In Love With a Wicked Man (12 page)

It was Kate. Kate in her nightgown and wrapper, her hair down and her face alight.

“Edward!” she said, seizing both his hands in hers. “Think! Think what just happened! The most marvelous thing!”

“Marvelous?” He laughed, and squeezed her hands. “Vesta just descended from the heavens to knock upon my door?”

But she brushed past him almost impatiently, drawing her hands from his. “No, no, just a few minutes ago, when we were downstairs,” she said breathlessly. “Just before we came up?”

Edward turned back his mind. And then it struck him.

“My God, the clock!” he said, going at once to his night table to snatch up his gold pocket watch. “Look. It’s a quarter past eleven now.”

“Yes!”

He lifted his gaze to hers, and swallowed hard. “Kate. The numbers—they make perfect sense!”

“Can you do arithmetic?” she asked, sketching in the air. “Imagine . . . oh, six plus twelve?”

“Eighteen,” he said. “Eighteen. A one followed by an eight. I see them even without pen and paper.”

“And everything else must surely follow!” Kate had caught him by the shoulders, and was dancing him around the room. “You have remembered your mother. Your
arithmetic
. Oh, Edward, I am
so happy
!” Then she slowed and looked up, a little breathless, her face alight with joy.

And then Edward did the most foolish thing; a thing which, much later, he could not possibly blame on a blow to the head.

He caught Kate hard against him—dragged her literally off her feet—and kissed her. Kissed her like he meant it, with one hand going up to cradle her perfect face, stilling her as he covered her mouth with his own.

For a mere instant, Kate held the heels of her hands against his shoulders. And then she, too, surrendered to the moment. He let her slide slowly back down his length, never taking his lips from hers. He slid a hand through the silken hair at her temple, then stroked over her shoulder and down her back, and then lower still, pulling her fully—sensuously—against him.

On a soft sound of pleasure, Kate’s hands slid down his flanks, raking him lightly with her nails.

Blood began to pound in his head as he thrust his tongue along hers and felt her breathy sound of pleasure. Need shuddered through him, then pooled red-hot in his loins. Against the softness of Kate’s belly, his shaft hardened almost abruptly, like some callow schoolboy’s.

Her delicate nostrils flared wide as she kissed him back with an innocent recklessness. Fleetingly, he wanted to urge her down on the bed, ruck up her nightgown, and take her. The madness came so swift and so urgent, he had to fight it down with all the will he possessed.

He knew he needed
to stop.
Knew he was losing control, body and soul. Instead, he let his palm skate around the sweet swell of her hip, drawing her even harder against him, until he felt Kate’s hands pushing hard at his shoulders.

An awful mix of relief and almost crushing disappointment flooded him. He pulled his mouth from hers, his breath already rasping.

But it was not the deliverance he’d imagined.

“We forgot to shut the door,” she said breathlessly. She flew across the room, pushed it shut, then snapped the lock.

“
Kate
,” he choked.

She spun around, the lace hem of her nightgown teasing across her bare toes, then leaned back against the ancient door. Her face was flushed beautifully, and her gray eyes could not possibly have been described as somber.

“Don’t say a word,” she ordered. “Oh, please don’t! Edward, please don’t ruin it.”

He closed the distance, pulling her from the door and into his arms in an embrace he hoped was less carnal. “Kate,” he said again. “Oh, Kate, love, be serious.”

She set her cheek against his chest. He settled his hand on the back of her head, savoring the silky warmth of her hair. He shut his eyes and prayed for the strength to do the right thing.

But Kate was of no help whatever.

“Edward,” she whispered, “what if I am being serious?”

And she was; Edward could hear it in her voice. She was entirely willing. Willing to give herself to him. Willing to make his dark dreams come true.

It stunned him for a moment, but he quickly regained himself. He had, after all, been teasing her—and calling her his goddess. Obviously he’d taken that teasing much too far.

“My dear, we aren’t entirely sure what manner of man I am,” he whispered. “I’m certainly the sort who hasn’t any business trifling with a young lady’s affections.”

At that, she planted her hands against his chest again, and pushed herself firmly away. “I am not young,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “And I’m no longer fool enough to allow any man to
trifle
with me.”

