He arched an eyebrow with his characteristic wry amusement. “Safely? What a flat description.”
“Do I insult your masculine pride?”
With luxurious thoroughness, he rubbed himself between her legs. She shuddered with reaction. “I’m still very proud indeed.”
“Easy to boast. I’d like to see for sure,” she said unsteadily. Odd how bantering with Ashcroft built arousal inch by inch until it threatened to immolate her.
“I live to serve,” the man who would prove her ruin said, and placed a quick, hard kiss on her lips. She stretched to continue the contact, but he rolled away. In a surge of movement, he stood.
Diana lay where he’d left her and watched as with a couple of adept movements, he shucked his shoes and trousers. She couldn’t look away if the house were on fire. Every drop of moisture in her mouth evaporated, and demand throbbed between her thighs. Her heart danced a crazy tarantella.
Behind him, late-afternoon sun flooded through the sash windows. The light illuminated a man more like Apollo than a mortal. Her avid gaze swept down to where his rod thrust forward. A preternatural shiver ripped through her, and she edged up against the pillows.
He was huge. Large and thick beyond anything she’d imagined. No wonder she’d felt split in two when he took her. Without volition, her hands closed in the sheets as if they ached to explore that hard masculine flesh. William had been a boy, full of youth’s promise. Ashcroft was unquestionably a mature man.
She forced words past a throat tight with nerves and excitement. “Come to me.”
Chapter Nine
Ashcroft launched himself into the bed, tangling his bare legs with Diana’s and pressing her deep into the mattress. Desire trumpeted a tumbling fanfare in his blood.
He’d promised himself he’d linger, tease, make up for his roughness in the carriage, but his hunger was too sharp. The frantic clutch of her hands on his back, the quick rattle of her breathing, the yielding curve of her body told him she didn’t want him to delay.
He slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked the hot, wet folds. Her legs fell open, and she made a low, yearning sound.
Carefully, he pushed one finger inside, feeling resistance, the swift clasp of interior muscles.
Another finger.
Devil take it, she was snug. Even after last time. The prospect of hurting her again made his gut cramp in denial. She moaned and lifted her knees, giving him greater access. He bent to tongue her pebbled nipple and felt her tighten. He sucked hard on the peak and slid his hand free.
Let him hold back long enough to give her pleasure. Raising his head, he stared into her face. She looked nervous, afraid, needy. Her lips parted over small white teeth.
She threaded an unsteady hand through his hair. More tenderness. “Take me, Ashcroft.” Her low voice made his blood thunder.
He dragged in a deep breath, paused at the entrance to her body, then slowly, relentlessly pushed into her. Her hips rose, and her fingers curled into his naked back, her nails digging in. She inhaled on a broken sob. He paused, struggling for breath.
“Don’t stop.” Her nails scored deeper, the sting feeding his arousal.
He inched farther. Pressure set off vermilion fireworks behind his eyes. Every muscle in her body denied him. If she didn’t relax, he’d hurt her again.
He set his jaw and told himself he could stop.
And wasn’t sure he spoke the truth.
“For God’s sake, Diana, breathe,” he gritted, as the tight passage pulsed around him.
She didn’t seem to hear. Her eyes were glazed. The heavy lids fell as if their weight made it impossible to keep them open. She released the air in her lungs on a long, shuddering sigh. The clenching pressure relaxed. He took advantage of the reprieve to thrust.
She fit as if made for him.
Although it killed him not to push to fulfillment, he remained unmoving, letting her adjust to his size. After brief bliss edging close to torture, she shifted infinitesimally.
The movement shot sparks through him. He ground his teeth, the need to possess her deafening thunder in his ears.
Only when her hips tilted in unmistakable encouragement did he slowly, luxuriously withdraw. With a smoothness he could hardly credit, he plunged back inside.
She opened as sweetly as a flower in morning light. Her hands feverishly stroked his back, then slid down to clasp his buttocks, kneading in a silent invitation to continue.
