Chapter 18 #2
Evelina hadn’t been able to concentrate all day. Her thoughts had kept turning, slowly but persistently, back over and over to Vaughn. To the fact that he would meet with his former wife at Evelina’s old home. There were so many scenarios that played out in her head.
Lady Blackburn could want to threaten him, demand he give her something more than he’d already handed over in his attempt to please her. She might ask for his help, even though she didn’t deserve it.
But the option that weighed heaviest in Evelina’s heart was the idea that she might ask him to come back to her.
That the rejection the countess had experienced a few days before might have woken her from whatever dream Harry had built up in her head.
If that happened, why wouldn’t Lady Blackburn request a return to the reality she had so squandered?
After all, Vaughn was so much better than the duke she had thrown him over for.
She must have loved him once and that couldn’t just die, could it?
Not when one’s heart had once beaten for someone like Vaughn?
Even though he wasn’t Evie’s, the idea of him being back with his wife stung. Burned, actually. Stung wasn’t a strong enough word.
There was a knock on the parlor door and she turned to watch Parsons enter the room. “Lord Blackburn for you, Miss Comerford.”
Her mouth dropped open. He was here? Even after their unpleasant encounter the day before? After his meeting with Florence? Her heart leapt and she hated herself for it.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please send him in. We’ll need nothing else, no interruptions.”
“Of course, miss,” the butler said, and then left to collect him.
When Vaughn came in, his hair mussed from the ride over, his eyes bright and focused on her, her knees wobbled a little. She wished she didn’t. Wished she wasn’t fully aware of why. But there it was, an arrow to her heart that was suddenly so sharp and clear.
She’d fallen in love with him.
“Vaughn,” she managed to choke out even as she shoved the horrible truth aside so it wouldn’t be reflected on her face.
He closed the door behind himself and leaned back on it. He never stopped looking at her, that focused regard holding her steady even when she felt weak. “I hated the way we ended things last night.”
She nodded immediately. “So did I. And all I could think about last night and today was you. Did you meet with Lady Blackburn?”
He flinched. “I did. It seems I was correct that the public rejection did affect her. She thinks I play some part in it.”
Protective instinct rose in Evelina and she folded her arms. “You? All you’ve ever done is try to give her what she requested. She’s the one who caused all this turmoil, why shouldn’t she have the consequences?”
A small smile tilted his lips. “So passionately protective.”
She shifted. “I suppose I am. I’ve come to know you since we began this arrangement. And I know you never deserved any of the hell she put you through, not before Harry and not since. If that makes me your champion, I accept the role readily.”
“I’d be lucky to have you fill it, thank you. And you’ll be happy to know I told her I couldn’t do what she ended up asking.”
There was something about his expression now, even more focused and heated on her face.
God, had any other man ever looked at her like this?
With hunger and gentleness and fascination all at once?
Many men had expression those feelings to her with empty words, but never looked like he lived every one of them.
“What did she ask?” Evelina took a shaky step toward him.
“To stop seeing you,” he said softly.
Her brow wrinkled and it felt like her heart dropped all the way to her stomach. “M-Me?”
“Yes. Apparently our public connection has only magnified the problems she’s experiencing.”
“That was what you wanted, yes?” she asked. “Why you came up with this plan in the first place?”
“Yes,” he said, and pushed off the door to pace across the room to the window.
He sighed. “I suppose it was. Sometimes I look at you and I forget that. And a few weeks ago, if I had declared I would continue on just as I like and see who I wanted to see, I think it would have been only to make things harder for her and for Southwater.” He pivoted and faced her once more. “But not now.”
She couldn’t breathe and struggled to find words. “Why not now?”
“Because the reason I don’t want to end things with you is nothing to do with them and everything to do with you. I want you, Evie. I’m not ready for that to end. So I wonder if you’d like to renegotiate with me yet again?”
Her eyes went wide as a wash of relief swept over her.
Here she had just realized she loved this man and he offered her something real.
Not love, of course. He wouldn’t love her.
Some part of her had to believe he still loved Florence, even if he was ready to let her go.
It would, at least, take him time to get over that.
And she could never again believe that a courtesan like her would have a long-term future with a man.
But that didn’t change the fact that what he wanted now was a real connection. To be with each other simply because they wanted to be. And she would take that.
Slowly she crossed to him and wound her arms around his neck. She loved the solid feel of him and the comforting heat of him as their bodies molded. “Will we negotiate like we did before?”
He bent his head and brushed his lips to hers. “You’ll always have the upper hand there. And I’m perfectly happy with that.”
The words ended then as the kiss deepened.
He cupped her closer to his body, letting her feel his desire for her, building her own for him to a fever pitch.
All her fears and worries about her heart vanished in that moment, replaced by drives and desires she better understood and knew she could control.
With great difficulty, she parted her mouth from his.
“Sit on the settee, my lord,” she ordered.
He tilted his head as he continued to stare down at her. “I find I cannot deny you. Very well.”
He brushed her lips with his again and then released her to stride across to the settee. She watched him move with a shiver and then waved her hand as he took a proper position on one side of the couch.
“Oh no,” she said while she moved to the door and locked it. “Slouch. Sprawl. Give me a very nice place to perch.”
His green eyes brightened with sharp desire and he slowly did as she’d asked, sliding down a little, widening his legs so that he seemed to take over the entire seat.
“Is that what you want?” he asked, tracking her while she returned to him.
She nodded and bent over. She caged him in against the back of the settee and brought her mouth back to his without taking it. “Exactly what I want. With one very small adjustment.”
She dragged a hand down his body, over the muscular lines and angles of him and settled her hand against his fall front. She let out a low laugh to find him half-hard already. Perfect. She flicked the buttons open as she kissed him at last and folded the fabric down to reveal him.
“That is what I want,” she whispered against his mouth.
He caught her hips and drew her forward, bunching her skirt so she could straddle him with greater ease. “It’s yours.”
She shivered at that idea, which dragged her back to the feelings she’d been trying to forget. No, there was only this. The rest she had to school, control.
She settled over him, spreading her skirts down and around them as her bare body covered him beneath. He wasn’t inside yet, but he fitted very nicely between her thighs. When she rocked over him, half hard became fully hard.
“Oh, if this is mine…” she murmured, dragging her lips from his mouth to his jawline and nipping up to his ear. “Whatever shall I do with it?”
He arched a little and she gasped as he slid along her length. “You’re a creative woman. I think you’ll come up with something.”
“Only if you do your job right.”
He laughed against her neck and her heart soared. God, he made it easy. That had been part of the attraction from the beginning. Even when they were pretending the connection was all about revenge, he’d always made her smile. Always made her safe.
She reached between them, lifting a little, getting her hand under the bunched layers of her dress between them and aligned him to her body. He cupped her backside, looking up into her face and then he was sliding inside.
Both of them let out a shuddering sigh at the pleasure of his hard body sliding through her slick heat. God, it was like coming home, a pleasure unlike anything she’d felt in all her years of cultivating the response for herself and those she fucked.
He was just different. And she was going to enjoy every bloody minute of him.