“Kate, Kate,” he murmured. “How you honor me. But love, we cannot—”

“Have you any idea, Edward, the sort of life I live here?” she interjected.

He set his head to one side, and studied her a moment. “The sort of life you
wish
to live, I hope,” he said. “Am I wrong?”

Her lips thinned pensively as she formulated her words. “Not entirely, no,” she finally admitted. “But it is not remotely like the life I expected to lead. And it’s often lonely. There are parts of it that are too full—too crammed with expectations and problems and hard work—and then, sometimes late at night, there are pockets of this . . . this terrible, swamping
emptiness
.”

He cupped his hand around the turn of her face again. “Oh, Kate,” he whispered, “as tempting a notion as it is, I should rather not be the means of a lady’s self-destruction, if that, God forbid, is what you contemplate.”

Her pale coloring deepened to pink, and he realized once again how lovely she was. “I don’t know what I contemplate,” she said huskily. “I beg your pardon, Edward. I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position.”

She started to pull away, but he could see the hurt in her eyes.

“No, no, Kate,” he said, drawing her back again. “Don’t ascribe any hidden meaning to my words. Oh, I want you, my dear. I have wanted you, I think, almost since the moment we met.”

She buried her face against his shirtfront. “When we met, I nearly killed you.”

“And still, here we are,” he said on a choked laugh. “It seems I’ve a penchant for dangerous females. But I’m far from a saint; of that I’m quite certain. Don’t waste your virtue on me, Kate, for I cannot deserve it. And you would surely regret it.”

She lifted her face to his then, her expression stricken but earnest. “I have some experience with regret,” she said very quietly. “And strictly speaking, I have no virtue. I already wasted it, you see—to please a man who
truly
did not deserve it. No, Edward, we do not need to talk about regret. I have felt it often these last eight years.”

It was a brave speech, but he could feel the pain behind it.

He held her gaze very steadily for a time, trying to swallow down an anger that was bitter as bile in the back of his throat. Then he surrendered, and said what he wished. “Oh, Kate,” he rasped. “I could kill the bastard with my bare hands.”

“Why?” she said simply. “It was my doing. I was not . . . coerced.”

She meant that she was not raped, he thought grimly. He very much doubted she’d known what she was doing.

The gentleman, however—or rather, the
scoundrel
—almost certainly had known.

But Kate was still watching him, her eyes unwavering. “It was, quite honestly, an awful experience,” she confessed. “I thought I loved him. That it would be somehow magical.”

Edward elevated both eyebrows. “Ah, the fiancé!” he murmured.

Her lashes swept down. “Yes.”

“Who was he?”

She gave a little shake of her head. “Just an old family acquaintance,” she said. “He was beautiful, and so charming. But too late I learnt that I loved an illusion; that I merely idolized him for being all those things that I was not.”

Kate’s eyes were shimmering dangerously, he realized. Edward reached up and ran a thumb beneath her eye, but the tears hadn’t spilled.

He resolved that they would not.

“I’m sorry, Kate, that your lover was not what you’d hoped,” he said. “You’re the sort of woman who deserves to have her dreams come true.”

“I think so, too,” she said simply. “And lately . . . well, lately, I have dreamt of you.”

He shook his head, but drew her fully against him all the same. “Kate, my dear,” he murmured into her hair, “we must be mad. Both of us.”

“I am not mad,” she said, her cheek pressed to the wall of his chest. “I am perfectly aware of what this is, and what it is not. I know you will not stay here. That you’re getting well and must go back to your life soon. That we will not meet again.”

He suspected she was right, and knew that he should have been glad. But her words instead filled him with an inexorable sadness; a longing so deep he ached with it.

“Kate.” Edward’s hand sculpted the small of her back as her lips brushed his again.

There was no more need to talk. She was Kate, and she desired him. And he would do his best to be—at least for tonight—the lover she wanted. The man she deserved.

And yet he could not mistake something hot and burning behind his own eyes. The longing he felt for her seemed to be rushing toward a crescendo of its own. The ache seemed drawn from a well of sadness and longing he could not explain. And for better or worse, he was going to slake it.

