“Liar,” he charged softly.
His hands, of their own volition, had come to cup her face. Her skin was so soft, like the petals of a fresh rosebud. He wanted to stroke her, strip her bare. Taste and touch her everywhere. She was like a revelation. A miracle. A sacred text only he could read.
“Duncan.” His name slipped from her lips in a sigh.
Or an invitation.
It required every modicum of restraint to keep from slamming his lips to hers. “Frederica. Tell me the truth, damn it. You were meant to never return. Your reputation was intact. You conducted your research. What more could you want? Why are you here tonight, in defiance of me and everything that is right and proper?”
“I wanted to see you,” she said on a rush. Her eyes closed. “I need you, Duncan.”
Damn it to hell. Her admission robbed the air from his lungs. One moment, he stood still and silent, gazing down upon her as his world changed, and the next he was assaulted by an almost violent surge of want. Pure desire. Animalistic need. He wanted to lift her skirts, rut with her here and now, against the wall, mark her as his forever. Plant his cock and his seed deep inside her.
The realization shook him. He could not afford to want this woman, to take her for his own. Doing so would dismantle everything he had worked so hard to gain. He could not abandon his course. Not now. Not ever. Did not his mother deserve some retribution? Should not Amberley be made to pay for the manner in which he had abused, used, and abandoned a gentle soul with his own flesh and blood growing inside her belly?
He muttered a curse. Never before had he been so torn. So conflicted. “Why?” he demanded of her because he could not seem to keep the question within himself as he knew he ought. “Why did you want to see me again, my lady? Does the forbidden thrill you? Do you wish for a taste of passion before consigning yourself to the life your father would choose for you?”
Her eyes glittered up at him in the semidarkness.Tears.The realization made everything inside him turn to dust. He had never been a particularly superstitious man, but it seemed to him in that moment that a part of him died while another part of him was born.
“Perhaps I wanted to know what it is truly like before the right is taken from me forever,” she said, her voice hushed.
Damn her.She was making this difficult. Too difficult.
He made short work of her mask, flicking it from her lovely face without a hint of contrition. Spectacles, mustache, mask—he had stripped her of every barrier she used to keep her true self from him. She was on display now, just as he had imagined her since the first night he had caught her in his club, only a hundred times more lovely than his mind had conjured.
She was radiant. Persephone, goddess of spring and life, of fresh buds and turned dark earth and planted seeds and shoots of renewal. She was beautiful beyond description. She called to him as no one before her had. As he instinctively knew no one else after her ever could.
“Whatitis truly like,” he repeated, his voice gruff, laden with the promise of all he wished to do to her. To show her if he would but allow himself. “Tell me, Frederica. What do you speak of?”
He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, warning himself against temptation, but the scent of violets filled him. As did her breath, the frantic thump of her heart, the heat of her, radiating into him.
Her hands, which had previously been settled upon his shoulders, moved higher, locking around the back of his neck. “Making love.”
She said the two words so quietly he thought he must have misheard her. “Making?”
“Love,” she whispered. “I want to be yours, Duncan. Even if it is only for one night.”
Raw, unadulterated need pounded through him, fiercer and hotter and stronger than ever before. He couldn’t stop himself from pressing his lips to hers then, kissing her, open-mouthed and furious. He kissed her with all the longing burning within him. With all the anger, all the confusion, all the frustration. He wanted her so much, and yet she could never truly be his, not just because of his quest for vengeance but because she was Lady Frederica Isling, daughter to the Duke of Westlake, and he was Duncan Kirkwood, bastard son of a Covent Garden lightskirt.
Because there was no world in which they could ever be one.
And if that bitter acknowledgment made him kiss her harder, and if it made his tongue slide into her mouth with a deeper insistence, and if she mewled in her throat and clung to him as if he was all she had ever wanted, who was he to deny it? His hands slid to her breasts, cupping them for the first time through her bodice. They were high and full, her nipples erect, hard little gems cutting into his palms. He tore his mouth from hers and planted it on her throat, inhaling deeply of her scent, warm woman and floral musk.
Bloody hell, he was lost. Lost in her. He planted kisses everywhere. Opened his mouth to taste her succulent skin, used his teeth upon her flesh. His hands roamed. Claimed. Every curve and swell, each new temptation comprised of sweet-scented, warm, womanly flesh.
He was aflame, the sizzling heat of desire licking through his veins. There was something about Lady Frederica Isling that made him want to claim her. To strip her bare, pin her to his bed, sink home inside her. To unleash his seed in her womb, an act which he had never before committed with another woman. An act he had never wished to commit, being the product of a loveless bedding himself.
“Oh, Duncan,” she whispered, her voice at once a soft balm and a promise of more.
Bleeding hell, how could he resist her?
And then another voice inside him whisperedwhat if? What if he ruined her? What if he took her to his bed? At the least, it would keep her from an unwanted match with her forceful suitor, would it not? Moreover, there had always existed within him the niggling knowledge that leaving her innocence largely intact could mean her father would deny him the payment he wished in exchange for his silence. He had not wanted to damage her reputation or cause her harm, but how could it be so if the lady herself wished it?
A light began to burn within his darkness. Beseeching. Tempting.My God, I can have her. For one glorious night, I can make her mine.
He took her mouth once more, his hands tightening on her waist. She tasted of champagne, intoxicating and tart. His tongue slipped past her lips, and she sucked it. His cock twitched in approval. An innocent lady she may be, but Lady Frederica possessed the passion of a woman.
He tore his lips from hers, pressing their foreheads together so they remained nose to nose, bodies flush, their breaths mingling. Before he could do it, he needed to be certain she was aware of the consequences. She was reckless and passionate, inquisitive and bold, and these were characteristics that could often land one in a spot of trouble. “You do not know what you are asking, my lady.”