“Yes,” she hissed in surrender.
For a glorious interval, they moved together. His awareness shrank to the searing hold of her body, tension and release, the way her breathing echoed what he did.
Even so, he knew the exact moment she edged toward her peak. With clumsy haste, his hand sought her center. He stroked hard as he thrust.
“Ashcroft!” Her muscles tightened, milking him, insisting he cede to the darkness.
He resisted the flooding pleasure. His jaw ached as he struggled to hold back. Blackness came and went behind his eyes. He remained hard and still as she quivered under him for an eternity.
Gradually the waves receded. He braced himself to pull out, to spill himself on the sheets. The urge to stay where he was threatened to master him. He battled it like an enemy.
“Don’t,” she muttered, eyes closed, fingers digging into his back. Her face was pale and sheened with dampness.
“I must.” His throat was so tight, it hurt to reply.
“Don’t leave me.” She opened eyes misty with satisfaction and stared at him. “I want you to finish inside me.”
He’d traveled beyond thinking clearly. All he knew was he couldn’t lose himself within her. The rule, always unbroken, pounded insistently at what few shreds of awareness he retained.
“Let me go,” he growled, as her fingers tightened into talons.
She cried out as he hauled free and flung himself against the mattress. In a fierce, gasping release that left him trembling and exhausted, he pumped his seed onto the sheets
He collapsed beside her and closed his eyes, panting for breath. Struggling to return from the brink.
Diana lay silently, fighting to calm her racing pulses. Familiar bitterness flooded her even as she trembled with rapture.
Twice, she’d failed.
She forced her mind into creaking movement. Staring up at the room’s ceiling, she gathered her courage.
“My nurse was a Gypsy.” Her voice rasped with nerves and the aftereffects of pleasure. Oddly, talking about what they’d done was more difficult than participating.
She turned her head on the pillows and met Ashcroft’s unblinking jade gaze. He looked tired but relaxed, and lazy satisfaction glinted in his eyes.
When he didn’t offer encouragement, she forced herself to continue. “She had ways of preventing pregnancy.”
The ease leached from his expression, and he rose onto one elbow to study her. Part of her wished he’d kiss her. Another part knew if he did, her already failing ability to pursue this subject would evaporate completely.
And she had to pursue this subject.
If he didn’t mean to give her his seed, she couldn’t justify her presence in his bed. She’d have to end this affair. Against her will, her heart contracted at the idea of never seeing him again.
And the prospect of informing Lord Burnley of failure was terrifying.
Ashcroft frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She tried to make her expression neutral as she cast around desperately for a reason why she wanted him to climax in her body. How did a woman ask for such a thing?
She licked her lips. His gaze flickered to the betraying movement. “I feel…I feel cheated when you don’t…when you don’t finish…”
“I do finish.” His voice was even, as if they discussed the weather or a promenade in Hyde Park.
“Not inside me.” The words were a whisper.
“You’re blushing.”
“I’m sure I am,” she said with an abrupt return of spir
it. “I hate it when you withdraw. I feel you’re…you’re robbing me of the full experience.”
He tapped her cheekbone in gentle reproof. “I’m robbing you of the disaster of a bastard.”
“I told you…”
“Yes, you have some mysterious Gypsy potion.” She winced at his tone’s dryness. “You’ll forgive me if I express skepticism.”
Damn him for not believing her. Although she couldn’t blame him. “Even if you got me with child, I wouldn’t expect…”
Hauteur replaced the smile. He became the worldly, supercilious Lord Ashcroft. The tender, affectionate man might never have existed.
“I don’t bring unwanted children into the world.” His strong white teeth bit off each word.
She could almost have laughed. How wrong he was. This child was wanted beyond anything he imagined. “Surely with all your women…”
Releasing a frustrated breath, he rolled away and left the bed. She tried not to miss his nearness. How easy to let herself drift into a voluptuous dream. What was terrifying was she suspected it was too late to save herself. Because she wanted him lying next to her. She didn’t want him glowering at her from several feet away.
