Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“Akiss?” Rosalie took a step back, her gaze scornfully sweeping the length of his frame. “Here I thought you didn’t have to force yourself on women!”
He spread his hands, palms facing out. “I’m not forcing anybody.
If you do not wish to enter into a deal with me, you are free to leave unmolested at any time.
Should you care to accelerate your investigation, on the other hand, or should you wish to be lightly molested for your personal enjoyment, I would be more than happy to accommodate you. ”
Rosalie crossed her arms. “How could I kiss you when I find you so utterly repulsive?” She managed to say this with an impressive level of conviction.
Unfortunately, her gaze strayed to his lips and got stuck there as images of her doing the precise act she had just described as repulsive danced through her head.
She suspected this did nothing to enhance her credibility.
Those soft, supple lips twisted into a grin. Rosalie wrenched her gaze up to meet his eyes.
“That is precisely what makes my proposal so perfect,” Lucian explained. “You will be able to demonstrate the depths of your indifference, even in the face of my amorous onslaught. With any luck, I’ll be so discouraged that I’ll fuck off and leave you alone.”
Her traitorous mouth tried to curl into a smile. Desperate to stop it, Rosalie bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she tasted blood.
Lucian must have seen it, because his voice dropped into a silky croon. “Come on, Rosalie. You know you want to.”
“I… don’t.” Gracious. That wouldn’t do at all. She hadn’t convinced even herself!
He advanced on her with the grace of a jaguar. “Do you ever think about that night in the garden? About how good it felt?”
The shameful thing was that she did. It seemed that even the white-hot fire of her hatred was insufficient to burn the memory of the pleasure he had given her to ashes.
Even years later, she sometimes woke to find herself tangled in the bedclothes, her breath coming in gasps, her hand between her legs, and her dreams full of him.
Mere inches separated them. She dropped her gaze to his cravat, unable to meet his eyes. “No,” she whispered.
“Liar,” he rasped in her ear. “I think about that night all the time. I think about it every damned day.”
“Is this the part where you whisper some trite falsehood about how beautiful I looked in the moonlight?” She had tried to make her voice scornful, but the words came out breathless.
He brought a hand up to frame her face. “You did look beautiful in the moonlight. But mostly, I think about how brave you were. How bold. How you did something, instead of merely lying there like a limp piece of lettuce. How you robbed the breath from my body. I remember how it felt when we came together—like lightning. Or maybe like fate, if you believe in it.”
He brought his other hand up and caressed her temple with his thumb. “I remember thinking, my God, my God, I was wrong. I wasn’t meant to have a thousand meaningless encounters with women I would forget as soon as I left their bed. There is a woman who was made just. For. Me. And she’s right here.”
Rosalie almost kissed him herself then. Her head was swimming, and her breath was coming in pants. She desperately reminded herself that he had lied to her before, and he was lying to her now.
Even knowing that, she wanted him to kiss her. She might hate him.
But she loved the way he could make her feel.
Oh, but this was a terrible idea.
And I am going to do it.
She drew in a breath, stalling. “I’ll require something additional as part of our bargain.”
“Name it,” he growled, his breath hot against her ear.
Oh, God. What else did she need to know? She could scarcely recall her own name, much less what was going on with her investigation.
“The servants!” she exclaimed, suddenly remembering. “I want to interview all of the servants who were here when your grandfather was alive.”
“Done,” he said at once.
Rosalie expected him to kiss her then. Instead, he picked her up by her waist and deposited her on top of the nearby desk.
“Spread your legs for me,” he murmured. “There’s a good girl.”
“Spread my…” Rosalie realized that she had complied before fully comprehending the request. Quick as a fox, Lucian had already stepped into the vee formed by her legs.
She glowered up at him. “What kind of kiss is this?”
His grin was wicked. “The kind you like.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that the deal was off and he could go to hell, but he interpreted this as an opening and seized her lips with his own.
In the same instant, he stepped forward, bringing the hard, prominent bulge that had formed beneath the falls of his trousers into direct contact with parts of Rosalie’s anatomy that had apparently awoken in his presence.
