As Rich as a Rogue (26 page)

“But—”

“Do you know what a French letter is?” he asked as he pressed his lips to her breast.

“No.”

“It is a condom. A thing to prevent pregnancy.”

His words were like a low vibration on her skin, the scratch of his chin an erotic counterpart to the soft press of his lips. She was so focused on those sensations that she barely heard his words.

“I cannot help yesterday, but I will not risk a child again until we are wed.”

His chin brushed the side of her breast, and when he stopped speaking, his mouth found the point of her nipple. A tiny nip. A slow suck. And then another sharper nip.

“Mari, do you understand?”

“No,” she said. “Did you not hear me? I understand nothing of what you do or why, and that frightens me.”

His expression softened. “Or perhaps you do not understand the what and why of what
you
do, and that is terrifying.”

She blinked. It was so hard to think with his breath wrapping around the wet of her nipple. “Maybe. Yes, that is true. When I am with you, I frighten me.”

He smiled. “That I understand very well. You have pushed me in ways I never imagined.”

He tongued her nipple, and she arched into his attention. Her hands slid to his shoulders, where she clutched at him, while her mind splintered into a thousand wonderful sensations.

He switched to the other breast, making her whimper as he suckled. And when she might have dragged him back to her mouth, he took her hand and gently reset it into the sheets.

“Hold there,” he said as he kissed his way down her belly.

Her legs were splayed, her body quivering in hunger, and she had a fleeting question slip through her mind as he laved a circle around her navel. But she couldn't hold the thought for long, and so it slipped away as he…

He…

Oh!

He pushed her legs apart, settling between them so his shoulders kept them wide. Part of her was alarmed by this, but then she felt his thumb slide between her folds. The rough pressure and the broad caress made her gasp even as she pressed up toward him.

She wanted to say something. She wanted to be eloquent and perfect, but there was no place for that with him between her thighs. And before she could even catch the idea of words, he spoke for her.

“You are everything I want,” he said, his tone equal parts demand and reverence.

She didn't understand what was happening. The sensations were too wonderful for her to parse into meaning. Wet. Rough. Stroke. Suck. More and more while she thrust herself against him.

The tension was building. The sensations aggressive. She tightened her legs, but he held her knees down. And then it happened. Everything compressed together—a spring pressed tight—before releasing. Her body bucked. Her belly rippled. And everything was glorious experience as she flew.

Then she felt him, that thick presence at her entrance. Yes, that was what she'd been missing. Him filling her.

He was crouched above her, his body so wonderfully large. She arched, trying to take him inside. She was still contracting, her head thrown back into the bed, but she had the wherewithal to whisper.

“I would like to carry your child.”

She didn't know where the words came from, and she couldn't hold onto them once they were spoken. They were simply part of the experience.

“When we are wed,” he said.

“Yes.”

He thrust.

Stretched. Full. Big.

He made her feel so expanded. As if she could take the whole of him and still have room for joy. Her thoughts made no sense, and yet they too were part of this lovemaking.

Open.

Embracing.

While he thrust.

Harder and faster.

Yes.

More.

She gripped him with her legs.

Every impact ratcheted her higher.

And then he seated himself and stopped.

“Mari,” he said. “Mari!”

She opened her eyes.

“Say it.”

“What?”

“You are mine. Say it!”

Of course she was. In this place, in this moment, she had no doubts at all.

“Yours,” she said.

He grinned and became like a man driven to possess her. He thrust into her.

He: driven.

She: possessed.

Yes!

Peter collapsed sideways, his heart thundering in his ears. His orgasm had been powerful enough to black out his vision and obliterate his mind for a few glorious moments. And while he was there, she had milked him like a woman taking every last drop. The squeeze and release had been like a fist pulling him into her, and he had wanted to go.

So hard. So fast. And so amazing that he had lost himself in her.

Until it was done.

He shuddered, barely having the wherewithal to keep from crushing her. And still she squeezed him. Tiny pulses that sent pleasure bursting through his system.

God, she was exquisite.

He didn't want to separate from her. So he pulled her on top, maneuvering her boneless body so she lay with her hips on his and her head on his shoulder.

