She dipped her head. “Yes.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
It had been a long time since pain so powerful rushed through Dominic. Not since he departed his family and learned to support and depend on himself had he experienced such an empty agony.
Katherine didn’t want him? She didn’t want this marriage? It was no more than he deserved, but it brought him to his knees nonetheless. She had only just admitted a few moments ago that she cared.
Or at least…she had before. It wasn’t something he expected or even desired when he took her as a bride. But knowing he’d lost whatever tender emotions she once had filled him with frustration and heartache, each surprisingly powerful.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, folding her arms. “Did you just tell me you refuse to live separate lives?”
“I lied to you,” he admitted, grasping for the protection of anger to mask his other troubling reactions. “And for that I am truly sorry. But I will not give up what we share.”
Her nostrils flared delicately. “You mean, you still want me in your bed?”
Dominic clenched a fist. He wanted to bellow that he wanted her in his life, but now wasn’t the time. Admitting that shocking desire would only open himself up to further rejection. Instead, he had to take a different tactic.
He needed to remind her that she still wanted to be in his bed. If he could woo her back there, he could slowly open her heart to him in a way he couldn’t do by merely saying words. At present, she didn’t believe a good portion of what he said.
Actions were key.
He stepped forward and closed some of the distance between them. She stiffened at the motion, refusing to back down even as her skin flushed at the reduced distance between them. Relief flooded him. At least she still wanted him. He saw that sparkle of need in her eyes along with the other conflicted emotions the truth caused.
“Are you saying you no longer desire me?” he asked, low and seductive.
“You lied to me,” she burst out. “You cannot expect—”
“Desire often has very little to do with truth,” he drawled, reaching out to stroke the back of his hand across her cheek. She flinched away. “And whatever lies were told, the fact that I desired you was never one of them.”
She hesitated. Was that part of her resistance? She thought his desire was as false as his words? Well, he could easily relieve her of that false impression.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked, chasing her gaze until she could no longer avoid it. “From the first moment I saw you on the terrace, long before I knew who you were, I wanted you. In fact, I was trying to devise a way to seduce you before your guardian interrupted us that night.”
Her lips parted and a flicker of anger darkened her eyes from jade to emerald.
“Why should I believe anything you say?” Her voice trembled, wavering between disdain and hopefulness.
He cupped her chin and tilted her face up. “I can easily prove it to you.”
Her eyes went wide just as he brought his mouth down on hers. At first she stiffened, trying to fight the anger she didn’t want to release. But slowly, her resistance fell and she parted her lips. He delved into her mouth with gentle insistence. Each stroke of his tongue demanded her acquiescence, yet begged her forgiveness.
She responded with a sigh, gripping his forearms in her fists as she met his kisses with harder, more passionate ones of her own. It was a duel, a battle for control and surrender. He could give her neither. Not tonight.
Not if he ever hoped to regain her trust and rebuild her more tender emotions. And that was what he found he wanted more than anything, even though it was folly to want those feelings. They couldn’t last. He simply wasn’t ready to relinquish them yet.
He pulled her closer, cupping her against the hard planes of his body. She melted against him as her hands shifted to the buttons on his shirtwaist. One by one, she loosened them, then slid her hands into the warmth that had been trapped between the heavier fabric and his shirt.
Her fingertips skimmed his stomach as she unbuttoned his shirt next. Then skin met skin as she flattened her palms against his bare chest.
He hissed out a breath of pleasure that broke their kiss. Kat leaned away with confused, frustrated desire melding with the remaining emotions on her face. He watched her closely, waiting for her to pull from his arms, ready to continue pursuing her, even if it took weeks to woo her back to his bed and eventually back into his life.
Instead, she frowned. “Just this, Dominic,” she said softly. “I can only give you this. Nothing else.”
He nodded. Her body was all she could risk after everything. Though that should have been a victory, it seemed hollow. For the first time, he wanted far more than a woman’s touch. But if this was all she could give, he would wait for the right moment to claim everything else.
“This is a gift,” he murmured as his mouth came down again.
Katherine melted in her husband’s arms, caught between the manifestation of her fears and the moment of her deepest desires. He offered her nothing but his touch. That should not have been enough. But it was all there was.
And she needed that comfort. For him to prove these moments they shared, at least, weren’t a lie even if everything else had been.
He hadn’t begun to touch her in those wicked ways that would make her melt. Instead, he seemed content to just kiss her, as if he wanted to memorize her taste. Still, it was enough to make her rock her hips against his in a slow rhythm that drove her as mad as she was trying to drive him.
With deft, careful steps, he guided her back across the room until her thighs hit the side of the bed. He cupped her backside and lifted her up until her feet dangled over the side. Pushing her legs open, he stepped into the space between. He was close enough that she could feel every hard inch of him through their clothes.
