“I know.” She placed her hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat through his shirt, strong and steady. “But I have to try. Ethan deserves the life that his father wanted for him.” Then she paused before admitting, “I can’t do this without you, and I don’t mean the influence of the Spalding title. I mean you, Ross.”
His face softened at her words, even as he warned, “You’ll be exposing Ethan.”
“I’ll keep him safe.” Just as she always had.
“You’ll also be exposing yourself.” He gravely traced his fingertip over her scar to make his point. “Are you ready for that?”
“As long as you’re with me.”
His hand stilled for a moment against her cheek. Only a moment’s hesitation, but she felt it.
Her stomach plummeted with a flash of worry. “Have you changed your mind, now that you know the full truth?”
She’d understand if he had, but dear God, what would she do without him? Not to have his support, not to have his strength to lean upon during the fight to come or his determination and resilience to see her through to the end—unbearable.
Not answering, he asked quietly instead, “Why did you give yourself to me tonight?”
The question pierced her.
“You said before that it would put Ethan at risk.” He searched her face in the shadows. “What changed?”
“When you took so long to return tonight, when I didn’t know if you were safe or captured—” Dead or alive. She pushed the horrible thought from her mind. “I realized then how much you matter to me.”
Needing to touch him, she curled her fingers into the hard muscle of his chest. If only she could lay claim to his heart so easily.
“That’s why I made love to you tonight. It was selfish and risky.” For the first time in a decade she’d put her own needs before her son’s, and the enormity of that made her tremble. “But I couldn’t deny myself the opportunity to finally be that close to you. To take what might be our only chance to have that.”
Ross tensed in surprise. Yet he said nothing as he continued to study her, those blue eyes shining black in the shadows. Each passing beat of silence came as a tortuous thump inside her aching chest, increasing her nervousness until it blossomed into hot embarrassment.
She turned her head away to hide her humiliation. Oh, what a fool she was!
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, blinking furiously to keep back the tears. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
In answer, he took her chin in his hand and lifted her face as his lips came down tenderly onto hers. The gentleness of his kiss stole her breath away.
“Yes, you should have, and I’m damn glad you did.” Taking her hand, he moved back a few feet to sit on the bed. “Because it means you finally trust me.” With a soft tug, he drew her forward between his knees. “As much as I trust you.”
“I do.” She placed her hands on his broad shoulders in order to ground herself as her mind spun, making her light-headed. All of her tingled with the faint stirrings of happiness that were coming to her slowly after so many years of loneliness and distrust.
“But we’re a long way from safe.” Although his words were meant as a warning, his deep voice curled an intensifying heat low in her belly. “Even if I’m exonerated, the scandal will linger. Any influence I had in Parliament is gone now.” His eyes grew bleak. “I might prove more of a hindrance than a help.”
How wrong he was! Just having him with her, giving her his strength and steadfastness, would help her more than he would ever know. A smile tugged at her lips, and her hand slipped down his chest to the buttons of his waistcoat as she kissed him.
“I’ve come to appreciate the value of your hindrances,” she murmured against his lips.
From the way his frown deepened, she knew he wasn’t reassured.
He tilted back his head to gaze up at her as his arms encircled her and gently pulled her closer. The sobriety in his eyes rippled uneasiness through her, and reflexively, her fingers tightened their hold on him.
“What do I call you now?” he puzzled softly, his deep voice contemplative as he searched her features. “You’re not really Grace, but to me, you’re also not Susan.”
She shook her head as she unbuttoned his waistcoat and slipped it from his shoulders. “It doesn’t signify.”
“It does if—”
With a kiss, she silenced him. “It doesn’t signify. I’m the same woman.” Prompting him to raise his arms, she lifted his shirt over his head and off, tossing it away to the floor. She needed to be close to him, to make love to him again. This time, completely as herself. “No matter what you call me.”
He arched a brow. “Truly?”
“Absolutely.” Her hands roamed over the muscular planes of his chest, sifting through the dusting of hair and down over the hard ridges of his abdomen. Sweet heavens, he was magnificent. Every inch of him simply begged to be explored. Would she ever grow tired of looking at him? Of touching him or tasting him? With a wanton smile, she leaned down to place a kiss to the center of his chest, and the tip of her tongue darted out to lick—
“I’ve always liked the name Martha.”
She froze for a beat. Then she stood up straight and smacked him on the shoulder with her palm. “Ross Carlisle, don’t think for one moment that a third name—”
With a rumbling laugh, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down across his lap. His eyes sparkled with wicked amusement right before his mouth covered hers, kissing her so intensely that he drew a moan from her lips. When he looked at her like that, he didn’t see her scar—he saw the woman beneath. One who was strong and confident, unmarred by her past. She thrilled with it.
“It’s my turn to make a confession,” he murmured against her shoulder as he nudged back the neck of her night rail and danced kisses across her collarbone. “About something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
She exhaled a shivering sigh when he licked down into the valley between her breasts, as far as the night rail’s neckline would allow yet still several agonizing inches from her taut nipples that ached to be between his lips. “What?”
