The Millionaire Rogue (12 page)

No
. No. Not tonight. There was too much to do, and the French Blue, it was gone, stolen at his own ball—he had to keep a clear mind, focus on the task at hand—

More port. While it was making him forget everything good and right, his manners and his decorum and his sense of duty, it also helped him to forget his grief. The diamond, his father—they disappeared in the presence of Miss Sophia Blaise.

Sophia blinked, a look of—was that disappointment?—darkening her features. She placed her empty glass on the mantel and began to wrangle free of Hope's jacket.

“Too warm?” Hope asked, setting aside his glass to help.

In reply Sophia shot him a smoldering look over her shoulder.

That twist between his legs pulsed to a full-on rush of heat.

Warm? Dear
God
. A drop in the old proverbial bucket.

Hope stepped back, holding the jacket awkwardly in his hands, unsure what his next move should be.

Again that look in Sophia's eyes.

Harry, England, and Saint George
. The diamond, and Napoleon; the twenty thousand pounds he'd put down to set the plot in motion, the bank and all the lives at stake, keeping her safe from the men after her—

It all went out the door when Sophia stepped forward and took the jacket from his arms, spreading it out on the carpet before the fire. She took her glass from the mantel and held out her hand.

“I like it here,” she said. “Let's sit.”

Hope, embarrassingly, let out a groan. “Just one—” He loosened his cravat. “Just one moment, Sophia.”

He dashed to the desk, grabbing the bottle of port; turning back to the fireplace, he took his own cup from the mantel and held it between the fingers of one hand along with the bottle. With the other hand he took Sophia's, and together they began to sink to the floor when she stumbled over her dress, caught beneath her foot. She pitched backward; Hope's arm darted out just in time, grasping her by the arm.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, dear. That port's strong, isn't it?”

He guided her to the floor beside him. “No stronger than usual. Are you all right?”

Sophia stretched out her legs toward the fire, propping her weight on her free hand. Hope followed suit, her mirror image. Her slippered toes grazed the tip of his boot, once, before she moved her foot.

“Yes.” Sophia held out her glass. In the moving light of the fire her color was high, eyes wet and willing.

He swallowed. And filled her glass.

He held the bottle up to the fire. Damn it. Almost empty.

“Did we finish the whole bottle?”

Hope splashed what was left into his glass, and looked up at Sophia with a smile. “Just did.”

“Goodness.” She brought the glass to her lips and took a long pull. “We should probably slow down, shouldn't we?”

He laughed, and she laughed along with him.

Again that heated silence. Propped on his hand, he was close enough to reach out and touch her, swallow her in a kiss.

Just as he was leaning in, she surprised him by speaking up.

“Might I ask you a question, Thomas?”

He pulled back slightly, praying she did not sense the foolish thing he'd been about to do. Putting aside his glass, he ran a hand through his hair and grinned. “Since when have you asked my permission to do anything, Miss Blaise? Go on, then.”

“You and La Reinette. How—how do you know her? And why go to her about the French Blue before anyone else? I did not realize she was a woman of such great. Er. Importance.”

Well. Out of all the things she could've asked, Hope wasn't expecting
that
.

He narrowed his eyes. Was that a reflection of his own jealousy he heard in her words? More likely Sophia was merely trying to piece together the details of the plot.

Still. Though it shamed him to admit it, some small part of him was pleased she might be jealous. Perhaps—
perhaps
—he intrigued her as much as she intrigued him.

Perhaps a small part of
her
cared for him, even.

He did not dare follow that thought any further.

“Ah, La Reinette.” Hope wondered how much he should tell Sophia about his long, and often complicated, relationship with the mercurial Frenchwoman. “How much do you know?”

“Only that she's got a taste for pirates, and has a habit of attracting dangerous—albeit handsome—men.”

“Well, then.” Hope pulled back a curl with his fingers. “I shall begin at the—er, beginning, then.

“Marie and I are very old friends. We first met ten—no, twelve years ago, in Paris. I was working with Lake at the time, doing—well, it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say my line of work brought me into contact with Marie around the time Napoleon overthrew the Directory.”

“Who is she?”

Hope sighed. “No one knows, really. She keeps her own secrets even better than she keeps everyone else's. I
do
know she rose to prominence during the Revolution, when it was rumored she—how do I put this?—
befriended
several high-ranking nobles. It wasn't long before she was the
maîtresse-en-titre
to the likes of royal dukes and German princes.

“More than that, she was their confidant throughout the bloodshed that was to come. Marie became involved in all sorts of intrigue to save her lovers. She was discreet, intelligent, too. But even she was not immune to the danger of those times. Back then France was a fearful place, you see;
madame guillotine
exacted terrible justice. Everyone was afraid.

