The Pretender (22 page)

He couldn't do it. He couldn't be the next man to lie and deceive her faithful heart. Not for himself and not for his country.

Not and remain the man he had worked so hard to become. So that was that. He was finished here.

He could only hope the Liars weren't finished as well.

Agatha tapped a stuttering tattoo on Simon's door with trembling knuckles. Heavens, she sounded like a woodpecker.

"Come."

His deep voice was even lower than usual. Agatha took firm hold of her nerves and slipped into the room.

Simon sat before the fire with a book open in his hands. He was still nominally dressed, although his shirt was undone and his hair mussed.

For a moment his face seemed grief-stricken in the half-light of the fire. Agatha stopped when a tiny spark of unease unexpectedly flared within her. Then he smiled slightly, and the feeling was gone.

Just a trick of the light, then.

She smiled back at him. He was so perfect. He was just the sort of man who would never let her walk all over him yet never ignore her for more interesting pursuits.

And he was beautiful. Agatha could feel herself breathing faster at the mere sight of him in his loose white shirt and snug black breeches.

He didn't stand as she approached, but leaned back in the armchair and stretched his long legs out before him. She had seen him nearly naked once. She knew what lay beneath his fine clothes.

She couldn't wait to see him naked again. Completely.

He hadn't spoken yet, but only looked at her with his head slightly tilted, as if waiting for her to explain herself.

Considering she stood before him in her wrapper, with a dark and silent house about them, she thought she was making things rather clear.

Still, he was a man, albeit a perfect one. Perhaps a hint.

"I've made a decision."

He shut the book and laid it on a side table, then looked back at her with his hands loosely clasped over his flat stomach.

Still not a word.

"I want to sleep in your bed." After she'd blurted that out, sheer frozen embarrassment was all that kept her standing there.

That got his attention finally. He sat up straight, pulling his legs from their beguiling stretch and bracing his hands on the arms of the chair as if to stand. But he didn't.

He watched her carefully. "I assume you are not saying that you wish to switch chambers with me."

"No."

"Ah."

Something flashed in his cobalt eyes, something like triumph mingled with regret. Surely it was only the fire flickering in their midnight depths.

"Well, then." She stepped closer to him, almost standing between his feet.

He didn't move. Dark eyes traveled from her hem to her hair, but his hands remained on the chair arms.

Fear of rejection and humiliation coursed through her for the first time. Yet he wasn't refusing her. And if the evidence straining his trousers was any indication, he wasn't going to do so anytime soon.

Apparently, she was simply going to have to show him what to do. Feeling suddenly powerful in a new and tingling manner, Agatha smiled.

She moved to stand directly between his knees, and he leaned back a bit in response, still watching her. Agatha could see the smooth skin of his chest gleaming within the undone placket of his shirt.

She wanted to see more. She wanted to see those square shoulders again, wanted to touch his skin to feel the way the muscles rippled beneath it.

As if it belonged to someone else, her hand reached out and slipped beneath the white linen. His body jerked the slightest bit when her cool fingers found his warm flesh, and Agatha's sense of power grew.

Simon was not as calm as he strove to appear. When her fingers stroked over his skin, his heart had leaped like a stag. Even now, with the faint tracing of her fingertips the only contact between them, he could feel his breath coming faster.

She gathered a handful of his shirtfront, then tugged lightly. He leaned forward at her bidding. When she bent over him to gather the tails of his shirt in her hands to pull it off, he closed his eyes and breathed her in.

Lemon and flowers and lust. He was almost paralyzed by the contrast. He was being seduced. Should he push her away? Should he overcome her tantalizing pace with his own urgency? Should he take control?

Her hands caressed his shoulders and slid slowly down his bare chest. She was so bold, yet she would not look into his eyes. She was staring at him as if she had never truly seen a man's body before.

Her lips were parted, and she chewed one in concentration as she moved her hands over every inch of his chest. No wonder James hadn't been able to get enough of her.

It was very seductive, this way she had of making a man feel as though he was the most amazing thing she had ever seen.

Her hands met the waist of his trousers at last. She lowered herself to kneel before him. One by one, very slowly, she undid each button with great attention.

Simon was so hard by then that he sprang from the confines of his trousers with a vengeance, to rise before her eyes.

Her only reaction was utter stillness but for the rise of her arched brows.

Oh my. Agatha couldn't think past that. Oh my, oh my.

It would never work. Never, never, not in a thousand lifetimes was it going to fit.

Perhaps people were not like sheep after all.

Deciding to attend to that amazing detail a bit later, Agatha tore her gaze away. She sat back on her heels and turned her attention to pulling Simon's boots and hose from him.

