Swept Away By a Kiss (34 page)

He was the same man, from the flame in his lion eyes that weakened her with desire, his touch that melted her anger and frustration, leaving only longing, to the tender caress of his voice when for brief moments he ceased pretending he did not care for her.

She started up the steps and a hand wrapped around her wrist. She knew instantly who touched her, whose fingers slipped around hers, warm and strong, drawing her alongside the staircase and into the shadowed alcove beneath. Valerie would know him anywhere.

She should not allow this. She wanted to help him, but she could not continue touching him, kissing him, or she would go mad with wanting him, wanting more than he would ever give her.

Steven pulled her to the wall and closed the space between them. Valerie’s lips parted, but refusal stalled upon her tongue. His eyes shone fever-bright. He bent and covered her lips. Aching swelled up from the deepest part of her, tangling in her mouth and throat, her belly and legs and along her skin as his hands curved around her shoulders and his kiss deepened. He parted her lips with a sweep of his tongue, and his body pressed hers to the wall.

She could die right away. Because she simply could not live through another moment of this torturous seduction of blazing passion followed by frost.

Barely mustering the effort, she broke free.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

Steven’s arm cinched her waist, his mouth trailing heat across her skin. His hand curved around her breast and his thumb passed over her nipple. The caress echoed inside Valerie everywhere, as though he touched her between her legs. She dug her fingertips into his shoulders. “What are you doing to me?”

“Kissing you. Touching you as I have wanted to touch you all night,” he said against her lips, stroking her breast through gown and corset. The peak swelled, the ache he roused unbearable.

“Why?” She strained into him, shivers of pleasure springing from his touch. “Why now?”

“I cannot stop myself,” he said, his voice low, urgent. “When I am apart from you, I crave the sight of you. When you are near, I think of nothing but holding you.” He slid his cheek against her hair. “I told you before, I am unable to not touch you any longer.”

Valerie groaned and sank into him. His words, his caresses could not be real. And yet the man she longed for with hunger so deep it clamped upon her lungs—that man held her now, touching her as though he truly could not prevent himself. And as much as she knew she must remain strong, could not bear his extremes for another day, she wanted him. Wanted his caresses, his lion’s gaze heating her, his rich voice speaking breathtaking words to her.

She slid her hands beneath the fall of his pristine white cravat, then inside his coat.

“Then now you know a little of the torture I have endured,” she whispered, smoothing her palms over contoured muscle, his heat infusing her through the linen.

“There is nothing little about it,” he growled, trapping her fully to the wall and pushing her knees apart. His hips shifted against hers, his rigid need stroking her tender flesh. She whimpered, gazing up at him. He was so beautiful, sculpted cheeks, sun-gilded hair, serious mouth. She ran her palm up his chest over his cravat to his neck, sliding her fingers through his hair.

His fire-flecked gaze searched hers, then he bent his head and kissed her, deep and drinking-in, and she touched him. His jaw beneath her sensitive fingertips was rough with the day’s golden whiskers. Her hand slipped to his sinew-corded neck, tenderly caressing his Adam’s apple and halting his kiss, his throat working at the unexpectedly intimate caress. She found his pulse, fast and hard, and her body thrummed with awareness. He grabbed her palm and flattened it to his skin.

“Valerie.” Her name was a breath only.

She tugged free and slid both hands inside his coat again, spreading her fingers across his heart, finding the reckless source of his pulse. His silk waistcoat and linen shirt gave no suggestion of the scar beneath, brutal and uniquely beautiful upon his muscular body. But she remembered it, knew the danger he had once lived, still lived. His scent filled her, hot and male, flooding her senses. She slipped her palms lower, aching to feel him, to revel in his closeness, his willingness, his need pressing into her, feeding her desire.

Through fabric, her hand closed upon him. Steven sucked in his breath and gripped her arms, but he did not push her away. Valerie explored, his flesh hard as bone but wonderfully supple. He wanted her. For the moment, the night, or longer than that, she had no idea. But he was not moving away, and she wanted to touch him more, to bask in the delirium of his nearness.

She curved an arm around his waist and pressed into him. Taut muscles flexed beneath her palm as he bent his head and covered her mouth. His body surrounded her, her whole being fusing into him. She gripped him tight, fierce need tangling reason and fear into uselessness, leaving only sensation and longing. If he did not force her to release him, she would never be able to.

“Sweet Valerie,” Steven murmured, taking her mouth again, drinking in her beauty and warmth, her lips the color of autumn roses and the flavor of madness. Her hand slipped from between them around his back. In agonized relief he coaxed her lips open to his tongue, tasting her moist beauty, inside her again where he always wanted to be.

He had struggled to leave her earlier. He shouldn’t have waited for her here, should not succumb to his desire. But he must feel her again, drown his senses in her if only for a fleeting heartbeat before he left for London. His blood pounded, the caress of her confident, tender hands making it impossible to think, to plan, to reason, only to feel what she did to him.

He threaded his fingers through her hair and crushed her mouth, urging truth into his kiss. Finally, the truth. For three decades he had ruled his life with iron control. She turned that iron to chalk and he wanted her to know it.

He was mad already. He had come to Castlemarch as though possessed, drawn by a fantasy, a mirage of what warmth and desire felt like entwined. He’d known that fantasy so briefly with her at sea. He never would again because his life—the godforsaken destiny he had mapped out for himself—would not allow another to share it.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, the intoxicating shape of her hips and breasts a living breath of heaven against his body.

