Chapter Twenty-Two
Ian wavered on his feet.
A strange tingling sensation pricked his fingers. In the back of his mind, he knew it was a symptom of someone who’d gone into shock.
He blinked at Diana.
She wanted something he’d dreamed of and never admitted to himself until that moment.
He tried to remember all the reasons he couldn’t welcome her confession.
He failed.
And he couldn’t stop himself from grinning like a hopeless fool.
No, not a hopeless one. That was the trouble.
His hopes were immeasurably high.
Diana maneuvered them to the nearby settee. She muttered something about fetching another whisky, but his arms clamped around her waist.
“Don’t go.”
“I shouldn’t have said—”
“Yes, you should,” he growled.
Her blush deepened, and her dimples surfaced. It was more satisfying than trouncing the capo at baccarat.
She rested her hand over his. “Do you remember when you came to visit us in Bristol, the summer after your mother died?”
“Of course. It was the first time I hadn’t been miserable in months.” His lips twitched. “You’d had a huge strop with your mother. She banned you from dessert for the entire week.”
“A month in total.” She winced. “Mama caught me eavesdropping on you and your father. I was listening in the servants’ hallway while you were dressing for dinner. Your father asked you if you minded coming to Bristol with him.”
An ache rose beneath Ian’s ribs, and when he simply stared at her beautiful face, Diana wound her arms around him and tucked her head beneath his chin.
“You said visiting us felt like having a family,” she said.
Against her hair, he murmured, “I meant being with you.”
“I know.”
He held her quietly until the hammering of his heart slowed.
“You know now I’m pledged to dangerous people.
It will be next to impossible to extricate myself.
Anyone close to me is a fair target. And the idea of you or—” He didn’t have the courage to say children.
“If my choices and actions resulted in you getting hurt, it would destroy me.”
Her arms tightened around him. “The possibility of anything happening to you is so unimaginable, I won’t allow myself to think of it. That’s why we’re going to end this. We will cut the Tarka, and the other famiglie and Il Gioco, out of our lives.”
She raised her head. “It’s possible if you stake the Ever Hart.”
When Sunderland had let it slip Ian would need a personal stake in the game, he’d known Diana would suggest it. It didn’t make refusing her any easier. “And if I lose?”
“I have a big fortune, Ian.”
“When the Tarka win, they’ll think they’ll have a claim to it, if you’re with me.”
“They can only take it from us if we let them.” She caressed his cheek. “I’d risk everything if it meant taking back control of our lives. You’ve staked too much for me too many times.”
He grasped for something to prop up his fragile psyche, because her words were undoing him. “It’s my job to fix problems.”
“While I adore how clever you are at it, it’s what you do. The way you work so hard at it, for the people you protect, that’s who you are, and why I’ve spent every minute since we met completely enamored with you.”
“I’ve never been able to hide how much I want you.
God knows I tried.” He pressed a kiss into her hand.
“Exiling myself to the shadows, becoming the Devil of the Docklands. It was a cover for the target on my back, an easier way to convince everyone—especially myself—that I could never be part of your world. Despite how much I desperately wanted to be with you.”
“All I’ve ever wanted was you, Ian Holt. Not for a night. Or to win some contest.” She drew him closer. “For forever.”
His mouth met hers eagerly, and her fingers threaded through his hair. The gentle way she tugged at his scalp made him growl nonsensical things as his lips scraped against her neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Diana.”
“I’m asking you to let me love you. All the ways I know how.”
With a groan, his lips sought hers. She responded enthusiastically and deepened the kiss; they were both heated and moaning in the space of a minute.
He caught a gulping breath. He ransacked his brain for some argument that would shake sense into her, but he couldn’t believe any of his own excuses.
There would be no more lies between them.
She brushed a thumb over his mouth. “The way you look at me. Can you forgive me for all of my scheming to lure you along, keep you close?”
“Diana, I don’t recall a time when I wasn’t completely in love with you. I’d live every excruciating moment again, if it meant I could finally be with you like this.”
His mouth crashed against hers, and they exhaled against each other. Her hands hastily extricated him from his shirt, button by button.
When it fell to the ground, she gave a satisfied hum as her fingers explored his skin.
They dove along his sternum and caressed his ribs, before arriving back to stroke the ink stamped over his heart.
