His face was dark and hard above mine. "Keep talking, Abigail. Keep trying to convince me of your innocence."
"I kn-know I should have told you the truth sooner. I wanted to, so many times. But I was a c-coward ..." Gasping, I felt his hard thigh wedge between my legs, grinding against a part of me that was shockingly hot and ready with desire. "I was sc-scared. I have never understood why you, who could have anyone, should care for me in the first place. If you knew the truth, I feared that you would hate me. That you would leave. And I would have to wake from the one good dream of my life—"
"This is what you dream of." In one swift motion, he hoisted me so that I was riding his leg. He insinuated himself deeper, grasping my hips and dragging my sensitive flesh against the tough sinewy ledge. A purr of pleasure scraped from my throat. I couldn't help it. His eyes knowing, he rocked me harder against him. "All Lilin want this, and you are no different."
"I am not a Lilin. Not in any true sense of the word." My voice sounded breathless, weak. His mocking touch spiked my pulse. His scent pooled my mouth with craving. Even the reality of danger could not stem the fierce arousal bubbling through my veins. "I abhor Lilith—and everything she stands for. I would rather die than do her bidding." In desperation, I grabbed the lapels of his jacket, pled with him, "Please believe me. I am still Abigail, your maid, your secretary, and your love—if you will still have me."
For a moment that stretched into an eternity, he said nothing. Merely probed my soul with unrelenting intensity. My heart thundering, I could not fathom what he was thinking, or what he felt. Then his mouth took on a sudden, sensual slant. "There's a way to know for certain what you are, Abigail Jones." Shuddering, I felt his thigh nudge higher. His lips found my throat, and the graze of teeth honed my desire. "One way for you to gain my trust again."
"Anything." Eyes closing, I could resist the sensual undertow no longer. I felt him remove my hands from where they still curled around his jacket, felt my body sliding, melting down the column. "I'll do anything to prove that I love—"
There was a jingling sound, smooth weight sliding around my wrists. My eyes popped open. In disbelief, I tugged at my arms. They did not budge. He'd bound them behind my back and was in process of securing them to the column.
"Wh-what are you doing?" I gasped.
I struggled, but the chain held me fast.
"Showing you the consequences of lying." The feral promise chased alarming thrills up my spine. "There is one test no Lilin can withstand. One surefire way to summon her true demon nature. In short, I'm going to fuck you, my sweet, so we both know for certain what you are."
"Hux, there's no need—" My voice broke off in a gasp as I heard the ripping of fabric. The night breeze wafted over my naked breasts. I caught the flash in his eyes before his mouth descended upon the heaving mounds. With absolute possession, he roved over the freed flesh. This was not the gentle touch I had known before; he cupped and kneaded me with rough hunger, licking, biting at the engorged tips.
I should have been frightened. I should have quailed at his aggression. Instead, molten excitement blasted through me, and, panting, I strained to press closer.
"Yes," he growled, working my nipple between his fingers. "You want this, don't you? You want me to take you, to fill that empty place between your legs. You cannot deny your need for me."
My whole body quaked with craving, with fierce love. "I don't deny it. Untie me, Hux. I love—"
His kiss cut me off. With primal intent, his tongue stabbed inside my mouth and lay claim to the vulnerable cavern. He held my head so I could not escape the sensual ambush. With lavish swipes, ravaging penetration, he possessed my breath, my senses. Helpless to his domination, I experienced a strange surge of carnal energy. The golden heat burgeoned from my core as he fed me his taste and his scent and still I wanted more. Frustration mounted as I rattled impotently against the chains.
His mouth slid against my ear. The sharp nip made me gasp, and wetness bloomed between my thighs. "I told you before. You cannot escape. Submit to me, show me what you really are."
"You know who I am," I managed to say. "A-Abigail—"
He shoved my skirts to my waist. I moaned as he found the ripe essence of me. "You're ready for me, aren't you?" His voice rasped my senses in concert with the slow, maddening play of his fingers. "That is the one thing you cannot hide. How hot and damp and eager to be fucked you are."
