by Wendy Vella
“You cannot do that, Leo. I will not be responsible for losing you also because of that man.”
“You won’t lose me, and I will kill him if I find him, and no one will know I have done so.”
“I-I can’t believe you are speaking of killing someone so calmly.” She looked up at him. His jaw was clenched, face set in anger, and saw the ruthless man he could be when provoked.
“He deserves to die for hurting you. No other justice will suffice.” He ran a thumb over her cheek. “I’m sorry he caused you pain, Beth. Sorrier than I can say. And for him to take your father’s life at a time when you needed him the most, was yet another blow.”
“Thank you for believing me, Leo.”
He touched her again. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“Yes, that was one of the main reasons I never spoke up. Who would believe me, as my aunt said? She also believed my reputation would be ruined if it came to my word against his, and no man would want me afterward. Of course that suited me, as I never wished to marry.”
“She was wrong, a man would be a fool not to want you.”
Their eyes caught, and held. She read the compassion and tenderness in his, and knowing it was for her made warmth flood through her.
“Beth.” His whisper was ragged.
She braced a hand on his chest and closed the distance. Touching her lips to his, she kissed him softly and waited for the fear. It never came. “Leo,” she breathed. Beth had never instigated contact with another, but she wanted that now… wanted that with Leo.
His hands held her waist, easing her closer still, so her breasts were pressed to his chest. Then he took control of the kiss. Deeper… in seconds Beth was completely under his spell. Her body felt hot, and she wanted more… wanted to crawl into him and have him chase every thought from her head but one… him.
“Stop me,” he said into her neck. “I have no control where you are concerned.”
“Don’t stop, Leo.”
“I don’t want to scare you… not now, after what you have told me.”
That he would say those words meant so much to her. He would stop if she asked him.
“I am not scared, Leo, I have no wish for you to stop. Your touch makes me feel alive for the first time in my life. When you hold me like this, I forget everything but what you make me feel.”
He pulled the satin ribbon of her bonnet and removed it, throwing it across the carriage. Opening her cloak, he eased it from her.
“Just kisses, sweetheart. I have no wish to frighten you.”
Beth lifted her chin, and he kissed his way around the front to her chest. “I am not frightened, Leo.”
The feel of his lips on her skin was wonderful, the sensations he was creating inside her, bliss. Beth didn’t know where this was taking them, or if they had a future, only that right now at this moment she needed this. He touched her above the neckline of her dress, tracing a finger around the edge, making her shiver. More, she thought… much more.
She shuddered as his fingers slipped beneath the fabric and caressed her, tracing the swells of her breasts. She arched closer.
“I have only so much restraint, Beth.”
His jaw was clenched, the muscles bunching, and she knew he wanted her as she did him.
“Please, Leo. For so long I have abhorred a man’s touch. Shuddered when they were too near. For some reason that is not the case with you, so I wish now to get closer; please don’t stop.”
“I don’t want to frighten you.” He cupped a cheek. “It would cause me a great deal of pain to see fear in your eyes when you look at me.”
“You won’t.” She turned her mouth into his hand and placed a kiss on the palm. “I will tell you if I feel fear, Leo.”
He looked at her for long, heated seconds, and then kissed her softly, so soft she felt it to her soul.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Leo wanted Beth with a ferocity that should scare him. After Harriet, he’d vowed to never allow another woman to make him vulnerable, but somehow this one had slipped under his guard and done just that.
“I want you, Beth. Very much.” He bent to kiss the full flesh above her bodice; her answer was to shiver. “You must promise to tell me if anything I do scares you.”
“I will.”
There would be no going back from this point, Leo realized as he brushed his lips over hers. She was his now, as he was hers. Surprisingly, these thoughts gave him only pleasure.
Easing her bodice lower, he touched his lips to the sweet-smelling slope of one breast. Her fingers went to his nape, and just that small contact had his body tightening. Tugging the bodice lower, Leo bared her lush breasts.
“Are you all right?” He made himself drag his eyes from what he had exposed to look at her.
“Oh yes,” she whispered. “Don’t stop, Leo.”
He licked his way down one slope and up the other, until he felt her arch again; only then did he take her nipple into his mouth.
“Leo.” Just one deep, throaty word. The name he’d used since birth, but the sensual tone Beth used made his head spin.
He continued to torment her breasts until her breathing grew rapid; only then did Leo slide a hand under her skirts. Stroking her leg through her stocking, he raised the hem as his fingers climbed higher.
“Do you want more, Beth?”
“Yessss!”
The word was a demand, her eyes clear of fear, but filled with sensual heat.
He circled her thigh and moved inward to touch the soft curls between her legs. Stroking them, he moved down, and caressed the soft, damp petals.
“Kiss me, Beth.”
She did. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she took everything he gave her and more. Their kisses grew heated as he felt her body tense. Pushing a finger slowly inside her wet heat, he was rewarded with another shudder. He continued to thrust in and out, then used his thumb to rub the small, hard bud between her thighs, and she came apart in his arms.
