by Gayle Eden
“I beg to differ. You played with my emotions. Every time I tried to distance myself, after finding out about the duchess, you sought me out.”
“I wanted you.”
She felt her blood heat, her bones melt, however Jo grit, “You wanted me? Don’t you think that a rather selfish game?”
“I’ve said as much.” He stepped close, close enough so that she raised her chin to meet his gaze now. “I didn’t expect to feel that intensity any more than you did.” Sascha took off his gloves and tucked them in his pocket.
Jo knew he would touch her.
He did, resting his fingertips on her cheek a moment. There was strength in that hand, warmth.
“Don’t kiss me,” she husked.
He murmured, “You want a lover. You need a lover who can please you. One who can make you burn. My kisses make you burn, don’t they Johanna?
Oh. God. “What is this for, your vanity?” her voice was too husky.
“For you. For me. Despite what was wrong before, one thing was evident. We set each other afire.”
Not expecting those words, she was still in shock when his head lowered and his sensual mouth touched hers. A slight moving of his head, a parting of lips, and then that skillful tongue glided in her mouth.
He was too good, too delicious, and Jo’s own tongue lifted, earning a grunt of masculine pleasure from him. They were kissing, erotic, hot, lips rubbing and tongues tasting desire from each other. The overriding flavor was sizzling lust and carnal hunger.
Dizzy, trembling, Jo unfolded her arms, her hands grasping at his sides, under the open jacket. He plunged deeper, kissed her more erotically. His warm masculine scent swirled in her head and was as heady as his taste.
Sascha lifted that kiss-dampened mouth an inch from hers so they could catch their breath. Sultry breathing wafted between them. His heavy lashes lifted in a sensual, lover-like, way. “You want me?”
“What?” She blinked. Her bloody legs were weak.
His other hand found her lower back and touched her in a possessive hold that brought her close to his strength and body heat. The hand on her cheek slid back to find a sensitive spot on her nape. “You want me.”
“No.”
Sascha kissed her again, harder, deeper, ravishing, and then he stopped to husk in her ear, “I can pleasure you. You want me, Johanna.”
He was making her daft, making her burn.
Johanna pushed back, dropping her hands from him, aware that she was unable to hide the effect of that kiss. “Is this why you came back? To play your games again—”
“There was no sport in this.” His light gaze did not waver. “Your kisses show you are aroused, your eyes and body do. I make no secret of wanting you…”
“Are you trying to insult me?”
“No. And coyness is not your game, Johanna.”
He closed the distance again, his hands raising, cupping her face, holding it so she had to look and see what was in his eyes. “If there’s no other honesty between us, there is that. We touch, we kiss, and nothing can conceal what happens. You pride yourself on being unconventional, original, you tell the ton, the world, to bloody hell with rules. Why deny this—”
Kissing her this time with enough heat to bring her to her toes, Sascha ravished her mouth and brought a drowning whimper from her throat—not relenting until her hands were once more grasping him.
It gave her some satisfaction that his breathing was as dark, as labored as her own, when he at last lifted his head.
Johanna attempted to fill her lungs when he dropped his hold and stepped back. In her fog, her eyes were absorbing him, the harsher face, and the lighter, more intense gaze. She was looking at a stranger.
Wetting her lips, Jo took another step back too, but did not turn. When she had a half clear head, she managed, “I’ve agreed to nothing.”
“Then I will just have to convince you otherwise.”
“I don’t know who you are,” she whispered. “I really don’t.”
“True.” He smiled short and then lit another cheroot. After blowing smoke from his nose, his eyes met hers again. “You did not before, although I will be the first to admit—I was not a man worth knowing.”
Wrapping her arms around herself again, she was absently conscious of the music, the noise spilling out the French doors, and the fact that people must have witnessed that kiss. There were couples walking that path not far from them. Well, she had supplied the entertainment for the night, had she not? The brazen one, kissing Viscount Whitford, on the dark lawn.
Jo was asking herself, if what he said were true, that she did not know him before. It was, because they had not exactly conversed. How could she have reacted to him so strongly? This man—this darker, hard-edged, more aggressive—yes, passionate, Sascha, stirred her. He made her hot and hungry with a mere kiss. This one—read her reactions and summoned those hungers too…
Altered, matured, and grown, past games, she had done much of that whilst in Scotland. Sascha had changed most of all. She sensed everything was deeper, darker, and more intense with him.
“I will collect you for a ride in the park in the morning,” his murmur jerked her out of her muse.
She started to say no, feeling that shiver down her spine, but did not.
Jo supplied at some point, before turning to go in and find Megan and their party, “I had made up my mind this season to take a lover. Why not. I am old enough to set the course of my relationships.” Her shrug was fake, but she was too rattled to care. “But whilst I may not care for society’s rules, I have a few of my own.”
Jaw flexing, he arched his brow.
“It is, what it is. Do not play with me. Do not lie to me. Do not expect me to be other than I am. Then neither of us will confuse an affair—with anything else.”
* * * *
Sascha cursed darkly watching Johanna stride off and into the ballroom, her lush hips swaying in that unconscious way she walked—like a woman who liked being a woman.
