Thorne Brothers: With All My Heart Part 26

Berkeley took the shoe he was dangling from the end of his index finger and placed it beside the other. "I'm sure you were," she said. She knelt in front of him, removed his sock, and dropped it inside his shoe. "Lie back."

Grey scooted backward and stretched out. His eyes closed immediately. He felt Berkeley crawl onto the bed beside him. His head was gingerly raised and laid on her lap. He heard himself actually sigh when her fingertips began ma.s.saging his temples. "It was so obvious, was it?" he asked, referring to his headache.

"You were white around the mouth," she said. "Do you get the headaches often?"

"No, not often."

"Another good reason, I suppose, not to call up the past."

Grey looked up at her, surprised that she had divined the connection.

"That's what brought this on, isn't it? Or have I mistaken the matter?"

He closed his eyes again as her fingers pressed against his scalp. "You're not wrong," he said tiredly. "It's always been this way. Sometimes I think I'm on the point of remembering something, then there will be a flash of hot, white light behind my eyes. The recollection, if there was one to be had, is gone in the explosion."

"So there's nothing," she said. "Nothing at all that you remember."

"Not exactly. It's when I try to dredge up my past that I'm rewarded with this pain. You're right that I don't like to try very often. But there are occasions when it seems as though a memory slips through. I can't predict it or even account for it fully. I believe that it has something to do with what I'm engaged in at the time. As if I'm going through the motions of some activity I've done before." There was a heaviness in Grey's shoulders as tension seeped out of him. Berkeley's fingers ruffled the fringe of hair across his forehead. She touched his cheek. "The first night I stood with you on the stairs, introducing you to the crowd in the gaming hall, I had a sense that I had done something like it before. It was a glimpse into my past. Nothing more. It only lasted a few seconds. There have been other moments like that over the years."

"Tell me about them."

"There's not much to tell. I was sitting in a Paris brothel once, playing whist with the madam, when I was struck by that sense of repet.i.tion."

Berkeley tugged on his hair. "You might have spared me that one."

Grey drew her hand to his mouth and kissed her. "It was only once."

"And you were only there to play cards."

"That's right.'' He risked a peek at her and caught her trying to tamp down her smile. Grey let her withdraw her hand. Her fingers returned to his scalp. "When I was drawing up the plans for the Phoenix there was something about it that was familiar to me."

"You mean the act of designing?" she asked. "Or the plans themselves?"

"The plans."

"Perhaps this hotel is very much like the house you lived in."

"I thought of that. I don't know. I suppose it could be. Or perhaps I always lived in hotels."

"Graham Denison comes from Southern aristocracy. His family has money, land, and privilege that predates the Revolution by a hundred years."

"Have you ever seen his home?''

"No. I was never a visitor to Beau Rivage. My family moved away from Charleston when I was six. In any event, we weren't likely to have been invited to one of the parties the Denisons, or any other of the plantation owners gave. My mother wouldn't have been welcome."

"Why not?"

"She was a reminder of how far one of their own could fall from grace."

Grey opened his eyes and stared up at her. "What do you mean?" But he knew the answer. Suddenly it was very clear to him.

Berkeley saw it in his face. "My mother and father weren't married," she said. "Anderson Shaw was my stepfather."

Grey wondered that he hadn't realized it before. There had always been a hesitation on Berkeley's part when she spoke of Anderson Shaw. Had she thought he would care she was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d? "And your mother? Who was she?"

"Virginia Lerner. She was born at Summerfield, west of the city. The plantation was old and relatively profitable. She was the youngest of four. All girls. My mother was a disappointment, she told me once, from the moment of her birth. She was supposed to have been a boy, you see, and spent most of her growing-up years pretending she could be one. Then at sixteen she committed her one unforgivable act of rebellion."

"She became pregnant."

"That was only part of it. She refused to name the father of her child. My father. For that, more than mere fact of her pregnancy, she was forced to leave Summerfield."

"Marriages are arranged all the time in those circ.u.mstances," Grey said.

"My mother wouldn't accept that. Her father caned her across the back to force her to change her mind. I saw the scars once. I wouldn't have been so stubborn. I couldn't have taken the beating she did."

Grey didn't believe it. "So she left?" he asked.

"Yes. She was afraid she'd lose the baby if she stayed. She never told me that. Anderson did. With few exceptions, Mother never spoke much about the past, but I don't think leaving Summerfield was nearly as difficult for her as leaving Charleston was years later. She cried most of the day. I remember being frightened for her. Her complexion was colorless, and her eyes were vacant of any expression. The tears simply drained from her. I thought she was dying. When I think on it now, I'm sure part of her was."

