Jagged shards of frustration slashed through Simon’s body as Bethan jerked away from him.
An instant before, he’d been relishing the flavour of her kiss—a fresh, delicate sweetness that rivalled the prized mangosteen fruit. Together with the soft ripeness of her body beneath his hands, it had whipped up a tempest of long-stifled desires. His flesh throbbed with anticipation of the delights he would find in her arms. Any doubts he’d had about the wisdom of taking a mistress were drowned out by the swift crash of his heart and the wild gust of his breath. He could scarcely wait to whisk her off to his bed.
Then, without warning, she tensed and tore herself away from his embrace. It was as if a plaster had suddenly been ripped from his body, taking a great patch of skin with it. Instinct urged him to retaliate.
But one glimpse of her wide, anxious eyes doused the blaze of his desire with ice-cold shame. She looked far more frightened now than she had that morning, backed against the wall of an opium den by an angry mob.
“I need a chance…to get to know you…and see more of this place…before I…She’d hesitated as if ashamed to speak aloud the scandalous reason she had come to Singapore “…take such a big step.”
The obvious truth slapped Simon in the face. He’d guessed some man must have taken advantage of her trusting innocence. But Bethan’s terrified reaction to his advances convinced him there’d been more to it. A girl like her would not have willingly surrendered her virginity. It must have been taken from her by force!
The realisation made Simon’s belly seethe with violent outrage, like a volcano preparing to erupt. From tightly locked chambers of his memory, anguished screams escaped to ring in his ears.
He regretted his earlier suspicions about Bethan. No wonder she had tried to evade his questions about why she’d come to Singapore, with flimsy excuses about seeking adventure. What she really must have craved was safety and a complete change of scene to help her forget what had happened to her. The truth of her situation should have been obvious to him of all men. But he had let the urgency of his need blind him to it.
“Of course.” With a supreme effort of will, Simon strove to bring his turbulent emotions back under control. It had been a long time since anything had come so close to shattering his composure. “Forgive me! I did not mean to alarm you. It is a great while since I have been close to a woman. I fear your beauty overcame my discretion.”
Damn! That was the wrong thing to say. He should never have implied that what happened was in any way her fault—that her attractions somehow justified his loss of control.
Simon burned to know exactly what had been done to her. He wanted to learn the name of the blackguard who’d ruined her, so he could curse it. And if by some unlikely chance they ever met, he would thrash the vile dog within an inch of his life!
But how could he ask Bethan to dredge up such shameful memories when he’d refused to discuss parts of his own past that he longed to forget? He must respect her privacy and her efforts to put those troubles behind her.
To Simon’s surprise, his ill-chosen words seemed to ease her alarm.
“You think I’m beautiful?” she mused as if she found it hard to believe.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured, half against his will. “Far more beautiful than I ever expected.”
A shimmer of starlight reflected in her eyes. “Well, I never thought you’d turn out to be so young and handsome.”
Though the bashful sincerity of her admiration made Simon’s chest swell, it also threatened his tenuous self-control. “You really shouldn’t say things like that if you want me to keep my distance.”
He spoke gently, almost jesting, but perhaps she sensed the dangerous undercurrent of desire lurking beneath his words.
Her lovely features tensed and she caught her lush lower lip between her teeth. “It isn’t that I don’t like you or don’t ever want to…to—”
“I understand!” Simon cried, anxious to spare her from speaking the words that might have unpleasant associations for her. “You need time to become accustomed to…your new situation.”
Time to learn she could trust him to treat her as she deserved. Time to conquer her fears of intimacy with a man. Time to come to terms with giving up any hope of respectability in exchange for his protection.
“How long do you think it will take?” The words slipped out before he could stop them, betraying the urgency of his need.
That might have been what made Bethan retreat a step further, clinging to the veranda railing. “I hadn’t thought, really. I suppose a month should give us time to get to know one another better. Would that be all right?”
A whole month? Simon bit back a groan. Thirty evenings like this, struggling to ignore the old gnawing hunger she’d whetted with a fleeting taste of her favours. How could he stand it?
But how could he resist her lilting entreaty and her whole air of vulnerable innocence?
“If it’s a month you need, then a month you shall have,” he assured her. “You are quite right to call it a big step. I want to make certain it is one you won’t regret.”
That did not mean he would have to go a whole month without a single kiss or touch. Simon sought to pacify his thwarted desires. He must help her become accustomed to his attentions a little at a time, with the reassurance that he would not go too far or too fast. He must show her that he could be relied upon to protect and to provide for her, to treat her gently, and to bring her pleasure. He needed to kindle her desires while keeping a tight rein on his own, so that by month’s end she would be as eager to take her promised place in his bed as he would be to have her there.
Simon bid Bethan goodnight with a restrained, mannerly bow as if their passionate embrace on the veranda had never happened. Though she knew he was only trying to oblige her request, Bethan could not subdue a perverse wish for something more. Another gallant kiss on the hand, or a lingering brush of his lips on her cheek.
As she undressed for bed, she found herself listening for sounds of him moving around in the room next door. The bewildering thrill of his kiss seemed to have awakened something in her. She was conscious of her body in a way she had not been in years, since it began the mysterious change to womanhood. When she stripped down to her shift, she could not ignore the sweet, subtle ache in her breasts. Her nipples jutted out against the fine linen like a pair of firm pink pebbles.
When she caught a glimpse of herself in the glass above her dressing table, she wondered if Simon was listening to her movements, picturing her undressing. That thought sent a sultry blush sweeping from her bare toes all the way to the roots of her hair. And when she pictured him removing his crisp white shirt then sliding his trousers down over his thighs, all the air seemed to go out of the room, leaving her gasping for breath. Ater her sheltered early years, Bethan had never expected to have this sort of response to the man she’d arranged to marry. She was not certain what to make of it and whether it was a good or bad thing under the circumstances.
Dousing the lamp, she dived under the tent of insect netting on to her bed. All was quiet in Simon’s room, now. A warm breeze wafted through the slats of the window shutter, bearing a mixture of exotic fragrances, the call of a night bird and the swish of waves breaking upon the nearby shore.
As she thought back over the day’s events, she could scarcely believe she had been in Singapore less than twenty-four hours. So much had happened in that short time and her feelings had shifted back and forth to such opposite extremes, she wondered if she would ever sort them out. Hopefully the one month’s grace that Simon had granted her would be long enough to make a start. So much depended on what she was able to find out about her brother in that time.
Bethan prayed she would have better luck in her search over the next month than she’d had that day.
Chapter