Her lips followed the path of her fingers.
As she pressed hot kisses against his chest, everything south of his waist grew hard.
His fear that he would spend in his trousers again resurrected a modicum of his restraint.
“Wait.” He clasped her face between both hands. “If we continue like this—”
“If we don’t, I will die of wanting. And too many people are depending on us for you to allow that.”
With a growl, he scooped her into his arms and marched down the cloistered hallway to her bedroom.
He slammed the door shut with his foot and tumbled them both onto the bed.
She murmured faint words of gratitude, which he cut off with a searing kiss, and refused to allow her to escape as he took his fill of her sweet mouth.
He drew out the kiss until she was so heated and breathless that when he finally broke away, her chest was heaving like bellows.
“Have a care, tesora mia,” he rasped. “This won’t be like before.
What we’re doing will change everything.
I’ve wanted this for so long. Wanted you, for so long.
” He traced her ear with his lips and adored the way she shivered.
“I’ve loved you so many ways from a distance.
I’m terrified about the possibility of what it will be like when we’re finally, truly together. ”
She stroked his neck and his shoulders. “It’s going to be glorious.”
In the faint light from the lamp, her cheeks were aflame and her chestnut curls cascaded back against the pillow. She was utterly exquisite.
The enormity of the moment was a palpable thing; he could not shake the fear that this joy would slip away from him.
“Ian.” She reached for his hand and drew him to her. “If you’re not ready for this. If you don’t want to be with me tonight—”
He denied it with a penetrating kiss. “You don’t think I’ve dreamed of this, night and day, since I learned about sex?”
Her fingers danced along the waistband of his trousers. “With me, specifically?”
“Don’t tease.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t like it.” Her hands hovered over his buttons. “You do like it, don’t you?”
The truth was, he loved it. She’d taunted him for so long. Now, he recognized it as a display of affection, and his heart grew wings.
“Is this your way of telling me what you like?” His mouth skimmed her neck. “Delayed gratification?”
Her hands continued their exploration of his skin. “I don’t really know. You’re the only person I’ve ever been with.”
For a moment, her wide eyes made her look as innocent as she had when they’d played together as children.
But as she stared at him, and her gaze grew hot, she whispered, “I’ve never imagined doing this with anybody but you, Ian. You’re the only man who’s ever roused me.” Her voice caught. “If you love me, don’t make me wait another moment to show you what I’ve been dreaming about.”
His composure cracked wide open, and his mouth descended on hers as he pulled her close. “Tell me what you want.”
“Take off your clothes. I want to feel every inch of you against me.”
“You first.”
She wriggled off the bed and turned for him to help unfasten her dress. Together, they dispatched her of the evening gown, corset, and drawers, and Diana lifted her arms for him to pull off her linen shift.
Her skin glowed in the lamplight, a canvas of pink and gold. The sight made him breathless again.
“I will never tire of you looking at me like that,” she whispered.
“How, tesora mia?”
“Like a sailor marooned on a desert isle who finally discovered a fresh spring.”
“Let me take a sip.”
He bent so his lips could take in the rosy peak of her breast, and when her knees buckled, he caught her and gentled her back onto the bed, between the sheets.
She moaned his name. Violence tinged her tone as she tugged at his trousers. “Off. Now.”
“What happened to delayed gratification?”
There was a distinct sound of ripping, and when Ian glanced down, the top button of his trousers was missing, and Diana held her blade with a black thread dangling from it.
He clamped down on the weapon. “Your impatience is noted. It’s a good thing I’m wildly aroused by your ability to improvise.”
“Then stop talking and get to work.”
He pried the knife out of her hand, tossed it onto the table, and quickly removed the rest of his clothes. His lips returned to her mouth as he drew his body over the length of her, so they were barely touching. “Is this what you imagined?”
“Better,” she rasped, and curled her fingers around his stiff cock.
They both groaned at the contact. Her hold was featherlight, teasing.
He was going to perish from ecstasy and from frustration.
“I want to taste you again,” she said.
When she moved, he nudged her back against the mattress. “That will end this far too quickly.” They were sealing themselves to each other; he wanted to make the experience as spectacular as he could for her.
If they failed in their endeavors, this might be their only night together.
“I intend to savor you, love,” he promised.