The Trouble with Honor

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IT WAS HALF past midnight when the ball’s orchestra began to ring bells, signaling something was about to happen. It seemed a good time for George to make his escape.

George was grateful that Finnegan was not about, and shut his door, locking it. He shrugged out of his coat, then yanked at his neckcloth. He had removed his waistcoat and had pulled his shirt from his trousers when he heard a knock at the door. George groaned heavenward. “Not now, Finnegan!” he barked at the door.

A moment passed; the knock came again. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, and stalked to the door, unlocking it and throwing it open, prepared to give Finnegan a tongue-lashing.

But it was not Finnegan who darted past him, it was Honor. Stunned, George quickly shut the door and turned to gape at her. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. “You shouldn’t be here, Honor—”

“It’s all right,” she said quickly. “Everyone is in the ballroom. Augustine and Monica are announcing their engagement.”

He blinked. No wonder Miss Hargrove had been so confident this evening. “Shouldn’t you be there, as well?”

“Of course,” she said, and smiled sheepishly. “But I had something more important to attend.”

He didn’t understand her. “What?” he asked, thinking of her mother, of her sisters.

She started toward him. “I couldn’t leave it like this.”

“Leave it,” he echoed uncertainly.

“Oh, George,” she said, smiling at him. “There is so much that I...that I want. That I need. I don’t know precisely how to put into words what it is that I need.” She moved closer, her steps hesitant, as if she were uncertain where she meant to go in this room.

But there was something about her expression, the hope in her eyes, that caused a bit of panic in George’s chest. What was she saying?

“I need you, George. I need you to...to help me,” she said earnestly.

“You need to think of marrying,” he said gruffly, taking a step back. “I can’t help you in that.”

She paused, blinking up at him. “Perhaps,” she said. God, how he wished she wouldn’t look at him like that! “Perhaps,” she said again, and took another step, reaching up to cup his face. “But I won’t think of it now. I can only think of you, George, and the thing that is unfinished between us. Don’t you think of it, too?”

“Miss Hargrove?” he asked, confused.

“No!” she cried. “No, no—I hope that you will never speak to her again. I mean that I need you.”

It took him a moment to understand her, and the panic surged through him like a storm. He knew himself—he was not strong enough for this, he was as weak as a puppy in this. He frantically pulled her hands from his face. “Don’t ask me that,” he said. “Anything but that, Honor. Anything.”

Her lips parted with surprise. She suddenly surged forward, rising up on her toes to kiss him. Still, George didn’t touch her. He tried to pull back, but it was impossible.

Then, just as suddenly, Honor stopped and peered deeply into his eyes. She sensed his reluctance; she dropped her hands from his face and moved back, away from him.

“You don’t understand,” he said simply.

“Neither do you,” she said in a low voice, and reached behind her back with both hands.

George watched her a moment before he realized what she was doing. She was unbuttoning her gown. “No,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Don’t—”

She jerked away from his hand, her gaze locked on his. She wiggled one arm from its sleeve.

George’s heart began to race, his body growing taut. “Goddammit, Honor, don’t do this! I mean what I say—you don’t understand what I will do.”

She pushed the other sleeve down her arm, the gown over her hips, and let it fall. She stood before him in her chemise.

George’s heart was racing so hard now that he feared it would explode in his chest. His gaze swept the length of her, her breasts, spilling out of a chemise and corset, her waist, curving into hips. It was as if he’d been starved of all sustenance all his life, and here was a feast before him.

And still, he made no move. If he touched her, put as much as a finger on her skin, he would lose all control.

When he made no move toward her, Honor stubbornly lifted her chin. With one hand, she pulled a pin from her hair, and half of it tumbled down her back. “Do you know how to lace a corset?” she asked as she pulled another pin from her hair. And another.

George didn’t speak—he couldn’t speak. Her dark hair spilled all around her shoulders now, and she very deliberately began to unlace her corset, pulling the strings free, loosening them, until she could shimmy out of it. She let that drop, too. Now all that stood between her and George’s raging, frantic desire was a chemise so thin that he could see her body through it. His eyes greedily devoured every curve, every swell, his chest rising with tortured breath and falling with the strength it took to keep from reaching for her.

Honor slipped one finger under the strap of her chemise.

Immobilized by his outrageous desire, George helplessly watched her.

She pushed it down her arm. Then the other, and slowly, almost as if in a dream, the thin cotton chemise floated to the floor. Honor stepped out of it and stood before him with her arms wrapped about her belly, the rest of her completely bare. Her perfect breasts, floating above her arms, the thatch of curls at the apex of her legs.