He finished the cheroot and left, spending an hour brooding in his brandy before finding his bed. His body was stirred and burning. Sleep was not easily found. He had been determined about one thing when he decided to come home again, this time, any relationship he had would be honest.
Johanna was the woman who drew him back.
He had overcome the stupidity of young manhood, and its causes were many. The attraction to Johanna had hit him like a blow, consumed him, and made him reckless and bitter at his situation with Edith. It showed him too, that his cock was not what he could base his relationships on.
Whatever the excuses for falling in with Edith, though frankly, he had lusted for her and that had likely been at the root of it. Edith neither cared about nor knew a thing about him, beyond what she needed to manipulate him with. His self-loathing made him believe he deserved it.
However, the years, the situation, wore away any lust. He let her use him because of the markers. She used the debts to keep him on a leash. The final straw had been her hold on his estate. He had been at the edge of his tether—when he had seen Johanna.
That Bordeaux hair, handsome face, and the shocking gown she had worn on a perfectly proportioned body. The brazen way she had carried herself had not completely fooled him. However, what he had seen, craved, envied, was a zest, passion, a bold and fearless young woman who could make the rest of society look like fools. The part that had not fooled him was that anyone, any unwed, illegitimate woman, no matter how singular, would have hell to pay for ignoring society.
She defied them, ignored their disdain, stood up to them for her family. She let them think what they wanted—Jo, did exactly as she chose to.
It was a different stand from the Duchess of Summerton, Edmund’s sister, Lady Sonja. Society scorned her, rejected her and pushed her to the outer circle until she had made her own life. He understood that it was through the Marquis and his unconventional family that Sonja made her appearances in society now. Of course, they were
not wild about him wedding the Marquis’s daughter, Alexandria, either, but being the wife of Edmund, an Earl, they could pretend they did.
It was not like that for Johanna. Society did not like rebels and hellions. They did not know what to do with females who did not cower, curry favor, and pant for their approval. A woman who acted—as if she had the same right as a male to make her own decisions and conduct her own life.
Sascha wanted her then, and now. He remembered attending that party at the Marquis townhouse with Edmund. The first time being that close to her, observing, watching—with a kind of overflowing intoxication in his blood—later, that first kiss was lightening, burning his bones.
Imperfect and with a temper, passionate, and having obvious loyalty to her family on both sides, Johanna had been his rude awakening. If the daughter of a rakehell, a young woman of twenty and four could take on the world and be damned, what the bloody hell was he waiting for? If he wanted this vibrant, burning, and hard to hold flame, he’d better be prepared for it.
He wanted her and he wanted her in more ways than one. He could continue like his brother before him had; drinking, gambling, racking up debts—and thanks to his brother, he had inherited enough of them. He was a “Viscount” and most of his peers lived out their indolent lives debauched, bedding some titled female who would pay their markers, support them, or waste their years, trying to find a cure for boredom that was nothing more than disgust of one’s lot.
If he had continued on his path, not only would he lose the estate, but also the sheer loathing of himself would have consumed him.
Yes, it helped that he had friends like Edmund; it had helped when he met the Marquis of Hawksmoor. However, it all came down on him, clarifying, like a hammer blow when Johanna came into his life.
He still stood the chance of losing the estate, his solicitor had told him that when he had accepted Van Wyc’s offer and left England. Certainly, he felt that he had lost any chance with Johanna. His family home, all of it, could have been lost had Edith not cooperated.
Sascha suspected that the duchess had cooperated because he was actually gone, and it likely hit her that she could take the money offered or end up with nothing. That, and the fact she’d moved on to another green target.
In any case, he had made that decision at Hawksmoor, needing to have that one last day around Johanna and affirm what he already knew—that no ordinary man could challenge her, handle her on equal terms, and win her.
When he sailed away with the sting of her handprint on his cheek, her words to never speak to her again ringing in his ears, he had considered never returning. There were months afterwards when he was certain he would not.
He could make a better life, unquestionably a richer one, where he was afterwards. He could have taken his clean slate and built a life for that man instead.
She haunted him in that burning and scorching way.
Nights, the taste of her kiss watered his mouth; he remembered the feel of her lips, that silken tongue in his mouth, her scent, a provocative one, unique, like a blend of soft fruit and flowers. Her dark emerald eyes, laughing, flashing, and a throaty laugh that made a man’s' loins hard. It often drove him from the bed in erotic agony. He saw her dancing, flirting, or carefree and uninhibited, as she had been at Hawksmoor. No woman compared to the sum of all she was.
Sascha had to answer his own questions, test his limits, and be able to look at himself in the mirror and know who that man was. Moreover, he had to find that fervor and fire for the challenge, in his guts and bones, too.
It had developed in that unconscious way, while he was busy earning a new kind of respect, earning his bread, so to speak, by the sweat of his brow, and building his fortune—cleaning up any loose ends of his old life. It was happening without thought, until that day arrived that he knew it was time to see her again.
She was just as vivid, just as tempestuous, and just as spirited as he remembered.
His plan: Yes. He had one. He would make love to her until she could not think of another man—and do it with the utmost pleasure. He would melt her, burn her, and brand her with passion. Then—he would go after her heart.
