Chapter 8 #3
“I know what you are trying to do,” she cried.
“You are being cold and cruel, thinking to push me away. Undoubtedly you hope to protect me from the scandal! Well, this is not the first time you have tried to make me turn away from you. I won’t do it.
I am not a coward. I will see you through this crisis. I will prove you innocent.”
He smiled at her now, chillingly, and stalked her. “And when I am a free man, when Daisy’s killer is behind bars? Then what will you do, Francesca?” he purred.
She wet her lips. “I am here for you, Calder, no matter what happens. If you are waiting for me to tell you that, when this is over, I am leaving you, you are in for a disappointment. I won’t pretend that I was not crushed by what has happened today.
I know it is odd, but I felt betrayed. Maybe I was even jealous.
I could not stand the idea of another woman carrying your child.
But Daisy is the past. I am the present, your present, and I am not going anywhere. ”
He stared at her.
“And you can argue until your voice turns raw, but I know you would have loved this child,” she added stubbornly.
He said, “You should run. Right now, as far as you can, as fast as possible. You should run from me.” He turned toward the door, which she had closed. “Just go.”
Something in her heart tightened. “No.”
Speaking very calmly, he said, “You need not stay on the case. I am going to hire a lawyer and I already have a cadre of private detectives at my beck and call.” He looked right at her.
She was shaking. “Even if I wanted to, I could not walk out that door, not now, not when you need me the most!”
“I am fine.”
She choked on the stupendous falsehood of his words. “You are very close to being accused of murder! And you might fool the rest of town, but you can’t fool me. You are suffering with guilt, and grief, and God only knows what else! I am staying on this case and I am staying with you.”
He folded his arms across his broad chest and studied her. “And if I do not want your help? If I do not want you here? What If I tell you that I have changed my mind, that I no longer wish to be committed to you?”
His words stabbed through her heart like a knife. She wet her lips and dared to approach him.
She was aware of having become too physically close to him; as always, his body had a magnetic effect. “We need to talk about this, quietly and sincerely,” she whispered.
He suddenly touched her cheek. Her pulse picked up a different beat, slow and deep, sending waves of heat through her body.
“I have finally succeeded,” he said slowly, “in pulling you down completely with me. And this is hardly the first time. Is this what you want, your reputation destroyed by your association with me?”
“I don’t care about the scandal that is inevitable,” she said, but her heart flipped, because she did care about how it would affect her family.
And she saw the lost little boy in his dark eyes, waiting for another blow, waiting to be abandoned once more.
She smiled just a little. “How many times do I have to tell you that I am not going anywhere?”
He took her hand. She still stood, her skirts brushing his thigh, and electricity seemed to leap between them as he answered.
“Last night, I did not want you involved. Today, I am even more certain that you should be protected from all of this. I think, for once, I am capable of being selfless and putting you ahead of my own needs.” He was grim as he raised her hand and pressed a lingering kiss there.
Francesca gasped, the mere kiss shafting through her. “Don’t you dare tell me it is over,” she gasped.
“Another woman was pregnant with my child. The police are preparing to charge me with her murder—and the murder of my own child. This is a very good time for us to part company.”
“I know you didn’t murder anyone. All I have to do is prove it,” she declared.
He stood there staring at her, and when he finally spoke, his tone was raw. “Francesca, I didn’t want to bring a bastard into this world. I can think of nothing more reprehensible, more irresponsible, but dear God, I never wanted this child dead.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know all of that.”
And his arms went around so suddenly she was surprised. Pressed against the solid and muscular wall of his body, she felt small and female and fragile, dwarfed by his power and his heat. He murmured thickly, “When will you stop believing in me? How could I possibly have found you?”
“I will always believe in you,” she whispered against the fine wool of his suit.
Not far from her lips, his heart pulsed, hard and strong.
She had never needed to be in his arms more than she did at that moment, because there, the world was reduced to just the two of them, and nothing and no one else existed.
“We may be engaged, and we may be lovers, but we are also friends. Friends fight for each other, Calder. People who care about each other do not jump ship at the first sign of a storm,” she said, and she looked up.
His gaze was searching. “I have never known anyone as loyal or as brave as you, Francesca,” he whispered roughly, touching her face and then stroking her lips with his thumb. “I must tell you, if you decide to leave me, I will understand.”
Francesca shivered, her body already rigid with sexual tension. His thumb remained posed near her lower lip. “We are going to get through this, one way or another, together.”
He choked, as if the distress he harbored was too much to bear, and he claimed her mouth. Francesca closed her eyes, accepting his hungry, urgent kisses with an answering passion, sucking back on his lips, his lapels in her fists. All worry, all fear and all thought vanished.
He held her head in his large hands and took her mouth, opening it, fusing with her.
Francesca held on tight, straining against him, for him.
Their mouths met and mated deeply and greedily, again and again, while her body raged for far more than a kiss.
His hard hands moved up and down her back, shaking with his tension, and against her mouth, he said, “I have missed you.”
She had missed him, too, but she could not speak. She cradled his face in her hands, kissing him, desperately and explosively.
He understood. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the sofa. As he laid her down, Francesca reached for his hand, guiding it down her body.
His smile was knowing, and his hand quickly slipped beneath her clothes. Francesca gasped wildly when he touched her wet and burning flesh.
Hart made a sound, hard and thick, his skilled fingers rubbing against her.
Francesca struggled with her skirts and petticoat, fighting a sob of extreme pleasure.
His eyes blazed. “I don’t know if I can wait much longer, Francesca,” he said harshly.
“Don’t wait,” she whispered. Their eyes met and she loved the blinding heat in his gaze. “Just hurry.”
He gave her a look and bent between her legs, pressing one hand just above her sex and pushing his tongue against her.
And she surrendered to the exquisite pleasure building in tidal waves inside her. His clever tongue knew every fold, every peak, every valley of her sex, and in a moment, Francesca was sobbing her release and his name.
When she had floated back to earth and the sofa, she instantly recalled the past few hours.
Refusing to dwell on reality, she opened her eyes.
Hart knelt beside her, one hand remaining possessively between her legs.
In the frenzy they had just shared, he had somehow jettisoned his jacket and his tie was askew.
He was breathing hard and watching her intently.
Francesca’s heart lurched with renewed need and great resolve. She reached out and seized his tie. “I seem to need you again,” she whispered with a small, promising smile. She felt as seductive as the most infamous and desirable courtesan. “But I will be fair.” She jerked on the tie.
He smiled slightly, allowing himself to be pulled down so she could kiss him, slowly and lazily, using her tongue with great skill against the mobile seam of his lips.
As she teased, she held the tie like a leash so he could not move—at least, as long as he played along.
With her left hand she reached for his belt.
Hart tensed, understanding.
Francesca nipped at him, jerking on his tie. “Stay still,” she said, and unbuckled the belt.
He murmured one word. “Darling.”
She stroked the bulge in his fly, just once, and looked up.
His smile was strained. “If you expect me to beg the way you do, it will never happen,” he said. “I am a very patient man.”
She loved the power unfolding in her now. She teased open a button, murmuring, “We shall see.”
He sucked in his breath, giving her what was intended as a warning look.
Francesca freed him, releasing his tie. Hart leaned hard on the sofa now, his breathing loud rasps.
She bent and touched the fully distended tip with her tongue.
And Hart lost the battle. “Francesca,” he cried, a plea.