Nothing Denied (20 page)

Ethan stared at her, then slid his gaze back to Gareth slowly. “We shal take her with us to the inn tonight.”

Gareth arched a brow in chal enge before he looked at Beatrice. “Is that what
you
desire?”

Her eyes were wide and her hands came to her hips. “Absolutely not. You cannot come marching in here and tel me what to do, Ethan Hamon! I am staying here and that is final.”

“Beatrice—” Ethan snapped.

Before the sister and brother-in-law could come to blows, Gareth stepped forward.

“I understand your desire to protect your wife’s sister, Lord Rothschild,” he said smoothly, presenting Ethan with the respect he had thus far withheld. “You aren’t certain of me, my past or even my intentions, so you do not wish to leave her here, yet she refuses to leave with you. We are at an impasse, so I propose that you two forego the inn and stay at my estate. That way Beatrice wil not feel she has been dragged away against her wil and you two won’t be left in the uncomfortable position of surrendering her to my care.”

No one in the room responded. Miranda Hamon simply stared at him, appraising and beautiful, though he felt her beauty paled in comparison to Beatrice. Ethan watched Beatrice, and Beatrice glared in return. Final y Gareth sighed. “Would that be acceptable to al parties?”

It was Miranda who replied. “Yes. I think that is a very good suggestion, Lord Highcroft. And if we stay here, it wil also al ow my husband and me to get to know you better.” She touched Ethan’s arm. “We certainly understand that not al gossip is true, don’t we, dear?”

Ethan final y let his gaze return to Gareth. “Yes, I suppose we do, after al .”

“Then Lord Highcroft is affording us a very fair chance to see him here and judge his character for ourselves.”

After a long moment, Ethan nodded. “Yes. Very wel , we shal stay.”

It seemed like everyone in the room exhaled in relief at the same moment and Gareth smiled. “Very good. I shal arrange for my man to go to the vil age and deliver your things here straightaway.”

But as Gareth left the room to find a servant, he couldn’t help but sigh. In the midst of the most pleasurable few days of his life, suddenly everything was far more complicated. And it seemed it was destined to remain that way until he had proven the rumors about him wrong.

Chapter Fourteen

J
ust as Gareth had suspected they would be, the past few hours had been some of the most uncomfortable in his life. By the time Lord and Lady Rothschild were settled and their items brought from the inn, it had been close to suppertime. The meal had been a tense one, to say the least. Every word he said was analyzed and every look meaningful.

While Miranda Hamon seemed to be wil ing to reserve judgment about him for her sister’s sake, her husband stil retained an air of outright distrust. Not that Gareth blamed the earl. There was much to be wary of when it came to Gareth’s past. But he had spent so long outside the reaches of Society, avoiding that kind of censure that he found in the man’s judging stare. It was very grating to be forced to endure it now. Any other night he would have given himself over to the pleasure of a woman to relieve the strain, but his current situation seemed to preclude that option. With her sister and brother-in-law in the house, surely Beatrice was off-limits. Although Gareth wasn’t afraid of Ethan Hamon, he did not want to come to blows with the earl, either. Such a thing would not make earning his trust any easier. Nor did Gareth wish to damage the already fragile bond between Beatrice and her sister. Whether she admitted it or not, Beatrice wanted the approval of her family. And if they had that, it would make a marriage between them far more accepted by Society.

Gareth could, of course, arrange to meet with another woman. He had several in the area whom he cal ed upon from time to time to slake his needs in the way he liked. Women who calmly gave themselves to him without hesitation, but without much enthusiasm, either.

Unlike Beatrice. And he found, in a very troubling moment of self-reflection, that he did not wish to satisfy his desire with anyone but her.

Trying to ignore that thought, he pushed his chamber door open and entered the dimly lit room. He rubbed his pounding temples as he pushed the door shut behind him.

“Good evening,
my
lord.”

Gareth’s gaze jerked up. Across the chamber, standing in the doorway between his dressing room and his bedroom, was Beatrice. She was wrapped in a silken robe, her blond hair down around her shoulders in a cloud.

