Swept Away By a Kiss (40 page)

Protecting her because he loved her? All along?

Valerie’s heart stilled. Her body leaned forward, a shadow of movement.

He saw it, and his eyes changed.

She rose to her knees and he came to her, wrapping his beautiful, warm hands behind her neck and waist and pulling her against him. His kiss demanded, his tongue delving into her mouth as she dragged his shirt from his shoulders. Her body was aflame, her nipples tightening against his chest, constrained by the fabric of her shift. With explosive satisfaction, she welcomed his desire pressing against her through their clothes, driving her hunger higher.

“Let me touch you,” she said as his mouth went to her neck, scoring her with delicious heat. “Nothing between us.” She didn’t know if she meant between their bodies or hearts, but Steven’s hands gripped her, then grabbed up her shift and yanked it over her head. She dragged his shirttail from his breeches, and he pulled off the garment and crushed her body to his again as he claimed her mouth.

But Valerie hadn’t finished undressing him. Dizzy from the sensation of his skin brushing hers, his warmth and lean strength capturing her, she wanted to see all of him, and to touch him. Sliding her hands down his waist, she hooked her fingers in the band of his breeches and tugged.

“You will need to unfasten them first,” he murmured. Frissons of delight skittered through her where his tongue teased the sensitive edge of her ear and his big hands covered her back.

“You would not believe it, but I haven’t much experience with this sort of thing.” She found the buttons, released them, and her hand curved around his hardness beneath. She paused, reveling in the feeling of his satin, solid length, hearing his quick intake of breath as she grasped gently and stroked upward then down again, mimicking the motion of their lovemaking with her touch.

“I would and I do believe it,” he said roughly.

Valerie stiffened. Even if he had found her deficient before, he would not say it this way. Not the man she knew him to be now.

“Do you mean—?”

“That I am the most fortunate of men to be the recipient of your extraordinarily capable inexperience?” He touched her chin and drew her gaze to his. His eyes were ablaze and his chest rose upon a hard breath. “Yes. Now hurry along your self-education, my lady. I grow impatient.”

She grinned in satisfaction and wrapped her hand around him fully. Steven’s grasp on her arms tightened. She caressed his marvelous length, the damp tip, his body responding to her touch thrillingly. The power she had over him shivered through her, tightening her own arousal until its throbbing was nearly pain.

“Valerie,” he whispered harshly, his cheek pressed to her hair. “I need to be inside you. Now.”

“Yes.” She tugged his breeches down impatiently. “Sit back.” She pushed at his hips, her swollen nipples stroking his chest as she moved against him, driving her fever higher.

“You will note that there is still a garment present,” he said, falling back onto his heels.

“It won’t bother me.” Urgent, she slipped her thighs around his hips and guided herself onto him. “And it would take too long—
Ohh
!”

She took him in quickly, pulling him deep, and the heat of her desire and Steven’s heart became one. He breathed hard against her brow to steady himself, needing her but for the first time in his life frightened.

While she slept, he had time to think on why Alistair wanted her dead, time to stare at the bruise on her neck, to admit finally, fully, that he had dragged her out of a world of comfort and warmth into the constant turmoil of his life—a life he willingly chose but that was hers to bear through sheer accident upon the capricious sea. Time to decide that he could never again put her in danger because of what he must always do.

“What happened to nothing between us?” he said, pushing away the unfamiliar fear as she moved on him. Her fingertips dug into his skin, her breaths coming short and eyelids fluttering closed as her hips circled, drawing him in, enveloping his need, mounting it.

“There is nothing between us now.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her naked body supple, slender, beautiful, her sensuous thrusts artless, stealing his control.

“And yet everything,” he whispered.

Her eyes flew open.

He gripped her hips and lifted her off him, opening her wide and sinking back in again, repeating it, taking her harder each time, faster. She moaned her pleasure, her skin glistening with the glow of heat rising in her body, and her dark hair tumbled about her shoulders as she shook her head like a wild horse upon the plains of America. The land he would return to, far from everything she called home. Here in England, surrounded by the people she loved, she was as free from fear as she said. Free to be full of passion and desire.

Steven caught her mouth and drank her in, certain that no matter how much he wanted her, he could never bind her, even if now she thought she wanted those bindings. He would die before making her a slave to his blasted destiny, no matter how willingly she came to it at first.

“Oh, Steven,” she gasped, “I never knew—” She faltered, pressing to him, and he gripped her tight, pulling back on the abrupt onrush her words provoked, waiting, aching, needing to fill her, to be complete.

She came abruptly, clutching his shoulders as she shuddered, and he let go, driving into her tight, pliant body. It felt so right forcing his way deeper until nothing remained in him, only her hands and breath caressing his skin. He covered her mouth, and she wound her legs around him, still hungry, seeking more. He reached between them and caressed her, and when her release rose again, she cried out, gasping as pleasure shivered through her.

She grabbed his hand, entwining her fingers with his and pulling it to her lips. Her mouth pressed to the brand upon his wrist.

“Take me, Steven,” she whispered raggedly.

Steven’s universe stilled. He swallowed hard, recognizing the moment at once for what it must be. She forced it early with this order, but it would have come soon enough. Now he must go forward or risk destroying everything that meant anything to him—her life, her happiness.

