A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers 4.5)

“Yes. We went over contracts with a British heavy chemical company for sulphuric acid and soda supplies. Then we moved on to the fascinating topic of palm oil production.” He came into the room, his hands tucked casually in his pockets. “We agreed that we’ll eventually need to cultivate our own source by establishing a coco palm plantation.” His brows lifted. “Care to go to the Congo with me?”

She stared directly into his sparkling eyes. “I wouldn’t go with you to the end of the carriage lane, Mr. Bowman.”

He laughed softly, his gaze sweeping over her as she stood to face him. “You didn’t answer my earlier question. Why were you frowning?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Hannah fumbled nervously in the pocket of her skirts. “Mr. Bowman, I’ve been meaning to return this to you.” Pulling out the little toy soldier, she extended her hand. “You must take him back. I think”she hesitated”you’ve been through many a battle together, you and he.” She couldn’t help glancing at his throat, where the skin looked smooth and golden. A bit lower, there was a shadow of hair where the open neck of his shirt parted. An unfamiliar, hot flourish of sensation went through her stomach. Dragging her gaze upward, she looked into eyes as rich and dark as exotic spices.

“If I take it back,” he asked, “do I still owe you a forfeit?”

A smile struggled upward but didn’t quite surface. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to consider that.”

Bowman reached out, but instead of taking the soldier from her, he closed his hand over hers, trapping the cool metal between their palms. His thumb moved in a gentle sweep over the back of her hand. The touch caused her to draw in a quick, severed breath. His fingers moved upward to close around her wrist, drawing her toward him. His head bent as he looked down at the letter still clasped in her fingers. “What is it?” he asked quietly. “What’s worrying you? Trouble at home?”

Hannah gave a wild little shake of her head and forced a smile. “Oh, nothing’s worrying me. I’ve received very good news. I’mI’m happy!”

A sardonic, slanting glance. “So I see.”

“Mr. Clark wants to marry me,” she blurted out. For some reason, saying the words aloud sent a chill of panic through her.

His eyes narrowed. “Clark proposed by letter? He couldn’t have troubled himself to come here and ask you in person?”

Although it was a perfectly reasonable question, Hannah felt defensive. “I find it very romantic. It’s a love letter.”

“May I see it?”

Her eyes turned round. “What makes you think I would show you something so personal, and” She made a little sound of distress as he took the letter from her nerveless fingers. But she didn’t try to take it back.

Bowman’s face was expressionless as he glanced over the neatly written lines. “This isn’t a love letter,” he muttered, tossing it contemptuously to the floor. “It’s a damned science report.”

“How dare you!” Hannah bent to scoop the letter up, but he wouldn’t let her. The toy soldier dropped as well, bouncing on the soft carpet as Bowman gripped her by the elbows.

“You’re not actually considering it, are you? That cold-blooded, pathetic excuse for a marriage proposal?”

“Of course I am.” Her anger exploded without warning, fueled by some deep and treacherous longing. “He’s everything you’re not, he’s honorable and kind and gentlemanly”

“He doesn’t love you. He never will.”

That hurt. In fact, the pain doubled and redoubled until Hannah could hardly breathe. She twisted angrily in his hold. “You think that because I’m poor and ordinary, someone like Mr. Clark couldn’t love me. But you’re wrong. He sees past”

“Ordinary? Are you mad? You’re the most insanely delicious girl I’ve ever met, and if I were Clark, I’d have done a hell of a lot more than fondle your cranium by now”

“Don’t mock me!”

“I’d have seduced you ten times over.” He deliberately stepped on the letter. “Don’t lie to me, or yourself. You’re not happy. You don’t want him. You’re settling for this because you don’t want to risk being an old maid.”

“That’s a fine accusation coming from you, you hypocrite!”

“I’m not a hypocrite. I’ve been honest with everyone, including Natalie. I’m not pretending to be in love. I don’t pretend to want her the way I want you.”

Hannah froze, staring at him in astonished silence. That he should admit it …

She realized she was breathing much too fast, and so was he. Her fingers curled over his sleeves, against his hard-muscled forearms. She wasn’t certain if her grip was exerted to keep him close or hold him away.

“Tell me you’re in love with him,” Bowman said.