I did not recognize the sound that escaped me. He hitched one of my legs over his hip, giving himself full access to my most intimate place. I squirmed in that vulnerable position and tried to close my thighs. With a low laugh, he stroked me higher. He found that sensitive bud, circling it, teasing it until my limbs turned to water. Simultaneously, his fingers plunged inside. I gave a strangled moan. My quim fluttered and clenched around the pistoning onslaught.
It was too much. Not nearly enough. Writhing between the hard column and his harder frame, I knew nothing but my need for him. The world was dissolving into gilded flame. I could feel my lips shaping to shameless pleas. Harder ... faster ... please help me, Hux ... I'm so close, I need ...
All of the sudden, his fingers left me. A keening protest broke from my lips. I felt him tug between us and an instant later blunt, smooth heat nudged against my slick flesh. The pleasure shocked me all the way to my toes.
"I'll give you what you need. But first I want you to look at me, Abigail." Trembling all over, I obeyed and found myself drowning in violent blue. "I want to see your eyes when I make you mine."
His features harshly controlled, he thrust upward. I gasped at the pressure. Concern flared as the sensation stretched beyond pleasure. My fingernails dug into wood. He impelled deeper, pushing out my breath, my sense of reality, everything but my awareness of his possession. Of the hardness driving to the center of my being. Dizzily, I blinked into his dilated eyes. "Hux, I'm not sure I can—"
"You can," he rasped and edged in deeper.
My eyes widened as my flesh yielded to his. As stinging gave way to throbbing fullness. He pushed even higher, and my breath hitched at the sudden exquisite sensation.
"That's the way." Watching my reaction, he seated himself deeper still. His jaw tautened, and he was the one to break our gaze when his eyes closed suddenly, his brow furrowing as if he was in pain. "God, you're so tight. You feel so ... let me in, I have to be inside ..."
Hearing the hoarse need in his voice, seeing the pleasure flush on his cheeks, I felt a jarring certainty. An anchoring of love. And trust. Oddly enough, I knew in that moment that despite his fury, he would not hurt me. He could not—because he loved me. So with a tremulous breath, I gave him what he asked. What we both wanted. On instinct, I tilted my hips, and we both gasped as he slid fully, irrevocably home.
The stunning sense of wholeness drew a shaky whisper from me. "You're inside me now." I felt the potent leap of his flesh within mine, and the devastating intimacy clogged my throat. "I'm holding you as I've dreamed of doing. I'm loving you, Hux, with my body and my soul."
His lashes trembled. Then a savage groan tore from a place deep within him, and he began to move. With each thrust, his hardness opened me, touching places never before touched. He gave me no ground for I needed none. I blossomed all around him. The deeper he drove, the softer and wetter I became. His sounds of masculine pleasure were met with my own breath-filled sighs. The glowing warmth in my belly grew, the pressure building with each pounding stroke. My insides could not contain the luminous energy. Light seeped through my skin, dissipating all fear, all restraint.
With my flesh lushly caressing his, I looked into my beloved's eyes. "This is who I am," I panted, arching into his thrust. "Your lover, Hux. Yours forever."
"Abigail." His eyes blazed with cobalt fire. "My love, my own ... my God—"
His fingers delved between us, touching the place where we joined and heaved against one another. Whimpering, I felt my pleasure rise to a delirious pitch as he titillated my clit. At the same tim
e, he began to shove inside me, ever deepening lunges that forced the air from my lungs. Yet I wanted more. I wanted everything he could give. I urged him on with my hips, my sultry pleas. As he slammed into me again and again, the energy in me roared, an escalating inferno of ruby-hued flame—
I screamed, the release exploding with sudden ferocity. Light shattered through my being. His mouth closed over mine, drinking in my sobs, pouring back his own guttural shout as the world spilled over with molten heat. As everything transformed to golden stillness. Nothing left but the body sheltering mine. Nothing but him and the rapture of surrender.
THIRTY-SIX
I don't know how long I drifted. The clanking of metal pierced my reverie. As the chains fell from me, I heard a soft oath, and warmth rubbed against my wrists.
My eyelids swept open. "Hux?"
