Tempting Sin

by Ann Lethbridge

  Trying not to look and failing miserably, she set the tray on the bedside table. She’d seen drawings in books, statues in galleries and taken hurried glances at risqué artwork. Clearly Simon was one very well-endowed male.

  A tiny, secret smile curved her lips. He was absolutely delicious. A virile male in his prime. Slim hips. Long, muscled legs stretched wide apart. Her fingers tingled with the urged to touch. She curled her hands into fists.

  For all her bravado downstairs, it seemed she did not have the courage after all.

  He kicked out and she snatched at the sheet before it ended up at the foot of the bed. Yanking it up to his neck, she drew in a ragged breath then tucked it in.

  His head rolled toward her.

  “Victoria?”

  She gulped. He had developed an unnerving way of watching her from beneath his lashes. She hoped he hadn’t seen her staring. “I’m right here,” she replied. Thank goodness, this time his eyes were closed.

  “Victoria.”

  The fractious child again. She sighed. “Yes, my lord.”

  His hand shot out and grabbed her arm. Shocked by the burning heat she felt through her woolen sleeve, she tried to pull away.

  “You’ll not escape me this time,” he said, his voice hoarse. He swallowed painfully. A breath rasped in his throat. His brow furrowed, but his eyes remained closed.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Simon. Please release me.”

  “Swear it. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  Her words seemed to reach him. His grip relaxed.

  Guilt tightened her chest. Clearly the fever had become worse in her absence. She put a hand on his forehead. So hot. She mixed another draught of his medicine.

  “Simon, drink this.”

  He turned his face away. She tried to lift his head and guide the glass to his lips at the same time. His neck, a column of corded muscle and sinew, resisted her meager strength, but she managed to angle him a little.

  Again, she held the glass against his lips. “Drink.”

  He pressed his lips together.

  “Simon St. John,” she said, at her wits’ end, “if you don’t drink this, I swear I will walk out of here for good.”

  He opened his mouth and Victoria tipped in the bitter draught. With a sudden premonition he was about to spit it out, she dropped the glass and clamped his jaw shut. He swallowed.

  “Damn,” he said, following up with a string of oaths she’d never heard before and hoped never to hear again. She clapped her hands to her ears and backed away. Men. How typical.

  He stirred. His face, glistening with sweat in the flickering candlelight, held an expression of such agony her heart seized. Deep lines of pain bracketed his mouth. Perhaps she’d mixed the draught wrong.

  “No,” he cried out in a hoarse whisper. The misery etched on his features was terrible to witness. Without warning, he reached out, groping, seeking.

  She caught his clawing fingers in hers. He clutched and held fast, crushing her hand in a painful grip. He stilled. Relaxed. Breathed easier. He let her go.

  Victoria took a deep breath and her heart slowly returned to its normal steady rhythm. She wiped his face with a towel. His skin burned to the touch. She had to cool him. Fevers were dangerous.

  She cupped his chin in her hand while she bathed his face. He twisted his head and pressed his hot, dry lips against her palm. Fire raced from her hand to the pit of her stomach. She leaped back, scorched and trembling.

  She closed her eyes. How did he do this to her? Out of his senses and with no idea who she was, he set her body quivering with one small kiss. She’d lost her wits.

  Oh, wasn’t she the fool. The man was a rake. A master of seduction. It wouldn’t matter who nursed him. Her, Cassandra Eckford, Miranda, Mrs. Davis downstairs, they were all one to him. She meant no more to him than any of them. She had to keep reminding herself of that or she would lose who she was, what she wanted.

  He twisted beneath the sheet, then heaved it to one side as if it weighed a hundredweight. In the candle’s soft glow, he lay like a burnished statue, glorious in his nakedness.

  Strong, lean and dangerous. She had already discovered the beauty of his torso, now his lower half was laid out before her wickedly curious gaze. His hips were narrower than his waist. His flanks firm. His long legs covered in dark curling hair, a finer version of the curls surrounding ... She blinked and put her hands to her hot cheeks. His manhood lay against one thigh, dark, heavy flesh, surrounded by a thatch of black curls. Nothing she had seen in books had prepared her for the real thing.

