Wicked in Your Arms (17 page)

“I sense bitterness in you. Why do you dislike him so much? Did he do . . . something to you?”

She inhaled a bracing breath. “He promised to marry me for years.”

His fingers almost hurt where they wrapped around hers. “Are you in love with him?”

“No! God, no! He's a wretch. I was just inexperienced. It took me a while to realize what he truly was. When I did I left Wales. I couldn't stay on.”

“What happened?”

“For years he kept me dangling on a hook with the promise of marriage.” She winced, thinking how foolish she'd been to ever believe him. To ever even
want
him. “Finally he admitted he could never marry me. He confessed to my face that I was beneath him and that he must marry someone respectable. Someone with a dowry.” She laughed lightly. “But he didn't want me to be totally disappointed. He kindly offered to keep me on as his game master, so long as I agreed to be his mistress. A role he thought me aptly suited for.” She lifted one shoulder. “And that's when I decided I would leave Wales. Jack's summons came not a moment too soon.”

Sev growled beneath his breath. “Bastard.”

She looked him steadily in the face. “And why would you say that? He's not so unlike you. You've offered me nothing but a place in your bed.” Even as she uttered the words, she regretted them, knew them to be untrue. He was nothing like Trevis. He possessed responsibilities too great to let himself take her for a wife. She knew he cared for her, that he would consider her for a wife if he could.

Sev blinked, his hand loosening around hers. “If that's how you see me, why are you even talking to me? Why even let me touch you?”

Because I love you
. The realization stunned her, knocked the wind loose from her chest and filled her with raw panic. It only confirmed in her mind what she had to do. She blinked, fighting back the burn in her eyes. She couldn't break down and weep now. She had to end this before they became any more entangled. Before it became impossible to walk away.

“Good question,” she replied through numb lips. As much as it hurt to say the words, they needed to be said. “This can't continue. We can't.”

Every moment with him pushed her closer to ruin. To say nothing of the danger to her heart. As much as severing with him hurt, if she delayed any longer she might not be able to extricate herself at all. She'd be lost to him. And she didn't want to make this any harder for him either. He had a duty to perform. It impacted thousands of people, an entire country. She couldn't be so selfish as to put her own desires first.

As if burned from the touch of her, he dropped his hand completely from hers and rose to his full looming height. Her gaze drifted up to his face, drinking in the sight of him as if it were her last. And essentially it was. The next time she saw him, there would be nothing between them.

He stared down at her so impassively, the old prince, austere and unfeeling again.

She licked her lips. “Good-bye, Sevastian.”

He didn't move for the longest moment. She held her breath, willing him to leave.
Willing him to stay
.

Finally, without a word, he turned on his heels and departed the room with solid steps.

She released the breath she had been holding and remained in her chair, as still as stone for several moments, the ticking clock on the mantel timing the seconds it took her heart to break.

A sob broke from her lips and she collapsed, dropping her head into her shuddering lap. It didn't take long at all.

Chapter Twenty

S
ev strode toward the front door of the inn, ignoring his cousin calling to him from a table to let him know their dinner waited.

He welcomed the hard bite of winter on his cheeks as he stepped out into the windswept yard, relishing any discomfort the cold brought, hoping it helped mask the uncomfortable knotting in his gut. Perhaps anyone who looked at him would fail to notice that he'd been struck a blow.

She'd ended it. Their affair.

Them
.

He burrowed deeper within his jacket, realizing he should have grabbed his long coat but not about to go back for it. He was in no mood for people. He was especially in no mood to face her again.

His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. She'd walked away from him when they were only just starting to enjoy each other. They were just . . . beginning. What, precisely, he couldn't say, but something more than an illicit, sordid affair. For the first time in his life, he'd felt himself with another person. Himself. Sevastian. Not the crown prince, or war hero. He'd felt like he could be his true self with her.

And with a word, she'd killed that.

His hands opened and shut at his sides at the memory of her silken skin. He hadn't done half the things he wished to do to her yet. He hadn't heard half the things he wanted to hear from her lips yet . . .

This last thought jarred him. Since when did he long to hear a woman
talk
. . . to spill her soul to him?

His hands unclenched. They weren't finished. He'd had affairs aplenty before and walked away with no regrets, with no painful knotting in his stomach. But this—Grier. They weren't done. She was sorely mistaken if she thought she'd seen the last of him.

