Julia London (11 page)

It was Darien’s turn to color slightly—his endowment was not something about which he cared to speak. That sort of information invariably brought beggars and charlatans crawling out of the woodwork looking for money.

“Does that disconcert you?” she asked, smiling softly.

“A bit,” he admitted with a wry smile. “But not for the reasons I think you’d believe. It’s just that I’d rather keep that sort of effort to myself.”

“Your secret is quite safe with me,” she said lightly. “And besides, I rather enjoy hearing the other things people know about you. I’d hate to cast you in a favorable light and dash all their presumptions to pieces.”

“What other things, if I may?” he playfully demanded.

Kate shrugged and bit the top off the asparagus spear. “I can hardly be specific, you know. There are so
many
things said. And written. And debated.”

“Are there, indeed?”

“Mmm. The
on-dits
in the society pages, you know. Whether or not you were actually seen at Vauxhall Gardens with Lady Spencer on your arm, or was it, perhaps, Lady Penshurst?”

“Lady
Penshurst?
” Darien cried, almost choking on the roasted chicken. “Madam, I’d rather be drawn and quartered than accompany Lady Penshurst so far as the garderobe!”

“My lord!” Kate cried with a burst of laughter.

“I’m quite serious,” Darien insisted. “There was never a more disagreeable woman in all of England, you may rest assured!”

“But you do not object to Lady Spencer?” she asked coyly.

Darien lifted a brow. “No more than you object to Connery, or Anglesey, or—”

“Yes, yes, I take your meaning,” she said with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “It seems as if my reputation has taken a rather strange turn, for reasons I am happily ignorant.”

Frankly, Darien had wondered about that—oh honestly, when it came to Kate, he wondered about everything. What did she eat? When did she sleep? How did she look with her hair completely unbound and mussed? Did her sleepy morning eyes still shimmer with her spirit? What books did she read? What thoughts did she have? Who did she love?

“Do you miss him?” he suddenly blurted, and mentally kicked himself for voicing the question aloud.

To her credit, Kate did not seem either appalled or surprised. She put aside her plate and girlishly lay back on the pillows, rolling onto her belly. “I missed him terribly at first,” she said, looking out at the rain. “But I don’t think of him as often now.” She glanced at Darien from the corner of her eye. “Do you think me horrible?”

“Not in the least,” he assured her. “Time has a rather cruel way of marching on.”

“Yes, rather determinedly, I’ve noticed. I still think of Richard, I do. And I treasure the time that we had. But it seems that as of late, there is someone else occupying my thoughts.”

Darien stilled. “Is there?”

“There is,” she said, smiling again, lifting her funny walking boots above her knees.

“Not Connery, I should hope.”

She laughed lightly and rolled onto her side, propping her hand beneath her head, “It’s hardly Connery. The man is intolerable.”

Darien put his plate aside and calmly wiped his mouth with a linen napkin as he considered that. “Then might I be so bold as to inquire?”

She laughed, put her hand reassuringly on his forearm. “Can you not guess, my lord? After all, I turned the other gentlemen away.”

The gentle, lusty timbre of her voice wrapped around him, and Darien impulsively reached for her hand. But Kate startled him by catching his hand in hers, her long, delicate fingers closing tightly around his.

“Can’t you guess?”

The question sent a white-hot bolt of lightning through his body. Darien’s blood was churning; he felt as if he was being swept away, carried off by the stream of her voice. She suddenly sat up, took his hand firmly in hers and laid it in her lap. With her other hand, she traced the lines of his palm, slowly to his wrist, and then back again, to the forefinger, her touch scorching him as she moved. It seemed minutes, if not hours, before she shifted her gaze from his face to his eyes. “Shall I tell you your future?”

“Not,” he said hoarsely, “unless you are in it.”

Her gaze calmly roamed his face. “Do you truly want me in it?”

“I want you, Kate,” he confessed in a gruff whisper. “Is it not obvious to you by now? I’ve wanted you for my own the moment I laid eyes on you. I’ve wanted you so long and hard that my body aches with it.”

