The Dangerous Love of a Rogue (13 page)

The Summerhouse was at the end of the garden, tucked away amongst tall shrubs. No-one could see it from the house and no-one could see anyone approaching it from the stables.

A beautiful Wisteria archway covered the path Drew must have walked through.

When she reached the summerhouse, he stood at the far end of the narrow wooden veranda, with his back to her. He’d removed his hat and he’d ruffled his hair.

“This is very bad of you,” she stated as she climbed the steps of the veranda. Then she leaned back against the post at the opposite end to where he stood, the book she carried tucked behind her.

He turned with a broad smile on his lips. The same smile danced in his eyes. “But exhilarating. What if we are caught? Think of the repercussions!” He was teasing. She saw laughter in his eyes. She had not seen him in daylight since the morning they had ridden together. She had forgotten how sunlight gilded his eyes, and made the hazel shine like gold.

“I would rather not,” she answered, watching him and smiling.

“But you feel the exhilaration. Otherwise you would not have ordered the lad to let me in.” He walked towards her pulling off his gloves. “How long do we have?”

“An hour, perhaps more.”

“A whole hour to ourselves…”

He threw his gloves aside. They landed beside his hat on a low table.

When she looked up, he stood a foot away.

“So tell me…” His fingers touched beneath her chin. “…how may I prove that we are meant for one another?”

She could not find any air in her lungs to answer as she looked into his eyes. But then it didn’t matter; his lips pressed to hers. It was unlike any other kiss they’d shared – it was not urgent or hurried, or persuasive. It was just a kiss, a touching of lips.

A sigh escaped his mouth when he pulled away as if he’d been longing to kiss her.

Mary leaned around him to put the book down beside his hat and gloves.

He caught hold of her hand when she straightened, and gently pinned her back against the post. “I’ve thought about you all night…” His words caressed her ear sending tremors down her spine, then his lips touched her earlobe and the sensitive skin behind her ear.

Her head tipped back, and she said to the air above them, “So we are back to this.”

His head lifted as he laughed and his hand let hers go. But then both his hands braced her waist gently and he shook her a little. “God, I love you, you have convinced me of it. You’re the only woman who can say no to me. I adore you more because you fight me. But you are tempted none the less. You just do not trust me enough…”

“Enough to do what?” She held his gaze, fighting the urge to believe him. His hands made her feel safe not in danger, but the words I love you were easily said and they’d been spoken with a pitch of frustration and laughter not from any depth of feeling, they did not sound as though they had come from his heart – and he had said in his letter he did not even know what love was…

“To become my wife. I was not talking of physical intimacy, sweetheart. I am speaking of marriage.”

“What would it be like to be your wife?” She had never looked into his eyes in the daylight this close, the hazel had now turned to the depth of light shining through amber. She looked beyond the colour trying to see into his soul.

He looked back at her with as many questions as she wished to ask. But she could not see any artifice.

Did he feel for her?

Put us together Mary, darling, make us one, a single being. I want you. I cannot say I love you, not yet, I do not even know what on earth love is, but I do know that I cannot sleep for thinking of you, or avoid dreaming of you.

Were the words true?

“I hope we would be happy. I want to make you happy. We will buy our own estate and make it a home. It needn’t be large. It will take time to become profitable, but I will make it so.”

I think of you and I lose my breath, I see you and my heart begins to pound, I hear you and my spirit wants to sing. I am yours, Mary. Be mine.

“And children?” She longed for her own life and her own family.

His smile dropped, and his gaze turned inward, no longer looking at her but lost in thought.

Didn’t that prove his earlier words true though, if he could not hide when he needed to stop and think to answer?

She touched his cheek. For the first time believing she saw something real in him, a hidden reality. This was not the Lord Framlington of dangerous rakehell fame. This was Drew, the man who had written those impassioned words.

His gaze came back to her. “I have never thought of children.” He spoke in a solemn voice, as if the thought shocked him.