At that moment a man emerged from the stables tugging on his gloves and adjusting his hat upon his head. A groom led a horse before him.

A low growl rose from the back of his throat as he recognized the man from Grier's past. The man she thought to compare him to. They were nothing alike. Sev would never be fool enough to let her go. Not if he truly wanted her. And he did.

She said she didn't love the man, but Sev wondered if that was true. Was that why his arrival today hurt her so much? Was that why she ended their affair?

Had seeing Powell reminded her that she cared for him? More than whatever feelings she harbored for Sev?

She turned down his proposal
, a voice reminded in the back of his mind.
She couldn't still want him.

At the thought of that proposal, that this man hoped to claim Grier for his wife, Sev's vision clouded with a rage he'd never felt before. Not even in the heat of battle, when his blood pumped so hard all thought fled and he only acted.

He strode quick, hard strides across the yard. Without a word, he grabbed Trevis Powell's shoulder and whirled him around.

Powell didn't have time to speak before Sev planted his fist in his face with a satisfying crunch.

The man staggered, but didn't fall. He glared at Sev over the hand he held to his afflicted cheek. “What the bloody hell was that for?”

“For thinking you could come back here and claim her after you threw her away.”

The bewilderment gradually cleared from his eyes. “Ah, got to you, too, did she? There's certainly something about her, isn't there? She has a way about her. I should know. I tried for years to get beneath her skirts. I think it's that lovely mouth. Makes a man imagine the places he'd like her to put it.”

Sev growled and took a menacing step toward him.

Powell held up a hand to ward him off while his other hand fingered his tender cheek. “No need for violence, chap. She's just a bit of common trash.”

“Bastard!” With a roar, Sev charged him like a bull and knocked him to the ground. They rolled, throwing punches and striking each other wherever their fists could connect. He felt nothing, registered no pain. Each crack of bone on bone fueled his fury, egging him further.

Sev gained the advantage and pinned Powell to the cold ground, striking him again and again.

“Sev! Sev! Stop!”

Malcolm was there, pulling on him with two grooms, grunting as they tried to haul him off the bloodied man.

Sev blinked and looked around. A crowd had gathered. The dowager's houseguests gawked at him with sagging mouths, their breaths smoky puffs on the cold night air. He cared for none of them. His gaze sought only one.

He found her, standing just inside the threshold, for once looking pale as milk. Her face was leached of all color beneath her sun-browned skin. He freckles stood out in stark relief, and something almost painful knifed near his heart.

She looked from him to Powell writhing on the ground. When her gaze found him again, her eyes gleamed bright with disapproval.

He didn't flinch, didn't show the slightest sign of regret for his actions. He'd beat the bastard to a pulp again for speaking of her so crudely . . . for hurting her.

She hugged herself but he somehow doubted it was the cold that made her embrace herself so tightly. Her sister stood beside her, gripping her arm in a gesture of support.
As if he'd done something wrong.

He stared at Grier, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, indifferent to who watched him and what they thought of the Crown Prince of Maldania tussling in the dirt outside an inn like a common peasant.

Malcolm growled close to his ear, “Have you gone mad? People are watching!”

“Let them watch.” He took a step, intent on reaching her, when she turned with a sudden jerk and went back inside, dismissing him.

And then he recalled with bitter clarity that she wanted nothing more to do with him. He stopped and glanced around at the crowd of avid spectators and took a bracing breath. For now. He'd let her go for now. He'd let her think they were finished. He wouldn't risk her reputation by chasing after her—as every fiber of his being urged him to do.

They weren't even close to being finished. She'd know that soon enough.

G
rier fled inside to the small parlor where she'd attended Trevis earlier. She stood at the window and stared out at the snow, seeing and unseeing at the same time.

Trevis was even now being assisted to a bed somewhere inside the inn.
Because of Sevastian. Because of her.

When she woke this morning she could not have imagined such an incredible scenario.

Holy hellfire
. She closed her eyes in a tight blink and tried to summon a speck of guilt for that fact, but she could only marvel upon why Sevastian would do such a thing.

She could guess at the ugly things Trevis had said about her if Sev confronted him, and she knew enough about Sev to know that honor drove him to protect those harmed, be it with words or a raised fist.

Even though she'd ended their affair, Sev would feel honor-bound to defend her.
Affair
. It seemed silly to even call it that. Did one night constitute an affair? And yet at the same time it seemed wholly inadequate, too.

