Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)(82)
But her smile stretched too wide, her laugh pitched too high. She, too, was holding something back. It came to him. Those words she’d said—everything you own, pitted against everything I own.
She’d had no clients recently.
But she’d said—he’d been certain of it—that she had some money saved. He’d given the matter no more thought. Just as he’d thoughtlessly assumed she had a maid secreted away somewhere to assist her in putting on a gown.
“My God, Jenny,” he interrupted, “you really mean you couldn’t pay the fare.”
She looked away. “It’s none of your concern, Gareth.”
“Not my concern! You told me you had money saved. What the devil did you mean by that?”
“I did,” she said stiffly. “I had four hundred pounds. It’s been…misplaced.”
His head pounded. “First, four hundred pounds hardly signifies. I pay White more than that in a year. And second, why did you say nothing to me? What am I to you?”
“You aren’t my banker, that’s for certain.”
His hand closed around her wrist. “What else can’t you pay, Jenny?”
She sighed. “Everything. It’s not a problem. I had a plan.”
“Let’s hear it.”
She exhaled slowly. “I planned to sell everything I own and leave.”
“Leave.” His fingers convulsed on her wrist. “Leave me.”
“Leave London,” she clarified, as if that would ease the pain that spread like a net of fire, sharp pinpricks settling under his skin. Her pulse thumped through the wrist he clutched. It was steady and even. Staid. Her heart beat in a normal tempo. Of course; it was only his that constricted into a cold, dark lump.
“Ah. And leaving me would just be an unintended consequence. One you had not planned to inform me about.”
“I would have told you. Eventually. I didn’t think I meant that much—”
He kissed her, hard and fast, before she could finish that horrendous lie.
“Humbug,” he said when he let her go. “I know I never know the right thing to say. I’m a damned nuisance. But you’re not stupid. You know I adore you.”
She was silent. She should not have been silent. She should have been throwing herself at him, professing her own adoration. Jenny, the woman who saw strength and courage everywhere else, had nothing to say about Gareth.
Well. He’d wanted to know how she saw him.
Now he knew.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BY THE TIME THEY REACHED Jenny’s home, separate factions in Gareth’s head had broken out in a pitched battle. He could not help but respect what she’d done for Ned. He’d not known what to think, what to say. And when she’d laid that final card…He’d thought, in that second, that he was more than a little in love with her.
But she was leaving. She was leaving him—the Marquess of Blakely. There were no words for the fury that made him feel. Black rage boiled up. Without even trying, she’d walked into that gaming hell, her hair billowing around her like an aurora. She’d done with ten minutes and sixteen pounds what Gareth had not accomplished in two days. What he could not have done, if he was honest, in two years with sixteen thousand pounds. And she was leaving him, as if he were nothing to her.
She opened her door, unaware that Gareth was engaged in a fierce battle for his soul.
He reached for her before she could move. He caught her lips against his. Damn her, but she kissed him back without reservation, her hands roaming over his tense body. How well she knew him. How well she knew to touch him like that, running her hands down his abdomen, her fingers points of pressure against his skin.
Hot rage. Fierce love. Intense anguish. And above it all, that damnable knowledge that she was leaving him. She was leaving him. God. He pushed her against the wall roughly, pressing his hips against hers.
She moaned against him, opening to his touch. If there were light, she would have seen the black marks that his coal-dark heart must be leaving against her skin. But there was nothing but murk inside. Murk and midnight. He unbuttoned the fall of his trousers and lifted her against the wall. He pulled her drawers down and pushed her petticoats up. And then, arms trembling, he thrust into her in one stroke.
She was wet and welcoming. She sank around him, and firm, tight bliss shot from his groin clear to the top of his head and then down again. The muscles of her passage gripped his member; she wrapped her legs around him. Pulling him against her. Welcoming him inside her.
He took what she offered. Every stroke sent longing spiraling through him. He didn’t want to just flood her with his seed. He wanted to flood her with his entire being.
If he could bring her to climax before him, maybe he could make her forget that it had been he who’d been impotent to do anything about his cousin.
If he did it twice, maybe she’d forget she’d ever planned to leave.
Illusions all, but with her body clenched around his, illusions were what he needed.
And so he angled himself inside her. He circled his hips against hers while her moans grew sharper. Louder. Harder. Her hands raked along his back. And then she clamped down on him. Hot, hard waves crashed through her and into him. She screamed his name, her body tensing in his arms. Gareth rode those waves.
But in this thing, too, he was outside his skills. He’d intended to calm down, to take her to pleasure once again. But he couldn’t stop. Not with her body pulsing warmly around him. Instead, he let out a groan and pumped hard. Pleasure propagated down his stiff c**k and out his groin. It filled him like dark, warm water. He grabbed her close and spent himself inside her with a wordless roar.