Before she could think further, he lowered her corset to expose her breasts completely. The tight fabric of her bodice and corset made them jut upward like an offering. Cool air hit her flushed skin just an instant before he lowered his head and took her nipple in his mouth. She hadn’t been prepared for that. Good heavens. He sucked the hardened bud, then caught it lightly between his teeth, and tugged. She arched into him, moaning.
“Mr. Storm.” She meant to say his name in protestation. The last shred of her common sense told her that she could not writhe about half-naked on the floor with a man without it leading down a dangerous and irrevocable path. But the moment his name left her lips, it resembled more moan than dissent.
He tongued her nipple and then looked up at her, the picture of wicked masculinity. Their gazes clashed. In that instant, everything changed. “Levi,” he said.
“Levi,” she repeated, liking the sound of his name, the feel of it on her lips. “Levi, this is madness.”
“Utterly,” he agreed politely. “And yet I find myself not giving a damn.” He pressed a kiss to the curve of her breast and cupped the other tenderly in his hand. “Tell me to stop, Helen.” But he belied his words by continuing to rain hot, decadent little kisses all over her bare flesh.
That was the trouble. She didn’t want him to stop. And whether she was buoyed by the champagne or the sensual power he wielded over her, she couldn’t say the words. Foolish Helen was firmly in control now, her virtue galloping away into the horizon like a driverless carriage. She didn’t give a fidget. Not one. What had she been saving herself for? When had she ever felt anything so all-consuming, so desperately exquisite?
“I can’t tell you that.” Her fingers sank into his silky dark hair.
Her confession wrung a curse from him, and she knew that he was as torn as she, torn between desperately wanting more and knowing they should cease their lovemaking immediately before they went even further than they already had. He sucked her nipple again before kissing the hollow of her throat, his tongue lapping against her skin. And then he claimed her mouth once more in a plundering series of kisses.
He tore his mouth from hers, framing her face in his hands. “My God, sweetheart.” His eyes burned into hers. “If I kiss you one more time, I’m going to take you right here on the floor of Jesse’s study.”
His confession, raw and oh-so-wicked, produced a fresh onslaught of molten desire coursing through her. There was a throbbing between her thighs, steady and insistent, an answer to what he’d just said. No one had ever made her feel this way before, as though she had to have him, all of him, now. As though she’d perish if she couldn’t satisfy this sinful hunger he’d brought to life within her. She should have been shocked. She should not have longed for him to lift her skirts and do precisely what he’d warned her he’d do. Take her.
Too much champagne indeed.
She responded by kissing him again. This time was different, tinged with an underlying understanding that there would be more, far more, to come. Acceptance. Invitation. He groaned into her mouth and caught her to him, their tongues tangling, bodies frantically straining to be closer. To be one.
His hand slid beneath her voluminous skirts and petticoat, finding the slit of her drawers. His fingers skimmed over her hot, sensitive flesh once, twice. He found the aching nub at her core and teased with just the right combination of pressure and rhythm. Her hips jerked forward and she cried out at the unexpected sensation. A feminine moan of satisfaction hummed from her. The things he was doing to her…good heavens. It felt wonderful. Heavenly. But still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
He caught her lower lip between his teeth and tugged before tearing his lips from hers. Rocking back, he stared down at her, his breathing as ragged as hers, his expression unguarded and laden with sensual promise. “Goddamn it,” he swore, removing his hand from beneath her skirt. “We cannot do this here.”
She felt suddenly bereft. Her mind spun as reality returned to her. She was on her knees in Jesse’s study, half dressed, and Mr. Storm had just kissed her senseless while he had a hand up her skirt. There was a ballroom overflowing with about two hundred of London’s finest lords and ladies mere yards away. The faint strains of the orchestra and the rumble of conversation and laughter filled the air. She was certain that she should be scandalized by what she had done, what she’d allowed him to do to her. Yes, propriety told her she ought to be horrified. Ashamed.
But she felt none of those things as she met his gaze unflinchingly. If this was scandal, it was one sweet scandal indeed, and she didn’t regret casting herself directly into its flame. Let it burn.
“Where shall we go?” she asked him, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, as if they discussed nothing of greater import than the color of her dress.
“We aren’t going anywhere together. You should go somewhere alone. Somewhere very far out of my reach. On the opposite side of a locked door rather than the same.” His gaze lowered to her bare breasts, then traveled to her mouth, then back to her eyes. “Hell. What have I done?”
In that moment, she was rather more concerned with what he hadn’t done than what he had. Indeed, she ached with the unfulfilled need he’d sparked to life. “I don’t want to be out of your reach,” she said softly.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do.” She had never been more serious or more certain. Perhaps the headiness of all the champagne she’d drunk was still wreaking its havoc upon her, but she knew her mind well enough to understand that it wouldn’t change by morning. It wouldn’t change at all. She’d given up trying to figure out what it was about him that affected her so. Nothing mattered other than the way he made her feel, as though she were truly experiencing life as it was meant to be for the very first time.
