The Dangerous Lord (23 page)

Better than any liquor she could imagine. Which was why she absolutely mustn't let him do it again. Taking him
by surprise, she wrenched free and raced toward the staircase. When she heard him curse behind her, she quickened her steps, but she could hardly do more than feel her way along in the faint light from the single candle at the top of the stairs. “You must leave, Ian,” she cried. “It's late.”

“I'm not leaving,” he growled as he hurried down the steps after her.

She'd hoped to outstrip him, but that was impossible. Apparently the man possessed the eyes of a cat, for he caught up with her just as she reached the next floor.

He swung her around to face him, his eyes reflecting the darkest desires. “There's no reason for me to leave, and you know it. I'm tired of this farce. I'm tired of going to bed wanting you and waking up wanting you more. I'm tired of pretending to court other women merely to make you jealous.”

Her eyes widened in shock.

“Yes, that's why I courted them,” he said, correctly interpreting her reaction. “You're the only one I've wanted since that night at the Worthings.”

She swallowed hard. She should have known it was a ploy all along. She tried to summon up fury, but all she felt was a treacherous thrill that he'd gone to so much trouble to gain her.

“If you despised me, it would be one thing,” he went on in a low voice. “But you don't. You want me, too. And the perfect solution to all this bloody wanting is for us to marry. So you and I shall come to an agreement. Tonight.”

The thought of marrying him tempted her fiercely, not only because of “this bloody wanting,” as he called it. The boys liked him. And he would give her a future—security and a home of her own, free of financial worry.

A home of her own where her husband didn't trust her with the truth about his life. Though he'd revealed a little about himself this evening, the important things he still kept secret. How could she live with a man whose past was so
dark even he wouldn't hold it up to the light? Could she entrust her future and the boys' to such a man? More importantly, could she gift her heart to someone who didn't love her, who only wanted her because he needed an heir?

She could not. “I told you before, I won't marry you.” Drat it, why must she sound so hesitant, as if she didn't even believe her own words? Perhaps she too was tired of struggling against the feelings he roused, of being wise about the future.

“Then I must convince you otherwise.” His shadowed face hovered near hers, overwhelming, tempting. “It's time you see what you're denying yourself.”

Her heart beat faster. “What do you mean?”

“I'll show you.” He kissed her again, this time so thoroughly she felt dizzy. Angling his head, he found a virgin patch of skin under her ear and kissed it, then nipped her earlobe. “Where's your bedchamber,
querida
? Where can we be private?”

She blinked at him in dazed confusion. “Wh-what?” She felt as if someone had filled her mind with cotton.

“Never mind,” he growled. “I'll find it. Or someplace equally acceptable.” Scooping her up in his arms, he strode down the darkened hall.

She would have fought him—really, she would have—if he hadn't kissed her again. It wasn't much of a kiss, a mere brush of his mouth against hers, but it left her aching for more. As he continued down the hall, past the open doors of her study, her parents' old bedchamber, and Mama's sewing room, she marveled at her reluctance to stop him.

What mad spell had he spun about her? Everything seemed unreal, as if in a dream, a dream where he belonged to her in every sense of the word. He paused outside her bedchamber, then entered it. After setting her down, he shut the door behind them, turning the key with the twist of one hand.

The click of the lock jerked her out of his spell. “We shouldn't be here…we should—” She broke off, eyes narrowing. “How did you know this was my room, Ian? Have you been spying on me?”

He laughed and shrugged out of his frock coat. “This is the only room on this floor with a fire going and the bed turned down. It wasn't difficult to deduce.”

Then she realized what he'd meant by saying he would show her what she was denying herself. Not a few kisses and caresses like before. Seduction. What a dunce she'd been not to realize it sooner! “Ian, this is wrong!”

“Not in the least. As I recall, this all started because you were determined to make sure Katherine went into marriage with her eyes open. Well, I'm offering you a similar opportunity. If you're determined to be a spinster, you should go into spinsterhood with your eyes open.” He stripped off his waistcoat and went to work on his cravat. “I intend to open your eyes, to show you what you'll be missing if you deny me,
querida
.”