“And so when the danger grew too great, I helped La Reinette escape to England. Together we found asylum in London. I loaned her the funds to establish The Glossy; she in turn became my first client and an advocate of Hope and Company besides. It wasn't long before I could count all of her high-ranking clients as my own. She operates, you see, in perhaps the most rarefied circle in all of England.”

Sophia nodded. “Rubbing elbows with London's finest, La Reinette would be the first to hear of any plot against you.”

“I wouldn't call what she does ‘rubbing elbows,'
exactly,” Hope said, tugging at his cravat. “But yes. If anyone of any importance had designs to steal the diamond, she would be the first to know about it.”

“And the note,” Sophia said. “I know the diamond is of utmost importance, Thomas. But I do hope La Reinette can help us uncover who wrote that letter. Not only does he threaten us, he threatens my family, too.”

Hope met her eyes. For the first time, she appeared frightened. “We'll find him, Sophia. I'll do everything I can to keep your family safe in the meantime.”

Sophia looked down at her glass, shaking her head. “And here I thought myself an adventurer. My God! She wouldn't be afraid. Not after the things La Reinette must've seen, and the people she's known.”

“So now you understand, Sophia,” Hope said, finishing what was left of his port, “it is no small thing that she chose you to write her memoirs. If—when—they are ever published, they will be a sensation. You must be possessed of great talent.”

Sophia scoffed. “Indeed, I beat out several other applicants for the assignment. Zero, to be exact.”

“Marie wouldn't have taken you on if she didn't see something in you she liked.”

“Well.” Sophia tipped her head back, draining the last drop of her port. “We'll see if La Reinette still likes me enough to finish what we've started. Everything's—” Her voice softened. “Everything's changed, you know.”

Hope turned his head to look at her. The words left his lips before he could stop them. “Yes. But some things, I hope, for the better.”

A beat of charged silence settled between them, long enough that Hope would've squirmed if it weren't for the goodly amount of port hard at work in his blood.

Her face was open as she looked back, lips slightly parted as she waited. Willing. Curious.

Christ.
He needed the port now more than ever. Up until this moment it had kept his hands and his mouth busy.

But now. Now they were left idle, set ablaze by the not insignificant amount of said port he'd imbibed in the last few hours.

He didn't like how much he liked not thinking about the diamond, or the bank, or the world outside. How much he liked thinking about Miss Sophia Blaise instead.

The silence grew unbearable.

And then, embarrassed—terrified, in Hope's case; terrified that he would do something he'd regret, that would compromise everything for which he'd worked so hard, but dear
God
he'd never wanted anything so badly—they both moved to stand at once.

Sophia bent her knees, the whole of her bare leg exposed as Hope took her by the arm and hauled her up beside him.

A lovely, lithe, impossibly shapely leg.

For some inexplicable reason, both Hope and Sophia were breathless as they stood, not daring to touch, before the fire. Hope trained his eyes on Botticelli's masterwork above the mantel, balling his hands into fists to keep from reaching out for Sophia, indulging the desire that pounded unabated through his body.

But staring at Venus only made his struggle worse. Had she always been this sensual, the goddess, her legs so visible through the transparent gauze of her gown?

If those damned Frenchmen, those acrobats, or the diamond's thief—heaven above, Hope was a wanted man—didn't kill him first, then this Venus at his side, brought to startling, sensual life, would certainly be the death of him.

Sophia turned her head and met his eyes, her breast working as she struggled to catch her breath. “Thomas,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We should—I should—”

In one swift, ruthless movement he reached for her, curling his hand around the back of her neck as he pulled her to him, lowering his lips onto her own.

Knowing as he did that, once he'd started, he would not be able to stop.

T
hank God Thomas kissed Sophia first, before whatever she was about to say slipped from her tongue.
I should go. I should stay. We should kiss, and keep kissing until whatever happens after that happens.

No, it would not do at all; she did not trust herself with a bellyful of port and Mr. Thomas Hope looking at her like
that
.

Like he was racked with thirst that could only be slaked by swallowing her whole.

Sophia had only known Thomas—truly
known
him—for a week or two. But in those two weeks they'd each shared more of themselves than either of them ever had with anyone else. He knew her secrets, and she knew his. Well, a goodly amount of them, anyway. Together they'd shared adventure, cheated death, and outwitted villains, touching and talking and
kissing
along the way.

She felt as if she knew him better than she knew even her dearest friends.

Even so. One did not discuss the goddess of love over a bottle of wine with a frightfully unmarried member of the opposite sex. Never, never,
never
.

And yet.

It could've been the port—no, it was most
definitely
the port—but the memory of Hope's kiss, his touch, pounded through her with every breath she took. The longer they talked and drank, drank and talked, the press of the evening's events faded. In their place rose a dizzying—oh, that
deuced port
!—fire, its embers bursting to flame when he'd looked at her for several long, silent heartbeats, his eyes darkened by pain, struggle, something heavy with which he was grappling.

