Her afternoons spent roaming the East End were part of an intimate life that no one had the right to violate. How dare he?
“You bastard!” She reared back her right hand and swung it around to slap his lying face.
Except her hand never made contact. He caught her wrist and held it fast, suspended in the night air. His gaze pinned her in place, and her body flushed hot, her focus concentrated on the point where his gorgeous, capable hand wrapped around her wrist.
A succession of thoughts flowed in a rapid cascade. She could ignore his scent . . . his warmth . . . his powerful body . . . his piercing eyes . . . his gorgeous, capable hands. They needn’t affect her as they had in the past. But . . .
How closely her body was positioned to his . . . How their breath mingled together in a ragged cadence of uncertainty and . . . Was this anticipation making her heart race? Anticipation of . . . what?
At once, she was certain of a single, irrefutable fact: more than she wanted to slap his perfidious face, she wanted this man one last time.
Every time was supposed to be the last time. Yet it never was.
Tonight was different. Tonight, he didn’t have to be more than a body, his only function to be a source of pleasure for her. They didn’t have to solve anything between them to do this temporary act. They both wanted it. She saw the truth of that reflected back at her in his eyes, irises flared black with desire, surely a mirror of her own.
Oh, he wanted her. And she would have him.
She reached up and touched fingertips to the dimple in his chin, traced the outline of his stubbled jaw until she found the back of his neck, her fingers threading through his sun-kissed hair. Gently, insistently, she tugged, pulling his face down, even as she rose to the tips of her toes, her mouth reaching, straining, toward his. In a final push of the sweetest anxiety, her mouth took his . . .
~ ~ ~
. . . In a kiss that ravished, urged, insisted, left nothing in reserve, left Jake no doubt how this night would end.
Her tongue pushed inside his mouth. Her body carnally rubbed up the full length of his, her intent clear. He released her wrist, and her hand snaked between their bodies until it reached the laces of his trousers, already strained to their limit by the bulge of his swollen cock. The cool tips of her fingers feathered down the hot length of his shaft, once, twice, a taunt, a tease.
A growl, rough, demanding, sounded from the back of his throat. He needed . . . “More, Olivia.”
“When I say.”
Her palms pressed flat against his shoulders, and she pushed his yielding body onto white marble, his hard cock exposed to the night air and the avarice of her gaze. She took her skirts in hand and slowly lifted, exposing ankles, calves, thighs . . . mons pubis. He heard an animal moan and realized it came from him.
The knowledge of Eve lit within her eyes. “I know what more you want.” Her tongue grazed her crooked tooth. “And what I want.” She braced her hands on his shoulders and straddled him, her naked, wet quim poised inches above his cock, another taunt, another tease. Her lips met his ear. “Beg,” she whispered.
“Olivia, if I could take back—”
“Not for forgiveness.”
Relief, dirty and wrong, pulsed through him. He didn’t want her forgiveness. He wanted her hot, slick cunny wrapped around his cock. He throbbed, he ached, for her to . . . “Fuck me.”
She pulled away and met his eyes. “Did no one ever teach you how to grovel?”
His gaze fixing hers in place, he allowed a heartbeat to pass, then another. “Please.”
A triumphant smile curved one corner of her kiss-crushed lips, and her hand wrapped around his length one deliberate finger at a time until she held him firmly. It was all he could do to keep his hips still, to not press up and into her, to keep his hands fast at his sides and let her control the situation. This night was hers to use him as pleased her.
Unhurriedly, she lowered her body, her bare flesh brushing his throbbing head before lowering to take him in, inch by slick, agonizing inch, until he was fully immersed in her. She went still, her breath ragged, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes drifted shut, intoxicated by her own private nirvana. She’d never looked so unbound, so unknowable.
Eyes closed to any world outside her own, she rose up, then down, a slow, intentional rhythm with every rise and fall of her hips, his shaft a tool for her pleasure. His hands clenched the back edge of the bench as she took him.
Her eyes fluttered half-open. Desire darkened their luminous blue into opaque navy. She reached inside his shirt and gripped his shoulders, her nails digging in deep. Blood surely mixed with the sweat trickling down his spine.
Lust, hot and swift, ignited, and he reached the limit of passive endurance. His fingers found her hips and squeezed. Her legs wrapped around his waist, allowing him further entry until he pushed against the core of her.
“Harder,” she moaned, wild abandon freeing her, him, of the past, the future, freeing them to this moment, this pleasure, pure and raw, blazing and demanding. He thrust his hips and drove inside her in a swift, slick stroke, relentless. Her moan encouraged, begged, pleaded with him, for more, for all he had.
Her head arced back, and her body tensed, suspended, still, except for the relentless thrust of his cock. Her breath came and went in staccato bursts as her body broke and pulsated her release atop him, her quim fluttering in rhythmic pulses around his manhood, all but begging him to follow her lead.
But he wouldn’t. Not yet. He wasn’t done.
