Charlotte shivered at the heat in his eyes. He was looking at her as if he could see through her night rail. Could he? She pulled her wrapper tighter around her waist.
He laughed. “Do you think that’s going to do any good? You don’t even need to be in the same room for me to see your body, to hear your cries and gasps—”
“Stop it, Julian! Why are you saying these things to me?”
“You’d prefer I didn’t? Ah, that must be why you hid from me tonight.” He closed in on her and pulled her against his chest. “Because you don’t want me to look at you? Because you want me to call you Lady Hadley, even though it chokes me? Because I can’t bear to be confined in a carriage with you without touching you?”
Charlotte’s knees buckled at the wild look in his eyes. “No.” Her voice was a whisper. “Because it’s better this way, Julian, for both of us. You’re betrothed—”
“You think I don’t know that?” He pressed his face into the curve of her shoulder and inhaled desperately. “I swore to myself I’d stay away from you tonight, and I tried. Ah God, I tried, but I can’t.”
Her eyes slid closed as he kissed and sucked at her neck as if she were a feast laid out only for him. With every moment that passed she vowed to push him away, but her fingers refused to obey. Instead they tangled in his hair to hold him more tightly against her.
He’s not yours, and he never will be.
But he was. Not to keep, not to hold forever, but tonight, just for one more night he was hers, and she could no more refuse him now than she could rip her heart from her chest.
A harsh breath tore from his throat. “I won’t let you go so easily, Charlotte. I lo—”
“Hush.” She pressed a finger to his lips. She didn’t want his declaration—not now, when it didn’t belong to her. He would be another woman’s husband and another child’s father, and she…
She would lose him again and again, every time she was compelled to see him with his wife and—dear God—eventually his children. She’d never marry again, not without love, and she’d never love anyone but Julian. Her heart would fall into pieces every time she looked at him, and she’d never be able to see that as anything other than a punishment.
She wouldn’t see him again after he left her at Bellwood. This wasn’t a beginning between them. It was an ending.
But not yet. Tonight she’d lie in his arms and love him and try to forget she’d lose him tomorrow. She leaned her forehead against his for a moment, laid her hands against his chest, and felt his muscles tense under her fingers, then slowly, tenderly she found his lips with hers.
Oh, God. So sweet.
And after all, endings didn’t have to be bitter, did they? They could be sweet, sweet enough to be mistaken for another beginning.
His gathered great fistfuls of her night rail into his hands. “I won’t say it, then.” He held her gently with a hand against her throat and looked into her eyes. “But it’s no less true for my silence, Charlotte, and you know it, just as I do.”
He didn’t give her a chance to speak, to deny it, but kissed her deeply, his mouth open, his tongue seeking hers, and she knew there could be no denial, not with the taste of him on her lips, and she met him eagerly, her mouth clinging to his, ravenous, every thrust of his tongue chasing the breath from her lungs.
Her breath, her heart—they were his.
She tore away with a gasp and grasped his wrists to stop him when his hands shot out to cradle her face and bring her lips back to his. “No.” She twined her fingers with his, raised his hand to her mouth and touched her open lips to his knuckles. “I want to watch your face this time.”
Julian’s lips parted in a sigh as she pressed a brief, hot kiss to the inside of his wrist. She lowered his hands to her waist and held them there for a moment to let him know not to move.
“Charlotte…”
“Shhh.” She traced a finger around his lips. “Soon.”
His skin was hot under her fingertips, the heat of him burning her hands through his shirt as she slid them over his chest and leaned forward to taste the hollow of his throat. He shuddered as her tongue played against him there, his hands squeezing her waist.
She tugged the hem of his shirt from his breeches and admired each inch of his skin as it was revealed, his stomach, corded with muscle, his skin darker than hers, olive-tinted, and so smooth under that seductive trail of dark hair low on his belly. She sifted it through her fingertips so she could hear his breath come short and feel his chest heave, then she took his hands from her waist and held his arms up to lift the shirt over his head, so his chest was bared for her.
“Let me touch you.” He dragged his hands from her waist up her rib cage. She shivered as they brushed the sides of her breasts. He noticed, and a faint smile touched his lips. “Or do you want to drive us both mad?”
“Am I driving you mad?” She raised herself to the tips of her toes to press her lips behind his ear, against his neck, his throat, soft, brief, open-mouthed kisses, just a taste until she opened her mouth against the center of his chest, felt his heart leap up to meet her lips as she licked him there and teased at his nipples, circling first with her fingertips, then the tip of her tongue.
His sharp indrawn breath made heat bloom in the secret place between her thighs. “Touch me then, before we both go mad.”
She felt his smile against her neck as he ran his teeth lightly over the sensitive skin there. He moved down her body, his hair tickling her chin. She gasped as he opened his mouth over her nipple, hot and wet against her straining flesh. A sigh slipped from her lips as he suckled her. How could his lips be so soft and so demanding at once? She wanted to ask, but when she opened her mouth all she could manage was an inarticulate moan. “Julian…”
He didn’t give her time to say more, but tossed aside her wrapper, dragged her night rail over her head, and lifted her into his arms. He lowered her onto the bed, then stood there for a moment, his hands on his falls, his eyes dark and hot as he looked down at her. “Do you want me, Charlotte?”