A weakness seized her limbs. She wished he'd stop calling her “darling” in that husky voice. Spanish or no, it did naughty things to her. “My eyes are completely open. You opened them the last time you touched me, if you'll recall.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I recall very well. I recall the way you kissed me back, the way you rode my thigh, the way you groaned when I touched your breasts.”

The frank words shocked and titillated her at the same time, sending wild and indecent images surging through her memory. Her skin heated under his knowing look, and she had to glance away before he could see the effect of his words on her.

“But I didn't open your eyes completely,” he went on. “That's the only reason you refused my proposal of marriage. I wonder what your answer would have been if I'd taken you to bed instead.” Approaching her, he lifted his hand to cup her burning cheek. His thumb dipped down to
stroke her throat, then outline her chin before caressing her bottom lip silkily. “Shall we find out?”

Why couldn't she say no? Why did the word stick in her throat, damn him? “I-I don't think…that's wise.” But she said it on a breathy little gasp, and her head reeled from the intimacy of his fingers against her face, not to mention the jumble of images his words had provoked.

He clasped her waist, bringing her back into his embrace. “Yes, but since when did you ever do what was wise,
querida?
”

He had a point, she thought. Then he was kissing her again, and she was lost. Her reason shut down, along with her will and her common sense. All of them fell subject to the beating of her heart and the sheer wanton desires trampling through her unruly body.

It didn't matter what her mind screamed at her—that he'd primed her for this since that night at the Worthings, that it was a mistake, that she'd regret it later. Right now she didn't regret it. She couldn't. And she couldn't even hate him for using her weakness, her secret and shameful urges, against her.

She opened her mouth to his bold tongue as eagerly as the wanton she evidently was. His hands unfastened the buttons at the back of her gown with amazing deftness, and all she could do was twine her arms about his neck. She matched his every wicked impulse with one of her own, abandoning herself to his greater experience in a fever of need. When his hand slid inside her gown to stroke her thinly clad back, a luxurious sigh escaped her lips.

“I like to touch you,” he whispered as he dropped his hand lower inside her gown to squeeze her bottom. “And you like having me touch you, don't you?”

She buried her flaming face in his shoulder, unable to admit aloud the painful truth—that she craved his hands, that she wanted them all over her body. Good Lord, how
shameless of her! A sensible, respectable woman would evict him this minute!

Obviously, she was neither. But how could she resist the glittering temptation he presented? It was like having her sultan step out of her dreams and into her bedchamber. He transformed the dreary room with its simple oak furnishings and ragged curtains into a magical oasis where any sensual act was acceptable, even expected.

Dark eyes blazing with promises, he stepped back and tore impatiently at the buttons of his shirt. She waited with indrawn breath to see what lay beneath the civilized veneer.

She shivered at the sight. Skin the color of coffee with milk, skin that attested to his mixed heritage, his wild Spanish blood. A patch of rich, springy hair arrowed downward—as black as that on his head, but curly where the other was straight. As he opened the shirt, her gaze followed the trail down to where the hair thinned into a line, then disappeared beneath his waistband.

“Do you like what you see?” he asked, the sound deep and rumbling.

A mortified gasp escaped her lips as she jerked her gaze back to his finely molded chest. Had she no decency? She'd been staring at him down there and wondering…

His knowing smile only made it worse. “I don't suppose you've ever seen a man undress before.” He stripped off his linen shirt and dropped it.

She shook her head. Although she'd seen men naked to the waist—the pugilists at Bartholomew fair always went shirtless—she'd never seen one so close, not even Papa. And what she saw made her throat go dry. Ian wasn't as brawny as those pugilists, but she'd always found their bulging muscles repulsive. His muscles were whipcord lean, but sharply defined. There was no mistaking the power in them that had enabled him to carry William up three flights of stairs without a murmur.

