Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(92)
She was falling in love with him.
Dear God, she was falling in love with Douglas Ashton.
In fact, Julia thought hysterically, she may have started falling in love with him the moment she met him.
But what she knew for certain was that she was falling deeply, madly, stupidly in love with him now.
She was falling in love with how good he was with the children and the reason he watched over them (and her) because of his heretofore unknown bond with his sister.
She was falling in love with how he warned off her father and how he protected her against Monique.
She was falling in love with the way he helped her learn snooker, didn’t make her feel a fool when she’d seen The Mistress and sat with her in her room until she fell asleep.
And she was falling in love with the way he made her feel when he looked at her (and was already in love with the way he made her feel with his mouth and hands and body).
His fingers worked carefully in her hair but her body stiffened against the knowledge stealing into her heart.
For the second time she was going to marry a man she loved. This time, she knew in advance the heartbreak it would bring. This time she knew that there would be a day when his eye would wander, when he’d grow tired of what they shared earlier that evening even though she’d live for it.
Her father had left her mother. Sean’s behaviour had forced Julia to leave him. And Douglas, Douglas would be no different. He was just Douglas. A man of means who got what he wanted, when he wanted it and, when he was satisfied, he’d be gone.
And it was then she realised she couldn’t do it. She’d agreed to it but she couldn’t go through with it.
He finished finding pins and his fingers slid against her scalp, running gently through her hair to it ends, then they dropped, stealing around her waist until he was holding her loosely there. She lifted her eyes to the mirror, first to look at herself (worrying that her hair would be a crazed, Medusa-styled mess but instead it was just a mass of curls) then to catch his eyes.
“Better?” His eyes warm, he asked his question softly, that one quiet word fastening like a silken shroud around her heart, and she nodded, not trusting her own voice. Not trusting what she might say. Not wanting him to know, ever, how she felt. And lastly, not wanting this moment to end because, she knew, it would be their last.
“Good,” he said, “come to bed.”
She nodded again, too undone with her new knowledge to bristle against his order.
He let her waist go but caught her hand and she followed him, still staggered by her realisation.
She had no idea what she would do, how she would cope but, right then, she was just going to go with it.
“Jewel,” Gavin had once said, “you need to take a risk, leave that little farm town and live your life. There’s something out there for you, little sister. But you’ve got to go out and find it.”
Tonight, she’d taken a risk.
She’d agreed to marry a wealthy, dangerous, English Baron, who she could easily love, who also happened to own a haunted mansion.
Tomorrow, she’d take it back and most likely regret it for the rest of her life.
But she had no choice. She had to guard her heart. She couldn’t go through it again without being destroyed.
He stopped, his back to the side of the bed, turning her to face him. His hands went to her belly and then turned, the backs of his fingers brushing against her as he spread open the shirt. His head descended and his teeth nibbled at her lips.
“I want you,” his voice was low and silky, “with this on,” he said, his mouth teasing hers and he indicated what he meant by tugging at the shirt.
She took a shuddering breath and mumbled, “Okay.”
He found her hand and pulled sharply at it, forcing her to fall with him back on the bed, hooking her at the waist so she fell on top of him.
He kissed her, his right hand delving into her hair to hold her head firmly to his and his left hand pushing the fabric of his shirt away so her na**d body was pressed against his. She felt the immense heat of him and revelled in it, allowing it to fire her skin. Then his hands ran down her back, over her bottom and he did an abdominal crunch, his fingers softly sliding down her legs to the backs of her knees.
He pulled his mouth from hers and she found she was already breathing heavily, wanting him again.
“This time,” he began and with a forceful jerk he pulled her knees up and she found herself, with a surprised gasp, straddling him. One of his hands moved from her knee and went between their bodies, the other hand went to her waist. “You get to do all the work.” His hand on her waist drove her relentlessly down on him and, as he filled her, her teeth caught her lower lip in delicious pleasure, her head rolled back and her back arched.
“I think I can do that,” Julia breathed, wishing she sounded more sultry and cosmopolitan but he’d have to make do with just her.
She bent forward again, kissed him softly and it began.
Of course, it didn’t end with her on top, not with Douglas. Moments before their cl**ax, he flipped her onto her back and drove into her unrelentingly, this time wrapping her legs around his waist himself, thrusting fiercely as if he wanted to penetrate her very soul, until her teeth bit uncontrollably into his shoulder and, finally, she had no choice but to throw her head back and cry out his name in pure, excruciating, mind-numbing pleasure.
Chapter Seventeen