Oh, heavens, she couldn’t sit in this bath much longer. She already looked like a prune. “Pass me a towel, Erith,” she snapped. “If you can find a dry one.”
He grabbed a towel from the pile on the sideboard. “Here.”
She snatched at it and with humiliating clumsiness wrapped it around herself as she stepped from the tub. “Thank you.”
He’d prowled closer when he took her glass. Only about a foot of saturated carpet now separated them. She tried to back away but her legs hit the side of the bath hard enough to hurt.
“Careful.” He put his hand on her arm to steady her. Then he let go.
What was he up to? She knew men. Their impulses and weaknesses and contemptible thought processes that justified everything they did. But for the life of her, she couldn’t read Erith.
“You don’t understand me nearly as well as you think.” Curse her sulkiness. She wanted to sound brave and defiant, not like a child denied a Sunday treat.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
His long-fingered hands rose to the buttons on his waistcoat. She remembered it as pale pearl silk with silver swans embroidered across it. It had been beautiful, unusual, eye-catching. Now it was an expensive rag.
He slipped the waistcoat down his arms and let it fall behind him. His relentless undressing only increased her nervousness. She took an uncertain step to the side like a mare scenting a stallion.
“I’m here because…”
Her voice trailed away as she really looked at him for the first time since he’d burst in. His wet shirt clung, revealing smooth planes of muscle and bone, outlining ribs and broad shoulders. Her eyes traveled over that square jaw, that determined chin, the haughty nose, straight and commanding. Those heavy-lidded, deceptively slumberous eyes under the thick black brows.
Not a hint of prettiness or softness. Until one looked at the thick fringe of black lashes or the suddenly vulnerable line of his mouth.
He was the handsomest man she’d ever seen, wonderfully compelling. The bones were so strong, just as he was strong.
Perhaps even as strong as she.
What business did she have finding a man compelling? Men were beasts and brutes.
But she couldn’t prod the old, familiar bitterness to life. Not when Erith stared at her as if his world began and ended with her. Every ounce of moisture in her mouth evaporated. She licked suddenly dry lips and thought she heard him muffle a groan. Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears, she couldn’t be sure.
“Damn you, Olivia,” he gritted out, taking a step so she stood trembling within the shadow of his powerful body. “Touch me.”
The hand clutching the damp towel tightened. The breath caught in her throat. Her vision shrank to encompass Erith alone while the rest of the room faded to nothing.
God help her, she craved the feel of his firm, muscled flesh beneath her hands. She yearned to touch a man for sheer curiosity. For pleasure. For need. She didn’t recognize this woman at the mercy of her feral appetites.
But nor could she gainsay what she wanted.
She bit her lip, torn between sensible fear and crazy daring. Daring won by a whisker. As if she took the greatest risk of her life, she leaned forward to place her palm flat on the triangle of hair-roughened skin revealed under his open shirt. The shock of contact vibrated through her. He quivered under her hand but didn’t make any attempt to take charge of her tentative incursion.
Slowly, luxuriantly, she pressed her bare skin against his, feeling heat, strength. The touch was more intimate than taking him in her mouth. Almost as intimate as that brief, tender kiss in the rain that counted as the sweetest sexual experience she’d ever known.
He sucked in a great breath. His chest rose beneath her hand, connecting her to the vitality that flowed through his veins. This chaste joining made her one with another person in a way a man invading her body never had.
He closed his eyes as if in pain. His prominent cheekbones flushed with color, and the usually cynical mouth relaxed into a beautiful soft fullness.
“You’re so warm,” she murmured.
After his walk in the rain, she’d expected his flesh to feel chilled, clammy. Without conscious thought, she edged closer. She’d been cold for so long that Lord Erith’s radiant heat was irresistible.
“Let me warm you,” he whispered, curving his hands around her bare, damp shoulders.
No pressure. No compulsion. Just more warmth. And a feeling of safety she couldn’t recall feeling with a man before. How had he crossed the invisible line between being male, and therefore enemy, to becoming…what? Her lover? Her friend? Her ally? None of those words seemed adequate to convey the strange new landscape she entered.
He bent his head to kiss her. She stood trembling like a deer in the hunter’s sights. Then something inside her flowered and she moved forward, not away. For the first time, she stretched up to accept a man’s mouth on hers.
She waited for the old revulsion to surface, the vile feeling of suffocation. Instead there was just the same glorious sweetness she’d tasted when he kissed her in the storm. And a tempting trace on his lips of the rich brandy he’d stolen from her.
He didn’t demand a response. He didn’t press her up against him and his hands clasped her arms loosely. If she wanted, she could escape. Everything about his stance silently indicated that any decision about what happened now was hers.
The hesitant kiss was as chaste as the buss of a child’s lips. But there was nothing childish about the burning passion in his gray gaze when he raised his head and stared down at her. How could she ever have thought those eyes cold?
This man was in so many ways a riddle. She had no real reason to trust him. Except that those intent, intelligent eyes seemed to pierce through all her deceptions and pretenses to her shivering, lonely, longing soul. And she was so tired of being the diamond-bright, diamond-hard jewel of the demimonde.