She fit perfectly, and he pressed kisses to her hair in reverence. Then he exhaled in bliss and let himself doze.

Drowsy as he was, he allowed himself to be lulled by a vision. The woman he'd wanted for six years finally beside him at the altar. She'd be dressed like an angel, and her words would ring strong and true.

“I do.”

Yes. He wanted that enough to be tempted to sleep. Except Mari was not a woman to be held down, even by vows spoken in church. If forced, she would honor her word, of course. He did not worry that she would cuckold him. His fear was something else. That her attention would wander elsewhere. Her mind would take over, telling her to do some such nonsense here or there. And it would drive a wedge between them.

His parents were one such couple. His father's interests went to town, his mother's to her garden and her books. It made for a cold home of disinterested conversation, if not outright sneers and dismissals, until husband and wife could barely stand to be in the same room with one another. As for the children…he and his brother had fled the moment they were able.

He did not want that with Mari. He had to capture her heart as thoroughly as he'd ensnared her body. But how? How to woo a mind that would not settle? That saw him as a villain no matter what he did? Especially since he was not a man who was good with words.

“Mari,” he murmured as he stroked a hand through her hair, “tell me why you hate fortune hunters.”

“Hmmm?”

Her word was more a purr of contentment, but she was rousing. Her hand lifted to brush across his arm. Her breath stuttered once then pulled in deep.

“What happened?” he asked. “To make you put them at the top of your list?”

“What happened?” she murmured. “They happened.”

“Who?”

She rattled off three names, most of them unfamiliar to him.

“What did they do?”

She snorted. “The usual. Dances. Parties. Flowers in the morning, sweet words in the afternoon, and then kisses in darkened alcoves at a ball.”

His anger roused, a dark and growling thing at the idea that she would kiss anyone else.

“Nothing so bad, you understand. Twice under the mistletoe, once behind a statue of Cupid. And then there was the stroll in a garden.” Her voice dropped on the last one, a clear note of fury.

“He forced you?”

“Into the garden? No. Against a tree? Yes. I hit him with my fan. Bloodied his nose.”

“Good. I hope you broke it.”

He felt her smile against his chest, and he stroked the hair from her forehead so he could plant a kiss to the skin there. Then he relaxed for a time, enjoying the simple sweetness of feeling her breath and relishing the vision of her bloodying the nose of an aggressive suitor. She was a firebrand, his Mari.

“I thought I loved them,” she finally said. “All three. I would have said yes if they'd asked. I did say yes to the first one, but Papa refused to honor the dowry. Not for a blighter, he said. And without the money, they all ran away.”

Given that he had firsthand experience with how her father negotiated marriage contracts, he understood how a young fortune hunter would disappear. But it grieved him to see how strongly the bastards had wounded her heart.

“Your father would not be an easy father-in-law,” he said. “I'm sure he did everything he could to frighten them away.”

She swallowed. “Are you frightened?”

“Not of him,” he said.

“Of me?”

“No.”

“Then—”

“I fear what I will do to win you, Mari. Your father has offered me a new contract.”

She lifted her head, her expression pinched. “Is it terrible?”

“No, it's quite generous.” Then before she could ask, he explained. “It's an employment contract, Mari. He is offering me a job instead of your hand.”

She gasped. “But you're the heir to the Earl of Sommerfield.”

His lips quirked in a wry smile. “I don't think he cares.”

“No, Papa wouldn't, but you do.”

He thought he did. He certainly expected that he would. His parents would be horrified if they ever heard of the offer. They would name it an insult and set about damaging her father's name in any way they could. Future earls did not have jobs. It had been hard enough for his father to stomach him working for the East India Company, and that had been half a world away.

“I may still do it,” he said, surprising himself as he spoke the words aloud. “If it meant earning your good graces.” And because his family name would soon become the object of great scandal.

She pressed a kiss to his chest. “I do not know how much further into my graces you can get.”

He smiled at that, but he knew her now. Knew her worries would get the better of her when she was no longer languid from pleasure and stretched bodily over him.

“What did these boys do to you, Mari? To make you write ‘no fortune hunters' at the top of your list?”

