Dance of Seduction (30 page)

So she relaxed. To her surprise, what he was doing wasn’t so bad. Indeed, it grew less bad the farther he inched in. It was a bit uncomfortable, but the remarkable sensation of having him inside her compensated for that. The sheer intimacy of having him fused to her did funny things to her, made her crave more, made her open her thighs and arch up to meet him.

He groaned. “For a virgin, you have good instincts.”

“I have a good teacher.”

A weak smile tipped up his lips. “You won’t think so in a minute, I fear. I’ve never ‘ravished’ a virgin before, but I know it hurts the first time.”

She swallowed. “So I’ve been told.”

The strain of easing into her showed in his taut lips and rigid jaw. “If I could take you without hurting you, angel, you know I would.”

“I know.” She stretched up to kiss his mouth.

He returned her kiss greedily, his tongue stabbing deeply with the urgency he couldn’t show elsewhere. Then he halted his movements abruptly and tore his mouth from hers to whisper, “If you want me to stop now, say so. Because after this, your virtue will be irretrievable.”

“It became irretrievable the first time you kissed me,” she admitted. “And some things are worth any hurt.”

A fierce satisfaction leaped in his face. “I’ll
make
it worth the hurt,” he vowed, then lunged deeply into her.

At her involuntary cry, more of surprise than of pain, his eyes darkened, and he caught her mouth in another long, aching kiss. He lay still inside her a moment, as if allowing her time to adjust to him. Then he began to move. To ravish her.

There was no other word for it. The powerful drive of his flesh within her, the hot probing of his tongue in her mouth…they were meant to overcome her, to conquer her, to make her so vividly aware of him that she couldn’t do without him.

It was certainly working. Every thrust seemed to provoke the next until she was straining against him, writhing beneath him, craving the same sweet satisfaction as before, the release he always gave her.

He tore his mouth from hers to drag it over her cheek and her neck, his teeth grazing the skin, nipping her earlobe. “I could eat you up, angel…and still not be satisfied. God help me…you’re in my blood.”

As he was in hers. She met the savage beat of his every stroke…rose to them with the hunger of a she-wolf welcoming her mate. She kissed everything she could reach, tugged at his nipple with her teeth until he gasped. Now she was ravishing him, too. They were ravishing each other, each feeding on the other’s frenzy, satisfying the other’s need.

Wildness built to unbearable heights within her body. She clutched at his arms, struggling to pull him further into her.

“Give me everything, angel,” he rasped, his breath hot against her cheek as he drove harder and faster and deeper. “I want all of you…all…”

“Take it…” she whispered. “It’s yours.”

With a ragged cry, he thundered into her one last time, and all at once her release hit her, a bright, piercing explosion that
shook her body. Seconds later he spilled himself into her, moaning her name, his face rapt with his own release.

It was the sweetest moment of her life. And in that moment of aching clarity, when his body sank onto hers and his mouth sought her mouth in a soul-searing kiss, she realized one thing.

She’d fallen in love with the wolf.

Chapter 17

Ill do they listen to all sorts of tongues,
Since some enchant and lure like Syrens songs.
No wonder therefore ’tis as overpower’d,
So many of them has the Wolfe devour’d.
“
Little Red Riding Hood,” Charles Perrault
,
English translation by Robert Samber
,
Tales of Times Past with Morals

S
ated and relaxed, Morgan lay beside Clara, one arm about her shoulder and her head resting on his chest. He’d never felt so content in his life. In the past, lovemaking had made him feel only more restless, more alone.

Not with Clara. To have her lying naked in his embrace, with her arm draped over his belly and one of her legs thrown over his, felt utterly natural, utterly right. Utterly pure.

She nuzzled his chest. “I do believe I like lovemaking, Captain Blakely.”

He smiled. “My instrument proved sturdy enough after all, did it?”

“Mmmm. Nicely sturdy. A very useful instrument you have there.”

“Always glad to oblige, my lady.” As a sweet languor stole over him, he indulged his urge to hold her close a few moments longer. “I hope you were right about the Specter being scared off tonight. Because if he comes knocking anytime soon, I fear I’ll be too weak to answer the door.”

