Chapter Four
Secret fires, indeed. A kiss to humor him.
That horrible insult today. It was more than enough for a day.
Yet as his calloused thumbs sculpted her cheekbones, then traced the shape of her jaw, the flames to which he alluded rose steadily inside her.
Her body burned. Her nipples contracted, and a pleasing vulnerability pervaded her limbs.
“Warm,” he said, lowering his hard, unsmiling face to hers. “And warmer still. If you turned to ice when he tried to touch you, then the fault is in him, not you.”
How did he know? How could he dare? She dropped her gaze, held her breath, and waited.
Aching in shame, in surprise, in hungry anticipation.
At any moment this would end. She would tear herself from this beautiful temptation.
It surprised her how Sir William’s cutting remark had hurt her.
She did not wish to be thought of as cold, and yet she knew it was often how she appeared.
But secret fires—oh, why did women enjoy such flattery? Why did something in her respond to this man?
“You look even more like an angel with your hair let down,” he mused. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you at the wedding.”
She swallowed, her throat aching. “I look…untidy now.”
“You made me—” He hesitated.
“I made you what?” she whispered.
“You made me laugh today,” he said quietly.
“I did what?” she asked, her voice startled.
“I meant that you put me at ease and I enjoyed your company.”
His answer soothed as well as surprised her.
“I was merely being polite.”
“You stole three comfits from a wedding cake,” he reminded her, smiling.
“Don’t you dare tell my family. I’m…I’m the good one.”
“Are you?”
His strong fingers sifted through the pale hair that framed her face.
The gentle seduction of this simple act mesmerized her.
She was not a woman easily, if ever, tempted by the sensual.
She would allow this novel pleasure to continue for only a moment more.
Yet how good his touch felt, how it lowered her guard.
“There’s even fire in your hair,” he said, his breath warming her lips. “It’s like gold silk. And deep inside, I’ve always been attracted to fire. Are you a dangerous woman, Emma Boscastle?” he asked lazily.
“Lord Wolverton,” she said with a sigh. Wolf.
“Stay with me awhile,” he said, his gaze holding hers.
“I can’t. We both know that.”
“Only a few moments more. I detest this inactivity. I detest being alone. That’s all I ask.”
He reached behind him and snuffed out the candle between his thumb and forefinger. Emma breathed in the pleasingly mingled scent of his cologne and the tang of smoke that wafted toward the bed.
Terrifying. Thrilling. The ordinary act of extinguishing a candle, performed as if he had done so a hundred times in a similar scenario.
But so effective. Shadows engulfed them.
She sensed him relax, his powerful muscles untensing.
Felt his masculine hands close around her waist. Her breath hitched.
Pure male. Mystery, strength, and temptation. He was afraid of being alone.
The sudden darkness lowered inhibitions. How many times had Emma warned others to sidestep shadows, and the men who dwelled, beckoned therein? She hovered now, on the verge herself. And if her principles were being put to the test?
“You were married,” he said quietly. His hand idly stroked her arm, his fingers possessive, knowing.
His firm lips teased hers, captured her sigh. “Yes.”
Slowly he brought his other hand up her side to the silken undercurve of her breast. She quivered, went still, prepared to resist. The hollow between her thighs began to throb. “How long has it been?” he whispered in a gentle voice.
“Are you asking me—”
“Yes.”
She arched her neck, afraid her nerves would shatter. No one else in the world had ever asked, would have dared to ask a question that intimate of her. She did not understand why his curiosity was not offensive. It seemed natural. Again she blamed the dark of the night, his indisposition.
“My husband died almost five years ago,” she answered against the warm hollow of his neck.
His other arm tightened around her waist in a possessive male gesture that sent a shiver of longing through the depths of her body.
“Five years,” he murmured. “And no one’s touched you since? How can that be?”
“Please,” she whispered, swallowed dryly. The heat in her belly intensified until it hurt. How his voice enticed her.
“It must be your choice,” he mused. “Other men have tried, haven’t they? That dandyprat today.”
She couldn’t answer, could barely breathe. And he understood. He told her as much with a touch that moved over her trembling skin, half consolation, half warrior’s conquest. No one else had presumed as much until today. Panic and desire mingled deep inside her.
