One Wicked Night (26 page)

Serena swallowed, feeling the same disconcerting connection to him she had experienced the night they met. The inexplicable need to touch him followed quickly.

She broke their stare and glanced down at the board between them. He had moved his knight out of her bishop’s path. Without thought, she moved her bishop back within striking distance of his knight.

She watched his fingers curve around the pawn in front of his queen, wondering if they would feel as arousing, as soft, as they had before. Chastising herself for such lascivious thoughts, especially on a Sunday, she took his knight without considering why he hadn’t moved it from harm’s way.

With a killing grin, he slid his bishop across the board to capture hers. “Will you surrender now?”

Her gaze flew to his. His eyes were a captivating green, deep and mischievous, challenging and erotic. She took a deep breath to steady her pulse. “Of course not. It’s only a momentary setback.”

He grasped his queen, holding her in the palm of his hand. His thumb caressed the length of her body. “I’ll give you fair warning: When I’ve set my sights on something, I do not give up until it is mine. Completely.”

The hot look speared her with desire. Contemplating his touch had gotten her bishop captured in the first place.

“I shall take a chance.”

The next twenty minutes passed in silence. Yet this quiet was charged with an energy she couldn’t explain, but found increasingly familiar in his presence. Though she made her required moves, too often her eyes and thoughts strayed from the game at hand to Lucien. And he knew it. She could tell by the smoldering smiles and stares he sent her way.

Serena slid her queen across the board, paying little attention to where she put it. She studied her husband instead, taking in broad shoulders, inky raven hair, the strength of his jaw, the glitter of his green eyes. Air suddenly seemed scarce.

He reached for his bishop and glided it diagonally across the board. With a confident tap, he positioned the piece before her king, two diagonal spaces away.

“Check,” he uttered softly into the silence.

Serena lifted her gaze to his, surprised by his assertion—yet not. She sensed that, as with the chess pieces, he was closing in on her, breaking apart her defenses, sliding beneath them to capture what he desired.

He watched her with a hypnotic stare. His knowing look told her he knew the effect he had upon her. In alarm, Serena bit her lip, stifling the urge to reach across the table and touch him. The heat in his eyes flared to new, intense heights. The most secret part of her moistened in response.

Serena swallowed nervously, knowing she should look away and assess the danger to her king. But Lucien’s stare drew her in and in, refusing to release her.

“Mate.” His voice dropped another octave, sending shivers across her skin.

Mate? With him? Now?
She began trembling. She could no longer deny that she wanted him far more than was wise. Worse, he knew it. Where on earth was she going to find the strength to resist?

She should leave the room immediately, call him a rogue and turn away. Instead, her gaze remained rooted to his. Her breath turned fast, shallow. Her pounding heart roared in her ears.

His gaze zeroed in on her mouth. Her lips parted; her breathing accelerated. He reached for her arms, fingers wrapping around her, toppling game pieces as he pulled her closer.

Without thought, she leaned forward. Their lips met in a rush. That kiss ended. He began another. She didn’t protest. Instead, she reveled in the press of lips to lips, the togetherness. With each additional kiss, she realized how much she had missed this . . . missed him.

Hunger set in: dark, vibrating, thought-robbing. When his tongue touched the seam of her lips, surging more pent-up desire through her, she gladly opened her mouth beneath his gentle prodding.

He pushed her back against the cushions. She went willingly, shivering at the feel of his lips exploring her throat. She should stop him—and herself. Lucien and his provocative charm had caused her fall from social grace. The fire between them did not need this kind of feeding. But the razor edge of desire sliced her logic to ribbons.

“My God,” he breathed against her skin. “How can you make me want you so completely, so quickly?”

A thrill shot through her body, some burst of feminine confidence too heady to ignore. Before she could respond—or think—she felt his hand against the back of her knee.

Higher he climbed, the feathery touch of fingers sending sparks straight up her thighs, to the wet, secret place in between. Lucien studied her with an expression akin to wonder in his green eyes. Dying firelight cast its light, illuminating his features with a golden glow. Her nerves teemed with tingles, her skin sensitive to his slightest breath.

She felt so gloriously alive, so wonderfully whole and aware as he pressed his lips to hers again. The winter of her senses gave way to spring, to a bloom of sensations swirling though her body. Inhaling raggedly, she drew in his scent, something as mysterious and intoxicating as midnight.

Serena clung to Lucien as he smoothed his fingers up the outside of her thigh with a touch softer than velvet, then slid his way across her hip. She gasped. Her most secret flesh burned with heat, with impatience for his touch. Perspiration beaded between her breasts as he inched his hand closer . . . so close.

