Dawn Thompson (19 page)

He took her lips before she could decide, and a whitehot surge of scalding fire ripped through her loins so suddenly that she swayed in his arms—and instinctively resisted, pulling back as he deepened the kiss.

“Please, sir . . . don’t . . .” she murmured. She should have struck him, as she’d done with the pitcher, but she couldn’t. She should reach back and lower the flat of her hand across his handsome face, but she couldn’t do that either. She was weary of fighting.

“You want me,” he murmured. “I can see it—I can
feel
it in your trembling, in your quickened breathing, in the pounding of your heart.”

“What you feel is my fear,” she said.

“Fear of what? Of me? Have I ever done one thing to cause you to fear me? To distrust my honor?”

“Not fear of you,” she moaned. “I fear myself . . . I fear the very feelings you describe.”

“Who hurt you so that you cannot bear a man’s touch?” he asked.

“That, sir, is none of your affair.” She snapped at him: that tack was better—much better. If only she could cling to hostility.

“It
is
my affair,” he shot back, “because you have transferred whatever it is that has harmed you to me, and I am enough of a cavalier to resent it. And to want to prove myself to you.”

“There is no reason for you to prove yourself to me,” she said, “and I have transferred . . . nothing, sir. I have nothing to offer you. As I have already said, I am a ruined woman. That does not give you license to expect favors, however, which is how I see your advances.”

“You are far too young and beautiful to martyr yourself in such a way,” Joss said, soothing her with gentle hands. The heat of them through the silk brocade made her heart skip its rhythm. His hooded gaze alone was a seduction, without the honey-sweet intimacy of his murmured words and his warm breath puffing on her cheek. “Who was it . . . the young gentleman in the carriage? Is that why you were in such a rush to reach Gretna Green?”

“No,” she said, low-voiced.

“Who, then?”

Cora hesitated. Perhaps if she told him it would be enough of a deterrent to keep him at his distance. She hadn’t spoken a word of it since it happened, and only then to her father. Perhaps now was the time.

“My father arranged a marriage between Albert Clement and myself for monetary gain,” she began. “And to avoid a scandal, I was later to learn.”

“A scandal? What sort of scandal?”

“Albert was in danger of being brought up on charges for . . . an illegal association with another man. I knew nothing of this when I attended a house party on the Clements’ estate to announce my betrothal to Albert. It was to last the weekend, and Albert’s . . . lover was also in attendance. I happened upon them in a . . . compromising situation. I spoke privately with Albert. He no more wanted the forced betrothal than I did. We saw my discovery as a way out of our predicament. I would be spared a loveless marriage, and he would be free to go abroad with his lover, somewhere safe from the threat of imprisonment. The betrothal was preventing him from doing that, you see. It would have only caused more of a scandal were he to have left me in the lurch, so to speak, but if
I
were the one to break it off . . . Well, I went to Father straightaway, but he would not hear of canceling the betrothal. Albert’s father, Clive Clement, was holding something over Father’s head as well. I never did find out what it was.”

“In this day and age?” Joss asked. She had his attention now, but he wasn’t repulsed as she’d thought he’d be; he held her tighter.

Cora nodded. “To make short of it, they must have drugged Lyda in some way, because her chamber adjoined mine, and she never woke or heard my
screams. . . .” She swallowed dry. Maybe telling was the right thing. Maybe it would exorcise the demons that had haunted her ever since. “It was the father, not the son, who assaulted me,” she went on. “Clive Clement, who had a wife still living. He made it plain that he would ‘service’ me, leaving his son free to carry on his affair, and if I were to become enceinte, all the better for his son’s image, should it ever be in question. That was when I found out Albert was sterile from a childhood malady, and rumors had spread that he could father no children.”

“But how—”

“Clive Clement attacked me while I was sleeping,” Cora said quickly, while she possessed the courage. “For all I know I may have been drugged, also. I fought him to a fare-thee-well, but I was no match for his strength. When I told Father the next morning and begged again to be released from the betrothal . . . he refused. Whatever Clement was holding over his head was more important than I, so I ran away. They found me, of course, and brought me back. Hence the mad race to Gretna Green in such weather, else I attempt it again. The rest you know.”

