After what seemed a lifetime without him, he was kissing her. It was no tender, tentative caress, instead complete and perfectly confident that she would kiss him back. She did, meeting his seeking mouth eagerly, drinking him in like a drowning woman struggling for air and filling her lungs with yet more water. For surely this would kill her. But she simply could not deny him. His hand encompassed the back of her head, holding her to him as he had that first time, and quite swiftly it all got quite hot, and deep. Astoundingly deep. And not at all silent. His teeth grazed her lower lip, and she gasped and let him taste her tongue next. He groaned and broke away.
“I want you, Viola,” he repeated over her lips.
She fought it. “But I don’t want you.”
His fingers hooked in the edge of her bodice and tugged open gown, corset cups, and shift, exposing her breasts. “You will have to produce more convincing evidence.”
Viola looked down. Her nipples stood at aroused peaks. She met his gaze again, sinking inside at her body’s betrayal. “That is only lust.”
His clear irises seemed to melt with heat. “Do you need more?”
More? She needed everything more from him. Everything he would not give her. He was not the sticking sort, Mattie had said. His behavior with her proved it, and Alex’s words that he would leave soon frightened her beyond reason.
“You are an arrogant ass,” she uttered to save her pride, and perhaps even to try to convince her heart. But it had no effect upon him, or upon her heart; his gaze of sheer need did not alter, nor did the gripping pain beneath her ribs abate. “Why have you not spoken with me? Why didn’t you kiss me yesterday at the library?”
“I was trying to be strong.” His hands tangled in her hair, his gaze consuming her so that even her blood sought him.
“And now?”
“Now I have had to endure an entire night of watching Viola Carlyle command a house full of people like she commands a ship of sailors, charming every one of them.” His voice was very rough. “Strong can go to the devil.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him kiss her and touch her breasts, encouraging him with soft sounds of want she could not prevent. She should not do this. On her ship she’d been a sailor and free to do as she pleased. But Fiona Blackwood would never stand in the dark corridor of an earl’s house with a man’s hands on her breasts. A real lady would not allow it.
But she was not a real lady. They both knew that.
His tongue drifting across her lower lip melded with his caressing thumb, darting pleasure low in quick, aching bursts. She gripped his neck and flattened herself against his body. He kissed her harder, his hands sweeping around her rear and dragging her against his arousal. It felt good. Too good. And a little desperate. Because he only wanted her for this. But this was better than nothing, and he truly wanted her, with the same urgency as that first time on her ship. It felt like heaven. Or at least the path leading up toward heaven, never mind the gates remaining fully closed and locked against her.
“Come to my bedchamber now,” he whispered against her mouth as though he did not wish to separate enough to speak.
“I don’t take-”
“Orders. I know.” He kissed her, over and over now, a delectable repetition that despite its simplicity made her cling to him tighter. “Then your bedchamber.”
She pressed to him, aching to be closer than clothing would allow. “It shares a wall with Madame Roche. I cannot-”
He grabbed her hand and dragged her along the corridor. He opened the first door they came to.
“A linen cabinet?” But they had managed perfectly well on a staircase once. Perfectly.
She almost giggled, but he pulled her in, closed the door, and covered her mouth again. His fingers sank into her hair and she returned his urgent kisses; fierce, hungry kisses that filled the famine in her. He wrenched her around and pressed her back against the door panel, bringing his entire hard, perfect body against hers.
“You are yanking me about a lot.” She was breathless.
“I am. Feel free to reciprocate.” His mouth on her neck was delirium, his hands tugging her skirts to her hips sure and focused.
She pulled at shirt buttons and linen and found smooth, hot skin beneath. “Any parts in particular you would like yanked?”
“Whatever you wish.” He kissed her throat, fast hot caresses, to her smiling mouth. “Just don’t stop touching me.” His palms cupped her behind and fused her to him. “My God, you feel so good. I have wanted you in my hands again for weeks.”