She pressed her palm to his shaven cheek. He was a man, human, as vulnerable as any other, no matter his reputation.

“But I would like them, with you…” His tone said, only, with you.

Mary lifted to her toes and kissed him, touching her lips to his – as he’d kissed her.

His grip at her waist firmed. “We will have a dozen children.” A broad smile parted his lips and his eyes shone with a new light. “You must teach me how to be a father, as you’ll need to teach me how to love you. I am no good at this.”

He was good. He just didn’t know it. But she could teach him.

“Are you tempted?”

“To marry you?”

He shook his head the smile playing on his lips. “Stop doubting me. I am not speaking of a physical relationship. Of course to become my wife.”

“Yes.” The word slipped out before she had chance to consider it. Her heart said it. It was the truth, but she defined it. “I am tempted.”

His lips pressed to hers in a strong kiss.

When he broke it, he whispered to her mouth, his nose rubbing hers, “I love you. I really think I do.”

And I love you
. She did not say it. She did not dare. Her head did not trust him enough. Not yet. But her heart…

He picked her up. She grasped his shoulders as he swung her into his arms, one about her shoulders and another beneath her knees.

“You are perfect for me, Mary.”

She laughed unable to prevent the sound, as he smiled broadly.

His eyes gleamed gold and then shone amber, changing in the changing light, as he carried her into the summerhouse, and then dropped her on the soft cushions of a sofa.

Smiling like a fool she sat up and spun around.

She did love him, she adored him, but her head was still too afraid to let him join her upon the sofa.

His smile tilted, but undaunted he dropped to one knee. “Mary…” He took her hands from her lap, gripping them gently. “Marry me.”

Her stomach performed a somersault.

She took one hand from his, and pressed a palm to his cheek.

His eyes were so earnest, she believed him. He wanted her, not just for money. He bore affection for her, whether it was love or not, he cared for her.

But her family? “I cannot answer yet. I’m sorry. I need to think.”

His eyes turned darker. “But there is hope. I have hope you will say, yes?”

“You have hope.” Mary bit her lip, afraid of what she’d said, of what she wanted to say. She loved him – her body pulled her towards him.

His fingers lifted and gripped her nape, then they urged her mouth to his, as he remained on one knee, a supplicant before her.

This time his kiss seared her, like a fire, as his mouth opened and caressed hers with hunger and thirst. The same hunger and thirst ran in her blood.

When he drew away, his eyes looked into hers. “Let me touch you. Let me love you. I will not take your virginity I swear that I will leave you choice, but let me show you how it can be between us. You are right marriage is more than a physical thing, but this is what I know, let me give you this and show you…”

She could not answer with words, her head wished to refuse – yet her heart…Agreement spiralled in her stomach, coiling to the point he’d touched between her legs that first night, and her fingers slid into his hair, pulling his lips back to hers.

This kiss was hard and ruthless, pressing against her mouth, as he rose from the floor, leaning her backward.

His warm hand gripped beneath her knee, lifting, encouraging her to move her legs on to the sofa so she lay down. Then the weight of his knee dipped the cushion beside her, a moment before his other knee settled on her dress between her thighs. She was trapped beneath his masculinity, smothered.

She didn’t care. His weight on top of her was beautiful – dangerous and arousing. His tongue came into her mouth, invading and caressing, and the heat of his palm slid upward from her waist.

What if my parents return?

He stole the thought away as his palm covered and caressed her breast.

Her nipple hardened and a sharp pain ran from it into her breast.

The thrill of that night beside the terrace, in the darkness, with people talking nearby span through her memory. There was no darkness to hide them now, everything shone clear and visible.

He broke the kiss and knelt up. She sucked in a breath as he took off his morning coat and threw it on to a chair across the room. Then he moved his legs either side of hers, and began sliding up her dress watching her face as if he feared she might stop him.