“From your description, it was Clive Clement that we killed below in wolf form,” Joss said. “When he rises, he must be killed in his human form and his head severed from his body to free his spirit, otherwise he will keep returning in one form or another.”

“I care naught for his ‘spirit,’ sir,” Cora said frostily. “But, what of my father? If it is as you say, then he, too, is
vampir
. Please God, I beg you. Do not let any of them in!”

“I shan’t,” Joss said, folding her closer in his strong arms. This time, she made no resistance. Tears blurred her vision, and she leaned into the embrace. Her arms
slipped around him as if they had a will of their own, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. Whatever alchemy it was at work that tethered them would no longer be denied. This time when he took her lips, she gave them willingly.

He deepened the kiss, and Cora moaned. He tasted of raw maleness and the wine he’d drunk at dinner, honey sweet and sultry. She drank him in and could not get her fill. All at once, she was lifted in those strong, warm arms that were such a comfort. When he laid her on the bed and stood stripping off his clothes, she scarcely breathed. Her heartbeat was hammering in her ears, the blood thrumming in her veins. It was like watching a graceful dancer move exquisitely to music that he alone heard. It drew her in totally, and when he slid into the bed beside her and untied the sash on the gray brocade dressing gown she was wrapped in, her breath caught, and caught again.

For all that she had been ravaged in the night, and her virtue taken not given, she had never seen a naked man before. Joss Hyde-White knelt above her in all his magnificent glory, his sex turgid with arousal, and something pinged deep inside her—something hot and involuntary, like ripples spreading from a stone dropped in still water. It was magical.

“You may have lost your innocence,” Joss murmured, “but not your virtue. You are still a virgin in every sense save one . . . and even that is virgin still. You have never been reverenced. You have never been adored, never
loved
.”

Cora swallowed the lump in her throat but couldn’t speak. There was no need. Joss gathered her into his arms and took her lips in a kiss that was both tender and passionate. He deepened it, sliding his silken
tongue between her teeth, coaxing hers to reciprocate, and the stirring in her sex as she tasted him deeply took her breath away. She lay in pleasant oblivion then, as if she were outside herself looking on, feeling strange sensations at her very core, which indeed was still virgin territory.

He hadn’t shaved recently, and the tactile ghost of fresh stubble against her soft skin thrilled her. It quickened her heart, which nearly stopped its beating when his mouth left her lips and blazed a fiery trail along her arched neck to her breast beneath, capturing one tall, hard nipple. Her whole body throbbed like a pulse beat. It was as if she had been transported outside herself, looking down as he did indeed reverence her with a tender strength that left her breathless yet again.

As if it possessed a will of its own, her body reached for him as his hand splayed across her belly and ignited a riptide of searing hot sensations coursing through the swollen mystery that was her sex. Cora stiffened as that hand slid lower, caressing the soft mound between her thighs; and his hooded eyes, dilated with desire, looked into hers.

“I mean to show you what
should
be between a man and a woman,” he whispered. “There will be no pain. If I fail, a word will stop me.”

Cora dared not reply. She dared not break the spell. She could not bring herself to quench the achy fire that had spread through her body from the inside out until every nerve, every pore in her skin, was charged as if she had been lightning struck. But then it began; the cruel memory flashes, recollections of the moment that had begun her nightmare, the moment when, groggy with sleep, she lay helpless, pinned beneath another body in the deep dark. Could she have been drugged, too? She
must have been; that would account for the haze that cloaked her memory of that night.

The hands that explored her body now were skilled and gentle, not cruel and demanding, though she felt those cruel hands still. The breath that puffed against her skin was sweet, not fouled with sour onions, strong drink and stale tobacco, but she smelled the fetid breath just the same. No fist came crashing down upon her face—once, twice, she could not recall how many times. A gentle hand caressed it now, and lightly traced her breast, her narrow waist, the curve of her hips that rose to meet those probing fingers. Her heart began to pound. Both ecstasy and terror were doing battle in her then. She wanted Joss. . . . Oh, how she wanted him, but other hands were groping her in her mind, other lips were bruising her in rampant flashes. Clive Clement’s lips, hot and cruel, his tongue forcing—choking her. Would it always be thus? Would she relive the nightmare each time a man touched her?