Viola suspected she ought to be able to respond, to taunt and laugh. But she could only touch him as he wished, her fingers pulling fine linen up and palms adoring the texture of his hot skin over breathtaking muscle. She let him have as much of her as he wished, his mouth and hands moving intimately over her making her desperate for more. And when he touched her until she could no longer bear the pleasure, she opened her thighs and let him inside. Let him- She loved him inside her, his hard need stretching her and making her wild. With her skirts hiked to her hips and her body yearning, she rode the demand of his thrusts until her breaths fled and she had none left even to cry out the pleasure he gave her.
“Viola.” He whispered her name. His body crushed hers, palm flat on the panel behind her as he bored up into her. Then again, “Viola,” and it moved her inside, the tenor of his voice, urgent and deep and unbound. Because it was different. She felt it in her sinews, her blood, her soul. It rocked through her as she came, moaning and clutching him. He followed, making her his again.
Their frantic pace fell to stillness. For a moment they remained like that, brow to brow, breathing heavily. Then, carefully and with strong hands, he pulled away and set her feet on the ground. She unwound her arms from his neck and smoothed her wrinkled skirts back in place, and her hair. He buttoned his trousers. Without a word, he took her into his arms again.
She had not expected that.
She pressed her face into his shoulder, breathing in his scent shakily.
“Stay with me tonight,” she whispered, already dreading the next moment when he would release her again and she would be obliged to reaccustom herself to distance from him. “Stay with me.”
His hands fell away.
“Viola-”
“Tonight, the party was not- Though I managed it, it was not easy for me. I think you are the only person who can understand that,” she hastened to explain, in truth to pretend. “This one night. Only for comfort. You needn’t make love to me again.” She was begging, and frankly lying. She wanted him for more than comfort and rather forever. “I want your arms around me.”
He regarded her for a long moment, his eyes shining like crystal in the darkness, again distant, and it swept the life from her.
“Were I to hold you in my arms tonight,” he finally replied softly, “I could not prevent myself from making love to you again.”
She blinked back prickling heat, swallowing over her hope. “We could be very quiet?”
“I do not believe that is possible for you. Under any circumstances.”
Her throat caught. “Ass.”
“Harpy. Where is your bedchamber?”
“I am not quite certain. I was actually lost.”
He threaded his fingers through hers. “That is apparently what I am here for.” He opened the door a crack. “All clear.” He drew her into the corridor and released her and she started back the way she had come, bemused, shaken. She wanted him to make love to her again, yes-but even more keenly for him to again hold her hand. She reached back and found his. He curled his strong fingers snugly around hers and her heart thudded madly.
But after only moments of that unmitigated pleasure, his hand slipped from hers. Then voices came to her. Good Lord, he had acute hearing. No wonder he had been such a successful criminal.
A gentleman appeared, then another.
“There he is.” Sir Tracy gestured. “Seton, our host has sent me to find you to make up even numbers at our table.” He turned a bleary smile upon Viola. “Evening, Miss Carlyle. How do you do?” He flashed a grin at his friend. “Hope you’re jealous of me, Hopkins. Isn’t every day a fellow inherits a stepsister pretty as can be. Though I suppose it happens to me more often than most. Least once a decade.”
They laughed.
Jin smiled slightly.
Viola wished them at the bottom of the ocean, which was not very sisterly of her, to be sure, but she saw how this would go.
“What do you say, Seton? Care to lose a few guineas to a good cause?” Mr. Hopkins smacked his waistcoat pocket meaningfully, tilting like a schooner at full sail.
Sir Tracy leaned forward confidentially and said sotto voce, “He’s got his eye on Michaels’s matched pair coming up for auction week next. But he can’t afford ’em yet. I told him you’re a sure steal at the card table, Seton. Want the pair myself, don’t you know.” He winked. “Give a friend a hand and fleece him, will you, old chap?”
