“No.”
He looked like she’d shot him. He rocked back on his heels. He rose slowly then and stared down at her. The shadows cast off by the fire made a halo around her blond hair. She looked like an angel. She had just had the gall to turn him down.
He felt disbelief. He felt outrage bubble and roil in his belly. “This makes no sense at all. You want me out of my britches all the time.”
“Yes, well, that I can’t seem to help. Come, Lord Beecham—”
“Damn you, call me by my given name—Spenser.”
“Spenser, admit it. It is lust, boundless, mindless lust you feel for me—just as I do for you—nothing more, nothing less. Just lust. What would happen if we married and in six weeks you were over your lustful cravings? What would you do then? We would be bound together forever. No, I don’t want that.”
“You have written an amazing tale, madam. You have plucked an ending out of the ether that has no substance or meaning or validity. I devoutly pray that our lust for each other wanes just a bit or else we will never get anything accomplished outside of our bedchamber.
“Now, let me propose quite another ending to your amusing tale. We will love and fight and yell and laugh and have a very nice time of it well into the foreseeable future. What do you think about that?”
“It is a good ending,” she said, sighed, and looked away from him, into the fire.
“And have you had other lovers, madam? Other men who gave you such pleasure?”
“No.”
He wished he could think of more to say. “Why are you saying no to me, Helen? What is it I cannot give you? I don’t for a moment believe that ludicrous tale you have spun. I believe you would very much like to become my wife. We would be partners and lovers for life.”
Her hands were folded in her lap. She wasn’t moving, just sitting there, staring down at her hands. “I don’t wish for another husband. I don’t want to lose what I have, what I am.”
“For God’s sake, what kind of a man do you think I am? I wouldn’t take anything from you. I would hope that what I would give you would enhance your happiness.”
She didn’t look at him, simply shook her head.
He was so frustrated, so disbelieving that she would actually turn him down, and for no good reason that had yet come out of her mouth, that he was momentarily speechless. Then, finally, he said, “I wish that were all there was to it.” He threw himself down on the chair next to hers. He leaned his chin on his fist, stretched out his long legs, and stared into the fireplace.
“There is nothing else to it. Just lust, nothing more.”
“You’re being a blockhead, Helen. Obviously this man you were married to, when you were too young to have even the beginnings of a brain, gave you a very bad opinion of men and of marriage. It won’t be anything like that between us. Use your sense, woman.”
She shook her head.
“I too have always had a very bad opinion of marriage, given the utter devastation my father wrecked on three women’s lives, but it fades into the shadows when I think of having you at my side, in my bed, sitting across from me at the breakfast table. Why don’t I banish your bad experience from your mind, Helen?”
She was shaking her head even before he had finished speaking. He wanted to strangle her. Instead, he rose, walked to the dining room door, shut it, and to his immense delight, there was a lock and a key. He turned it.
“Now,” he said, turning around. “Now.”
He heard her breath whoosh out. She stood, made to run, then stopped, her hands fists at her sides. “No, Spenser, I don’t want to make love with you. You will not coerce me in that way. It is low.”
“Not as low as I’m able to get if the circumstance calls for it.”
In less than three minutes, Helen was on her back on the table, and he was gently pulling her toward the end. She was trying to grab him, to bring him over her, to kiss him, but he was holding her legs apart, staring at her, trying not to expire on the spot, and then, in the next instant, he was inside her, to the hilt, and he was moaning and pushing, and then he heard her crying out, soft, deep cries that went right to his sex, and he fell over her, kissing her until he was breathless, and he felt her muscles tighten around hi
m, felt the immense power of her climax as she twisted and held him so tightly he wondered if he would be black and blue in the morning. He laughed then, raised his head, and yelled to the beams in the small private dining room.
Geordie gave a final mighty yell from outside.
“That was his last stroke,” Helen managed to say, then bit his shoulder. She was panting so hard she could barely draw a breath. He didn’t leave her, just waited, and it wasn’t at all long before he was moving inside her again. “Your breasts,” he said. “This time I have some control. I want to taste your breasts.”
He was pulling at her gown, but he didn’t have the time. She lifted her hips, and it was all over for him. His fingers found her and she bit his neck this time and it both stung and made him wild. Her hot breath was fast and slick on his flesh. This time he took her lovely moans into his mouth. As for himself, he pressed his mouth against her neck and yelled against her soft flesh.
“There,” he said, every shred of male arrogance sounding loud and clear in his voice. He straightened between her legs, still inside her, and he laid his hands on her white thighs. “Open your eyes, Helen. Look, I am still inside you. I am part of you. Now, there will be no more of your wrongheadedness. You will consent to marry me. I am the only man for you. You and I belong together. Together we will find this damned magic lamp. Together we will create a life that will make us stronger as two than what we are now singly. Perhaps, in five years or so, I will have enough control so I will be able to kiss your breasts, and that’s just the start of it.” Slowly, he pulled out of her, never looking away from her face.