She gazed at his lips for a moment. “Those words,” she said, “which you speak so carelessly, are a salve to my wounded heart.” She lifted her gaze to his, her green eyes almost the color of the ivy that grew along the riverbank. “But I fear for my heart, sir. I fear it will not withstand another blow. You will please forgive me, then, if I ask if I am the only one to whom such poetic and . . . stirring words have been spoken?”

Darien impulsively grasped her hand, leaned down to kiss her palm, his lips lingering there, wondering how in God’s name he might convince her of what was in his heart. But then Kate withdrew her hand and laid it tenderly against his cheek, and Darien lost all reason.

He reached for her, seized her, really, and pulled her hard to him, then bore her down into the cushions. He pressed his mouth against her cheek, then her eyes, and slid to her lips, drinking in the wine she had drunk, the saltiness of the roasted chicken. He felt the succulent surface of her lips and held fast there, relishing the feel of her in his arms.

“Only you, Kate. It has been only you these last few years,” he said hoarsely. “I bare my soul to you now. I’ll not tease you about something so important as this.”

It was Kate who moved first, Kate whose fair lips parted slightly, Kate’s tongue that dipped between his lips to touch him. And then Darien was falling, drifting down like a feather onto the field of gold where she pushed him.

He rolled onto his back, bringing Kate with him, on top of him, his hands on either side of her head, his lips covering hers, and her face, her ears, and neck. He devoured her soft lips, inch by extraordinary inch. Then he tasted the inside of her mouth, reveled in the feel of her teeth, her tongue, and the sweet, smooth flesh of her mouth. One hand fell to the slender column of her neck, drifted down to the wool cloth that covered her bosom, cupping the pliant weight of her breast before fumbling with the dozens of small buttons that kept her from him.

Heedless of anything but her body, her scent, and the feel of her skin, he slipped his hand inside the gown, felt the warm, smooth skin of her breast, swollen with desire, and her taut nipple.

Kate gasped softly in his ear as he squeezed her nipple between his fingers, and pressed herself against him, her body stretched the length of his, firm and supple and young.

Darien twisted again, rolling her onto her back and coming over her, one hand in her hair, long, golden-red hair that had come completely out of its carefully constructed coif. She was amazingly soft, astoundingly plush, and her breasts supple and ripe. Darien inhaled deeply, touched his lips to her neck, and shuddered when Kate whispered in his ear,
“It’s been only you, too, Darien . . .”

Purely male instincts took hold of him—he was without conscious thought, filled with a longing so strong and powerful that he felt completely out of control. Her hand, her slender, perfect hand, slid to the nape of his neck, her fingers entwining in his hair, then down his arm, squeezing it, her fingers kneading the muscle, then inside his coat, feeling his rib cage, his back. Darien kissed her wildly, deeply, his heart and mind raging to be inside her . . . and he was, he realized, through the fog that had shrouded his mind and all common sense, just moments away from
being
inside of her.

He suddenly sat up, clawed his way out of his coat and waistcoat, ripped at the neckcloth that confined him, yanking his shirt from his trousers. Kate laughed at his determination and calmly unbuttoned her gown.

When she had freed all the buttons, Darien caught her hand, stilling her. He rose to his feet, then held out his hand to her. Without question, Kate put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet. No words were necessary; she lifted her arms in the air, allowed Darien to pull the gown over her head and lay it aside. “Are you frightened?” he asked.

“No . . . I am breathless.”

With a growl, Darien shed his shirt, kicked his boots from his feet, and loosened his trousers. He could scarcely bear to see her standing there in a plain cotton chemise and not touch her. So he put his hands on her shoulders and carefully pushed the chemise down her arms. It fell to the floor in a cloud of white, leaving her to stand before him, naked in her splendor.

She was beautiful. “Good God,” he muttered in genuine appreciation. She was so unlike any other woman he had ever known. There was no pretense about her, no cosmetic—she was curved in all the right places, round where a man desired it most.

“I knew you would be beautiful,” he said and palmed a dark areola that stiffened quickly with his touch; his fingers splayed across her breast and nipple and squeezed gently.