“Pollywog,” Mr. Hopkins exclaimed at large.
“Miss Carlyle has mislaid her quarters.” Jin’s smooth voice at her shoulder nearly sent her to the floor. She needn’t even look at him to become jelly at his feet. “Allow me to escort her there and I will join you shortly, gentlemen.”
“Actually.” She flicked a glance at him, heart sinking; there was no getting around it. “There is my door.” She pointed. “Thank you, Mr. Seton.” That was it. No being held in his arms and making love to him now. He would not return. He had already gotten what he wanted.
He bowed. “Good night, Miss Carlyle.”
She nodded to Sir Tracy and his friend, and went into her room. She closed the door, pressed her brow against it, and tried to breathe. Probably just the tight stays. Or not. She climbed onto her bed and stared at the canopy, blinking in time with Madame Roche’s snores in the next room.
It was better this way. Jin always caused her to make all sorts of inappropriately intimate noises when he made love to her. There could be no privacy here.
She stared at the canopy a little longer, then wiggled back and forth a bit. The bed knocked against the wall. Madame Roche’s snores halted. Silence reigned. Suddenly a great huffing snort cut through the wall and the snoring took up its regular cadence again.
Viola sighed and closed her eyes. Even if he were to come, they could not make love. The bed would not allow it. But he would not come anyway. She must rest content with the lingering warmth in her from their adventure in the linen cabinet.
She cracked her eyes open and peeked at the rug before the hearth. She’d sat on it quite comfortably picking kitten hairs out of her shawl the other day after she visited a new litter in the barn. She supposed the gossiping ladies had gotten one thing right; she always liked barn kittens. She always loved barns, so full of adventure and messiness. The April Storm reminded her a little of a barn. A floating barn. Perhaps that was one reason she hadn’t yet scrapped it.
She slid off the bed, dragging the top coverlet with her. A servant had made up the fire; the rug was warm and soft. She knelt, then curled up on her side and pulled the coverlet over her. As she drifted off she allowed herself to imagine a handsome pirate making love to her all night long.
She slept like a sailor, hard and motionless. But she looked like a lady, slender hands tucked beneath her cheek and hair sparkling with bejeweled pins. She still wore the glowing gown that caressed her curves and had every man between the ages of eighteen and eighty staring at her all night. Now her breasts pushed against the low neckline, soft rose-colored areolas peeking out.
Jin’s mouth went dry even as he told himself he had seen her body already, had enjoyed it, and should not be so affected by a mere glimpse of it now. But he could stand about all day and night trying to convince himself that she was just another woman. He would never succeed.
He crouched and touched her cheek. Her breaths hitched, black lashes flickering. He slipped his fingertips through the tangle of dark curls straying across her brow, imprinting upon them the texture of perfection.
Her eyes opened. “You came back.”
“You did not wait long for me. I think I am disappointed by your lack of eagerness.” He smiled and stroked the graceful column of her neck.
She blinked, sleep clinging. “Not long? I am eager.” She stifled a yawn. “How long?”
“Perhaps thirty minutes.”
“That was a quick game.”
“I threw it.”
“Mr. Hopkins will have his matched pair, then.”
“I couldn’t give a damn. Viola, I will leave you to your sleep.”
Her fingers clamped about his wrist. “Don’t!” She pushed up to sit, her thick hair tumbling across a shoulder and half-exposed breast. “Don’t leave.”
Never, if it could be. “I shan’t now.”
The tip of her tongue stole over her bottom lip, moistening it, then flicked upward. Jin could not look away. Remaining aloof from her had been the most difficult challenge he had ever met. He didn’t need Carlyle’s disapproval to remind him that he was not a suitable suitor for this lady; he had known that since the first. But she wanted him, and he would not deny her what little he could give her, tonight.
“Have you come back to make love to me again?”
