I Thee Wed (18 page)

Francesca pressed her fingers to her lips, hard. Oh, he was such a dear! The look on his face! As if he still didn't understand the subject matter. For a moment, Francesca found herself feeling a bit sorry for the anonymous prostitute. Then it occurred to her that the woman might have had the opportunity to take Orion into her arms first, to kiss him, to touch him, to push her fingers through that thick dark hair—and the trickle of sympathy shut off instantly.

“But you didn't—in the end?”

Orion let out a breath. “No. The young lady complained, and Mrs. Blythe showed me the door. She told me to come back when my desire for pleasure outweighed my desire for knowledge.”

Francesca finally allowed herself to smile at him. “And now? Shall I be examined? Or given pleasure?”

His expression became very serious as his awareness fixed intensely upon her. “Miss Penrose, pleasuring you is all I think about.”

Her smile widening, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and stood very straight, which she knew would set her bosom up high for his attention. Just to be sure she prevented further distraction, she inhaled deeply.

His concentration was everything she could ask for. His blue eyes darkened to midnight, and his jaw tightened as his gaze ran over her. She saw his hands tighten to fists at his sides. Wonder and hot, spiced need flowed through her. To be wanted so much was a heady brew. She would gulp herself drunk upon it—see if she wouldn't!

Opposite her, Orion rode his lust like an unruly horse. It bucked rebelliously within him, fighting the shredding rope of his control. It was all he could do to keep from flinging this delectable creature to the stone kitchen floor and turning loose his inner steed of need upon her. The very thought nearly made his eyes cross as his cock hardened impossibly
more.

I want to—everything. I want it all.

Now
.

Francesca, apparently also wearied of waiting, took one step forward and reached out her hand. Another step, and her cool fingers stroked hesitantly over his jaw. “Don't you want to kiss m—?”

Orion let his mouth fall down upon hers like a hawk diving on a dove. She let out a single muffled squeak of surprise, but then her lips parted and her mouth melted into his. He kept going, pressing into her, his hands on her shoulders, until two steps backward pushed her spine against the wall. Francesca sighed as his body pressed into her and his hands slid up to wrap around her throat and jaw, tilting her head back to invade her mouth.

Yes. Yes, invade me
.

She opened her mouth to let him in, even as her thighs longed to part for him, even as her arms opened to climb up and tangle around the back of his neck.

It was hot, and wet and sweet—so sweet!—inside Francesca. Orion ached to consume her, to drink her and eat her and fuck her until he lost himself in that sweet, soft land inside her.

Every moan from her throat sent him deeper into her. Every roll of her body as it writhed enthusiastically against him drew him in, pulling him further away from himself and into her. Soon there was no Orion, no man of science, no voice of logic and reason.

There was only her. His own being was reduced to the parts of him that wanted to be within her.

She braced her palms against his chest and pushed him, hard. Startled, thinking that she objected, he fought to recall himself. He began to draw away, though it made him ache painfully to do so.

However, it seemed she had no intention of objecting, for
her mouth followed as her lips clung to his. She kept pushing, and he kept backing away, until he felt something hit the backs of his knees. One last imperious shove and he fell into the hard wooden chair before the fire. There was no point in objecting to this new position, because his lap was immediately filled with sweet, soft girl as she lifted his shirt above her knees and clambered astride him. Not once had her mouth left his. A tiny fragment of rational thought admired her creativity, for at last they were face-to-face, eye-to-eye—and most important, lips and tongue and mouth-to-mouth.

Oh yes
. He sank his fingers into her tumbled hair and drew her mouth more firmly to his, pressing his tongue past her lips in a rhythm as old as time.

The food remained uneaten. The dozen cakes stood guard as the only two souls awake in the house moaned and sighed and fed upon each other, instead.

Full combustion, indeed.

O
RION took Francesca's desperate moans into his mouth, kissing her deeply. She shuddered in his grasp as he slid his fingers up and around her clitoris.

He'd meant to walk her to her room and see that she got a bit of rest before the new day began. With the very best of intentions, he'd helped her clean the kitchen and tidy the study and retrieve her gown from the large vase in the front hall.

They'd walked in companionable silence until they had reached the door to her bedchamber. The house remained dark and silent around them. Soon, however, the staff would begin to stir. If they wished their night of full combustion to remain a secret piece of the past, it was time to part.

Then Francesca turned to him, smiled wickedly, and held out her hand with false primness. “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said.

He stifled a laugh. Clearly, he had no choice but to kiss that sweet, saucy smile directly from her lips, daring to do so even as they stood in the upstairs hallway. And when she'd
arched against him, pressing her breasts into his chest—he simply could not keep his hands to himself.

Just once more,
he had told himself.
Just one more taste, just one more touch . . .

Now he held one hand high, pinning her wrists over her head and against the exterior of her bedroom door. His other hand moved with growing urgency as she bucked and undulated against his touch with a last, helpless orgasm.

Yes,
he thought.
Mine. One last time
.