She sighed. “They did not hurt me, Peter. They just showed me that I cannot trust my heart in these things.”

“Because you were in love?”

“Because I believed myself desperately in love. And yet weeks after their defection, I felt nothing.”

“Pain fades to numbness.”

“You cannot imagine how stupid I was. I think of what they said, of what I believed.” She huffed out a breath. “My heart is not a sure guide in these matters. If anything, it will steer me completely wrong.”

“And so you trust your list and your mind, and ignore what your heart whispers.”

“My heart has learned to be silent.” She shifted then, lifting her head to set it on her fist. But the twist overbalanced her, and her hips slid away. He fell out of her and grimaced in regret.

“You put me in a quandary, then,” he said as he resettled her against his side. “I will marry you, Mari.” That was statement, not supposition. “But not until your heart wants me as fiercely as mine wants you.”

Would she hear what he was saying? Did she understand that he wanted her to feel? To know without reservation that he was the man for her? So he could marry her without constantly fearing that another one of her lists would put him out of favor? That at some point she wouldn't suddenly turn around and again name him the source of all her ills?

She sighed. “You make me rethink everything I thought I knew.”

“You have sent me to India, where I changed everything I was. And now, because of you, I think to hire myself out to your father, humiliating myself before all of Society.”

She looked at him, clearly stunned. “You would do that…for me?”

“I do that for money. So I will not need your dowry to wed you.”

She touched his lips with her fingers. She searched his face for an answer. But in the end, she simply closed her eyes and set her head against his heart.

“I was wrong,” she said. “You are not a fortune hunter.”

“But I am,” he said firmly. “I want your fortune, Mari. Without question. I just want you more.”

She was silent a long time. Her breath shifted constantly though, one moment sharp and quick, the next a slow sigh of an exhale. He did not know what it meant, except that her mind was whirling again. Even without paper at hand, she was making a list in her mind. She was weighing his assets and her life as if they could be measured and balanced on a scale.

He didn't stop her. He knew he couldn't. All he could do was wait for her conclusion.

“I believe you,” she finally said. “And I will marry you.”

Not quite the passionate declaration he had hoped for.

“Tomorrow night at Lady Illston's ball,” he said, “I will propose, and you will accept?”

“Yes.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Then he lifted her so he could find her lips. She returned his affection quickly enough. She opened herself to him, and he knew he could rouse her passion within moments. His was already heating his blood. But for all that, it was a lackluster acceptance to his proposal, and it left him feeling unenthusiastic.

“You still doubt this,” he said, bitterness in his tone. “After everything, you still aren't sure.”

She snorted and pulled herself off him. “I doubt everything.” She pressed her hand to his chest. “Your faith. My heart.” She gestured to the bed. “This choice. I doubt it all.”

“Which is why you write lists, why you seek Lady Eleanor's advice, and why you allow your father to test and torture your suitors.”

She shrugged, and her hair slipped down over her shoulder, covering her eyes and the glory of her right breast. “If you were looking for surety in a bride, you picked the wrong Welsh. My sister, Josephine, never doubts anything. I, on the other hand…” Her voice words trailed off, as if even in this sentence, she could not commit to what she wanted.

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I fear you will change your mind before tomorrow night.”

“Oh, I will,” she said with a wry laugh. “At least a dozen times or more.”

“That does not give me confidence, Miss Powel.”

“Goodness, Lord Whitly, I had not realized you lacked for confidence in anything.”

“It is a state I am becoming much too familiar with.” He sat up and pulled her into his arms. She went easily, and he comforted himself that if he could only hold her whenever she doubted, in time all her fears would be erased.

He struggled to find the words to convince her, but he had given her his best arguments. She was so much better at words, so he resorted to the cheap and the easy. The only way he knew for certain that she was vulnerable to him.

He kissed her again. And as he kissed her, he palmed her breasts. And then he steadily, purposefully, stoked the fires of her passion. He spread her legs, rubbed her clit, and waited until she was crying out his name before he took her again.

And again.

All night long, if needed. Until she could think nothing—say nothing—but the word “yes.”