An Improper Proposal (12 page)

But he had to be. Because why else would he be kissing her like this? She had seen people kiss before—she’d caught Ross and Georgiana in the act once or twice before—and it hadn’t been like this. This wasn’t kissing. This was devouring. His lips had pried hers open, and his tongue had slipped into her mouth. Fortunately, Mei-Ling had once described this style of kissing to Payton, so while it was surprising that Drake was employing it—even more surprising that he was employing it on her
—
Payton at least had a fairly good idea what he was up to, and didn’t even think about driving her fist into his solar plexus, which was what she certainly would have done had it been any other man but Drake kissing her.

Or maybe not. Because what Drake was doing was excessively pleasurable. Payton hadn’t quite believed Mei-Ling when she’d assured her that having the right man’s tongue in one’s mouth was enjoyable. But she believed her now. His kiss was doing all sorts of things to her—mostly making her want more of him inside of her than just his tongue. This was, of course, the purpose behind that kind of kissing, or so Mei-Ling had informed her.

Payton was pleased that she could now report back that yes, indeed, it worked, exactly the way it was supposed to. Because she had already lifted both her arms and wrapped them around Drake’s neck, eager to bring him closer to her, and perfectly heedless of his evening coat, which fell, neglected, to the fountain’s marble rim, one sleeve dangling into the water. Her fingers were in his soft, straight hair—fine as baby’s hair, she realized, with surprise—straining him closer. Somehow, she’d gone from sitting to kneeling on the fountain’s edge—possibly because his hands had left her face, and had gone to grip her waist instead, his fingers sinking through the thin material of her nightdress, half lifting her from her seat as he suddenly stood, and pulled her against him.

The explosive reaction of her body to that first meeting of starched white shirtfront and soft, lace-inset bodice was completely unexpected—at least by Payton. Suddenly, she was melded against what, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she could feel heat emanating from it, she might have mistaken for the mainmast of a frigate, it was so straight, and so completely unmalleable.

This, she thought, is what Drake feels like, then. She wasn’t particularly surprised. She had been tossed about enough by her brothers to know that men felt very different from women—and very different, even, from one another. Neither Ross nor Raleigh was as hard as Drake. Hudson might have been, but thankfully, she’d never been pressed up this close to Hudson, so she had no real information to make a comparison.

One of Drake’s hands had dipped down to grip her bottom, a peculiarly singular sensation, since she didn’t have anything on beneath her nightdress. She gasped, startled by the sudden heat from his hands … and in a place where she had never felt the heat of a human touch before.

But if he heard her swift intake of breath, he gave no sign. He’d brought his lips away from hers and was kissing her throat now, where his hands had gripped it so roughly not a half hour ago. Every so often, his mouth came dangerously close to the place where her lace collar, which she hadn’t bothered to fasten, fell open. She hadn’t realized before how it was that he’d known earlier that she was cold, but she sussed it out the minute her breasts came into contact with that wall of hard muscle behind Drake’s shirt: her nipples were as stiff as if the temperature had plummeted to arctic weather conditions. Lord, how embarrassing!

But Drake didn’t seem to mind—probably because she wasn’t the only one suffering from such a malady. The hand on her buttock had tightened, bringing her pelvis into solid contact with the front of his trousers, where something very hard and a good deal larger than Payton had been expecting was pressing, seemingly eager to be set free.

Now this, she thought to herself, was simply too much to be believed. It was one thing to be kissed by Connor Drake—it was a wonderful, magical thing—but this went beyond the pale. All of that was for her? It wasn’t possible. She was Payton Dixon, remember, who five minutes earlier Connor Drake hadn’t so much as ever even looked at twice, let alone harbored something like that for.

She was so bemused by this discovery that it seemed only natural to reach down and run curious fingers over it. She felt the need to reassure herself that what she’d felt was absolutely real. She certainly didn’t mean anything by it, although, when she looked back on it, she supposed she could see why Drake reacted he way he did.

Still, it was a little humiliating when he abruptly thrust her from him, then backed away, as if she’d suddenly burst into flames.

Unsupported, she practically toppled into the fountain. And she did bark her shin rather sharply against the marble rim as she tried to regain her balance.