Kate’s lips softened beneath his as he kissed her, hot and openmouthed, with his eyes wide open. Her hands moved over him again, then began to tug eagerly at his shirt, drawing it from the waist of his breeches until it billowed nearly free. Like warm silk, her tongue slid willingly along his, allowing him to plunge deep.

Edward knew precisely what he was doing—and thought he knew precisely how his body would react. He could not have been more wrong. For when Kate’s slender hands slid beneath his shirt, raw need surged again, and left him shivering beneath her artless touch.

She touched him tentatively at first, and then more urgently. Gingerly, he moved her nearer the bed. Pulled free the ribbon of her wrapper. Pushed it over her slender shoulders and listened to it whisper its way onto the floor.

Kate made a sound of pleasure, and began to push off his shirt. Impatiently, Edward yanked the last of it free, then stripped it off and over his head. Kate’s eyes widened innocently. And then—like the siren she secretly was, he feared—she set her lips to his breastbone, her tongue stroking ever so lightly, drawing a ribbon of heat up his flesh.

“Edward,” she whispered as she moved her lips over his skin, “I’ve wanted to do this from that first day; from the moment we took your shirt off. You’re so exquisitely, perfectly
male
.”

At those words, raw lust twisted deep in his belly, an agonizing knot of sweet, throbbing pain. His erection pulsed insistently between his legs. And any hesitance he might have felt vanished on the sound of her next sigh.

He kissed her again, and pushed her gently down on the bed, wedging one knee between hers. She fell back into the softness on a sigh, smelling of sunlight and of grass after a spring rain; all innocence and sweet seduction. He followed her down, his face buried against her neck. Kate’s body arched beneath his weight, her dark brown hair scrubbing the pillowslip.

On the night table, the lamp flickered, casting dancing shadows across the white sheets. “Now, Edward,” she said throatily, her hands pushing at the band of his breeches.

But she was not ready for
now
.

He kissed her again, exultantly, then slowly moved away, pressing butterfly kisses along her throat. Then he twisted around to sit on the bed, the floor cool against his feet as he propped his hands on his knees.

For an instant, he tried to talk himself out of what he was about to do. But it was far too late, and he was far too lost. Behind him, Kate made an impatient sound, and drew a fingertip down his back. Edward reached over and turned down the wick until it was nothing but a glow in the darkness. His need for her was like a palpable thing, the ache in him so deep he wondered already how he would ever extricate himself from this.

But that was a problem for the morrow. He and Kate, they were the here and now. Edward jerked to his feet and began to slip loose the buttons of his breeches.

He heard the mattress creak behind him. “Edward—?”

He cut a glance over his bare shoulder. Kate was on her knees behind him, her fingers drawing up the hem of her nightgown. But her eyes were fixed upon his buttons.

“No,” he rasped. “Leave it on.”

Her hands fell. “Must I?”

He slipped the last button free. “Leave it on
if you wish
,” he clarified.

Apparently, she did not wish.

Seizing the hems in both hands, Kate stripped the thin cotton up and over her head, tossing it into the darkness behind him. His hands froze in the act of pushing down what remained of his clothing, and his throat seemed to catch.

The glorious silk curtain of her hair had slid over one shoulder to spill about her feet. In the candlelight, its chestnut sheen warmed to russet red. Her breasts were high and round, almost surprisingly full, with small, dusky-pink nipples already erect. He let his gaze trail down the soft swell of her belly, all the way to the thatch of hair between her thighs, and felt something carnal stir deep in his loins.

It was the male need to have her. To take. To dominate. To thrust himself inside Kate and worship her pure femininity.

He closed his eyes, shucked off what was left of his clothing, and crawled back onto the bed, taking her down into the softness with him. He kissed her again, slowly thrusting as his hand tangled in her silky hair. Kate began to move urgently against him, her hands moving hungrily if inexpertly over him.

After a time, he forced his breath to calm. Twisted the burning lust down with a fierce chokehold so that he might pleasure her properly. He rolled to one side and stretched out along her length to face her. He tilted up her chin with his finger. Kissed the tip of her perfect nose.