When they'd stood, chests heaving, before the fire, Sophia wasn't sure if Thomas would lean in or turn away.

When he'd leaned in—well.

Whatever reservations she had dissolved into desire when his lips met hers. This was no innocent kiss; his deadly intent was as palpable as the heat that radiated from his body.

Beneath the knowing gaze of Botticelli's Venus, Hope opened Sophia to him. His hand slid from her neck to her cheek, and together with his other hand cradled her face, turning her head in time to the strokes of his kiss.

When she matched him, caress for caress, he let out a deep, contented moan and stepped closer, pressing his body against hers. His flesh felt at once familiar and frightening. The warmth of his emotion, the terrific hunger of his desire—she recognized these things in her own response to the kiss, yes.

But if they were both flooded with longing, who would stop them from sinking into one another, from giving in and giving up everything that they wanted, that they were?

Hope's lips were traveling across her jaw now, pressing into the exquisitely tender skin of her neck. She inhaled his scent, clean lemon, spicy sandalwood. So lovely, so inviting . . .

No. Stop
. The words were there, the debutante still alive somewhere inside the tangle of her limbs.

Thomas kissed her neck, teasing her with his teeth, his tongue, sending bolts of white-hot pleasure through her.

The words were lost. Her eyes rolled shut as she tilted her head back, surrendering to Hope's desire for her, the sensation of his mouth moving over her as if he knew where she wanted to be touched before she knew it herself.

So this—this was
it
. What came after kissing. The
it
Sophia had been warned against since she was old enough to listen.

But no one warned her
it
was going to feel like
this
.

As Thomas touched her, explored her with tender fingers and urgent lips, she felt her body unfurling beneath his hands. Her shoulders relaxed; the tension between her eyes and along her spine loosened.

Thoughts of her family, her fears for them, scattered like shadows from a struck match. Here it was only Sophia and Thomas and the gasped breaths between them.

Here there was no war to wage, no marriage to make. The rules were what she made them. Here she was flesh and blood and heart, nothing else, nothing to pretend or force.

She suddenly felt light, alive.
Honest
. As if the walls of her pretending and forcing and worry had fallen, at least for a little while, to her feet.

The release was intoxicating. Coupled with the port—or, perhaps, in spite of it—Sophia felt as if her feet might leave the ground.

Hope's hands adored her, slow caresses as they moved down from her face to her shoulders. She inhaled when his hands slowly, oh,
slowly
traveled the length of her ribs, his thumb grazing her breast before dipping to her belly, tugging her further against him as he held her by the hips.

His lips were on the neckline of her gown. Sophia arched back, digging her hands into the inviting mass of his dark curls. She let out a long, hot breath, willing herself to remember this moment.

It would never be like this again. It couldn't.

Thomas raised his head, straightening so that he loomed over her, his eyes ablaze. He dragged his hands back up over her hips, hooking his thumbs beneath her ribs.

“Hold on to me,” he growled. Without waiting for a reply he lifted her, a familiar, guttural tear sounding between them as her skirts—what little was left of them, anyway—were rent into a dozen pieces. He pressed her back against the wall beside the fireplace, holding her with one arm while coaxing her legs about his hips with the other.

Lightning shot through her at the feel of Thomas nestled between her legs. She felt open and vulnerable.

She felt like
more
.

Pulling his face close, she covered her mouth with his, and he moaned again, this one so deep and strong she felt the vibration of his chest in her own. She followed his example and moved her lips to his cheek, his chin, the place where jaw sloped to ear and neck.

She sensed the tension coiling inside him; vaguely she wondered if she was hurting him, if she should stop—

Sliding his hands along the backs of her thighs, he gathered her backside in his palms and lifted her away from the wall. She gasped as he took one, two unhurried strides across the room, setting her at last on the edge of his enormous, gleaming desk.

Sophia looked up at him, wondering what could possibly come next. There was a wicked gleam in his eye she'd never seen before. Thomas, it seemed, knew
exactly
what came next.

He leaned in, and she closed her eyes and surrendered to the rush of his lips against her. He ran his hands down her bare legs, the scrape of skin against skin sending a shiver up her spine; he pulled back his hands, allowed them to linger on her hips a moment before trailing them up her sides, over her breasts. She released his mouth, sucking in a breath at the exquisite sensation that rushed through her as he buried the fingers of his right hand into the neckline of her bodice.

With his teeth he nipped at her bottom lip. And then he was tugging at her bodice, pulling it up and over her skin, baring her breast to his touch.

Sophia gasped. “Thomas! Thomas—”

He put his first finger to her lips, pulling open her mouth as he met her eyes and lowered his head, kept lowering it.

She watched in breathless wonder as he took the hardened knot of her nipple into his mouth, sucking in a breath at the pleasure that pulsed between her legs.