“This.” His hands slipped beneath the hem of her night rail and began to explore her body. “There’s something about you in this frumpy old nightgown that drives me mad.”
“Silver-tongued devil,” she panted out teasingly as his low laugh rumbled into her.
With his caresses hidden from her eyes beneath the tent-like yards of cotton, his seeking hands gave her touches that left her yearning for more. Tender and gentle yet persistent, he stroked up the outsides of her bare legs, along the side of her torso, and up to lightly trace over the side swells of her breasts, before deliberately moving back down her body. The undeniable sensation gripped her that he was laying claim to every part of her that he touched.
“You’re special,” he whispered as he continued to caress her. “So very special to me, unlike any other woman I’ve ever known.”
His soft words cascaded over her, spinning her in a whirlwind of emotion until she felt as if she were soaring, as if the only thing keeping her from flying away to heaven were Ross’s arms around her.
“I’m going to make love to you again,” he murmured against her lips.
Make love. He’d never used those words before, and something low in her belly told her that it wasn’t because he wanted to avoid being coarse. She’d never met a man so careful with his choice of words, one who meant exactly what he said.
Despite the sudden knot of nervousness in her belly, she breathed out…Yes.
No sound came from her lips, but his eyes softened, registering his understanding.
In that moment’s silence, she felt the undeniable connection between them again, returning stronger than before. She knew now that she had been wrong. It wasn’t at all like a ribbon stretching between them. So much more powerful than that! Their souls had intertwined, and what she felt for him now inhabited a secret place in her heart that had never
been full before he entered her life.
The shadowy depths of his eyes held her captive, as if he’d cast a spell over her. They never left hers, not when he reached down to take the hem of her night rail to lift it up and off. Not when she trembled at being naked and perched across his thighs. Not even when he shifted beneath her to remove his breeches, leaving him just as bare as she was, his skin warm and soft over steely hard muscles beneath. She couldn’t look away—didn’t want to look away. What she wanted was to drown in those dark depths, to find a way to crawl beneath his skin and become a part of him. The way he’d become a part of her.
She turned to straddle him and slowly reached down between them to take his manhood into her hand. He grew hard and thick against her palm as she stroked his length, teasing her fingertips lightly over his tip and drawing a bead of his essence from the tiny slit.
He squeezed his eyes shut to enjoy her caresses, sliding lower in the chair and tilting up his hips. She whispered his name and traced her thumb slowly over his bottom lip even as her other thumb swirled over the head of his erection, until he twitched in her hand.
He was wrong. He wasn’t going to make love to her. She was going to make love to him, with every ounce of her being.
Holding him still, his tip tickling at her wet folds, she slid forward to sheath his length within her tight warmth. No pain this time, only the delicious comfort of having his hardness filling her. Never did she feel more feminine or more beautiful than when Ross was inside her.
With a soft sigh, she slowly began to rock herself against his hips. There was none of the fierce passion of before, none of the wild need to satiate their physical cravings. This time was slow and tender, so deeply affectionate that tears gathered at her lashes. This…oh, this was simply making love. In every way.
“Grace,” he purred as his mouth slid down her neck and smiled against her wildly beating pulse. “My Grace.”
With a trembling sigh, she wrapped herself around him and closed her eyes. Happiness coursed through her veins.
No—what she felt was far more than mere happiness. It was a feeling of being accepted just as she was, scars and past mistakes included. He knew the truth now about all her secrets, yet he still wanted her. Her love for him deepened every time he whispered the name of the woman she’d become. Grace…his Grace.
With a groan of pleasure, he buried his face in her hair and murmured, so softly that at first she couldn’t understand what he was saying, until she heard—
“I will keep you safe.” Then, in an aching vow for the future they might never have, “Always.”
Her heart skittered, too full of love and joy to beat on as it always had. At that moment, with their bodies entwined and his promise lingering on the dark shadows surrounding them, she realized the truth about the woman she’d become. She was no longer the frightened young girl who had no choice but to flee in order to survive. Now she was strong and formidable, willing to lay claim to what she wanted for her future. And what she wanted…
“Ross,” she whispered as the pleasure engulfed her in a soft shiver. It fanned out from her and into him as he followed after, breath by breath, heartbeat into heartbeat, until it was impossible to tell where she ended and he began.
Her heart—and her life—had changed once more. They would never be the same again.
Chapter 23
Ross came up behind Grace as she sat in front of the dressing table and put the last pins into her hair. In the morning sunlight, she was breathtaking.
He placed a lingering kiss to her nape and murmured hotly against her skin, “Good morning.”
“A very good morning,” she corrected as she snaked her arm up around his neck.
With a smile at her reflection in the mirror, one that looked just as wicked as it felt, he deliberately raked his eyes over her. Her luscious body gave every indication that she was a woman who had been fully satiated in those busy hours since midnight. Lord knew he’d certainly done his damnedest to make her just that.
