A Dangerous Man (35 page)

“Have you heard anything of Will?” she asked.

Ah. He could let his breath go now. That is why she’d come.

“No, Mercy. I have tried. Believe me, I’ve used every resource I can think of, but I haven’t had any success yet. Still, eventually, if we search long and hard enough, we will find him.”

Her head bent forward and she studied her lap.

“Mercy,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “Will’s disappearance might be for the best.”

“How can that be?” she asked, looking up. He was relieved that there was no suspicion in her eyes, just grave consideration.

“If he is found he will have to stand on murder charges.”

“But he saved our lives,” she protested.

“I know. But Will was in an opium den and he
killed a … conspicuous member of society. From behind. At least this way Will remains free.” She didn’t reply and he plunged on. “I swear, if we find him, I’ll see that he receives the best counsel in England, but I can’t swear what the outcome of his trial might be.” He paused. “Mercy, what do you want me to do?”

She took a deep breath. “Stop looking.”

He nodded and for a few strained moments they shared the silence. “I expect you’ll be returning to America,” he finally said, longing to gather her in his arms, to hold her and never let her go, knowing that was impossible.

“Oh. America. Yes, I suppose so.”

“I’m sorry your stay here was so unhappy.”

She stared at him, clearly startled, and he cursed himself for having made such a monstrous understatement.

“Well,” she responded, the corner of her mouth quirking, her humor impossible to completely subdue, even now, “your stay in my country wasn’t particularly pleasant either.”

“That’s true.”

Once more they lapsed into silence. The mantel clock struck the quarter hour and Mercy scowled at it. She stood up, dusting off the glowing satin skirt. She was going to leave. Maybe this time forever.

He held on to his resolve, made himself stand still, like the rock they sometimes called him, though he felt as though he were being cut off at the knees and his heart’s blood was streaming out of him and God knew he’d never been more aware
of how painfully, cruelly alive he was or how infinitely long a lifetime could last.

“How many men did you kill in America?” she asked.

The question caught him off-guard and he answered, “Three.”

“Were they fair fights?”

He didn’t know what she was looking for, but as much as he wanted to do otherwise, he could only let her find the truth. “No. They weren’t. They couldn’t be. I was a better shot than they were. Much, much better.”

The smooth skin between her dark brows puckered with displeasure and the bandage dipped over her eye. “You shot them in the back?” she asked, pulling the gauze off. A rosy jagged line threaded the pearly sheen of her temple.

“No.”

“You drew first?”

“No.”

“Then how was it unfair?”

He looked at her helplessly. “I never miss.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“I see.” She reached behind her throat and started fiddling with the clasp of the amber necklace that nestled between her breasts. It would own her skin’s warmth as well as the heat of the sun.

“I see,” she repeated. “You were remiss in not only failing to issue a statement regarding your abilities but neglecting to dispense the warning among the general population. And certainly you
should have taken out ads in all the newspapers declaring ‘I Never Miss.’ ”

He gave her a sardonic smile. “That might have exacerbated matters. There’s always some fool who wants to test his skill.”

“Aha!” She pounced on the admission, leaning forward like a barrister in front of a jury. “What could you have done to make them fair fights?”

“I could have not been there.”

He heard it in his own voice, the regret, the deep welling sorrow. Not guilt. He had come too far for guilt. But regret. Yes. There was that. There would always be that.

She’d studied him for a few eternal moments. He had never felt more vulnerable, never; not in the shallow troughs of North Africa with a thousand rifles pointing at him; not in a Texas saloon, his back to the door and a gun barrel reflected in the mirror. This woman knew everything now. Every part of him.

She went back to fiddling with her necklace. “Stubborn, ornery … If you hadn’t been there, I would have been dead.” She pulled the necklace off and dropped it on the bed. With both hands she reached behind her again. The position thrust her bosom out, the sweet curves swelled over the tightening embrace of her bodice. Hart swallowed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, feeling dazzled by the brilliant morning light, the smoky spiced scent of her, the lazy tick of the clock marking time.

“I’m getting undressed,” she said.

The damn buttons wouldn’t come free and her courage was fast eluding her. She needed to do this and she needed to do it now. Hart was standing absolutely motionless a dozen feet away. His expression was stony, impassive, remote. Only his eyes were alive, desperate and pleading.

He loved her.

There was not the slightest doubt in her mind that he loved her. Beryl’s words echoed through her mind. He loved but he did not know how to be loved.

She would show him. He wouldn’t have a single doubt about
her
love when he left this room.

Her fingers worked numbly over the small pearl buttons. Each second he stood watching her with his face calm and his eyes burning grew more torturous. Suddenly, with a growl of frustration, she seized the edges of her bodice and ripped them apart. Tiny buttons sprayed through the air and skittered noisily across the floor.

“There,” she said calmly, pushing the sleeves down over her chemise. He still hadn’t moved.

It wouldn’t do. She could offer herself to him as though her body were a gift, but she knew he would accept it in just that manner. This man needed more than that. He needed to be courted.

Pushing the heavy cloth down over her hips, she squirmed out of it, dropping it to the floor. She stepped over the ring of discarded satin and unlaced
the corset. She pulled it off and held it up as though for his inspection, dangling it from her fingertips. Then she dropped it too. Why the deuce didn’t he say something?

“Mercy.”

She barely heard him, could not tell if the single word was an invocation or a petition. She looked up.

Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. He approached her slowly, as though afraid she’d bolt, or suddenly laugh. His beautiful eyes were dark with emotion. He stopped a hand’s breadth away. His chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, his eyes searching her face.

