Sherry Thomas - Beguiling the Beauty

The dining saloon was a hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. The ceiling opened at the center into a rectangular wall that rose two decks to a glass-covered dome. On a clear day, sunlight would spill down this well and illuminate the rows of Corinthian columns and the four long tables that ran nearly the whole length of the room, each capable of accommodating more than a hundred diners.

On this stormy night, a bright if quivery light still cascaded from the well, its source the large, silver-branched electric chandelier that swung with the pitch and roll of the ocean liner. Had Venetia arrived an hour earlier, the sound of silverware and muted laughter would have greeted her, the familiar murmurs of privilege and satisfaction. But now the dining saloon was largely deserted. Two of the long tables were completely empty, all the dishes and cutlery cleared, all the bolted chairs turned out. A few hardy passengers still lingered, their plates and glasses held in place by a special wooden frame set on the table. A middle-aged, robust-looking woman loudly discussed her experiences with past nor’easters.

Lexington, in evening formals, sat by himself near the windows, a cup of coffee before him, his gaze on the storm outside. She prayed for no abrupt changes to the rhythm of the Rhodesia’s movement—she did not want to stumble along the way, but cut through like a shark, sleek and dangerous.

He glanced in her direction. With her veil on, it was difficult to judge his expression, but she thought she caught a flicker of surprise.

And anticipation.

Her stomach tightened. Her face heated. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

He rose as she approached the table, but offered no greeting. A waiter emerged from nowhere to help her with her chair, another presented her a cup of coffee.

Lexington retook his seat. Without taking his eyes off her, he lifted his coffee and drank. It would seem he had no intention of making this easy for her.

She spoke before she could change her mind again. “I have reconsidered your proposition, sir.”

He made no response. The air between them all but crackled with charge.

She swallowed. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that I am open to persuasion.”

The steamer heaved. Her hand shot out to protect her coffee cup; his did the same. His finger wrapped around hers. She felt the shock of it deep into her shoulder.

“I was about to go back to my rooms,” he said. “Would you care to join me?”

For a long second, her voice refused to work. Her lips trembled. The thought of being alone with him squeezed the air from her lungs.

“Yes,” she rasped.

He set down his cup and came to his feet. She bit her lip and did likewise. Their exit garnered inquisitive looks from the remaining diners. Lexington took no notice of them. Strange how on her way to him, she’d been equally heedless of the unwanted attention she’d attracted. But now she felt as if she were about to be pilloried.

She preceded him up the grand staircase. The ship listed sharply. His arm was instantly about her waist.

“I’m quite all right, thank you.”

He let go of her. She grimaced at her tone—she sounded nothing like a woman with lovemaking on her mind. If she were any severer, she’d be leading the temperance movement.

The Victoria suite was several decks above the dining saloon. For the rest of the way, they said not a word to each other. At the door of the suite he glanced at her—an unreadable look—before he turned the key.

The parlor was dimly lit. She could only make out the location and general outline of the furnishing: a desk and a Windsor chair before the window, a chaise longue to her right, two padded chairs opposite, shelves that had been built into the bulkhead.

He shut the door.

A surge of panic made her blurt out, “You will not ask to see my face.”

“Understood,” he answered quietly. “Would you care for something to drink?”

“No.” She inhaled hard. “No, thank you.”

He walked past her, deeper into the room. It was not until he reached out a hand that she realized he was extinguishing the light. Shadows enfolded her, alleviated only by flashes of lightning.

He drew the curtain, the slide of rings on rod quick, metallic. The unbroken darkness pressed against her sternum. The din of the storm faded. Even the slant and toss of the Rhodesia seemed to happen elsewhere. Her body knew how to brace itself for the volatile swells of the sea, yet the very predictable course Lexington set was a maelstrom, threatening to tow her asunder.

“Would you agree that I can’t see anything now?”

He was right in front of her, just on the other side of her veil. Her fingers clutched the folds of her skirts. “Yes.”

He removed the veiled hat. Her breath caught. She had never felt more naked in her life.

He slid the back of his hand against her cheek. It was as if a torch caressed her. “The door is unlocked. You may leave at any point.”

The scene crashed into her head: Lexington wedged inside her, and she, overcome at last, begging to be let go.

“I won’t.” Her voice was small but defiant.

He made no reply. Her shallow, erratic breaths drowned out the waves battering the Rhodesia. He touched her again—the pad of his thumb grazing her lower lip, leaving a burning trail in its wake.

“You don’t want to sleep with me. Why are you here?”

She swallowed. “I am not unwilling, only afraid.”

“What do you fear?”

He kissed her just below her jaw. She shuddered. “It—it has been a very long time.”

His hands were on her arms, their heat scorching her through the satin of her sleeves. “How long?”

“Eight years.”

He wrapped one hand around her nape and kissed her, parting her lips without hesitation. The kiss tasted of Arabian coffee, as pure and potent as his will. And she felt that will deep inside her, in places that had lain dormant for nearly a decade.

All too soon he pulled away. The ship staggered. But the violence of the sea was nothing compared to the turmoil inside her: She wished he hadn’t stopped.

“Where is the door?” she asked, her voice uneven.

