The Heiress Effect (37 page)

She did no such thing. She simply tangled her
hand in his coat and pulled him closer.

He was not going to have her in the
underbrush at the side of the road. He
wasn’t.
But God, he
wanted it. He wanted her, and he couldn’t even remember why it was
a bad idea any longer.

“Oliver.” She said his name on a gasp, and it
drove him wild.

“God, I love when you say my name like
that.”

She shifted, and her bottom rubbed against
his groin as she did. He rolled her nipple between his fingers.

“Oliver,” she moaned, and he kissed her
harder. “Oliver. I’m not trying to say your name.”

He pulled back, breathing hard.

“It’s just, that’s the third raindrop I’ve
felt.”

“Oh, damnation.” He didn’t want to be
interrupted, not for rain, not for thunder, not for a flood
sweeping down on them. He didn’t want this to end. Once it did, he
wasn’t sure when it would ever start again.

But she was right. It had begun to rain. A
cold, wet droplet fell on his nose, followed by another.

He had known their time together was going to
end. It was probably just as well that it had. Nothing had changed.
She was still…impossible. Utterly impossible. A few heated kisses
couldn’t hold the truth at bay, and more would just render this
whole thing unsavory.

He wanted more. God, how he wanted more. He
wanted it with the strength of four months’ of desperate longing.
He forced himself to concentrate on those cold, wet drops. He
imagined each one washing away his ardor. Driving away thoughts of
her breast under his palm, her legs wrapped around his waist.

The rain really wasn’t helping.

The storm came on faster than their horse
would go. One minute, there were a mild drizzle; the next, it felt
as if they’d been enveloped in a sheet of water. It poured over
them in a cold wave.

So why was he not chilled? Why was he still
holding her, caressing her, kissing away the water drops that
collected on her ear? Why were his hands exploring her curves?

Light sizzled across the sky in a jagged
arc.

It highlighted the silhouettes of buildings,
not so far away now. This interlude was already coming to an end.
He couldn’t let go of her, though. Couldn’t stop his lips from
tasting her neck again and again. Couldn’t take his hands from her
thighs—especially not now, with her gown plastered to her skin.

He took her to the inn.

There were a thousand ways that a man and a
woman arriving at an inn, drenched, in the middle of the night,
might finagle a room together. If he were a different man…

He handed her down. “Go in,” he said. “Tell
whoever’s in charge some story about how you…” He really couldn’t
think of a story right now. He couldn’t think of anything but her.
“Make up something. Whatever you like. I’ll wait half an hour and
come in with a different tale. We sent our luggage over by
different paths, requested different rooms. There’s no need for her
to associate the two of us.”

“Oliver.”

He didn’t look at her. If he saw her eyes, if
he looked at her gown, clinging to her wet skin, he’d never let her
go.

He swallowed. The next words were harder to
say than he had imagined, but he managed to choke them out.

“Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow at the
train station at seven.”

Jane could not wait calmly. Time passed, and she
watched the door, waiting to see the results of her subterfuge. It
took forty-five minutes before Oliver strode in, still wet, but
possessed of one of the towels that Jane had asked to be left for
him.

“Jane.” His voice was rough.

He ran his hands through his hair, ruffling
it into wet, auburn spikes.

She lifted her chin and met his eyes. There
was no lamp in the room, just a fire. The dim flicker of flame made
his eyes seem dark and dangerous.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he
growled.

“You told me to tell the innkeeper a story,”
she said, managing to keep her voice calm even when her heart was
beating at twice its normal rate. “I did.”

“A story about how you came to be alone and
wet and bedraggled to an inn! That’s what I meant. Not a story
about—about—”

“About how my lover, a duke’s son, would be
coming along shortly?” Jane raised an eyebrow. “About how we would
be sharing a chamber?”

He tossed his towel over a chair and advanced
on her.

“Yes,” he said, “I want you. Yes, I’ve
thought of having you over and over these last few months. Yes, I
lost my head out there, Jane. But I didn’t expect you to pay for my
help with your body.”

She stood. She’d changed from her sodden gown
into a warm chemise with an embroidered robe over it. She could
hear the beat of blood in her ears.

“Is that what you think? That I’m offering
myself to you in payment for services rendered? Don’t be daft,
Oliver.” She took a step toward him. “Do you think you’re the only
one who has been wanting these last months? The only one who lies
awake, watching the ceiling, wishing for more? Look at me. I’m not
a sacrifice.”

Her heart slammed, but she reached up and
undid the tie of her robe. He watched that piece of silk slide to
the floor, his eyes hungry.

“Look at me,” Jane repeated. She slid the
robe off of her shoulders—she could scarcely breathe—and let it
flutter down. Her skin prickled in the sudden coolness, but it
wasn’t cold she felt. “I’m not a gift,” she said. “Or a prize that
you’ve won. I’m a woman, and I want you because it will give me
joy.”

He was looking her up and down. She knew how
sheer her shift was—translucent enough that he’d be able to see the
form of her body silhouetted with the fire behind it.

He licked his lips. “I had every intention of
being a gentleman. Of sleeping on the floor, or…or something.”

“Is that what a gentleman would do?” Jane
asked.

“Probably.”

“Then gentlemen are idiots.”

He laughed. “Jane. God. You are the bravest
woman I have ever known.”

She took a step closer. “I scarcely have the
wherewithal to be brave about this.” Another step, until she was
close enough to set her hands on his chest.

“Do you know what to expect?”

“Only in the vaguest terms. The specifics…”
She reached out and gently, very gently, took hold of his cravat.
“The specifics,” she repeated, “I’m looking forward to
discovering.”

“Then discover.”

She undid his cravat, winding the fabric from
around his neck.