He circled his hips, rocking against her, and…
Oh, no.
This was awful.
Because this was the kind of kiss she liked!
Lucian had skipped over the sweet-gentle-brush-of-lips sort of kiss and gone straight to the open-mouthed-devouring-like-a-man-who-has-been-dreaming-of-this-for-years variety.
Rosalie started to tremble, which was humiliating, but for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to stop.
His tongue stroked the roof of her mouth, and the room went dark around the edges.
She listed to the side and probably would have fallen off the desk had Lucian not been holding her against his body in an iron grip.
All the while, his hips bucked, rubbing himself against her throbbing… Wait, that wasn’t right. Her hips were the ones moving. Was she the one rubbing herself against him like a cat in heat? She was, wasn’t she?
Ah, well. It wasn’t as if she was going to stop. Not when it felt so good…
Still, it seemed imperative to keep him from forming the idea that this meant anything. She wrenched her lips from his. “I hate you,” she gasped.
Lucian smirked at her. “I can really tell how much.”
Rosalie snarled as she pulled his lips back to hers.
This was the only way Lucian’s company was acceptable—when he was using his mouth for kissing, which he was exceptionally good at, as opposed to speaking, which often seemed like a good thing at the time, but turned out to be nothing but a pack of lies.
He brought one of his big, strong hands up and cupped her breast. He groaned in her mouth.
She knew she ought to stop him, but she couldn’t seem to summon the willpower.
How on earth had this happened? It reminded her of a chemistry lecture she had once attended at the Royal Society.
The speaker had taken two substances, sodium bicarbonate and vinegar.
Both seemed utterly unextraordinary on their own, but when you brought them together?
Boom! That was what it was like between her and Lucian.
In the event that she found herself forced to marry him, she wondered if they would ever be able to exchange a normal kiss.
A chaste brush of lips to say good morning, or a quick peck on the cheek before one of them left the house.
Or if every time they came within three inches of one another, they would wind up half-dressed and panting in whatever room they happened to find themselves, straining to bring each other to climax.
Lucian kissed his way across her cheek to her ear. “Draw up your skirts,” he ordered.
That shook her out of her pleasurable haze. “Draw up my… No!”
He sucked on the lobe of her ear, making her shudder. “I’ll kiss you between your thighs, like I did last time.”
The part of her anatomy he had offered to kiss gave an enthusiastic pulse as she remembered how good that had felt. “Why should I let you do that?” The question came out less caustically and more breathlessly than she would have preferred.
He reached a hand down and squeezed her bottom. “Look at you, rubbing against me. You’re going to make yourself come. You know you are. And I can make it so, so good for you, Rosalie. I can give you such a beautiful climax. It’s going to happen regardless. Why not really enjoy it?”
“Because I… hate you,” she said weakly.
“So you’ve said.” He slipped his thumb inside the bodice of her gown. Rosalie gasped as he thumbed her taut nipple. “Perhaps I can start down what I’m sure will be a long road of atonement.”
She scowled at him. “There’s no atoning for what you did. I’ll never forgive you.”
“Fair enough. But I could at least try.” He dropped his voice low. “Do you remember how good it felt last time?”
“Y-yes,” Rosalie admitted.
“Wouldn’t you like to feel that way again?” Lucian crooned.
“I…” How was Rosalie supposed to be able to think? She couldn’t even breathe. “I would…”
He drew back, and his grey eyes were both rueful and sincere. “Will you let me, Rosalie? I’d quite like to do something nice for you, for once in my life.”
It really was unfair how handsome he was. How on earth was she supposed to resist? “All right.”
He did not move but studied her for a beat. “You’re certain?”
She swallowed thickly, then nodded. “I’m certain.”
He dropped to his knees. Slowly, almost reverently, he smoothed her skirts up until her thighs were exposed. “God, Rosalie. Look at you. You’re so beautiful.” He pressed a kiss against the inside of her thigh. “And you smell like heaven.”
She laughed as his lips found a ticklish spot.
