Page 18 of Too Wicked for Heaven

She stared down at their joined hands. “But my uncle kept me closeted and ignorant, giving me nothing on which to base a choice. He made me think he didn’t want me around, that he was ashamed of me, when it was himself he was ashamed of.”

“You thought he was ashamed of you?” he asked incredulously.

“What else was I to think?” Her voice was laced with bitterness. “Whenever his friends came, he kept me away from them as much as possible. He never took me to London or introduced me to anyone. He was always admonishing me to be more of a lady. I-I thought he disapproved of me. I thought he hated me.” A tear escaped her eye. Then another and another.

His heart lurched as he rubbed her tears away with his thumb. “By Judas, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” He pulled her into his arms, and she went into them with a muffled sob. He stroked her back and her hair, murmuring comforting words as she cried on his shoulder.

His poor darling. All this time she had thought she was a disgrace to her uncle, when in truth it was the other way around.

He rubbed his chin against her forehead. “Strange, isn’t it? The bloody fool probably thought he was saving you from the poor influence of him and his lecherous friends.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Yet despite all his attempts, you’ve ended up in a scandalous situation with a notorious rake.”

“A notorious rake who’s been more honest with me in one night than my uncle has in seven years.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. “You’re the first man to answer my questions honestly, the first man who hasn’t treated me either as an annoying child or a beautiful woman without a brain. You can’t know what that means to me.”

Guilt raged through him, reminding him that he hadn’t been honest with her about everything. Ruthlessly he squelched the call of his conscience. Having her in his arms speaking well of him felt too good. He couldn’t give that up just yet.

She toyed with the buttons on his shirt. “You would never leave me sequestered on a country estate like my uncle, would you?”

He tightened his arms about her fiercely. “Never. If you were in my care, I’d spend every free moment with you. I’d want to hear you laugh. I’d want to stroll with you through those gardens you spoke of—the real ones. I’d want to know everything that was in your inquisitive mind.”

She was silent so long, and her body felt so good against him that he couldn’t resist. He nuzzled the top of her head, then began planting kisses in her hair, drinking in the scent of rosewater that clung to it. And when she didn’t pull away, he moved his lips lower, to brush her temples and her wide, smooth brow.

After a moment, she whispered, “Nev?”

“Yes, darling.”

The endearment made her tremble in his arms. “Are . . . are you trying to seduce me again?”

He held his breath as she lifted her face to his. He let his gaze trail over her beautiful features, her lips slightly parted and her creamy skin glowing in the candlelight. If he said yes, would she bolt?

The truth was he would seduce her at once if he thought she would let him. It was more than lust, though he certainly felt that. It was the urge to let her know what she was worth to him. Seducing her hadn’t been part of his plan, but now it seemed utterly essential.

“Perhaps I am,” he murmured, rubbing her lower lip with his thumb, feeling her breath warm it.

She dropped her eyes, a pretty flush spreading over her cheeks. “Then perhaps you . . . you should stop.”

He dragged the back of his thumb down to her chin, then along the curve of her throat. “You don’t want me to stop.”

“No.” She caught his hand, then lifted it to her lips and kissed it. “Heaven help me, I don’t. But I should.”

The throaty words made his loins tighten with an urgency at once painful and pleasurable. “Why? This is your stolen night, remember? You can do whatever you wish.”

A small smile graced her lips. She flattened her hand against his chest as if uncertain whether to push him away or caress him. “The idea of a stolen night is lovely, but we both know there’s no such thing. There are always consequences. If I let you make love to me, what will happen tomorrow?”

Her words came back to him--I’m not fool enough to marry a rake. Perhaps they were just words. But not sure of her yet, he bit back the impulse to answer her with the truth.

Instead he used what he thought was a compelling argument for seduction. “And if you don’t let me make love to you? Will you be content to leave, knowing you won’t see me again . . . except at those few parties and balls where our paths cross?” He drew his hand from hers and slid it along her collarbone, then beneath her gown to caress her bare shoulder. “Will you be content never to have me kiss you, caress you?”

Then he tipped up her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “After tonight, you’ll marry whomever your uncle chooses, won’t you? And judging from his hopes for you, his choice will be the kind of man to make love timidly in the dark. Your husband will no doubt burn for you as much as I, but he’ll control his impulses because it would be ungentlemanly to show passion to his lady wife. Instead, he’ll find a mistress with whom he can express his ‘improper’ desires.”

He could tell his words wounded her. She tried to turn her face from him, but he wouldn’t let her, tightening his grip on her chin as he went on fiercely, “All the while, you’ll have those same passionate urges, but you’ll suppress them for fear that he’ll think you a wanton. After a time, you won’t be able to bear it anymore. Then, like Lady Merryweather, you’ll play the proper woman while finding your pleasures anywhere but in your husband’s bed.”

“I’d never do that!” she protested, her lips quivering. But he could see the awareness in her eyes. She knew truth when she heard it, even if she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.

“After tonight,” he went on relentlessly, “do you think you could live in the kind of marriage your uncle would arrange for you?” He reached behind her back to undo the top buttons of her gown, then slipped her gown off her shoulders to below her breasts. She still wore her shift, but the cloth was so sheer, she might as well have been naked, for he could see the swells of flesh with their sweet rosy crowns beneath it.

His eyes locked with hers as he filled his hand with one soft, cloth-draped breast, kneading it and stroking her nipple until her eyes grew wild and dark with what he knew was desire.

“Could you forget what it’s like to have a man give you pleasure?” he asked huskily. “Could you live your whole life wondering what it would be like to make love to someone of your own choice, to feel him stroke and caress your whole body?”