His pain clamored to her. Louder than the demands of self-interest. Stronger than the tenets she’d always followed.
You can offer him recompense.
The insidious suggestion welled up from deep within. From the dark realm where lust and loneliness skulked. She stiffened as though someone aimed a pistol at her head.
She found her voice. “Kissing is simple enough to learn,” she said huskily.
“Perhaps.” His expressive mouth settled in an unhappy line. “If one has the opportunity.”
Grace chewed nervously on her lip. The marquess’s eyes sharpened on the movement. For all his inexperience, he was still a man with a man’s responses and needs.
The reminder tipped her uncertainty into rash decision. She took a deep breath and spoke before she could stop herself. “I offer you the opportunity.”
His vivid face creased in a frown and his eyes deepened to somber bronze. The soft gloaming cast shadows across his black hair and tall, leanly muscled body. She was always conscious of his attractions. Now his masculine beauty transfixed her.
“Are you sure about this, Grace?”
She was far from sure. But she’d traveled too far to retreat. Her heart raced and her hands twisted at her waist in an anxious dance. “A…a woman likes to be treated gently, my lord.”
Some of the tension seeped from his expression. “Then I’ll be gentle.”
Grace waited for him to fumble, perhaps betray traces of his earlier ferocity. But his touch was assured and light as he framed her cheeks with his hands and used his thumbs to angle her chin up.
Slowly, so slowly her heart had almost stumbled to a standstill by the time he kissed her, his head lowered. She felt his breath on her lips before he pressed his mouth to hers. Even after those travesties of kisses she’d forced upon him two nights ago, he tasted familiar.
His lips moved, clung.
The contact was poignantly sweet. Then it was over.
It had been a boy’s kiss although his eyes held mature speculation as they focused on her face. She didn’t know what he saw, but there was no hesitation as his mouth descended once more.
This time, he lingered, tasted, discovered, savored. Astonishing really, how quickly he mastered the basics. Her blood thundered in her ears. His teeth scraped across her bottom lip and the kiss deepened. Her lips parted to the delicious pressure.
Unbelievably she felt his tongue slide against hers, a hot invasion startling in its intimacy. Neither her few stolen kisses in the gardens at Marlow Hall nor her years with Josiah had prepared her for this.
The sensation was glorious, heady, frightening.
She gave a moan of protest. Immediately he released her, although he only moved a few inches away. He was close enough for his lemony scent, overlaid with the spice of masculine arousal, to tease.
“Grace?” He sounded shaken to his soul.
A deep breath did nothing to calm her chaotic senses. She raised an unsteady hand to her heated cheek. How could someone so untried make her feel what no man ever had?
“I think perhaps you overestimate my experience,” she said unevenly. “Josiah wasn’t…wasn’t physically demonstrative.”
“I see,” the marquess said slowly.
She wondered if he did. If she became his tutor in the preliminaries to love, he needed to know she was in many ways a fellow beginner.
“So we’re more equal in this than I imagined,” he said, because of course, he did understand.
As always, his rare smile made her heart somersault. How could she resist the man who smiled like that? How could she resist the man who now swept her into his arms with such confidence?
She’d never been so aware of his strength. She curved to fit herself to the hard planes of his body. When Josiah touched her, he’d always made her feel like a dirty secret. With one kiss, the marquess made her feel wanted, beautiful, a woman at last.
“My lord?” she asked shakily.
“Matthew,” he prompted.
“Matthew.” His name flowed over her tongue, smooth as warmed honey. And a hundred times sweeter.
“I like that. I’d like it even better if you put your arms around me.”
“We’ve gone far enough, my lor…Matthew.” She intended to sound repressive but her words emerged as a breathless appeal. His warm tormenting scent drove her as mad as he was supposed to be. “We should stop.”
“No,” he said with an arrogance befitting the great Marquess of Sheene.
His mouth swooped down on hers. She gasped astonished pleasure into his seeking heat.
