She held her breath, hardly daring to hope.
“The point is,” he said tersely, “the minute Hucker figures out that you’re his daughter, he will tell George, and any hope of your secret being kept will end. And the longer I’m around you, the more likely it is that Hucker will figure out what you mean to me.”
And what is that? No, she dared not ask. What if she didn’t like the answer? “Yes, but how can Hucker even learn the truth? You said yourself that if Papa’s information leads Milosh to Drina, then Hucker won’t ever need to know of our involvement.”
“He’s been sniffing around. And all it will take is one look at you . . .” Striding back to her, Tristan lowered his voice. “Milosh recognized that you were Drina’s daughter the moment he laid eyes on you. Don’t you think Hucker will do the same?”
“Oh, Lord.” That hadn’t occurred to her.
He searched her face. “If I stay anywhere near you, and Hucker sees you when he’s following me, he could very well guess who you really are—without Milosh saying a word. And even if the sight of you only rouses his curiosity enough for him to start digging into your past—” He swore under his breath. “You’re better off without me around to ruin things.”
He spun away from her, but she caught him by the arm. “So let me clarify one thing.” She circled to stand before him, still holding him in her grip. “The fact that I’m Hucker’s daughter doesn’t repulse you?”
His gaze locked briefly with hers before drifting down to fix on her mouth. “You could be the daughter of Attila the Hun, and I would still desire you. Not that it matters. If you take up with me, you might as well throw Winborough to the wolves. Because George will make sure you never inherit. He’ll drag you and your family through a scandal just to torment me. And if I were mad enough to make you my wife—”
“You . . . you’ve considered making me your wife?”
Her fingers dug into his arm now, but she couldn’t seem to loosen her grip. Not when he was looking at her as if she dangled hope before him like a fisherman dangling bait before a trout.
“Zoe . . .” Letting out a shuddering breath, he glanced away. “What I considered is inconsequential. I can’t have what I want, and neither can you.”
So that meant he wanted her as his wife? Truly?
But even if that were the case, he would never act on it. She now knew how protective he was of those he cared for. The only way to get him to consider it was to seduce him into it.
Did she dare?
In that moment, she made her decision. It was time to leap for the impossible dream, regardless of the consequences. Her world was already crashing down about her ears. Even if she followed her former plan, it might not prevent her family from plunging into scandal.
It wasn’t as if following her initial plan was a viable choice anyway. She could no longer think of marrying Jeremy. And a life spent running Winborough on her own—assuming it was even conceivable anymore—was too lonely to contemplate.
Why not seize her heart’s desire while she could? Right now, it was the only path that made sense. “This afternoon you said that princesses can have whatever—whomever—they damned well please.”
Ignoring how he tensed and how her heart clamored in her chest, she added, “Well, as it turns out, all this princess wants . . . is you.”
17
BLOODY HELL.
Tristan was in over his head and heading right for the rocks. Because he’d never yearned for anything as much as this woman. He’d given up on figuring out why. All he knew was that when he looked at her, he saw a creature like himself, neither fish nor fowl, living everywhere and belonging nowhere.
Except that she at least had a chance of belonging somewhere. She could have the estate she craved, the position she protected so fiercely. All she had to do was marry her cousin. A man who wouldn’t appreciate her, who couldn’t fathom the glory of her, who . . .
He gritted his teeth. It didn’t matter. The only way to keep her safe from George and Hucker was for Tristan to get out of her life. Or, better yet, to make her push him out of her life so she could marry Keane with no regrets.
And he knew exactly how to do that. “To have me as what?” He forced a sneer into the words she’d thrown at him earlier. “Your paramour?”
He waited for her face to fall. For her to explode and rail at him. To shove him from her room and banish him from her ocean once and for all. It was her only prudent choice.
So he was shocked when she stretched up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, “If that’s all you will allow me . . . then yes.”
His pulse quickened. She wanted him at the risk of her future, her estate, her family’s reputation? No woman had ever wanted him like that, and especially not a woman like her. It was intoxicating.
It was dangerous. If a man weren’t careful, he could begin to crave that whirlpool of wanting. If a man weren’t careful, it could drown him in disappointment.
He’d learned long ago to be very careful.
“Do you even know what a paramour does?” he bit out, still not touching her. Afraid to trust himself to touch her.
She kissed his cheek, then had the audacity to lick his ear. “Many of the same things you did to me earlier, I hope.”
In a flash, he remembered the feel of her slick flesh beneath his fingers, the taste of her breast in his mouth . . . the intoxicating look of her half-undressed, with her exotic eyes glazed and her lush lips parted in ecstasy.
His cock reared up. Hell and thunder, he saw it all so clearly. He closed his eyes to shut it out, but that only enhanced the image. Then she shoved his coat off his shoulders, and his eyes shot open.
God help him, his Gypsy princess was actually trying to seduce him.
He would never survive that. Nor would she. She would hate herself after it was done. And he’d still be unable to offer for her . . . because of Hucker, the bloody wretch who’d sired her and then abandoned her mother.
Damn it, hadn’t he lost enough at that arse’s hands? Must he lose a chance at her, too?