“Grier?” Cleo hesitantly called her name from the threshold.

Grier turned to face her.

“Are you all right? What happened?”

Even she didn't know how to answer that. She inhaled a steadying breath, her fingers lightly thrumming against her lips. “Nothing. We're going home, Cleo. Back to London.”

Cleo nodded, looking at Grier as if she feared she might have lost her mind. “I know that.”

“We're going back to Town.” She ceased playing with her mouth and dropped her hand. “And I'm going to find a husband. No more hanging about ferns.”

Cleo arched a jet black brow. “Indeed?”

“Yes.” She was done dragging her feet. The quicker she wed someone else, the sooner she could forget about Sevastian.

Chapter Twenty-one

“I
want to hear everything. How was the dowager's house party?” Grier's half sister Marguerite leaned close and whispered over the lilting notes of the soprano who sang at the front of the room, “Do you have any prospects? Any handsome men sweep you off your feet?”

Grier ignored the sudden pinch in her chest and slid her gaze from the Italian opera singer the dowager had acquired for the evening to her half sister. “The viscount has made himself amenable.”

Marguerite looked over at the gentleman sitting one row behind them in the dowager's ballroom. Several rows of chairs lined the ballroom, occupied by gentlemen and ladies all listening raptly to the soprano performing on a small dais at the head of the room. The singer's generous bosom swelled from her gown. Grier feared that she might spill free with her next note.

Smiling, Marguerite whispered, “I'm sure the viscount has been more than amenable. His imposing grandmamma would see to that, I imagine.”

Grier nodded, her stomach cramping a bit because her single marriage prospect was due to one intimidating old lady. Far from romantic.

At that thought, her gaze swept the room, searching for the familiar dark hair of her prince. A weakness to be certain, that she should still search for him after she ended their affair, but in the last week since her return to Town she found herself searching for him everywhere she went.

She took a bracing breath. Sooner or later they would bump into each other, and she must be strong when that moment arrived. As stalwart as she'd been at the inn, severing their relationship with nary a tear. At least in his presence.

“Are you looking for someone?” Marguerite asked.

“No.” Grier forced a bright smile. “Thank you for accompanying me tonight. We've had so little opportunity to visit.”

“I'm thrilled you invited me. With Ash out of town on business, I'm happy for the distraction. I'm only sorry Cleo isn't feeling well.”

“She's been spending a good deal of time with Lord Quibbly.”

“Lord Quibbly? That ancient old man who practically accosted us when we arrived, demanding to know where Cleo was?”

“The same.” Grier readjusted herself on the hard-backed chair and sighed, not understanding why Cleo encouraged the old man's suit. “I think she wanted a reprieve from his attentions.”

“That I can understand.”

Marguerite shuddered, and Grier couldn't help teasing, “Not everyone can be married to an Adonis.”

Marguerite smiled pertly and whispered back, “True. There is no one his match.”

Grier snorted. “Braggart.”

“Although that gentleman who just entered the room with his gaze fixated on you would be a close second.”

Grier's gaze jerked to land on Sevastian, standing tall and handsome in his black jacket. Only he wasn't alone.

Other than his ever-present cousin, a pair of ladies accompanied them. One was older—the mother, Grier guessed from her resemblance to the young, fair-haired woman that Sev gallantly led into a seat.

Grier's eyes burned. He wasted no time moving on.

“Grier, are you all right?”

Grier nodded, staring her aching eyes hard at the back of Sev's head two rows before her. So much for remaining stalwart. Her hands shook in her lap.

The room broke into applause as the soprano's final note faded to an end.

Shaking, she rose to her feet. “Excuse me, Marguerite. I need some air.”

“Would you like me to come with—”

“No. I'll be but a moment.” If she should succumb to tears, she didn't want her sister to witness her display of weakness. They were only just beginning to know each other. Grier would rather Marguerite not know that she had fallen in love with a man so above her station that she was guaranteed nothing but heartache.

She glimpsed her father as she fled, standing near the back with other gentlemen less inclined to appreciate the evening's musical performance. She ignored his scowl as she fled. Ignored meeting anyone's eyes directly, most specifically a dark-haired, gold-eyed prince she'd shut out from her life. She blinked burning eyes, her steps eating up the parquet floor as she hurried from the ballroom. She wondered if she could beg off for the night and go home—tell everyone she was ill with whatever allegedly ailed Cleo.