This was no apprentice. This man knew what he wanted and how to get it. The restrained gentleness had vanished. In its place, she surrendered to power and need and demand.
Some long-constrained demon in Grace rose to meet him. Soon her mouth responded as hungrily, her hands clutched him as tightly. He tasted like forbidden joy. He tasted like everything she wanted. He tasted like rapture and passion. She strained upward, craving more, her fingers digging into his muscled back as if she meant him never to escape.
The kiss moved infinitely beyond anything Grace had experienced. Her breasts were tight and ached for the touch of his hands. Her loins throbbed insistently. With dismay, she recognized her wildness would only quiet if he filled her emptiness with his body.
How had a few kisses created this storm of desire?
Except it wasn’t the kisses, intoxicating as they were. The kisses were just an excuse to feed her ever-present longing. Now she’d liberated that longing and as a result, ruin loomed.
Ruin pulled away slightly and gave her a lazy, satisfied, male smile. “Kiss me again, Grace,” he said softly.
And despite everything, she made no demur as he gathered her up and found her mouth with his.
This, this was what Matthew had dreamt of through those endless nights. Grace luscious and eager in his arms. Grace warm and supple under his hands. To defy the reliably malign fate which was sure to rip her away, he brought her closer and plundered her mouth.
She tasted delicious. More succulent than the ripest plum. The harrowing encounter two nights ago had hinted at her bounty. But he’d never guessed the riches that awaited when she came to him willingly.
He’d had no idea a kiss could be like this. So all-encompassing. As if when lips met, souls met.
Instinct made him push his tongue between her lips again. Heat sizzled through him as her tongue grazed his, then moved with more purpose. She sighed into his mouth and rational thought deserted him. The kiss lost all restraint. Became an open gateway to other pleasures he had no right to seize.
He raised his head. Her eyes were dazed and dilated with arousal. Wanton color flushed her usually pale cheeks. Her lips glistened wet and swollen. They parted as she sucked in a shuddering breath. He fought the urge to taste that breath. His erection rubbed insistently against the front of his breeches, demanded that he draw her down onto the lush grass where he’d found her sleeping.
No! He must let her go now. Or he’d never let her go.
Slowly, he slid his arms from around her, while every beat of his heart insisted he take their kisses further. Take them to the conclusion his body screamed for.
Stepping away from her was physically painful.
And all for nought.
When she swayed, he caught her again. Only the last shred of willpower stopped him snatching her up for more intoxicating kisses. Instead, he hooked his fingers around her upper arms and held her steady.
She stared at him, lost, dazzled, silent. Masculine triumph surged through him. She looked like the world started and ended with this moment.
“Grace? Are you all right?” His voice emerged as a croak.
She swallowed and her eyes dropped to his mouth. He bit back a groan as another bolt of incendiary desire left him staggering. “Grace?”
She blinked and raised her eyes. He watched as awareness slowly replaced her lost expression.
God knew what she saw when sh
e looked at him with that level cobalt stare. A poor shuffling lunatic? A fumbling brute? An inept boy? Or a man she wanted in her bed?
“That…that was a mistake,” she said huskily. Her voice scraped along his strained nerves like velvet sandpaper.
“A glorious mistake,” he said, before he could help himself.
“Yes.”
The murmured admission set his heart racing again. His clasp on her arms softened, became a caress. She closed her eyes and leaned nearer, tilting her face up.
He couldn’t ignore the invitation. Whatever honor required. As their mouths melded, he felt rather than heard her gasp.
His fingers plunged into her thick black hair. He wanted to tear her clothes off and take her. He wanted the rapturous kiss never to end.
He wanted her. He wanted her.
He could never have her. Making her his mistress was wrong. He couldn’t do it. He wrenched out of her arms. His hands clenched hard at his sides. He wouldn’t do it.
“This was meant to be a kiss only,” she whispered, raising a hand to her lips as though she tested the memory of his touch.