He was still speaking. “Missed you”—he pressed her thighs an inch wider as he approached his destination—“so much.”
He was such a good liar, so convincing, that, just like that night on the balcony, it was easy to fall under the spell of his words.
She knew better now, of course. But in spite of the fact that she knew it was all a lie, it felt strangely natural being with him like this, allowing him to do things to her she couldn’t even imagine doing with another man.
She knew they weren’t meant to be, the way he had said on the balcony all those years ago.
But it felt like they were.
He made a sound of pleasure as his lips found her most intimate spot. It had not been a figment of her imagination, how good this felt, how good he was at it. She was already primed from his previous ministrations, already so close.
He swirled his tongue around that little bud that was the center of her pleasure, and sparks flashed behind her eyes.
She threaded her fingers into his glossy black hair.
It felt just as silky beneath her fingers as she remembered.
It felt so good, what he was doing, that she wanted it to last forever.
But she knew with rueful certainty that it would last for less than a minute.
There was no way she could withstand such overwhelming pleasure.
Suddenly, Lucian stopped his delightful strokes. Rosalie grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and was just preparing to make her displeasure known when he sealed his lips around that special spot and started to suck.
“Lucian!” she shrieked. “I… I…”
She had to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams of pleasure as she came apart right there on top of the desk. Her thighs were quaking wildly and her hips were bucking so hard that she would have slid right off had Lucian’s hands not been there, holding her in place.
After a few seconds, the caresses that had been delightful the moment before were too much, and her thighs cramped around his head.
Laughing, Lucian rose. He scooped her up and settled on the desk himself, with her in his lap, pressing a kiss against her temple.
Rosalie felt boneless. Brainless, even. That had been wonderful, as she knew it would be. And this, the moment that followed it, felt…
Perfect.
Except… it wasn’t perfect. No matter how good an actor Lucian might be, Rosalie had seen behind the curtain, had witnessed how the trick was done.
He might pretend to have affection for her, but she knew the truth—that the only reason he wanted to marry her was because he hated his cousin and took a perverse satisfaction in taking something away from Lysander. He didn’t really want her at all.
He never had.
Tears pricked her eyes. She could have been so happy with this man.
Happy in a way that she couldn’t have been with anyone else she had ever met.
But he had gone and ruined it. Even if he kept up this pretense every day for the rest of their lives, she would know the truth—that it was just a lie.
He had ruined any chance they’d had of happiness, and nothing he could do would ever fix it.
Lucian stiffened, then pulled back. “What’s this?” he asked, reaching out to stroke her cheek with his thumb. He must have felt the dampness of her tears.
“Rosalie. Don’t cry.” He laughed, but he didn’t manage to sound carefree. “I must be losing my touch if this is how you react to my lovemaking.”
“Your lovemaking was perfect,” she said sadly. “As always. But then I recalled that you don’t really…” She swallowed, unable to finish that thought.
He cupped her cheeks, pressing his forehead against hers. When he spoke, his voice was raw. “I know I hurt you. I’m more sorry for that than you will ever know. But I promise you, Rosalie. I swear, I will never hurt you again.”
She couldn’t seem to form the words, couldn’t bring herself to tell him that it was too late. That some things could never be undone, some sights never unseen, some words never unheard. All she could manage was a sad little shake of her head.
But judging by the sorrow in his eyes, he understood.
She hopped off his lap and set about straightening her clothes. “I should go,” she said tremulously. “I… I can’t interview the servants right now. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
She had crossed the room and had her hand on the doorknob when he spoke. “Oliver Hutchinson.”
Rosalie looked over her shoulder, a slight frown on her face.
Lucian didn’t rise from the desk, didn’t try to stop her from leaving. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “My grandfather’s physician of many years was Dr. Oliver Hutchinson. His office is on Bedford Square.”
Ah, yes. The name of the fifth earl’s physician. The reason she had come here today.
In her desperation to flee, she had forgotten about it entirely.
Rosalie gave a crisp nod, then hurried out the door.