Leo kissed her until the last shudder had eased, and then simply held her against him while she recovered.
“Leo?”
“Sssh, it’s all right, Beth.” He kissed her softly.
“I-I have never wanted to touch a man before you.” Her finger stroked his cheek, and began to map his features. “But now, I dearly wish to touch you.”
His body reacted to her words, but he did not follow through with the urge.
“Now is not the time for that. Now was for you.”
She sat upright on his thighs, her lovely bottom pressing into his groin and causing him a great deal of discomfort. Her hair had come down, and her exquisite breasts were exposed, nipples hard from his touch. She looked like a bloody siren, and nothing like the uptight society woman he had once believed he knew.
“But what about you? Surely you need release? Even one as inexperienced as I knows that.”
“No, that can’t happen.” He pulled up her bodice, then lifted her off him and attempted to lower her onto the opposite seat. She, however, had other ideas, and lifted her skirts, and climbed right back on, making his eyes cross, as now she was straddling his thighs. “I have experienced it before,” he added. Of course he knew right then and there that with Beth it would be different.
“I understand you are concerned for me, Leo, and that after what I told you, you believe me fragile. For so long I was, but lately, with you, I’ve realized I am different now. I allowed him to instill fear in me for too long. Allowed him to force me into hiding. But no more. What we just did was beyond words. Is it wrong to want more, and for you to experience that also?”
She touched his lips with a finger, tracing the tight line he had them pressed into.
“Surely you can see I am all right. In fact, I believe I am better than all right.” She gave him a small smile, which to his mind was just a touch wicked. “I wish to experience it all.”
“No!” Hell no. He tried to remove her, but she simply wrapped her arms around his neck and held
on. “Beth, let go, this… we can’t do that.”
“Why? I am an adult of twenty-seven years. I know what I want, Leo, and surprisingly that is you.” She smiled again. “I really want to be close to you, and that is a joy to me, after the years of fearing I would never feel this. I will likely never get such an opportunity again.”
“But we cannot do that.” His words finished on a groan as she moved closer, so he could feel her body pressed to his. “Christ!”
As if realizing she was inciting him further, she inched closer still.
“You’re innocent,” he tried again. “I have no wish to frighten you.”
Her hands pushed his jacket aside, and she started on his buttons, opening his waistcoat. Beth then worked on the buttons of his shirt, and he let her, because the thought of her hands on his body was an experience he wanted, and he would surely go to hell for it.
“I do not touch people, usually.”
Leo watched as she focused on his chest, and then the tips of her fingers were on his skin, and he could do nothing to stop the shudder that rocked through him.
“But I want to touch you, Leo, so very much.”
“You are emotional.” He tried to reason with her… and himself. “What we have discussed, and what you have suffered—”
“Yes, I know I should feel like that, but here with you, right now, I feel neither fear or regret. I want you, Leo.”
She placed her palms on his chest, and ran both hands up his body. Leo lost all rational thought.
“So be it.” Cupping the back of her head, he took her lips in a deep, hungry kiss. He lowered her bodice again. Cupping a breast, he ran his thumb over the nipple. She shivered in response.
He opened his breeches, and took one of her hands in his. “Feel me, Beth.”
She did as he asked, and he bit back a moan as she traced a finger up and down the length of him, then wrapped them around him.
“So warm,” she whispered. “So hard.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he gritted out.
“You won’t.”
He touched her again, stroking the bud between her thighs until her breathing was faster, like his.
“Take me inside you, sweetheart. Get on your knees, and lower yourself onto me. The control is yours.” Leo held himself still as she did as he asked. He watched her face as she rose, her lip clamped between her teeth in concentration.
“I-I will need your help, Leo.”
Gripping her hips, he helped her down, felt her body slowly take his. She was tight, as he’d expected, but he did not feel her stiffen, although he was prepared to end this if she did. The first sign of fear, and he would stop, even if the action would cost him a great deal.
“Easy, Beth. There is no hurry, take time to adjust.”
He cupped her face, forcing her to look at him, watching every expression as it came and went. The small flinch, then wonder as he slid deeper inside her. He closed the last few inches by raising his hips to meet her.
“Do you feel all right, Beth?”
Leo wanted to move, wanted to grip her hips and take her hard; the need was great, but he fought it.
“I feel no fear.” She whispered the words against his lips. “You are not holding me down, I am in control as you said. Oh, Leo, it is quite wonderful.”
“Quite,” he managed to grit out. He then took control, and eased her up and back down his body. She took over the rhythm, and he made himself take every slow slide of her silken flesh as the tension inside him rose. He felt the tremors of her release start. Gripping her hips, he took control of the last few thrusts, and was rewarded with her shriek as the wave of pleasure consumed her. Leo followed a heartbeat later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Leo held Beth against his chest while he attempted to rationalize what had just happened between them. The passion that had robbed his reason. The need to have this woman as his own had been a fire in his blood.
“Are you all right, Beth?”