He crushed her to him again, framing her face in his hands. “Damn you. You’re playing with fire.” He lowered his mouth to hers for another possessive kiss. “Helen, sweet Helen. I’m not the man for you. I have obligations back in New York City that I cannot escape no matter how much I want you. I never should have been so reckless with you, and for that I am damned sorry.”
Helen wrapped her arms around his neck. “I don’t care about any of that. I’ve lived a proper life and obeyed all the rules for thirty years. For once in my life, I want to do something because it feels good, without a care for the consequences.”
“Everything has a consequence, my lady.” His eyes blazed. “Perhaps you’ve lived too sheltered a life to realize that.”
“Oh, I’m aware of consequences.” She didn’t flinch. “More than you can possibly know.”
He caught a tendril of her hair that had come loose from her coiffure and swept it gently aside, his fingers grazing her cheek. “You’re the daughter of an earl, and I’m the son of a whore. You’re as regal as any duchess. I’m a street urchin and common thief.”
She kissed his fingertips. He couldn’t help the circumstance of his birth any more than she could hers. If anything, the way he had made himself into the man he was only heightened her feelings for him. She would not be dissuaded by whatever attack of conscience that had suddenly come over him. “I don’t give a fig about any of that.”
“But you ought to. Damn you, woman, I’m doing my utmost to be honorable.” His expression was grim. “It’s taking every last bit of restraint I have not to toss up your skirts and finish what we started. But I won’t. We need to get you out of here before I do any more damage.”
As he spoke, he went to work hastily repairing her undergarments and dress to their proper order. He was actually quite proficient with her many layers, which told her that he was certainly no stranger to helping a woman dress. Or undress. Helen didn’t like the thought of him visiting the same sensual torture upon other women, either before or after her. A stab of jealousy shot through her.
“I daresay you know your way about a corset,” she observed tartly. She didn’t want him to be honorable, not now. She wanted hi
m to be daring, to take her, as he’d threatened, right there on the floor with a ballroom full of people making merry just on the other side of the hall.
He sent her a wry grin. “Sweetheart, if I didn’t know my way about a corset, you wouldn’t want me so much.”
Her eyes narrowed. Perhaps he was right about that, but she most certainly wasn’t about to admit it aloud. In no time, she was refastened and laced, her bodice back in place. He took her hands and pulled her to her feet. While she was no longer indecent, a quick review of her skirts revealed that they had been hopelessly wrinkled, the damask rose trim crushed. One look at her gown, and it would be plain as day to anyone what she’d been doing locked inside Mr. Whitney’s study with Levi Storm.
“We’ll leave separately,” he ordered, no nonsense now, as if the passionate lover of mere moments ago had vanished. She thought, not for the first time, that his surname was a fitting one. He was very much like a storm, this man, passionate as a summer thunderstorm one minute and then cool as a chill winter wind the next. “You shall go first. Your dress is ruined, I’m afraid. Go to the nearest servants’ hall and find your way to your chamber. If you act normally, no one will notice. People are trained to only see what they think they see. No one will be the wiser.”
No one except for her and Levi, and Helen wouldn’t ever be able to forget what had transpired between the two of them. Not his kisses. Not his touch. Not a single, blessed second. How could she return to polite conversation with him when she saw him next after he had kissed her the way he had, after he’d touched her in places no other man ever had? After he had changed everything for her?
Perhaps she should be grateful that he was being the gentleman at last and refusing to take what she had so plainly offered. But all she felt as she followed him to the door of the study was a searing sense of disappointment.
He stopped and took her hands in his, raising them to his lips. “My lady. I am, as ever, your servant.”
A bitter irony permeated his words. She searched his face and wished she could read him well. But he remained very much a mystery to her, a man who was at turns cold and arrogant, but one who also became a sweetly passionate lover when he wished. There was a hard shell about him, one she dearly longed to crack. She wondered if she could. If anyone could.
“No more ‘my lady,’ if you please. It must only be Helen now,” she told him softly, unable to keep herself from reaching out to tenderly trace his stubborn jawline one more time.
“Helen,” he agreed, his countenance as severe as it had ever been and every bit as starkly beautiful. “This is goodbye, sweetheart. I’m leaving in the morning.”
He was leaving? And yet he called her sweetheart, and had just held her in his arms? Dread assailed her, odd for she had known him for only a short length of time. But he had made such a great impression upon her, as strong as a brand. She hadn’t expected this, neither her reaction to him nor his impending departure from her life.
With reluctance, she pulled away from him, eying him warily. What had been his intent? To woo her and then disappear? Had he meant to lure her into the study to make love to her before he left? A confusing torrent of questions washed over her. “Are you returning to New York City, then?”
“Eventually that time will come, but for now, no.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “I will be in London, but I think it best that we no longer see each other.”
The urge to lash out at him was strong. How dare he? How dare he touch her the way he had, kiss her as he had, peel her out of her gown, only to button her back up and tell her he’d never see her again? But Helen had always prided herself on her strength. She had met with a great deal of heartache and pain in her life, betrayal too, and she had never faltered. She had simply bore it all with dignity and grace.
As she would now. She inclined her head. “As you wish. I’ve thought you a great many things since I first met you, Levi, but until today, coward wasn’t one of them. Goodbye.”