“Ow,” she said, through lips that felt raw from where his razor stubble had grazed them.

Her shin hurt, it was true, but what hurt more, what felt like someone had suddenly thrown a bucket of icy water at her, was the horrified look on Drake’s face. He no longer stood with his back to the moon, and she could read his expression only too well. His chest rose and fell as rapidly as hers, but he was pale, as pale as the marble upon which they’d sat. And that was saying something, because ordinarily, Drake wore the darkest of tans.

Lifting her injured leg, Payton massaged the place where she’d barked her shinbone, eyeing Drake uncertainly. Evidently, she had committed a crime of some sort. Apparently, young ladies did not go around running their fingers over the fronts of gentlemen’s trousers.

Well, bloody hell. She knew that. But he’d had his hand all over her backside. Had that been called for? And she wasn’t the one who’d started the whole kissing thing in the first place.

That kissing thing. Why, oh, why had he stopped kissing her? It had been the most glorious moment of her whole entire life, and she’d had to go and ruin it by touching him there. What was wrong with her? Mei
—
Ling had told her once that there were some women who liked making love so much, they’d do it every chance they got. She’d never had reason before to suspect she was one of those women, but it seemed all too apparent now. That was the only explanation for what she’d done.

Damn. That explained a lot.

Seeing that Drake was still staring down at her—though from a safe distance of about six feet away—Payton made a very unladylike face and said, “I suppose you’re going to feel obligated to tell Ross about this. Well, I would thank you very kindly if you’d keep it to yourself. It’s embarrassing enough as it is without me having to endure a lecture about it from him.”

Drake only stared at her some more. He was actually breathing quite a bit harder than she was. His broad shoulders were practically heaving. “Payton,” was all he managed to gasp out before she continued.

“Oh, I know, you probably think I’m in need of proper guidance and all of that, but I assure you, nothing like this will ever happen again.” The pain in her shin was lessening. She put her toot down and continued. “Frankly, you’re as much to blame as I am. You started it. I don’t suppose Ross would feel much like being partners with you if he knew you were going around, putting your tongue in his sister’s mouth.”

She knew this was perfectly untrue, that if she told her brothers what Drake had done, they’d either refuse to believe her, or find a way to blame her for it, most likely by saying it was what she deserved for climbing out windows after midnight in her nightdress.

But there was no reason Drake had to know that.

“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” she demanded, lifting a hand to touch her mouth, which was still tingling from where he’d ravaged it. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you’re supposed to be getting married in the morning.”

“I know it.” He turned his back on her suddenly, and strode away.

For a second she thought she’d gone too far, that in her effort to cover up her own embarrassment over what had occurred—and disappointment that it had stopped—she’d driven him away completely. She was hanging her head, feeling tears—which she’d managed to hold at bay up until then with her feigned indignation—fill her eyelids, when he came striding back. Apparently, he was pacing, as he had a tendency to do when he was disturbed about something, and not, as she’d originally thought, walking away.

“Don’t you think I know that?” he demanded, furiously enough to startle her. Lifting a hand, he dragged it through his overlong hair, making the ends stand up a bit. “Don’t you think that’s exactly what—You’ve got to forgive me, Payton.”

This wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting him to say. She’d expected him to yell at her. She’d expected him to hurl accusations at her. She’d been ready for them. She was already bristling with defensiveness.

But then he’d had to go and ask her forgiveness. Not just ask her forgiveness, but ask it in that voice, filled with self-loathing, with that look on his face … Lord, if she hadn’t felt like crying before, she felt like it now.

“What 1 did,” he went on, in that same tone, “was unpardonable.”

He’d come up to her now. She wouldn’t look him in the face, because she knew if she did, and saw that expression he wore, she’d never be able to keep from weeping. Instead, she kept her chin down, and studied the tops of his shoes. They were black shoes, very shiny and expensive-looking. And why not? He was a rich man now.

“Payton. Look at me.”

She shook her head mutely. He went on, anyway.

“That should never have happened.” His voice was hard now. He was angry, really angry. “It was my fault entirely. I can only ask your forgiveness, and assure you that it will never, ever happen again …”

That brought her head up. She looked up at him, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.