  He lifted his hips, his stomach muscles standing out in hard ridges. Her appreciative glance drifted up to his face.

  Blue sapphires glinted, his lips curved in a sultry smile. “All for you, sweetling,” he said, his voice thick and strange.

  Catching up the sheet, Victoria threw it over his lower anatomy, which, even as she covered him, changed, grew larger, lifting away from his body.

  Her gaze flew to his face.

  Unconscious again, he had no idea she had stared at him like a first-time visitor to the Elgin Marbles. Dear God. She hoped not, or she would never be able to face him again. She waited for her heart to cease its clamoring.

  He lay immobile, his expression set like granite. She touched a hand to his forehead. Raging hot again. She dipped the towel in the water jug and ran it over his brow.

  He sighed. She dipped and wiped again and his tight expression relaxed a little. The lines around his mouth softened. She continued stroking the damp cloth down his cheeks, across his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, his body, careful to keep the sheet where her gaze dare not travel. His breathing deepened and his sleep seemed more natural. She relaxed

  Once more, she straightened the sheet over him. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks; long black lashes fringed his closed eyes. He slept, handsome, dark and the devil’s temptation. Sin.

  As she had the previous evening, she stripped off her gown, washed as best she could in the basin and once settled into the chair prepared for another long night of watching.

  Pitch black. Neck aching and joints stiff. Freezing from the sound of her chattering teeth. Victoria clamped her jaw shut. Not her teeth. The sound came from the bed.

  Simon. She shook her head to clear away the muzziness then rose to check on her patient.

  The candle had gone out, but the glow of the dying fire and the pale diagonals of moonlight creeping through the lattice gave her enough illumination to see her way to relight it.

  She picked it up and held it above the bed. He squinted at her against the light, shuddering, his lips bloodless and his teeth clicking.

  “G-God,” he managed to say finally. “I’m f-freezing.”

  She lay laid her hand on his forehead. Slick with sweat and still hot to touch, his hair stuck to his skin in damp black curls. And yet he shivered...

  She pulled the sheet higher, then grabbed the thick quilt from her chair and threw it over him. His glittering eyes followed her every movement.

  “Any better?”

  He nodded, but his shivering body said otherwise. Stoic. The word came unbidden to her mind. He never asked for anything.

  Except that she stay.

  “I’ll go fetch another blanket.”

  He grabbed her hand. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  She stared at him. Awareness had gone from his eyes, replaced by glazed pain and fury. She worked at his fingers, trying to break their grip. “Travis, let me go.”

  He didn’t seem to hear her. If anything, the pressure on her wrist increased. How could he be so strong in his weakened state? She raised her voice. “Let me go.”

  “No! I mustn’t let go.”

  The tallow, when she held it higher, revealed a face set in bitter lines, his eyebrows drawn down in a deep frown. Goose flesh raced up her arms as she stood, practically naked, shackled to a man imprisoned in a dream who shivered like a kicked cur.

  She set the ca
ndle down. No sense in setting light to his bedclothes. She couldn’t break his hold, nor could she stand for who knew how long, waiting for him to come to his senses. She eased back the quilt and lay beneath it, on top of the sheet that covered him. She settled herself in the narrow space between the edge of the mattress and the man who guarded its center.

  He sighed and snuggled up to her. She stiffened. Her heart raced at the feel of his warm breath on her skin, his fiery body tight against her. She felt hot everywhereall over as one of his legs slid over the top of her thigh, only the thin sheet and her shift between them.

  His shivers decreased and slowly died away as if he was drawing comfort from her warmth. She pulled at her hand. His fingers clutched convulsively. She gave up and lay still, praying for dawn to arrive.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A heavy weight pinned Victoria’s legs to the mattress. She opened her eyes. The gray light of dawn cast shadow and light on the chiseled planes of Simon’s peaceful face beside her on the pillow. Thankfully, he’d set her wrist free. She touched his forehead. Cool. She sighed with relief.

