Dreaming of You (The Gamblers #2)(48)

Blindly Sara flattened her hand on his cheek, against the scratch of newly grown beard. “What if I want the same?” she whispered.

“No,” he said fiercely, and turned his mouth to the tender skin of her neck. “If you were mine, I would make you into someone you didn’t recognize. I would hurt you in ways you’d never dream of. I won’t let that happen. But don’t ever think I didn’t want you.” His hands gripped her closer, and they both began to breathe harshly. The hard jut of his arousal burned against her stomach. “That’s for you,” he muttered. “Only for you.” He groped for her wrist and brought her palm to his chest. Even through the thickness of linen, broadcloth, and wool, she could feel the resounding thump of his heart. She squirmed to press harder against him, and he caught his breath. “A man should never come so close to hell as this,” he said raggedly. “But even with the devil whispering in my ear to take you, I can’t do it.”

“Please,” she gasped, not knowing if she was asking him to let go or to keep her with him.

The word seemed to drive him to the edge of madness. He fitted his mouth over hers with a tortured groan, his tongue searching in urgent forays. Sara curled her arms around his head, tangling her fingers in his dark locks as if she could hold him to her forever. She could still feel his heartbeat pounding against her flattened br**sts. His thigh was a hard intrusion amid her skirts, bearing firmly against an unspeakably intimate place. She didn’t know how long he stood there kissing her, his mouth sometimes gentle, sometimes brutal, his hands wandering freely inside her cloak Her legs turned weak, and she knew she couldn’t have stood upright without his arms around her.

“Mr. Craven,” she moaned when his lips left hers to slide hotly down her throat.

He smoothed her hair back from her face and pressed his forehead to hers until she could feel the stitches of his wound against her skin. “Say my name. Say it just once.”

“Derek.”

For a moment he was immobile. His breath fanned over her chin. Then he brushed a soft kiss on each of her closed eyes while her lashes trembled against his lips. “I will forget you, Sara Fielding,” he said roughly. “No matter what it takes.”

There was one last moment of that night that lingered in Sara’s memory. He had taken her to the Goodmans’ home, riding with her perched sideways across the saddle. She burrowed her head against his chest, clinging to him tightly. Even in the wintry rawness of the air, his body seemed to blaze with the heat of a coal fire. They stopped on the side of the street, and he disentangled her arms in order to dismount.

A light snow had begun to fall. Tiny flakes swirled downward, making a delicate, audible patter on the street. Craven helped her to the ground. A few snowflakes had fallen on his hair, melting points of lace caught in the dark locks. His scar was more pronounced than usual. She longed to press her lips against the wound, a lasting reminder of the night she had met him. Her throat was unbearably tight. Her eyes stung with unshed tears.

He was so far from the gallant knights in her romantic fantasies…He was tarnished, scarred, imperfect. Deliberately he had destroyed any illusions she might have had about him, exposing his mysterious past for the ugly horror that it was. His purpose had been to drive her away. But instead she felt closer to him, as if the truth had bonded them in a new intimacy.

Walking her to the Goodmans’ front steps, Craven paused to survey her tangled hair, whisker-burned cheeks, and puffy lips. He smiled slightly. “You look like you’ve been done over by a squadron of sailors on leave.”

Sara looked into his intent green eyes, knowing they would haunt her forever. “I’ll never see you again, will I?” she asked dazedly.

There was no need for him to reply. He took her hand as if it were a priceless object, raising it to his mouth so lightly that she felt as if her arm were floating. The warmth of his breath penetrated her skin. She was aware of the movement of his lips as he pressed soundless words in her palm. He released her, and the look he gave her seemed to reveal the depths of his lustful, longing, bitter soul. “Good-bye, Miss Fielding,” he said hoarsely. He turned and strode away. Sara watched in frozen silence as he hoisted himself easily into the saddle and rode down the street, until he had disappeared from sight.

Chapter 7

The day after her return to Greenwood Corners, Sara walked a mile across the frozen cart trails and patches of woodland that separated her family’s cottage from the Kingswoods’ smaller village manor. Along the way she breathed deeply of the clean country air, crisp with the scents of pine and snow. “Miss Fielding!” She heard a boy’s high-pitched voice behind her. “How was London?”

Sara turned to smile at young Billy Evans, the miller’s son. “London was very exciting,” she replied. “Why aren’t you in school at this hour?” She gave him a mock-suspicious glance, for this wouldn’t be the first time Billy had been caught playing truant.

“Sent to borrow a book from the rectory,” he said cheerfully. “How’s your novel, Miss Fielding?”

“Barely begun,” Sara admitted. “I think I’ll have it finished by summer.”

“I’ll tell my mother. She loves your books—though she has to hide ’em from Pa.”

“Why is that?”

“He doesn’t like her to read. Says it might give her the notion to run off like Mathilda did.”