“It felt as if he had abandoned us,” Jo said, casting him a glance over her shoulder that made his gut clench again. “He is a good man, in spite of his reputation. He would do anything for those he loves. My other brother was nothing like him. He was a selfish, greedy, heartless bastard.”
The vehemence in Jo’s tone took Decker by surprise. Unlike some ladies of his acquaintance, Jo did not relish speaking poorly of others. He had never once heard her issue a cutting remark about another.
“Thisotherbrother you speak of, he is dead?” Decker asked solemnly, trying not to pry too much, and yet curious.
To be sure, it was an odd conversation to engage in when he had been intending to seduce her—with kisses, at least—this evening. And yet, he could not deny he was intrigued. He wanted to know what made her who she was.
Jo nodded. “He died after attacking Ravenscroft and his countess. His jealousy made him mad. He believed he was the only rightful heir of our father. Perhaps that is true, and perhaps not. Our mother took many lovers. None of us shall ever know the truth.”
Here was something interesting indeed, the notion that he and Jo had something deeply in common. That both their births were shadowed with scandal. However, where her mother had been properly wed to the former earl, Jo had been shielded from the brunt of scrutiny and scandal.
But Decker was also quite taken aback by the other half of her revelation—that her dead brother had attacked the earl and countess. One could only surmise it had been with the intent to murder them both.
He found himself moving nearer to her, taking her hands in his. “Damnation, Jo, that is a wretched weight to live with.”
Her smile was tremulous. “Life is a wretched weight itself sometimes, is it not? We are given struggles and anguish, and yet there always remains that promise of goodness, looming on the horizon, that rainbow after a punishing rain, that keeps us going on. We have had the promise before, and we know it will come again, even if we are not certain of when or why. I cannot change the past, and therefore, I look to the future.”
And what manner of future? He could not help but to wonder as he studied her stunning face. He had thought her lovely at the onset of this arrangement of theirs. But now… Now, he could see, quite plainly, that she was utterly glorious, in the rarest sense. She was strong and brave, with a wisdom beyond her tender years. Like an orchid in the wild, fragile, stunning, resilient.
Decker swallowed hard against a rush of pure longing. “You are far too young to be so world-weary,bijou.”
She gave him a sad smile. “The same could be said of you, I think.”
How sweet she was.
Too sweet for the likes of him.
He would have her anyway. Take some of that sweetness for his own.
“I am not young at all, darling.” Indeed, he felt as if he were positively ancient.
He felt as if he were a lecherous satyr presiding over a fairy queen.
“How old are you, Decker?” she asked then, startling him once more with the use of his preferred name.
“Eight-and-twenty in years,” he said softly. “Easily twice that in experience.”
“I like that about you.” Her smile faded, her gold-chocolate eyes searching his with an intensity that scorched him. “Your eyes are very expressive. You are not the man you would have the world believe you to be, are you? You are so much more.”
Bloody hell.
She had robbed him of the ability to speak.
He would show her how much more of him there was. And he would give her all of himself. Decker knew it with a certainty that shook him, despite the hardness of his heart. This slip of a woman, so young and untouched and yet, just as she had said about him, so muchmore.
He tugged her into him, forgetting his plans. Forgetting everything but the need to cover her mouth with his. And she was every bit as frantic. She felt it too, this precious connection, this melding of their very souls. It was as if he had waited all his life for it, so rare and deep and real.
Ridiculous, scoffed the remaining shreds of his rational mind.
Complete rot. You are thinking with your cock. You want her cunny, and all the blood in your body has gone to your prick, leaving your pitiful brain unable to function properly.
Fuck that voice. He forgot all about it as her arms wound around his neck. As her fingers sank into his hair. As she rose on her toes in the same instant he lowered his head.
Their lips collided.
This was different from the kiss in the carriage. It was more powerful, one part communion of bitter and jagged and disappointing pasts, one part acknowledgment of the fierce desire burning between them. Her teeth rasped against his lower lip. Her unbridled hunger was the most potent aphrodisiac he had ever known. He kissed her harder, slanting his mouth over hers.
He knew he ought to take his time, break her in, initiate her. Show her what he wanted and how he wanted it. Learn what she liked. But he could not control himself any more than he could tear his lips from hers. His tongue sank inside, plundering. He kissed her brutally, licking the satin heat of her mouth, her tongue, plunging deep the way he wanted to do with his cock inside her cunny.