He lifted his head from where it was bent over my hands. Beneath the gazebo roof, his eyes glowed with a sated quality. Yet his mouth held a grim line. "How are you feeling, my love?"
"Fine," I said and blushed.
His gaze lowered to my wrists, which he continued to massage with a soothing touch. In low, rough tones, he said, "Can you ever forgive me? I am a brute to do this to you. There's no excuse—"
Pulling out of his grasp, I reached to touch his jaw. His skin bristled beneath my palm; the warm tingling echoed the aftermath humming sweetly in my blood. "I wanted to make love with you." As his lips tucked gently into my palm, I added, "You believe me now, don't you? That I love you? That I'm no demon?"
"I believe you." His vivid gaze caused my insides to flutter with joy and relief. "I was a fool to have doubted the truth of my own heart. With all that I am, I adore you, Abigail Jones. Every unique, enchanting, beautiful iota of who you are."
Swallowing back tears, I said, "And you forgive me, for not telling you the truth straightaway?"
"If you can forgive me for not trusting you and all that transpired this night," he said somberly, "then I would say we are more than even on that account."
I nodded and pressed fervent kisses on his knuckles. "I promise never to lie to you again."
That drew an unexpected chuckle. "I trust you will do your best, little one," he said, his eyes gleaming, "and that is all I would ask for. In the meantime, I have some atoning to do where you're concerned. I am going to lay the world at your feet, my darling. You're going to have everything—"
"All I want is you," I said.
His eyes shone, bluer than any heaven I could imagine. "You have me," he said simply. "God help you, Abigail, but you do. At the next possible opportunity, you'll hear me swear that in front of a bishop." He kissed me then, not with his usual impetuosity, but with a reverence that made my heart sing. With obvious reluctance, he released me a moment later. "But for now, my love, we must deal with the matter at hand. I have a story planned. We will say the victim was beset by footpads when we happened by—"
The sound of an approaching voice had us both turning. "Abby! Abigail Jones! Are you there?"
"It's Jack," I whispered. "He brought me here—"
Hux had already thrown his jacket over my shoulders and pushed me behind him just as the familiar figure entered the meadow.
"Stay behind me," Hux ordered.
"It's just Jack. He must be worried. I left him—"
"Abby, is that you?"
The apprehension in Jack's voice punctured me with guilt. Despite the large, bristling male hiding my view, I called out, "Yes, Jack, it's me. I am fine. I've found Hux, as you can see, and all is well. There's no need to concern yourself."
Footsteps stomped upon the stairs, and a glow spread onto the floor of the gazebo.
"You heard her, Simon," I heard Hux command. "You are not needed here."
"I'm not leaving until I see Abby," came Jack's reply.
With a sound of impatience, I tried to push Hux aside. He did not budge. I had to satisfy myself with peering around him like a child playing hide-and-go-seek.
"I'm perfectly fine, Jack," I said.
Jack looked at me and back to Hux. Belligerence toughened his demeanor. His stance widened, his arms crossing over his chest. "I don't think you are, Abby. Best you come over to me right now. I will take care of this."
"I am her fiancé," Hux said evenly. "Her place is with me."
"You're not married yet," Jack said.
I winced, feeling the tension leaping off Hux's frame. I wedged myself around him and stood between the two glaring males. Really, I thought with a twinge of annoyance, they were behaving like two mongrels fighting over a bone.
"Stop it," I said. "I am a grown woman and can make my own decisions. Jack, thank you for your assistance tonight—I do not know what I would have done without you."
"You might have stayed at Hope End like you were told," Hux said.
I gave him a sharp look. His brows formed sardonic arches.
"I'm not at all sure I've done you a service, Abby." Turning back to Jack, I saw the concern in his green eyes. His mouth formed a tight line, and he did not respond to my attempt at a reassuring smile. "In fact, I think I've delivered you into the hands of the devil."
"Don't mind his lordship," I said quickly. Feeling Hux's looming impatience behind me, I knew I must handle the situation with all due expedience. "He's just ... overwrought because we happened upon a crime, you see. Cutthroats were attacking the poor woman there on the grass, and he rescued her. I came upon him just as he was doing so. And just now we were talking about how to get her to safety. Weren't we, Hux?"
