Conor's Way (34 page)

***

Sleep was the last thing she needed. Olivia
didn't know what to do. She stared at her closed door, confused and
frustrated. Her romantic evening had been cut short before it had
truly begun.

How it had happened, she still wasn't sure.
One minute, they were holding hands in a moment of shared intimacy,
and the next minute, she was being shepherded to her room and
offered a rather terse goodnight.

She'd asked him if he really thought her
beautiful. A gauche question, and one she wished she could take
back now. But he had looked at her as if she was, and he'd already
told her she was, so maybe that wasn't what had brought their
evening to such an abrupt end.

Perhaps she shouldn't have talked so much
about her father; it wasn't exactly a romantic topic of
conversation. But she had no notion of what topics might be
considered romantic.

Or perhaps it had been her reaction when he'd
ordered a drink. Goodness, the man had the right to have a drink
after supper, of whatever he liked. It was only one drink, and she
shouldn't have been so silly about it. She wanted to kick
herself.

Olivia sighed and turned away from the door
to toss her reticule and gloves on the bed. Whatever it was she'd
done, it was too late to remedy it now. She was in her room, Conor
was in his, and their evening together had come to an end. Clearly,
she wasn't suited to seduction. But then, she'd always known
that.

He would leave. She had no illusions about
that. Her life would go back to the way it had been before, but
tonight she wanted so badly for it to be different. From the moment
they'd met, she had sensed what he could give her, and that day in
the kitchen, he had given her a taste of all that she had missed.
She wanted another taste. Could she just reach out and take it? And
could she live with the pain afterward, loving him and watching
him walk away?

How did one go about seduction anyway? She
couldn't just go to his room and say, "Would you kiss me again?"
She just couldn't.

Could she?

Olivia stood there for several minutes in an
agony of uncertainty. She was going to feel the pain anyway. But
she didn't want to let him go without feeling the passion first,
the passion he could offer her, the passion she'd never even known
she could feel until he came.

Olivia thrust her room key into the pocket of
her dress and reached for the door handle before she could change
her mind.

When she knocked, all she could think was
that if she hadn't heard the clerk correctly, if this was the wrong
room, she'd die of mortification. But it wasn't the wrong room. The
door swung inward, and Conor stood in the doorway.

He had removed his waistcoat and shirt. The
shirt was bunched in one hand as if he'd just taken it off when she
knocked. She'd seen him without his shirt many times, and it should
not have unnerved her, but it did.

"Olivia?" He frowned at her in surprise and
tossed the shirt aside. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"There's something I wanted to tell you
earlier," she said, trying to keep her nervousness out of her voice
and failing completely, "but I didn't have the chance."

Footsteps from the stairs at the end of the
corridor had him glancing in that direction. He swore under his
breath and grasped her by the elbow to pull her inside. The door
closed behind her and she flattened against it, looking up at him.
He did not look pleased to see her. She felt her courage falter. He
did not look pleased at all.

"What is it?" he asked, in a voice that did
not sound promising to her intent.

She took a deep breath. "I told you before
that I missed many things when I was a girl." She plucked at the
sides of her skirt and had never felt more scared in her life than
she did right now. But her gaze did not waver from his.

"What I didn't tell you," she went on, in a
shaking voice, "was that I wanted all those things. I wanted balls
and parties and sneaking away from chaperones for romantic strolls
in the garden with beaux. I wanted to laugh and dance. I wanted
romance, and I wanted to...I wanted to be kissed, but I never was,
at least, not until you...until we...I lied to you about that."

"Yes," he said. A hint of a smile lifted one
corner of his mouth, and his voice was gentler than she'd ever
heard it before. "I know."

She left off plucking at her skirt and spread
her palms wide between them. "So, that's what I wanted to tell
you."

"Olivia, why did you come to my room late at
night to tell me this?"

Her heartbeat quickened to a frantic rhythm.
She lifted her face, wet her dry lips, and tried to speak, but the
words stuck in her throat. She swallowed twice and gathered all her
courage. "I want a little piece of what I missed all those years
ago, and you told me that afternoon in the kitchen you could show
me, and you did—a little. I want you to show me again, Conor. I
want to spend the night with you."

"Jaysus." He stared at her, his dismay so
clear, she wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor. All
her courage fled, and painful embarrassment took its place.

"I'm sorry the idea doesn't suit you," she
said, and turned around, reaching for the door handle. She was not
going to let him see how it hurt, she was not. She'd already made
enough of a fool out of herself. She tried to open the door, but it
didn't budge, and she realized the latch was stuck. Her hands
desperately worked the handle back and forth, and she heard him
come up behind her as she finally managed to yank the door
open.

His palm hit the door beside her, closing it.
Though he wasn't touching her at all, she felt the heat of his body
behind her as if it were a touch. His warm breath fanned her cheek
as he bent his head. "Love, I hope you realize what you're really
asking for," he murmured in her ear. "You want me to make love to
you."

She turned around and looked up at him,
meeting his intense blue gaze squarely. "Yes," she said. "That's
exactly what I want."

Holy
Christ
. She was serious.

He studied her bathed in the light of the
lamp and the shadow of his body, and he could not think of what to
do or what to say. She was flat against the door, her face pale,
her dark eyes wide with all that wariness that reminded him of a
doe in the forest. She looked ready to flee at the slightest
danger. She looked completely vulnerable.