“Madam, it is extremely bad form to mention a man’s previous lovers.”
He should have sounded absurd, rating her like a general with a raw recruit, while he stood there without a stitch on. But his body was so magnificent, he looked daunting and powerful.
Nonetheless, she didn’t back down. “How do you know you’ve never left a bastard behind?”
“I’ve been careful.” He drew in another breath, clearly searching for patience. “We can, if you wish, use a sheath.”
Thanks to her educational if uncomfortable discussions with Burnley, she knew what he meant. A whole world had opened since she’d entered into this scheme. A world she wasn’t entirely sure she liked.
The idea of Ashcroft covering himself with sewn sheep’s gut seemed outlandish. Anyway, a sheath would stop her conceiving. “This Gypsy remedy is safe.”
He frowned. “Nothing’s safe.”
“I never conceived when I was married.”
He folded his arms over his impressive chest. “Forgive me for saying this, but I’ve gathered that your husband wasn’t the most passionate of men.”
She lurched up against the pillows, dragging the rumpled sheet across to hide her nakedness. “He…he was. We were.” She strove for calmness and her next words emerged more evenly. “We weren’t married long.”
“Which is why you didn’t fall pregnant. Mysterious magical charms had nothing to do with it.”
“We were married a year. Long enough to have a baby.”
Heaven help her, it had been. When William died and left her alone, she’d thought her heart would shatter. Without her work at Cranston Abbey, she’d have found nothing to live for.
Perhaps bringing up William’s child would have made the years since then less lonely. Perhaps a child would have saved her from sacrificing her soul to other, less holy gods.
If she’d had a child, she wouldn’t be here now, deceiving a good man so she could lay claim to a house she knew in her heart she had no right to own.
How tragically wrong she’d been about Lord Ashcroft. If she’d known the truth about him when Burnley broached this scheme, she would never have agreed to participate.
She wasn’t stupid. She’d read signs since the affair started that Ashcroft wasn’t the brutish, blundering debaucher of Burnley’s description. But blindly, she’d continued, convinced her lover wouldn’t care what happened to her after their liaison, as long as he obtained his selfish pleasure.
The simple transaction of her willingness in return for a baby was a wicked lie she’d used to justify unjustifiable actions.
This conversation made her feel vile, disgusting, dirty. It shone a stark, unforgiving light on everything she did. But even as she cursed herself for deceiving Ashcroft, Cranston Abbey lured her. All her dreams. And a single chance to turn them into reality.
Surely recognizing that Ashcroft was essentially a good man didn’t alter her quest. If Ashcroft never knew what she did, if he never knew she sought a child from him, her ambition would cost him nothing.
Or was that another lie she told herself?
Too late to succumb to wrenching guilt. She was in Ashcroft’s bed and committed to obeying Burnley. Still she heard the falsehood in her voice as she spoke. Could Ashcroft hear it too?
“My nurse’s daughter Laura has had a string of lovers, and she’s never fallen pregnant either.” How Laura would hate to hear Diana malign her. To her knowledge, her friend was a virgin.
Ashcroft looked annoyed and suspicious. Difficult to believe not long ago he’d shuddered with desire in her arms. She wondered nervously if she tried him to a point where he’d decide she wasn’t worth the trouble, and he’d prefer easier, less demanding prey.
Chagrin stabbed her as she imagined Ashcroft doing what he’d just done with her to someone else. Chagrin with no connection to her mission for Lord Burnley and far too much connection to Diana Carrick and her longing heart.
Diana, grow up. He’s been in hundreds of beds, and he’ll be in hundreds more. You’re nothing special, and you’re asking for trouble if you imagine you are.
“No woman wants the burden of a fatherless child.”
He spoke with a depth of feeling that attracted her attention. It indicated something greater than just a wish to shield a lover, something touching his heart.
