When His Kiss Is Wicked

by Kaitlin O'Riley

  Not wanting him to stop, instinctively she thrust her hips against him. That was all it took before he continued this dance. Slowly and gently he moved within her, rocking her in a steady motion. The sensation took her breath away and began to build in intensity. She wrapped her arms around him, gripping him tightly, knowing he was taking her into the unknown, but she felt safe going with him. As his thrusts grew more urgent, deeper, more forceful, she welcomed them with a fervor that matched his.

  Once again she sought the blossoming sensation of pleasure that grew insatiably within her body. Her movements mirrored his, arching her back and meeting him thrust for thrust. Her mind lost all sense when he placed his hand between them, right where their bodies were joined. He touched her expertly, and the ache that had built to a fevered pitch finally exploded in a burst of pleasure so exquisite, so blissful, and so enrapturing it felt as if a million little sparkling stars fluttered around her. As she called his name, he called hers, and continued to drive into her.

  Over and over again.

  Reeling from the assault on her senses and overwhelmed by the tremendous emotions that flooded her, Colette felt molten tears spill down her cheeks.

  She loved him. The complete sense of peace and rightness and belonging enveloped her being. She belonged to Lucien. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this feeling with Lucien. Nothing she had read in books compared to the intense emotions that surged within her heart for this man.

  Lucien’s movements became more frantic and a fine coating of sweat covered him as he labored over her. She kissed his face, his neck, clinging to him, urging him, tears flowing from her eyes.

  “God, Colette,” he exclaimed in a growl as he gave one final, deep thrust, before he shuddered and collapsed above her. They both panted and gasped for breath for some time, their arms and legs wrapped around each other.

  The room was now in complete darkness and hushed in quiet. Lucien finally lifted his head and moved off her, kissing her cheek tenderly as he did so. He pulled her into the crook of his arm, pressing kisses in her hair.

  “Are you crying?” he asked, his voice soft and remorseful. He touched a gentle finger to her cheek, following the path of tears.

  “No.” She sniffled a little and gave a nervous laugh, wiping at her tears with her hands. “I’m fine.”

  “You are crying, Colette.”

  “But not because I’m sad or hurt,” she explained hurriedly. “I’m just crying because…I don’t know. I suppose because it was just so beautiful and I never knew anything could be so special.”

  “Ah, Colette.”

  She shrugged, feeling awkward and suddenly shy with him, as if she had angered him somehow. “I’m sorry I cried.”

  He rested his head on the pillow beside her, taking her hand in his and placing it on his chest. “You have no reason to be sorry. I am the one who should apologize.”

  “Apologize for what?” Her heart resumed its frantic pounding pace. Oh God, he regrets being with me already. Mortification and an alarming sense of humiliation overwhelmed her being.

  “Apologize for what?” he echoed her question in disbelief, frowning. “For what just happened here between us.”

  After a sickening pause, she managed to ask, “Are you sorry it happened?”

  He paused for a thoughtful minute. And another. She waited, holding her breath, her heart in her mouth.

  Finally he muttered, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m not,” she said in a small voice.

  He said nothing else. An uncomfortable silence settled over them. What happens now? Suddenly she did not know how to act with him. He did not seem like the same Lucien who had kissed her senseless and just made love to her. A distant, cold stranger had taken his place.

  “I should go,” she murmured, with the forlorn thought that she wished she were already at home in bed with him right here. How heavenly to be able to curl up next to him in this very bed and sleep with his strong arms about her all night long. A dream that would never come true either.

  At her words he did not let go of her, but neither did he encourage her to stay. “Colette?” Her name sounded like a cry of pain.

  She waited for him to continue, wishing she could see his face in the darkness. Oh, Lucien, her heart cried, heavy with raw emotion. Was he angry with her? Sad? Regretful? The room seemed too silent, too full of shadows.

  “Colette…” he began again, his voice tinged with bitter remorse. “You deserve so much better from me. I shouldn’t have let this happen. It was wrong and I knew it when I kissed you the first time. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you—”

  “Stop,” she interrupted him as stinging tears threatened anew. Sitting up, she clamped her hand over his mouth. She could not bear to have the most incredible and beautiful experience of her life with the man she loved reduced to nothing more than a mere lack of willpower on his part. How could he not feel the way she did about it?

  “Don’t say any more and listen to me. You did not take advantage of me, Lucien Sinclair. When I said I wanted to stay, I meant it. I wanted this as much as you did, if not more. So please don’t be sorry, because you did not make me do anything I didn’t wish to do. I don’t regret it, not one minute of it. It was heavenly. The most thrilling, and most wonderful, and most amazing, and…and…I…I need to go home.” The last words were uttered on a sob as she pulled away from his embrace and rose from the bed as quickly as she could.

  “Colette,” he called after her as she fumbled in the dark to find her clothes.

  I will not cry again, she instructed herself, taking a deep breath as she found a bundle of her clothes on the floor. I will not cry. Feeling for her chemise, she flung it over her head hurriedly. She had to leave before the tears began. And this time the tears would be because she was sad and hurt.

