A Season of Ruin (19 page)

“Why?” He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “Because the proper, demure Lily Somerset would never play games with a notorious rake like me? But you are, you know.”

Lily gasped as his fingers stroked from her cheek over her jaw and trailed down the front of her throat. “I—I don't know what you mean.”

Her soft gasp sent a shock of pure lust through him. He wanted to make her gasp again and again, to make her sigh, and to catch each breathless exhalation against his mouth. “Oh, I think you do. You've got Atherton arranged on one side of the chessboard and me on the other. I suppose he'd be the white pieces and I'd be the black. Isn't that right, Lily?”

She pulled a sharp, outraged breath into her lungs. “You flatter yourself. What makes you think you're on the board at all?”

Robyn traced the hollow at the base of her throat. He felt her pulse leap against the pad of his finger and laughed softly. “Oh, I'm there. You don't want me there, and you'll
continue to deny it, but I'm there all the same. Shall I tell you how I know?”

“No,” she said at once.

But Robyn heard the panic in her voice and realized on a surge of triumph that she already knew. He pressed his mouth against the base of her throat and let the tip of his tongue taste the hollow, just one stroke, as light as a breath.

“Your pulse jumps when I taste you here,” he murmured against her throat. “That's how I know.”

She shook her head even as her arms came up to circle his neck and her fingers sank into his hair.

“Do you deny it still?” Robyn planted brief, hot kisses against her neck and under her chin, stopping only when his mouth hovered over hers, so close, but not quite touching. “Your lips are open, and soft and wet. So wet, Lily. That's how I know.”

She made a sound then, a whimper, a sob—he didn't know. He didn't care. He knew only that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, and he'd prove it to her before he'd let her walk out the door.

He dragged his hands down her sides, closed them around her waist, and held them there so he could feel the heat of her skin through the cool silk of her gown, turning his palms to fire.

“Your skin is so hot, and when I move my hands here”—he slid his palms over her rib cage—“I feel your breath quicken against my fingers. I can feel you gasp, Lily. That's how I know.”

She did gasp then. The sound of her quick breath in his ear made him want to sink to his knees. “Robyn, please . . .”

“Please what? Please kiss you? Or please let you go? You don't know yourself what you want, do you?”

But Robyn knew what he wanted, and if he didn't let her go immediately, he would take it. He'd take
her
, right against this door, her skirts hiked to her waist and her legs wrapped
around him as he thrust inside her, thrust until he spent all the pent-up frustration of the past few weeks into her warm, writhing body.

Lily moaned, as if she knew what he was thinking. “I don't know—”

“You
don't
know, do you, love?” His tongue darted out to lick at her earlobe. “But if you know nothing else, know this. It's no game I'm playing with you. Not anymore.” His hands drifted down her back until they closed around her lush, firm buttocks. He lifted her against him so she could feel how much he wanted her. “Does this feel like a game to you?”

Her fingers dug into his shoulders and he felt her arch against him. “It feels so . . .”

Control. Stay in control.

It took every ounce of his will to do it, but Robyn released her. His breath heaved in and out of his chest and his cock throbbed, so he stepped back, away from her, before the demands of his body urged him to pull her into his arms again.

“You told me the other night you wished you didn't need me. But your
body
needs mine, no matter how much your mind tries to deny it. Pursue your game with Atherton, then, Lily, but do it knowing you give up a great deal to have him, for he will never own your body the way I do.”

“No one owns me, Robyn. Not my body or any other part of me.”

His eyes glittered like dark ice. “Atherton will. Or have you forgotten the law makes you his property once you marry him? He can do whatever he wishes to you when you're his wife.”

The idea seemed to infuriate him. Lily tried to step away from the rage she saw in his face, but the door was already at her back.

He advanced on her—so close, his coat brushed against her gown. “How pleased you must be to see things going your way at last. But before you congratulate yourself, you should consider whether you even want Atherton at all.”

He'll never own your body the way I do.

“And if I decide I do want him?”

He paused, then shrugged, as if it mattered not in the least to him what she decided. “I'll be the first to wish you joy.”

Lily let out the breath she'd been holding in a defeated rush. Just as she feared, this was no more than a game of tug-of-war to Robyn.

“Though I've no idea why you
would
want him.”

A traitorous hope rose again in her breast at these words. “Why not? He's a trustworthy, virtuous man. He's just the kind of man any sensible young lady wants as a husband.”

Robyn laughed, but he didn't look amused. “Trustworthy and virtuous—what a passionate endorsement. May I ask how you know he is either of these things?”

“Charlotte said—”

“Charlotte! You'd base your choice of husband on a whim of Charlotte's?”

