he’d never been to Ellen’s home before, the layout was not substantially different from his own. Jennifer led the way up the back stairs. He stopped before they reached the second-floor landing.
“Jennifer, what are you doing?”
“I’m refusing to wait one more moment, Gordon.”
She was one step above him, and now bent down to kiss him again.
Heat shot between them, intoxicating and luring. He wanted her as he always had, but where he’d been controlled in the past, he wasn’t sure he could be now.
It would be simpler, better, and wiser if he left for the night and returned in the morning, when they could discuss their future.
He got a few words of that explanation out before Jennifer kissed him again.
“No,” she murmured against his lips. “No.”
“Jennifer.” Her name was a caution, a restraint.
“Gordon,” she said, turning the tables on him and enticing him. Her tongue danced against his mouth.
He’d taught her how to kiss, but now it felt like she was teaching him.
She broke off the kiss and smiled down at him. “My love. My darling Gordon. Please don’t say no. I won’t live one more day without you. I’m ready for happiness. We had two short days of joy, Gordon. Only two days in the past five years. I want more than that. I want happiness from now until the end of my life.”
His hands framed her face.
“Jennifer.”
“No, I don’t want to be wise, Gordon.” She put her hands on his wrists, but didn’t pull his hands free. “Let me be brazen and shocking. Come to my bed, and let me show you how much I love you.”
“Jennifer, you’re making it very difficult for me to be honorable.”
“I don’t want you to be honorable, Gordon. Tonight, of all nights. Or, if you insist on being honorable, then I’ll be shocking. Just lie there, and let me do as I will.”
She pulled back and looked down at him. “Don’t you want me, Gordon?”
“Don’t be daft. I’ve wanted you since I first knew what it was to want a woman.”
“Then why are we here on the stairs and not in my bed?”
Turning again, she pulled his hand.
He should have been wiser. Yet he knew exactly how she felt. Daring, devil-may-care, angry at what had happened to them, saying to hell with whatever rules they’d been reared to believe.
No longer. Not one second more. No more time would elapse before they loved each other freely, completely, making their own rules and their own destiny.
How long had it been since he’d kissed her? Only weeks, but it felt like years. Longer than that, perhaps. An eon. How had she lived without him? She hadn’t. She’d merely existed, breathing in and out, eating when hunger compelled her to, sleeping to escape everything.
Their early lives had been spent together, but their upbringing had been so different. She’d been loved and cherished by not only her parents, but by Ellen. Gordon hadn’t had any kind emotion from Sean or Betty.
Adulthood had equalized them. Or perhaps it was simply that Gordon had gone out into the world and demanded more, something better for himself.
She was doing the same thing right at this moment. She wouldn’t allow anything to separate them any longer.
She didn’t care if she shocked Ellen, or the entire staff. Or all of society, for that matter. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to take Gordon’s hand and lead him up the stairs to her suite.
At the door, he hesitated.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak, but placed her fingers against his lips.
“Five years ago, I was going to give myself to you. I couldn’t wait to love you, but then you were gone. You wouldn’t have been able to stop me then, and you won’t be able to stop me now.”
“I could always leave,” he said. “Return in the morning when saner heads prevail.”
“Do you truly wish to leave?”
His smile was her answer.
She grabbed his hand again and pulled him inside her sitting room, closing the door behind him.
“I love you. I love you.” It was the only thing she could think of to say and the perfect explanation for everything.
He pulled her forward, wrapping his arms around her as she rested her cheek against his chest. His heart was beating as fast as hers. His breath was coming as rapidly.
So many things had come between them. Now nothing would.
She stepped back, pushing his coat off his shoulders before folding it carefully and laying it across the back of