Wedded in Scandal (34 page)

“What if they’re not? What if I will feel like this forever? I’m not an inconsistent man, Helaine. What I feel for you is…is…”

“A fleeting fantasy?” She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “A passing desire?”

“Love. What if it is love?”

She gasped, her whole body tightening in his arms. She made to push him away, but he did not open his arms. He did not want her running, not yet. Not until they had worked this through. He was careful not to pull her close, but he could not release her. Not yet. Nor could he speak. The idea was too new, the feeling too special. So he held her and in time she stilled.

“You must let me go, Robert.”

“In a moment. Just…a moment.”

He felt her breath, warm and moist against his cheek. It was acceptance. She would not run, and so he slowly drew her the rest of the way into his arms. Good Lord, she felt amazing there. All soft and womanly, and yet he knew the strength she had in her. And the goodness. How he wanted to possess her. He wanted her beneath him, penetrated by him, and touched by no other. He wanted it like a territorial animal wants to stake a claim. And he wanted it the way a man wants to own a woman.

But he was not an animal nor was he ruled by his passions. He wanted her, maybe even loved her. But he would let her go if that was what she wished. So he did it. He took one last breath of her scent and then opened his arms. She stepped back slowly, confusion and a myriad of emotions crossing her face.

“Robert,” she whispered, “I do not know what to think. You take my reason away.”

His lips twisted in a rueful kind of smile. “You have been doing that for me since the very beginning.”

“This can’t last. And when it ends, where will I be?”

He arched a brow. “Are you sure? What if it is better than anything? Better than everything!”

She looked away from him, her eyes going to the bed. It wasn’t large by a viscount’s standards, but it was large enough for them. Just a man and a woman. He reached out to stroke her cheek. He couldn’t stop himself, especially when she closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his palm.

“You know me now,” he said softly. “You know you can trust me.” He gently pulled her gaze back to his. “I won’t lose control this time, Helaine.” He rolled his thumb across her lips. “Let me love you.”

She held his gaze for a long moment and he could see the indecision in her eyes. He didn’t say anything. He had already said more than he could credit. So when her body slowly released and her eyes drifted shut, he knew that her decision was made and he had not influenced it.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Please, Robert, please love me.”

What if it’s love? Robert’s words reverberated in Helaine’s
mind, echoing over and over until she could think of nothing else. What if he loved her? What if Robert, Viscount Redhill, future Earl of Willington, was in love with her? This man who had tortured her, threatened her business, and ultimately revealed his heart to her in a brothel might indeed love her. He was arrogant, opinionated, and flawed. And yet he was also brilliant, kind, and generous to a fault. She knew better than most how much a place like this would cost. But he supported it out of his own pocket. He worried about the children of the miners. And he worried about her.

What if it’s love?
The idea seduced her as much as his hands on her body, his mouth on her flesh. Because she so wanted to be loved. By any man, but most especially by him.

Love…

“Yes,” she said again because that was the only word she could manage.

His hands were trembling as he caressed her face. “I’ll be careful,” he whispered as he rained kisses across her cheeks, eyes, and nose. “I swear it, Helaine. I’ll be—”

She stopped his words. She didn’t want to hear about careful. So she lifted her face and met his lips, her mouth open, her tongue questing for his. She felt his gasp of surprise, quickly followed by a shift in his body. She didn’t understand what he was doing at first, but then she felt her legs swept out from beneath her. He lifted her up, carrying her effortlessly to the bed. And as he moved, she kept their mouths joined, their tongues intertwined.

A moment later, they were at the bed, but he didn’t release her. He just stood there holding her while his mouth played with hers. Oh, sweet heaven, how could any man kiss so beautifully? All thrusting power one second, then teasing withdrawal followed by tiny nips next before he rushed inside again. It was fun, and she found herself smiling from the sheer joy of it.

He took that moment to break away from her with a gasp. He bent down, slowly setting her on the bed, but he stayed with her, his forehead pressed to hers. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer, and soon he was sitting beside her on the bed. Thankfully, his hands were deliciously busy. They slid down her back and were undoing her buttons, loosening her gown even as she was the one now to kiss his mouth, his cheeks, his very strong nose.

“I love your nose,” she said as she skated her lips across it. Would his fingers never finish? Her gown was too tight. She could barely breathe.

“My nose?” he asked. “Why ever would you love that?”

“Because it is strong. It is aristocratic. I even love the bump right on the end.”

He pulled back and tried to stare cross-eyed at his nose. “A bump?”

“Absolutely,” she lied. In truth, there was no bump, but her heart was beating so fast, her body so alive, she had to say something to calm herself down. Some nonsense to cool her fire or she swore she would burn up.

“Truly?” he asked as finally, wonderfully, he finished with the buttons of her gown.

“No, silly. It is perfect.” And just to prove it, she pressed
a kiss right on the tip. She would have done more except at that moment he pulled back, his eyes dark with mischief.

“So you think to tease me, do you? Then perhaps I should tell you what about you that I like.” He leaned forward and began kissing her cheek, his tongue making little swirls along her skin as he drew lower on her body. Her cheek became her jaw, then her neck, and soon he was pulling her gown forward and off so he could kiss her shoulder.

“You’re not talking,” she gasped. It was silly of her, but she wanted to know. What about her did he find so attractive?

“I haven’t gotten there yet,” he said. The gown she wore was one of her own designs with the shift sewn into the bodice. That meant there was nothing to stop him as he pulled it away from her torso, nothing to interrupt his gaze of her now bared breasts.