In a quick, sure movement, he tightened his grip on her hips and lifted her up and off him. Confusion crinkled her brows together. “But you didn’t—”
He pressed a silencing finger to her lips. “Turn around,” he demanded, more imperious than he had the right to be.
Dark, fierce lust flared her pupils, her irises a thin blue ring, and she obeyed, bending over and bracing herself against smooth stone, her luscious, heart-shaped derriere naked and waiting for him to take her again.
He took his cock in hand, slick and sweet with her, and guided himself into her, and she released the longest, most sultry moan ever to cross a pair of lips. He stroked in, then out, her moans sliding into gasps. Her hands gripped the edge of the stone bench, her back arched, and her sex bloomed more with each thrust of his hips, ready for more, harder, faster.
He and she were nothing more than animals, devoid of reason or concern. This was fucking. They took from each other what was needed. He wanted her to take from him until he had nothing left.
Her gasps became short, hard bursts, as if she’d wound herself into a knot. He drove inside her, again and again. Only he could release her, unbind her. Gasps transformed into aching groans, and he felt her unfold beneath him as her wet, hot pussy seized her, quaking its release around him. This time he had no choice but to follow her to the precipice and over its edge.
He came hard, spending his seed deep inside her, each thrust an intentional branding, a claiming, animal, primitive. She was his. He would have her any way he could get her.
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face, and his animal nature began to recede, reason and reality, heartbeat by beat, reasserting itself. He glanced down and found himself still joined with her. He never wanted to separate from her. Yet he must.
He stepped back and slipped out of her. With one hand, he reached for the laces of his trousers, and with the other, he tugged her crushed gown over her pale bottom. The fine muscles of her back contracted, one by one, and she straightened. Her dress fell to the ground in a soft shush. It was almost possible to convince himself that what had just happened hadn’t. But why would he want to?
She turned around and braced herself against the bench before sliding to the grass in a graceful cloud of gold and ivory silk, her back supported by white marble. He’d never
seen her so gorgeously and thoroughly spent.
“I wish you’d allowed me to land that slap.” Her voice carried to him across crisp night air swirling with the vibrations of a distant raucous mazurka, the antithesis to the quiet and unsettled mood pervading the space around them.
“No, you don’t.”
“Don’t I?”
He lowered his own spent body and settled back onto his elbows. Her gaze seemed determined to fix on the patch of night sky beyond his right shoulder. Now, in the quiet of this rare moment, he must ask a question. “Olivia?”
She must look at him.
“Olivia,” he repeated.
Her gaze, wide and wild, flashed to meet his.
“Marry me.”
Ephemeral emotion flickered across her face.
“Not replying isn’t an option. You cannot run from this.”
A laugh, sudden and mirthless, emerged from her parted lips. “No? But I am so good at it.”
“Olivia—”
“No. The answer must be no.”
Chapter 27
A light rush of joy coupled with deep, dark despair swept across and sank into Olivia.
Jake had asked her to marry him. She’d said no.
His brow wrinkled in disbelief. “No?”
His inability to take no for an answer was almost comical. Almost.
His brow released, and his entire bearing took on a pugilistic set that didn’t appear remotely defeated. “What if there’s a babe?” he threw out like a rebuke.
A possibility she’d considered. But there were ways of concealing pregnancies, country estates and such. Besides, the ton would expect nothing less, or more, of her. Her resolve strengthened. “You mustn’t marry me.”
“Stop using that word. Must,” he growled, thwarted, frustrated. “It’s wearing thin.”
“Jake, stop and take a listen.” The strain of violin strings and the monotonous hum of the party drifted over the dense labyrinth. “Can you hear them? Discussing me? Dissecting me? Even in the Duke’s own house.”
“That hardly matters to—”
“It matters to you. Don’t you remember?” She inhaled deeply, sharp, midnight air frosting her lungs, steeling her for the conversation that must be had. “It matters for Mina’s chances with that lot.” She pressed on, insistent. “You see their refined, glossy smiles. What you don’t see are the sharp, vicious teeth hiding behind those civilized smiles. But I do. I’ve felt the fine points of those teeth sink into me. Mina is innocent. She deserves better than that.”
“I’m her father. I know what’s best for her.”
“It’s not me.”
He opened his mouth to speak and closed it. He shot to his feet and began pacing the length of the enclosed space, calling to mind a caged tiger who hadn’t yet made peace with the narrow confines of his cage. Welcome to your life in the ton, Right Honourable Jakob Radclyffe, Fifth Viscount St. Alban.
The reality of their situation had begun to sink in for him. Good. Great. Brilliant. Like a tenacious barrister pressing her point home, she continued, “Mina needs a stepmother of impeccable reputation. She needs a protective shield. We’ve accepted this in our hearts.”
He stopped mid-stride and swiveled toward her. Silent accusation pinned her in place. She’d read him all wrong. He hadn’t accepted her version of their reality. Not in the least.
“Our hearts? Do not speak to me of our hearts, Olivia.”
He stalked toward her, an unpleasant glint in his eye. A frisson of worry tingled down her spine, not for the safety of her person, but for something more important: the safety of her intentions.
