by Amy Sandas
It had been the way of it with his parents just as it was with so many others. There might have been true love and happiness between his parents at first, but it had only taken a few years before they were both seeking other people’s beds. Eventually, they no longer even tried to hide it as they traded bed partners frequently amongst their social set.
No loyalty. No constancy.
It was the way of things. And Roman had sworn long ago that he would never deceive a woman into thinking love was even a remote possibility. Lust, of course. Temporary and fleeting. But love—the lasting kind—was an illusion.
A soft sound drew Roman from his thoughts. When silence followed, he stiffened, unsure if he’d actually heard anything.
Then it came again.
A very soft rapping at his bedroom door.
The scowl over his brows deepened. He had hoped the baroness would have gotten the hint when he didn’t come to her room.
Frustrated at having his night intruded upon by an unwanted guest, he strode silent and barefoot across the plush carpet to the door, opening it swiftly with words of dismissal already on his tongue.
But it was not the baroness standing furtively in the dimly lit hallway.
Roman’s entire body tensed with aching need and corresponding resistance. His torture was not over yet.
***
The marquess stood in the doorway wearing nothing but his breeches.
The flickering light of the fireplace danced over his near nakedness with intriguing shadows, making it impossible for Haylie not to send her curious gaze over every masculine line. His shoulders were wonderfully broad and sturdy while his arms were defined by thick, sinewy muscles and his abdomen rippled with more.
Her blood thrummed wildly through her veins.
She was insane for coming here.
But she hadn’t been able to stay away.
After the marquess left the party, Haylie hadn’t been able to get him out of her thoughts. And when Westcott had taken her aside to speak with her privately, she’d realized something a little shocking and totally unexpected.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the marquess growled fiercely as he scanned the hallway behind her.
Haylie blinked, then glanced over her shoulder to ensure the hallway was still empty. A dance was one thing. A brief conversation in a crowded drawing room was mostly harmless. But if anyone saw her standing in the doorway to the bedroom of the notorious rake, she would be ruined for sure.
“I need to speak with you.”
“No.” He started to close the door, the muscles in his arm flexing as he did so.
Haylie placed her palm against the smooth wood, exerting enough pressure to give him pause. His look was ferocious as he glared back at her. But she wasn’t intimidated. If anything, she was made more determined. And excited in a way she’d never been before.
She’d been so desperate for attention from her peers—just some acknowledgement that she existed. That she mattered.
But the marquess had seen her—really seen her—from that very first moment in the study. And in his way, he’d championed her.
Walking with Westcott, observing all the curious glances and interested smiles as they passed, Halie had realized she didn’t need any of it. What she needed was someone who saw her despite her lack of popularity. Someone who spoke to her as a real person.
The marquess had done that. And he’d inspired a seed of confidence inside her, and it had grown until she now understood how wrong she’d been to crave attention from the same people who had treated her badly. She deserved better than fickle interest and the courtship of a man who hadn’t had the courage to go against society’s perception.
She wanted a man who encouraged her and made her feel worthy of so much more.
She couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing the marquess again without telling him how she felt.
“Please, my lord,” she urged quietly. “Just a word.” Then a terrible thought occurred to her and a sick feeling twisted in her stomach. “Unless, you are not alone,” she muttered with burning cheeks as she glanced past him into the shadows around his bed.
The sound he made was harsh. “I’m alone.”
Haylie met his eyes again in relief. She didn’t want to think about how it felt to imagine a woman waiting in his bed. “Please.”
He paused. His body tense. “Get in here before someone sees you. But make it quick.”
She took two steps into his darkened room and he swiftly closed the door behind her, sealing them together in his lair with a near silent click of the latch. Then he walked away, striding angrily to the fireplace.
Haylie breathed deep. Her evening dress and the corset beneath suddenly felt far too tight. She couldn’t seem to move away from the door, her feet frozen in place by the weight of what she was feeling. If she moved toward him, she feared everything would just come tumbling out of her and that was not how she wanted this to go.
“Why did you leave the party so early?” she asked finally.
He glanced over his shoulder, his expression menacing in the flickering firelight. “There was no reason to stay.”
When she didn’t say anything else for a moment, he turned back to face her. With the fire behind him, his face was cast into shadow. “How was your walk about the drawing room with your Westcott?”
The tone in his voice made her belly tighten. Could it be jealousy she detected? “Lovely,” she replied. “He asked to call on me when we return to London. But...”
He walked toward her. Slowly. His sheer masculine virility made Haylie’s mouth water while the predatory nature of his movements ignited a strange breathless thrill inside her.
“What’s the matter, pet?” he asked. “Westcott not the paragon of perfection you’d believed him to be?”
Haylie held still as he came to a stop right in front of her. She was starting to see his derision for what it was—a way to keep people at a distance. It didn’t work on her.
“It seems you were right to warn me,” she whispered. “You ruined me after all.”