One thing Sascha knew about Lady Johanna Ramsey and that was, she delighted in being brazen, and she hated following conventional rules.
As dawn edged, Sascha slept at last, anticipating meeting her for a morning ride. His last thought—he looked forward to playing the sexually decadent and indulgent lover, with the woman he fully intended to someday be his wife.
Chapter Five
No one was stirring yet when Jo dressed in her green velvet habit, white silk blouse, and a saucy silk top hat and riding boots. She ate breakfast in quiet dining room and scanned the papers over coffee.
On the surface, it was a normal day, normal morning, aside from the fact she could have slept a few hours more. Auttenburg of course, kept her from sleeping. She had awoke early, lingered in a bath, been distracted dressing—all because of that too surreal encounter with Sascha last night.
What the bloody hell happened to her resolve to ignore him? It had dissolved on a single kiss.
Oh, very well. She wanted him. She had always desired him. Why not find fulfillment sexually, and experience pleasures with someone who made her feel that way. It was not as if he was likely to stay in England. Even if he did, she had learned a lesson about throwing one’s heart after a man too soon. One more or less a stranger, save for his ability to heat her blood. All the better to keep one’s heart out of the equation any way. An affair would certainly be more exciting, and more fulfilling. Absolutely—no expectations beyond that.
When it was over, all done, she would have no regrets, and settle into a life of being the doting auntie to the heirs. Perhaps she would travel, go somewhere exotic and try all sorts of daring things….
On her second coffee, she heard the butler in the foyer talking and stood, snatched up her black gloves. She headed that way.
“I’m here, Luddy.” She grinned at the butler, who was about to send a maid for her. Ludlow, for all his dignity, displayed a merest quirk of the lips at her pet name for him. He had all the reserve and stateliness required for a Marquis’s butler; perfectly groomed black and white clothing, not a black hair out of place, but he had been with her father long enough now to be used to the “daughters” and their informality. Jo, in particular liked to tease a smile out of him.
Jo’s eyes went to Sascha, just inside the door. Buff trousers, wine boots, linen shirt, riding jacket a deep bronze with black lapels, his mane loose and rakish looking—too bloody tempting.
“Would you like breakfast, or coffee?”
“No. Thank you. I breakfasted at the hotel.” His gaze swept her in an approving way before he opened the door and they exited. Sascha gave her a leg up on the roan whilst the groom held the reins of his black stud.
Soon they were proceeding to the park.
“Not your favorite way to ride, is it?” He glanced aside at her.
“No, nothing like Hawksmoor or my cousin’s estates.” She gestured to the sidesaddle trying to not notice how the weak sun flattered his dark skin, and how his damp oak hair was waving as it dried. The changes in him were starting to sink in, and they were rather startling. He was so…mature, and well, earthy.
“One has to make allowances for town, but there’s ways of getting around things if you want something bad enough.”
Sensing the double meaning in that, she arched her brow. His answering smile was enigmatic. Dratted man.
Inside the park, they rode at a good pace, taking the row and making the most of the fact few of the ton were in attendance as yet. Slowing by the stretch of green before the serpentine, their legs rubbed before he moved the black a short space.
Still, they were close enough for her to be aware of him, and to smell some manly soap amid the sun warmed skin. His mane was now ruffled from the gallop—and he had a damn fine seat.
They halted by mutual consent. He gazed around t
he park offering, “I’ve ridden horses big as a carriage. Similar to our draft horses.”
“Really?”
His lime eyes turned to her, skimming over her cocked hat before touching hers. “Yes. Not only did they pull wagons, we loaded timber on massive sleds. Timbering often means no roads and steep mountains. Although in America, mules were used also.”
Jo found that interesting. She found the picture of him doing physical labor interesting. “It sounds like difficult work.”
“Backbreaking. Not just the cutting but transporting it. Some timber can be moved by water, but for the most part, its strong backs that do it.”
Regarding him silently a moment, she then asked, “Were the debts you owed the duchess, all gambling debts?”
“No,” his tone changed from lightness to dark. “I had little when my brother died. He was the gambler, a man who had more mistresses than shirts, and no skill at all at the tables, for all he was addicted to it.” He seemed about to say more, and then shook his head.
Jo watched the sinew in his jaw flex. “You’re free of obligations to her?”
“Yes. Free of any debt. Although, I am not a man wealth by some of the world’s standards. I am well on my way to building it.”
Jo sensed that he was both proud of earning his wealth and of building it. She respected the fact he was honest about his situation now. She had a decent inheritance from her mother, property from the man who had been a father until she was in her early teens. She was an heiress by all accounts, and the Marquis had told her she would receive a generous amount from him this year on her birthday.
All of that was nonessential to her, aside from what she spent on fashions for a season. She did not really preoccupy herself with wealth one way or the other. It was different for society, for men like Sascha though. She knew she was fortunate in her circumstances. She had never really worried about it because she was privileged.
A soft bray reached them. Jo turned her head, spying an odd scene.
Following her gaze, Sascha murmured, “That’s his pet goat.”
She laughed. “You’ve seen him before?”