“See?” She looked up. “I didn’t know that—the
look of your throat.” She leaned forward and placed a kiss in the
hollow there. The points of his shirt brushed wetly against her
cheeks.

“Jane. You’re killing me.”

She hadn’t understood what to do until she
heard his voice—that hard rasp, so clearly indicating he was on the
edge of his control. This,
this
was what she wanted. To kill
him with every brush of her fingers, and to have him love it.

She pushed back the collar of his still
sodden coat; he shrugged his shoulders, relinquishing it to
her.

She’d seen men in their shirtsleeves before,
but never like this. Not with the fabric practically translucent
from rain, outlining the smooth curve of bicep and tricep. She
undid the buttons of his waistcoat, slowly reveling in the glimpses
she caught through the fabric—the slim tapering of his waist, the
hard feel of his abdomen when she brushed her hand against the
fabric of his shirt.

He hadn’t moved, except to assist her in
removing items. She was glad of it. He stood still, as if he
understood that she needed to uncover him, little by little. To get
used to the idea of what would happen. To let her touch before he
touched her back.

The shirt proved more complicated. He had
little silver studs at the cuff, and it took her some time to
untangle the wet mass from his person, even though he gave her a
little help. But when she had it off him…

Just the hint of his flesh through the shirt
had made her mouth dry. The reality of him—of all that taut muscle,
of the arrow of hair tracing down from his navel, the darker nubs
of his nipples…

She reached out and set her hand on his
skin.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You’re still wet. Of
course you’re still wet. And cold.” She took the towel he’d
abandoned and dabbed at his shoulders. His arms. Feeling it all as
she went, that hard, smooth body of his, dangerously curved and yet
waiting motionless. Allowing her to explore her fill of him. She
dried off his back and addressed herself to his front.

He hissed as she rubbed his abdomen.

“Did that hurt?”

“On the contrary. It felt rather good.” He
looked her in the eyes. “Touch me there again.”

He hadn’t moved, not one inch, but he wasn’t
letting go of control. His skin was warming under her caresses, the
color changing from chalk to a faint blush. She touched him, traced
that line of hair vanishing into his trousers, felt the firm muscle
tense under her fingers.

“Am I doing it right?”

“You’re doing… Yes, Jane. Keep doing that.
Please.”

She ran her hand up his waist. Across his
chest. When her fingers brushed his nipple, he hissed again, and
she took a moment for further exploration. He responded to her
touch, his flesh tightening, hardening. His breath shivered as she
rolled the hard nub between her fingers, touching it the way he’d
touched her earlier.

Oh, if only she’d paid better attention,
cataloguing what he’d done.

What was it he’d said? That if he had her in
a bed, he would…

She leaned forward and licked him.

“Oh, Jane.” His hands closed around her
shoulders.

“Was that…should I…” She pulled away. “Should
I stop?”

“Lick me anywhere you like.”

“Am I doing well enough?”

He took her hand in his and laid it across
the damp placket of his trousers, splaying her fingers under him so
she could feel the hard ridge beneath. “That’s how well you’re
doing,” he told her hoarsely. “So well that the danger is that I’ll
spill in my first few thrusts.”

The thought of that caught hold of her,
setting her lungs on fire. “Oh?” she heard herself ask. “How do I
make you do that?”

His eyes met hers, fierce and intense, and
her whole body seemed to melt. “You let me have a turn.”

That sent a shot through her, a bolt of pure
anticipation. He’d scarcely touched her since he’d come in the
room; now his hands slid down her sides, over her hips.

He set his hands on her thighs. “Back a
little,” he said, giving her the barest guiding pressure. She took
two steps in reverse and felt her legs hit the bed behind her. And
then he stood, lifting her chemise as he did so. It slid over her
skin, over her head. He disentangled it from her arms, and let it
fall on the ground. She was completely naked.

She should have felt exposed. Off-kilter. But
his eyes devoured her with such heat that she felt only…powerful.
Wanted.
Ready.

“There,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Now
that… That is a good idea.” Her whole body tingled. She didn’t know
what he would do—whether he would push her to the bed and sink
inside her, or touch her all over, the way she’d touched him.

Instead, he tilted her head back and kissed
her. It was a long, sweet kiss, a kiss that drugged her senses. A
kiss that made her aware of every inch of her skin—of the fact that
as they kissed, he gathered her up in his arms, pressing against
her. His chest. That hard ridge beneath his trousers. His legs,
still damp. He kissed her until every part of her demanded
more.

Just when she was ready to scream with a
frustration she didn’t understand, his hands swept up her body,
cupping her breasts. She had one brief moment to react—to feel the
rough brush of his thumb across her sensitive flesh—before he bent
and kissed her on her breast.

“Oliver.” Her hands closed around him. Her
knees buckled. “Oliver. God. If what I did to you felt anything
like that…”

“Then you’ll spend in a few strokes,” he
murmured. “That’s rather the goal.”

He gathered her in his arms and bore her down
onto the bed. But he didn’t clamber on top of her as she’d
expected.

“Don’t you have to remove your trousers?”

“Not yet.”

“But—”

His hands on her thighs silenced her. It was
a warm, insistent pressure, fingers opening up her most intimate
places. He knelt between her legs. “Not for this,” he said, and set
his mouth to her.

It was utterly electrifying. To have his lips
there. As if all the things she’d yearned for he had heard through
the tension in her muscle. As if her desire was spelled out with
his tongue.

She let out a moan.

He took that as encouragement and spread her
legs wider, and then, as she relaxed against him, he slid a finger
inside her. His other thumb—his tongue—did something extraordinary,
something that made her whole body light up with an unexplainable
incandescence. Another finger, stretching her out, then another
one. It was too much.