He did not answer immediately. Into the impenetrable night came the sound of his breathing, less quiet, less controlled. “Five paces behind you.” He paused a second. “Would you like me to walk you there?”

“No,” she said. “Take me in the opposite direction.”

The bedroom was, if possible, even darker than the parlor. Christian stopped when he reached the bed. Under his thumb, the small vein at the baroness’s wrist throbbed wildly, one beat indistinguishable from the next.

He spread open her tightly clenched hand. She was as tense as a full-blown war. Yet beneath all the rigidness, all the reluctance, pulsed an arousal made audible by every one of her ragged breaths. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman so incited him.

Cupping her face, he kissed her again. She tasted impossibly clean, of rain and snow and spring water. The scent of her was equally spare, no sultry musk or sweet flowers, only the fragrance of freshly laundered hair and skin, underpinned by the warmth of her body.

She made small whimpers in her throat. Lust shot through him. His fingers were impatient, almost unsteady, as he undid the top of her bodice, peeling back the layers that imprisoned her.

He was more interested in her reactions than her flesh, yet the sheer smoothness of her skin made him light-headed with desire. He took her mouth once more, invading it thoroughly. His body pressed hers into the footboard of the bed.

She trembled. Did she feel him through everything they still wore? He was hot and hard, almost senselessly so. Then she did something that poured fresh fuel on the fire of his lust: She helped him with her corset, her hands and his working the busk closures together.

The corset was the castle gate. Once it had been undone, everything else was but formalities. He pulled the pins out of her hair and rid her of the rest of her clothes, touching her as little as possible in the process, not quite trusting his own usually ironclad control.

When she was naked, she asked, “Can I still leave?”

“Yes,” he said, pressing her down onto his bed. “Anytime.”

“What would you do, if I left now?”

“Sulk.”

He kissed her chin, her throat. She was delicious everywhere. And still so wound up, her fingers gripping the bedspreads as if she might fall off the bed otherwise—a real possibility, with the Rhodesia reeling every which way. But he doubted she noticed. What she feared was not God, but man.

“Why don’t you want to see my face?” she murmured.

“Did I ever say I do not want to see your face?” He palmed her breast, a most tactile handful, and grazed its underside. “But if you don’t want me to, I will learn to recognize you by the texture of your skin.” He rolled her already erect nipple between his fingers, eliciting a trembling exhalation from her lips. “By your voice,” he said, taking the nipple into his mouth. “And by your taste.”

She moaned and undulated beneath him. He’d always been a meticulous lover—it was only fair that he should repay the lady for his gratification. But her he wanted to overwhelm with pleasure, to have her bask in it, wallow in it, revel in it. He wanted to make her forget that she’d ever been anxious and afraid.

She’d never been more anxious, more afraid.

That he was the one to give her such pleasure frightened her. But she had no one to turn to, except him. The next time he kissed her, she gripped his shoulders and kissed him back, because she didn’t know what else to do.

His response was fierce. He removed his own clothes, slid his hand under her bottom, and came fully inside her.

She sucked in a breath. Yes, she’d been another man’s wife. Yes, Tony had been a competent lover in the early days of their marriage. But had the sensations ever been this sharp, this white-hot, as if lightning had struck?

“Can I—can I still leave?” she heard herself ask.

He withdrew and drove into her again. “Yes.” Another long, infinitely pleasurable stroke. “Anytime.”

She panted. “What would you do if I left?”

He ground into her. “Weep.”

She could not help smiling—just a little.

He gripped her hair and kissed her. “But you are not going anywhere.”

He did dirty, delicious things to her. Fanned the flames of her desires until she was nothing but fever and need. Her pleasure gathered into such an immense, pressure-filled mass that the only way to relieve the pent-up tension was to convulse and scream.

“It really has been eight years,” he murmured.

His hand caressed her where their bodies were still joined. How good it felt, how exquisite. She writhed, whimpering.

“It’s only been a few months for me, but I begin to be convinced I must also have gone years without.”

He withdrew and pushed slowly, ever so slowly, back into her. Her breaths shuddered. It dawned on her that he had not yet reached his resolution.

His fingers stroked her again at the juncture of her thighs, arousing fresh, hot desires. But it was his lips at her ear that thoroughly reignited her. “You are so tightly strung,” he whispered, with a bite to her earlobe that she felt all the way in her toes, “the least touch makes you vibrate.”

After that, there were no more words. He calibrated and fine-tuned her until the merest contact between their bodies was a crescendo of sensations. When his control broke, he pushed her over the edge again. She was deafened and blinded by pleasure. Drowning in it, clutching onto him as her only salvation in the maelstrom.

They stilled. He was solid and heavy above her. She listened to his tattered breathing and felt strangely raw, the way a patch of skin that had been bandaged for a long time did when it was at last exposed to air, light, and touch.

Don’t think, she told herself. Don’t think of anything. For as long as you can.

The rumbles of thunder had grown more distant. The pelting of rain was not as savage upon the deck. The Rhodesia still wobbled, but she no longer lurched in unpredictable directions.

Christian rolled onto his side, taking the baroness with him. Her hair, cool and silky, tickled his arm. Her breaths were little puffs of moist warmth at the crook of his neck. Her body, at last, was slack, almost limp.