When he was naked but for his trousers, she looked back. He was yet so very large.

Yet still Simon sat watching her. Not touching her, not responding in any other way. Beginning to doubt herself, Agatha wondered if she ought to leave right now.

He must have seen it in her face, for he abruptly leaned forward and took her face between his hands. She felt the warmth of his palms seep all through her body, she was so starved for his touch.

He tilted her head back and gazed into her eyes. His expression was stern and hungry at once. "Agatha, how far are you prepared to take this?"

What? "Good Lord, Simon. Must I draw you a bloody map?"

His lips twitched into a reluctant smile. "No, I think I know where we are headed."

Then he pulled her mouth to his.

If Simon thought he was on fire before, it was nothing to what he felt when Agatha threw herself into the kiss. Her arms twined about his neck, and she rose on her knees to press herself fervently into him.

She opened her lips and kissed him as hard as he kissed her. When they finally broke for air, she let her head fall back and surrendered to his mouth completely.

The mission was gone, burnt from his consciousness by the fire of his craving. There was only Agatha, soft and fierce, pliant and willful.

And eager. So gloriously, fantastically eager.

When he moved her wrapper aside to continue to feast on her neck, she yanked it off one shoulder with impatience.

When he slid from the chair to tumble her on the rug before the fire, she rolled with him until she lay above him, pressing herself closer still.

Simon's lips moved over her throat and down her neck to her shoulder. Icy molten shivers rippled through her.

The wrapper slid from her torso at Simon's urging. He held her by the waist and pressed her away from him to see her better, looking up at her with glazed admiration.

"Beautiful…"

The only thing concealing her breasts was the thin batiste of her chemise. Agatha raised her chin, unashamed to be exposed before him. He wasn't looking at her like a thing, like a walking bosom.

He wanted her the way she wanted him.

Entirely.

She took her hands from his chest and raised them to the neckline of her chemise where it clung half off her shoulders. Never taking her eyes from his, she slipped it down, baring her breasts for him.

Amazingly, he raised his gaze to hers.

"May I?"

Her deepest heart stumbled and fell into his hands, right then and there. To be asked so respectfully, not stolen from…

"Please." She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. The room whirled and then she lay beneath him, splayed on the rug, revealed by the firelight to his gaze and his touch.

He rose above her, gently trapping her thighs between his own, and simply looked at her. Then his fingertips drifted over and around both breasts at once, making her skin tingle and the tips tighten unbearably.

Agatha stretched her arms above her head, granting willing passage to his exploring hands. When his warm palms cupped and raised her, the heat went directly to her own center, and she felt herself tense and throb.

Simon bent over her to take her nipple into his mouth, and Agatha jerked in surprise. Her astonishment was quickly overwhelmed by the pleasure shivering through her. How had he known it would please her?

How was she to know what would please him? For suddenly his happiness was very important to her.

Then a thought occurred that wiped out her pleasure and her purpose. She had based her decision to come here tonight on the certainty that Simon would want to marry her afterward.

What if that wasn't what he wanted at all?

What if he had other goals? Things that had nothing to do with her? She had manipulated him all along, and tonight was no exception. How could she do this to him if she loved him?

Self-disgust roiled through her. She pushed Simon back and rolled away.

"I'm sorry."

His face darkened. "What is this game?"

"Not a game, Simon. I am not toying with you, I promise. I have been, somewhat, but not now."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, Simon, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hired you, sorry I blackmailed you. Sorry I came to you like this rather than tell you the truth."

"The truth." His tone was flat, and his face revealed nothing in the glow of the fire.

"Yes. You deserve to know the truth, so that you may decide for yourself."

"And what is the truth?"

It came out on a breath. "That I… I love you, Simon."

His expression didn't change. If anything, he withdrew even further. "You love me."

"Yes. I love you and I want to be with you forever. I came to you tonight to force your hand, but I cannot go through with it. I love you enough that I want you to be happy."

"Happy."

"Stop that. Stop answering me with my own words. I love you, and I want you to love me back. But that is for you to decide, not me."

"Yes, I'd rather thought so."

Now she saw that his eyes burned in his calm mask, afire with something that gave her shivers and gleaming hope. "So do you?" she asked.

Simon lifted a hand and ran his knuckles across her cheek, so gently it made her want to weep.

"What about James?"

She tilted her head and smiled ruefully. "I cannot lie and say that he'll be happy about it. But I think he'll recover."

Slowly, Simon bent his head toward hers, looking into her eyes all the while. Then as he softly touched his lips to hers, she closed her eyes to feel every moment of his tender kiss.