Her head shot up from his chest, her eyes filling with alarm. “Your wound isn’t paining you again, is it?”

He laughed, warmed by her concern. “Not in the least, angel. Our lovemaking was what drained the strength out of me.”

“Never!” A mischievous smile played over her well-kissed lips. “A big bad wolf like you? Who calls your wound a ‘scratch’? I thought you were invincible.”

He slanted her a glance. “Don’t provoke me, you teasing wench. I can barely summon the energy to breathe, much less bandy words with you.”

With a grin, she dropped her head onto his chest. “Well, at least now I know how to end all your lecturing.”

Chuckling, he wrapped his arms about her and savored the feel of her in his arms, the intimacy he’d never known with anybody else.

She snuggled against him. “I must say I’m very glad they chose you for this particular spying job.”

“So am I.” To his astonishment, he realized it was true. Despite his dislike of Spitalfields, he’d enjoyed the challenge of trying to outwit the Specter, the satisfaction of helping Johnny, and most of all, the wonder of knowing Clara.

After a moment, she said, “Morgan?”

“Hmm?”

“Why
did
they choose you? Did you volunteer?”

“Not hardly,” he said.

She propped her chin on his chest and stared up into his face. “But I thought you’d done this before.”

He stiffened. “Ravenswood told you about that, too?”

“Not really, but your brother did mention the spying, and I got the impression—”

“Oh, the spying,” he said, relaxing again. “Of course.”

She eyed him solemnly. “What did you think I meant?”

Confound it all. He should have known this blessed sweetness couldn’t last. Now he would have to tell her something of his past, if only to show her what she was getting herself into with him. And she would undoubtedly realize how foolish she’d been and thrust him away. So he mustn’t let himself grow too accustomed to this sensation of belonging.

Yet when he tried to withdraw, she clutched him tightly. “Tell me, won’t you?”

As he stared at her serious expression, he sighed. She had foolish notions about his gentlemanly character that he had to shatter before she learned the truth about him some other way. Like from Ravenswood, who seemed determined to warn her away from any personal involvement with Morgan.

“Actually, I thought you were referring to my thieving.” He dragged in a breath, preparing himself for her reaction, then went on. “You asked why they chose me—well, it was largely because I used to be a pickpocket and a thief myself.”

Disbelief clouded her features. “But how can that be? You were a baron’s son. Even if you weren’t raised in England, surely your mother didn’t allow—”

“She didn’t know I was a thief. And I didn’t know I was a baron’s son.”

“What? When you said your mother took you, I assumed it was in a formal separation from your father.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Not quite. Mother stole me away, actually. She’d had enough of the baron’s philandering, so when she gave birth to twins, she bribed the servants to hide
it from the family and care for me until she left her childbed. Then she took me and her jewels and fled with her lover, her dancing master. Apparently she thought that since the baron had his heir he wouldn’t look for her.”

“And did he?”

“No. She’d judged him rightly. He had Sebastian—he didn’t much care about anything else. He told the world, including my brother, that Mother had died in childbirth.” He glanced away, throat tight. “I didn’t know the baron, but by all accounts he was something of an arse.”

“I should say so!”

He swung his gaze back to her, surprised by her fervency. “You certainly are an opinionated wench.”

“No feeling man who loved his wife would let her simply walk out on him without searching for her, lover or no.”

“Ah, but I wonder if English lords
are
feeling men. Their pride often seems stronger than any softer emotion. Though perhaps you’re right. I sometimes doubt that the baron ever loved my mother.” Neither Uncle Lew nor Sebastian seemed to know one way or the other. It would explain why Mother had never gone back to the baron.

Not that it mattered. The past couldn’t be changed.

“Well?” she prodded. “You still haven’t explained how that turned you into a pickpocket.”

The fact that Clara took this all in stride astonished him. But then she always did astonish him. “Unfortunately, my mother picked the wrong year to run and the wrong place to run to. Not to mention the wrong man to run with. She fled with me in 1788, you see. Less than a year after our arrival in Geneva, the rabble in Paris stormed the Bastille.”