“Have to?” she asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “Yes. I do have to. I want you. I don’t know any other way. I want your body next to mine. I want you in me.”

She cupped the hard angles of his jaw between both hands. His beard scratched her palm. How long had she wanted to touch him, to learn the texture of his strong, still features? She sighed with sensual gratification.

She moved her fingers lightly over his face. His jaw was strong and tense, the skin above the line of his beard unexpectedly smooth. He held her with no more than the expression in his eyes, rapt and questioning.

He was the most dangerous man she’d ever known. Everything about him was whipcord hard
and lightning motion held in check. Lethal and tensile. And he shivered because she touched him.

She worked the first buttons of his collar open, revealing his strong throat. She ignored the impulse to kiss him there, instead unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. She glanced up and her fingers faltered in their task.

He was watching her warily, nearly fearfully; only a tightening of the skin near his temples and along his jaw were evidence that he’d been pushed to the wall and was clinging to this self-imposed immobility as a last defense.

The final buttons came loose and she parted the stiff white linen carefully, exposing his chest, muscled and sleek and smooth. She reached up to his shoulders and swept the material from his broad shoulders, tugging it off.

He trembled. She placed her hands on the broad span of his shoulders and raised herself on her toes. His gaze impaled her for an instant before his eyelids drifted shut and she kissed him. His mouth opened on a groan. His lips were full and firm and warm beneath hers. She nibbled at his lower lip, begging him to act, to kiss her back.

Still he didn’t touch her. He didn’t lift an arm to restrain or hold or keep her near. He stood, all of his body held by some invisible force, accepting her kiss.

It was so exquisitely gentle. Not a kiss at all, really. Her lips trailed over his jaw and hovered open over his mouth, mingling their breath before passing on. She felt the sleek inner lining of his
lower lip, the warm, firm pad of his upper. She felt his quick, warm breaths fanning her cheek as she plied his face with tender kisses, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his eyelids, his temple … again and again returning to his mouth. He smelled of bleached linen and smoke and a deep, elusive yet ineffable masculine musk.

She combed her fingers through his hair—cool, crisp, and silky. He turned his cheek into her hand and rubbed his face against her palm, a deep rumbling groan like a cougar’s purr coming from deep within his throat. Such incredible sweetness.

Fallen woman? The idea flickered through her sense-befuddled mind. A woman doesn’t
fall
, she drowns in drugging, langorous kisses. He lifted his head and she made a sound of protest.

“I’m not going to do anything,” he whispered raggedly. “Nothing but kiss you. I just want to kiss you,” he said, trying to convince … her? himself? “Please.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes.” She threaded her fingers through the thick brown hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him down.

“Kiss me, Hart,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He sounded winded, urgent. He covered her mouth and this time hunger surged beneath the tenderness. He slanted over her, his arm snaking about her waist. He widened his stance and hauled her hips hard against the berth his legs made.

She felt him. He was hard there, a thick swell pressed against the jointure of her thighs, and he
was moving, a sharp repositioning of his lower torso rocking against her, one big hand cupping the back of her head, the other holding her buttocks. She should have been shocked; she only wanted more of it. She met his movement with her own and he growled.

His tongue wet the seam of her lips in a demanding stroke. She complied. His tongue glided deep within. She clutched him as his tongue played with hers, each thrust deeper and wetter and hotter. Her knees started to buckle. He didn’t catch her. He followed her down, down onto the pile of sunlight-heated satin and lace and linen, his shoulders bowing over her.

She arched into the hard, tight body shading her, hungry for him. She wanted this. Wanted him over her and in her. He pushed himself up on his arms. The muscles of his chest and upper arms stood out in corded relief, bronzed and quivering.

“I want you, Hart,” she said. He closed his eyes. His features were set in a mask of concentration. The light flowed like a molten veil over his straining body. “I want you.”

“You don’t know,” he said savagely, his eyes still tightly shut. “I can’t control this. I can’t pace this.”

“Then don’t.”

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” he said, his breath coursing in and out of his clenched teeth. She reached between them and touched his flat, copper colored nipple. He fell heavily forward on his forearm and with his other hand clasped her
around her wrist. For a second he hesitated, but only for a second, and then he flattened her palm over his breast, splaying her hand and holding it there. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

“Then why did you cry?” he demanded, his eyes flashing with brutal self-condemnation.

“Because you
stopped
. It stopped. Because you took me
there
and then left me!” She was ablaze with an unquenchable fire and she needed to follow it to wherever it led. Wantonly inspired, she dragged her chemise off her shoulders and lifted a breast so that her nipple grazed his. He doubled as though he’d taken a blow.

“Dear God.”

She leaned forward and touched the tip of her tongue to his chest. “Please,” she said, licking him as greedily as he’d once done her. He pulled her head roughly against him, holding her there.

“Please,” she said again.

“Yes,” he rasped, “I’ll please you … or die trying.”

He lowered her down and peeled off the rest of the fine white chemise. Sunlight bathed her naked breasts in warmth. He met her gaze, his own eyes dark and intent.

“I’ll pleasure you.” It was a threat and a promise. She tried to rise up on her elbows to recapture his mouth but he pushed her back down. The urgency had left him, replaced by an indolent, magnificent sexual assurance.

“I will kiss every part of you,” he purred.
“Here.” He ran the tip of his finger over her lower lip, tugging it open and gliding his forefinger along the moist satiny interior. She closed her mouth around the tip and sucked gently.