Hannah couldn’t speak.

More soft insistence. “Then say you desire him. You should feel that much for him, at least.”

A tremor ran all through her, spreading to the tips of her fingers and toes. She took the deepest breath possible, and managed a thin reply. “I don’t know.”

His expression changed, an odd half-smile coming to his lips, his eyes hot and predatory. “You don’t know how to tell if you desire a man, sweetheart? I can help you with that.”

“That kind of help,” Hannah said with asperity, “I do not need.” She stiffened as he brought her closer, his big hands sliding from her elbows to hook beneath her arms. Her pulse had gone wild, heat thrumming in every part of her.

He bent to kiss her. She made a halfhearted attempt to wriggle away, causing his mouth to catch at her cheek instead of her lips. Bowman didn’t appear to mind. He seemed amenable to kissing any part of her he could reach, her cheeks, chin, jaw, the lobe of her ear. Hannah went still, panting as the kisses slid and skimmed over her hot face. She closed her eyes as she felt his lips catch at hers. Another soft, glancing brush, and another, and finally he closed his mouth over hers, deep and secure.

He tasted her with his tongue, searching slowly, and the voluptuous sensation blotted out every thought or flicker of reason. One arm went around her, and his head turned, and he kissed her more urgently. His free hand came up to her jaw, cradling and angling her face. He withdrew just enough to play with her, the fever-glazed caresses of his mouth coaxing her into openness, licking into the vulnerable heat.

The trembling grew worse, insidious pleasure melting through her like boiling sugar. As he tried to soothe her, the tender parts of her body began to throb beneath her clothes, all the laces and seams and stays cinching and clinging with maddening tightness. She struggled a little, chafing against the artificial restrictions. He seemed to understand. His lips left hers, his warm breath fanning the curve of her ear as his fingers went to her bodice. She heard her own moan of relief as she felt him unfastening her collar, and his reassuring whispers that he would take care of her, he would never hurt her, she must relax and trust him, relax…all this while his hand moved stealthily along her front, tugging and unfastening.

He kissed her again, a burning velvet caress that caused her knees to give out entirely. But the slow collapse didn’t seem to matter, he was holding her securely and lowering her to the carpeted floor. She found herself sprawled half across him while he knelt amid the abundant rumples of her dress. Her garments had fallen in perplexing disarray, buttons undone and skirts riding up. She made a dazed attempt to restore something, cover something, but the way he kissed her made it impossible to think. He gently arranged her beneath him, his arm a hard support beneath her neck. She relaxed helplessly as his wicked mouth took hers over and over, feasting on the taste of her.

“The sweetest skin …” he whispered, kissing her throat, easing her bodice open. “Let me see you, Hannah love …” He pulled at the top of her chemise, exposing a pale breast that had been pushed full and high by her underbust corset. It was then that Hannah comprehended that she was on the floor with him, and he was uncovering parts of her that no man had ever seen.

“WaitI shouldn’tyou shouldn’t” But her protest was silenced as he bent over the plush curve, his lips closing over a cold stiffening nipple. Her throat hummed with a low whimper as his tongue swept over her in raw-velvet strokes.

“Rafe,” she moaned, the first time she had ever said his name, and he let out a shaking breath and cupped both her breasts.

His voice was deep and rough. “I wanted this the first time I met you. I watched you sitting there with that little teacup in your hand, and I couldn’t stop wondering what you tasted like here…and here …” He suckled each breast in turn, his hands coasting over her writhing body.

“Rafe,” she gasped. “Please, I can’t”

“No one’s here,” he whispered against her prickling flesh. “No one will know. Hannah, sweet love…let me touch you. Let me show you how it feels to want someone as much as I want you …”

And he waited for her answer, breathing against her quivering skin, a warm hand covering her breast. She couldn’t seem to keep entirely still, her knees flexing, her h*ps rising in answer to a deep, demanding pulse. She was saturated with sweetness and shame and need. She would never have him, she knew that. His life was set on a far different path from hers. He was forbidden. Perhaps that was the reason for this reckless attraction.

