The Art of Ruining a Rake (3 page)

Some of her fire went out.
Had
she hurt him? He had a way of seeming sincere, even when she knew he was a blackguard.

He took a step around the back of her desk, drawing closer to her still. His crystalline eyes penetrated hers. “My heart has been stomped on. Flattened. Ground right into the carpet.”

His last stride brought him within arm’s reach of her.

She didn’t need a mirror to see her treasonous response to his nearness. Her lips had parted. Tiny, hitched breaths escaped her as her bosom rose and fell. Even while she knew his words to be nothing but sweet, addictive venom, she wanted them to be true.
Had
he been affected by her harsh treatment of him? Had she, perhaps, let her silent resentment simmer too hot, and too long?

She scrambled around her desk and dashed to the door. She couldn’t pity him! Next she’d be disrobing for him, and he hadn’t even tried to kiss her yet!

When she reached the closed door, she spun and stood tall again. If he tried anything more, she could dart into the hallway. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t hurt you.”

“Oh, but you did.” He pulled a buttery yellow curtain aside and peeked at the street. Then he yanked the window closed with one smooth motion. “Can you imagine how it’s pained me to know that while I was watching you from afar, you weren’t even aware of me? What we shared, my pet, meant nothing to you. It has taken me months to come to terms with it. My poor pride, you know. I’ve spent half a year in abject misery.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts and glowered at him. Did he expect her to eat up this rubbish with a spoon? She was one of dozens, if not hundreds, of his conquests.

Yet he claimed to have dwelt on her memory. She couldn’t help but feel proud. Perhaps he had. But not because she’d left her mark on his heart—she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that. Because Roman wore anguish as fashionably as a new cravat, and she’d used his mawkishness to her advantage. For in her years of watching him from afar, she’d come to the conclusion that while he pretended to care overly much about everything, in truth, he cared about nothing at all.

“You
like
abject misery,” she said accusingly. “Your closest acquaintances are your blue devils.”

His face darkened, an unexpected indication that there might be something real buried beneath his polished veneer. He cocked his head as if studying a fascinating specimen. Her. “That’s true. My poet’s heart is built for pining. That hardly means I haven’t felt every hour we’ve been apart. Every minute you’ve been,” he began his advance again, “hiding from me.”

Oh, devil take the man. There was only so much nonsense she could withstand before it became trying. “Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?”

She craned her neck as he came close enough to tower over her. She wasn’t afraid. For six long months, she’d erected a solid wall around her heart, isolating memories of their one night together. Instead of thinking of him, she’d poured her passion into her school, into her work, into her future. Not into thoughts of his perfect mouth on hers. Not into recalling those vivid blue eyes, or the feel of his naked, muscled body against hers. A man this contemptible couldn’t possibly cause a rational young lady like her a moment’s weakness—

He bent and seared her lips with his. The passion she’d smothered for six long months roared to life. She didn’t
like
him. She hadn’t
missed
him. But she’d never forgotten
this
. She tasted him and breathed in the smell of him. Through months of carefully crafted control, she managed not to reach for him. But her urge to touch him swelled to bursting.

She dug her fingernails into her upper arms and resisted. She shouldn’t let him kiss her. She certainly shouldn’t be kissing
him
. But…

As long as he was here, dressed in his London finery, as handsome as an archangel and drawing his tongue along hers in slow promise, what reason did she have to stop
him? All she must do was remain one step ahead. Lead him to his destruction, not the other way around. By his own admission, wasn’t she winning?

His hands cupped her shoulders through her dove gray gown. He used his height to coerce her one step backward, until her shoulders bumped against the door. She moaned against his lips. He wanted her. He desired her. He’d come all this way to kiss her again.

It was a heady power.

His hands slid along her upper arms. She tightened her forearms more firmly across her bodice. As though recognizing the wall between them, he encircled her wrists with his fingers. His knuckles brushed the bottom of her bosom as he gently pried her limbs from their shield.

Nothing stood between them now but their clothes…and their past.

His thumbs caressed her palms. Then his hands were on her, attempting to feel her shape through her stays. She tilted her head to one side and allowed him to trail hot kisses along her neck and against the ruffled fichu tucked into her bodice. One advantage of bringing London’s most notorious rake to heel was that he knew exactly how to make it worth her while.

“Miss Lancester,” he said between ticklish nibbles, “tell me you missed me, too.”

The blond stubble on his jaw glinted in the afternoon sun. His eyes were half-closed. He was so beautifully handsome, she could turn into a puddle of want at his feet.

No. She wanted him at
her
feet. And then she wanted him gone.

She angled her chin so he could kiss the delicate skin under her earlobe. “I would never say such a thing.”

Without warning, he lifted her and swept her to the desk. Papers slid from the polished mahogany. He paused to relocate her standish to a nearby bookshelf and in those two seconds, she had her chance to stop him from ravishing her again. Those seconds passed without incident.

He returned to her, dropping kisses along the side of her face before slanting his warm mouth over hers. His palms inched down her waist. She gasped as he branded her beneath her stays. His touch seemed to sear her heart, for she desired him with a passion that defied her feeble attempts to pretend otherwise.

An irrational passion. One that might very well leave him dead.

Her stomach heaved. She pulled away from his kiss. They must stop. Her father had died for his infidelity. Roman would surely meet the same fate if she were foolish enough to consider him hers.

Yet without his kisses, she felt bereft. Her fingers grappled for Roman’s lapels. “My lord?”

He opened his eyes slowly. Infinite azure gradually focused on her. As if he’d been far, far away. “Tell me to stop.”

She hesitated. Her fingertips drew along the folds of his cravat. What reason did she have to deny herself this moment, if she promised to walk away as coolly as she had done the time before? So long as he remained out of her reach, she couldn’t hurt him.