“Grier!”

A small squeak escaped her at the sight of Sev striding toward her.

Whirling back around, she increased her pace, hoping he would get the hint that she didn't want to see him . . . especially with her eyes burning and tears that threatened to fall at any moment.

He said her name louder, a barked command. A quick glance revealed he was running now, his face set in hard, determined lines.

Lifting her skirts, she gave in to a full run, not caring how absurd she was being, running from him like he was a crazed murderer.

Rounding a corner, she seized the latch on a door, fumbling with it, hoping to dive inside and hide.

Just as she got the door opened, he was there. Every hard imposing inch of him pressed at her back. Instantly she was enveloped in him. He was no longer a memory, but a live, real, flesh and blood man pressed hotly against her.

Her heart spiked against her throat. Panic warred with the inexplicable fury in her heart.

She whipped around, brought her palm crashing against his face with a loud crack.

He grabbed her wrist before she could strike him again and pushed her back into the room. Darkness engulfed them, thick and pervasive as a cocoon.

They wrestled, he trying to grab one of her flailing hands desperate to hit him, punish him again—to hurt him for all the pain in her heart.

Sobs choked her throat. He hauled her against him, her arms trapped between their bodies.

He grasped her face with his one free hand, forcing her still, immobilizing her. His mouth claimed hers in a fierce stamp of his desire. Heat seared her at the contact and she was helpless to resist. She kissed him back with equal fervor, their lips brutal and thorough, teeth clanging in their feverish need for each other.

The throbbing darkness enhanced everything. Her skin sizzled where he touched. He eased up, freeing her hands. It was as though they read each other's minds. Her fingers flew to his trousers, freed him as he dove beneath her skirts.

Fabric ripped. Her drawers, she supposed—didn't care.

The barest hint of air caressed that exposed part of her before he was there, plunging himself deep.

She arched, crying out beneath him as he worked himself over her. Their bodies made savage sounds as they came together again and again in a fierce coupling.

His hands gripped her bottom, lifting her up for his penetration. She went willingly, moved with his every motion, reveling, exulting, exploding into a million particles.

The air itself seemed to shudder around her as she convulsed, trembling in his arms. And still, it was not over. He flipped her so that she rode him. After a moment's awkwardness, she found her rhythm, encouraged by his deep, guttural sounds of satisfaction.

He cupped her breasts through her dress, abraded the nipples through the sheer muslin until she moaned and rode him harder, finding that spot and hitting it as hard as she could manage.

“Mine,” he whispered so softly she wondered if she had heard him correctly through all their sounds and noises.

Ripples of sensation burst through her again, spreading from the core of her to each and every nerve ending. With an exultant shout, she collapsed. Draped over him, it was some moments before she could even move.

His light touch at the back of her head spiked her to awareness.

She lurched upright and scrambled off him, rearranging her skirts over her. “What have we done? In the midst of the dowager's musicale, no less? You've gone mad and you've dragged me with you!”

“It was bound to happen.” His disembodied voice stroked the air, infuriatingly even. “It will happen again if we try to ignore each other.”

She rose unsteadily to her feet. “What do you recommend? We schedule regular trysts?” She thought of the fair-haired lady waiting for him in the dowager's ballroom and her anger returned. “That might impede your courtship.”

She thought she caught the gleam of his lion's eyes in the dark. “You're jealous.”

“Why would I be jealous?” she snapped. “I broke it off with you. It's you who needs to stop hounding me.”

Her hands quickly assessed her hair. There was hardly a strand properly in place.
Holy hellfire
. One look at her and anyone would surmise she had been engaging in relations of an illicit nature.

“How could I have been so stupid?” She furiously attacked her hair, readjusting the pins without a hope.

“Grier.” Suddenly his warm hand was on her arm. “We can't go on ignoring each other. I'm going to keep hounding you, as you put it.”

“Don't touch me.” Her voice quivered as she tried to pull free.

The last time he touched her they ended up rutting on the floor like a pair of wild animals. Her face burned and she arched away.

Instead of releasing her, he took her by both arms and held her close as though trying to comfort her. Or calm her. Perhaps both.

And that was how they were discovered, locked in each other's arms, her hair tumbling wildly around her, the smell of their desire ripe on the air.

Light bathed them as the door to the room opened wide.