“Indeed I have.” He brushed his fingertips across her cheek again, the silken skin he could not seem to take his fill of, then trailed the backs of his fingers along her throat to the cleft between her breasts. Her lashes dipped, her breath pressing her soft flesh against him.
“But…” She sighed, her eyes closing. “I must have something to drink first. Wine.”
He smiled. “You must?”
“My mouth is all wooly. I don’t want you to kiss me until I have washed it out.”
He laughed and her eyes snapped open. “What?”
He shook his head. She claimed confidence, but she had no idea of her true allure. It made her more beautiful yet.
“Viola, I don’t care about that.”
Her full lips tweaked into a frown. “Well, I do. There is cordial on the nightstand.”
He stood and retrieved the cordial. When he turned again she was standing facing the fire, hair cascading down her back, gown crumpled but the curve of her behind still discernable, the profile of her features delicate. He nearly dropped the cordial. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever known, and even now it was nearly impossible to believe his good fortune.
She looked over her shoulder at him, her sleepy eyes reflecting the flickering golden light. She accepted the cordial and sipped, took some time with it in her mouth, then swallowed, the sweetness of her throat’s movement working like a drug on him. Finally she set down the glass.
The entire operation had taken far too long. His pulse pounded. Curving his hands around her shoulders, he drew her back against his chest, bent to her neck, and breathed her in. No heavy perfume now, only her scent-sweet, stubborn, intoxicating Viola.
“Tell me where you wish to be touched.” He stroked back her hair and set his lips to the nape of her neck where she was perfect woman. Everywhere she was perfect woman. But he would begin here.
Her breaths came fast. With such a slight touch, he could do this to her. He could almost pretend that she had been made for his hands. Hands that had made men suffer in the most brutal fashion.
“What do you mean, where do I wish to be touched?” she whispered.
He kissed her shoulder, the curve of feminine beauty. “A lady deserves to be touched where she wishes it,” he murmured against her skin, watching the peaks of her breasts barely hidden at the edge of her garments grow taut. He wanted his tongue there. He needed to taste her everywhere. “Only where she wishes it.”
“Where, on me?”
He smiled. “Where, on you.”
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“Where, Viola?”
“Everywhere,” she whispered.
He knelt. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”
“What are you doing?” But she obeyed. He lifted her foot and removed first one shoe, then the other. “Oh, yes. I hate those slippers. Hate them.”
“We will burn them when we are through here.” He stroked his hand up the inside of her calf, then her thigh.
She leaned into his touch. “I don’t ever want to be through here.” Her palm flew to her mouth. “What I mean to say is- Ohh.”
He had intended only to unfasten her garters. That touching her body made him insane with need and prone to behave contrary to his intentions could not, however, be regretted. She was beauty incarnate, and already slick for him. She moved her hips against his fingers.
“There,” she whispered, eyes closed, head back. “I want to be touched there.”
Softly he caressed her, then not so softly as her breaths came faster and her knees parted. Then she was pushing herself onto his hand, begging with her body, and whimpering. It happened quickly, and the ecstasy upon her face awed him and made him hard beyond endurance. She cried out, thrust against him, and her mouth opened in a sweet, rich moan.
She collapsed into his embrace.
“I-I-” She caught her breath, twining her arms about his neck. “I do not want to do it standing up wearing clothes again.”
“I was actually trying to remove yours just then.”
“Well, you didn’t do a very good job of it.” Her eyes were alight. She began unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat. “Ladies and gentlemen wear far too many garments.” She pushed it over his shoulders.
“Perhaps to discourage this very activity.” He shrugged out of the waistcoat and she tugged his shirt up and off. Her hands spread on his chest and she stared at them. At him.
He had never, even with her before, been so ready for a woman.
“Oh, Jin,” she murmured, “if all gentlemen were fashioned like you, ladies would need quite a lot more garments to discourage them from stripping naked on the street every day.”
He laughed, but it came forth a bit strangled. “Thank you, I think.”