Such a bold girl. Unapologetic. Brave. A woman who sought her pleasure as she sought her place in the world. She was a high-stepping horse, just like him, who looked neither right nor left, who did not care what society thought of her. It was almost as if the heavens had molded her just for him.

She was quivering, he noticed, and moved her arms up, intending to cover her breasts.

That was the moment George fell from his precarious perch. “No,” he muttered. He slowly pulled one arm from her body, then the other. “Let me look at you.” He gazed down at her body, then moved around her, viewing her back, her heart-shaped hips. He curled his fingers in the heavy tresses of her hair, wrapping one thick strand like a rope around his wrist. “What are you doing to me?” he asked helplessly.

She turned her head slightly to glance at him over her shoulder. “I don’t want to leave with all this want in me,” she said, her hands sliding across her abdomen. “I want, George, things I never knew to want. And I don’t want my heart to turn to dust.”

He didn’t know precisely how her heart would turn to dust, but it didn’t matter; the dam of emotions that George had held at bay for years broke in him. The flood was so powerful that he felt a little light-headed. At her back, he slid his arm around her belly and drew her into his body, then closed his eyes as he pressed his lips against her hair. “You don’t want to throw your virtue away,” he whispered hoarsely, even as his body begged him to be silent.

“Throw it away? But I’m giving it to you, George. After that, I don’t care what will happen.”

His blood was already rushing. He drew a steadying breath and kissed her neck. “Be certain of it,” he said. “Be quite certain of it, and God in heaven, tell me you are certain of it now, before it is too late for us both.”

She twisted in his arms. “I’m certain,” she said, and kissed him.

The thousand cautions in George’s chest were instantly slain. He flamed where she touched him, burned with the warm, fragrant scent of her skin. He slid his hand up her rib cage to her breast, filling his palm with the weight of it, rolling the hardened point between his fingers. He nibbled her earlobe, pressed his mouth against her temple as her hands fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, then pressing her mouth to his throat, sending a painful shiver through him.

George swept Honor up in his arms and whirled around to the bed, knocking over a small table in the process. She made a sound of alarm, but he silenced it with his mouth and his tongue. With his free hand, he clawed at his shirt until his upper body was bared.

Honor gasped with surprise or alarm. He didn’t know, didn’t care—his body was aching for her as he stared down at her, expecting her to ask him to stop. But Honor’s gaze slowly moved over his chest, her fingers following the path of her eyes, tracing rivers of unbearable sensation across his skin, to the top of his trousers. She looked up as she unbuttoned them.

He caught her hand, pressed it against his wildly beating heart. He wanted her to feel the emotions churning the blood in his veins. This moment felt entirely different to him than any other moment of his life. This was not an afternoon romp that he would remember with hazy fondness in the evening. This had him at sixes and sevens, his heart racing like a filly.

She looked at her hand on his chest, then lifted herself up to him, kissed him tenderly, her fingers fluttering through his hair.

He picked her up again, lowered her onto his bed. Sweet, torturous pleasure built, swirling in his groin, pulsing in his cock as he moved against her. She slid her hand into his opened trousers, her fingers closing around him, squeezing lightly, testing the feel of a man’s full passion in her hand. It was excruciatingly pleasurable, and George tensed, fighting his body’s desire to take her, to plunge into her wet heat.

When he couldn’t bear her tender touch a moment longer, he pushed his fingers into her hot, wet depths, shuddering as he tried to control the need that was beginning to overpower him. He thrust his tongue into her mouth as his fingers danced in the recesses of her body, sliding into her and out again while her hand moved on his cock. “My God, you are beautiful,” he murmured against her skin.

She didn’t seem to hear him; her eyes were closed, her hands and mouth learning his body.

George suddenly rose up, flipped her over onto her belly and left a line of kisses down her back, to her hips, nibbling at her flesh, his hand sliding between her legs. But Honor was not content to be on her stomach and pushed back, then turned about so that she was sitting up on her knees, facing him. Tiny tufts of dark curls framed her face. Long, silken tresses dropped down her back and over her shoulder.

She was panting, her lips swollen from kissing. “Take them off,” she said, and reached for his trousers, pushing them down over his hips.

He did as she asked, rising up to discard them.

Her eyes were fixed on his body—of course they were, she’d never seen a nude man, much less one aroused to the point of bursting, he supposed. George balanced himself with a knee on the bed and took himself in hand, wondering if the sight intimidated her.

