Seven Years to Sin(64)
“I should not have pushed you so hard today,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Alistair snorted. “I cannot accept an apology for giving me the best orgasm of my life.”
She pulled her arms out from beneath him and wriggled her way up his torso. “The best orgasm so far,” she corrected, straddling his hips and embracing his shoulders. “Henceforth I will endeavor to bring you greater and greater pleasure every time we make love.”
His cock twitched in its initial effort to rally. She’d wrung him dry in every respect.
“Not yet,” she said, with her lips to his ear. “Let me hold you; I promised you I would. You don’t always have to use sex to show me how you feel.”
The rush of longing that assailed him was nearly too great. It stung his eyes and burned in his throat. He set his hands on the bed to hide their unsteadiness.
“Was she the only woman you cared for?” she asked, leaning fully against him.
“If that is what you want to call it.”
“What would you call it? Lust?”
“I’ve no notion. I know it was never like this.”
“But there are women who’ve loved you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Those who have, came to lament it. The detriments outweigh the benefits.”
Her fingertips curled around the back of his neck, kneading the tense muscles. “There is no shame in what you did.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
“I know you. I love you, and I will not regret it.”
Alistair was horrified by the violent shudder that moved through him. She was deep under his skin now, able to see everything he was so adept at disguising on the surface.
God, he didn’t want her to see …
“You don’t know that, either,” he said sharply.
“You’ll have to trust me, Alistair, and take my word for it.” Her embrace lightened, her body withdrawing as if giving him room and permission to flee.
In truth, he was tempted to. He’d done things in his life that made him unacceptable … the very nature of his birth made him unsuitable for her. She’d suffered so much to become the polished, elegant, irreproachable woman she was. And with his courtship, he would destroy the social esteem she had worked so hard to attain. If he could, he would keep her captive in his bed, the one place he knew he could make her forget everything but the pleasure he could give her.
Alistair caught her close, fighting for the strength to be gentle when he felt so violently. She needed tenderness and sheltering, and he was like a battering ram against her, constantly trying to crash his way through the defenses she’d been forced to build as an abused child. “I do trust you,” he said gruffly. “Don’t I tell you everything?”
“You tell me all the disreputable things about yourself.” Jessica pulled back to look at him. “And you say them with such defiance, as if you’re daring me to turn away from you.”
Better now than later. With every day that passed, she became more and more indispensable to him. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to breathe without her. He already felt that way at times.
She kissed one corner of his mouth, then the other. “Remain constant, and I will remain with you.”
“You are my every desire.” He groaned as she moved sinuously against him.
“Prove it,” she breathed.
As always, he accepted the challenge. He knew his strengths—he could disregard his conscience, he was adept at making money, he was attractive, and he was good at sex. It was precious little to offer to a woman such as Jessica, but he would offer it in spades and pray it would be enough to keep her.
Chapter 18
Hester paused on the threshold of her bedroom and stared at her sleeping husband. He’d come to her often over the past sennight, seeking surcease from his torment in her bed. She tried to comfort him, tried to tell him that no one remembered a boxing match a week old, that he wasn’t humiliated or diminished, but nothing she said or did soothed his inner turmoil. She was exhausted from the effort, disheartened, and sickened by his weakness and her own weakness for him. Despite everything dark and twisted that had passed between them, she still couldn’t wish him ill.
It was her greatest failure that she couldn’t save the man she’d once loved from himself. She could not even save their love, which had withered and was surely dying. As much as it pained her, she could no longer afford to waste her energies and affections on a man who couldn’t accept and value her efforts. She had a child to consider now, a tiny being who would need all her time, attention, and adoration. The strength she hadn’t been capable of finding for herself, she’d found for the babe growing within her.
Her shoulders went back and she moved toward the bed.
Regmont had the potential to be such a wonderful man. He was handsome and emminently charming. He had a fine wit and was brilliantly adept at everything he set his hand to. Women coveted him and men respected him. Yet he saw none of those admirable qualities in himself. Sadly, his father’s demeaning and belittling words were all he heard in his head; they drowned out the praise directed his way. He felt unworthy of love, and he reacted to those feelings in the manner his father had taught him by example—through violence.
But she couldn’t make excuses for him any longer. His most prominent traits were the need for absolute control over her—from the clothes she wore to what she ate—and manipulation. He laid the blame for his rages on the spirits he drank to excess and, sometimes, on her. If he couldn’t accept his own culpability, there was little possibility he would change. She had to take steps to protect her child.