“Thank you, most certainly,” she breathed, making an exploration of his chest with her fingertips that left him needing her hands on him entirely. But something was different.
He grasped her wrist and brought her palm up to the firelight.
“Your skin-”
She grabbed his hand, covered her breast with it, and exhaled audibly.
“My skin has been filed raw.” She reached behind her back. “Ladies do not have calluses. But it doesn’t matter, because callused or smooth I still cannot get out of this damned gown by myself. At this moment I absolutely despise being a lady. Jin, undress me now. Please undress me.”
“So gracious in your demands.” He slid his hands around to her back and started on the tiny hooks.
“Of course. I don’t like how all these people who came into this house today for the party never said please or thank you to anyone. Don’t they know you can catch more bees with- Ahh.” She leaned back into his palms. “Thank you. You are much quicker than Jane with the stays.”
“I have good reason to be.” He kissed her neck, silk and lace and sparkling fabric sliding through his fingers until she came into his hands wearing only the thinnest shift. She pulled it off and threw it aside.
“Thank God. Now you needn’t serve me any longer… in that capacity.” A maidenly flush stole across the cheeks of the beautiful woman straddling his lap, naked of all but stockings and garters. Jin stared and he thought perhaps he was trembling. For the first time he could recall. Trembling.
“Viola?” His voice barely sounded above his thundering heart.
“Y-yes?” she whispered. She stroked a single fingertip down his waist, pausing at the front fall of his trousers. “What?”
“If you were to ask-whatever you asked of me-I would serve you.”
She blinked a number of times, swiftly, her throat doing a little dance. Then she closed her eyes and, ever so deliberately, touched him.
For the first time in his life, serving came quite easily.
First she traced the contours of each muscle in his chest and arms, which was wonderfully satisfying although it did make her want to eat him with her teeth. And tongue. So she did so, a little. Since he seemed to enjoy that, and she enjoyed it quite a lot, she pushed him back onto his elbows so she could have greater access. He was made like a god. Rather, like her pharaoh statue, although a great deal larger, of course. And hot. And touching him, tasting him with her mouth like this, made her quite hot as well.
“Viola.” His voice sounded taut. She jerked her head up. He was staring at the ceiling and breathing hard.
“Is something wrong?” She spread her hands on his chest and moved up his body to kiss him on his jaw, the day’s shade of whiskers wonderfully rough to her lips.
“On the contrary.” His eyes were liquid sapphires, like the sea. “But at the risk of sounding impatient, I am-”
“Impatient?”
“Eager to consummate the moment.”
“That is the same thing.”
“Not entirely.” He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, drew her to him and kissed her, then murmured against her lips, “And might you consider not arguing now?” He released her to remove his trousers. Viola got all quivery inside.
“Y-yes.” She snapped her gaze back to his face. His eyes glimmered with amusement. “No. I mean to say, no, I will argue if I wish to, or if there is suitable cause to-”
He pulled her onto his lap and quite abruptly she had nothing whatsoever to argue about with him.
They made love. She did not argue. He did not tease or make her suffer, not in the usual manner, at least. But he did serve her as he said he would, although she did not need to ask him to do so.
Perhaps it was this serving that altered the rhythm of their desire for each other. Or perhaps it was the wonder that trembled in her from the beauty and sobriety in his eyes as he touched her. For shortly there was heard no laughter, no clever ripostes, no demands or even reasonable expressions of gratitude. There were instead the soft sounds of pleasure freely given and fervently taken, and the thunder of hearts poised on the brink of that greatest and most thrilling abyss.
Viola fell into the abyss quite willingly. In truth, she had fallen months ago and would not, she realized now, ever climb out of it no matter how she tried. Jin held her tight, his strong arms banded around her, face buried in her shoulder. Every nerve strained toward the completion he would give her, she trailed her fingertips down his back.
“Jin?”
He looked into her eyes, and the intensity of his gaze knocked the air from her lungs. There was distance there, and pain.
