“You take unchaperoned walks,” he observed drily.
“Don’t pretend to be honorable now.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Everyone has been delighting in reminding me how thoroughly jaded and wicked you are.”
“I’m all the bad things you’ve heard about me and then some.” And damn if that didn’t rankle, far more than it should. After all, the truth ought not to hurt. “But as we’ve already established, we each have a mutual need for the funds your father will bestow upon you. I’m now subject to his whims the same as you.”
“You, subject to anyone’s whims? Somehow I find that difficult to imagine.”
Ah, but the sad reality of it was that he’d been subject to the whims of others for more than half his life. Lady Esterly had been old enough to be his mother when she’d plied him with attention, gifts, and drink. He’d been fourteen, orphaned by a father who reasoned with his fists and a flighty mother. The interest of an older, worldly, beautiful woman like the Countess of Esterly had been a siren’s lure. And just that easily, he’d been trapped. His time and his body had never again been his own.
Until now. Although even now, he had still trapped himself. But this time, he was old enough, wise enough, to know what he was about. This time he saw a beautiful woman, smart and prickly and bold and odd, and he was fascinated. Fascinated in a way that had nothing to do with the fortune she brought with her. No, if he were brutally honest with himself, he’d admit that his actions weren’t entirely mercenary. A sobering thought if there ever was one, that.
“We’re all subject to the whims of others in one fashion or another,” he told her as he muddled his way through the painful remnants of his past. Remnants he hadn’t realized still required muddling, after all this time. “Some of us are merely better at fooling ourselves into thinking we aren’t than others.”
“I suppose you’re correct in that assessment, my lord. We are all at the mercy of someone else at times, are we not?” Her drawl was soft and under-pronounced. A delicious trill.
There was her exotic, citrus scent again, teasing him. Luring him. He leaned forward, closing the distance between them in the confines of the carriage, and traced the silken curve of her cheek.
“And now you’ve placed yourself at my mercy, little dove.” He withdrew, bit the tip of his glove, and shucked it. Bare skin, the better to touch her. To tempt them both. He cupped her cheek, then traced a delicate path to the supple curve of her rose-pink mouth. His thumb ran over her lush lower lip once, twice, thrice. The seam of her Cupid’s bow parted and he sank his thumb inside, feeling her wet heat. God, how he wanted that. How he wanted her. To hell with his promise of a proper courtship. This woman was his, damn it. “Why would you choose me, of all men?”
She nipped his thumb, startling and intriguing him all at once. Of course she would bite. He pulled back.
“I’m at no one’s mercy,” she denied. “Not any longer. That is precisely why I chose you.”
“Do you think me so easily controlled, then? Do you think you can wave your papa’s money in my face and make me come to heel like your pet?” Anger rose within him, swift and strong. He recognized that this fury was old, pouring from a deep wound, that it was not necessarily hers to bear. But he wanted her to understand that he was not weak. He was not—would not ever again be—a plaything, a man to be toyed with by a woman whose needs he fulfilled. He had played that role for far too long.
“Of course not. Ours is an even exchange. You get your portion of my dowry and I get mine and—most importantly—my freedom.”
Her reasoning was calm, unperturbed. As if she weren’t sharing an enclosed space with one of the lowliest rakes in London, sans chaperone. Some beast within him rose up then, wanting to shake her from her tranquility.
“What if I’ve decided that I want more than you bargained, little dove?” he asked, touching the smart trimmings on her bottle-green street suit directly above her madly thumping heart. Bless fashion. Bless her, all stubbornness and beauty and sunshine. “What if I want you?”
Her supple lips pursed into a moue that he found equal parts fetching and irritating. “Our agreement is not negotiable.”
So she thought. Ah, silly chit, believing he possessed a shred of honor. He slid a casual but firm touch around her neck, his fingers catching in the silken web of her carefully coifed hair. His grip tightened, pulling her head back with just enough strength to show her who was truly in control. “I could take you here. Now. I could slide my hands under your skirts, over your calves, straight to your soft thighs and the slit in your drawers. We both know you would welcome me.”
She stared at him, her bosom rising and falling with the violence of her breaths. She wasn’t alarmed. Rather, she was…intrigued, he’d wager. Aroused. His little dove possessed a wicked streak, it would seem. Her lips parted ever so slightly.
“You wouldn’t dare.” Her words were a low, throaty whisper. Her pupils were large and round in her brilliant blue eyes. She looked for all the world like the lushest, sweetest peach hanging before him on a branch, all ripe and ready to be plucked. Or, as it were, fucked.
He grinned. “Oh, I’d more than dare.” With his free hand, he demonstrated, reaching beneath her voluminous skirts to find the hollow of her knee. Her heat singed him through her silk stockings, and of its own volition, his hand traveled higher still, coursing over her frilled drawers to cup the delicious curve of her outer thigh. “Part your legs for me, darling.”
Her eyes went wide, her body tensing beneath his touch. She wasn’t accustomed to such familiarity, of that much he was certain. But her untried innocence appealed to him in ways he hadn’t anticipated, and despite his best intentions for a proper courtship, the urge to show her pleasure was strong. He longed to bring her body to life, to give her the first, forbidden taste of passion.
“We’re meant to have a proper courtship, my lord, and then a marriage in name only,” she reminded him breathlessly.
“Mmm, but that is all deadly boring. Let me make you spend, love. Just once.” He was like an opium addict now, drawn to what he craved—Clara, her passion, her innocence, the illicit —and he couldn’t stop until he sampled at least a bit of it.
Her thighs fell open to his questing touch. He found the slit of her drawers, damp with her dew. Lust surged over him. His fingers traced her soft mound in slow, gentle strokes, circling her pearl. She jerked and tensed beneath him. He stroked her, toyed with her. Back and forth. She caught her lip in her teeth, head tipping back against the carriage squab. Ah, she was sweet. Slick and hot. He wanted to taste her, to put his mouth where his hand was and lick and suck her until she came undone.
Her eyes closed.
No, he was having none of that. He increased his pressure ever so slightly. “Look at me, Clara.”
She refused, turning her head to the side, remaining otherwise open to him. Her cunny was as responsive as ever, her wetness bathing his finger. But he wanted her completely, wanted her gaze to meet his as he gave her the first taste of pleasure.
“Look at me,” he demanded again. He’d played many games with many lovers over the years. But this was different. This wasn’t about control or domination or titillation. It was about her, and it was about him and things he had never even imagined he’d desire.
She gave in at last, turned back to him, her eyes clashing with his. A pant stole from her. “What do you want from me?”