"Do you know why?"

Berkeley didn't answer for a moment. Her fingers stilled. "I think she was leaving her lovera my father."

Grey rolled away, then drew Berkeley down beside him. He propped himself on one elbow. "Do you know who he was?"

She shook her head. "There was someone," she said slowly. "Someone who visited our home from time to time. I saw him on only a few occasions, but I think he may have come to see my mother more often. I remember being sent out of the house without warning. There was a woman who lived with us, a Negress. She cooked and cleaned and took care of me. I think she took care of Mother as well. There would be times when she would hustle me out of the house in the middle of the afternoon, mumbling all the while that it wasn't right. I didn't understand it then. I thought I must have done something wrong, though I never really believed she was angry with me. Lizzie didn't come with us when we moved. Anderson wouldn't let her."

"Did you ever ask your mother about your father?"

"No. Does that seem odd to you? It was something I knew I shouldn't talk about. She never said I couldn't. I just knew it would have made her sad."

"So you were protecting her."

"I never thought of it that way. I suppose I was."

"And after she died? Did you ask Anderson about him?"

"Once. He told me he didn't know who my father was." Berkeley brushed a pale strand of hair from her cheek. Her eyes lowered a fraction, and she stared at Grey's strong throat. Her voice was barely audible. "I didn't believe him."

"Why wouldn't he want you to know?"

She shrugged. "My mother may have asked him not to tell me. I'd like to think it was her wishes he was following and not some purpose of his own." Berkeley's mouth parted on a soft sigh. "But knowing him as I did, I suspect he had his own reasons. I can't fathom them though." She darted him a glance, her smile apologetic. "I hadn't meant to go on about me. You're very good at doing that, making me say things I didn't think I would."

"Really? I don't think we talk about you nearly often enough." He took her hand and unfolded her fingers so he could trace the lines of her palm. "I need someone to interpret these for me."

"Why don't you try?"

"All right." He looked at the array of lines. "It shows right here that you'll be married."

"You should have looked at that a week ago," she said. "It would have saved you seven days, dozens of bouquets, and two nights at the opera."

"You would have insisted I was making it up."

She laughed. "Go on. Tell me something else."

"Well, it's very clear that you'll be married only once."

Berkeley's smile faltered. "Is that so?"

"Yes. And you'll have foura no, five children."

"Interesting. That's the same number I said you would have."

"Fancy that." Grey feigned innocence. "I'd forgotten."

"What else?"

"You'll be mother to a child who isn't yours."

"Nat."

"My thought exactly." Grey's finger went to another line. "This shows clearly that you'll have one great love."

"Oh." She pretended interest in her hand. "Can you tell when I may expect to meet him?" Berkeley found herself pinned to the bed, her wrists at the level of her shoulders. Her girlish giggle disappeared the moment Grey's mouth covered hers. His kiss was hard and thorough, and it made her ache for him almost instantly. She gave herself up to the kiss, the moment, the weight of his body pressing against the length of hers.

Grey drew back slowly, just far enough to see her face. Her breath was warm on his skin; her mouth was damp. "I want to be your one great love," he said.

"You are."

His eyes held hers, and he saw the truth in their depths. His own mirrored the same. "Aaah, sweet Berkeley." His mouth touched hers briefly. "I like the way you complicate my life."

She smiled at that. "You know you were right," she whispered. Berkeley saw one of his dark brows kick up. "About your namea about who you might be and who you might have beena it doesn't matter. I love you."

Grey released her wrists. She immediately looped her arms around his neck and drew him closer. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, the curve of his neck. He turned them both so he lay on his back and her slight weight was stretched along the length of him. His fingers gathered the light linen fabric of her nightshift until it reached the back of her thighs. He made several deliberate pa.s.ses across her silky skin. Grey felt the long, smooth muscles in her legs relax. Her thighs parted, then she was straddling him. He cupped her b.u.t.tocks. The pressure he applied with his hands secured her over his erection.

Berkeley raised herself and looked down on Grey. He was watching her intently, his eyes darkening at their centers. The breath he was holding was released in a controlled sigh as she began to unfasten his shirt studs. They littered the bed like bits of gold ore until her arm swept the sheet and brushed them aside. She opened his shirt, sliding her palms across his skin from navel to shoulders. He sucked in another breath, his skin retracting in antic.i.p.ation of her touch.

With Berkeley's help Grey shrugged out of the shirt. Her palms lay flat against his shoulders as she bent and lowered her mouth on his. The kiss was a teasing one, light at first, then with pressure behind it, deliberate and leisurely. She touched him with unhurried familiarity, nudging his lips open with her own, playing her tongue against his. Her body became an instrument of exquisite torture as she moved over him with sinuous grace. Each shift in her position, in the balance of her weight, brought pleasure to bear and the agony of antic.i.p.ation to endure.