  Lucien had followed her off the bed and lit a lamp on the bedside table. The dim light cast a yellow glow in the room. He pulled on his trousers and Colette turned her back to him and continued dressing as fast as she could, thankful once again that she did not wear a corset regularly, for it would only have slowed her down. Still, she needed him to fasten the back of her dress.

  He came up behind her and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her against his chest. “Wait,” he whispered in her ear.

  At his touch she almost melted in his arms, dangerously close to crying in great, wrenching sobs.

  “Listen to me.” He spun her around gently, so she faced him. His green eyes bored into her as he spoke. “I did not mean that I was sorry I made love to you. This was different for me, too. That’s because it was with you.” He paused and placed an emphatic kiss upon her lips. Pulling back, he looked at her meaningfully. “But you have to understand the great mess we’ve just created.”

  Her head swam with what he said. He felt something, too. “What do we do now?” she asked, her heart racing.

  “What do we do now?” He blinked. “I don’t know yet.”

  He doesn’t know! The man who always had an answer for everything suddenly had no answers when it came to her. Her tears dissolved instantly. Irritated with him, she demanded, “Well, what do you usually do?”

  “What do I usually do?” he echoed her in confusion.

  “Yes, you’re the one with the reputation. What do you usually do in these situations?” she questioned him harshly, and then added, “And stop repeating everything I say.”

  He loosened his hold on her, and she took a few steps away from him. She bent to retrieve her shoes. Angrily shoving her foot into her low-heeled slippers, she snapped, “Well?”

  “In spite of your lurid imagination, I am not usually in ‘these’ situations. In fact, I have never been in a situation like this before.”

  “Because now you’re expected to marry me?” She challenged him with her directness.

  “Yes,” he admitted quietly, but did not look at her.

  “And you won’t?” The stinging behind her eyes returned and she blinked r
apidly.

  He did not answer her, and in an instant her heart, brimming with tender new emotions, shattered like fine crystal upon a slate floor. She had been a complete and utter fool. He didn’t want her, and he certainly did not love her.

  His inability to respond to her question was more than answer enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Regrets Only

  “Where have you been?” Juliette demanded when Colette finally arrived home later that night.

  Juliette had been given the responsibility of closing the bookshop, not a task that that she relished with great joy. When Colette had gone out earlier that afternoon to deliver books, Juliette had counted on her returning right away. Instead Colette had been gone far longer than necessary and then sent the surprising message that she would not be home for supper at all, which irritated Juliette even further.

  The night had grown late. Their mother had retired for the evening, complaining of her usual headache. Lisette, Paulette, and Yvette were already in the room the three of them shared, but Juliette had waited up for Colette. Now she followed Colette into their bedroom, wanting some answers as to why her sister had been gone so long and why she looked so oddly disheveled.

  “You received my message, didn’t you?” Colette asked, carelessly tossing her bonnet and shawl on the chintz-covered chair in the corner.

  Juliette’s eyes narrowed. Her very meticulous sister never threw her belongings. She always hung everything neatly in the wardrobe, taking great care of her possessions, especially with their new clothes their uncle had purchased. Juliette continued suspiciously, “Yes, but that does not answer my question.”

  “You knew I was at Lord Waverly’s house. He just escorted me home in his carriage.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why you are so late coming from his house. Or why you left to deliver a few books and returned over six hours later.”

  “How did you fare in the shop tonight?” Colette changed the subject.

  “Fine. We had quite a few customers, and two more ladies signed up for the reading circle. Everything is taken care of and properly locked up for the night.”

  “I know,” Colette admitted. “I checked before I came upstairs.”

  “I never doubted you wouldn’t.” Juliette flopped down on her quilt-covered bed and curled her legs under her lawn nightgown. Colette never trusted her alone in the shop for long, and she wondered why she had done so this evening.

  With a weary sigh, Colette sat on her own little bed across from Juliette’s and removed her shoes, kicking them across the room. “How are Mother and the girls?”

  Juliette noted her sister’s actions with a growing sense of unease, but answered calmly. “They are fine. We had stew for supper. Lisette still had nothing to wear to go to the dance with Henry, but I gave her that pink gown of mine. You know that new one with the little puff sleeves? It never suited me anyway. Paulette annoyed me all evening long. Yvette is getting a cold. And Mother is suffering from her usual headache. There. That’s all there is to tell. Now, stop evading and tell me what you’ve been up to this afternoon.”

  Ignoring her sister’s demands, Colette asked, “Did Mother ask where I was?”

  Juliette shook her head. “Of course not. Does she ever? She assumed you were working down in the shop all evening.” Noticing Colette’s red-rimmed eyes and haunted expression, she suddenly had a feeling that more had happened at Lord Waverly’s than she suspected. And that something was not good. “Did Lucien kiss you again?”

  Colette buried her face in her hands.

  Juliette jumped off the bed and flew to her sister’s side. Placing a consoling arm around her, she asked, “What happened?”

  “I don’t know if I can talk about it yet,” Colette confided in an anguished whisper.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too dreadful, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Well, then you had definitely better tell me. Honestly, Colette, I can’t imagine you doing anything that’s so bad that you couldn’t tell me about it.”

  “I’ve made a terrible, irrevocable mistake.”

