Four long and lonely years.
“I owe you no such promise,” she told him. “I’m not beholden to you. I don’t even know you.”
“You know me well enough, Marchioness.”
His tone was arrogant. Taunting. And he was not wrong. She did know him. She knew his thigh thrusting against her aching flesh. Knew the way he tasted, the way he kissed. Knew his touch, the hardness of his body melding with the softness of hers. But Pamela couldn’t shake the feeling that acknowledging any of that aloud would render her even guiltier. It felt like a forbidden secret that should never be uttered.
“You are a stranger to me,” she countered defiantly, refusing to allow him to make the connection between them that filled her with such undying shame. “How am I to know that you aren’t every bit as dangerous as the men you presume to guard this household against?”
The hand on her ribs had moved slowly, until his thumb brushed against the tender underside of one of her breasts. Oh, how she wanted that touch higher. Wanted his hand on her, coaxing a response she shouldn’t have.
Mustn’t have. Not tonight. Not ever.
“Because you have my vow, and I’m a man of my word,” he said smoothly in his voice of velvet and sin. “You’re safe with me.” His face lowered to hers, and she knew the warmth of his kiss on her cheek. Soft, so soft. Almost reverent. “As safe as you wish to be.”
Her body was awash with disgraceful desire. The way he’d said the last,as safe as you wish to be, made his words sound like a challenge. She had been safe for years. First her marriage to Bertie—a love match. And then a safe, untouched widow for four years following the shock of his untimely death. Safety was a cold bedfellow these days.
“Do you dare to proposition the sister of the duke who has given you this post?” she asked, trying to keep her voice chilled and unaffected.
Failing.
There was a husk in her tone that she couldn’t hide, founded in the desire that was burning her from the inside out.
Another scrape of his whiskers against her cheek. His lips grazed her ear as he spoke so quietly she almost didn’t hear.
“Trust me, Marchioness. If I had propositioned you, you’d be in that bed behind us, naked, and I’d be deep inside you, and you’d be begging me for more.” He kissed her ear, then straightened abruptly. “But I didn’t, so I’m afraid this must be good night.”
His words—his wicked, wonderful, terrible words—made her ache to be touched. Ache for more than this brief, delicious, ill-advised encounter in the night. Ache for everything he had said. To be in her bed with him, Beast atop her, no barrier of cloth keeping her skin from his. To know his hardness, touch and kiss and caress every inch of him. To take him inside her. Would he be thick and long and hard? How would it feel to have a lover again? To wake her body from its self-imposed sleep?
It was confusing and horrid, and later she would drown in her shame. But there was no one else awake, no one about, to know what wicked deeds they might engage in for just a few, fleeting moments. Temptation had never been stronger.
But then, he was shifting. Lowering his thigh. Freeing her entirely, the decadent weight of his muscled form against hers lifting. And desperation seized her. Pamela’s hand shot out of its own volition, burying in his cravat, fingers grasping starched linen, holding him to her.
“No,” she said, the word torn from her. “Don’t.”
Not yet, she added silently.Just a few moments more of this madness first.
And then she pressed her lips to his.
* * *
She hadn’t even beenpolite.
She’d demanded.
No, that wasn’t right. She hadcommandedhim.
Lady Deering had caught his neckcloth and pulled him to her, those soft, luscious lips taking his with a fierce hunger that had his prick straining against his falls, begging to be let free. And although he knew better, he was kissing her in return. Allowing her to seduce him with her oddly enthralling combination of ice and fire. Surrendering to the need for her that had begun when their paths had first crossed earlier in the salon. The same need that had him making certain he was watching the halls on the floor with the bedchambers rather than one of the other guards.
Because the thought of one of the men near her as she slept had somehow felt wrong. It made no sense, this surge of possessiveness he felt for the woman he was kissing. But he was a Boritanian by birth, and he hadn’t forgotten the old ways of his homeland, the old ways that still ran in his blood. His maternal grandmother had believed firmly in fate, and she had instilled that same sense of acceptance in him. He felt a deeper connection with Lady Deering. Acknowledged it despite the inherent wrongness.
The wrongness of being paid handsomely to watch over a household and its occupants and yet pinning one of its ladies to a wall and ravishing her mouth with his. He’d told himself the earlier kisses had been to muffle her screams and keep the rest of the household abed. He’d told himself he was saving his own hide from a thorough braining with a fire poker at the dainty hands of a golden-haired goddess.
But he didn’t have an excuse for lingering here and returning her kisses now. For allowing his hand to slide from the delicate framework of her ribcage until he was cupping the voluptuous fullness of her soft breast in his palm. No excuse at all. Nothing he could say would make what he was doing right.
And he fully intended to keep doing it just the same.
Because her nipple was hard, and when he teased it with his thumb, she gasped into his mouth and wrapped her leg around his hip. The movement made the hem of her thin night rail ride up. He caught her thigh in his other hand and knew the glory of soft, lush skin. So smooth and firm and yet with decadent curves that made all his resolve melt like ice beneath a blistering sun. Awareness shot up his arm, past his elbow. He raked his nails lightly over her and wished he could see the faint white traces his fingertips would momentarily leave behind. He licked into her mouth, tasting her again.