Alarm sluiced through her. “Jin?”
He dragged her off him, took her down onto her back on the soft rug, and thrust inside her. He groaned and pulled out entirely, then thrust again.
“Ohh.” It felt so good. Better than good. She clung to his shoulders, meeting him with each powerful thrust he drove into her. Then more, and more. She grabbed the edge of the rug, steadying herself and arching beneath him to make it come faster, the need twining frantically. She fought for breath, fought against his punishing thrusts that pleased-such pleasure. Then, clutching his waist, she forced him to her. Again and again.
When it came, it was deeper, harder, tearing her apart and bursting out her fingertips and toes. “Oh, my God.”
“Christ, Viola.” He shuddered, his muscles like rock as he shook beneath her hands.
She gulped in air, circled her arms about his shoulders, and welcomed his weight atop her.
He did not remain long.
“I am crushing you.” Every muscle in her body had gone lax, but his voice was strangely tight.
“I don’t mind it much.” At all.
“Nevertheless.” He drew away from her, onto his heels. But his gaze did not leave her. Simply, quietly, looking only into her eyes, he said, “Miss Carlyle, you are beautiful.”
Through her exhaustion and thorough satisfaction, she attempted a saucy smile. “I am familiar now with the wicked flattery of gentlemen, sir. You are only saying that because you hope I will take you to my bed.”
The edge of his mouth curved up the slightest bit. He scooped her into his arms. “Better late than never.” He laid her down on the thick coverings and she burrowed beneath, her damp skin cold in the night and the fading coal fire. Now he would dress and say something perfectly reasonable or perhaps infuriating, and he would leave. Then she would spend the next forty years sewing the pieces of her heart back together again.
But he did not leave. Instead he lay down beside her and, as he had done at the inn, closed his eyes. It seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to do. Yet it turned her world upside down.
Nerves ragged, she remained awake, staring at him for a long time. The handsome planes of his face did not soften in sleep but were enhanced into severity by the light of the dying embers. And slowly she saw what she had not seen before, a man wary and troubled, as though in sleep he could not conceal what he would never reveal when waking.
It pulled at her heart. She wanted to know what worried him. She wanted more than anything to touch that delectable mouth and smooth the tension from his jaw, to wrap her arms around him and tell him that whatever he faced, he needn’t face it alone.
But he would not take that well. He was a man who needed no one. She was coming to understand this, and it made her heart ache more than she had imagined possible.
Still, she leaned toward him, her fingertips hungry for the grave line of his cheek.
“Do you always have difficulty settling down to sleep?” His voice rumbled.
She jerked back. “I thought you were asleep.”
“As you might be as well.”
Her heart thumped as it had when he first appeared in the corridor, but with a yearning so much more powerful.
“I am afraid that if I sleep,” she whispered, “when I wake up you will be gone.”
His eyes opened and the warmth in them seized not her breaths this time but her very soul. So, she supposed he owned that too now, not merely her heart.
He turned onto his shoulder and cupped her face in his big palm, and passed his thumb gently across her lower lip.
“I will not go.”
“You did upon each of the other occasions.” She didn’t care that she was revealing herself. She loved him so thoroughly.
“If you do not wish it, Viola, I will not go.”
She wanted to ask if he meant only tonight or this week or forever. But the courage that had seen her through kidnapping and tempests and grief and loneliness deserted her. She could not bear to hear his reply now because she knew what it would be. Tonight she wanted, for one precious moment, to be only with him and imagine it would last forever.
She leaned forward and placed her lips on his. His hand moved to the back of her head and he kissed her softly, tenderly, making her imagine that he cared for her. He had a truly black heart to string her along like this. If she were a typical flimsy sort of female she might be devastated when he did leave. Fortunately she was made of sterner stuff.
She drew away, pulled the covers to her chin and, feet and heart both quite sore, finally she slept.