Seated over Grey, Berkeley's open thighs rubbed against him. The barrier of his trousers was both maddening and arousing. To both of them.

Grey's fingers curled in her hair, drawing it over her shoulders so that it fell like a curtain on either side of her face. He relaxed his grip as she moved lower, kissing his throat, then his collarbone. Her mouth settled over his heartbeat, and he felt the warm flick of her tongue. She turned her head and kissed his nipple. The edge of her teeth caught his flesh and tugged gently. His hips thrust upward, but she was no longer intimately cradling him there. He groaned softly and felt the outline of her small, satisfied smile against his skin.

Berkeley's mouth made a trail down the center of his chest. Her fingers slipped below Grey's trousers. He started to help her with the b.u.t.tons, but she brushed his hands aside. She worked his trousers and drawers over his hips and let him finally push them off moments before she took him in her mouth.

Grey's eyes closed. There were her hands, and there was the hot suck of her mouth. It was all he knew. He thought he might have said her name but wasn't sure. Pressure built in his chest as his heart hammered and his breath caught. His hearing was dulled by the steady roar in his ears. Sensation was confined to the rigid length of him where Berkeley's mouth held him so intimately. The caress of her tongue, the sweet damp tug of her lips, pulled a low, inarticulate sound of pleasure from the back of his throat. He reached for her. Her silky fall of hair slipped through his fingers like a shower of water, and he came away with nothing.

The arching thrust of his body brought her closer. He caught her arm. She raised her head slowly, kissing him, tasting the first pearly drops of his seed on the tip of her tongue. Her eyes were dark, slightly glazed, but her focus was clear. The look he gave her made heat rush through her body. She was lifted over him. His mouth devoured hers and they shared the taste of him on their tongues. He palmed her bottom, his fingers pressing whitely into her taut flesh. She was lifted and guided and fitted against him, sheathing him with the warm, wet walls of her body.

Berkeley contracted around him. They both were speared by the sensation. Heat uncurled between them, and they shared in it equally. Pleasure stirred. Tension drew the muscles in their legs taut. The straps of Berkeley's shift slipped over her shoulders. The soft linen hovered for a moment at the level of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then fell past them. The tips of her rose-colored nipples were achingly hard buds now. He cupped her swollen b.r.e.a.s.t.s, liking the heaviness of them against his palms. His thumbnails lightly scored her nipples, and he heard her soft cry. He drew her down, wanting the taste of her in his mouth.

She drank the air, none of her breaths deep, none of them completely satisfying. Grey's mouth tugged on her breast; his tongue laved her nipple. It was a powerful feeling, this knowledge that he controlled even the breath she took. Then he heard his own harsh, husky cry and knew that he wasn't alone in wielding that power.

Berkeley's hips lifted and fell. She rode him smoothly, wet and tight around him, controlling the thrust and rhythm of their bodies. Her slender frame arched sleekly above him. His hands slid over her rib cage, her waist. She looked down at herself and the sight of his fingers sliding over her thighs, disappearing between her legs, was unbearably erotic.

Grey only had to touch her. The pressure of his fingertips brought her release from the first, but he kept his hand there, the caress maddeningly insistent, allowing her to experience how long the skimming force of pleasure could stay on the surface.

It was inevitable that she would draw him in. Her pleasure eddied around him, and the energy she expended she also generated. He took it in as she had taken him, absorbing her shudder and finding that it triggered one of his own. She was turned under him as his thrusts quickened. Her thighs gripped him. Her fingers slipped under the hair at the nape of his neck. She tugged. His mouth slanted across hers, his lips hard. The pressure was almost pain.

Almost.

Berkeley swallowed his hoa.r.s.e cry. Tears blurred her vision for a moment. She had blinked them back by the time he rolled away from her. They lay side by side, their breathing a heartbeat out of synchrony. Perspiration gave their limbs sheen; lamplight rendered them glowing. Bunched under their bodies were the coverlet and sheets. In time they drew them up and laid their heads on plump pillows.

Grey turned to face Berkeley. Her lashes fluttered once, twice, then closed completely. He made no move to touch her.

He stared at the elegant purity of her face, the perfect arc of her brows, the slender shape of her nose. With her eyes closed, their leaf green color and fey, otherworldly appeal was lost to him, but it took no effort on his part to bring them to mind. Her mouth was damp and slightly parted; her breath came even and sweet. Her cheeks were washed with pale rose color. Grey remembered that her nipples were only several shades darker and exactly the same hue as her lips.