“A lesson.” Bitterness tinged his voice. She was right to remind him of how this had started. His futile anger betrayed her miraculous generosity. Her kisses had offered a glimpse of paradise. A paradise he could never enter.
Surprisingly, she smiled. “You graduated with honors.”
“If not with honor.”
Even as he said it, shock slammed his heart against his ribs. He’d trained himself to theorize and experiment and collect evidence. He couldn’t mistake his conclusion.
She’d enjoyed kissing him.
Was it possible she wanted him even a fraction as much as he wanted her?
“I can’t imagine you doing anything without honor,” she said softly but with emphasis, and turned with a flick of her skirts toward the house.
He could imagine it, he thought, watching the alluring sway of her hips as she walked off.
He could imagine throwing her down on the muddy ground and having his way. Or cornering her against a tree. Or chasing her back to the cottage and catching her the minute she was safe from spying eyes.
No honor in any of it. Although there would be pleasure.
And shame.
But as he watched her retreat down the path, it was the pleasure he contemplated.
Matthew’s mood had soured by dinner. The kiss had been wonderful. The most wonderful thing that ever happened to him. Now he knew her taste and the soft sighs she made in surrender, how could he live without touching her again?
If he touched her again, he wouldn’t stop at kisses.
He still had to get through the night lying beside her in chaste misery. The prospect made every muscle tighten in agonized denial.
Grace stood at the window and turned as he entered the salon. His hand clenched hard on the door as he struggled to rein in his urge to sweep her up in his arms. She needed his protection not his passion. The glories of the afternoon were something he must put aside, like an outgrown coat.
Easy to say, harder to do when her smile caught at his poor heart. Why the hell did she have to be so beautiful?
“Lord Sheene.”
“You called me Matthew this afternoon.”
Her eyes darkened as they’d darkened that afternoon. He strode toward her before he remembered he’d sworn to keep his distance. Only when she nervously backed away did he stop, still several feet away.
“Matthew.”
That throaty voice turned his name into an endearment. Oh, yes, kissing her had been a mistake. A mistake he’d pay for in endless pain and frustration. Still he couldn’t regret it.
“Grace.” He watched the fickle color fluctuate on her milky skin. “Are you hungry?”
Her eyes flared with unmistakable interest before those sinfully thick eyelashes hid her expression. “Yes,” she said almost inaudibly.
His fingers itched to trace that flush of warm pink along her cheekbones. He hadn’t expected her to be ill at ease. After all, she was a widow and had known a man. Surely a mere kiss couldn’t send her into such a flutter. Had Paget, the dry old stick, let her down in this as well as everything else?
She wore a blue silk gown cut low at the neck. His eyes fell to the intriguing shadow between her breasts. She shivered as if he touched her there.
“Please say something,” she said on a cracked laugh. “Even if it’s only to talk about the weather.”
“I believe we’re due for rain,” he said, unable to tear his gaze away. As if to prove his comment’s awful inanity, rain splattered hard against the window. They were in the middle of a downpour. He hadn’t noticed. All he noticed was Grace. Her exquisite skin, her slender curves wrapped in silk the color of sky, her lush mouth.
He ripped himself from his distraction and crossed to the sideboard to pour her wine. But invisible wires connected him to her. Wires that tightened infinitesimally with every breath so the effort of keeping his hands off her became more onerous by the second.
Grace picked at her food, in spite of her avowal of hunger. She was hungry, all right. For a man. The man who sat opposite, struggling to make conversation. Struggling not to look at her. Looking all the same. As if no power on earth could stop him.
Just as she couldn’t help looking at him.
She’d never felt this way before. A turbulent storm of desire raged within her. Need blazed like a comet. This thirst for a man’s touch was unfamiliar. Distressing.
She admired Lord Sheene’s mind, she applauded his steadfastness, she was in awe of his courage. But all of this faded in her craving for the slide of his skin on hers, the heat of his mouth, the beat of his heart under her hand.