Joss’s lips were warm and soft, edged with just enough stubble to ignite her as a match bursts into flame when struck. The sensation crippled her reason. She could not help but arch her body toward him. That involuntary thrust seemed to ignite him as well, for he murmured her name and spread her legs, but he did not enter her; instead, he wrapped her trembling hand around his hot, hard member, lifted her nearer and paused, his broad chest heaving.

“I am . . . in your hands, Cora,” he panted. “Do with me what you will.”

Cora stared. His thick, veined sex was throbbing in her hand. His eyes were so dilated with desire, they shone like two jet beads gleaming in the firelight. This was the last thing she would have expected. All at once,
the memory of hard thrusts and tearing flesh spread gooseflesh across her skin. She relived clawing at that other member which gave her no choice, relived her failure and the pain, the tearing searing pain that followed, relived the dizzying blows to her head and cheekbone. A soft sob escaped her lips. It was too soon . . . or rather
too late
for her. Mixed into the whole were propriety, modesty and decorum. It seemed ludicrous after what she had been through, but there it was. She had no control over what had happened before, but she did have control of what was happening now; Joss had just given it to her. She may have lost her virginity, but she hadn’t lost her values.

Yet, would she ever be able to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh? How could she bear it if she couldn’t now, after he’d given her a taste of ecstasy, and when she so needed the comfort he offered—when she longed for the promise of his gentle strength, his fiery passion?

Cora literally held the future in her hand. Joss had put her in total command, and she loved him for it. But it was too soon. The wounds were too new. The flesh had healed, but her spirit had not.

The pulse—the very life in his member—was pumping to the rhythm of his blood. It was beating as his heart beat: in rapid, thudding shudders. It was on fire in her hand, the veins distended—thrumming with life, ready to ravish her, to fill her, to bring her to the brink of rapture and beyond. But it was too soon.

Tears welled in her eyes. She could not stop them. They came in a great flood as her hand fell away from his sex, and she groaned, covering her face instead.

“I . . . I can’t.” she sobbed.

Joss swooped down and gathered her into his arms. The tenderness of that embrace only served to bring on more tears, and he soothed her gently.

“Shhhh,” he murmured. “I am yours to command, no? Not all men are savages, Cora. I mean to prove that . . . in time.”

He took her lips gently, in a slow, tantalizing kiss that left her weak and trembling for more when he drew away. Her body betrayed her. Part of her wanted to repel his advances while another part hungered for the very pleasure she feared. It was not a comfortable thing. He had to notice her quaking. It was as though both facets of her psyche—the memory that stained it and the passion that Joss had awakened in her—were warring inside, rending her in two.

The memory won. Cora pushed against his chest and tore her lips from his. “Please,” she murmured.

Joss rose from the bed and covered her with the counterpane. “I told you,” he said, “I am in your hands. You mustn’t judge all men by the measure of one reprehensible whoreson.” He gathered his clothes from the floor and strode toward the dressing room adjoining. How finely he was made! How narrow his waist, how taut his buttocks. How striking his corded thighs lit in the fire glow. “Get some sleep,” he said. “It is still several hours before dawn. I shan’t leave you entirely. I shall nap in the dressing room as I did before. You needn’t fear. I shan’t disturb you. But I shan’t leave you unattended either, especially now that you know what we are facing. I am a light sleeper, Cora. You have only to cry out and I will be at your side.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but strode through the door and closed it all but a crack. Cora lay very still, listening
to his movements. His ragged sigh echoing through the stillness moved her. Her pulse was racing, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Hot blood was coursing through the distended veins in her neck, pumping through the arteries, thrumming through her very core. She was on fire for him, her sex swollen with arousal, moist and tingling. Why had she let him go?
Why?
She lay awake for a long time thinking.