Chapter 10 #2
“Your hair is extraordinary.” It was the contradiction that fascinated him, her love of morbid verse at odds with the brightness within. “Like fire subdued, waiting for the right breath to wake it.”
She looked up at him, her lips curving in a faint smile. “And there’s something compelling about a man so dark he seems to carry the night with him.”
“You make temptation sound poetic.”
“Perhaps there’s poetry in two people being honest for once.”
It’s an illusion, he wanted to say, yet every word he’d spoken rang true. “You have the allure of Aphrodite, a beauty that tempts a man to sin.”
She held his gaze. “And you exude a power that draws me like the earth’s magnetic pull.”
He looked at her mouth. “Then what chance have we but to collide?”
He was on her in a heartbeat, kissing her open-mouthed, the woman he’d watched, wanted, and never meant to touch. Her lips were Spring itself, stirring what lay dormant, reminding him he was flesh and blood, every inch a virile man.
So much for being the tutor and this her lesson. Any hope of mastering his desire vanished when she twined her arms around his neck, arched into him and moaned into his mouth.
She wanted him.
And by God, he burned for her with equal madness. He needed her under him, against him, anywhere he could feel her.
The thought should have sobered him. So why the hell was he dragging his hands down her back, clutching her bottom, crushing her body to his?
He needed her heat, her breath, the slick slide of her mouth beneath his.
He craved the friction, the exquisite tension coiling between them.
He wanted to see pleasure flare in her eyes, hear her whisper his name like a prayer.
Olivia, tell me to stop.
Damnation, say it now!
The plea echoed in his mind, but she didn’t say stop. She tangled her fingers in his hair, tugging hard as she deepened the kiss, her need so fierce they stumbled into the door.
A guttural growl tore from his throat as he fought to ignore the throbbing ache straining in his trousers. Hell, this was pleasure and torment entwined. And he craved it like a drug.
If he didn’t stop now, he would touch her. Slide his hand up her thigh. Find her slick and ready. Feel her pulse against his fingers. Make her shatter against the bedchamber door.
The Almighty, aware of his turmoil, sent someone to intervene. Not an angel, precisely, but a dutiful housekeeper who was so shocked upon finding them in a passionate clinch, she dropped the jug of water she carried.
“Good heavens. Forgive me.” Mrs Boswell fell to her knees, dabbing frantically at the spill with a cotton handkerchief. “I came to bring her ladyship a fresh pitcher and didn’t realise—”
“Leave it, Mrs Boswell.” He released his grip on his wife’s bottom and cleared his throat. “Give us a moment.”
“Of course, my lord.” She scrambled to her feet and scurried down the corridor as if there were a prize for the first to reach the stairs.
“So much for a private experiment,” he said, staring after Mrs Boswell. If he looked at his wife now and found desire in her eyes, he doubted he’d have the strength to walk away.
“Experiment is the right word.” Her breath caught, the husky edge confirming she was far from composed. “If desire were a lesson in chemistry, I’d have singed more than my eyebrows on the burner.”
Trust her to make him laugh when he ought to repent.
“It did get rather heated for a moment.” The air had cooled, yet the fire she’d kindled still burned beneath his skin. “Tell me, have you decided which you prefer? The tender or the urgent?”
She hesitated, and that silence was its own kind of invitation, forcing him to meet her gaze, to feel the ache of desire left unspent, to imagine what might follow if they carried the lesson a little further.
“Are we still saying things we should keep to ourselves?” she asked.
“I think we’ve passed the point of keeping secrets.”
She swallowed. “As my friend, I’m grateful to you for taking a novice under your wing. And as for my preference, I like kissing you, Gabriel, regardless of the tempo.”
The comment found a chink in his armour, and damn him if his heart didn’t soften like iron in the forge.
“There are more than two ways to kiss.” The words slipped from his mouth before his mind caught up. He was almost inviting her to enhance her studies. “Which is why desire is a dangerous game for two people bound by a pact of friendship.”
Her understanding smile stung like salt to an open wound. “Yes, but we can use our wedding day as an excuse. Say it was a means to mark the occasion as memorable.”
More than memorable. He would carry it with him for the rest of his days. “It’s late. I shall bid you good night, Olivia.” He placed a hand over his heart and bowed.
“Good night, Gabriel. I shall rise bright and early to begin our investigation. After all, that’s the reason we find ourselves here.”
It was undoubtedly the reason.
Except it wasn’t.
Something else had driven him to World’s End that night, the same reason he lingered at her door now, though he refused to name it.
He walked away. Behind him came the faint creak of the door, then the quiet click of the lock.
Mrs Boswell was waiting at the foot of the stairs, as silent as a priest at confession, her expression free of judgement.
“I know. I’ve inherited my parents’ fondness for lewd antics in corridors.” He adjusted his cuffs, feigning indifference, though the notion brought bile to his throat. “It seems I share their taste for coupling in public places.”
Her brows rose, but her voice was gentle. “You’re nothing like them, my lord. And kissing your wife on your wedding day is hardly considered debauchery.”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “That depends on the intention behind the kiss, Mrs Boswell.” His thoughts had been far from tame.
“Perhaps the intention was the first honest thing you’ve allowed yourself in years. I’ve never known you to act against your will.”
“I fear I’m compelled by the same weaknesses as other men. That must be a dreadful disappointment.”
“Or a blessing in disguise.” Taking advantage of his mellow mood, she asked the question that had plagued her since his return from the watch-house. “Was it him? Mr Lovelace?”
“Probably.” The image would haunt him tonight. “Possibly.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’ll not commit unless I’m certain.”
“Certain you’re not being used to serve someone else’s end?”
“You must admit there’s something odd about the timing.” Two friends lost a decade ago, both reappearing within days of each other. The question he had to answer was what it had to do with Olivia.
He saw a flash of fear in his housekeeper’s eyes. “Perhaps you could take Lady Rothley and visit Eaton Chase. Let Mr Daventry and Lord Berridge handle things here.”
“You’re suggesting I run away, Mrs Boswell?” he mocked, though her concern touched him deeply. “My ancestor died protecting the crown on the field at Agincourt. I’ll not be chased from my home by ghosts.”
“Then I pray no one is wounded in the skirmish.”
She’d watched him fight many battles, most with himself.
On that sobering note, he bid his housekeeper goodnight and returned to the sanctuary of his private chambers.
Except his rooms were no longer a refuge.
The drawing room still held her scent, roses laced with something indefinable, the same quiet mystery that surrounded the woman herself. Memories of their kiss crowded his mind, and he sat in her chair, savouring the thought because it was the closest he would come to living it again.
He lingered in his dressing room long after dismissing his valet, his gaze fixed on the concealed door to his private library, imagining her eyes on his bare chest, the memory brushing over him like an intimate caress.
His bed was cold.
Yet his body was as hot as a flame.
He fought the urge to take himself in hand, to end the ache while whispering her name. Bloody hell. Had he learnt nothing?
He stared at the ceiling, forcing his thoughts to still. Safe thoughts. Cold thoughts. Everyone lied in the end. Better to return to his old creed of solitude. The only defence a man could trust. The one that had never betrayed him.