Before she quite knew it, she had reached up and guided his head to hers. He responded immediately, taking her mouth in a ravishing, hard-plundering kiss. His hands slipped beneath her clothes, finding tender pale skin, caressing in ways that made her shiver. A muffled cry escaped her as she felt him pulling at the tapes of her drawers. He touched her taut stomach, a fingertip circling her navel. His hand slid over soft curls, cupped her sex, and gently parted her thighs. She felt herself being stroked, petted, lightly spread, his touch careful and clever as if he were drawing a pattern on a frosted window. Except that the surface beneath his fingertips was not icy glass but soft living skin, flushed and burning with desperate sensation.

She had one blurry glimpse of his dark face above hers, his expression intent with lust. He toyed with her, seeming to savor her writhing agitation, his own color high and fevered. She clutched at him, h*ps arching, lips parted in a wordless plea. One of his fingers pushed inside her, just past the entrance of her body, and she jerked in shock.

His touch withdrew, the wet fingertip making sly, lingering circles around the aching peak of her sex. He pushed her legs apart wider, and kissed the tips of her breasts. His whisper burned against her skin. “If I wanted to take you now, Hannah, you would let me, wouldn’t you? You’d let me enter you, fill you…If I asked you to let me come inside you, and ease you…what would you say, sweet darling?” He began a light, torturous massage. “Say it,” he murmured. “Say it”

“Yes.” She clutched at him blindly, her breath coming in sobs. “Yes.”

Rafe smiled, his gaze smoldering. “Then here’s your forfeit, sweetheart.”

He stroked her in a quick, skillful rhythm, covering her mouth with his to absorb her cries. He knew exactly what he was doing, his fingers wicked and sure. It seemed she might die of the annihilating release. She held and stiffened against it even as the pleasure began to rush, and rush, gaining power and force until she was helpless and consumed and shattered.

Slowly he brought her down, kissing and caressing her twitching body. His finger slid inside her once more, this time slipping easily into the wetness. The feel of the intimate muscles grasping him so firmly seemed to cause him pain. She lifted instinctively to take him, and he groaned and withdrew his finger, leaving her swollen flesh to clench on the emptiness.

Rafe’s face was hard and sweat-misted as he took his hands from her. He stared down at her with unconcealed hunger, his eyes narrowed, his chest heaving. His hands trembled as he reached for the top hooks of her corset busk, the buttons of her dress, the disheveled undergarments. But as one of his knuckles brushed against her warm skin, he snatched his hands back abruptly and rose to his feet. “Can’t,” he said hoarsely.

“Can’t what?” she whispered.

“Can’t help with your clothes.” An unsteady breath. “If I touch you again…I won’t stop until you’re naked.”

Staring up at him dizzily, Hannah comprehended that the release, and relief, had been rather one-sided. He was dangerously aroused, to the limit of his self-control. She pulled the chemise higher over her na*ed breasts.

Rafe shook his head, still staring at her. His mouth was a grim slash. “If you want Clark to do the things I just did to you,” he said, “then go ahead and marry him.”

And he left her there in the library, as if to stay there a moment longer would have resulted in disaster for them both.

CHAPTER 11

In Evie’s opinion, the sleighing party had been enjoyable but too long. She was tired, her ears still ringing from all the noise and caroling. Evie had laughed and frolicked with the group, staying close to Daisy, whose husband had remained at the manor to discuss business matters with Rafe Bowman.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Daisy had said cheerfully, when Evie had asked if she was disappointed that Swift had not accompanied them. “It’s better to let Matthew clear away his business concerns first, and then he’ll be free to give me all his attention later.”

“Does he w-work very long hours?” Evie had asked with a touch of concern, knowing that the Bowman’s enterprise in Bristol was a massive project involving great responsibility.

“There are days when he must,” Daisy had replied prosaically. “But there are other times when he stays home and we spend the day together.” A grin had crossed her face. “I love being married to him, Evie. Although it’s still all so new…sometimes it surprises me to wake up and find Matthew beside me.” She had leaned closer and whispered, “I have to tell you a secret, Evie: I complained one day that I’d read all the books in the house, and there was nothing new at the bookshop, and Matthew challenged me to try writing one of my own. So I’ve started one. I have a hundred pages written already.”

Evie had laughed in delight. “Daisy,” she had whispered back, “are you going to be a f-famous novelist?”

Daisy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s published or not. I’m enjoying writing it.”