“Yes…Harris.” This time, not only her head snapped up, but her spine straightened, her chin notched higher. She thanked the fact she wore a dress that gave nothing of her away, affording a sense of safety.
“Don’t you have any presentable clothes?” he asked, as if on cue.
A false sense of safety, by the way. Because safe and Darroch were two terms that would never go together. The look he dealt her, sliding those dark eyes over her whole person, contained danger laced with a veritable threat of the delights he could unleash on her.
“These are presentable enough.” She would not allow him to walk all over her. With this unforgiving man, she needed to stand her ground. Or die trying.
“You’ll pardon me if I don’t agree.” He must have tried to tame his ebony strands, which reached two inches below his collar, but they rebelled and fell forward. She imagined herself touching the wavy locks to her heart’s content.
“You have no idea how your opinion shatters my heart.” Edwina hoped her tone came amused. It must have for it elicited a ticking square jaw from him.
Their glares clashed as they sat, each at one end of the table. Harris’s impeccable attire did nothing to hide his powerful masculinity. It came out through every pore and attacked her with inexorable force.
“I’ll call Madame Delamere tomorrow for a complete wardrobe.” The command brooked no argument, but she didn’t care.
“I don’t need new clothes,” she insisted, aware that the despotic man would do as he pleased anyway.
“Consider them a gift.”
She bristled at his demand. Her lips pressed together so as not to pronounce an imprecation. Accepting gifts from a man would make her feel even more of a fallen woman. It drove further home the exact nature of her presence in his townhouse. As it were, she struggled with the situation enough not to make it worse.
“I want none of it,” she answered doggedly. “I’m here to fulfil a deal, nothing more.”
“By doing my bidding.” And finally, they struck the crux of the issue. The rules of this game were clear, and he dictated them. Her duty consisted of abiding by them.
Her entire frame tensed to contain the hot wave of vexation that threatened to choke her. Brown eyes cast fire at him. That thin, sensuous mouth of his stretched in a smug smile, recognising her retreat.
Her strategic retreat as she preferred to name it. She had barely arrived; it paid to use tact.
Dinner over, she stood up, the little food she succeeded in keeping down roiling in her stomach. The hour of her ruination approached. Her nerves strained, her knees wobbled, and she locked them to remain standing.
Out in the hallway, she didn’t wait for him. All she thought about was to take refuge in her chambers until the inevitable knock on her door.
But Harris had approached her and blocked her progress. She halted, eyes wide on him, unable to hide her nervousness.
Harris moved, his spectacular frame filling her view. He stopped mere inches from her. That was when she registered his scent, pine laced with another undefinable essence that called to her like nothing she had ever experienced in her life.
Her head tilted back, heart pounding, breath broken. Fear and giddiness swirling inside in a clash of resistance and surrender. In that moment, she realised that her body strained to feel his touch as her mind wished to refuse him, to repel this churning he caused in her. She thanked the memory of her mother heartily for keeping her away from him those years ago. Green and naïve, she would have followed him to the confines of earth just for a look from his dark, piercing eyes.
Dark and piercing as they were now, in the dim light, forcing her to recognise her desires, forcing her to confront the wantonness the priests took so much pain to eliminate. To no avail, apparently. This close, she saw the bristles on his jaw. She might lift her hand and test the smoothness of his ebony hair, bring her nose to his skin and inhale his essence.
One of his large hands stretched. The moment loomed, he loomed, and she imagined that capable arm holding her, staying her incessant heart, pacifying the unknown feelings storming inside her. But he merely took her hand, gloveless as it had been at an informal dinner. Her fingers touched a callused, rough palm. The sensation cut through her inclement, a siren’s call for her to drown in its warm temptation.
Her stare clasped to his from the minute he neared her. He held it with hypnotising ease while he lifted her limp hand. She watched as he lowered his head to meet it and his lips connected with the back of her fingers.
The sight of that sinful mouth on her skin nearly transformed her into a swooning ninny. Heat spread in concentric circles until the touch reached the centre of her. Her lungs absorbed air in a quest for survival. But arrested it in them as his ebony head filled her eyes.
The expected kiss never came. Instead, his mouth feathered to one side giving her the chance to sense the bristles. Feathered to the other side, the velvet of his lips in direct contrast with the scratchiness of the stubble.
That air stuck in her released in what she could only call a sigh. The sound brought his attention back to her. The urge to have that mouth caress more of her skin almost threw caution out of the window. It was a practised seduction she knew it, but there was no helping its effect on her. With only this small gesture, he got her pliant enough to carry her upstairs and demand his part of the deal.
The thought froze her. How was it possible to fall prey to this man with so little? She’d have to go to confession and admit that hours and hours of sermons resulted in nothing. That repression only served to make the accumulated urges that much more undisciplined.
Her feet gave a step back as she feebly retrieved her traitorous hand. Undoubtedly, by the time he came to her, she would comply with anything and everything he demanded. She had no idea of what those demands were, and she imagined she would not care.
Harris straightened to his full height, his gaze never leaving hers. “Tonight, you settle in.” The rasp of his voice enhanced her heightened senses. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Goodnight.” With a curt bow, he turned in the study’s direction as the butler had shown her upon her arrival.
