The chamber looked like him, too, as if someone had designed it to fit the cool, sophisticated man she hardly knew. The furniture was simple, the colors muted and everything was in its place.
“Not a thing amiss,” she said with a shake of her head. “God forbid there ever be a mess in the life of the Viscount Wharton.”
“Messes are complicated.”
She froze at the sound of Colin’s voice behind her. She slowly turned to find him at the same door where she had entered not a moment before. He was leaning against the jamb, arms folded, eyes locked firmly on her.
“I don’t like complications,” he said, but his voice was rough. His gaze was heated and hooded as it swept over her. Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have known what that expression meant. But now she remembered it well.
He wanted her.
She blinked at the realization and at the aching echo in her body that reminded her she wanted him, too, despite everything he’d done to her. Or hadn’t? God, but it was a jumble now, all her disappointments and regrets.
“If you don’t like complications, why bring me here?” she asked, her voice barely carrying.
He pushed off the doorframe and took a long step into the room. His expression still pulsed with wanting and her knees began to shake.
“You are…” He trailed off, and it was like he was trying to fight what he said next. “You are beautiful, Jane.”
She drew back a fraction at that unexpected compliment, given reluctantly, but still given. And returned, for when she looked at him she saw more than the cold man who had banished her for untold crimes. She saw more than the man who refused to answer her letters and set her free from the prison of his contempt.
When she looked at him, she still saw the man she’d married with all the hopes in her heart. The man who had made love to her and woken her up to desires she’d never fully understood.
If he could look at her and see beauty, want her despite his negative feelings, perhaps she could change his heart by following the path of his desires.
She had to be bold enough to try if she wanted any kind of future at all beyond one locked away in a castle by the sea. Alone. Lost.
She took a step toward him, keeping her gaze locked on him. He stiffened as she made her way across the small expanse that separated them. But he didn’t pull away, even when she stopped just in front of him.
Even when she lifted a hand to his chest and placed it there. His heart pounded beneath his jacket and hers leapt to join it.
“Isthiswhy I’m here?” she whispered, lifting up on her tiptoes, going slowly as if daring him to pull away. He didn’t. He held perfectly still as her lips brushed across his, and then let out a groan that seemed to come from deep within his chest, his soul.
His arms closed around her and he brought her up hard against his chest. His mouth opened and his tongue slid inside hers, sweeping across her, drawing her forward until her bones turned to water and her blood turned to fire.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning fully against him and feeling the hard, heavy length of him pressing against her stomach. Her body responded with needy desire, wetness flooding between her legs and letting her know how much she needed him in this charged, unexpected moment.
As if he read her thoughts, he drew back, staring down into her eyes, seeking some kind of truth he’d never believed. She wasn’t sure what he saw there, but when he let her go, he didn’t leave. Instead, he reached behind himself and slammed the door shut, giving them privacy.
She shuddered as he reached for her a second time, this time slower and gentler, as if before he had lost his senses and now wanted to savor the moment.
So did she.
He caught her hand and drew her across the room, toward the bed.Hisbed. He kept his gaze firmly on her face until they reached the edge, then he slowly turned her until her back was to him. She expected him to just open her gown, but instead he drew her back until she leaned against his chest. His arms came around her, hands cupping her breasts as he nuzzled her neck and pressed against her.
She sank into him, reaching a hand up to wind her fingers around the back of his neck and reveling in the warmth of his mouth on her flesh. God, how had she gone so long without this? At present, it felt as imperative as breathing.
He sucked at her skin and she gasped out his name on a broken breath. Only then did he slide his hands around to the buttons along her spine and open them one by one.
The warm air in the chamber slid along the skin revealed there, stirred the thin fabric of her undergarments, and she let out a low sigh of pleasure. He pressed his lips along the edge of her chemise, his tongue darting out to taste her there.
She shimmied to make the gown fall forward and clumsily pulled her arms free. He didn’t stop her, nor did he stop her when she turned back to face him as she shoved the gown the rest of the way off her body.
His expression was still heated as he watched her do so, but she thought she sensed something troubled beneath it. She tensed at the sight of it, fear flaring in her that he would regain his ability to push her aside.
To combat that, she slipped her chemise from her shoulders and allowed it to fall at her feet with her gown.
Now she was naked before him. A state she had not been in for so many months. Heat filled her cheeks, but she forced herself not to cover up, forced herself to stay before him, under his slow, steady stare.