“Your demand comes a bit late, my dear,” he replied with a half grin he did not feel. He was already growing numb even as she rested in his arms for the last time.

“You know I don’t mean my body.” Her fingers tightened around his, her quavering voice urging its way into his soul. “Take me, Steven. I cannot be another man’s.”

“And yet,” he forced himself to say, lifting his hand to trace the dark smudge above her delicate collarbone, “It seems you have been another man’s quite recently.”

Chapter 37

V
alerie’s chest pounded. She stared into Steven’s cool amber eyes, disbelieving as pain sliced through her foolishly unguarded heart. It hadn’t been a minute since he made love to her; for God’s sake he was still inside her. But his voice sounded as cold as the day he arrived at Castlemarch.

She choked, backing off him. He knelt and drew up his breeches, fastening them with perfect calm. But his composure must be affected, and she knew the only way to discover the truth of it.

“I have gotten Hannsley’s papers for you.” Her voice shook, but she couldn’t care. She’d already laid her heart bare to him. Nothing he said or did now could change that.

Flame flickered in his eyes. “What
?
”

A chill spun up Valerie’s spine, but she would not let him frighten her. He must love her. Even if he tried to put her off again, she must believe that.

“He thinks my maid is a spy. He has gone to town in search of her and the stolen documents she supposedly carries. Mabel is safely hidden with Lady March at the castle, of course, as are the marquess’s papers.”

Steven’s features hardened, his eyes deadly sharp. “Last night you went to him, when you promised you would not?”

“I never promised that. And why should my word be any more sincere than yours?” She gestured between them, unable to remain still beneath his searing regard. “You are through with misrepresenting the truth, are you? How many minutes ago did you say that?”

He reached out and grasped her arm, his grip unforgiving. His other hand went to her neck, thumb stroking hard against the bruise.

“Is this how you acquired the documents? You bribed him for them?”

Paralyzed by the white heat in his eyes, Valerie struggled for breath.

“Of course not. I put a sleeping draught in his wine. While he was unconscious I searched his belongings. The documents I found detail the buying and selling of Africans under the protection of British officials in the West Indies. They mention you—the Angel—and Maximin, I think, and the threat you pose to their operations.”

He stared at her, not moving or speaking. She jerked from his hold, grabbing up her shift and pulling it before her as she stood. The room seemed to tilt.

Steven came to his feet and took her arm again, this time to steady her. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast.

“You are indeed remarkable,
lalkupi
, a strong woman.” His voice was low, pronouncing the foreign word like a native. “My grandfather prophesied well.”

Staggered, Valerie could not speak.

Hard purpose set upon his handsome face.

“Alistair is working for Hannsley. I went to London to confirm that. How did he learn of your assignation?” His gaze flickered to her neck but his tone was cold again. Valerie resisted the urge to cover the bruise. Hurt careened through her.

“Does it bother you? His hands on me, his mouth?”

“This is not a game of coquetry, Valerie.”

“I have not played games since the day I learned my father died,” she bit out. Blinking back the prickling behind her eyes, she clenched her jaw, seeing the same resolute resistance in Steven’s eyes. He held himself in harsh control again. Valerie longed to break him, to banish that control with her forever. “It bothers you that he touched me, doesn’t it?”

“You know it does,” he ground out. “Now tell me what else you know.”

“Why should I? You have what you desire now. In the meantime you have had everything else you desire as well.” She couldn’t breathe. “Run off to London now, Steven, Etienne, whoever you are,” she said, her mocking tone echoing through clouded ears, so hollow that the words seemed to reach through to her heart. “Follow your villain there, or across the ocean, wherever he takes you. But don’t tell me the truth, never the truth, and certainly do not allow me into your intrigues. I am not adequate enough to—”

He gripped her arms, halting her speech as he bent his head to her, his body rigid. He spoke just above her brow.

“You want the truth? Hear this one then.” His voice scraped like gravel. “When I was no older than you, I went to live with my mother’s people. You spoke to my godmother. You know of my parents, of my mother who died too young of fever because she left her home to care for the man she loved, and for her son.”

Stunned by his abrupt turn of words and stark tone, Valerie could only nod.

“I lived with my mother’s people for four years. After a time, they gave me a name they believed suited me. To the Natchez I am
w¯ı’dan kapa’htia
.”

Valerie’s heart beat fast and thick. “What does it mean?”

“Lone Hawk.” Steven’s gaze burned into hers. “It is not a name I would have chosen for myself, but it is what they discovered me to be. Because it is who I am, Valerie, a man who must live alone, hunt alone, and die alone.”

Valerie’s head spun and her heart rose into her throat. She swallowed back panic, images from her dreams sluicing through her memory. So many times, on the ship and since returning, she dreamed of the hawk watching her, hunting but never coming close. Always at a distance.

She shook her head, trying to deny it. Dreams meant nothing. It was a mad coincidence, a peculiarity of whimsy, irrational for her to refine upon. As irrational as her father’s rejection of her after his wife’s death. As irrational as Valerie’s own defiant attempts to win his affection. As irrational as her suspicion, nurtured carefully over years, in England, Boston, at sea, that no man could ever love her. When she had returned to England, to her brother and Anna’s warm welcome and Timothy’s constancy, she had flirted with the idea that perhaps she could find what she always wanted. But her heart lingered with the French priest, yearning for him so powerfully.