She murmured a plea, but was too drunk with desire to know what it was. It didn’t matter, because he understood her incoherent request and responded by wrapping his arms around her to unbutton her gown. When it drooped around her back, he slid his hand inside, beneath her thin chemise.
She arched against his questing fingers, and let out a mewl of satisfaction when his thumb grazed the hard bud of one nipple. His hands were so hot. It seemed like she would combust if he continued to touch her. And she knew from wicked experience that she would. Everything in her world would burst into glorious, decadent flame when their bodies joined.
She pushed at the gown’s silken sleeves, but he was faster. In a few blurry moments, her dress and under things sagged around her waist and his hands had free reign to roam and touch in all the ways she needed. He cupped her breasts, rolling her nipples between his fingers before his dark head came down and he drummed his tongue lightly over the taut flesh.
She dipped her head back with a throaty, “Yes.”
Her womb contracted as he suckled while one hand crept slowly, purposefully, under her gown and up her smooth leg. A trail of fire and need was left in its wake. But just before he reached the core of her desire, she forced herself to push him away and struggle to her feet.
Dominic tensed as Katherine stood up. He thought he had succeeded in tapping into her desire, but now that she stood staring at him, that certainty fled. What if she pushed him away? Refused him.
She swallowed hard, then slowly pushed her gown down around her feet and stepped free. In a few deft movements, she removed her slippers and stockings and stood before him. The only article that hid her body in any way was the luscious length of her dark hair.
Relief flooded him as she reclaimed her spot on the edge of the bed. He scrambled to shed his own remaining clothing. Cupping her face, he kissed her deeply. He drank in her warmth and prayed he would have a chance at more than just this joining again.
He gasped when he felt her soft fingers grasp his erection. She stroked him once, twice, then guided him to her wet entrance. Cupping her hips, he thrust into her body and she enveloped
him with a welcoming sigh.
For a long moment, he stayed as he was. Wrapped together, one body, it was easier to forget everything that stood between them. The moment was perfect and he didn’t want it to end.
But his body’s needs called, and Katherine arched beneath him with a whimper. Driving forward, he moaned when she flexed around him. Each stroke brought him closer to the edge, closer to her. She met him with equal passion, but also a hint of desperation he longed to erase.
It only took a few thrusts for her to wail out a long cry of release. But as she sagged against him, sated, he wouldn’t let her go that easily. He continued to swirl his hips in slow, languid circles.
She shivered in release again and Dominic let himself go, pouring his seed into her as he couldn’t pour his heart. And hoping she would someday forgive and accept him the way she had accepted his touch.
Katherine propped herself up on one elbow and watched Dominic sleep in the flickering firelight.
With trembling fingers, she reached out to trace the harsh lines of his jaw, softer in slumber than they were when he was awake. She trailed her hand down to his shoulders, his stomach, memorizing each and every curve and hollow.
She was in love with him.
When had she realized it? The thought didn’t seem all that surprising. In fact, it was more like the emotion had been part of her forever, just another piece of her personality.
With a shiver, she rose from the bed to replace Dominic’s warmth with that of the fire. She sank down on the footstool near the hearth and tucked her legs beneath her. The flames warmed her naked skin and helped her focus on reality.
Over the past few weeks, somehow she let what started as a spark of desire fan into love. No matter how hard she tried to stay separate from Dominic, the walls she built were far too weak. With passion, care and confession, he knocked down her defenses and made his way into her heart.
Each time she watched him when she didn’t have to, her heart opened to him. Every laugh and smile they shared brought him closer to her soul. Bit by bit, she’d surrendered her love to him.
It was the worst time to accept the inevitable. The truth had finally come out and it was clear there was no chance Dominic returned her love. All those things that brought them together were part of some illusion. She was a means to getting what he wanted. Even tonight, when he asked for her understanding and forgiveness, he had pursued her with sex, not something deeper.
She sighed. She had promised to help him look for the truth about his father. He deserved that. But she had no intentions of returning to London with him when his business here was done. If she couldn’t have a real marriage, a real life with him, she didn’t want a shell in which only lust existed.
Dominic grunted again, but this time his eyes fluttered open slowly as he reached over to her side of the bed. His hand slid across the sheets, but when he realized she wasn’t there, he sat up.
“Kat?” he asked, voice heavy with sleep and confusion.
“I’m here,” she whispered, watching him with all the love in her heart swelling in her chest. “I’m here, Dominic.”
He smiled and her heart melted at the sight of his tousled hair and bleary, but purposeful eyes. “Come back to bed.”
Her eyes fluttered shut. Leaving this man, her life and her love, was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done. And until she had to do it, she was going to savor every moment they shared. She was going to imprint him on her every fiber so she would never forget his taste, his smell, or his touch.
“Yes,” she said as she stood up and slipped back between the sheets. His warm arms came around her.
She blocked out everything else as his hard, hot body moved to cover hers. When he kissed her with gentleness she never would have guessed he possessed, she clung to him and prayed she would have the will to do what she needed to do when the time finally came.