But Honor Cabot was not so easily intimidated; she was a bold, risk-taking woman, and she leaned forward, touching her mouth to the tip of him. George sucked in a gasp of air through his teeth; he tried to back away, but Honor caught his leg and held him there as she explored the head of his shaft with her lips and the tip of her tongue, swirling around it, tasting the bit of seed that had pearled at the tip.

He grit his teeth against the exquisite sensation, focused on resisting the urge to push down her throat. When she moved to take more of him in her mouth, George grabbed her, put her on her back and moved in between her thighs.

His lips found hers again as he moved the tip of his cock against the slick folds of her body, the pressure building in him intolerable. He could feel the seed throbbing in him. The only thing standing between him and losing himself in her completely was the sheer strength of his tattered, shredded will. Each touch, each kiss was more tormenting than the last, and each moment weakened him a little more.

He dipped his head to her breasts, sucking one into his mouth, teasing her with his teeth and tongue as he pressed against her, the tip of him sliding slowly in. He moved, forcing her body to open to his, pressing her legs a little farther apart.

She dragged her fingers through his hair and looked him in the eyes. George paused, his heart swimming in those eyes now. She gazed at him so beguilingly, so bewitchingly, he thought he might very well do anything for this woman. Anything. Climb mountains, slay dragons, dance.... Whatever her heart desired. He’d never felt the desire to please a woman so intently, and he’d never yearned for one quite as deeply as he was yearning for her now. He ached for her and wanted nothing more than to pleasure her so thoroughly and fulfill her so completely that no other man would ever compare to him.

Honor’s gaze drifted to his mouth, and she tucked a finger in between his lips.

George could endure it no more. He kissed her fingers, her palm, as he began to ease into her, squeezing into the wet recess, his cock expanding to fill it. He moved carefully and steadily, relishing the feel of her body tightening provocatively around his, coaxing him into her depths. Torrents of raw affection flowed through George, and as he slipped his arm beneath her, pulling her into his chest, he pushed against the barrier inside her.

She seemed to sense his hesitation, his fear at taking that from her. “George,” she whispered, and reached between them, cupping him.

A purely primal sound escaped him as he pushed past the barrier.

She made a small cry, pressed her forehead to his shoulder.

The sound of her muffled cry alarmed him. God, what had he done? He was a libertine, a man who could not control the urges of his flesh. He had just ruined a woman whom he greatly esteemed and even—

Honor shifted against him, her foot running up his back and down again, her body pressing back against his. She wrapped her leg around his waist, turned her mouth to his shoulder and bit it lightly.

Even loved. Loved! God, he loved her, helplessly, completely. She shifted again, pressing harder against him, urging him to continue this extraordinary journey, to press inside her again. George cupped her face, wanting to look into her eyes as he pressed deeper. He could feel her body opening to him, could feel the seductive rhythm of an ancient, primal call. His breath ragged and torn, he began to move in her, sliding out to the tip, then sliding in again, and again, only more urgently.

She began to move with him, clinging to him, her fingers scraping down his back, digging into the flesh of his hip. He reached between their bodies and began to stroke the nub of her pleasure.

She was gasping for breath, pushing against his hand and his cock, her mouth on his chest. But she paused, and her fingers dug deeper into the flesh of his buttock; she gasped as her legs tightened around him.

George’s desire took on a new urgency; he pumped into her, wanting her to feel the violent shattering that was building in him. She cried out, her head dropping back, a swirl of dark hair covering her face as her body convulsed around his and she pressed against him.

With a low growl, he threw his head back on one last powerful thrust, burying himself deep inside of her, the moan of sheer ecstasy clawing its way from his throat, spilling hot seed inside of her.

The moment left him spent; he collapsed to the side of her, his arm draped over her middle, his face in her hair, fighting his way back from the fog of euphoria. It wasn’t until she traced a light line down his back and up again, that he lifted his head and looked down at her.

Honor’s cheeks were flushed, and she was, in that moment, as beautiful as any work of art George had ever seen. She turned her head slightly and opened her eyes with a gorgeously bright smile. She stroked his chin, brushed back his hair then peeled herself up to kiss him, her tongue teasing his, her lips wet on his.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Her smile deepened, and she nodded. “I’m complete,” she said simply.

He wrapped his arms around her and marveled at the depth of his feeling. It was love, he feared. Real and true, raw love.

God, anything but that.

Anything.