One Night of Sin (5 page)

Becky stared at him with fresh tears in her eyes. Tears of gratitude. He had it all wrong, of course, but she smiled tremulously at his defiant encouragement, one rebel to another. No meek sufferer, it was very much in the spirit of the way she looked at life.

Maybe he was not entirely uncaring.

She managed a taut nod and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she whispered as she blinked her tears away.

His smile turned wily. “As for the fool who caused your ruin, I can guarantee you one thing: He never pleasured you as I can.” He moved closer, and then he touched her mouth, running the pad of his thumb slowly across her lower lip. “You look hungry,” he whispered. “I could feed you.” He lowered his head as though to kiss her, but Becky found the breathless strength to turn away, her heart pounding at his velvet beguilement.

“Why do you resist?” he asked, his murmur rich with decadent sensuality. He stroked her cheek. “Come home with me. We’ll take it nice and slow. I’d never rush you, sweet babe. I won’t do anything you don’t want. I’m going to make you feel so good, Becky. Let me take care of you tonight.” He tucked her hair gently behind her ear. “You won’t regret it.” Her heart raced; his silken touch was maddening as he caressed her cheek and the curve of her neck. “What is it you desire?” he breathed. “Just tell me. Anything you want.”

She swallowed hard, trying to hold on to her defenses as he made her body tremble. Well, that sounded terribly sincere, she thought. Yet his practiced seduction proved powerfully intoxicating.

Intoxication often brought with it a fool’s courage, and Becky, in a surge of daring, decided to play along for a moment, perhaps out of simple fascination to find out how all this business worked. Or perhaps because he had already succeeded in arousing her. “Anything?” she countered skeptically.

“Well,” he amended with a languid half smile. “Within reason.”

His hand wandered lower, trailing slowly down the center of her chest.

She glanced down at it. His gold and onyx pinky ring glinted in the distant lamplight. Such deft, expert hands. No man had ever touched her there before. A few had tried. She had slapped them.

She did not slap Lord Alec.

She didn’t even want to. He was too fascinating, too gorgeous, too charming, too smooth. Her mind felt drugged with his coaxing; she had a feeling she was in deep over her head with this man, but at the moment she didn’t even care.

“You see, if it’s plain riches you want, you’re better off with Draxinger,” he purred, drawing little shapes on her breastbone with his middle fingertip. “I daresay you’ve won his heart already, aside from the small matter of knocking his tooth loose.”

“You’re not rich?” she ventured boldly, lifting her chin.

“Sorry, no,” he answered in amusement.

“You seem rich.”

“I try.” His eyes danced as he shook his head sadly. “I made a fortune gaming and I lost it.”

“Ah, that’s a pity.” Her voice sounded a trifle breathless despite her playful bravado.

“I know.”

“So, make another.”

“Good idea,” he said dryly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Why not? If you can do it once, you can do it twice, can’t you?”

“When one falls down a deep, dark hole,
cherie,
one must crawl out of it as best one can. After that, one isn’t so inclined to throw caution to the wind. Besides, there’s such a thing as luck, and lately mine’s all bad.”

“You met me,” she pointed out, mustering up a saucy smile. “Perhaps your luck has changed.”

He laughed aloud at her assertion. “I like your style, my girl.”

“I am in earnest. I was born lucky. It’s true.”

“If you’ll forgive my saying so, you don’t look all that lucky to me.” He pinched her cheek playfully, and then lowered his hand to his side.

His frank words startled her, then she broke into rueful laughter, in which Lord Alec joined her. It felt so good to laugh and smile after the past few days’ ordeal. She shook her head, lowering her gaze.
What am I doing, flirting with him?
She couldn’t seem to help herself. Her blush deepened as she realized she was behaving like a romping country hoyden, exchanging banter with the fine lord, just asking to be ravished.

Very forward, indeed. Dangerous, too. But it didn’t scare her. Not compared to the Cossacks. It only made her blush, and she was glad it was dark so he could not see the way his sensual stare turned her face pink.

You’d better tell him it’s not going to happen,
her better sense warned. But then he’d leave, and now she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

She lowered her gaze, fighting a smile. “I have no interest in Lord Draxinger,” she murmured, peeking at him from beneath her lashes. “For whatever it might be worth.”

