One Night of Passion (14 page)

It was such a simple, straightforward plan. How could it fail?

Well, he did have to factor Georgie into his course. That, he suspected, was as predictable as sailing into a gale wind.

He got to his study and knelt before his sea chest, which sat on the floor, packed and ready for his voyage. He had hated the thought of leaving so soon after his marriage, but he’d been able to secure a good ship far more quickly than he and Nelson had thought possible, and therefore he needed to be off as soon as the vessel was ready to sail.

From behind him, he heard Georgie’s deep intake of breath when she entered the room. He assumed that she was most likely awed by the rich luxury of their surroundings.

It was by all accounts a glorious room, decorated with gilt chairs, rich wall hangings, a large and rare Japanese vase on the mantel, and other valuable oddities about the room.

But none of these treasures were what drew the lady’s attention.

To his utter amazement, it was his sea chest.

“So you are a sailor,” she said, kneeling beside him. She quickly stripped off her gloves so her bare fingers could trace the nailed pattern on top. All the splendor of the room seemed to pale before her as she reverently touched his simple and utilitarian sea chest. “Oh, I should have known.”

Was it his mistake or did he hear a bit of awe in her voice?

“Coming or going?” she asked.

“Leaving. I have a new ship and I sail soon.”

She let out a small sigh of envy. “I’d love to go to sea.”

“It’s not that wonderful.” He felt like a rotter having to prick at what was obviously a treasured desire. Besides, he was also lying. Being aboard his ship, feeling the deck moving beneath his feet, the salty air stinging his eyes and filling his lungs . . . it
was
the heaven he saw burning in her eyes.

“I know it’s not likely. But just to be able to go . . .” She stared down at the sea chest, as if it held all her dreams and desires, and when she looked back up at him, there was something in her gaze that said he was the man to give them to her.

No, I’m not,
he wanted to tell her. Instead, he got down to business and thrust the key into the lock, turning it, the tumblers rumbling as they fell into place until the lock snapped open.

It also seemed to snap her out of her pining spell. She sat back on her heels and let him sort his belongings in peace. At least for a few moments.

“Where are you bound for?”

“Naples.” Colin winced as the word tumbled out. He’d refused to give Temple any hint regarding his upcoming voyage and to this woman, this stranger, he divulged his plans without even thinking.

“Really?” She sighed again before rushing on. “I’ve always wanted to see Vesuvius. My father told me all kinds of stories about it. Have you seen it? Does it really smoke and rumble still?”

He glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Your father traveled?”

“Oh yes.” Her eyes were aglow at the very thought. “Actually, my parents went there together, on their wedding trip, and—” She faltered, then her mouth snapped shut as if she’d just revealed state secrets. She made a great show of smoothing her skirts, as if everything was normal.

Colin considered her unwitting disclosure as he dug around in his trunk. Her parents took a wedding trip to Naples?

Oh yes, he thought, most Cyprians had parents who went to Italy on their wedding trip. That certainly ruled out his theory that she was some nobleman’s by-blow.

So who the devil was she?

His fingers wrapped around the leather bag that held his personal money and he pulled it out of the chest. Quickly, he counted out the amount they’d agreed upon. “Here.”

She regarded the coins with a mixture of curiosity and dismay. Her hesitation prompted him to take her hand and pour them into her palm, closing her fingers over them and holding her hand closed tight.

“Take it,” he urged her.

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. That’s not—”

“Not enough?” he ventured. “It probably isn’t. But unfortunately it’s all I can spare at the moment.”

She was staring down at her hand, his fingers still closed over hers. And when she glanced up, there lay a path of tears on her cheeks. They glistened and sparkled in the firelight, beckoning him to wipe them away to wipe away the cause of her misery.

“What is it, Georgie?”

“I can’t accept your money Not without . . . without . . .” She wavered over her confession, her cheeks deepening to a rosy hue.

He smiled at her. “Without earning it?”

To his surprise, this notion brightened her features. “Yes. I can’t accept your money without . . . well, you know.”