The secret knowledge she possessed coiled in her gut like an adder. Bile rose to sour her mouth as she thought of the layers of deceit she practiced on this man.
He won’t care, she assured herself, fisting her hands in the sheets until they ached. Every time she said those words, she believed them less. This discussion indicated he did care.
“Lord Ashcroft.” She tried to match his coolness but spoiled the effect when her voice trembled. “I’ve looked after the possibility of conception. I came to you for sexual experience. So far, you’ve proven a disappointment.”
She’d hoped to needle him. Instead, he arched those knowing brows. “Oh, harsh words.”
Betraying color flooded her face. Damn him. He knew she’d attained her peak each time he’d taken her. How could he not? “You don’t know what I hoped for,” she snapped.
“Believe me, pumping my juice into you won’t improve the fuck.”
Her eyes rounded at his coarse language, although she knew she’d asked for it. As perfect as a Greek god from a statuary, he strolled forward to lean against the bedpost. Naked, he should be at a disadvantage, but he unquestionably remained in control.
Helplessly, her attention flickered downward, over the defined musculature of his chest to where his penis jutted from a nest of curling black hair. To her surprise the organ began to swell and stiffen.
If her face became any hotter, she’d go up in flames. Nervously she shifted her focus to the left. A small dark patch on his hip captured her attention. She hadn’t noticed it before. Hardly surprising, considering how overwhelmed she’d been when she saw him unclothed.
Was it a scar? A birthmark? A tattoo?
“I shock you.”
She dragged her gaze from the interesting mark to meet his. A phantom smile hovered around his mouth.
“Yes.” She risked an honest answer. She’d tried to play the sophisticate, but he must know she was hopelessly outclassed in these games. “I’m a complete country mouse. That’s why I’m here. I’m sure I’ll become used to your ways.”
She hoped to heaven he wouldn’t toss her out before she had the chance to become used to him. Back in Marsham, she’d told herself she’d play the perfect lover, biddable, cooperative, responsive. In the throes of passion, it was impossible to hide her real self. How deluded she’d been to imagine she’d keep some distance from the man who took her. The intimacy of sex inevitably meant intimacy of other, unwelcome kinds.
The tension drain
ed from his long body, and his rueful smile made her heart lurch with reluctant warmth. “You’re such a goddess in my arms, I forget your inexperience.”
Astonishment had her recoiling against the carved headboard. The sheet slipped unconsidered from her bare breasts. “You…”
Words deserted her. A goddess? Her? He couldn’t mean it. He was a man practiced at wooing. His arsenal must include quivers full of sweet compliments.
Even as she chastised herself for believing he meant what he said, her eyes searched his dark face. His gaze was steady and glowed with unconstrained admiration.
His attention dropped to her breasts, and interest sparked in the green eyes. She blushed again and hitched the sheet up, even though she knew her behavior was ridiculous. He’d already seen all of her. Touched all of her.
Ashcroft laughed at her continued silence. “Now I really have shocked you.”
“No.” She blinked, trying to understand this new world, where women like Diana Carrick were called goddesses. A world where superb examples of masculinity like Tarquin Vale considered her irresistible. “Yes.”
He distracted her with his flattery. She clutched the sheet tighter and almost wailed her frustration. A frustration not only with him but with herself and her wayward responses. And the fact that she couldn’t stanch the pricks of a guilty conscience, no matter how she struggled to ignore them. “Surely it can’t be enjoyable to pull out at the…ultimate moment.”
The fugitive lightness faded. “I won’t inflict my bastards upon the world.”
She extended a hand toward him palm upward. Because beneath the denial, she read a longing that made her heart cramp. He burned to spill his seed inside her. She should have seen that from the first time, when he’d withdrawn with almost painful violence.
Her task was clear, distasteful as it was. She must break down his will.
Which, against all expectations, was prodigious.
My Reckless Surrender Page 10