  “No,” he cried out.

  Startled, she drew back from him. His eyes remained closed.

  His head dark against the linen shifted restlessly. “Miranda.” The whimper of a thwarted child escaped his lips. He was dreaming of Ogden’s sister? His father’s wife? No wonder he suffered the torment of the damned.

  She tried to slide from beneath his leg.

  He groaned. “I didn’t mean it. I couldn’t have... I would never... Forgive me.” His voice broke and Victoria’s stomach clenched at the heartbreak in his tone. To hear him beg instead of demand revealed a depth of vulnerability that made her heart hurt.

  She rolled to face him. Tears were running down his hollowed cheeks. Unable to bear his agony a moment longer, she touched his chest.

  “Simon.”

  He stilled.

  “Simon. You’re dreaming. Wake up.”

  Simon felt the mists of sleep slowly seep away. God, how he hated awaking, knowing what he’d done. Self-disgust soured his gut.

  He opened his eyes and gazed into a pair of wide violet eyes. Victoria? In his bed. He must be dreaming still. If so, he wanted it never to stop.

  Warm, vibrant, her hair floating around her shoulders in a glorious, tangled mess, her luscious lips a hairsbreadth from his, she was gazing at him with a frown. She was in his bed?

  If this was death, then somehow he’d made it past St. Peter into Heaven. The drowning ghastly bitterness fled. “Hello, angel.”

  She drew back as if startled by the sound of his voice.

  He slipped his hand around her neck and pulled her lips to his.

  Yes. Oh yes. Better even than he had remembered. Soft, warm and full of promise.

  He felt her yield to his kiss. Not a lot, not all, but a definite softening.

  Bliss rushed through his veins. A vibrant joy. She wanted him. He always knew when a woman slipped over the edge into need, but had never dared hope for it with Victoria. He really had reached Heaven.

  He deepened his kiss, flicked her lips with his tongue and nibbled. So sweet. Like sugar on a cake, like a taste of lollipop on a baby’s lips, like...

  She pulled away and he didn’t have the strength to hold her.

  “Simon, wake up.”

  He chuckled at her indignant expression. It certainly didn’t fit with the misty haze of desire in her violet eyes. “I assure you, I am wide awake.”

  Now he was. Dear God, what the hell had he done? How was it that she was in his bed when he’d sworn never to touch her, never to taint her with his past. She deserved so much better than a cur like him.

  It seemed he had no willpower where she was concerned. He bit back a curse.

  She tossed aside the cover. She wasn’t exactly in the bed with him, he realized. Not quite. Relief made him feel slightly dizzy. “What is going on here?”

  “You were shivering. I lay beside you to give you warmth.”

  Really? And her reaction to his kiss? The flush of desire, the tremors, the softening, yielding body. The sense she had wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  A picture came into his mind. Her staring at him at some point during the night. Staring at him naked. The desire on her face had been unmistakable. So she was not quite the little innocent she made out, after all. While vaguely disappointed, why would he be surprised, after Ogden’s declaration? He and her brother had been as thick as thieves and Ogden was certainly not one to let an opportunity pass him by.

  The thought of Victoria bedding the cur made Simon feel ill. Not because she had, but because Ogden’s predilections were well-known to him and Victoria was likely too innocent to understand. No wonder she didn’t want to marry.

  Didn’t it behoove Simon to show her there was far more to bedsport than a man of Ogden’s ilk could provide?

  For her sake. Damn, he wanted to.

  “I’m cold now,” he said, with a sly smile of invitation.

  “I’ll cover you with the quilt. You’ll soon warm up.”

  She wasn’t playing. Not yet. “Not good enough.”

  “Simon, please don’t tease.”

  The pleading tone in her voice served as a dash of cold water. It seemed she had no trouble resisting her baser urges where he was concerned. He released her hand and eased himself into a sitting position wincing at the slight twinge from his shoulder. Of course. The bullet wound courtesy of Ogden’s man Quigley.

