In the Arms of a Marquess(71)

“Your Indian manservant gave me your direction. I saw no others.” An odd light glinted in his eyes. “But I came here earlier. I told you that.”

“You wished to see me in the light of day?”

“There was a time when that did not surprise you.”

Madras. The bazaar, beneath the sun’s heat. The past that confused and contorted the present and would not seem to lay dormant.

“I was na?ve then. I understand some matters a great deal better now.”

“You understood then,” he said with peculiar hesitancy. But his jaw seemed harder, his gaze withdrawing further.

“No, I suspect I was the only one who did not understand,” she countered. “You certainly did. You knew all along. Everybody in the bazaar must have known, for pity’s sake. Everyone except the foolish English girl who could not imagine—” She broke off. “I should have imagined. I hadn’t any idea, and you led me to believe—”

“I did not intend to hurt you.”

“Well, you did.” Worse than she would ever let him discover. Just as now he was hurting her with the distance in his eyes.

“You were prepared.” His voice was low. “You knew what you wanted.”

“I knew nothing.” Her breaths felt tight, aching again. “You nearly made love to me that night, and I wanted you to, but I hadn’t any idea what was happening.”

“You hadn’t any idea?” Golden candlelight flashed in his eyes. “Do you expect me to believe that, when you were wearing so little? Your shift was translucent.”

“It was ninety degrees at midnight. Of course I was wearing that little! And I never imagined any person other than my maid would see my shift. I was a complete innocent. I didn’t know men wanted to undress women. I didn’t know anything. I was hot!” As now, with his flame-touched gaze searing her. “And given that you made me twice as hot, I was happy I didn’t have more clothing on. I did not know what could happen. What might have happened.”

He stepped forward.

“Now you know.” He bent to her, and Tavy went into his arms without resistance because, simply, she wanted him. She had wanted him since the moment she saw him and hadn’t the strength to resist, no matter what his purpose.

But the kiss was not angry. He held her head in his broad palm and drank in her lips, then the sensitive tip of her tongue, his perfect mouth tracing a slow, luscious exploration of her flesh. He teased her, entering only enough to make her flushed below, remembering his tongue there, then tasting her in languorous strokes, drawing fire through her and making her breathless. She twined her arms about his shoulders and sank into him.

His fingers threaded through her hair, then curved along her neck to her shoulder, trailing a path of tender pleasure. She wanted him to touch her. Her breasts ached for it. Already the astounding sensation of opening stole between her thighs, born from his kiss and his strength so close. He separated their mouths then captured hers again as his hand at the small of her back fit her against him. She touched his face, the masterful planes of beauty beneath her fingertips as his lips moved to her throat.

“That night,” she whispered, “you asked if you could touch me.”

“Let me touch you.” His voice was rough.

“Yes.”

“You begged me to.”

“Please, Ben.”

“You needn’t beg now, sweet shalabha. You needn’t have then.” He cupped her breasts and his caress was sublime and stunningly honest, as though he had never touched her more intimately. As though her body was something unique and precious to him to discover.

With his hands he transformed the barrier of her clothing into a tool of seduction, brushing the fabric across her nipples until she hurt with the need for him. The careful, steady strokes grew firmer, centered, and she pressed into his hands. His tongue swept between her parted lips, drew hers into him, and Tavy felt naked as though Ben had stripped her of every garment, like on that night in the garden swimming in heat, when he had given her pleasure but expected nothing in return, demanding no more than her gratification.

“I want to touch you now, everywhere I did that night,” he said huskily. “Everywhere the moonlight caressed your skin.”

But that night she had understood nothing, and yet everything at once, so na?ve and so ready to fall. She was a different person now. Wiser.

“No,” she whispered against his mouth. “No. No.” She grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands wide. He allowed it, and she held off this man with ten times her strength by his consent, his palms spread in a gesture like supplication. But her shaking fingers around his wrists felt the trembling in him too, and his eyes were dark.

“What do you want, Ben?”

He spoke without hesitation. “Sometimes I believe I could exist for nothing more than to bring you pleasure.”

Her breath escaped upon a choking sigh. He shook her grip free and curved his hand around the back of her neck, pressing his lips to her brow.

“You thought I was like her. Like Priscilla Nathans.”

“You were betrothed, Octavia, yet you allowed me to kiss you. You welcomed my kisses.” His mouth curved into a rueful grin. “You also did a credible act of playing the indifferent society lady when you first came to my house here.”

But she could not share his amusement. “Not in Madras. How could you have thought that of me then?”