It didn't seem the right time to mention Charlotte didn't approve of Lord Atherton, either, so Lily changed the subject. “He has an impeccable reputation, and—”

“Please,” Robyn scoffed. “You must know you can't believe all of what you hear, or even what you
don't
hear. What of the lies Mrs. Tittleton told about you? Just because the
ton
whispers it all over London doesn't make it true.”

“The gossip I heard about
you
proved to be true. Why should I imagine the
ton
is any less accurate about Lord Atherton?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to reach into the air, grab them, and force them back behind her lips. He said nothing, but she couldn't mistake the look of surprised hurt on his face.

Oh, why had she said it?
Shame and an odd sort of misery lodged in her chest like a shard of glass. She seemed to forever be saying words she never intended to say when she was with Robyn.

“What in the world do you have against Lord Atherton?” she rushed on, trying to distract them both from her hurtful words. “My goodness, do you even know the man?”

“Do
you
?”

Lily let her head tip back against the door. “Of course I know him.”

He looked at her with skeptical dark eyes. “There's something . . . not right about him, Lily. There's something cold there.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Lily replied, but his words made her uneasy.

She didn't know Lord Atherton well, it was true, but surely that didn't matter? She knew him as well as any young lady knows her prospective husband. Once she married him, she'd learn the feel of his hair and the beat of his heart and the press of his lips.

She shut her eyes, but she couldn't hide from the thought that burrowed into her brain and echoed inside her skull, awful in its raw truth.

She didn't want to know Lord Atherton the way she knew Robyn.

What would it be like never to again feel the soft, curling hair at the back of Robyn's neck, or his strong heartbeat against her cheek and the delicious pressure of his lips on hers? Never to feel that joyous exhilaration she'd felt when she'd danced with him at Almack's, as though her feet didn't touch the floor while she whirled dizzily in his arms, her belly jumping with an excited pleasure every time he looked at her.

His hands on her, burning through her silk gown.

When she danced with Lord Atherton, when he held her in his arms, she felt . . .

Nothing. Oh, perhaps she'd felt a lukewarm triumph to have secured his notice at last. She was gratified by his polite attentiveness, but with Lord Atherton, she was as she'd always been. Just Lily, the child who got lost in a maze and hid under a bench and sobbed until her father rescued her.

“Look at me.”

She raised her eyes to Robyn's face. His lashes, so long
and dark they were almost feminine, and the rough prickles of black hair just visible along his jaw. His mouth, so serious now, but a mouth that could transform as quickly as a heartbeat into that wide, slightly crooked smile that made her knees collapse beneath her like a sandcastle swept away by the tide.

What a coward she was.

When Robyn kissed her or touched her, she felt like a doll caught in the palms of his hands, a doll whose limbs he arranged to suit his whim and pleasure. Maybe he did own her body then, as much as any man could ever own a woman. Maybe she
did
need him.

But as intent as he was to make her admit it, Robyn had never said a word about her heart.

Wasn't it just as well? Surely it was better if she kept her heart in her own possession? Much safer than turning it over to any man. Robyn might be distracted with it for a short time, but he'd abandon it for some other, far more exciting plaything eventually, and then where would she be? Her heart couldn't withstand another blow like the one it sustained when her parents died, and she didn't know if she could trust Robyn not to squeeze that tender organ until it stopped beating.

Perhaps Lord Atherton wasn't worthy of her. Perhaps she did deserve better, but she wasn't sure it mattered. If she married Lord Atherton, she'd have a peaceful life, her younger sisters' futures would be secure, and she didn't have to risk her heart for any of it.

She'd never desire Lord Atherton the way she desired Robyn. She'd never love him.

Wasn't that the way she wanted it?

Robyn leaned down to look into her face. “You don't want him, Lily. I'm not sure you ever did.”

No, but then that had been the point all along. She hadn't wanted to admit it at first, but she'd chosen Lord Atherton because she knew she'd never feel any real passion for him,
and she'd persisted in her choice even after she realized he believed the gossip about her. Even after he'd shown himself unworthy of her regard.

She gazed up into Robyn's face. He'd become so dear to her, it made her chest ache to look at him.

He'd never said a word about her heart.

“What do you want of me, Robyn? You don't want
me
. Not really. And you never did—not until you believed Lord Atherton might.”

Robyn stared at her. “You think I don't want you?”

“Perhaps you want me in the same way you want Lady Downes, or any nameless barmaid who happens to be sitting on your knee. You don't want
me
.”

His voice, quiet, disbelieving. “You think I don't want you.”

No longer a question.

He slipped his finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his.

He was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her, and she was going to let him.

It was inevitable, his hot mouth descending on hers, as inevitable as the tide drawing the sand in its wake as it receded. A tide of desire, low in her belly, it drew her, pulled her toward him and swept everything before it. She'd waited for this, she realized then; had known she'd be in Robyn's arms again, even as she'd sat straight-backed and rigid next to the man she planned to marry.