Her heartbeat thundered. She should stop him – but she wanted to know…

She pressed her heels into the cushion so the material could slide up easily, her gaze clinging to his as if he was a cliff and she might fall.

When her hem slipped over knees he stopped, and the air trembled in her lungs as he came back down on top of her.

Just the weight and feel of his hard muscular body was a caress, it made the place between her legs throb with moisture.

One of his hands pressed on the cushion holding some of his weight, the other settled over her breast.

Her fingers shook as she swept back the hair from his brow, looking into his brown eyes, there were so many different shades within them.

People were not all one shade, one thing; they were a myriad of elements. He could not only be bad, there was good too. She longed to unravel the good in him and prove to her parents it was there.

A firm column within his trousers pressed against her hip.

Need coiled through her abdomen again.

Like this, she could imagine how it would be to lie with a man, with him. Her mother had told her very little, but Mary knew what happened. He mother had said not to listen to anything she might overhear implying it was unpleasant; it was not unpleasant if you loved the man you married.

She loved Drew, and it did not feel at all unpleasant to be beneath him, letting him touch her.

He kissed her again, urging her to reciprocate as his tongue pressed through her lips.

She did, her fingers clasping in his hair as their tongues played a breathless weaving and dancing game, and her hips pressed upward against his.

His fingers undid the couple of buttons securing her bodice free, then his hand was within, beneath her chemise clasping the flesh of her breast.

She wanted to feel him.

Her fingers left his hair reaching between them running over his waistcoat, searching for buttons, she found them and fought to free them.

A sound rumbled in the back of his throat, and his hand gripped her breast more firmly, but his body lifted a little to let her slip his buttons loose.

When his waistcoat opened her fingers slid beneath, brushing over his cotton shirt and the architecture of his muscle beneath it.

She arched against him as her hands moved to his back beneath his waistcoat, she wanted the release he’d let her experience in the dark.

His kiss left her lips. She shut her eyes, shut out embarrassment, as his lips touched her chin then travelled down her neck, nipping and biting gently.

“You’re beautiful, Mary, within and without. I do love you.”

I love you too.

Her fingers slid down his back and pulled his shirt from his trousers, as his lips touched her breast.

A summer breeze swept in through the open doors, caressing the naked skin he’d revealed.

He said nothing as she pulled his shirt loose and touched his silky skin, and the firm muscle beneath it. With her eyes closed she hid in the darkness as they’d done in the garden.

He sucked her nipple with a sharp tug, and the pain of desire struck like a dagger between her legs. She wanted him there. To know how it felt.

Another moan left her lips as instinctively she arched again, pressing her breast towards his mouth.

Then the warmth of his mouth was gone.

She opened her eyes, sensing him looking at her. The brown amber had become dark, his onyx pupils wide. “Let me touch you fully.” His voice flowed over gravel.

She didn’t understand at first, but then his hand slid from her breast to her dress clutching the fabric.

“Will you allow it?” he breathed.

Her eyes held his gaze.

“Yes,” again the word fell from her lips without thought. But it was what she wanted, desperately wanted.

He held her gaze, and drew her dress higher, his fingers brushing the smooth inner surface of her knee.

A shiver raked her body.

A smile lifted his closed lips, but he did not look away.

She wished to hide behind closed eyelids but she could not while he watched, it seemed cowardly. His fingers slipped beneath the hem of her drawers, playing across her inner thigh.

Her lips fell open. She wanted to weep, whimper and cry out with pleasure all at once.

Then with a single movement his fingers swept up and touched her there, between her legs, pressing against her flesh for a moment.

She bit her lip holding onto his gaze, imprisoned by it, as her fingers gripped the skin at his sides above his hips.

“You’re wet for me, darling.” His fingers slid forwards and back, as they had in the dark over her dress only now he touched her flesh, slipping through the slit in her drawers.

She could not breathe; a part of her could not believe she was letting this happen, another part wished for so much more. She wanted him to stop and she wanted him to continue.

If my parents find us like this?