Releasing her hands left her unsteady on trembling legs, so he gladly kept one arm about her tiny waist as he brushed her wildly tossed hair from her face. “Shh.” He dropped tender kisses onto her closed eyelids.

Still quivering, she clung to his arm for a long moment.

Then she took her weight on her own two feet. She dropped her hands. And she stepped away from him.

I don't want to let her go
.

Which was ridiculous. They had played out their plan most thoroughly. Lust had been appeased. Attraction had been snuffed. Distraction had been removed. Alas, Orion had a sneaking suspicion that rather than burning out their passion, they had only inflamed it further.

He straightened his spine.

She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and bestowed a polite smile on him. “I think we've managed quite well. Thank goodness we didn't pass the point of no return!”

He nodded sharply. “Indeed. I look forward to the lack of distraction in the laboratory.”

She bobbed her head slightly in agreement, then reached for the door latch. “Well, good night, then. And . . . good-bye.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

She slipped through the door to her bedchamber. It closed, shutting him out with a firm click of the latch.

It was over.

Orion turned away to make his way to his own bedchamber. He ought to feel satisfied. They had pleasured each other
in every way they could think of, aside from the one way they could not dare. And yet, all he could think was that he wished he could kiss her.

Just one more time.

He passed a drowsy footman walking the opposite direction down the hall. The new day had begun. Last night would forever be only a memory.

As it should be
.

Forever
.

Damn it
.

*   *   *

H
AD THERE EVER
been a time in his life when he had not spun in an orbit of desire around Francesca like a planet of ice thawing helplessly before the heat of a golden sun?

There must have been. He had met her only a few short weeks before!

But I was waiting for her
.

Nonsense. Rubbish. Fanciful daydreaming nonsense!

Except that it seems to be true
.

Well, there was that. To be sure, since their wild night of unfulfilled pleasure had ended, Orion's moment-to-moment vision had tunneled down to the fine points of Francesca's voice, Francesca's scent, Francesca's miraculous, magical skin . . .

If he'd had the presence of mind of a pumpkin, he would have been alarmed and offended by the betrayal of his intellect. However, he could not reason his way free of his obsession. He could not extrapolate a way to erase the memory of her hot mouth on his cock. He could not think his way out of the maze of her soft, luscious body naked in his greedily exploring hands!

His attention was not his own. At the mere possibility that he might hear her voice, or her laugh, or the rustle of her skirts, he could think of nothing but her.

Damn it, I'm doing it again right now!

Carefully not glancing at the woman who sat at her worktable across the laboratory—near enough to obsess him, but so very far away!—Orion gazed at the two glass tubes he held in his raised hands. He'd been pouring from one to the other . . . but he couldn't remember which. Bloody hell, he couldn't even remember why!

With great care, he placed both tubes back in their stand, then spread his palms on the cool steel surface of the table.

Francesca
.

He wanted her again. He wanted her
more
.

He wanted it all.

Francesca
.

With a sound that ranged somewhere between a growl of frustration and a moan of pure longing, he dropped his head down between his hands as if the chilled metal of the table could cool his volcanic lust.

Please, make this go away. I liked being cold. I liked being a man of the mind, not the body. I liked being alone
.

No, you didn't. You really, truly didn't. You just thought you had no choice.

He jerked upright. That wasn't true. That couldn't be true. If it was, then he would lose everything he'd ever wanted.

Having Francesca meant losing the engagement to Judith, which meant losing the support of Sir Geoffrey, which meant that he would go back to being one of
those
Worthingtons—and would never be taken seriously in scientific circles again, not when Sir Geoffrey carried the tale of his fickleness to the Royal Fraternity!

With the full power of his focused concentration, he could will his lust away. He would lock down every memory, every fantasy, every urge—killing them one by one and dragging their limp carcasses into the cellar of his mind and throwing away the key!

He was Orion Worthington, a man of science!

A deep breath, then another, helped to settle his pounding pulse and quiet his constant near erection. With slow,
deliberate movements, he drew out two more glass tubes and began his test again from the beginning.

Cold, clear concentration.

Dark hair, warm from the heat of the fire, sweeping over the bare skin of his chest as she kissed her way down . . .

Francesca
.

Orion blinked and glared at the two glass tubes he held in his hands. Which one?

Bloody hell!

That was the moment he gave in. He raised his eyes to Francesca, who sat just a few yards away from the marble-topped laboratory table at which he unsuccessfully toiled. He looked up just in time to see her catch herself as she began to doze. Remaining quite still, Orion watched as she lifted her head and blinked quickly several times.

She must be very tired. He was as well, except that he was also revitalized. His entire body hummed with satisfaction. For the first time in his life, he knew what it meant to spend the night with a woman.

There was so much more to it than simple orgasms. Those could be had cheaply and privately, if one were so inclined. No, those seven hours with Francesca—with Chessa!—had shown him another world entirely. Her softness, her sweetness, her eagerness had driven him mad even while they had soothed something deep inside him. To be
wanted
—that was a thing he'd never known.