Colin laughed. “My sweet little Cyprian, if you can’t say the words, how do you expect to accomplish the deed?”

Even as he issued his challenge, he realized he’d just provoked her to test his floundering limits. To push his studiously held restraint until it gave way to her unnerving charms.

She began a transformation from tentative Paphian to enchanting seductress, one which left Colin’s heart hammering in his chest his mouth gaping.

“Who needs words,” she said.

Georgie knew she had but this one last chance to entice Colin into her arms. Staring down at the floor, she relished the warmth of his fingers wrapped around hers. The disarming heat flooded her veins, brought back the tremors he’d awakened in her in that reckless moment in the carriage when they’d kissed, when his touch had explored her body in wild abandon.

If only she could get him to kiss her one more time, to push his desire over and beyond his infuriatingly noble intentions, tear down his teetering wall of reserve, which she suspected was being held in check by nothing but bluff.

He wanted her.

Of that she was sure.

Oh, she might never have been with a man before. Never been held in a pair of sturdy, muscled arms before, but she
knew,
knew with an innate understanding that resonated from her heart that he desired her as madly and passionately as she wanted him.

This night was no longer a game of chance in which to carelessly wager and deliberately lose her virginity—no, it was her chance for one haunting night of passion that would be her legacy. The memories of having been loved and cherished and pleasured would warm her cold life when it returned to the inevitable ashes and cinders of her dull existence courtesy of a furious Uncle Phineas, and that accursed Lord Danvers.

So casting aside the images of her weary future, she held tightly to the night before her.

Slowly she glanced up at Colin. She let out the breath she’d been holding in a long, slow sigh. One of her curls had fallen across her brow, so she reached up to push it aside.

His entire body stilled, his gaze following her movements with a raw hunger, like a cat watching an unwitting bird on the hedge. She sensed the power of his strength, the intensity of the need behind his muscular frame, taut and waiting for her next move.

Unlike the bird in hedgerow, she flew closer to the hunter.

“Why do you want to send me away?” she whispered.

“I must,” he told her. While his words said one thing, his tone implied an entirely different inclination.

She shook her head, to tell him it was a foolish idea, but one of her blasted curls fell back over her face. About to rake it back in place with her fingers, she had a better idea.

She pulled her hand free from his grasp, letting his gold and silver coins tumble and plunk to the carpet like fat drops of rain. Then she caught his hand and guided his fingers through her hair, letting them fall prey to the entangled snare of her willful strands.

With his hand trapped, she edged closer to him, letting her cheek nuzzle the inside of his wrist, her lips briefly touching his warm skin. Then she tipped back her head, so she looked directly into his hungry gaze and let her mouth fall open ever so slightly in an unquestionable invitation.

Kiss me,
she silently beseeched him.
Kiss me again.

The battle waging behind his green-eyed gaze looked to be as tempestuous as any he’d likely waged at sea, fierce and nobly fought.

But she hated to be the bearer of bad news.

He wasn’t going to win this one. Not unless victory meant making love to her.

Colin let out a groan, one so earthy and primitive that it almost frightened her, and when the last ragged sigh left his lips, his mouth swooped down and covered hers.

Now it was her turn to surrender.

His tongue teased her lips open further, only to sweep past them and continue to wage his own form of warfare.

Taunting, tasting, and devouring her.

She sank against him, from a rush of passion and a sense of relief. But as her body thrummed to life, tightening first in her gut and then running down to the heat between her thighs, a rush of alarm assailed her.

As much as she had sought this out, she never realized that it would be like this—so alive, so exhilarating.

So passionate.

She couldn’t stop now, her body would rebel, her senses defy any urge toward flight from this heady, daunting course. Instead, she clung to him, her hands plucking and plying the buttons of his jacket open, pulling it over his broad shoulders and tossing it with glee to the floor so she could begin her virgin explorations of a man’s body.

His waistcoat quickly followed.