He couldn’t hurt her.

“Don’t stop,” she murmured, tugging him closer.

His eyes searched hers convincingly. “Am I worth it, then?”

He was an expert rake, one who couldn’t possibly care whether she loved him or not. He sought only to make her admit her weakness for him. She refused to give him the satisfaction. Yet she feared her answer was in her eyes, impossible to hide no matter how hard she tried. Because she did love him, as she always had.

Even if he didn’t deserve it.

His cravat rose and fell with each erratic breath. “As I thought,” he said of her silence. “You would deny me the chance to be happy
.
”

Oh, how she hungered for his words to be
true
.

He dipped his head and met her lips again. This time, his kiss was insistent. He tugged her fichu from her décolletage with his teeth and dropped the sheer fabric against her collarbone. “I’ve thought of nothing but you since the masque ball,” he said between grazes along her clavicle. “You can’t deny we were extraordinary. Say it. Tell me you missed me, too.”

She gripped the wool of his greatcoat and inhaled air laden with his lemon soap scent. She
had
thought of him. A woman didn’t forget the man who’d taken her virtue.

His lips teased her nipple beneath the many layers of cloth. He began inching fistfuls of gown up her legs. “Say it,” he urged her, his voice roughened with need.

But she wouldn’t admit she’d missed him. She wouldn’t surrender her hard won control. Their tryst had been one night’s rendezvous designed to avenge the many young ladies he’d ruined, and her own dashed hopes. A torrid assignation capping weeks of her concentrated effort to build his awareness of her, all for the goal of seducing him and walking away with her heart intact. How
could
she have missed him, when leaving him bereft had been her intent all along?

He tossed up her skirts, exposing her stocking-clad legs, and pulled her body along the slick surface of her desk. Her bottom almost reached the edge. With deft hands he unlaced her drawers and tugged them down, betraying his experience in such matters. But she refused to allow her temper to ruin this unexpected chance to have him for her own.
 

As his hands nudged gently at her knees, she could hear nothing but the sound of her frantic pulse. She could think of nothing but what he was about to do. He studied her for one breathless moment before he fully parted her legs. Then, bending down, he dipped his face toward her most intimate place. Those piercing eyes never left hers. When his tongue darted out to lick her, she jumped, then moaned as he began to sweep his tongue against her sensitive mound.

Quickly, her moans became whimpers. She could feel a familiar thing happening. Building from the place where his tongue met her flesh. He worked his tongue faster and she couldn’t stop, couldn’t look away, couldn’t keep her body from contracting and arching toward him. Suddenly, pleasure burst within her. She cried out, then clamped her hand across her lips, while the sound of her panting seemed to grow louder and louder until it overcame the staccato pounding of her blood.

It was as much his panting as hers, she realized. His cravat billowed as he rose from his knees. He loosened the fall of his breeches. His member sprang forth and she reached for it.
 

Today, now,
she pleaded silently, refusing to ask him aloud
. I can no longer wait for you.

Her whimper caused a breathless laugh to issue from his lips. He slid her even farther down so that she had to cling to him. And oh, how she held him tight. She’d never forget this bittersweet anticipation as long as she lived.

She hooked her heels around his thighs and silently begged again for him to hurry.

One of his large hands gripped his length. The other splayed across her back. He poised himself to enter her. But he didn’t, not yet. “Tell me,” he insisted, his brow marred by a frown.

She clung to him. Ached for him. All the while, she resisted him. “No.”

He watched her with those penetrating eyes. “I
did
miss you,” he rasped, and plunged himself into her.

Her heart sank to the floor. As though she’d fallen too far, too fast. He thrust himself deep into her again. And again. He held her so close, she could almost believe they’d been merged into one. Was she wrong?
Had
she
missed
him?

No. She would never have allowed herself to. She couldn’t risk it—

A knock sounded at the door. The same door she’d always encouraged her staff to enter without hesitation, for she abhorred formality in all things. Roman paused his punishing rhythm as her life stopped around her. She knew one true, terrible moment of destruction, of sensing her meticulously constructed plans about to come crashing down.

Mr. Mowry and Mr. Strickett entered, followed by a third person.

Mr. Strickett’s wife.

Lucy buried her face against Roman’s chest. He clamped his hand against her head and held her brow to his cravat. She fought a surge of hot tears. She
wouldn’t
cry. This
wasn’t
happening. She couldn’t have allowed herself to lose everything in a moment of weakness.

His voice rumbled through his chest. “If you don’t mind, please
leave
.”

Horrified laughter gurgled through her. She swallowed it back before it burst out. Surely, he hadn’t just said that.

Lightly, he squeezed her head. Whether because he knew she’d almost snickered aloud or to prevent her from showing her face, she didn’t know. But it was a small comfort that he held her at all.

In the background, Mrs. Strickett continued to make shocked noises and no one made any move to leave.

Roman cleared his throat. “Mr. Mowry, that was your cue to show our visitors through the door.”

“Y-yes, my l-lord,” her retainer stuttered, clearly stupefied to find his straitlaced employer with her skirts hiked to her thighs and a gentleman between her knees. “Please, sir, come this way. The drawing room is right through here.”

“I say!” Mr. Strickett finally exclaimed.

“I do, too!” Mrs. Strickett agreed.

Lucy prayed she’d sink straight through the desk. She wanted to disappear. This wasn’t happening. It was a nightmare. She’d fought too valiantly against the madness lurking in her blood to embrace it after one brief glimpse of Roman.

But she didn’t wake up. This was real.

Roman cupped her head and made murmuring sounds only she could hear. Oddly,
his
heart was hammering, too. He was just as frightened as she was. Why? Wasn’t this exactly the sort of thing he was always doing? Ruining innocent girls, leaving scandal and mayhem in his wake?