But if she relinquished the courtesan, what was left?
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked softly.
An astounding question from a lover. And more astounding, she believed if she said yes, he’d step away. She’d never known a man like Erith. Still she hesitated. She’d learned in the hardest way to fear a man’s power over a woman. “I don’t know.”
“Olivia, I swear I’ll abide by what you want.”
“I believe you.” Although life had taught her all men lied.
He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. One glowing moment of contact. Over before she had a chance to respond. The touch left a tingling, tantalizing desire for more.
She made a strangled, needy sound deep in her throat. Then she forced out words she’d never said to a man in all her years of dissipation. Words she never thought she’d say. “Kiss…kiss me again, Erith.”
“Olivia…” he said on a long sigh. The murmur of her name in that deep voice soaked through her skin right to her bones. He sounded like an angel had pointed him toward a heaven he never thought he’d attain.
She watched his face change. The strain disappeared. The heavy eyelids lowered as his gaze narrowed on her mouth. She remained poised beneath his lips in quivering expectation. Something powerful held her captive, still, ready, like a sleeping maiden in a fairy tale, waiting for her magic prince to kiss her back to life.
Desperately she snatched at reality. Angels? Maidens? Princes? None of these belonged in her world. In her world, men paid her to service them, just as they paid their barbers to shave them or their grooms to feed their horses.
But that grim warning faded to a faint whisper at the back of her mind. It couldn’t penetrate the mysterious enchantment that held her suspended between flight and surrender. A surrender she’d never offered any man, for all her wild and wanton history.
Erith’s hands tightened, shifted their grip, drew her closer. The delicious heat of his clasp on the soft flesh of her upper arms made her tremble. “You smell like a garden in the rain. Flowers and fresh
air.”
He blew gently on the skin where her neck joined her shoulder. The sensation of his breath on wet flesh shot a wild shiver through her. Strange but not unpleasant. Not unpleasant at all.
“Do that again,” she said in an unsteady murmur.
“This?”
He blew on her skin once more then leaned forward to nip her. A jagged thrill darted along her veins and goose bumps broke out all over. She gasped and pressed closer, fumbling at the slipping towel.
He began to nibble and suck at her neck, stirring up a storm of little shocks. Her blood beat thick and heavy. A weight settled low in her belly. She shifted to ease an unfamiliar heat between her legs.
Was this desire? How could she say? She had nothing to compare it to.
Her skin felt sensitive and too tight to contain her bones. She trembled like a reed in a gale and she couldn’t control her breath. His teeth scraped her neck and a soft moan of delight escaped her parted lips. She stiffened in astonishment. That unpracticed sound couldn’t have come from her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.
She was what was wrong, but she didn’t want to say that. Although she suspected he was the one man in Creation who would understand what she meant.
“This…isn’t what I’m used to.” Her voice was stilted and her hand clutched her towel with nervous vigor.
“Nor I.”
He drew back and studied her face. What did he see there? Erith’s concentrated, endless attention on her slightest response made her uncomfortable. Scared her. She’d lived as an enigma for so long. Enigmas were safe.
She shifted awkwardly from one bare foot to the other, feeling the wet carpet squelch under her feet. Then, because his expression held no censure—only concern and a barely reined hunger—she forced herself to go on, however absurd she sounded. “You know what pleasure is.”
“Yes. I do. But I’ve never had to show anyone before.” A shadow of sadness darkened his face and his gaze turned opaque. She couldn’t mistake the piercing sorrow that roughened his voice. “No, that’s not true. Once. Once I had to show someone what pleasure was. It’s one of my sweetest memories.”
Her heart came to a shuddering, painful halt.
At last he opened the door of his soul to her.
She looked in.
And saw eternal love.
Who else but Joanna could he mean when he spoke about initiating someone into pleasure? The Earl of Erith had loved his wife. With a passion and a dedication that still, sixteen years after her death, turned his eyes the color of a stormy sea and made him speak of her with haunting reverence. Only the loss of real love could leave that aching, endless grief behind.
How willfully blind she’d been. How stupid. How insensitive. So much that had puzzled her about this man became clear, not least that his infamous debaucheries had been a futile attempt to assuage unendurable grief.
He’d told her he understood love, and she hadn’t believed him. But she believed him now. Any fool would hear the love and unutterable yearning in his voice when he spoke of his wife. Any fool, apparently, but the canniest strumpet in London.
Olivia regarded him with the eyes of fresh understanding and gave up all hope of shielding herself from this attraction. Because she was attracted to Lord Erith. Unbearably so.
She could fight a man who used his masculine power against her. She couldn’t fight a man whose weapon was his broken heart.
He’d end up hurting her profoundly. She knew that as she knew he was her last lover.
Her last lover would be the lover she’d never forget.
Chapter 13
Olivia couldn’t hold herself separate from Erith any longer. Not after today. Not after the kiss in the rain. Not after realizing how deeply he’d loved his wife and that his wayward life since Joanna’s death was an expression of in-consolable, unending grief.
“I’m yours, Erith,” she whispered.
