Delectably Undone! (6 page)

She pulled free of Evelyn’s arms and felt a pang of hurt that he didn’t attempt to hold her this time. “I’d better leave. I only meant to rest for a moment.”

She picked up Lionel’s shabby old cloak from the end of the bed and stood up.

“Is that what you want, Loveday?”

Dark eyes watched her and his hands were balled to fists at his sides.

“What I want has nothing to do with it,” she said quietly. “It’s always been about what you want.”

He flinched. “Dammit, Loveday! I was a young fool!”

She nodded. “Yes. And I was younger. Sixteen, and even more foolish.” She swallowed. “I thought it was forever. I know better now. Lionel explained, and when you stayed away I understood.” She lifted her chin. “You’d tired of me.”

Evelyn let out a breath. “No. No, I didn’t. But I was wrong. Wrong to touch you. That night—” His hand raked through his hair. “Lionel was coming home as I left. And he knew when he saw me where I’d been. He came to me the next day and told me exactly what he thought of me. I stayed away because I knew he was right—that I was a selfish, aristocratic bastard who’d seen something I wanted and taken it without a thought for who might be hurt.” His mouth twisted. “So I tried not to be an even more selfish bastard than I’d already been. Or so I told myself.”

“It wasn’t only your fault,” she said. “I wanted you. If I hadn’t—”

“No!” His eyes blazed. “Don’t you dare blame yourself! You were an innocent. It was my fault—I was older and I knew damn well what was happening. I should have left before—” He broke off, took a shuddering breath, and asked calmly, “So, how did you hear about the murals?”

“I saw Colby.”

“Ah.”

“He was fuming because you’d rejected his sketches.” She swallowed. “I had all Lionel’s sketches. There were plenty of myself, and some of you, nudes, that he’d never let me even see…. I used those and my memory and, well, I thought if only you didn’t know it was me—”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want charity!” she snapped. “I wanted my work accepted on its merit.”

“But surely, once I’d done that—!” His anger flared again. “Good God, Loveday! Why not tell me then? You can’t have thought I’d take further advantage of your situation! Put conditions on the commission…” He was white, dark eyes blazing into her. “You did, didn’t you?”

In that searing look she saw the self-loathing for what he had done, his vulnerability, and a terrible fear.

“Loveday—you were alone, desperate—” Evelyn’s voice cracked. “How desperate?”

“No!” Words tumbled out as she understood his fear that she had been reduced to selling herself. “It didn’t come to that, and I never thought that you would take advantage of my situation!”

His taut expression eased. “Thank God. But why not tell me the truth, then?”

“I didn’t want the commission to be because I was Lionel’s sister,” she said. “Or even because I was me. That was never what I wanted from you!” She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. Better not to say more. She turned to leave.

“What did you want, Loveday?”

She stopped and drew a ragged breath. The very gentleness in his voice cut to the core, demanding truth.

She didn’t dare turn back, but she looked over her shoulder, summoning a smile, praying her tears wouldn’t fall.

“You, Evelyn. Just you. There’s only ever been you.”

She saw her words hit him. For a moment he said nothing, just stared at her.

“I don’t deserve that,” he said. He shook his head as though awakening from a dream, and held out his hand, saying quietly, “Then come and take me.”

“Are you betrothed?” That would be one sin Loveday could not reconcile with her conscience.

“No. Nor will I be.” He hesitated. “We agreed we should not suit.”

Loveday still hesitated, all the other reasons she should deny him clamoring in her brain. She scarcely heard them over the call in those dark blue eyes and the answering leap of her own heart as she turned back and went to him.

He frowned.

“Evelyn?” Her heart faltered.

He looked confused. “I’ve…I’ve dreamed of this.”

Oh, so had she. So many times over the lost years, trying to hold the memory of how it had felt to be in his arms—

They closed around her, and she remembered…their warmth, their strength. She raised her head, expecting his kiss, but gentle hands framed her cheeks and he stared down at her. She stared back, drinking in his face, etched in shadows, a blaze that threatened to consume her lit in the dark eyes. Slow, shaking fingers traced the line of her jaw, lingered over her skittering pulse, found the trembling curve of her lower lip, so that her breath shuddered unevenly at his burning touch, as it had once before.