He leaned toward her. His mouth brushed her forehead. A smile hovered briefly on Berkeley's lips, but she didn't stir. Grey reached past her for the bedside lamp and turned it back. He let the one on his side of the bed keep a mere fingernail of flame. Slipping an arm across Berkeley's waist, Grey closed his eyes.

It was still dark outside when Berkeley woke. She couldn't say whether she had slept only minutes or a few hours. She felt rested, yet vaguely restless. Easing herself out from Grey's arm, Berkeley padded quietly into the dressing room. In the morning she would have all of her things moved in here, she thought. She would share this s.p.a.ce with Grey, her gowns crowding his silver-threaded vests and perfectly cut jackets. Her gloves and linens would fill one drawer, his cravats and stockings would take another. She found it odd that she was looking forward to it. There had been no sense of sharing with Anderson. Everything had belonged to him. She was no less his possession than his walking stick and shoes.

Berkeley shook off the unpleasant sensation. She fixed the strap of her shift over her shoulders and poured cool water from the pitcher on the washstand into the basin. She washed her face and arms with a damp cloth. Water trickled down her throat and disappeared between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She squeezed more droplets out. The linen shift clung wetly to her skin. Opening the first b.u.t.tons, she separated the material enough to slide the cloth over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Their swollen curves still ached a little.

A rivulet of water ran over her abdomen and nestled in the triangle of hair between her legs. Berkeley raised one leg on a stool and lifted the hem of her shift. She ran the wet cloth along the length of her inner thigh and finally between her legs.

Some sound she couldn't identify turned her toward the doorway. Grey stood on the threshold, his figure backlit by the bedroom lamp. His frame and features existed entirely in shadow. The sound she had heard was his single strangled breath.

Berkeley wondered if she should be embarra.s.sed that he had been watching her. She straightened, easing the cloth out from under her shift, and let her foot fall from the stool. She stood there uncertainly while droplets of water beat a tattoo against the floor.

Grey stepped into the room and took the cloth from her hand. He wrung it out, wet it again, and squeezed a little more water from it. Without a word he raised her shift and completed her ablutions. His hand lingered between her thighs just once before he withdrew. Her silky skin was cool and damp. His thumb skimmed her inner thigh as he dragged the cloth along her leg. Grey dropped the cloth into the basin and cupped her face. Her shift fell back in place, the hem brushing against her ankles.

He kissed her, his lips rubbing hers. She leaned into him. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were pressed to his naked chest. "I want you," he said against her mouth. "I woke up wanting you." He backed her against the w"all and heard her gasp as his hips ground hers. "Is it too much?" he asked. "Too soon?" He would stop, he told himself. If it was what she wanted, he would stop. But it wasn't the answer she gave him. "It's not enough," she said. "Not yet."

There was a rending of material as the linen shift was torn at her shoulder. Berkeley felt the fabric whisper against her skin all the way to the floor. She stood on tiptoe, her lean muscles stretching to fit herself to the length of him, then she was lifted and held to the wall by Grey's hands and the hard, violent thrust of his body.

Her fingernails pressed into his shoulders. Her throat was arched. She felt his mouth on her skin and knew he would leave a mark there, a brand of sorts. The entire time he possessed her she never once felt like his possession. What was done to her was also done with her.

Grey's breathing came harshly. He thrust into her again and again, rocking her back. Her mouth opened, but her cry was nearly soundless. She was nearly weightless in his arms. He pushed into her harder, grinding his hips against hers. Her bottom rose in his hands, her fingers curled whitely against his shoulders, then her slender frame shattered under him and she was still. He spent himself inside her and held her until she had taken all of him.

Berkeley felt herself sliding down the wall. She clutched Grey as he eased himself out of her and lowered her to the floor. They sat there a full minute, slightly dazed and fully sated, neither of them inclined to speak. Finally Grey picked up Berkeley's shift and handed it to her. "I think I tore this."

"I'm quite certain you did." She found the rent shoulder seam with her ringers. "I can repair it"

He didn't give a d.a.m.n about the shift, he thought. It was a b.l.o.o.d.y stupid conversation to be having with her. G.o.d, he could still feel her all around him. He could feel himself pounding into her, forcing her roughly back against the wall. Other than the whimper he trapped at the back of her throat, she hadn't made a sound. "Did I hurt you?" he asked. "When I came in herea I didn't expecta I didn't thinka""

"You didn't hurt me. You've never hurt me."

"That's not true," he said. "The first time there was paina and blood. You left me. You took the sheets and disappeared. I know I hurt you then."