Robyn wrapped his hands around her waist, and his warm breath bathed her ear. “Go to your bed, Lily, before I take you to mine.”

His bed
. A fierce need pounded through her at the thought of Robyn laying her across his bed, his hands against her thighs, opening her, his body over hers, primed to ease the ache he'd made there, an ache only he could satisfy.

Perhaps she'd meant to push him away—to run away to her bedchamber like the coward she was, but instead her
hands slipped inside his coat to skim over his lean waist and up his back to ease it from his shoulders. The coat dropped to the floor behind him as her fingers closed over the buttons of his waistcoat, pulling clumsily at them.

Robyn groaned and reached down to clasp her hips and gather her tightly against him. His tongue teased at her lips and she opened them at once, her own tongue coming forward to stroke against his.

“This is what a kiss should be, Lily,” he whispered as his lips trailed across her jaw. His mouth stopped at her ear, and his teeth closed on her earlobe.

Lily shivered at the wet drag of his tongue as he moved to kiss her chin, her neck. He nibbled at her collarbone then settled at the sensitive flesh where her neck met her shoulder, left bare by her daring gown.

Her breath stopped in her lungs at the sensation of his teeth against her, then returned in a gasping sob. It was almost too much, the desire between them. It grew, a canopy of dark leaves over her, then around her, until she feared she'd be lost inside it. “Robyn, I can't . . .”

He made a choked noise low in his throat. “It's all right if you're afraid, love. I'll take care of you.”

He was there, his warm body bracing hers, his knee against the blue silk of her skirts, between her legs.

“Please . . . yes, that's it, sweet,” he murmured when he felt her legs open to take his body between them. He pressed closer into her and Lily felt him, hard and insistent against her.

His mouth closed over hers again, not as rough this time, but coaxing, soft, as he'd kissed her that first time in Lord Barrow's study—the same kiss she'd found so erotic, she'd been unable to keep her lips closed against his tongue.

She wasn't able to deny him now, either. She had no wish to, but opened her mouth eagerly to take his tongue inside, her own tongue stopping long enough to taste his bottom
lip, to make him moan before she slipped inside to kiss him for what felt like forever.

Perhaps it was forever, or perhaps it was only minutes or seconds, but when he raised his mouth at last, she knew she was lost again, the branches thick above her head, each panicked breath more desperate than the last, her footsteps echoing in her ears as she fought to get back to a place she knew. Oh God, she was afraid . . .

But again he was there, his hands on her back, stroking her, steady and strong. “You're safe, Lily. I've got you. It's all right to take what you want.”

“I—I want to touch you . . .
now
. Please, Robyn.”

She began to struggle with his shirt, to rip at it in her haste to get to his skin underneath. It gave at last, baring a patch of his chest to her. She leaned forward to place her lips against the skin there, so smooth but for the dark hairs scattered across the bronzed skin, springy under her tongue.

“Ah, God, yes.” He threw back his head, his hands going to where hers pulled frantically at the waist of his breeches, tearing the shirt away. He groaned again when her nails raked across his back.

He dragged down the rough lace of her sleeve and she shivered a little in his arms. Robyn laughed softly, the sound a dark promise. “I'm going to kiss you here.”

“Oh. Oh, that's . . .” But the feel of his mouth against her bared shoulder stopped her words.

“Does that feel good, sweet?” he murmured, his voice low and wicked.

“
Yes
. So good.”

“I need to touch you, Lily—to stroke your breasts. Will you let me, love?”

His hands moved slowly up her rib cage until his palms cupped her breasts. His thumb inched up to stroke against one nipple. He circled lightly, his eyes never leaving her
face, then he began a rhythmic stroking, again and again over the hardened nub.

His eyes left her face to drop to her breast, and he seemed transfixed by the sight of her nipple peaked against his stroking fingers. “Tell me how it feels.” His eyes dropped half closed as he continued to stroke her. “Don't be afraid of your own pleasure, Lily.”

She jerked in his arms with each pass of his thumb across the tip of her breast. “It feels . . . it feels as if you're touching me everywhere.”

He slipped her other sleeve down so both her shoulders were bare. “I want to touch you everywhere. Taste you everywhere.”

Lily felt a rush of cool air across her heated flesh and looked down to find her breasts bare, his hand dark against her white skin, her nipples flushed pink and hard against his fingers, begging for his touch.

Robyn's breath left his lungs in a ragged sigh. “So beautiful. I knew you would be. I'm going to put my mouth on you here—it will feel so good, love. Don't be afraid. Just let me . . .”

His dark head bowed over her and his mouth closed over the tip of one of her breasts.

Lily felt her knees buckle under her, saw the latticework of leaves above her head, heard the distant laugh of a child as she ran along the twisting pathways. But it wasn't
her
laugh. It couldn't be, because she was afraid of the maze . . .