Yet it was different. More. Now there was tenderness. Oh, he’d been gentle with her all those years ago. Careful, caring. But now it was as though he scarcely dared to touch her, and couldn’t bear not to.

Every nerve alight, she stretched up to kiss him. All the unspoken longing, all the love—it no longer mattered if he knew how much she cared.

He took her kisses, returning them fiercely, all hot demand, his tongue teasing, probing at the corners of her lips so that she opened to him. He ravished her mouth in slow, deep surges that echoed the beat of desire in her body.

He released her mouth. “Loveday…” His voice shook. “If you don’t want this, for God’s sake tell me now.”

Her breathing hitched. She didn’t know what
this
was. Not for him. A brief affair, or a longer liaison? But she knew what it was for her, and now was not the time to ask that question.

She raised trembling fingers to graze his cheek, felt the prickle sear her fingertips, and saw his eyes flare.

“I want you,” she whispered, and gasped as he turned his head to nip her fingers, and dark heat erupted inside her.

“And I want you,” he said. His hands were at the top button of her bodice and her whole body stilled, caught in the moment as he released that first button. “I want you,” he repeated. His lips brushed hers, as achingly tender as his voice. More buttons surrendered. “All of you,” he murmured against her lips. His hand slipped inside the gown. “All of you. Always.” And she gasped as his roving fingers found the sensitive upper curves of her breasts, trailed fire in their wake.

“It can’t be just for tonight, Loveday. Do you understand?” He lowered his mouth to the wildly beating pulse in her throat, and licked. Sucked gently. “I won’t be able to let you go again,” he whispered. “This time I’ll be keeping you.”

“Then take me,” she murmured, echoing his invitation, pressing against him.

Evelyn’s heart shook. “You’ll trust me, again?” he said. “God knows, you shouldn’t! I swore that I wouldn’t seduce you.” And still his fingers traced the satin curve of her breast, sliding beneath stays and chemise.

Her hand traveled down his body, found the buttons on his breeches. There were other things he’d meant to say, but he couldn’t form the words.

“You aren’t.” Her voice caressed him and one of those buttons slipped open. “It’s my turn.” Two more buttons abandoned their posts, as he fought for control, not to tumble her to the floor and take her right there…and to make sense of her words… “Your turn?”

“Umm.
I’m
seducing
you
.” A small hand slid into the open placket of his breeches and closed over his shaft, which agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment of the situation. He groaned as she squeezed gently.

That small, wicked hand explored its captive, crept lower and cupped him so that another strangled groan escaped. “Loveday—” He reached down and pressed her hand against him, took her mouth hungrily. Shuddering in pleasure at her gentle touch, he ravished her lips.

Garment after garment fell to the floor unregarded as they kissed. His coat and waistcoat, her gown sliding off her shoulders and past her waist to fall at her feet, leaving her in stays and shift. Lamplight shimmered over her, gleaming in her hair, gilding her slender arms in gold and shadow as she reached for the lacings of his shirt. Two gentle tugs and it hung open. Her stays took a little longer to unlace, but at last she wriggled free, and he took them off over her head. She stood before him wearing only her chemise and a rosy blush. His throat tightened, words banking up behind the lump.

He reached for her, but her hands lifted. He stilled. Was he going too fast? Frightening her?

“Wait,” she whispered, and his gut clenched. It had been only that one time six years ago, and while he might have behaved like a fool since, from what she had said, Loveday had never given herself again. If she needed time, reassurance… He prepared to step back.

Still blushing, she raised her arms, crossing them over her head, and her chemise came off.

His lungs seized, every nerve igniting, every muscle hardening. He could only stare as shock slammed through him. She stood, biting her lower lip, with the chemise clutched in front of her, as though afraid she had gone too far…. If he had needed assurance that she had only ever been his, this shyness was it.

His gaze never leaving her face, he slowly removed his shirt and dropped it on the floor. Her fingers clenched. Opened. And dropped the chemise.

Shadows and candlelight played on every dip and curve of breast and waist and hip, shadow sliding over the lissom form, candlelight dancing in her eyes, glinting in the curls at the base of her belly.