As he thought about her eager, seeking hands on him, he watched her full lashes slip lower over her eyes. The morning sun must be dazzling her vision—but she dazzled him. She shimmered in that beam of light. Her sun-sweetened skin glowed, and the lights within her hair burned with reds and bronzes that he'd never seen before. Her stillness shifted only with her deep breaths—inhalations that swelled that marvelous bosom and pressed it higher into the sunlight, just for him. There she sat, as if nothing had happened the previous night—as if the world had not shifted on its axis, as if north
had not suddenly twisted south and left him stranded on some strange, rocky shore!

Her head began to droop. Her pencil slipped from her fingers and fell to the chart she had been marking. Still Orion simply sat watching. He could hear the depth of her breathing. He saw the moment when her lips parted slightly in relaxation.

However, the instant she began to droop on her stool, he was at her side.

“Chessa,” he whispered. Putting his arm around her shoulders seemed like the friendly, supportive thing to do, so that she would not lose her balance. “Chessa.”

“Rion,” she murmured softly. He'd thought she would jerk awake, perhaps be surprised and slightly embarrassed and thoroughly adorable. Instead, she turned her face into his neck and kissed the place where his pulse throbbed.

The touch of her lips was sweet and familiar, and shocking. They were finished. They'd both proclaimed themselves so, and had parted with cool smiles and distant fondness.

So why did her lips burn with soft and terrifying heat on his skin? Why did his hand slide up into her hair and tilt her head back? Why did her eyes open, dark and bottomless and sultry as she lifted her gaze to his?

Orion bent, because to not bend would have snapped his soul in half, and brushed his mouth over her soft, parted lips. It was less than a kiss, but yet far more than he ought to bestow upon a simple colleague—a friend.

She sighed, and he breathed in the sweetness of her. There was no one near. He could kiss her hard and deeply, as he longed to do. She would allow it—and likely give as good as she got—but it would not be enough.

It will never be enough.

She flinched in his embrace. “What did you say?” She drew back, pressing her palms to his chest to look him in the eye.

“I—” Orion shook his head and straightened abruptly. “I didn't—”

Francesca pulled away. In doing so, she overbalanced on the stool. Orion grabbed her upper arm to steady her. She recoiled so powerfully that they had to scramble to keep their footing. The stool clattered to the marble floor and tried valiantly to trip them both.

“O Dio!”
Francesca aimed an injudicious kick at the stool, and it spun away, clattering woodenly across the floor. “Ow!”

Orion reached for her. She ducked away from him as if his hands were aflame. “Don't touch me!” Her hip rebounded against her worktable. A chunk of stone rocked sideways, nearly rolling from the table.

Orion withdrew sharply. “Oh for pity's sake, Chessa! You'll hurt yourself!”

She sidestepped into clear floor, holding her hands up before her. “You kissed me! Why did you kiss me?”

Orion opened his mouth, but he had no answer.
You kissed me first.
“I—you—I haven't the faintest idea,” he muttered finally.

Francesca frowned and folded her arms before her. It was a slight improvement over actively fending him off as if he were a bandit after her reticule, but not much.

She glared at him. “You shouldn't have done that. We said we wouldn't do that. We said—”

“I know!” Orion ran his hands through his hair. “I know what we said. I meant it—I still mean it! I don't want”—I
want
you—“some sort of torrid entanglement! I want”—I want
you
—“to work, just as you want to work!” He spread his hands. “I—I just—” He sighed. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

She scowled but dropped her defensive posture somewhat. “I suppose that's understandable.” She rubbed her hands together pensively. “After all, we crossed a great many boundaries last night.”

Orion could not help a self-conscious grin at those particular words. She pursed her lips to keep from smiling back, but her cheeks pinked even as her eyes danced. “It might take
a bit longer to rebuild those walls than we originally theorized,” she said primly.

She was delectable.

Am I truly going to go the rest of my life without taking her into my arms again?

Yes. Absolutely
. He would never, ever hold her again.

She must have been thinking along similar lines, for she pressed her open hands down, smoothing her skirts. “It is a good thing we are going to the ball tonight. The laboratory is too—”

Secluded. Secret. Theirs and theirs alone.

“Private,” he finished for her.

She nodded. “Yes. Exactly what I meant.” She checked the dainty watch she wore pinned to her bodice. “Speaking of the ball, I must get some rest if I'm going to last the night.” She gathered up her notes into a neat stack and replaced the paperweight stone upon them. Then she stepped back and yawned widely. “Oh, pardon me!” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I feel as though I could sleep for a week! And I don't know how I shall be able to dance, when my body is so sore—”

Her eyes widened, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Orion wished he could capture the expression on her lovely face forever—mingled mortification and mischief—for it perfectly summed up his unique and marvelous Francesca.

He looked down at her fondly. “If you expect me to apologize, I have no intention of doing so. I feel as if I were run over by an ale cart!”

She smiled freely up at him for the first time since they'd risen that morning. “You'll get no remorse from me, Mr. Worthington!”

With that, she slipped past him with a laugh and a breath of orange blossoms and scampered from the laboratory.

Orion's smile faded slowly.

“No remorse from me, Mr. Worthington,” she had said.