“Ah. Well. There’s always my other friend, Rushford. The one you kicked.”

“No!”

“He’ll be a marquess one day.”

“I don’t care. He’s a pagan and a brute!”

“Yes, well—no. Not really. Very well. Sometimes.” He chuckled, attempting to defend his friend. “He’s just not used to girls who don’t swoon at his glance.”

“Neither, I wager, are you,” she shot back, then bit her lip after the pert remark.
Oh, dear.
She cleared her throat. “My point being that, er,
you
didn’t act like a brute.”

Lord Alec raised his eyebrows mildly. “No. Well. It does not matter, anyway, I’m afraid. I am sorry to say Lord Rushford is a . . . trifle cross at you at the moment. I fear the family line may be in peril after you nearly gelded him. Besides, he’s already got a mistress. On the other hand, of course, he will be bored of her by week’s end, so perhaps if you bide your time—”

“No thanks.” Becky gave him an arch look and folded her arms across her chest. “What about that third fellow? Who was he?”

“Fort? Yes, Lord Daniel Fortescue. Capital chap, but you don’t want him. He’s a mere younger son, like me.”

“Younger son?”

He nodded. “In my case, the youngest of five.”

“Good heavens, you’ve neither fortune nor title?” she taunted with a smile.

He shook his head sardonically. “No, but I do have a number of talents that I think would astonish you.”

Something in his stare made her believe it. “Really?” she forced out weakly.

“Mm.” He nodded.

“Like what?”

He flashed a reckless smile. “Come home with me and you’ll find out.”

Lord, he was too much. She bit her lower lip, captured by his cobalt eyes. Truly, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life, an Adonis, nay, Apollo. A sun god with hair of tarnished gold and eyes as blue as the deepest ocean.

She forced herself to look away, feeling breathless and slightly overheated.

“Well?” he whispered. “What’s it going to be, girl?”

“You’re very bad, aren’t you?” she murmured, stalling for time as she struggled to relocate her wits.

“On the contrary, my love, I am extremely good,” he whispered. “Why do you fight this? Don’t you like me?”

“I like you.”

“I’m not going to beg.”

“Lord Alec—”

“I want you. Stop playing games.”

She turned as red as the cross on the Union Jack. What in blazes had she gotten herself into? What was she to say? Then a distant sound snagged at her attention.

Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

Her eyes widened; she felt her blood run cold.
Oh, no.
Ignoring Lord Alec entirely for the moment, she mustered her courage and forced herself to look, peering into the darkness in the direction of the sound.

By the dim illumination of the wrought-iron lampposts, she spotted two of the riders about a block away, but coming closer steadily, as undeterred by the blowing rain as mechanical automata. Even from a distance, she recognized the distinctive shape of their brimmed helmets and the familiar motion of their heads turning as they glanced from side to side, scanning each intersection they passed.

A wave of dread washed over her.
Too late.
Running now would only draw their attention.

“Becky? God’s teeth, I’ve never had this much trouble persuading a lass in my life—”

“I’m persuaded!” As she jerked her frightened gaze back to his chiseled face, it occurred to her all of a sudden that he might be her only hope of evading capture.

Magnificent specimen that he was, Lord Alec had lots of lovely muscles, to be sure; he was tall and walked with a strut, she had noticed. But she did not want him to try to fight the Cossacks—God, no. She already felt responsible for one man’s death back in Yorkshire.

Now, as she looked up at him, the cocksure glint in his dark blue eyes made her worry he might think that he could take the Cossacks on. But Mikhail had told her how his soldiers were plucked from their mothers’ bosoms as children to be molded into warriors, trained to mete out death. If, when they came to seize her, her lusty Knight tried to interfere or challenged them out of some misguided sense of aristocratic chivalry, Becky had no doubt he would be promptly slaughtered.

She could not bear it. He was the only person who had been nice to her—in a fashion—since her arrival in London. No, she would not get this man killed, too. She did not want him involved at all. But as the Cossacks passed the third lamppost, her doom was in sight. She turned back warily to her companion. She did not want Lord Alec challenging those brutes, but perhaps there was a way that he could hide her.

