Dreaming of You (The Gamblers #2)(85)

“You’ll get used to it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

There was a teasing lightness to his tone, but his eyes glinted oddly as he replied. “You’ve been compromised, sweet. It’s too late to change your mind.”

Sara shook her head and stood up from his lap. “I can live with being compromised. Where are my clothes?” She was only jesting, not reading the sudden tension in his face.

“You said you would stay with me no matter what.”

“At the time,” she said, wandering to the fireplace, “I didn’t know that a chateau and a castle would be part of the arrangement.” She shook her head in bemusement. “It’s almost too much to take in. I think I’d better go back to Greenwood Corners.” She didn’t know that he had followed her until he spun her to face him. His hand grasped her upper arms with bruising force. Sara was alarmed as she looked up at his harsh face.

“What?” she gasped. “What in the world—”

“I won’t let you leave me.” His voice was even, but his large body was rigid, his hands hurtful.

She blinked in astonishment. “I don’t want to leave you. You must know that I was teasing you!” As his eyes bored into hers, she realized that she had discovered a vulnerable spot, like a thin patch on the surface of a frozen river. In a few careless words she had broken through to the dark depths he concealed so well. He was deadly quiet, still staring at her, while she tried to soothe him. “I won’t make a joke of it again. I was just surprised. You…you mustn’t hold my arms so tightly.”

His fingers loosened, and he began to breathe again, in rough surges. All the comfortable ease of the evening was gone. Abruptly they had become strangers. “Nothing would make me leave you,” Sara murmured. “You don’t trust me yet, do you?”

“I’ve known too many deceitful women.” Derek was bitterly surprised by his own actions. He’d just demonstrated beyond a doubt why they didn’t belong together. Trust was only one of many things he couldn’t give her.

“All I ask is that you try.” Sara leaned toward him, against the slight pressure he exerted to hold her back. She pressed her ear to his wildly beating heart. Faith, constancy, trust…He’d known little of such things. He would need time to learn them. “You’re far too worldly,” she whispered. “You don’t want to believe in anything you can’t see or touch. It’s not your fault. I know why you’ve had to be that way. But you must try to have faith in me.”

“I don’t know if I can change.”

“You’ve already changed.” She smiled as she thought of the way he’d been when they first met.

Derek was silent for a long moment. “You’re right,” he said with a touch of surprise.

She kissed his silk-covered chest and sighed. “Perhaps it’s odd, but I’m not afraid of being poor. It’s what I’ve always been used to. I am a little afraid of being rich, though. I can’t imagine myself living in a mansion.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I used to walk through the rookery, and instead of seeing thieves’ kitchens and beggars, I would imagine gold palaces and servants. Rooms full of candles, tables piled with food.”

“And you made it all come true.”

“I had some luck.”

“It wasn’t luck.” She held him more tightly. “It was you. You’re a remarkable man.”

He touched her as if he couldn’t stop himself. “I want you,” he muttered, although the fact was becoming obvious, with her body flattened against his. His palms skimmed the deep curves of her hips, waist, br**sts. Roughly he tugged at the silk robe until it parted in the front. Firelight danced over her exposed skin, gilding the porcelain whiteness.

Sara made a hesitant move toward the bed, but he pulled her back to stand before him. He removed her robe, dropping it to the floor. His long fingers wrapped around her br**sts, thumbs passing over her ni**les in light circles. There was a new, wicked certainty in his touch, for he had already learned what aroused her. Pushing her down to the floor, he nudged her back into the silken pool of their robes. Sara stretched out at his bidding, and he lowered himself over her, blocking the fire glow from the grate. She shivered at the erotic slide of his tongue as he licked the shadowed undercurve of her breast. His mouth wandered over her in open, wet kisses that sent ripples of sensation across her skin. In some places she felt his teeth close on her, eliciting a twitch of startled reaction.

Derek made a prison of his own body, his muscled legs tangling with hers, his weight caging her against the carpeted floor. She couldn’t hold back a quiet moan as he pressed himself intimately against her, stiffness and burning silken skin…he made a tantalizing motion, a rhythm that promised relief from the sweet torment. Sara lifted herself to him, eager for his possession. But he held back, his green eyes blazing with deviltry.

“Please,” she whispered.

He moved downward to kiss her navel, his tongue intruding in the tiny hollow. A few delicate swirls, and he blew softly against the damp circle. He fitted his hands around the deep curve of her waist, then shaped the roundness of her h*ps in his palms, kneading gently. The feathery brush of curls against his chin was a powerful enticement. He worked his mouth down in the inviting triangle, ignoring her sudden jolt of unwillingness. Hungrily he breathed in the scent of her, his nerves stimulated by the earthy sweetness.