With that, she unlocked the study door and sailed out into the hall, not bothering to look back. She maintained her calm to the nearest servants’ stair, not even running across a single soul. Somehow, she managed to make it all the way to her chamber in her ruined gown before she broke into tears.
evi hesitated in the darkness of the hallway. He had waited until the ball’s end. He’d drunk a glass of champagne and chatted with people he didn’t give a damn about. He’d met more lords than he could name on two hands. He’d bowed to his hostess, the incomparable and kind Mrs. Whitney. He’d gone to his chamber and paced. He’d reassembled a pocket watch that he’d taken apart the day he’d arrived at Jesse’s house. He’d drafted a list of all the reasons why he should stay the hell away from Lady Helen. He’d burned it in the goddamn fire.
And now, despite all of his good intentions, despite the incredible restraint he’d shown earlier in the study, despite all reason and the fact that he had managed to somehow not sink himself into Helen’s delectable and willing body, he stood outside her chamber door. The last place he should be. The last place he meant to be. A sliver of light shone beneath it, taunting him. When he’d first set out from his chamber, he had initially promised himself he would take a walk to reaffirm the wisdom of his decision, to remind himself that though he’d been born to the gutter, he still had his honor.
But his walk had inevitably taken him here, to the one place he knew he had no right to be but to the only place he wanted to be. Just a piece of wood and the thin remnants of his decency kept them apart. His decency was waning, and the wood was a small matter indeed.
He wasn’t going to knock. By God, he wasn’t. But something kept him rooted to where he was, unable to leave. Was it her unrivaled beauty? The unadulterated passion she had shown him? The way she had tasted, the way she had responded to him, the way she had been so wet for him? When he had touched her there, in the sweet spot hidden beneath the slit of her drawers, he had nearly lost his ability to stop. But his responsibilities had come crashing down upon him. He couldn’t offer her anything. He was duty-bound to wed Miss VanHorn in the space of just a few months.
Helen was a lady, his conscience reminded him. She was more than a beauty. She was kind and compassionate, caring, and fierce, and everything he admired in a woman. She was everything he didn’t deserve, everything he couldn’t have. He might be betrothed to the daughter of the wealthiest man in all of America, but for him there was Lady Helen and then there was everyone else. And no one else would ever, could ever, compare.
It scared the hell out of him. She scared the hell out of him. Yes, she’d been right to call him a coward. He was all that and worse. A bastard. A selfish, weak-willed man.
Still, try as he might, he couldn’t seem to shake her. Couldn’t seem to stay away from her. As he stood in the hall like a thief about to make away with the household silver, he knew that he couldn’t go back to his chamber. Not without seeing her first. There had been hurt in her eyes. He hated to know he’d been the cause of it.
Then he had told himself, as his feet had carried him to her chamber, that mayhap he ought to seek her out, if only to explain himself. It had been a lie. He couldn’t simply seek her out. There was only one thing that would come of his visiting her chamber, and he couldn’t deny it any longer. He wanted her. Wanted her more than he wanted the breath in his very lungs.
He shouldn’t, of course. He had no right. He was promised to marry another, albeit in a cold-blooded union he had very much begun to dread. But still, he couldn’t ignore the feeling that if he didn’t go to her tonight, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
He knocked on the door. Lightly. It was very late, and not even the servants were about, no doubt having been completely worn out by the evening’s festivities and all that entailed. If he had a shred of sense, he’d leave now. Leave her to her peace and beat a hasty retreat before he did something incredibly foolish.
Her door opened a crack. He caught a glimpse of her lovely face. Her lon
g hair trailed unbound around her shoulders. “Levi?”
She was so goddamn beautiful it hurt just to look at her. What the hell was he doing here? She was too good for him. Far too good for him. And yet, he couldn’t bear the thought of her belonging to anyone else. He had watched her dance at the ball in the arms of half a dozen other men. It had thoroughly rankled him. No sane, breathing man could look upon her and not want her. Seeing the others trail after her, touching her, twirling her about, had brought out a primitive instinct. One he hadn’t known he’d possessed. Maybe that was why he’d reacted as he had in the study, why he was at her chamber, why he was riding hell for leather in the exact opposite of the direction he should be headed.
She held the door open for him, her eyes wide. She wore a dressing gown tied loosely at the waist and some sort of lace confection beneath. His cock went instantly rigid at the sight.
He stepped over the threshold, into her territory.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing?” she demanded, half whisper, when he was inside her chamber and the door closed at his back.
Her expression was wary. She didn’t trust him. He didn’t blame her one whit. He didn’t trust himself any longer.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I tried to keep to my own chamber and heed my inner sense of logic and reason. Believe me, I did.”
Helen crossed her arms over her waist in a defensive gesture that only served to emphasize her tiny waist and generous bosom. He wondered if her lace nightgown was as transparent as it appeared. “But you are here now.”
“Yes.”
She stared him down, every inch the ice queen. “Did you expect me to launch myself into your arms just as foolishly as I did earlier and thank you for changing your mind?”
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