She’d never understood why women discarded reputation, future, security for passion’s sake. That overpowering physical passion had always seemed as illusory as Josiah’s fine soul.
She understood passion now. Or its alluring prelude.
She glanced up from pushing food around her plate to catch Lord Sheene studying her. Again. Fire smoldered in his eyes. He no longer tried to conceal his interest. Heaven help her, that very openness stoked her simmering need.
How had she ever imagined he didn’t want her? With the freshly opened eyes of knowledge, she realized desire had ignited from the first. Desire laced with fear on her part. Desire laced with suspicion on his.
Now desire emerged naked from the shadows.
And she was afraid.
Grace Marlow had been brought up a lady. Grace Paget had never broken her marriage vows. Had never been tempted.
Five weeks a widow, and temptation entangled her in strands of finest steel.
She wanted the marquess to possess her.
The thought sent a torrent of heat crashing through her. She shifted on her chair as the heat settled, became more specific. Matthew’s nostrils flared as if he caught the scent of her arousal. The animal awareness between them was electric, irrefutable.
She tried to tell herself the act would be the usual disappointment. She’d endured Josiah’s occasional use of her body, but never found joy in it.
Why should Lord Sheene be any different?
He was a man. He’d rut over her until he finished. Then he’d roll off her to fall into snoring oblivion.
But she remembered the deftness of his hands this afternoon. She remembered the heady scent of his skin and the taste of his mouth.
He was a young man in the prime of life. Josiah had been old, old.
She was the first woman Lord Sheene had touched. The idea held such erotic charge. She’d awoken him to desire. She could teach him pleasure. She could…
No, Grace. You can teach him nothing. What do you know about passion?
She clamped down hard on the images of his long beautiful body moving on her, above her, in her. What little food she’d swallowed coagulated into a cold mass in her stomach and she rose, trembling.
He stood when she did. Concern lit his gold eyes as he
stared at her. “Are you unwell, Grace?”
She shook her head. “No, just tired.”
Greedily, her eyes traced the lines of his face, the strong powerful body. Then she realized what she did and she hurriedly stepped away. She had to get out of here.
Without another word, she fled.
Grace lay unmoving next to Matthew in the silent intimacy of the moonlit bedroom. He was fully dressed. He hadn’t even taken his shirt off. She knew why. The ghost of their kisses hovered tangible as a knife.
Hunger stalked her. Hunger radiated from the man beside her. He hadn’t moved in an hour but he was no more asleep than she was.
“It was wrong to kiss you,” she said dully.
“No.”
She waited for him to continue but the tense silence grew.
Grace sucked in a choked breath. Misery, guilt and desire tangled in her heart. She’d already given Matthew more of her real self than she’d given any man, even Josiah. Still it wasn’t enough. She suspected only her complete surrender would be enough. A tear trickled down her hot cheek.
The mattress shifted as he turned to look at her. Perhaps the darkness would hide her weeping. A futile hope. She’d long ago noted the acuteness of his senses.
“Oh, my dear.” Unerringly, he reached out and captured a tear in his fingers. Another tear, another. She closed her eyes and struggled for composure.
“Crying won’t help,” she said huskily.
“Sometimes it’s all we can do.” His voice caressed her like black silk.
With a sigh, he stretched out and drew her close so they lay facing each other. Strong arms locked her to him and he tucked her throbbing head into his shoulder. She folded into his body without resistance and burst into a useless fit of weeping. Nobody had offered care or support since she was a girl. She’d been alone and struggling against a hostile world ever since.
She cried for her foolish sixteen-year-old self. For Josiah who had never found contentment. For the beautiful marquess who wasted youth and strength in this secret arena.
She cried for Grace Paget who, after nine years of marriage, finally learned what desire was. Grace Paget, mistaken for a whore. Who now promised to become one in truth.
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