Her gaze followed as he prowled away, conflicting tides crashing innerly. One was clearly relief that her fears would not materialise so soon. But the other labelled pitifully as disappointment that he would not fulfil the promise his lips engendered so insidiously.
Harris splashed whisky in a tumbler and flopped on the chair behind his study desk. His body rattled with a hunger the likes of which he’d never seen.
He’d sat at dinner doing his best to appear unaffected when his guts had clamoured for a taste of Edwina. But the moment she lifted those wide eyes to him, he saw fear and apprehension at what he might do to her. That plunged him into doubt. She made him feel like a scoundrel, and he wondered if he shouldn’t call the whole deal off, forget the debt, send her back to her house and stick to the doves at Madame Lafond’s.
But then she rejected his offer of a wardrobe and mentioned their deal in a business-like manner only a weathered City banker would do. That left him livid with the coldness with which she imprinted in it. He didn’t want her coldness; he wanted her sprawled in his bed, begging for him to do to her whatever he wished.
In the hallway, she skinned him raw again. He couldn’t help touching her. The innocent contact transformed into a thunderstorm. He had intended to act like the gentlemen she was used to. Instead, he became as voracious as a wolf.
In short, the woman cast him in a veritable typhoon, skidding upside down at alarming speed. Ask him if he cared. Nope. He hadn’t been this alive in years. If ever.
Her apprehension made him realise he’d have to hold back because his appetite may very well scare her. It would kill him to slow down, but he’d strive to do it. Go slow when he had spent his day in the office imagining—planning—what he’d do to her at night. Damn it all to hell! He wasn’t about to act like a savage even
though he felt like one.
He tossed the amber liquid, resigning himself to a long night of bookkeeping.
CHAPTER THREE
Madame Delamere arrived soon after breakfast the next day armed with fabrics, plates, accessories and whatnot. Harris hadn’t left yet and joined them in the exquisitely furnished drawing room. Edwina had hoped to have a little talk with the modiste and send her on her way without even allowing her to take measurements.
It’d seemed like the cad read her mind because he entered the room with a knowing glint in his dark eyes.
Madame eyed him with her brows pleated. “My lord, I need to take measurements of mademoiselle. Would you please wait outside?”
Harris lifted his brows as his gaze found Edwina, her face flushed in a beetroot hue. “Call me when you’re finished.”
Why the darn did he want to be present? Enduring his presence was a chore on so many levels. He smashed her emotions, cast them in every direction until she became lost and hollow.
Aware that he was the source of the fat income madame would receive, obediently she called him when Edwina had finished dressing.
Immediately, he neared the escritoire where the plates lay and examined them. He riffled through them as a true connoisseur, his practised hands setting several of them apart. “These are the ones I want you to make,” he said to the modiste.
With a glance, Edwina saw they were all dresses boasting scandalous décolletages. Not even for her family would she wear those. “I’m afraid—” she started.
“And nightgowns, undergarments and everything else,” he ordered, uncaring that he interrupted her.
The blackguard!
The glare she sent him was furious enough to fulminate him on the spot. But he returned a victorious one to her.
Madame informed that it would take a few days for such a large order to be ready, which would give Edwina time to go around the matter. Sensing the tension in the room, madame gathered her things and refused tea before taking her leave.
Edwina turned to follow suit. “Where do you think you’re going?” his raspy voice asked.
Her neck craned to see him sprawled on an armchair. “Work.”
“Not so soon,” he instructed.
“Don’t you have to go to your warehouse?” Not so discreet a hint that his company wasn’t in demand.
The cad didn’t deign to answer to that. “Come here.”
Harris dwarfed the dainty armchair with his powerful frame clad in only breeches and neckcloth-less shirt. The lawn fabric gaped at the neck, hinting at a broad chest peppered with dark whorls.
Edwina’s lower belly flipped. But she made a show of inching her chin up and looking at him down her nose. “Why?”
“Hell, woman! Do you have to question everything I say?” His brows crumpled, and his eyes narrowed.
She crossed her arms in defiance. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
Silence fell in the room, leaving her only with the sight of that sculpted body and the waves of sensation that would not abate.
Her stare delved in his, and the dark irises mesmerised her. Her eyes rambled from the dishevelled ebony locks, down the strong forehead, sliding over the blade nose to detain on his mouth and trace every inch. From the rugged jaw, her gaze explored the thick neck and perused the top of his chest until it hid under the shirt. His forearms lay on the armrest, giving her the view of flat abs and spread thighs. At their apex, something bulged bigger than usual. Her gaze snapped up to him.
“Continue looking at me like this and it’ll get worse.” His voice sounded coarser than normal too.
“I—”
“I told you to come here, goddammit!”
This time, she didn’t question his demand; her feet blindly obeying him. But her courage reached only up to three feet from the armchair. His upper body bent forward, his hand snatched hers and pulled her to stand between his legs. Her breath hitched at the contact and the heat of him.
“Touch me,” he commanded.
“Excuse me?” she blurted because words fled her mind with his proximity.