“Why not?” she asked, her voice catching, although she thought she already knew the answer. He was never going to kiss her again because she was such a wicked, wanton thing. Men didn’t like girls who were forward, girls who chased after them or went around thrusting their hands at the front of their trousers. She’d seen the look on Drake’s face when she’d touched him there. That had not been a particularly happy look. He’d been surprised, maybe, and something else she couldn’t identify. But not happy.

“You know why not, Payton,” he said, roughly. “Because tomorrow morning I’m getting married, and then … then I’m going away.”

“But you’ll be back,” Payton said. She raised a wrist and wiped at the tears that had escaped—damn it!—down her cheeks. “You’ll be back, and what’s to stop this from happening again? I really think it—” She had to say it. “I really think it might just be better if you didn’t marry Miss Whitby, after all.”

“I’ve got to marry her, Payton. And this won’t happen again, because we won’t be seeing one another again, you and I.”

She blinked at him bewilderedly. “We won’t? Why not?”

“I told you.” He spoke with infinite gentleness. “Because I’m going away. I’ll be operating the Dixon and Sons office in Nassau. Becky and I will be living in New Providence—”

“New Providence?” A spark flickered deep inside her, making her forget all about her tears. “You’re … you’re upping anchor and moving to New Providence?”

“Yes, Payton. I thought you knew that.”

“You’re marrying that woman.” Her fingers, as if of their own accord, curled into fists at her sides. His words had fanned the spark into a very healthy flame. “You kissed me like that, knowing all along that you’re marrying that woman, and moving to New Providence?”

Drake looked a little alarmed now. He even stepped backward a pace. “Payton—”

“After kissing me like that, you’re marrying Miss Whitby and moving to New Providence?”

Payton couldn’t remember ever having felt quite so angry. Maybe the time she’d seen those men in port in Shanghai, kicking that dog. Maybe then.

Certainly like then, she was completely unable to control her temper. Her retaliation, when it came, was every bit as quick as it had been against those men back in China. Pulling back her right fist, she sent it plummeting, with strength honed from years of hauling rigging right alongside her brothers and their crews, into Drake’s shirtfront, just above the waistband of his trousers, exactly where Raleigh had instructed her was the ideal place to punch a man, as it wreaked havoc with his innards without unduly harming the knuckles of the puncher.

“That’s what I think about you,” she informed him, and was pleased to see that the blow had taken him completely unawares. He let out an oof and doubled over. He had, in fact, to reach for the rim of the fountain to keep from falling to his knees. “You,” Payton continued, “New Providence, the
Constant
and bloody Miss Whitby!”

Without another word, Payton turned tail and stalked back toward the house.

She was still within calling distance when Drake straightened. After inhaling a few gulps of the fresh morning air, he even felt capable of speech again.

Still, he did not call to her. What would have been the point? It was bad enough that he’d allowed himself to lose control once. He could not risk it happening again.

He watched her, a ghostly figure in her flowing white nightdress, as she made her way not back toward the window from which she’d climbed down, nor toward the front of the house, but around the back, where the servants’ entrance lay. For someone who’d only arrived at the house that afternoon, she already had a solid grasp of its layout.

Well, that was Payton. She was as good a navigator as any of the Dixons, with an unerring sense of direction. She could find her way through the thickest fog, the blackest night. She would certainly find her way safely to her bed. It had been foolish, really, of him to have moved Gainsforth and Raybourne to rooms at the opposite end of the house from Payton’s. She was a young lady who could certainly take care of herself.

His newly tender gut was testament to that. But, be thought, as he lowered himself to the rim of that same fountain upon which, just moments before, he’d so forgotten himself, he’d more than deserved the blow. What had he been thinking? What had come over him? Never in his life had he done something so rash, so wholly without scruple, as kissing Payton Dixon like that. It defied logic. He’d known this girl for almost the whole of her life. He’d watched her grow from a pantalooned toddler to pigtailed adolescent. And now, simply because someone had put her in a corset, he was lusting after her as if she were a dockside doxy and he was a sailor who’d been too long from port.