Chapter 16
K atherine covered her eyes. The world spun and a wave of nausea crashed over her. She cast a side-glance at Dominic from across the attic, but he was too caught up in a ledger to have noticed her sudden flash of illness. It was just as well. If she was coming down with something, she didn’t want him to worry. They needed to focus their attention on finding out the truth about his father.
She flipped through the pile of letters in her hand as her dizziness subsided and her nausea faded to a faint bitterness in her mouth.
“These are very interesting accountings of the workings of society thirty years ago, but they tell me nothing.”
She shoved a few loose strands of hair behind her ears and dared to rise from her sitting position on an old crate. Thankfully her knees held and her breakfast stayed in her stomach where it belonged. “Are you having any more luck?”
“Nothing.” With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes, but the exhaustion in them wouldn’t be pushed away so easily. “Damn it. This is fruitless. I’m never going to find anything in this blasted house.”
Hurt stabbed through her, a compassionate response to his frustration. It was something she couldn’t assuage. Even with the aid of Adrian and Julia, who were now searching Larissa Mallory’s old library, they hadn’t found any clues to his father’s identity. With each passing day, Dominic slipped further and further into despair over the search.
“I’m sorry.”
She longed to offer more to him than words as comfort, but since the day of their confrontation with Cole, she had forced herself not to. No more did she seek her husband out. Even at night, it was he who came to her chamber. She no longer passed through their adjoining door.
She couldn’t when betrayal still stung her or when an equally powerful love for the man grew in her heart. That emotion gave her no pleasure when it was clear he had not ever felt the same, nor would he.
He hadn’t even noticed the distance she put between them. Without the lies regarding their marriage hanging over his head, he seemed more than comfortable in their current arrangement.
And that broke her heart. She wanted so much more.
He stared at the pile of items they’d already gone through. They were stacked on one side of the attic, some on the piano and others all around it.
“Dominic,” she said softly, finally bringing him back from wherever his reverie had taken him.
“Perhaps this is folly.” He shook his head. “I have chased the truth for so long, maybe I didn’t realize the time has come to let it go.”
She shook her head. He’d pinned his hopes and his future on finding out the truth. He’d even married a woman he didn’t love to find his heritage. If he gave up, she knew he would never find peace. If she wanted him to be happy, she couldn’t allow him to disregard his need for answers. And she did wish for his peace and happiness, even though the resolution of his past would signal the end of their marriage.
She shook off the hurt accompanying that thought. “Perhaps we’ve been going about the search the wrong way. Searching the house from top to bottom is just too broad. If we were more specific—”
He turned away. “How can I be more specific when I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for?”
With a growl, he kicked the nearest crate and sent it skidding across the floor. She heard the tinkle of breaking glass as it slammed against the opposite wall. For a long moment, he stood with his eyes shut, refusing to look at her or say anything.
Finally, he turned back with a sheepish shake of his head. “I’m sorry. This is just so frustrating.”
“I know,” she whispered, clenching a fist behind her back as she resisted the powerful urge to run to him and hold him. “I would do anything to make it easier, but I’m afraid things may become harder before we can find the solution to this riddle that is your parentage.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There are two people in this world who know the truth without having to search through boxes and letters,” she began with a tilt of her head. “And one of them is your mother.”
; Dominic raised a hand in protest. “No, Kat. That is out of the question. I can’t—”
“When did you last attempt to speak to her about this?” she insisted.
“Probably five years ago,” he said, stiffening at the memories the conversation obviously brought back.
“What did she say then?”
He was quiet, but eventually he said, “My mother refused to speak to me on the subject. Even when I pointed out that Harrison Mallory was long cold in his grave and could no longer bring her grief, she simply turned away from me.”
“I don’t understand how she can do that.” Katherine sighed.
He shrugged. “Refusing me has become second nature to her, I doubt if any amount of questioning will ever change that.”
He shook his head. It was clear the idea of going back home was as unpleasant as the thought of questioning his reticent mother. She couldn’t blame him for his reluctance.
“I have no doubt it will be difficult.” She sidled closer and finally dared to do what she had been avoiding for days. She took his hand. Awareness crackled through her, along with love. “But we could do it together.”
He stared at their intertwined fingers for a long moment, then his gaze slid up to her face. “We?”
She nodded. “I told you I would help you and I meant it.”
He considered that statement for a long moment, then sighed. “I’ll tell Matthews to ready our things for travel as soon as possible. All I want to do is end this.”
With a kiss on her knuckles, Dominic slipped from the room and down the stairs. After he’d gone, she sank down on the piano bench.
End this. Dominic meant his search, but for her it meant so much more. Every day she spent with him made her realize more and more that she couldn’t live with the man she loved. Not when he didn’t return her feelings.
And he didn’t.
Dominic started when Katherine touched his hand. He glanced up from his spot on his mother’s settee and looked at her.
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