“B–Beatrice?” he stammered in surprise as he moved toward her. “What are you doing here?”

A tiny smile quirked up the corner of her lip, but he also saw pure defiance sparkle in her stare. It was utterly arousing to see that tart expression there and know that Beatrice might have surrendered herself completely to him, but not to anyone else.

She slipped her hands down the apex of her body and slowly loosened the knot at her waist. With a shake of her golden locks, she let her robe fal away. She was utterly, delectably naked beneath, rosy red nipples already at attention. Her smile widened.

“No one tel s me what to do,” she whispered.

“Except you.
My
lord.”

Gareth crossed the room so fast that it seemed to surprise Beatrice, for she laughed nervously at his ardor. But when his arms came around her, her smile faded and she made no move to resist. In fact, her body molded to his and her mouth opened as he pressed his lips to hers. As he breathed her in, she let out a needy, passionate growl of pure pleasure. Gareth lifted her from her feet. Her legs locked around his waist as he carried her across the room to his bed. She didn’t let go, even as he laid her back across the soft coverlet and she didn’t break the hot, wet kiss.

She was as hungry for him as he was for her. He could tel by the way she tore at his clothes, raking her nails across his skin as they tossed layer after layer aside. And al the while her hips kept grinding against his, rubbing his cock through the rapidly tightening confines of his trousers with a frustratingly perfect rhythm.

“How did you do this to me?” she gasped as their fingers tangled at his waistband.

Together they tugged at his belt and struggled with the fastenings of his pant waist. When his trousers final y hit the floor and he kicked them away, she drew back a fraction and looked at him from head to toe. He moaned as she licked her lips with a feral possessiveness that made his cock so hard it actual y ached.

“What did I do?” he asked her as he positioned himself over her and braced his arms on either side of her head. But he didn’t enter her, not yet.

“You have made me a wanton, so attuned and in longing to your body that I would beg for it. I would do anything you asked for it.” She shook her head in wonderment. “How did you do that?”

He smiled. “I only awoke what you are, Beatrice.
Who
you are.”

Slowly, he thrust forward. His cock breached her wet body with no resistance and he shuddered as her sheath clung to him as he moved within her. Her body was like a hot, wet glove, holding him so tight that he could easily explode like a green boy.

“And what and who you are,” he panted, “is
mine
.”

She nodded. “I’m yours.”

Her words broke off on a cry as he thrust back and then pounded into her even harder than before. Her thighs tightened around his waist and she lifted into the harsh thrust.

“And whatever else you are, in my bed, you submit to my every desire and you trust that I wil take care of you,” he whispered.

She nodded silently, her face twisted in a mask of pure ecstasy and he pul ed back so his cock was almost entirely out of her body. When she gave a low whimper of longing, he shook his head.

“Say the words, Beatrice.”

“In your bed, in your arms,
you
are the master,” she admitted. “And I know you wil withhold release and also make me come al with my ultimate pleasure in mind.”

He drew back and straightened her long, smooth legs, draping her knees over his shoulders. And then he took her. There was no doubt in the taking. Their coupling was fast and hard and infinitely animal. He drove into her with no mercy, driving her toward pleasure and desire and the future with every arch of his hips.

She thrashed helplessly, lifting her hips into his every thrust and crying out as she was fil ed by him. Her fingers fisted in the bedsheets, her head rocked back and forth. He could feel her getting so close to pleasure, but she never quite found it.

Because she needed his permission.

Final y, after al the years of searching, after al the pain of Laurel’s repulsion over what he was and what he needed…here, lying beneath him, accepting his cock, was the perfect woman for him.

One who had surrendered herself to him in every way, despite how terrifying a prospect that was to her.

“Come for me, Beatrice,” he murmured, granting her the gift she had earned with her trust and submission. There was no doubt she had been on the edge for a long time, because her orgasm was the most intense he had seen her experience. Her screams fil ed the air, so loud that he began to wonder if she might bring the house down. Her body thrashed and trembled and it seemed to go on forever as he continued to take her and guide her through the pleasure, toward the final release.

