“Oh, for pity’s sake!” She slapped her hands against her skirt. “I am through with trying to convince you to kiss me and—er—do whatever else.”
“Yes, well, it is the ‘whatever else’ that presents the problem.” He ran his hand around to the back of his neck again, tightening linen over muscle. Diantha nearly launched herself at him.
Her hands fisted. “My pride”—and self-control—“cannot take any more of this battering.” Against every desire, she pivoted about, but swung back around and burst out, “When you kissed me— The way you— And you look at me so intensely at moments. Like a wolf sizing up his prey.”
“It is the drink,” he said quietly.
She swallowed hard over her thick heartbeats. “The drink?”
“I crave intoxication. In my blood there is a hunger beyond all else to lose myself in something that is not me. To feel pleasure and satisfaction, and relief, at any cost.” He held her gaze steadily. “It would not be you. You would be merely a female body.”
“Oh.” She had not understood this. “And ouch.”
“Diantha.” His voice dropped. “You know that I find you beautiful.”
“You called me pretty, but with all due respect, gentlemen tend to break Rule Number Six remarkably often.” This hurt. Wretchedly. But it should not hurt so much. “And actually, it would be mutual, the—the part about simply wanting to feel pleasure and satisfaction. So that is only suitable.” She ignored the tight ball of nausea in her midriff.
“No.” There was the uncompromising word again. “Allow me to behave as the gentleman you believe me to be.”
She wanted to damn him for being a gentleman when she least wanted that. But her throat was closed. Instead she folded her arms over her sick middle, swiveled about again, and tripped over the bucket of milk she left in the corridor earlier when she’d been so distracted by his kiss. She went sprawling with a clang and creamy milk and skirts all jumbling sloppily across the cold stone floor.
He came flying into the corridor and onto his knees before her with a haste she might have liked if she weren’t mortified.
“Are you injured?” His quick gaze scanned her from brow to toe.
“Only embarrassed. That was not the grand exit I intended.”
“Grand exits are often tiresome anyway.” He grasped her hand, and she could sit in this puddle forever if he would continue looking at her with such intensity.
“Who would have thought that cow could best me after all?” she mumbled. “I suppose I must now be wary of putting on my shoes and sweeping stoops too.”
He grinned, drew her up, and released her.
“I’d thought rain, mud, and mold were the only indignities this gown would be obliged to suffer.” She laughed a little unevenly because he did not move away. “I was clearly wrong.”
“You were wrong.” His voice was low.
Her gaze shot up. He set his palm on the wall behind her and leaned in.
Diantha’s mouth opened and closed, searching for a response, her throat working to hold back a plea. She would not beg again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the temptation, and snapped them open when she felt his breath upon her cheek, then—oh, God—his lips. He breathed against her skin and her body quivered at his closeness.
He drew back and his gaze traveled over her face, his eyes sparks of light in the darkness. Slowly he bent to her lips.
“Don’t ask for this,” he whispered huskily, “because, God help me, I don’t want to take you home.”
She shook her head. “I w—”
His mouth caught hers not at all gently but with unmistakable possession. He kissed her seriously, deeply. He kissed her weak-kneed and he did it without touching any other part of her body.
Then his hands were cupping her head, sinking into her hair, and he kissed her cheek then her jaw.
“I want you far too much,” he whispered into the tender place beneath her ear. It sounded like a prayer, a supplication brought forth from his soul. He kissed her neck, the caress shimmering through her. “I am not a good man.”
She allowed him to tilt her face up to kiss her throat, and shivered at the sublime pleasure of it. How could it feel this good? “I know you are.” She grabbed his waistcoat and pulled him against her and put her mouth beneath his.
He was hard everywhere. She ran her hands down his arms, and touching him only made her need to feel him even more, especially against the hot crux of her legs. She slipped her palms to his chest and moaned softly at the sensation of his taut muscles, so alien and male and exactly what her body wanted now. Her fingers worked at the top button of his waistcoat until it came loose. She sought the next, the delicious ache growing so fierce between her legs she whimpered.
He grabbed her hands.
“No, Diantha.” His voice was a growl. “Don’t.”
“No more no’s.” She pulled a hand free and unfastened another button.
“If you undress me, I will swiftly lose all remnants of self-control.”
“Thank heaven.” She bit at his lower lip as he had done to her in the inn and slipped the tip of her tongue between her teeth to caress him. He groaned and his hands swept down her back, over her buttocks.
“Where did you learn that?” His breaths were hard. “Don’t say from another man.”
“From you. I’ve told you, you were my first. My only.” The last button came free. Wild with need, she slid her hands across his chest then closed her eyes just to feel him. “Oh, Wyn.” Her entire body seemed wound in a coil of delectable expectancy. “Teach me more. Please.” She pressed into him, seeking him with her hips. His hand slipped down the back of her leg, and as he bent and took her mouth completely, he parted her thighs and met her hunger with his very hard and perfect body.
“Ohh.” She accepted him in her mouth and between her thighs eagerly, aching, dying for whatever came next.
He broke away, grasped her hand and pulled her toward the foyer. She tripped along behind, dripping milk and bleary with pleasure. Halfway up the stairs he halted, snagged her against him and kissed her again.
“I would carry you up,” he said urgently, “but I fear I haven’t the— Blast it.” He seized her up in his arms and ascended the stairs. In his borrowed bedchamber he lowered her to her feet and she clung to him while his hands moved over her back and hips. She pressed herself as close as she could and he bent to claim her lips again.
She heard the door close and tore her mouth away. She stared at her surroundings, the writing table stacked with books, the four-poster bed with the dark curtains open.
“I am in a man’s bedchamber.” His bedchamber.
“You have been here before.” He took her earlobe with his teeth and used his tongue, and she nearly collapsed with the pleasure of it.
“To nurse you. Not to—to—”
“To give me your body.” He grasped her waist in his strong hands and pressed his brow to hers, his breathing rough. “Say it, Diantha, so there is no mistaking it.”
“To give you my body.” She was terrified but she wanted it with everything in her.
His hands slipped up her back, working at the sash tying her gown closed. “We will have to marry after this.”
Have to? As in be obliged to. He could do this to her without actually caring deeply for her. But now that she was in his bedchamber poised to give her virginity to him, it came to her with remarkable clarity that whenever she’d imagined the intimate things men and women did together she had always imagined doing them with him. Always.
The circumstances were clearly not reciprocal.
“I cannot marry you, or—or Mr. H, or anybody until I find my mother.”