As if under a spell her body arched further against him, her fingers tangling in his hair, encouraging him as he licked, then teased, scraping his teeth against her nipple with excruciating finesse.

In her veins she felt her blood rising, pooling between her legs. It felt good to have Thomas pressed against her there; good, and not nearly enough.

He went to work on the other side of her bodice, coaxing her breast free. While he moved his lips to this unexplored skin, he worked the other with his fingers, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

Sophia's breath caught in her throat. She threw back her head, biting her lip against crying out. The more he touched and pulled, the more unbearable it became.

When she lifted her head, her gaze landed for a moment on Botticelli's Venus, watching the scene impassively from across the room. How did she appear so calm, Sophia wondered, after Mars had done
this
to her moments before?

There was no shame or regret in Venus's eyes; only knowledge, a breathlessness in the pose of her head as if she would nod her assent.
Go on, go on, explore so that you might know.

Hope's finger traced a line of fire along the inside of Sophia's bottom lip. In her mounting frustration she bit the tip of his finger, crying out as he returned the favor on her nipple.

She was pulling at his hair now, the silken curls catching on her fingers. Thomas released his mouth, feathering kisses across her breast. He lowered his hand to her hip, meeting her eyes.

Sophia should shake her head, push him away, end the encounter as a lady of good manners ought. Through the pounding of the port and of her desire, she knew this could only end badly. She was only as good as her virginity, at least in the eyes of those who mattered.

But here, now, blessed by Venus and drunk on wine, that lady of good manners felt as far away as the moon. Here and now under Hope's spell she was only Sophia, filled for the first time with the will to follow her own desires, rather than everyone else's.

Yes
, she breathed, and ran her thumb along the ridge of Thomas's brow.

He did not waste any time. Grasping her hips in his hands, thumbs grazing the inside of her thighs, he got down on his knees. She watched with bated breath as he reached up with one hand, placing it squarely over her heart.

“Lie down.” His voice was barely above a whisper. He gently pushed back her torso, guiding her down, and bent her knees so that her feet rested on the edge of the desk.

“Is this,” she panted, “the sort of work you usually do at your desk?”

From his perch between her legs he scoffed. “Oh, this, and every now and again the odd bit of paperwork.”

Sophia laughed, his humor alleviating her shyness at opening herself to him so freely, so wholly.

He tugged her skirts aside, revealing the length of her legs. One at a time he removed her slippers, then her stockings and the ribboned garters that held them in place. His touch was light, deliberate, a thrilling foil to the hard expanse of the desk pressing up against her spine.

Thus having untangled Sophia from the intricacies of her footwear, Thomas moved farther up her legs, over her thighs and hips to her belly. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her drawers, and, grinning at Sophia's gasp, ripped them off, dropping them to the floor beside her slippers and stockings.

She was completely naked. Well, save for the scraps of gauze wrapped about her middle that were all that was left of her costume.

Not only that. Hope's face was mere inches from that most private place between her legs, the place she'd been taught to simultaneously ignore and worship as the source of all her worth.

He pressed on the inside of her thighs, inching her legs wider. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the thought that he didn't like what he saw.

“Sophia.” The word was kind but spoken firmly. “Open your eyes. I want you to see how beautiful I think you are.”

Her eyes flew open. “Beautiful?” She lifted her head as if to look herself. “Really?”

His hands crept closer to her center, his thumbs grazing her dark, slick curls. “Oh, God,” he groaned. “You've not the slightest clue, Sophia.”

Between her legs she felt a tug, at once painful and intensely pleasurable.

And then, just when she thought it couldn't get any better, that she might explode or die or swoon or all three, Thomas touched her.

It was his first finger, brushing lightly the very tip of her sex—the place that she quickly discovered was the center of all this delicious, maddening sensation.

She cried out, the agony of her pleasure at his touch overwhelming. He splayed his other hand palm-down over her belly, willing her to be still as he touched, and kept touching. The hand slid forward, caressing her breast, plucking at her nipple. A sharp stab of pleasure shot through her. She was on fire, every inch of her burning; her hips now worked against him, pressing harder, wanting more.

“Easy, Sophia,” he purred. “Easy.”

His finger slid from the top of her sex down to its middle where it gently, slowly, began to ease its way inside her.

She shot upright, eyes wide.

“No.” Thomas pushed her back down. “Soon, soon. Patience, darling.”

Patience
. How was she supposed to have patience when he tortured her like this?

Pressure mounted around his finger as it delved deeper yet. His other hand slid back down her belly to rest where her legs met; and then with his thumb he began stroking that
place
again, the place that hurt and thrummed and sang the most.

In and out, he was inside her, over her, in her, all at once. A hard, tight sensation rolled through her, so poignant she gritted her teeth against it.