She ran her fingers through his hair. The suggestive caress sparked all the way down the length of his cock and tingled at his tip.
“If you keep that up,” he warned wolfishly, wanting nothing more at that moment than to strip off her dress and feast on her, “I’ll have you on your back again before you can blink.”
Her wicked smile matched his own. “That would be bad…why, exactly?”
He groaned at the temptation, yet he somehow found the resolve to unwrap her arm and place a chaste kiss to her fingertips before he set her hand away. “Because Kit’s due to arrive at any moment, and I’d rather my brother never learn what you hide beneath that night rail of yours.”
She bit her lip to keep back her amusement as he leaned against the dressing table, facing her. “A bit territorial, are you?”
Folding his arms over his chest, he arched an indignant brow, as if offended. “Absolutely.”
She laughed, the lilting sound musical on the sunlight that streamed in through the window.
Warmth swelled inside him. At that moment, his world was perfect. Nothing existed outside the walls of this room. There was no espionage ring to expose, no threat of treason—there was only Grace and the way she smiled at him, as if he were the most wonderful man in the world.
“Does your brother really want to become a vicar?” She reached up to affectionately run her fingers over his waistcoat buttons. She couldn’t keep from touching him, even so casually, and he certainly wasn’t going to make her stop.
“Does rain fall up?” he countered with a shake of his head. “It’s unnatural, as unnatural as Christopher Carlisle in a vicarage.”
A puzzled frown pulled lightly at her brow. “Then why does he claim so?”
“Petty revenge.” He grimaced. “When Kit learned what I was doing in Paris with Wentworth, he announced that he planned to become a vicar so that I wouldn’t be the only martyr in the family.”
Her hand stilled against his abdomen, and her bright smile faded. “Are you?” Her soft voice thickened with concern. “Martyring yourself?”
“There was a time when I would have said yes. Not so long ago, I was willing to do anything to prove Wentworth’s guilt, including sacrificing myself.”
Her fingers curled into the brocade, as if she were afraid she might lose him right then. “What changed your mind?”
He stared into her eyes. A man could drown in those chocolate depths and never regret his demise. “You.”
She froze for a beat. Then she drew her hand away.
He caught it up before she could pull back and wrapped his fingers around hers. He lifted a brow at her sudden unease. “You went there first, with your talk last night about lost chances.”
“That wasn’t the same thing,” she countered with forced indignation, “and you know it.”
“Then what was it?” He refused to let go of her hand. He wanted her to say it, needed to hear it—that she held an affection for him beyond physical pleasure, beyond worry about his safety and whatever help he could give Ethan.
When she tugged to free herself, his fingers tightened their hold, until she wisely gave up with an aggravated sigh. “You wanted to know why I gave myself to you.” She lowered her voice to a whisper although they were alone. “And I answered you.”
She was dodging the question, but this conversation was too important. So he pressed, “You said I mattered to you.”
“You do.”
He held his breath and pressed, “How much?”
Her eyes flared in surprise that he would dare to ask that. But the last few weeks of having his life constantly at risk made him appreciate the here and now, because he knew first-hand that tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed.
“Ross, what you’re implying…” She shook her head in exasperation. “You’re hinting about a future when we have no idea what fate will bring for us.”
“It’s uncertain, granted.”
“It’s bleak,” she corrected soberly.
“But not hopeless.” Far from it. For the first time since he fled Paris he was optimistic that all would work out in his favor, and he wanted Grace by his side when it did. “I didn’t get the diary last night, but I now know where it is. Wentworth is keeping it in a hidden drawer in a side table in his study. With Kit’s help, I’ll be able to retrieve it.”
“No.” Her face paled, but her fingers tightened around his. As if she were afraid he might leave her right then to go after it. “Wentworth will be waiting for you. I don’t want you to risk your life.”
Her concern warmed his chest. With a tug on her hand, he gently pulled her to her feet and into his arms, then caressed his knuckles across her cheek. “Risking my life is the only way to save it now.” When her eyes darkened with worry, he forced a teasing lightness into his voice to break the tension. “Unless you fancy a life on the run with me.”
“A life of nights crammed into tiny inn rooms sandwiched beneath stairs and days riding on hard carriage seats? I don’t think so.” The smile she gave him wavered, but her false bravado kept it in place, to keep the teasing at the forefront of their conversation and the seriousness pushed below the surface. “But you could come to Sea Haven with me and Ethan and pretend to be my long-lost fisherman husband returned from the sea. No one would notice an earl among the dockworkers.”
He couldn’t find the strength to return her smile. She wanted a future with him as much as he did. She was simply too worried to let herself consider it, and it killed him to be unable to give her the reassurance she needed.
“That is,” she continued, “if you think you could stand the life of a quiet seaside village over the excitement you had in the Court of St James’s.”
He’d had more than enough excitement for one lifetime, thanks to the Court of St James’s. “I think I could.” Then he threw all caution to the wind—“But I’d rather be in London with you by my side as my countess.”
She tensed in his arms.
How the Earl Entices Page 23