Now seeing him in his shirtsleeves, she paused, overwhelmed at the idea of touching his bare flesh, but her fingers seemed to be of another mind, for they roamed at will over his crisp linen shirt.

She reveled in the solid wall of his body—where beneath her fingertips his chest rose and fell in a discordant, ragged rush, his heart hammering and pounding in a wild tattoo.

Encouraged and enlivened by her first forays, she strayed further a field to the thick cords of his back, the narrow line down to his hips. Her hands pulled him closer, until their bodies met and merged.

In that telling moment when they touched, she discovered the true power a man could possess—hard and solid, his manhood pulsed beneath his breeches, as if it too beseeched her to free it from his clothing.

Colin continued to kiss her, his hands combing her hair, plucking her wayward pins out of their arrangement, letting them fall to the floor in a pitter-patter as they hit the coins scattered there.

When her curls finally fell free, they tumbled down over her bare shoulders like a shawl of silk. Obviously content with the havoc he’d unleashed with her hair, his hands wandered restlessly, searching for more prey, running over the neckline of her bodice as if in reconnaissance, looking for any place where he could breach the silk gown’s embroidered defenses.

And when his fingers paused over the exposed swell of her breasts and began to draw back, she gasped, her lashes fluttering open.

Oh dear, no.
The conflict in his eyes said he was once again weighing his reckless decision to take her into his arms.

Reaching for his fingers, she brought them back to her breast.

“Do that again,” she urged him. “Please.”

A lazy smile traced its way over his lips, and he indulged her—but this time his fingers dipped inside her gown until they found the hardened nub of her nipple and rolled lazily over its sensitive tip.

“Like that?” he whispered into her ear.

“Oh yes,” she sputtered in relief, as his lips nibbled her earlobe, tickled her neck, and then trailed down the same emblazoned path his fingers had taken.

Her head tipped back, her shoulders arching, her chest rising up to meet his touch, to let his lips taste her warm skin. His hand had untied her bodice and it was now open to his all-too-welcome invasion.

And when his lips closed over her hardened nipple, his tongue laving over the pebbled flesh, he awakened desires in her that she never would have believed possible.

Georgie’s knees quaked and she teetered on her one remaining shoe.

Colin didn’t say a word, just grinned and then swept her up and carried to the settee near the fireplace. He laid her down, letting her recline back on the rich, soft fabric, warm from the red embers glowing in the hearth. The fire, along with the candles Colin had brought up, cast them in a soft circle of light.

“Don’t you want to go to the bed?” she said, nodding toward the darkened bedchamber beyond.

“No,” he said, without glancing in that direction. “I want to be able to see you.”

Georgie opened her mouth to protest, but then realized that she wanted to be able to see him as well. To see his face, to watch his reactions so she could please him as he was pleasuring her.

With each passing touch and kiss, she wanted him never to forget this night.

He knelt before her and ever so skillfully undid the rest of her bodice, pushing it off her shoulders, pulling her arms free, one at a time.

Georgie was of no mind to resist, rather her need was feeding a growing impatience for him, and to her relief, his fingers began untying the strings that held her skirt on. When it came free, he grinned, pulling the thick silk down over her legs, and tossing it over his shoulder so it too landed in the growing pile of clothes and coins and promises of a passionate night . . . which was now only a shift, corset, stockings, and her sole remaining shoe away from perfection.

“I can’t believe you made me leave my shoe behind,” she teased, wiggling the toes of her shoeless foot.

“Less to remove now,” he said, unlacing the lonely shoe, and throwing it over his shoulder. It landed with a thud, but she couldn’t see where in the dim light.

He untied her garters, then rolled her stockings down one at a time, his gaze never leaving hers. The filmy, delicate leggings too found their way somewhere into the pile of discarded clothing.

Colin’s fingers trailed up her legs without any sign of stopping anywhere decent. While her first reaction was to close her knees tight against him, she tentatively opened her thighs, for his touch was so tempting that she couldn’t resist his explorations.

Besides, that so very private place had grown hot and wet aching with the desire to be touched and stroked.