After all, the Cossacks were looking for a girl alone. Everyone in this town seemed to think she was a hussy, anyway. . . .

“You’ve persuaded me,” she whispered again.

“Thank God,” he muttered. “For a minute, I thought I was losing my touch.”

What a time for all his jesting! As he reached to caress her face, Becky cautiously captured his hand. A smoldering glow leapt to life at once in his cobalt eyes. She managed to smile at him, though uncertainly, and linked her fingers through his, drawing him with her into the shadows. She held his gaze with a virginal, come-hither stare.

Surprise flickered in the depths of his eyes at her initiating this move, but he came willingly enough. He looked intrigued. “You’re full of surprises, do you know that?”

You have no idea.
“Am I?”

“Mm.” With long, strolling paces, he allowed her to lead him back into the darkest region beneath the awning, into the recessed doorway of the shop, tucked between a pair of bow windows.

Her heart thudding, she backed against the locked, green-painted shop door, and then boldly reached out and stroked him, her fingertips carefully exploring his chest. “It’s kind of you to worry for my safety.”

“Well, Becky dear, I must confess, my motives are not entirely pure.” He pressed closer in a way that would have upset her ten minutes ago, but now she welcomed the nearness of his big strong body, shielding her from view of the street.

She lifted her chin, meeting his hungry stare. Nervously, she wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. He watched with a look of absorption.

“Would you like to kiss me, Lord Alec?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“Very much,” he answered huskily. “Plain old ‘Alec’ will do, love. Told you, remember? Mere younger son.”

“I daresay there is nothing ‘mere’ about you, Lord—I mean—Alec.” Sliding her hands up his chest, she wrapped her arms around his neck, praying that even if the Cossacks noticed two people kissing in the shadows, they would never guess that one of them was their quarry.

He slipped his arm around her waist. Becky’s heart skipped a beat and then pounded against him. With his other hand, he tipped her head back. But then, instead of claiming her lips, he paused, gazing thoughtfully into her eyes.

“What is it?” she whispered. Would the blasted man please hurry before she was spotted?

“I can’t tell if you really want this,” he said. “You quite confuse me, little girl.”

She gazed at his sensitive mouth, made for deep, wanton kisses. “I do.” Heaven help her, it was true. “More than you know.” She met his searching gaze in stark vulnerability. She had never been this close to a man before; his body against hers was almost enough to make her forget all about the Cossacks.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“I’m just—a little cold.” In truth, it was part terror, part desire, that swirled through her veins, a dizzying concoction.

“Then I must endeavor to warm you.” He tightened his embrace with a sportive growl and rubbed her arms briskly. Then his hands grew still, gently cupping her shoulders. He opened his coat and gathered her inside of it, physically taking her under his wing. The clean, manly scent of him permeated her senses. “Better?”

With her arms around his lean waist, she nodded, smiling shyly at him.

Alec stared into her eyes. “Try to trust me,
ma petite.
”

“Very well,” she whispered slowly.

He gripped her hips in a sensual hold and drew her closer against his hard body—his chest, his belly, his thighs against hers. The excitement of his possessive clutch made her catch her breath. Then he lowered his head in silken menace, still watching her in the darkness at close range. Her heart fluttered wildly, but if she had expected a rough semi-ravishment, he devastated her with his gentleness. She closed her eyes, shivering with exhilaration as his lips brushed over her mouth in a light, exploratory caress. Leashed passion thrummed between them.

“Mm,” he breathed, a throaty sound of pleasure that roused a burst of eager sensations within her. She had never experienced anything like it. “Very nice.”

She felt a bit like a delicate marzipan on the dessert plate of a connoisseur, and could hardly wait to be devoured. It was agonizing, blissful.

The world, the Cossacks, all but disappeared; there was only this magnificent stranger and the wonderful sense of safety in his arms. He made her think how nice it would be to forget all about her quest and simply slip into the role he had assigned her.

Wicked.

She held her breath in sheer anticipation to see what he might do next. The tip of his lordly nose skimmed her cheek as he inhaled the scent of her skin, taking his time with her, his warm breath tickling the corner of her mouth as he played. Her pulse raced. His hand was hot as he cupped the side of her neck, flirting with her earlobe. Then he kissed her bottom lip, nibbling ever so gently.