He cupped her cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb slowly over her lower lip’s fullness. “Julian. There’s no need for formality between us any longer.”
His touch stirred a hunger within her, a blossoming ache between her thighs. She steeled herself against both. “Do you seek to distract me? You cannot believe your attentions will make me forget the grim realities we face.”
“I find distraction is what I need the most just now.” He traced the seam of her lips, his eyes dropping to her mouth as though it contained a secret he dearly longed to decipher. Once, twice, three times. He pressed the tip of his thumb inside her mouth, and she tasted him, salty and warm and inviting. “Can it be so grim if I’m still here, little dove?”
She nipped him, not enough to do injury, but enough to demonstrate that she wouldn’t be so easily swayed. He withdrew, bringing his thumb to his own mouth. She watched its progress, her gaze lingering on his sensual lips. So finely formed, so beautiful in their masculine perfection. He sucked his thumb for just an instant, as though tasting her, before releasing it. His eyes never left hers.
Good Lord. She wanted that mouth on her. Once, he’d told her to think of where she’d like his tongue. And she knew it now with alarming clarity. Desire unfurled within her, warm and slow and delicious.
Everywhere. She wanted his tongue to travel over every part of her body. Anywhere he chose.
But she wasn’t about to tell him any of that. Good heavens, she was a lady, after all. Or at the least, her father had attempted to fashion her into one. Best to think of safer subjects. What had Ravenscroft said? Ah, yes. Their reality couldn’t be so grim since he’d survived the attempt on his life.
“I’m grateful you’re still here,” she admitted. Knowing how close he’d come to death still shook her. He was such a big man, tall and strong, alive with energy and wit and wickedness. How could anyone dare to attempt to take him away? She needed him, and the realization simultaneously appalled and thrilled her. “But we must find out who orchestrated the attack on you. If you’ll take nothing else seriously, I hope you’ll at least consider your own life with the gravity it deserves.”
He cocked his head, considering her. One of his hands remained on her waist, hot and possessive. The other settled on her shoulder, splaying over her collarbone, his touch as light as a butterfly. “I assure you that I have no intention of an imminent demise.”
How exasperating. He could not think himself omnipotent and immortal both? “Am I meant to take heart in that? Because if I am, you’re destined for disappointment. I don’t think your intentions have any bearing on the matter. Someone wishes you ill, and from the severity of the attack, I’ve no doubt he will try it again. You must be prepared.”
He trailed a path of fire to the hollow at the base of her throat. His middle finger stroked her there with effortless seduction. Fire shot through her entire, traitorous body. “Ah, my fierce, sweet wife. I’ve no need for your pistol. We’ve already been down this road.”
Yes, they had. And she’d had plenty of time to consider a course of action over the last few days. She was no society miss, no bland and sheltered English lady who’d never known a day of true suffering in her life. She’d been raised in the barren landscape of a homeland ravaged by civil war. She knew how to protect herself. Indeed, she knew how to protect him, and she would if need be. His pride be damned.
Clara shook her head, trying to ignore the way his roving hand made her feel—weak and jittery and longing for something she couldn’t yet define. “You need your own pistol. I’m a crack shot. I could take a man down before he even knew what happened. I’ll not part with my weapon. But you need to be armed at all times. You also need to travel with a trusted coterie of armed servants.”
“All excellent suggestions, love.” He found the first button on her bodice, the tiny shell disc hidden in the high collar of her smart aubergine morning gown, and effortlessly plucked it from its moorings. His index finger traced a path down the flowered brocade trim that artfully hid the remainder of her buttons from view. “But at the moment, I must confess, I’m far more interested in taking my wife to bed.”
His pronouncement sucked all the air from the chamber. She was suddenly hyperaware of her surroundings, her every sense alert. Her mind whirled, grasping at any excuse to ward him off. She wasn’t ready. Not for him. Not for this. Not yet. “Your injury, my lord.”
“Healing.” He made short work of the next few buttons. “I find myself with more than enough strength for the task. And it’s Julian, little dove. No more formality if you please. After today, there will be no other man you know better.”
The notion thrilled her. A fresh wave of heat bloomed from the very core of her, stretching out across her body like the ripples from a pebble in a still body of water. All he required was words and a molten stare to transform her. She wanted to become familiar with every inch of his hard, masculine form. The urge to see him stripped of his dressing robe seized her.
Something inside her broke. Her hands rose to frame his face, and she watched as if they belonged to another. Only the tantalizing abrasion of the whiskers shading his jaw told her the hands were hers. She touched him freely, as she’d wanted to do even before she’d ever spoken a word to him.
Her fingers traveled everywhere, all over his handsome face, from his high cheekbones to his angular jaw, lingering over his sculpted mouth and perfectly defined philtrum. Such raw magnetism, such undeniable beauty confined in one man. She touched him as though she could absorb him, understand him somehow with this tactile familiarity.
Her inner resolve bordered perilously on the razor’s edge of surrender. One smoldering look from him, one more undone button, a ghost of a kiss, and she’d shatter. But the devil of it was that she wanted to. He made her want to experience the impossible, the forbidden. Yes, all of it. All of him.
Her index finger lingered over that faultless indentation on his upper lip, almost as though she sought to quiet him. “Julian.”
His mouth quirked into a knowing, wicked grin that she felt first with her finger before it echoed through the rest of her. That dark, intense gaze of his was upon her, refusing to allow her to look anywhere else. Not that she would. There was no other sight in the world that she currently wanted to see.
He licked her. Slowly and deliberately. Up and down, firm and wanton, his tongue teased the pad of her finger. Strange how her entire body could center on the smallest point of contact. Just a finger. Barely a connection. And yet, she felt his tongue as though he plied it upon the most intimate of all her flesh.
That tongue told her what he could do to the rest of her. What he would do, as long as she remained precisely where she was, trapped in the web of desire and his penetrating stare.
Merciful heavens.
What had she done, agreeing to this? He wasn’t a mere man. He was a force. A wicked seducer. A man who had dedicated his life to giving pleasure. A sybarite. A rake. A rattler. The man who had betrayed her trust.
And yet he was also himself. The man who made her feel what she’d never imagined existed. A man who listened when she spoke. A man who respected her and wanted her. He was not Ravenscroft in this moment. No, he was her own. Purely, completely, hers.
“Julian,” she said again, and she wasn’t certain if she uttered his name as a protest or as an encouragement. For she was equally torn between wanting him and fearing the power he had over her.
“Clara. I want you more than I ever imagined possible. Today, I’m your servant. Anything you wish, I’ll do it.” He kissed her fingertip with a reverence that hit her square in the chest. The last of her defenses against him crumbled. Nothing remained but her deep, abiding need for him.
Of course, she should have told him all she wanted was to leave his chamber. To flee him and the unwanted complications wrought by the things he did to her. But the truth of it was that she didn’t want to leave him. Didn’t want to leave his chamber. If he was well enough—and he certainly seemed so as she eyed him now—then she wanted him to take her. Though the prospect simultaneously thrilled and terrified her, it was what she longed for most.