He scowled and his body tensed; the muscles of his arms and torso stood out in stark definition. “What do you mean? Did Westcott do something inappropriate?” The ferocity in his tone suggested he would hunt down the lord himself if that were the case.
She quickly shook her head; the heavy yearning in her belly pushed up through her chest, forming a lump in her throat. “No. Nothing like that. It’s just...the whole time I was with him I kept wishing I was with you.”
Everything went silent except for the fierce beating of her heart. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke in a rough voice. “Why did you come here?”
Breathless, she couldn’t answer. The truth was too much to acknowledge.
He took a step closer, his shoulders completely blocking the firelight behind him. His scent—musky and rich—settled around her. His heat made her skin tingle and ache for the touch of his hand, his body. His lips.
“There is nothing a good girl like you could possibly want from a man like me,” he murmured thickly. “Not during the daylight hours and certainly not on a night like this.”
Tipping her head back to meet his gaze boldly, she gathered her newfound confidence and replied, “Maybe I’m not such a good girl after all.”
Bracing his hand on the door, he leaned toward her, his dark visage coming to within a couple bare inches from hers. His gaze—hot and intense—slid over her features, resting a moment on her slightly parted lips before traveling down the length of her throat to the upper swells of her breasts. “Is that so?”
Everything inside Haylie tightened at the hunger she sensed in him. Heat flooded through her blood and gathered between her legs.
With a light touch, he settled his hand on the curve of her shoulder. His thumb brushed softly over the crest of her collarbone, sending chills of a delicious nature across her exposed skin. Then he slowly slid his hand up the column of her throat until he
r chin rested in the cradle of his hand between his thumb and forefinger. His fingertip settled over the pulse below her ear while this thumb gently caressed the edge of her jaw.
Only then did he lift his eyes again to meet hers. His expression was hard, but his eyes were hot. So dark and deep and intent upon her.
Haylie gasped. It was a soft, catching sound that she tried to hold back, not wanting him to think she was frightened.
She was. But not in the way he’d think.
The fear was a lovely thing. A moment of intense anticipation that came before something new and thrilling, when you still weren’t sure what to expect though you wanted it with everything in your being.
With only the slightest pressure of his fingers, he turned her head to the side.
“You want to be wicked?” he asked in a rough murmur.
All she could manage was a tiny nod.
“We’ll see about that.”
Haylie was entirely at his mercy. In coming to his room tonight, deep down she’d known what she wanted.
This. This moment of surrender as she placed herself in his hands and under his direction.
Slowly—so slowly it wasn’t clear if his intention was to give her time to push him away or if he wanted her to feel every bit of the growing anticipation in her belly—he lowered his head to press his lips to her skin.
The first touch was a shock to her system. The warmth and softness of his mouth on the curve where her neck met her shoulder was more powerful than she expected. Her head dropped back against the door and her eyes fell closed.
This.
Nothing else mattered but this moment with this man. Somehow, he made her feel like she was more than what others saw, more than what even she believed herself to be. She wanted to be everything to him.
She wanted everything from him.
Seeming to know what her body craved even before she did, the marquess stepped closer. His hips pressed to her belly and his chest brushed against her sensitive breasts. The hand he’d been bracing on the wall grasped firmly at her waist while his other hand cradled the side of her head.
He slid his lips up the side of her throat and tingling chills chased after each other over her skin. Reaching a delicate spot below her ear, he teased with fiery licks of his tongue that made Haylie’s knees go weak as her belly erupted with fluttering sensations.
Bringing her hands up from where they had been locked at her sides, she pressed them to his ribs. The feel of his heated skin, the muscle beneath, and the steady movement of his labored breath stirred something wonderful inside her. She wanted to feel more of him.
Sliding her palms around to his back, she explored the smooth, hard surface with curious fingers.
His body tensed beneath her touch and a low growl issued from his throat. With a tip of his chin, he caught her earlobe between his teeth in a gentle bite before he muttered roughly into her ear. “You have no idea how wicked I can be.”
“I’m not scared,” Haylie gasped. When she would have turned her head toward him, he stopped her, his fingers curling into her hair to keep her head turned away from him.
“You should be.”
The hand he’d wrapped around her waist moved up to smooth over the full curve of her breast. He gave a firm squeeze of her weighted flesh before curling his fingers around the top edge of her bodice. With a slow tug, her drew the neckline down her shoulder and lower until it barely caught on the peak of her nipple, threatening to expose her to his gaze.
Haylie breathed deep.
Waiting.
Wanting.
With her eyes tightly closed, she could feel the warmth of his breath bathing the upper rise of her breasts and she wondered what it would feel like to have that heat caressing her hardened nipple. And then as soon as she thought it, it was all she could think of.
A soft sound of longing caught in her throat.
“You make this too fucking hard,” he growled before he pulled her bodice down the last inch to free her breast. His mouth immediately closed over the aching peak, enveloping it in wet heat as his tongue swirled decadently over her pebbled nipple.