She pulled off his gloves, then worked loose his waistcoat buttons. “So tell me, what else does a paramour do?”
He tried to think of something, anything other than how badly he wanted to lose himself in Zoe. “I’ll tell you what he doesn’t do. If he has any sense, he doesn’t deflower a woman when her father, aunt, and fiancé are due home any moment.”
“Aunt Flo and Papa were invited to a ball after the showing, so they won’t be home until very late. Even so, their rooms are downstairs; they won’t know we’re up here. They wouldn’t bother me anyway, since they’ll assume I’m sleeping.” She opened his waistcoat. “And as for Jeremy, you know as well as I do that he probably won’t even come home with them. Besides, he isn’t my fiancé.”
When she pushed his waistcoat off, he let her, partly because he wondered how far she would take this, and partly because he’d never had an innocent seduce him before. It was intriguing, enticing . . . tempting.
He scowled. Damn, he was already drowning. “Ah, but he will be your fiancé soon enough,” he said, to remind himself as much as her.
“No.” She untied his cravat. “You were right. I can’t marry a man whom I don’t desire. And I don’t desire Jeremy.”
That caught him off guard. “So you mean to seduce the man you do desire? Is that it?”
Sliding his cravat off, she threw it over the chair with his coat. “Why not?”
The fact that she avoided his gaze was too telling to let this continue. He caught her hand as she reached for his shirt buttons. “Because I won’t marry you when it’s done.”
She flinched. Then her jaw stiffened, and she brushed his hands aside so she could unbutton his shirt. “I wouldn’t want you to, anyway.”
That hit him like a punch to the gut. “Because of your bloody Winborough? Because you have to protect your family?”
“Because paramours don’t marry, do they?”
“Zoe, be hon
est,” he said sharply. “You don’t really want this.”
She met his gaze with a defiant one. “You know what I don’t really want? To go the rest of my life not knowing what it’s like to share your bed. To throw away any chance of being with you because of a slim possibility that it might—only might—keep me from losing everything.” Her voice hardened. “I refuse to let that dreadful Hucker win. And so should you.”
That fairly knocked him off his feet.
Then she dropped her hands from him and turned away. “Of course, if you have no interest in bedding me because you think it would be disgusting to lie with the daughter of the man you loathe—”
“You are not Hucker’s daughter,” he said fiercely, “no matter what your blood. You are Lady Zoe Keane. To me, you will always be Lady Zoe Keane, my Gypsy princess and the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known.”
When she faced him warily, he added, “That’s precisely why I don’t wish to ruin your life.”
“You know something, Tristan?” An arch look crossed her face as she began to unbutton her redingote. “For a scoundrel, you’re awfully high in the instep.”
As he followed the slow progress of her hands hungrily, his breaths grew heavy, labored. But when she pushed the redingote off her shoulders to reveal her shift, corset, and petticoats, his breathing shuddered to a halt entirely. “I’m just . . . giving you fair warning,” he somehow eked out through a tight throat.
A coy smile tipped up her lovely lips as she glided toward him. “And now that we have that out of the way, why don’t we move on to more important matters?” Seizing his hand, she placed it squarely on her breast. “Like showing me exactly how the scoundrel seduces.”
And just like that, he went under the waves.
With a strangled oath, he yanked her into his arms and covered her mouth with his. She would belong to him now—not to Keane or anyone else. He would keep her for however long he could have her without risking her harm.
She flung her arms about his neck and gave herself up to his kisses and caresses with the same heedless abandon she’d shown that afternoon, dragging him right down into the maelstrom with her.
Hell and thunder, she had such a delicious mouth, and her nipple instantly beaded up beneath his kneading palm. Frantic to know more of her, he used his other hand to work her hair free of its pins until the coil loosened and dropped to her waist, frothing against his arms like the relentless waves of the sea.
Then, still kissing her, he moved on to her laces, tearing at them until her corset was loose enough to pull off over her head. Her eyes shone emerald-bright as he undid her shift ties and lowered her chemise to expose her breasts to his gaze. She blushed, giving a glow to her creamy skin that he could see even in firelight.
“God, they’re perfect.” This was his first time seeing them fully bared, watching the nut-brown nipples harden into sweet little buds he wanted desperately to taste.
He drew her to the bed and sat down, then pulled her to stand between his legs so he could have her lovelies right where he wanted them. Then he sucked and teased them with tongue and teeth until he had her gasping and clutching his head to keep him close.
“You like that, do you, princess?” he murmured against her.
“Oh, yes. I never guessed that breasts could be so . . . so sensitive . . .”
He brushed a lock of her hair over one nipple, enjoying the gasp that escaped her lips. “If a man knows what he’s doing, many parts of a woman’s body can be a source of pleasure.”
“Show me.”
“Certainly, sweetheart. Whatever you wish.” He pressed a kiss into the bend of her elbow, and she gave a low moan. He tongued it and then scattered openmouthed kisses down her inner arm.
She was trembling now. God, she was so wonderfully responsive for an innocent. It stiffened his cock painfully. But then, Zoe never behaved according to expectation. That was what he loved about her.
Loved?