  “Are you feeling better?” she asked. “You were terribly feverish in the night.”

  So that was why all the ghastly dreams. “Much better, thank you.” Might as well be polite, even if the one pain she had it in her power to alleviate would go unattended.

  Her expression held puzzlement. “Are you sure?”

  He tried a careless laugh. Anything to ease the tension heating his blood and pulsing in his loins. “The merest scratch.”

  He shifted. The pressure on his throbbing shaft cock from the heavy quilt only made things worse.

  Unable to resist, he eyed her beautiful bosom. The shift hid nothing of her breasts’ up-thrusting perfection beneath the filmy fabric, astonishingly alluring in the faint dawn light. He wanted those soft pink tips budding in his mouth. Even as his glance grazed across them, they tightened, hardened to points.

  Pure torment. How like a woman. “Get out, if you are going,” he grated. He would not let her see how much he wanted her.

  “Simon.” Her breathy whisper made his stomach clench. “You were having a nightmare. It wasn’t me you kissed when you awoke, was it?”

  He frowned at the hurt in her voice. “Who else would it be?”

  She shrugged as if she did not care, but clearly she did. “You called out the name Miranda and then kissed me.”

  Miranda always got in the way of anything good in his life. Now even his nightmares about her were ruining things.

  He forced himself to breathe evenly, calling on every ounce of control in his command. He reached up and dragged his fingertip down the line of her jaw, across her lips, down the slender column of her neck until it came to rest in the hollow of her throat.

  “Victoria, I knew exactly who I kissed. I haven’t been able to think of kissing another woman since the day I saw you run past me in Hyde Park.”

  She glowered. “What about Miss Eckford?”

  She couldn’t be jealous, could she? A spark of hope flickered into life. His reckless heart hummed with cautious joy. He kept his tone carefully neutral. “I didn’t think I had a hope in hell with you so...” He shrugged and held his breath. He never knew where he was with her. She was unlike any female he had ever met. She had a mind of her own.

  “Oh.”

  What the bloody hell did she mean? Oh. Oh, good? Oh, bad? Trying not to look at her glorious breasts inches from his chest, he let his finger slide lower, waiting for her to push him away, hoping she would not. Her face, her beautiful, exquisite face, hovered above his. But whate
ver happened next had to be her choice and if she chose to get out of this bed, he would never touch her again. Never. He swore it— and he would keep his promise this time.

  She lowered her face closer. He was dreaming. No, it was a nightmare, because when he woke up, he’d know it hadn’t happened. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see her disappear.

  Her lips brushed his in a whisper of a kiss. Just the kind of kiss he liked, sweet and temptingly innocent. Her tongue touched his bottom lip.

  His balls tightened. White-hot flame licked his groin rock hard. His control abandoned him to his fate.

  A moan of desire escaped him. She pressed her mouth harder against his, touching his tongue with hers.

  He needed her close, her softness pressed against him. He wrapped his arms around her.

  Burning pain. A groan ripped from his lips. He slumped back onto the pillows fighting a wave of dizziness.

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’ll get some laudanum,” she babbled, touching his face, his arm, hovering over him with an anxious expression.

  “I’m fine,” he said, hauling air into his lungs, trying not to gasp. “Don’t move. Give me a moment.” Nothing would get in the way of this. He would simply take more care. He forced the pain into the recesses of his mind.

  “Now, where were we,” he murmured and pushed her riotous curls back from her worried face.

  The sweetness of Simon’s expression and his blue eyes, softened by the haze of desire, took Victoria’s breath away.

  His hand slipped down her back, caressing her hip. She ought to stop him now, while he wasn’t strong enough to hold her. She should just get up and explain she did not want this. Him.

  She did, her body shouted, relishing the heat surging through her veins and the sweet longing trembling in her core. She wanted him with a desperation she did not understand.

  Despite knowing he only felt lust, she was unable to resist his blatant sensuality. If desire was all he had to give her, it would be enough given that they would only have these few days together. After all, it wasn’t as if she would ever marry.