“Here.” Catching her hand, he pressed it against his
chest. “Why don't you do more than look?” The stark need in his face called to her. “Touch me, Felicity, the way I touched you that night. I've dreamed of having your hands on me.”

She needed no further invitation to mold her fingers over his muscles, feeling the steel under the hair-rough skin as he tensed at her touch. She wanted to feel it all—the wide expanse of his chest, the ridges of his ribs, the taut sinews at his waist. And touching him provoked the shameful stirrings she'd felt before…in her breasts, in her loins. A familiar moistness formed between her thighs, certain evidence of her loose character. She squeezed her legs shut, but that didn't assuage the ache between them.

As if he sensed her agitation, he began using his hands on her as well, though not where she wanted them. He threaded his fingers through her loosely pinned hair, shaking it free of its pins, then smoothing it out over her shoulders. Next, he stripped her down to her chemise and drawers.

He ran his hot, eager gaze over her body. “I'm glad you don't wear those abominable corsets,” he growled as his hands swept lightly over her ribs. “When we're married, you must wear nothing but your chemise when we're alone.”

The outrageous thought excited her, then alarmed her, for it was too much like the painting of her sultan and his scantily clad paramours. “We shan't marry,” she said stubbornly. “I won't let you add me to your harem.”

“Harem?” He chuckled. “I have no harem,
querida
. You'll be my wife, my
only
wife. You might as well get used to the idea.”

She yanked her hands from his chest, but he caught one and pressed it to the center seam of his pantaloon trousers. “Here,” he rasped. “Touch me here.”

Something hard moved beneath her fingers, and she gasped, struggling to pull her hand away, but he wouldn't
let her. “You have only to walk past me,” he said tightly, “to make me feel this. I've never wanted any woman as much as I want you. Never.”

“Not even—” She started to say “Cynthia Lennard,” then caught herself, loath to mention her in such an intimate moment. “Not even Miss Greenaway?” she finished lamely, though she now doubted the woman was his mistress.

“Definitely not—I never give her a moment's thought.” A warning flickered in his eyes as he bent his head toward her. “But you? You I've thought of constantly since the day we met.”

He took her mouth with an almost angry need this time, his tongue stabbing deeply, his lips hard on hers. The bulge in his trousers thickened, and he ground it against her fingers. When his hand left hers to roam her breast, she found herself willingly squeezing the hot, hard length, reveling in the way it pulsed beneath her touch.

Tearing his lips from hers, he muttered, “My God, you're torturing me.” He hauled her up in his arms and stalked to the bed with her. When he set her down on the edge, she scrambled to her knees, suddenly all too aware of where he'd placed her and why.

But before she could scoot away, he caught a fistful of her chemise to halt her. With a rakish smile, he dragged the flimsy muslin up her legs to bare her thighs. “Oh, no,
querida
. It's my turn to torture
you
.”

Alarm coursed through her, for his foreign endearment reminded her that beneath the manners and dress of an English lord lay a half-Spanish and even half-civilized spy, with secrets so deep even the keenest gossips couldn't root them out. And this was the man she wanted to bed her! Had she lost her wits?

Then he slipped his hand inside the slit in her drawers to cover the dark triangle between her legs, and she froze. Half-civilized? He was completely
un
civilized!

“Ian, you shouldn't…” she whispered as she clutched
at his wrist in a futile attempt to prevent him.

“Let me touch you the way you touched me.” Black eyes glittering, he cradled the secret place in the juncture of her thighs, then began fondling it, rotating his palm in slow, tempting ways she'd never dared to touch herself.

Excitement and shame burned up through her body together, and she closed her eyes, wishing she could hide from him. Any minute, he'd feel the embarrassing dampness between her legs and despise her for it.

“My God, you're so warm and wet, so ready for me,” he said roughly, but without a hint of disdain.

Ready for him? What could he mean? Then he slid his finger inside the passage made slick from that indecent wetness, and she knew.