“Mina isn’t your reason for refusing me . . . us.”
Olivia sprang up, her heart threatening to pound through her chest. She stepped behind the stone bench, placing it between her and him. As if it could protect her from the havoc he was wreaking inside her. “If you must know,” she began from what she thought was a safe enough distance, “I’m not certain we are well suited to one another. That the, um—”
“Passion?” he supplied.
“Yes, that the passion we share could be enough to sustain us over time.”
“The heat between us burns hot and bright enough to sustain us through not one lifetime, but a dozen.” His words emerged clipped, Dutch in intonation. He was definitely upset.
He rounded the bench. Now nothing was between them. Nothing in the physical world, anyway. But it wasn’t a physical barrier that stood between them. It was the one invisible to the naked eye that was most impenetrable. Solid enough to prevent one heart from accepting another.
“Try again,” he said, words that penetrated clear through to her core. “Your refusal isn’t about the fickleness of passion. It’s about your marriage.”
Her entire being stilled as if caught in an invisible snare, held in thrall to intense ice blue eyes that dared her to look away, to refute the veracity of his words. He wanted the truth? He would have it. “What if it is? Surely, you can see the parallel.”
“What parallel?”
“Between you and Percy.”
Incredulity spread across his face. “Not a single similarity exists between Percy and me.”
“No?” Cold steel wrapped around her heart and braced her for the words she must speak. “Percy withheld facts from me. You withheld facts from me. How are you any different?”
She knew how in so many ways, but she couldn’t let that knowledge see light. It might grow roots and undermine her purpose.
“I had—”
“Your reasons?” she interrupted. “Of course. And I understand them, truly I do, but lovers, husbands, men always have their reasons. It’s the prerogative of your sex. It places you above the women in your life and makes them less than equal. I shall never place myself in that position again.”
“I’ve told you that I seek a partner.”
No wife of mine will ever be subject to such a marriage.
She gave her head a clearing shake. She mustn’t lose focus. “I believe that you believe your words, but they can’t be true. The fact is you are a man, and I can never know you truly.”
“You know exactly who I am. Not as a representative of my sex, but me, Olivia. This conversation isn’t about generalities, but about us.”
“I thought that about Percy. Then we married. The truth is—”
“The truth is,” he interrupted, “you don’t trust your judgment when it comes to love.”
Her gut twisted and sank to her feet. She’d uttered similar words to him two nights ago on that magical rooftop. Now he was throwing them back at her. She deserved them. “I’ve been wrong before.”
“But we aren’t speaking of before. This is now.”
“Can’t you see? The stakes are too high to be wrong. What of the stepmother Mina needs?”
“Don’t throw Mina at me. That is pure evasion.”
Chastened, Olivia allowed the steel around her heart to release. He was right. Using Mina was an avoidance. “We are quite a pair of damaged goods, aren’t we? We both have sound reasons for swearing off love. Why can’t you leave it?”
“Is it so easy for you?” he asked.
“Easy isn’t the right word. Nothing in life is easy. Consider the price if we fail.”
“Olivia, is there a price too high?”
The gently spoken question hung in the air for a moment. It was the sort of moment that could go either way. To answer no was an undeniable temptation. But to answer yes was the more rational option. “I’ve done a fine job of avoiding that price these last eleven years until—”
“Until?”
“Until you came along,” she admitted. The admission needn’t change the outcome of this conversation. “But it’s too late for us. Y
ou see how capricious the universe can be?”
“You’ll never start truly living until you trust yourself and let your fear die.”
The compassion of those words threatened to deplete the last shreds of resistance left inside her. Her feet carried her past him and around the stone bench until they found the patch of grass bearing her imprint. She folded herself down into the spot and leaned against the bench.
There were a few angles from which to view the word living. It could describe the basic functioning of the body: blood pumping through veins; muscles contracting; brain processing. Or it could describe the very heights of human existence. To truly live meant to take life beyond its basics, to seize hold of it without a plan for the next step.
One had to risk all to truly live. One had no room for fear in such a life.
The air swirled around her as he settled onto the ground beside her. Her next breath caught the soft heat of his body and took it deep inside. It was a perfect breath. She closed her eyes and held it inside for as long as her lungs would allow. She would hold it inside forever if she could. Salty tears pinpricked the backs of her eyelids. Oh, that they, too, would stay inside forever.
“What if I loved you?” he spoke into the space between them.
The breath arrested inside her lungs, and hope swelled. Within that what if nested her chance to truly live. The next moment, her breath released, and the flight of fancy tucked itself away. “Love isn’t enough. It’s chaotic and fleeting.”
“Look at the stars, Olivia.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she took in the fathomless indigo sky.
“That isn’t chaos. It’s order. The past, present, and future suspended above our heads. Our past, present, and future are written there. If you squint hard enough, you can see it: a future so bright that the shadows of the past can never dim it.”
She averted her gaze. The stars now offered no comfort or respite. He’d managed to insinuate himself into the wide universe.
Tempted by the Viscount Page 27