“I am. Thank you, Leo.”
“You have no need to thank me.”
She pressed a hand to his chest and lifted up so their eyes could meet. Hers were half-closed, the embers of passion still smoldering. She looked like a thoroughly sated woman… his woman, Leo thought with satisfaction—and something else that he was still not ready to identify.
“You gave me so much then. The realization that I can be with a man and not feel fear.”
“Not a man, this man.” Leo thumped his chest, feeling a primitive need well up inside him to make her understand that she was now his. There would be no one else for either of them as long as he was breathing.
She touched his jaw, a soft brush of her fingers.
“For so long I have believed it better to keep myself away from people, especially men. Part of me knew some were good, but I had never thought… never believed I could have what we just shared.”
“We will marry now.”
“No, Leo. This does not—”
“Yes, it does, and we will.” He wanted her to understand that. That he now needed her at his side. She made him want to be a better person. He wanted to slay her dragons and make her smile. But first, he was going to kill Lloyd.
“I have no wish to marry you simply because we did that.”
He held her still as she tried to get off his thighs. “It’s called making love, and yes we are.”
She huffed out a breath. “I don’t want to marry.”
“I had no plans to either, but you’ll do,” he teased.
She slapped his chest hard. “I beg your pardon?”
He hauled her close and kissed her; she was limp seconds later. “We will be married, Beth,” he whispered into her ear. “Because we have this, and this is a great deal more than many have.”
“But he… I have been—”
He placed a hand over her lips, knowing what she was about to say. She thought because of what happened with Lloyd that she was soiled. That he would not want such a woman, when surely what they had just shared showed her he did. Obviously not in the way she thought, however.
“Let me set a few things straight for you, my sweet.” He framed her face with his hands, urging her eyes to meet his.
“What happened to you was not your fault, and I will never blame you for it, or think you anything other than the lovely, if slightly annoying, woman I have always believed you to be. I would like to find that bastard and make him pay, which I will do. But never think what happened changes how I see you, Beth. Never believe one man’s act of violence on a sweet, innocent girl can be blamed on you.”
“Oh, Leo.”
“Are you going to cry again?” He slipped a hand around her neck, stroking the soft skin.
“N-no, I do not cry.”
The words were accompanied by a loud sniff.
“I don’t mind if you do. I rather like you all weak and pathetic.” It had been just the right thing to say, as her spine straightened.
“I am not pathetic!”
“No,” he kissed her, “you are not.”
“But, Leo, surely we cannot—”
“We can and will wed.”
“But we will argue, and both of us are strong-willed.”
“Yes, and we shall have a great deal of fun making up after those arguments. It is my fondest wish that our daughters inherit your beauty and my even temperament.”
“Children,” she said in that way woman sometimes did. It was the same with small animals, almost a sigh. “I had not thought to have children.”
“Well, I insist upon them, so you had better think about them.” Leo kissed her softly.
“Leo, I don’t think—”
“Then don’t think.” He kissed her again. “We will discuss this no more now. Now we must dress before you get cold.”
Surprisingly she did not argue, but he didn’t believe that would last long. Once they were respectable again, he directed the carriage to take her home. Helping her down when it stopped, he
then walked Beth to the door.
“I will call for you tomorrow early, Beth. Be ready by nine o’clock. We will go to Night Street and talk to the others. Don’t leave the house until I come for you, and bring the notes you have received so far.” He saw she was about to argue, so added, “Please.”
“I don’t want anyone else hurt because of this, Leo.”
“They won’t be.” He leaned in and kissed her. “Go to bed now, my sweet, and dream of what we did.”
“Leo, I really think we—”
He shut her words off by urging her through the door, and closing it. Walking to her carriage, he asked the driver to take him home. Once there he sent out three missives.
Urgent meeting at Night Street. Be there at 9:00 a.m. Noble.
He then climbed into his bed and lay there thinking about what that bastard had done to Beth, and how he would be made to pay, if it was he who was blackmailing her. If not, then he would still be made to pay. And pay dearly. Leo would not rest until he had hunted Lloyd down, no matter where in this world he was.
She was his now. His life, he could say honestly. Love? Yes, he was certain it was that too. But for now he had to deal with the threat that hung over her, and then they would explore the rest of what lay between them.
Thumping his pillow, he turned on his side and smiled into the dark. He loved Miss Elizabeth Whitlow. Holding that thought close, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Beth was ready when he called at her town house the following morning. Leo walked through the front door to find her standing there dressed in a simple pale blue dress with a chipped bonnet and matching blue ribbons. She looked luscious enough to make his teeth clench.
“Good morning, my sweet.” Leo walked up to her, not stopping until he was inches away.
“Good morning,” she said, standing her ground, which pleased him.
He lowered his head and kissed her gently. Her response surprised him. She placed a palm on his chest and leaned in.
When he thought they’d given the staff, who were surely watching, enough to keep them gossiping all morning, he eased back, running his knuckles down a soft cheek.