  “Take a deep breath, and start from the beginning,” Juliette instructed soothingly.

  She listened while Colette haltingly began to explain the events that occurred after she delivered the books to Devon House. It all seemed perfectly fine. “So you met his father and dined with them. Agreeing to refurbish his library was a brilliant stroke of business genius. The shop will make a mint of money from his book orders alone! Even I can see the sense in that. So far, I see no problems. Supper is over, you said good-bye to his father, you’re on your way out the door, and what? He kissed you?”

  Colette nodded imperceptibly and whispered, “Yes.” Her cheeks flamed scarlet.

  “You kissed him before, so that can’t be what you’re upset about. What else happened?”

  “We did more than just kiss.” Once again Colette hid her face in her hands after her guilty admission.

  Stunned by the news, Juliette pondered what “more” referred to exactly. Over the years she had had her share of fleeting romances with eager boys who fancied themselves in love with her. She had let them kiss her once or twice and she had been unimpressed by them, and therefore had never ventured on to “more” than kissing. Now her imagination raced.

  “What did you do?” Juliette asked in a hushed tone, fearful their sisters might overhear their conversation. Especially Paulette, who possessed exceptionally keen little ears.

  “I cannot even say it,” Colette whimpered, her voice muffled in her hands.

  Juliette thought for a moment, her imagination running wild. “All right, then, if you can’t tell me what you did, then at least tell me where you did it.”

  Colette mumbled something unintelligible through her fingers.

  “Say that again?”

  “In his bed.”

  Her sister’s voice was so soft Juliette thought she had not heard correctly. Surely Colette didn’t mean that! For Juliette knew what those words implied. Years ago she and Colette had hid behind a back shelf in the bookshop and furtively read about human reproduction in one of the large, leather-bound medical texts in the shop. A Complete Study of the Human Anatomy and All Its Functions by Doctor T. Everett had explained the act in detail and she and Colette had thought it all quite bizarre and cold, definitely not something one would engage in willingly.

  “Oh, Colette,” Juliette whispered. “Are you okay?”

  Colette groaned with a sheepish expression.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Juliette advised dryly.

  “I feel sick to my stomach.”

  Alarmed, she asked her, “Was it that terrible?”

  “It’s not like the book at all,” Colette murmured under her breath.

  Stunned by that bit of information, Juliette could only wonder, “Is it worse?”

  Colette lifted her head, wiping stray tears from her red-rimmed eyes. She sniffled. “No. It was actually wonderful.”

  Left speechless, Juliette stared wide-eyed at the implications of this development. “He didn’t…He didn’t force you to do it, did he?”

  “No!” Colette responded so vociferously that Juliette was taken aback. “Lucien would never do that.”

  She regarded her sister with a sense of wonder, having no frame of reference to guide her. “Well, what happens now?”

  Colette’s face clouded with sadness. “That’s what I asked him.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He won’t marry me.”

  “He said that?” Juliette asked.

  “Well, not in those exact words, but that’s what he meant.”

  “But, Colette, do you want to marry him?” That was the more important question to Juliette’s way of thinking.

  “Yes, I suppose,” she sighed. “But it’s pointless. He will never marry me. He wants a traditional wife. He disapproves of my working in a bookshop. I could never give up the shop, and he kn
ows that.”

  “You and the shop!” Juliette muttered in scorn. “Sell the shop and marry Lucien. It’s obvious that you’re in love with him.”

  Colette’s tears began. “That’s the thing, Julie, I think I am in love with him, but he’s not in love with me.”

  “But he should marry you. He’s a gentleman and it’s the right thing to do.” Growing angry, Juliette wanted to throttle Lucien Sinclair. How dare that man take advantage of her sister in such a way and then not have the decency to offer for her!

  “He won’t,” Colette sniffled. “He’d rather marry that Faith Bromleigh.”

  “He’s afraid of you, Colette!”

  Colette shook her head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. He’s been with so many other women and I’m simply another one on his list. In any case, I would more than likely not make a good countess or an eventual marchioness. I don’t think he loves me. If he did, none of the other things would matter all that much.”

  “Maybe he loves you and just doesn’t know it yet?”

  At Colette’s dire look of exasperation, Juliette continued, “Men often have difficulty recognizing their own feelings. Perhaps Lucien is just slow to warm up.”

  “After what we just did this evening, I don’t think warming up is his problem.”

  Juliette giggled helplessly at her sister’s little innuendo. “What was it like?”

  Colette had always been forthright and honest with her. They had shared confidences about everything since the time they could talk. But ever since she met Lucien Sinclair, Juliette had sensed a reticence, a preoccupation, about Colette. She was not her usual self. It was as if Lucien had placed a spell over her, changing her somehow. Falling in love must have something to do with it, Juliette surmised. It seemed that Colette felt her feelings would be tarnished in some way by sharing them with her. Looking at her bright eyes and flushed cheeks, one would think she had a fever. Juliette knew instinctively that she would get no details on the subject of male and female sexual interaction from her.

  “I can’t talk about it.” Colette’s voice filled with anguish. “Oh, Juliette, what am I going to do? He doesn’t want to marry me, and who will want to marry me the way I am now?”