He claimed her mouth once more. She melted against him, into him, until his palm finally covered her sex.

Serena moaned. Above her, Lucien tensed before his caresses dipped lower, his fingers plowing straight into the heat of her clenching channel.

Lightly, he stroked the sensitive nub, his touch infuriatingly slow. A demand that he do something to ease this ache swelled along with her need. He captured her mouth again, trapping her words inside.

His tongue swirled, played, teased hers, engaging her in a game of advances and retreats. She followed where he led, feeling as if the center of her being were ablaze.

He pressed his fingers inside her a moment later. A shower of pinpoint heat shot through her. She arched upward, bringing their bodies closer. His fingers nudged and fondled—and drove her halfway to insanity.

“Lucien,” she said between pants.

“I know,” he murmured, his own breath no less steady. “I know.”

After a moment’s adjusting, Lucien opened his breeches. He lifted her skirt as he touched his lips to hers, then positioned himself between her thighs.

Her gaze clung to his face. The impassioned intensity clear in his blazing eyes, the determined set of his mouth, echoed the feelings thundering inside her. She floated on a tingling sea of sensation as she parted her legs, opening herself to him in offering.

Startled, Serena shoved at Lucien, then leapt away like a guilty child. Through the haze of desire, she stared at him, blinking, confused. Dear Lord, what had she been doing? Giving herself to a man who had made her the biggest scandal in London, who cared only for her body and the child she carried. A man who believed her no better than her mother.

Lucien tried to block her path. “Sweetheart, please. Come with me. Nothing should prevent us from the pleasure of being man and wife.”

He caressed her arm, her shoulder. When jolt of pleasure wound up her arm and spread inside her, she jerked away. “Pleasure? I am the talk of every drawing room in the city. Because of you. Because of this farce of a marriage. Do you have any idea how terrible it feels to be spoken of so viciously?”

“Your grandmother told me about your mother.”

She lifted her chin. “You think I’m no better. That with a few kisses and pretty words, my blood will give me away and I will fall into your bed. Is that not right?”

He paused, as if weighing his words carefully. “I did not know your mother.”

“Well, my lord, you do not know me, either. And it will be a cold day indeed before I give myself to a man who thinks me a whore and cares not whether the whole world concurs.”

The maid entered, and Serena sat up in bed, frowning at the bright sunlight streaming through garish red drapes. “What time is it?” she asked, bewildered by the sun’s brightness.

“Just about eight, me lady. Ye were sleepin’ so well when Caffey and I came to get ye at six, we couldn’t wake ye.”

Serena pried open her gritty eyes and bit back a reply that she probably had not fallen asleep until six.

In the wee hours of the morning, she had come to a conclusion about her new marriage, one she planned on making perfectly clear as soon as she could find her rogue of a husband.

With a tired groan, she rose. Mildred helped her dress, explaining that Caffey had gone to Grosvenor Square to supervise the remainder of Serena’s packing. As the maid buttoned up the back of her dress, she said, “Are ye feelin’ well today? Yer cheek is healin’ right quickly.”

Serena tried to smile at Mildred’s mothering ways.

“We’re all glad—the staff—ye married his lordship,” she said. “The house needs a mistress, and Lord Daneridge is much too kind to be without a good wife.”

Kind was not the word she would have used to describe Lucien Clayborne at the moment. He had forced this marriage at the sacrifice of her good name. Yes, presumably to protect her, but certainly he had other means to keep her safe. Then after nearly seducing her last evening, he had gone out—all night.

She had watched him leave the house in full evening black at ten. For a few hours, she read, pretending she did not care what whore he spent his night with. At three, she took up a place by her window to await his return. At dawn, she had retired to her bed, furious that he had the audacity to spend the night out, probably cavorting with loose-moraled women.

Why did that bother her? It wasn’t as if she loved him, or had any intention of succumbing to his seduction again herself. Still, the fact he had set out to tempt her and nearly succeeded hurt. That she had wanted him enough to surrender hurt even more.

Was she becoming more like Mama each day? That question had haunted her sleepless hours almost as much as the vision of Lucien in another woman’s bed.

“There. Ye look right as rain,” Mildred declared after carefully applying a bit of rice powder to the small bruises on her cheek and forehead.

Serena thanked the woman and went downstairs. She skipped the offer of a hearty breakfast, intent on finding her husband. If she was going to live under Lucien’s roof until Alastair could be stopped, they obviously needed to review some of the previously established rules.