Haylie moaned. Her body became infused with the most wonderful sensations. She was melting. She was aching. She was desperate.
He drew her flesh into his mouth. He caressed and teased with his tongue. He seemed as hungry for her as she was for him. And then he released her, lifting his head abruptly as he released his hold in her hair, allowing her to look up at him. His gaze was tormented. “What do you want from me?”
Haylie licked her dry lips and tried to still the racing of her heart. Her thoughts were a muddled mess. “I don’t know.”
With a growl that rumbled through her, he suddenly grasped her skirts in his fist and shoved them up to her waist. A second later his hand was there, hot and firm, as it wrapped around the inside of her upper thigh, inches from where her body had grown slick and swollen in want.
She gasped and held her breath. Her spine stiffened against the door, her eyes grew wide as she looked up into his handsome face, heavy with forbidding anger and torturous desire.
“You want this?” he asked, his voice cruel and hard as his fingers gripped her thigh more firmly. “You want me to part your legs right here and make you mine?”
Haylie was stunned by the anger in his tone, but she was more stunned by the fact that his words didn’t frighten her. They thrilled her and enlightened her.
Because that was exactly what she wanted.
She wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to take him in her arms and bring him close and taste his lips.
But not in anger. Not with rage and distrust warring in his gaze.
His hand on her bare skin softened for a moment when she didn’t answer. His fingertips lightly caressed as his head lowered toward her. Shivers coursed through her and her belly twisted with a delicious yearning.
Then he took a swift step back. His body rigid.
Her skirts dropped over her legs in a swoosh and her hands, which had been pressed to his back, fell to her sides.
Haylie sucked in a breath, wishing she could say something to explain to him what she felt, what she truly wanted. But he spoke first.
“Get out.” The two words were cold. “Right yourself and get the hell out of my room.”
Haylie stared at him, not comprehending at first.
His fiery gaze flickered over her face, then dropped to her exposed breast before he grimaced as if in pain. “Get. Out,” he said again, his tone menacing.
She breathed deep to contain the heavy emotion rising through her chest, pressing on her heart and burning in her eyes. Then she lifted a shaky hand to tug her bodice back in place before she turned to open the door.
She could feel him behind her, intense and focused on her, but not saying another word as she slipped into the silent, empty hall. As the door clicked shut again between them, a tight sob escaped her throat.
Haylie pressed her fist to her lips and fled.
Chapter Eight
Roman stood in the London ballroom wondering why the hell he was there.
After Allerton’s wedding, Melbourne and Vittori had charged headlong into a week of pure debauchery, as if they both wanted to prove how far removed their lives were from that of their lost comrade.
Roman had gone along for the most part, desperate for a distraction. But it didn’t work. Because every night after his friends found their way into a drunken stupor or a new lover’s bed, Roman went home alone to sit in the dark.
His thoughts always found focus on the one thing he wished to forget—the stunning revelation of how it felt to have Haylie Dellacourt in his arms, beneath his hands, and against his tongue.
He couldn’t get it out of his head. Every detail haunted him. The tight little sounds she made, the breathy sighs, the plump ripeness of her nipple rolling against his tongue, her wide, wanting, trustful eyes, and the creamy softness of her inner thigh.
He could never taste her agai
n. Never again touch her bare skin.
He would destroy her.
The worst was that part of him wanted to. If he ruined her for all others, then she would belong only to him.
It was a selfish desire and the very reason his only choice had been to chase her off.
Tonight was proving to be no better than the others at keeping Roman from his dark musings. He doubted he’d make it much longer than an hour before he retreated to the solemn atmosphere of his townhouse.
“Granville,” the Duke of Melbourne said with a tilted grin as he peered into the crush of guests past Roman’s shoulder, “I do believe your little wren from Northamptonshire has followed you all the way to London.”
Roman’s stomach twisted into a knot and blood rushed to groin. There was only one person the duke could be referencing.
Haylie was here.
“I still don’t understand why you got mixed up with the little innocent in the first place,” Vittori drawled. “A bit dangerous, even for you, Granville.”
The count’s caustic tone and the sudden tension rolling through him had Roman biting off a sharp denial. “Innocents are not worth the effort. I’ve yet to encounter an exception.”
A movement at the corner of his eye caused him to glance aside in time to catch Haylie’s expression in the very moment his words hit home. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t intended to hear it, the barb was a direct hit.
Pain and embarrassment flooded her gaze and a blush colored her soft cheeks. She cast a furtive glance toward Roman’s two companions, who had both gone intensely silent, before turning her focus back on Roman. Before he could think of a single thing to say, she lifted her chin and turned to Vittori with a flash of fire in her eyes.
“Count Vittori,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “I believe we have this dance.”
Vittori lifted his brows, then sent a supremely amused glance toward Roman before he stepped forward with a gallant bow. “We do indeed, carina. Shall we?”
Roman watched in rising fury as she took Vittori’s arm and allowed him to lead her out onto the floor.