“I’ve caught you looking at my hair quite often. Do you like it?” His height afforded him the possibility of almost not needing to crane his neck to talk to her.
If she liked it? She’d sit and stare at it the whole day if she had the chance. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Then touch it.”
Hesitantly, her right hand lifted from her side. It raised ever so slowly to the wavy locks. With all the care in the world, her fingers lowered to the merest surface, the wisps tickling her skin. The morning light shining bluish on it called to her. She mustered courage enough to delve her fingers in the glossy mane.
She had found paradise. Silky and smooth, the mane slid through her knuckles, covering them in pure delight. She combed it back from his forehead and heard him suck in air. Her eyes lowered to find his fixed on hers unblinkingly. She repeated the combing movement, this time advancing to the back of his head. His gaze ceased contact for his lashes lowered as he exhaled. Unbidden, her left hand mimicked its twin, and now both combed the coal silk.
The urge to lower her torso and join lips with him was so intense it scared her. She brought her hands back to her sides.
Lazily, his eyes opened to capture hers anew. “Don’t stop,” he rasped.
She didn’t wish to stop in any case, so she obeyed. Again. Her right hand flitted back to the ebony paradise, her fingers revelling in its feel. His lashes went back down.
The rest of him screamed to be stroked, so she became bolder. Her right palm slid to his forehead, the thumb tracing the straight brow, tidying the little smooth hairs repeatedly. The scent of him, soap, pine wood and Harris surrounded her in a cloud of temptation. She imagined forgetting about her hand and grazing her nose on his neck to breathe in deeply on his essence. Her distraction caused her hand to slide lower, the bristles of his stubble teasing the skin. The palm lined the cut-glass jaw, and her thumb impulsively landed on his lower lip. His lashes snapped open as she registered the air rushing into his nostrils. But her thumb didn’t heed her warning and continued its disastrous trip. It traced every inch of that atrocious lip, back and forth, then back again. Suddenly, he sucked the poor victim into his mouth, enveloping it in hot moisture. She gasped with the avalanche of sensation the simple act provoked in her. And she nearly swooned with pleasure when his tongue came into play to toy with the phalange. Every inch of her body flushed, a sagging struggling to dominate her body. Unable to divert her attention, she witnessed her disappeared phalange being sucked countless times.
She needed to be strong, to break this spell he cast on her. How on earth did he do it? Hold her captive and willing and pliant in a question of minutes.
With a huge strength of will, she gave two steps back, standing at the initial three feet from him. His attention followed her and took in every inch of her attire. Today, she had dressed in a dark green woollen dress as modest as the others. His perusal registered her brown hair coiled in a tight bun, the high-necked cut of the bodice, lowering to where the fabric swelled to contain her breasts. Philippa used to tease her that those swells would grant her an advantageous marriage someday. Edwina would have laughed out loud now were it not for the increased temperature scouring the whole of her skin. The way those dark eyes detained on her bosom was as shocking as a real touch.
“I cannot do this,” she blurted impulsively.
This man would not only transform her into a mistress at his beck and call; he would also transform her into a slave. Not to him, not only to him. She’d become a slave of her own senses. He would crumble down everything she believed in, everything she deemed right and fair. He would turn her world upside down and convince her it should be this way. What would be of her after he had swept out of her life? His stormy passage through it would leave a wreckage of unfathomable proportions. She didn’t need to be intelligent to realise that. A simple touch of his hand
nearly addicted her. Her own fingers on a mere fraction of his body almost made her fall at his feet, begging to show her more. Had he the chance to go through with the entire thing, she’d not be simply ruined in society’s view; she’d be ruined for everything else, possibly everyone else.
The eyebrow she had just smoothed lifted quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“This arrangement, I cannot go through with it.” Her stomach roiled at her cowardice.
Never had she imagined that she would go back on her word, especially when it presented her with the sole chance to put her life to rights. Hers and Philippa’s. But what loomed ahead seemed too daunting, too unpredictable to face. It couldn’t be cowardice when it meant self-preservation. Or could it? At this point, she didn’t care.
“Well, you should have thought of that before we did the paperwork yesterday.” His tone came silkily, but the metallic clink of it told of irreducible intent.
True, before dinner, they had gone through papers. In them, the pardoning of the debt and a contract describing their agreement listed, and they signed them in his solicitor’s presence. Which meant she was obliged to fulfil her side of the arrangement.
“W-we can call it off, I suppose.” Never had self-preservation felt so much like cowardice. And she loathed herself for even mentioning it.
“We can, but we won’t,” he rebutted without a shred of compunction.
It became clear why his company succeeded so sonorously; he played hard, in business and elsewhere. He wouldn’t back down when all the odds were in his favour.
Edwina felt cornered like a rabbit hunted by a hungry wolf in the middle of winter. She stood not a chance. In her mind’s eye, she saw him practically bare his canines and snarl at the thrill of the chase. And why the image of him sinking his fangs on her caused not a hint of fear but a whole avalanche of giddiness, she had no idea. And preferred not to pursue the subject.
Her Wicked LibertineEDIT Page 3