He tensed. A figure of speech, that’s all. He might be mad enough to bed her, but he was not mad enough to hand her the means to drown him.
He licked the pulse at her wrist, exulting in its quickening beat. “The body is like a pianoforte, sweetheart. A good paramour must know just how to strike every note so that you hear and feel the symphony.”
“A-are there places I could . . . strike your notes?”
His blood did a mad stampede. He pulled her hand to rest on the side of his neck. “Stroke me there and I am yours.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t want me to . . . stroke your . . . well . . . you know? What I did before?”
“Perhaps you remember what happened when you did that before.” When she frowned, he added, “This time I mean to be inside you when I come. And if you stroke me there I won’t last until then, I assure you.”
He bent forward to tug her earlobe with his teeth. “Besides, there is so much more I want to do to you first. As I told you before—I mean to take my sweet time with you.”
Her breathing came in endearing little gasps that got him even more hot and bothered. With a minxish smile, she not only stroked his neck but bent to kiss it just at the pulse, where it drove him mad.
“You are . . . far too good at this for a man’s sanity,” he rasped.
In a frenzy he undid her petticoats and shoved them off, then dispensed with her shift so he could get a good look at her—at all of her, from the hollow of her throat to the beautiful curls between her legs.
Until that moment, he’d half believed he could stop this if he could just see her naked, have that image to cling to once he left. What a foolish notion. Because seeing his pretty princess bared made him crave her as a sailor craved the sea.
“When do I get to see you naked?” she whispered.
“Whenever you like.”
She cast him a sultry glance, then lifted his leg to work his boot off.
No one had ever done that for him. His swiving had mostly taken place in dressing rooms or quarters the women shared with others. He’d always tried to take his time with the lovemaking, but undressing fully hadn’t been practical. He’d never known when they might be interrupted. So being undressed by a woman was a unique experience.
And ah, what he’d been missing! Having a bare-bosomed goddess kneel at his feet to remove his boots was at once painfully domestic . . . and highly erotic.
He filled his hands with her luscious hair, her luscious breasts, whatever he could reach. What would it be like to do this every night with her? The thought aroused him so keenly that when she rose with a smile to reach for his trouser buttons, he knew he’d never get through that without embarrassing himself. Just the reminder of her hands on him this afternoon had him close to it already.
Brushing her hands away, he ripped off his shirt, then his trousers and drawers, until he stood before her as naked as she.
Her eyes ate him up, though they shied away from his erection.
“Look at it,” he growled.
Perhaps if she did, she would balk. He was desperate to come up for breath, to stop his mad plunge into her ocean before it was too late. But when she did as he asked, and her eyes went wide at the sight of him—though not, apparently, in fear—he realized there was no returning to shore.
Still, he had to be sure she understood what she was in for. He laid her hand on his jutting cock. “This beast is what I want to put inside you, princess. It will hurt you, I fear, and you’ll never be the same.”
She ran a finger along the length of him, then smiled softly. “I should hope not. How good can a seduction possibly be if one ends up the same afterward?”
He groaned. Only she would look at it like that. “Then God help us both.” And he dragged her into his arms for a long, hot kiss that sealed both their fates.
18
ZOE HAD WON Tristan in her bed at last. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. Tomorrow she would think about the consequences and what she must do to secure her future, but for tonight, she
had Tristan.
His “beast” pressed at her thighs like, well, a wild beast, and she rubbed against it. Would that feel as good for him as stroking it with her hand had?
Apparently so, for with a rough curse, he tumbled her onto the bed and covered her body with his. “God, Zoe, you steal the very breath from me.” He nudged her legs apart so he could kneel between them, then braced his hands on either side of her shoulders.
The position was incredibly intimate, especially when she could feel the length of his arousal against her belly . . . and lower. But although his powerful body hovered over her, the muscles of his shoulders and thighs flexing as if to prove their strength, she felt utterly safe with him.
Desperate to touch him, she ran her hands over his chest and shoulders, marveling at the thickly hewn sinews. He remained still as she caressed him, though his eyes glittered hotly at her the whole while.
Then he dipped down to brush a soft kiss to her lips. “I’ve never been with a virgin, sweetheart. Show me how to please you. Where you want me to touch you.”
“Everywhere.” She was already aroused by the feel of his member rubbing between her legs. “Anywhere.”
“All right then,” he said in a husky drawl. “Whatever my princess desires.”
Then he began a determined assault on her senses. He slid down enough to suck her breasts and then her belly, tonguing and kissing and nibbling her in places she’d never guessed could be so sensitive—her underarms, her ribs . . . her navel.
He seduced like a musician. Or an artist, painting her skin with lips and tongue and teeth, bringing her to life one hot caress at a time. Then his hand slid stealthily between her legs and delved into her tenderly, and she nearly exploded at that touch. Lord, he certainly knew how to play a woman, how to tease her until she went half-mad with wanting him.
When she squirmed beneath his deft strokes, needing more, he uttered a soft laugh. “You’re such a wonder, princess. I’ve never seen a woman take such unabashed pleasure in the physical.”
How the Scoundrel Seduces Page 20