Hux kept his gaze on Jack and did not say anything. So much for help from that corner—and after my efforts to adhere to the story he'd come up with, too.
"So you see," I rushed on, "everything has been quite above board."
Looking skeptical, Jack raked a hand through his hair. "Then what happened to you, Abby? Why do you look so ... disheveled?"
I had forgotten all about my appearance. Heat scorched my cheeks as I realized how I must look after ... after ... desperately, I turned to Hux. His expression did not change, but a faint gleam entered his eyes. The edge of his mouth quirked.
"In the process of assisting the earl," I said, with a baleful look at my supposed beneficiary, "I took a bit of a tumble. I ruined my gown and, um, landed rather injudiciously. That is why Hux lent me his jacket."
"I can vouch for Abigail's helpfulness." At Hux's lazy, masculine drawl, my blush heightened. "In the heat of the moment, I can say with certainty there is one else I would turn to. She has a way with ... helping, she does."
Jack's suspicious look alternated between the two of us.
Even in the cover of night, I was certain my cheeks flamed scarlet. "At any rate," I said with as much dignity as I could muster, "we must get the woman back to her friends. They must be beside themselves with worry. Do you think you could help, Jack?"
"I'll carry her," he said.
"I do not require help," Hux said simultaneously.
They glowered at each other. I sighed. Was there no end to men's arrogance?
Deciding to employ a Mrs. Beecher tactic, I took charge by issuing directions. "Jack will carry her. I will take the lamp. Hux—" I cut him off with a glance before he could interrupt, "you will assist me. I find I'm a bit shaky after the events of this evening."
"You are unwell?" Before I could respond, Hux pulled me into his arms, his intent eyes running over my face. "Why did you not say so earlier? After everything you have gone through tonight, I should have known better—"
"Everything is fine," I said in a soothing tone. "I am just fatigued, is all."
Behind me, I heard Jack grunt. Apparently having seen enough, he descended the steps to examine his cargo.
Lines of worry fanned from Hux's eyes. "Of course you are, my love. What was I thinking? We must get you to a comfortable room, a hot bath. I must attend to you."
"We must finish here first," I reminded him in a whisper, though my pulse skittered at the thought of his further attenti
ons. "Why don't you collect your things whilst I keep Jack distracted?"
"Do not worry, Abigail. I'll take care of everything," he said.
*****
When we arrived back at the crowded center of the gardens, the party had reached a full, ribald swing. No one even seemed to take notice of us: Jack with the blonde woman dangling in his arms, me bedraggled and wearing a man's jacket over my chemise. Not to mention Hux, who held me at the waist as if I might be blown over by the slightest breeze. In truth, we did not look that different from the couples around us.
Miracle of miracles, we found an unoccupied bench near the packed dance pavilion. Jack set the woman down and ran his sleeve over his forehead. "We'll never find her people at this rate," he shouted over the din.
He was right. The crowd was sea of faces at this point, all of them drunken. How were we to find the woman's escort—if indeed, she had even had one?
"Wait here. I'll be right back," Hux said.
Jack gave a curt nod.
I watched as Hux made his way through the milling masses. He did so with seeming ease; I could not help but admire the way his towering, sleek form and confident stride seemed to inspire those in his path to remove themselves posthaste. Bemused, I could not believe such a man had been shuddering in my arms but an hour earlier. A firm grip captured my hands, shaking me from my reverie.
"Abigail," Jack said urgently, "we must leave."
Startled, I looked at him. "But we can't. We must stay with her. Hux said he will return shortly—"
"Damn the bloody earl," Jack snarled in a manner that seemed alien to his even-tempered nature. "I don't know what's gone on tonight, but I don't like it. You're a good girl, Abby, and you deserve better than the likes of him. Don't let his money blind you—he's a bounder, and he'll hurt you given half the chance. That is, if he hasn't done so already."
Staring into Jack's earnest face, I felt my heart clutch. "You're a good friend, Jack," I said in a low voice, "and I thank you for your advice. But you must understand that Hux is my fiancé. I love him, and we are to be married. I cannot allow you to speak of him in that way."
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