Horror filled her face. “Good Lord, you were in Geneva during the revolution?”

He nodded. “And Geneva was affected far more than England. It even had its own Reign of Terror. Almost from the
time we arrived, there was chaos in the city. As you might imagine, it wasn’t the best place for an English dancing master, an adulterous English lady, and her newborn child to make a home.”

“But why Geneva, of all places? Why not America or…or Spain or something?”

“I don’t know all of my mother’s reasoning, only what she told me when I grew older, but apparently that first lover of Mother’s had friends in Geneva. Unfortunately, they were nobility, which didn’t help the situation.”

“First lover?”

He sighed. “Yes. About a year after we arrived in the city, the dancing master stole all the jewels she’d meant us to live on and then disappeared.” He cast her a wry smile. “Mother was never very…wise in her choice of men, I’m afraid.”

The clear pity in Clara’s face was hard to stomach. He glanced away and went on more stiffly. “With no money, no friends she could claim, and a baby to support, Mother decided that the only way to survive was to take another lover. To be fair, there weren’t many options for her. And we did live fairly well with the second man until he fell victim to the guillotine.”

He ignored her sharp gasp, though he knew all of this must be hard to fathom. He’d lived with it, so it didn’t strike him as odd. But he’d never told this to anybody before, probably because, aside from the mortification of having anyone know the sordid details of his childhood, he knew it sounded like something out of a novel.

The only other person who knew everything about the early history of his life in Geneva was his mother’s brother, and that was only because Mother had told Uncle Lew in her last days of life. Ravenswood only knew about the thieving, and Sebastian knew nothing, which was the way Morgan wanted it.

“Anyway,” Morgan continued, “that’s how Mother supported us—by taking lovers. But it was a dicey existence at best. Her value as a pretty Englishwoman plummeted in Geneva once the Terror began.”

“So you decided to supplement the family income by picking pockets,” she said with quiet sympathy. “How young were you when you started?”

A vise tightened around his heart. He was tempted to stop the conversation here. He didn’t even like thinking about those days, and it unnerved him that Clara could guess his motives so easily. Or that she might see him as one of her sad little urchins. Though he supposed that was indeed what he’d been.

Yet he answered her, compelled by some unnamable urge to tell it all. “I was six the first time. It wasn’t planned. Mother was arguing with our current ‘benefactor,’ a very stingy man. I left to escape the shouting. I was hungry, so when I came upon a baker setting out baguettes I waited until his back was turned, took one, and ran. A pickpocket saw the whole thing and befriended me. He taught me how to filch things and sell them to a fence.” He cast her a grim smile. “I even developed a specialty. I was what the boys around here would call a silk snatcher.”

“You stole bonnets and hoods from people in the streets.”

“Very good. You know your thieves’ cant.”

“After spending so many hours in the company of thieves, one can’t help but pick up a little. But why bonnets?”

He stared down at her own bare head of tousled chestnut hair. “Mother liked them. For every ten or so I stole and sold to the fence, I’d keep one for her. It was foolish, I know. She could have used the money more, but—”

“It made the stealing all right.”

“
Nothing
made the stealing all right,” he said fiercely.

She soothed him with the stroke of a hand over his chest.

“No, of course not.” Her fingers drifted idly down his waist. “In my experience there are two sorts of thieves—those who steal to survive and would prefer a real job if they could get it, and those who begin by stealing to survive but soon learn that it’s an exciting way to make a living. The former are easier to reform. The latter…well, let’s just say that not all my boys end up living useful, productive lives.”

“So which sort was I?” he asked, the vise around his heart threatening to crush it entirely.

“The former, of course.” She said it as if it should be obvious. “The latter have little shame for what they do. I mean, it was shame that kept you from telling your mother about the stealing, wasn’t it?”

He blinked at her. “How do you know it wasn’t a fear of how she’d punish me?”

“Because she doesn’t sound like an uncaring mother.”

That Clara could accept the necessity of his mother’s whoring without also assuming it made her a bad mother awed him. He’d never met another person who saw the difference. “She was the best mother she could be under the circumstances.”