It must end. He must leave now or risk everything. She knew he targeted Hannsley. After they spoke in the hall, she went straight to him.

Damn his weakness. He ached to tell her everything, but he’d held back. Yet still he revealed too much. Now, before she involved herself further, he must act swiftly. At dawn he would leave for town. After he returned, he would do whatever it took to get those papers from Hannsley. Then she would be safe and Steven could go back to his reality, so far from the family and home this woman cherished that it might as well be across the world, not merely an ocean.

Now was too soon, though. Fire burned in him, hotter with each caress of her lips, each soft sigh in her throat. In the darkness he pressed down her gown and the cup of her corset and shift, and stroked her tender flesh. The firm peak swelled at his touch. She moaned low in her throat and curled her foot around his ankle, cradling his erection intimately. She gasped and whimpered his name.

He crushed her mouth beneath his. He must have her, touch her everywhere. God Almighty, he had never needed to be inside a woman with this frenzied urgency. Only this woman. He ground against her and she arched to him, gripping his shoulders, her breaths rapid. He could give her pleasure again so easily. She was ready for it. But if he did not stop now, he would not be able to stop at all. He would have her here, beneath the stairs, against the wall, fast and hard and absolute.

He would finally make her his.

He lifted his head. Her ocean eyes shone hazy with passion, her lips glistening red and swollen from his kisses. It took every ounce of his will to loosen his hold.

“You must not involve yourself in this business, Valerie.” He struggled for breath. “Leave it alone. Leave him alone. Promise me you will.”

Her body convulsed as though with shock, then stiffened. She swallowed quickly, repeatedly, and her gaze lit with renewed betrayal.

“This seduction,” she said raggedly. “This is to bend me to your will, isn’t it?”

She could not have hit him physically with such force. Steven stared, astonishment and pain racing through him like wildfire. After thirty years, he finally knew how it felt to be damned for his sins.

Her arms slid from around his neck and she turned her face away. “I will never understand you. I don’t know who you are or what you want. I don’t even know what to call you.”

A fist closed around Steven’s heart. He surrounded her face with his hands, forcing her gaze to his again, need and sudden desolation coursing through his veins.

“But I know what to call you,” he whispered, the words coming so quickly he hadn’t the will or strength to stop them.
“Mon âme. Mon coeur.”
His soul. His heart. She had been those and more for months already.

She trembled, her eyes wide. But she did not say a word.

“I must go to London tomorrow for the day.” He stroked his thumb across her cheek, willing away the stunned doubt in her eyes. “While I am gone, take care, Valerie. Do not play these games. There is grave danger involved, and I want you to remain safe.”

Disbelief colored her eyes. “You want me to—?”

“It is all I have ever wanted.”

Chapter 31

V
alerie choked down the sob rising in her throat. She ached to believe him. Every fleck of desire in his eyes, every gentle caress upon her skin, every tenderly spoken word seemed so real.

“I don’t know whether you are lying to me,” she said, swallowing hard. “But I think you must be.”

“I have never lied to you, Valerie.”

No. It couldn’t be true. He had led her to believe untruths. He intentionally deceived her, over and over again. She wrenched out of his arms.

“Go to London. Go. Leave me in peace.” She spun away.

“Promise me you will not involve yourself in this matter.”

She rounded on him. “You lie more times than I can count, even about telling me the truth, and you still think you can give me orders?”

He gripped her wrist, his touch unyielding. “Promise me.”

Valerie bit back on the desire washing through her. Even his rough handling filled her with yearning. She wanted him so badly it blinded her. But even as he said beautiful things, he still held her off.

What he had called her—his soul, his heart—it could not be the truth. Her heart could not bear it to be true and still lose him. He’d said it himself tonight, there could be no courtship between them. There might be passion, even warmth, but nothing else. He would never let her truly know him.

But if he believed she would cower under his demands, he did not know her either.

She threw back her shoulders. “I promise I will not do anything to compromise your mission.”

Abruptly, the fire in his gold-flecked eyes receded. Cold resignation took its place. After his heated declaration, the icy response stole her breath.

He released her, and without another word turned and disappeared into the dark corridor. Valerie fled up the stairs.

“So, it’s milord Hannsley you’re going off to see now?”

Valerie met her maid’s gaze in the dressing table mirror. “How do you know that?”

“Saw you with him earlier in the corridor.”

“It is none of your business.”

“His valet’s got the look of a highwayman,” Mabel said darkly.

A shiver of apprehension passed through Valerie. “And how would you know what a highwayman looks like?”

Mabel remained ominously silent.

Valerie turned to her maid. “Lord Hannsley possesses some papers that are valuable to me. I am going to get them.” Mabel’s brow drew down. Valerie guessed it would be a good idea if at least one person knew her plans. She certainly couldn’t tell Anna or Valentine, and Mabel’s shrewd look satisfied her. “I will dose him with a sleeping cordial, then search for the papers.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Mum, you can’t.”

Valerie pinched her cheeks to bring color to them. She looked as pale as a specter. “You can keep this to yourself, Mabel, or, if I hear a word of it has gone above stairs, you can expect to be dismissed. But one way or another, I am doing it.”