A Rake's Midnight Kiss (29 page)

He couldn’t give in to her. Once she returned to her senses, she’d hate him forever. Hell, he’d hate himself. “Genevieve, let me take you home.”

Her jaw set in a stubborn line. “Kiss me first.”

His fist clenched so hard over the lantern handle that metal bit painfully into his palm. “You can’t want this.”

Her eyes settled on him with an unreadable expression. “You have no idea what I want.”

Well, that was true enough. He’d imagined that she’d jump a hundred feet if he approached within a whisper. After what she’d been through, she deserved his indulgence. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he could stop at kissing. Even now.

Wanting Genevieve was selfish and destructive, unworthy of her and increasingly unworthy of him. This whole bloody scheme to retrieve the jewel had been ill-conceived from the first.

Cam was right. Cam, blast him, was always right.

The abduction had jolted Richard into admitting that he wasn’t much better than Fairbrother. He too sought to bend Genevieve to his purposes without care for end results.

“We have to go.” Feeling like he scraped out his kidneys with a spoon, he turned away from the pond and its passionate memories.

“I’m not going until you kiss me.”

“I could carry you home.” Against his better judgment, he chanced a glance back.

A faint smile hovered around her lips. “You could, but you won’t.”

Hell, no, she was right. He couldn’t play the barbarian after what she’d undergone tonight.

He bit back a groan. To think he’d once wanted her to beg for his kisses. This was torment worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. One thing he did know—if he didn’t kiss her, she’d stand there studying him with that assessing expression until Kingdom Come.

Gathering every ounce of will, Richard placed the lantern
on the ground. The forest was silent as it had been silent when he’d first kissed her. Again there was that curious tension, as though the world held its breath to see what happened next.

Well, much as he hated to disappoint the dryads and demigods inhabiting these woodlands, what happened next was that he and Genevieve would share a quick kiss then he’d consign her to Dorcas’s care. He’d then leave the vicarage so nobody said he and the vicar’s daughter had slept unchaperoned under the same roof. Somewhere a demigod with an ironic sense of humor snickered at Richard Harmsworth’s sudden concern for proprieties.

Still, it was only with the utmost reluctance that Richard stepped toward Genevieve. He scooped his coat from the ground and draped it across her shoulders in a futile attempt to create another barrier between them.

She linked her hands at her waist and studied him with a trace of uncertainty invisible from farther away. The vulnerability disarmed him as he tilted her face until starlight illuminated her loveliness. Need darkened her eyes before her lashes fluttered down.

He pressed his lips between arched brows. He tasted her skin, cool, satiny, sweet. The need to linger was sharper than a sword to his guts, but he stepped away, releasing her.

Her inhalation swelled her bosom against the tattered bodice. He tried not to notice. He really tried. This close, her shaky breathing was audible.

She opened eyes flashing with indignation. “What was that?”

“Good God, I must be losing my touch,” he said huskily. The need to grab her and kiss her properly beat in his blood like thunder. “I’d call that a kiss.”

She made a moue of disgust. “I wouldn’t.”

“Genevieve—”

“You won’t hurt me.”

“I’m trying like hell not to.”

“I won’t break.”

After seeing her with Fairbrother, he wasn’t so certain. Sighing, he caught her by the shoulders. She quivered under his hands and his touch became a caress.

He read no fear in her face, only yearning. Heroically he struggled not to glance at the sagging cream bodice. She didn’t make it easy for him to become a better man.

His lips brushed across hers. He heard her tiny intake of breath, a soft gasp of excitement. Her lips parted as he withdrew. Her taste filled his head like wine. He itched to slake his thirst, but couldn’t grant himself the freedom.

“I kissed you.” His voice was choked. “Let’s go.”

Her hands curled in his shirt. “Please make me forget what happened tonight.”

Oh, God, God, God. She sounded so hurt, so wretched. So bereft.

He stared blindly above her and hoped darkness hid the bulge in his trousers. “No.”

“Oh.”

He struggled to ignore the sad little syllable. He released her and waited for her to unhook her grip on his shirt. But she didn’t. Instead she searched his features as if seeking proof that he was a liar.

The problem was that he was a liar. A liar had no right to lay his filthy liar’s hands on Genevieve Barrett’s pure body. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t frantic to touch her. He wanted her so much, he was likely to explode into a million pieces.

He strove to sound like the man he’d pretended to be, the careless rake Sir Richard Harmsworth, who never lacked an appropriate response. He’d always been so easy with his
amours because he’d never cared. Not caring made his nonchalant manner a doddle. With Genevieve he cared to his bones, and he had no idea how to make this right.

Still, he must try. “A man needs his rest after he’s battled villains like Fairbrother.”

She flinched at his tone as much as at what he said, he knew. Still she didn’t unhand him. She swallowed as if speaking proved difficult. He wished to hell she wouldn’t speak. He wished to hell he was in Cathay. Or the East Indies. Anywhere but here with paradise inches away, yet completely beyond reach.

“Then sleep with me.”

What the hell? His heart slammed to a stop. He caught her hands and managed to liberate his shirt. He should release her, but some things exceeded his powers. “Genevieve, this is wrong.”

“You didn’t think it was wrong in Oxford.”

When she raised eyes glittering with tears, he felt like she punched him in the gut. Much as he loathed acknowledging it, he recognized how his rebuff had wounded her. He wasn’t a fool. He knew what that offer had cost her. And she’d sought neither assurances for the future nor promises of love.

