for his final thrust.

His weight collapsed on top of her, his chest hairs abrading the tender skin of her breasts as their bodies heaved together. When Sebastian eased aside, an odd sense of bereftness fluttered in Clara until he curved an arm around her and pulled her against him again. Their breathing quieted. The logs cracked and sparked.

Clara closed her eyes, as if by doing so, she could banish the wealth of emotions rising in her chest, the certain and painful realization that no matter her efforts, Sebastian was winding into her like a plume of brilliant, shattering fire.

Her body fit against his, her curves yielding to the hard planes of his muscles, her leg sliding between his. He brushed his lips across her forehead. Clara’s throat closed.

The cold isolation in which she had lived for so long seemed to be melting. And in its place flourished the warm knowledge that she need never be alone again, that she could live the rest of her days with the reassurance of having Sebastian by her side.

Yet she did not want to imagine the cost of such a haven. If she allowed herself to acknowledge all the emotions beating at her heart, like birds struggling to escape a cage, she could lose sight of the reason she had married him in the first place.

What if loving Sebastian weakened her resolve to reclaim Andrew? What if she lost the sharp edge of her determination, the anger and desperation that had fueled her for the past year?

Lock your heart, she reminded herself. But even now she knew it was a futile command.

She couldn’t lock her heart against Sebastian, for he alone held the key.