Which was exactly what she was. Vulnerable,
innocent, and without a clue about what she was asking for. She
wanted romance, not sex.

Conor cursed himself for that afternoon in
her kitchen and his own damned teasing, his own cocksure words.

He could show her, aye. He wanted to show
her, more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. Hell, his
desire for her had been eating at him for over a month now, until
he thought sure it would finally drive him mad. But now, when he
had her in his sights, when all he had to do was lower his head and
kiss her, he found himself unable to move.

It would be so easy. It would not be easy at
all.

He would hurt her. There was no avoiding it.
He didn't want to live with that. He liked her too much, he
respected her too much. He reminded himself yet again that she was
not his kind of woman. She needed a man who didn't suffer from
terminal wanderlust, a man who didn't have demons lurking in his
soul, a man who actually liked farming, families, and going to
church. She needed and deserved a man who would marry her, stand by
her, cherish her, be a father to her daughters. He was not that
man.

"Go back to your room, Olivia," he said
before he could change his mind. "I'm no good."

"I don't believe that."

"Then you're a fool." He watched her lift her
trembling chin with stubborn bravado. He sighed. "All right, then,
let's just say I'm no good for you."

"I think I'm perfectly capable of deciding
what's good for me." She gazed up at him with those damnable dark
eyes. "I think that's you."

"Tonight, maybe. But not tomorrow when I
leave you and move on."

"I'm not asking for tomorrow," she whispered.
"All I'm asking for is tonight."

"You don't know what you're saying."

She lifted her hands, and he saw them shake
as she hugged herself and rubbed her bare arms as if she were cold.
"I know exactly what I'm saying. I want you to make love to me. I
may not be...experienced, but I know what that means."

Conor thought of that kiss in the kitchen,
and he doubted she had the slightest idea.

"Don't...don't you want to?"

Did he want to? To lose himself in the
softness of her would be a taste of heaven itself. He should turn
her down, toss her out, tell her no. He closed his eyes, fighting
what he wanted with everything he had.

"Conor?"

It was the way she said his name that was his
undoing. She said it like a caress, with an aching, wobbly tilt
that wrenched him, turned him inside out, made him into the
vulnerable one. He'd lost, and he knew it. So much for being
valiant and noble, and doing the right thing. It had been proven to
him a long time ago that he wasn't a hero anyway.

He opened his eyes. "Don't hate me for this
tomorrow, Olivia," he said, and cupped her cheeks, tilting her
head back as he brought his mouth closer to hers. "For God's sake,
don't hate me."

His mouth came down on hers before she could
reply. Her lips parted freely, and with that first taste of her, he
knew there was no turning back. He deepened the kiss, sliding his
hands up into her hair.

His hands found the combs, and as he pulled
them free, her hair came tumbling down. The combs dropped to the
floor, and he tangled her hair in his hands, reveling in the silken
feel of it and the warm, sweet taste of her. He brushed light
kisses across her lips and her cheeks as he began walking backward,
pulling her with him toward the bed. Arousal coursed through him,
and he deepened the kiss, plunging his tongue into her mouth.

She made a tiny smothered sound of desire,
and she quivered in his hold, a fluttering feminine response that
his body instantly recognized. He wanted to take her without the
preliminaries, without the tenderness she wanted and the finesse
that she needed. He had to slow down.

He tore his lips from hers and buried his
face in the curve of her neck. His hands left her hair and slid
down to her slender waist. He trailed kisses along her shoulder,
and his fingers caressed the small of her back as he forced himself
to contain his moves, to be patient, to wait.

He pulled back and looked into her face,
watching as she slowly opened her eyes. He had never seen her look
lovelier than she did at this moment, with her hair falling in
lustrous waves around her shoulders and an expression of dazed
astonishment on her face, a look that pleased him more than the
practiced smiles or breathy sighs of all the easy women he'd
known.

She smiled that extraordinary smile, tilting
her head back, and her eyes closed again as she breathed his name
on a tiny sigh. Conor had the feeling he was going to see her like
this in his mind, hear her soft, drawling voice echo in his ears
for many solitary nights to come.

His hands left her waist and came up between
them, his eyes never leaving her face as his fingers found the top
button of her dress, hidden beneath a silken rosette.

She gasped and opened her eyes again, shying
away with the first hint of resistance. "Shouldn't you put out the
light?" she whispered.

He shook his head, and slid the button free.
He reached for the next one, then the next. His knuckles brushed
against her breasts, then her ribs, as he worked his way down, and
he felt her tremble with each button he unfastened. By the time he
reached her waist, she was pushing against his shoulders.

"Oh, please, put out the light," she
whispered, turning her face away, blushing in hot confusion.

"Why?" He bent his head to kiss her neck.
"Sure, you've seen me naked," he teased against her ear. "It's only
fair that I see you."

That unnerved her even more. She made a small
sound of agitation, and he left off undressing her for the moment.
He pulled her against him and began nibbling on her earlobe as his
hand caressed her ribs. "Olivia, I don't think I'll be able to
unfasten all these hooks of yours in the dark," he confessed.
"Besides, I want to see you, look at you. Let me do that."

She did not reply. He ran his hand up and
down her torso in a slow caress, kissed the velvet skin of her ear,
her throat, down to her shoulder and back again, every move
designed to coax, to persuade, to make her yield. "Will you let
me?"