Kate gave him a terribly seductive smile, and Darien covered her mouth in a stupefying kiss as his hands found her waist. Kate lifted her arms, put them around his neck, and pressed her bare torso against his. A groan of ecstasy escaped him, and he suddenly and effortlessly lifted her in his arms, fell to one knee, and placed her on the cushions.

He quickly shrugged out of his shirt. She lay before him, watching him, as he had, on so many sleepless nights, imagined her. Golden, silky hair framing her. Firm breasts, a slender waist that curved into narrow hips, and long, shapely legs brought together in the gold triangle of curls. In the candlelight, her skin glowed radiantly.

Kate lifted her hand, touched his face. Darien shed his trousers, carefully lowered himself to her and kissed her, probing deeply within her until he could bear it no more. He lifted his head; her gaze slipped to his mouth, and she put a finger on his bottom lip, ran it lightly across.

He smiled gratefully; his pulse was now coursing hard in his neck. He moved lower, to her breasts. One hand floated down her side and across her flat abdomen as he moved against her, his cock thickening impossibly with only the contact of her skin. When his fingers brushed deliberately against the inside of her thigh, she inhaled softly.

Lying beneath him, Kate was not conscious of anything but his touch, both alarmed and titillated by the response it evoked deep within her. She gasped when he brought his mouth to her breast, but came out of her skin when his hand slipped between her legs and stroked the silken folds there. She was fast losing control, felt her thighs parting for him, urging him deeper.

It had been so long, an eternity perhaps, since she’d felt a man’s touch. Yet it seemed as if she had never known a man, not like this, not with her blood pounding in her ears and her heart beating hard in her chest. Then Darien muttered something incomprehensible against her breast and slipped his fingers deep inside her sheath, and Kate instantly lifted against his palm.

She was lost.

It was not supposed to be like this, she was not supposed to revel in her complete seduction, but she pressed against his hand nonetheless, a curious but familiar mix of pleasure and anxiety spurring her.

His fingers gently but expertly moved in her, then slowly withdrew to stroke her. Kate felt herself falling away, and she pushed her hands against the side of the boathouse, moaning softly.

“Not yet,” he murmured against her stomach. “No, no, I will not let you go so easily, Kate. Have you any notion of how I have longed for this moment? How I have dreamed of giving you pleasure you have never known?”

The question compelled Kate onto her elbows; with her hand, she cupped his face, made him rise up so that she might kiss him hard and deep. “Then give it to me,” she rasped. “Give me pleasure I’ve never known. Give it to me
now,
” she whispered.

Darien grinned. “God blind me, Kate Becket, but I’ve never adored a woman as I adore you this very moment.” And with that, he moved his thigh in between her legs, pushed them apart, and lifted himself over her.

He languidly kissed her breast while he laced her fingers with his above her head. With his other hand, he guided her to feel his passion, held her hand firmly there while he brushed the tip against her, and again, only deeper. She was shuddering, astonished by the waves of passion crashing through her. Darien smiled at her gasping and slid inside her, slowly at first, his eyes on hers, watching her closely as he adjusted himself to her body surrounding him, then sliding deeper with small, rhythmic movements.

Her control was at an end; she did not think she could contain the ecstasy that was building in her a second longer. He felt hot and thick inside her; she arched her pelvis against him and instinctively demanded more as she gasped for her breath. Darien moaned, and covering her mouth with his, he thrust powerfully within her. Kate cried out with pleasure against his mouth, then let her head fall back as her body rose to meet him with the next thrust, and the next.

His strokes lengthened within her; her knees came up on either side of him, and she lifted her pelvis to match his rhythm. She felt herself falling swiftly away, falling from this world and everything but Darien’s body. His breath was hot on her shoulder, his grip of her hand almost painful, his body long and deep within her.

“Dear God!”
she whispered, wildly anxious as the pleasure began to mount toward its inevitable, explosive end. She gripped his shoulder, lifted herself higher, meeting his hard strokes.
“Darien!”
she whispered frantically in his ear.

It happened—wave after wave of pleasure erupted within her, carrying her swiftly away from even Darien. She threw her head back and arched her neck as the release flooded from every pore.