“Olivia…” Tenderly, he placed his arms around her and rained tiny kisses over her shoulders and cheeks and nose and eyelids. It was like he learned her through the touch of his mouth alone.
Tentatively, she moved closer. She’d had so many men, she should know what to do. But the feelings trembling to life inside her made her nervous as a virgin.
It would be safer to run. But if she left now, she’d lose something precious and irreplaceable.
Too late for second thoughts. Her decision was made.
A gentle tug on the back of the towel. “Let me see you.”
Her deathly grip didn’t relax. “You have seen me.”
The towel seemed the last bastion. With other lovers, her body was merely a vehicle for earning a living. Her nakedness held no significance. Tonight with Erith, she felt completely different.
He pulled back and looked down at her, his face grave. “You still don’t trust me, Olivia?”
Her breath caught at the somber beauty of his face. “Take your shirt off.”
Pure delight curved his lips. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
He shifted a few inches away to tug the wet white linen over his head. He tossed it behind him without paying attention to where it fell. “Better?”
“Better.” She stared up at him while unfamiliar anticipation thrummed in her blood. “Now the breeches.”
His hands were shaking so badly, he fumbled as he ripped at the fastenings. His emotional extremity touched something deep inside her, made her feel less at the mercy of all-conquering chaos.
He paused in wrenching off his clothing, as if he just realized he still wore his boots. She tucked the end of the towel more firmly around her. “Sit on the bed and let me help you.”
“I’m too muddy. Let me call a footman.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to do it.”
“If you wish.” The look he cast her was perceptive. Perhaps he also believed this tremulous joy was too fragile to survive a stranger’s interruption. He moved across to the bed. She hid a smile, but not fast enough.
“I hope you’re not laughing at me, Miss Raines.”
“No.” A gurgle of amusement escaped her. He did look absurd, sitting there in his half-undone breeches with his boots still on. Absurd, and more appealing than any man she’d ever seen. “Yes.”
“Just wait till I get my hands on you.”
“Just wait.” She dropped down before him, lifting one muscled calf across her knees.
Doing this for him made her feel like a wife. She’d never been married. Would never place herself permanently under one man’s governance. Although she’d had offers aplenty. From men with no care for their standing in society. From men like Perry, with secrets to hide.
Heavens, why was she suddenly thinking about marriage? Was it because Lord Erith for all his rakish reputation struck her as someone who’d make a good husband?
Dear God, perish the thought. No decent man would have her. And she’d have no decent man. She’d be bored within a week.
With a sudden excess of energy, she tugged at Erith’s boot. It was tight and took some pulling to remove. She was panting when she shifted her attention to the other boot. Her hair, already drying in the heat of the fire, flopped forward as she bent over his leg and wrenched with all her might. If her zeal stemmed from bitter regret that she wouldn’t perform this humble task for Erith for the rest of her life, so be it.
He tilted her chin up. “Olivia, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
His eyes were alight with concern and kindness. And hunger. She couldn’t mistake the smoldering desire that turned the gray to molten silver.
She blinked to dispel the annoying mist clouding her vision. Damn Erith. How did he do this to her? Her voice was choked. “You’re getting the worst of this bargain.”
A lazy glint of amusement lit the gray. “A beautiful half-naked woman kneels at my feet and gazes at me adoringly. There’s not a man in the world who wouldn’t envy me.”
“I’m not
gazing at you adoringly.” She straightened and drew in a shuddering breath. “I would never sink so low.”
He leaned forward slowly and the fingers around her chin curved into a hold of such tenderness, she couldn’t have pulled away if she’d wanted to. And for once in her life, she didn’t want to.
“Keep throwing out challenges, Olivia.” He pressed his lips to hers. Again, the least demanding of kisses. A mere touch then a kiss to each corner of her mouth, one to her chin and one to the tip of her nose.
He must want more than these sweet games. She knew he wanted more. He was hard and ready. His breathing came fast and shallow, and the unfastened breeches did nothing to hide his erection.
Erith brushed another teasing kiss across her lips. He lifted his head and looked at her, the spark in his eyes even more pronounced.
In spite of the playful kisses, she didn’t deceive herself where this led. His musky arousal sharpened the air. She knew with bone-deep certainty he’d possess her tonight. For good or ill, they’d reached a pitch only sex would answer.
“I wish I could show you your face.”
She frowned fleetingly. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. If you don’t mind a simper.”
No man bantered with her like this. It was surprisingly arousing, even to a woman who hadn’t known arousal. “I’ve never simpered in my life.”
“Until now.” He kissed her cheeks in another of those glancing, increasingly pleasurable touches and let her go. “Will you take the towel off?”
She hitched it higher. “Maybe. Will you take your breeches off?”
“Aha, you’re curious.”
She shrugged with a show of mocking indifference. “I’ve seen it all before.”
“But you’re yet to find out what I can do with what I’ve got.”
“So vain.”
“So good.”
She laughed. “So misguided.”
His face became intent. “Oh, no, madam. I know exactly where I’m aiming. And…” His voice dropped impossibly low, resonating in her marrow. “…I know what to do when I get there.”
Tempt the Devil Page 14