One small hand reached out, careful fingers tracing the lightest of paths on his chest. Exploring. His breath shortened; control quaked. He hardly dared breathe lest her fragrance snap the fragile chain holding him in check. Curiosity found one nipple. Circled so that it hardened, and he gritted his teeth against the urge to sweep her up and onto the bed, ending the sweet torment.

“You’re killing me,” he ground out

Her slow smile told him she knew.

She leaned closer and kissed him. Warm, wet kisses, and gentle nips that spun his senses close to insanity as he fought to let her have her way with him. Her mouth found the nipple her fingers were teasing. He tensed, ready, but she kissed around it, just one brief swipe of her tongue over the aching centre. He groaned, ready to beg…and she pressed her open mouth over it, sucking lightly. He couldn’t take much more of this…but he held still as she slid lower, kissing and nibbling her way down his body until she knelt before him and drew his trousers down….

No. Surely not…

He stared down at her, eyes dazed.

“Loveday—sweetheart, you don’t have to—” A gentle sweep of her tongue silenced him, except for a helpless moan as his hands fisted in her hair.

His taste was hot on her tongue as she cupped him, leaning forward to take him into her mouth.

She should have felt subservient, kneeling there before him, but she did not. She felt powerful, feminine. She licked delicately, and gloried in the harsh groan, the jerk of his body.
She
had done that to him. And felt the answering surge of desire in her own body as his hand slid over her throat, tender, possessive.

His taste, hot and potent on her tongue, the satin-steel shape of him, the shuddering restraint of his powerful body as she pleasured him…

It was his dream. His dream made flesh, his dream awoken to exquisite, shocking life. He could barely breathe, let alone think as the lush heat of her mouth caressed him. A groan ripped from his belly as she sucked gently, and pleasure stabbed deep.
The Nymph, Worshipping at the Feet of the God…

God? He was her slave. He could only stand, burning, as she took him to the quaking edge of madness. At last, with a shuddering groan, he reached down and freed himself gently.

“Enough.”

He hardly knew his own voice, harsh with restraint as he drew her to her feet, yet he caught the flare of uncertainty in her eyes. “My turn,” he whispered against her lips, and tasted himself. “Consider me seduced.” Enslaved was more like it.

He swung her up into his arms and headed for the bed. He tumbled her onto it and followed her down, rolling with her so that she was half beneath him, one of his thighs between hers, opening her to his possession. His, all his. Soft, yielding. Wide golden eyes in her flushed face. All delicate pale curves wreathed in shadows, she reached up, brushing a caress against his jaw, sliding her fingers into his hair, drawing him down. He went, a willing captive, taking the sweetness of her mouth, groaning as she wriggled against him. Not to escape, but to get closer to him, her hands a tender fire on his body as she followed the hollow of his spine with curious fingers, slid lower to curve her hands over his buttocks, lifting to him at the same time.

He fought to hold back. So easy to accept and take all of her now, but he wanted more. He wanted to give, not just take. He needed her to know the truth: that it could never be just for one night. Releasing her mouth, he looked down at her. Desire bucked. Her lips parted slightly, moist and pink, and trembling.

“Evelyn?”

“Soon,” he promised.

He touched a gentle finger to her lips, tracing the lush curves, hot need spiking low as she gasped, her arms tightening around him. So sweetly sensitive. And she had other sensitive places. Propped on one elbow, he traced the line of jaw and throat with his fingertips, lingering over the dancing pulse, adoring the tender swell of her breast. Lower to circle a nipple, loving the swift response as it sprang to urgent life and her breath came in soft gasps.

“Evelyn, please…”

Her plea nearly undid him, but he bent and kissed it from her lips, as he cupped her breast and rubbed his thumb over the taut nipple. “Not yet, sweetheart. It’s my turn.” His turn to reduce her to desperate need. His turn to worship. To give. To love.

She could only cry out in pleasure as he slid hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw and over her throat. As she burned and hungered in his arms. And oh, the glory of his mouth on her breasts, all heat and demand. Fire leaped in every vein as his hand drifted lower, over her belly, where the wicked probe of his finger in her navel found an answering echo and ache in the emptiness between her thighs, so that she arched, sobbing in need.