“Oh,” she whispered as her skin heated. All men loved breasts, she supposed. But he wasn’t looking at her there. He was drawing the gown off her arms and she was torn between covering herself back up or just closing her eyes to feel the soft caress of the air on her sensitive skin. She did neither, her gaze going to his dark eyes. Never had she seen him look so intensely. He hadn’t lost control like before. This time, he was just looking, his expression adoring rather than possessive.

“Robert?”

“I love your shoulder,” he said as he stroked a single finger from her neck down across the top of one shoulder. “The line is so elegant.”

“My what?”

“Specifically, this little mole right here.” He leaned forward to her left shoulder and stroked his tongue over a dark dot just beside her collarbone. She barely remembered that it was there. She never thought a man would like it, much less stroke his tongue across it in a way that made her blood sing.

“Oh, my!” she gasped.

“You have been tormenting me with that mole all evening long, you know,” he said against her skin. “It kept taunting
me from your skin. All that creamy expanse of flesh and one mischievous mole begging me to kiss it.”

He was pressing her backward into the pillows, following her down as he continued to press kisses to her mole and collarbone. She giggled, her happiness coming out in the odd sound. “How can a mole be mischievous? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But yours is.” He straightened up to look at her with mock seriousness. “From now on, you cannot wear gowns that reveal your shoulders or I shall be forced to strip you naked and ravish you.”

He meant the words as a tease. She knew that, but her mood began to fade as fear crept in. “Is that what you are going to do to me? Am I to be ravished?”

He sobered as well, though the hunger burned in his eyes. It hadn’t taken over, but it was there. “I shall do only what you want, Helaine. You shall keep your virginity.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to keep it. Not now, with her body bare to him while he spoke so honestly to her. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she nodded. A tiny dip of her chin while his hand stroked from her shoulder down across the swell of her breast until he cupped her boldly. She opened her mouth on a gasp, and then shuddered as his thumb stroked back and forth over her tightened nipple.

“You have the sweetest nipples ever,” he said as his gaze left her face to look at what he was doing. “Tight, dusky, and they make you do the most wonderful things.”

She licked her lips, trying to focus while her nipple seemed to tingle with fire under his strokes. “What things?” she asked.

“This,” he said. Then he grabbed her nipple between two fingers and rolled it back and forth.

She cried out in surprise. The tingling fire had abruptly shot flames straight to her core. Her head pressed backward and her back arched more fully into his hand.

“Exactly that!” he said as his other hand cupped her and began its own ministrations.

Good Lord, she had never realized how very wonderful
her breasts could feel. As she lay there, her body burning, he stroked her breasts, shaping them, holding them, and yes, tweaking her nipples in the most amazing ways.

“No man has ever done this to you before me,” Robert said, his words half question, half statement. “Every time I touch you, it is like you are surprised by the pleasure.”

“No one,” she gasped.

He grinned, the possessive glint flashing briefly before he lowered his head. “Then let me show you more.” He put his mouth on her nipple and began to suck, pulling it deeply—rhythmically—into his mouth, where he stroked it with his tongue.

She lost herself to the sensations. Had he done this to her before? In the inn? She didn’t remember. She did know, however, that he’d never brought her to this place before. A sea of sensation where her body became a needful thing.

She felt his hands on her waist, pulling her gown down. She lifted her hips joyfully, helping him strip away the layers of velvet that only suffocated her. A moment later she kicked it aside such that she wore only her best stockings tied to her thighs and her half boots. His mouth continued on her breasts, one then the other, while his hands stroked over her belly and across her hips. Over and over he touched the edge of her stockings, toying with the ties, touching the edge where fabric met flesh.

Then his mouth left her nipple to press kisses to the underside of her breast, then lower and lower. Her belly shivered as the slight stubble of his chin rubbed against her. But it wasn’t unpleasant. In truth, it made a delightful contrast to his lips and his tongue.

“We are well above everyone up here,” he said against her belly button. “You may scream if you like.”

Scream? She never screamed. But she didn’t have the breath to speak as his fingers shifted on her legs. He was lying down beside her as he moved, but in the reverse. His legs were by her shoulder, his mouth traveling farther down her belly. She wanted to touch him, but his clothing was in the way.

“Stop, stop!” she gasped. “At least take off your boots!”

He paused what he was doing, pushing up enough to look at her. “Yes, of course,” he said. “But only the boots. I shan’t risk more.”

She didn’t understand what he meant. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she didn’t want to know what he meant so she blocked it from her mind. Meanwhile, he was drawing off his boots while the fire in her blood began to cool. She didn’t move, though. She was too afraid of disturbing the glorious mindlessness of what was happening. So she watched him, seeing the powerful lines of his body even through the covering of his clothes.

“Take off more, Robert,” she said. “Please let me see you as you are seeing me.”

He looked at her, and her body flushed again at the hunger in his gaze. “I am not so lovely, you know.”

She smiled. “Let me be the judge of that.” She began to push herself upright, but he stroked a hand across her shoulder. “Don’t move, Helaine. Not even an inch.”

“But—”

“I love looking at you.”

She had no answer to that. She had never thought herself to be ugly, but neither had she believed herself a beauty. There had never been a belief that her looks could catch her a husband even before her father had made his ridiculous blunder. But when Robert looked at her like that, she felt stunningly powerful. As if she were a goddess and he her worshipper. She hadn’t expected that. Not with a man as powerful as Robert. But that was how he made her feel.

“Your shirt, Robert,” she said, liking the way her voice sounded deep and commanding. “Let me see you.”