Final y, she went limp beneath him, completed satiated. He hadn’t found his release yet, but stil he withdrew from her trembling sheath and took a place beside her, his hard cock, stil wet with her essence, resting against her thigh.

Her eyes came open and she looked at him.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered as she glanced down. “You didn’t…”

“Not yet,” he said, brushing back tangled locks from her face. “Today I asked you a question, but before you could reply we were interrupted by the arrival of your sister and her husband.”

She nodded and he noted that her legs stil trembled from her orgasm. “Yes.”

“Do you have an answer for me?”

She sat up a fraction. “I told Ethan and Miranda that I would marry you. You heard me say it.”

A shrug was his reply. “You said it, but it was as much to upset them as it was any other reason.”

Her lips pursed with displeasure for a brief moment, but then she smiled. “I suppose there was some element of that to my saying it.”

“I want an answer that is only for me,” he said. “I want to know if you wil marry me.”

“Are you certain you stil want to wed even after Ethan

and

Miranda’s

highhandedness?”

she

whispered and now she pressed a hand to his chest. He nodded.

She drew in a deep breath. “Yes. I want to marry you.

”

The relief that made itself known in every part of Gareth’s mind and soul was not something he had expected when he made this bargain. But then, so much about Beatrice had been a delightful surprise. And now he had a lifetime to discover even more about her. They were certainly compatible in bed and he liked her, despite of…or perhaps
because of
how prickly she could be. She was a chal enge and he liked that about her.

“You are staring,” she whispered. “Did you want something more from me?”

He grinned. “Yes, something more.”

Her eyes lit up as her gaze flitted down to his stil hard cock. Then she leaned over and kissed him, hot and wet and fil ed with surrender and possession and desire.

“What can I do for you,
my
lord?” she whispered, her blue eyes lifting as she met his gaze.

He shivered with pleasure at al the wonderful images her question created. It was like he was a child brought to a sweet shop and told he could have anything and everything he desired. How could he choose with such delicacy spread out before him?

He smiled. “There are so many answers to your question, my dear, I can scarcely pick just one.”

A light laugh unlike any he’d ever heard from her escaped her lips and made him look at her more closely.

“Why pick
one
then?” she said, batting her eyes in a most fetching way.

Leaning down, he caught her cheeks and dragged her in for a hot, hard kiss. She melted into him, arching her hips against his and nearly unmanning him in the process.

With much difficulty, he pul ed away and stared down at her. “I do have one desire.”

“Name it.”

He met her gaze evenly. “I would like to claim the one last virgin place in your body.”

Her eyes widened with confusion and a tinge of worry.

“Wha—”

Gareth reached out and gently parted the globes of her bottom. Pressing his fingers against the tight hole there, he held her stare without so much as blinking. Beatrice swal owed hard, al playful y sensual thoughts fleeing her mind. She recal ed the last time he had touched her like he was touching her now. Just his finger had brought her so much pleasure, but also pain, and his cock was so much larger. She couldn’t imagine him fitting it into the shal ow channel he wished to breach.

“Is–is that possible?” she asked.

He leaned forward and placed a brief kiss to the tip of her nose. “I would not suggest it if it weren’t.”

Beatrice stared, as taken aback by the sweetness of his kiss as she was by the shock of his suggestion. But final y, she nodded. It was time for the final surrender.

“Gareth, I have given over my pleasure to you. In al ways, you are the master of it. And if this is what you want and what you believe I need, then…”

She didn’t finish, but instead rol ed to her stomach and lifted her backside up in mute offering.

Gareth let out a lewd curse and Beatrice couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t expected such bold surrender, even if he wanted it. Surprising him was a pleasure.

He moved behind her slowly, parting her legs to kneel between them on the bed behind her. Beatrice put her face into the pil ows, readying herself for pain, praying for pleasure to balance it.

But Gareth didn’t simply take. His warm hands cupped her bottom, gently massaging the flesh there, reverently stroking her as if he were worshipping a goddess.