The irony was that for the first time, he could honestly tell a woman he loved her. Yet the vow stuck in his throat. Not just because he quailed from saying it, but because he couldn’t declare his affections after so many lies.

“I’ve seen the light since Oxford,” he said wryly. If he could, he’d laugh at himself. Sending Genevieve home as innocent as the day she was born was more excruciating than having a tooth drawn. She should be grateful. Hell, she should be lauding his chivalry to the skies.

Contrary like a woman, she lost her temper.

“I can’t believe you’re saying no. You’ve spent days trying to seduce me. Here I am, ready and willing.” Her voice cracked into silence. Revealing a luscious expanse of bosom, she spread her arms.

His cock, already hard and aching, swelled against his trousers. By all that was holy, at this rate he’d lose himself like an impulsive boy. Then what would she make of his denials? Luckily she was too furious to note his physical discomfort.

“Time to go, Genevieve,” he said gently, burning to gather her into his arms and comfort her. But too afraid of the devil inside to chance even that much contact. Those two chaste kisses had whittled his control to a sliver.

Abruptly she turned away and he felt another phantom blow to the belly when he realized that she wept. What an excruciating night she’d had. Fairbrother’s assault. Now this rejection.

How he wished he could explain. But his lies divided them like a dank, foul canal. Too deep and wide to cross. He stood on one bank; she stood on the other. He could never cross the stinking mire to tell her how much he loved her.

Without looking, she extended a shaking hand toward him.

Damn it, he couldn’t touch her. It was too risky.

But no man with a heart could ignore the plea in that trembling hand.

Knowing that he tested his principles but unable to do otherwise, he seized her hand. Her fingers clenched hard around his.

“I can’t resist you,” he muttered, hoping she wouldn’t hear.

She straightened and faced him, bewilderment clear in the flickering light. “I don’t understand.”

For one moment more, he held back. If he’d marched her to the vicarage when she first offered, he’d have kept his hands to himself. But what could a man do when he wanted a woman as badly as he wanted this one and she promised to make all his dreams come true?

“Hell, Genevieve,” he groaned in defeat and swept her into his arms.

L
ightning blasted in Christopher’s eyes as his barriers against her finally tumbled. Genevieve braced for ravishment.

Instead of flinging her into a world of unfettered hunger, his touch remained gentle. Delicious warmth surrounded her as he drew her into his body. Warmth that dissipated the chill lingering since Lord Neville’s assault. His mouth touched hers. With a wordless protest, she moved closer. Still he teased. Soft kisses. Quick kisses. She wanted him to remake her with his passion, yet he seemed determined to tantalize her to death.

“Christopher!” she muttered in the space between one glancing kiss and the next.

“Yes?” What a hopeless case she was. The mere sound of his voice turned her into a molten puddle of longing.

“Kiss me properly.”

“I don’t intend to be proper at all, my love.”

“So you say.” She struggled to ignore the endearment as her hands tangled in his shirt. “Stop tormenting me.”

Kisses on nose, forehead, jaw. He kissed her neck, setting a thousand nerves jangling. Her toes curled in her damp slippers and she pressed against him, silently begging him to stop treating her as if she was likely to break. Still he held her as delicately as he’d cradle a baby bird in his palm. His lips returned to hers and his tongue dipped between her lips for a fleeting taste.

This hint of controlled power crashed through her like cymbals. On a sigh, she sank into him. His teasing had brought her to a pitch of surrender that left her blind to everything but him.

When Lord Neville had touched her, she’d felt revulsion and fear. When Christopher touched her, she just wanted more. The hot weight settling in her belly was familiar now, yet new. She felt disconnected from the everyday world. Lost in Christopher’s arms.

Her body couldn’t contain these responses. She must shatter into a million stars. On an incoherent plea, she rose against his hips, pushing into his hardness. She built the pressure in a vain attempt to relieve the ache between her legs, but every slide of her body only increased her need.

Somewhere she must have pulled away his neck cloth. Or he had. Her lips traced smooth skin, redolent of male, lemon verbena and Christopher, the scent that she’d recognize from all the scents in the world.

He nibbled his way up her neck. His unrelenting, intense gentleness left her quaking, dizzy, overcome. His mouth traced the side of her face. The touch was soft as the brush of a feather, but pain splintered delight. She whimpered and jerked away.

“Darling…” He withdrew and stared at her.

Guilt darkened his expression. The hands gripping her arms—dear Lord, he hadn’t touched her body at all and
already she quaked—eased so that it felt as if his hold was as delicate as a single thread of silk.

Oh, no. No, no, no.
He wasn’t stopping now. Not when finally his kisses promised oblivion. Frantically she buried her hands in his hair, pulling its soft thickness. “Keep going.”

“You’re hurt.”

“He hit me.” Curse Christopher, he must know she didn’t want to talk. She, a woman who spent all day juggling words, wanted only to feel. “It will hurt me more if you stop.”

He kissed her tenderly, sending her heart swooping. “I won’t stop.”

She stretched up to kiss him, using her tongue in silent demand. When he hesitated, she tugged his hair until he kissed her back.

At last, at last, he cupped her breast. In aching welcome, the nipple pearled against his palm. She shivered as he bared her to sweet exploration. Moisture welled between her thighs and she shifted restlessly.