The worst part of what he’d said was that the absence of love, of passion, in her life had seemed bearable until now. Oh, she’d suffered the lack, but a lady would not acknowledge it.
Not even to herself if she were strong.
Certainly not to a practiced stranger who was subtly awakening all the parts of her that ached so deeply to be caressed. All the parts that a decent woman should pretend did not exist.
Dear God. Oh, God. She swallowed a sob. Adrian barely had to stroke her shoulders, her breasts, and the curve of her hip, and her body quivered, answered to his mastery.
In disbelief she became aware of the wonderful tension of her inner muscles, an overwhelming sense of surrender that she had known only a few times in her marriage to Stuart.
It was as if a wave of sensation had gathered deep inside her.
How dare this mercenary…this man, how dare he make her feel, force her to acknowledge her sexual desires when she had succeeded in ignoring them for so long.
For years she had struggled to master her emotions.
She’d deceived those dearest to her until at last she had managed to deceive even herself.
She had been born one of the wicked, passionate Boscastles.
And while she’d scolded her boisterous siblings, she had at times envied their ability to enjoy their lives, to fall deeply, irrevocably in love.
She’d had a chance. She had loved a quiet man and lost him.
She’d begun to believe that passion, that true love, would never be part of her life.
She suppressed a whimper. Restrained the instinct to writhe. Instead, she lifted her hand to her mouth as if to stifle another sob.
How dare he commit that valiant act today and then, only hours later, completely undo her?
“Emma,” he whispered, “do you wish me to stop?”
She stared up into his luminous hazel eyes and saw not the guile of a practiced rake, but the unadulterated desire of a man who did not bother to hide what he felt. It devastated her.
“I want you to kiss me,” he urged. “Just once.”
“Just once,” she whispered, her voice skeptical, unsteady. “Have two more dangerous words ever been uttered by man or devil?”
He paused, gazing deeply into her eyes. “‘I do?’”
“Oh!” She began to pull away. “Lie down.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Adrian, please. You’re a dangerous man.”
He frowned. “I’m not dangerous to you.”
“You are.”
“Why? Because I’ve sold my sword?”
“That’s a good start,” she replied.
“I would never hurt you.”
“Not on purpose.”
He drew her tightly into his arms, ignoring her whispered protests.
Her body tingled and burned with the forbidden pleasure of being held to the heat of his hard-muscled male body.
His gaze hooded, he stroked his long fingers down her shoulders to her sides, stealing sinful little touches here and there until, by the time his hand slipped under the hem of her gown to her knee, she was shaking, utterly prepared for his seduction. And yet unprepared.
His mouth captured hers in such a subtle assault that it did not seem natural to refuse. Her lips parted in expectation. A sweet pain pierced her, quickened the pulses that beat through the depths of her body.
She tilted her head, answering his dominance.
Whereas before the candlelight had gentled the hard contours of his handsome face, the darkness stripped away all illusions of refinement.
He was a dangerous man. One who had turned his back on Society.
One who mesmerized her for reasons beyond her understanding.
He had sold his services to other lands.
She wondered why. Surely a duke’s heir did not need a fortune.
Was it danger that he, like so many other young gentlemen, had sought?
Perhaps he’d been running away. Had he done something he regretted in his past?
She supposed it was more important to ask why he had come back.
Her brothers trusted him. And she—
She acknowledged his allure. It drew her, not merely the danger of him, but his openness. Few men recognized her spirit of fun. She did not often allow it to show. She felt the fire inside her now, too, steadily rising.
His lips brushed her wet, swollen mouth again. His hands sought her most vulnerable places. Her back arched. Her body begged for something she was ashamed to admit. He was a conqueror by choice. A moan rose in her throat.
He heard, his instincts sharp. His eyes glinted down at her in the dark. He knew. Scarcely had she released another breath than his hot mouth skimmed her breasts to suckle her nipple through the thin silk.
She shivered, aroused, her body weightless. Emma Boscastle letting a man she had only just met nuzzle her breasts, suckle at her so indecently. Pleasure lanced like sunlight through her senses, her confusion.
“Lord Wolverton,” she said, unable to subdue another shiver, “this cannot be good for your health.”
His tongue encircled her nipple, a slow tease of sensation that intensified her breathless pleasure. “Believe me, it is.”
“What about your injury?” she asked, her muscles tightening.