Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)(61)

Marguerite cast her husband a sardonic look, and Cleo well understood that he wasn’t concerned with his wife’s need for rest. Her cheeks burned knowing precisely the nature of what it was they were retiring for the night to do.

As Jack swept Logan into a conversation on matters of whiskey and agriculture, she stood abruptly. Too abruptly, evidently. Everyone looked at her with sudden curiosity.

“I’m tired, as well.”

“Even after your nap?” Josephine asked.

Cleo’s cheeks prickled with heat.

Logan started to rise. She held out a hand. “No, no. That’s quite all right. I don’t want to take you away from everyone. Stay. Enjoy yourself.”

His eyes glittered darkly, and she read the message there quite clearly. He was agreeable to leaving everyone and joining her. He wished to enjoy her.

With an awkward curtsylike dip, she turned and fled the room, overhearing Logan’s sister as she departed the room. “She likes to sleep a lot.”

She practically raced up the stairs. Holding her skirts high to make certain she didn’t trip, she rushed down the corridor, desperate to be in bed asleep—or rather feigning sleep—before he joined her. Cowardly, she knew, but she could not help herself.

Behind the screen in her chamber, she stripped off her clothes, heedless of the loud rip behind her back. Blasted buttons. She kicked her skirts free, pulled off her undergarments and slid her nightgown over her head, freezing, her heart beating like a wild bird in her chest at the sound of the bedchamber door opening and shutting.





Chapter Twenty-six

She hadn’t been quick enough. He’d followed her. She waited a long moment, listening closely as if he might announce himself . . . as if she might somehow disappear altogether and appear somewhere else far from this room.

The silence grew thick and cloying. She squared her shoulders and stepped from behind the screen. She was no coward. She was in absolute control of herself. She needn’t fear him . . . or herself. Marguerite’s prediction needn’t become reality.

He’d yet to move far into the room, but stood just a few feet from the door, still looking crisp and fresh and startlingly attractive in his evening attire. She doubted there would ever be a time when she would see him without feeling a sense of astonishment over his appeal. His utter masculinity, his dangerous beauty. And he was hers. If she would only allow herself to have him.

He pushed off from the door and started toward her, his stride cutting a hard line.

Her heart leapt to her throat. Blood rushed in her ears. She should move. Run! And yet her feet remained planted, rooted to the carpet, her bare toes curling with anticipation.

And then he was reaching for her. Taking her. His hand slid around her neck in one smooth move, pulling her in as his head ducked for her mouth, crashing their lips together.

His mouth tasted of man and heat and the slight flavor of whiskey. Hunger surged inside her, dark and dangerous, as ravenous as a beast released to hunt. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this . . . a desire so enveloping it made her forget all her fears.

Cleo clenched her hands and shoved them between their bodies, determined to stop this. It took everything in her to resist flattening her palms against his hard chest and simply feel him, savor the hard press of muscles surrounding her.

She willed her lips to still, willed her body not to respond to the wonder of his mouth on hers, coaxing forth feelings and emotions long denied. New feelings. Terrifying, exciting feelings she had been so careful to kill. Freed from a dark hidden place, they spiraled through her like warmed wine, dizzying, invigorating, feeding her courage—or idiocy. Either way, she was a new woman, drinking from his mouth as though his lips were some intoxicating elixir she could not resist.

His hands slid into her hair, scattering the pins. Her scalp shivered with sensation. Her trembling fingers unfolded, caressing and exploring his unyielding warmth.

With a choking cry, the last of her resistance slid away. She parted her mouth wider, meeting the slick glide of his tongue with her own.

She clenched fistfuls of his shirt and mimicked his kiss, returning it with eagerness, pulling him down over her, sinking back onto the bed.

He growled low in his throat, dragging his mouth over her jaw and down her sensitive neck. Cleo opened her eyes and shut them again, afraid that she would wake from this dream and put a stop to it all.

His hand moved down her nightgown, fumbling for the hem. She set to work on his clothing, shedding him of his jacket and vest, pulling his shirt over his head. Leaning up, she rained kisses over his jaw and neck, skimming her palms over him, scoring her nails lightly over the smooth, muscled chest, stopping to test the small dusky circles of his nipples with her fingertips.

He moaned, breaking away and flinging her nightgown over her head. Then his hands were everywhere, the feverish caressing of his palms exciting her only more.

Naked beside him, not a moment of hesitation seized her. It was as if she were someone else entirely, someone unafraid, someone willing to trust, to give herself over to his strength and virility. To him.

His hand wandered her thighs, the callused fingers and palms rasping the tender flesh. His gray eyes flashed darkly in the firelight as he stared down at her.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and she believed it—believed that he meant it and wasn’t just saying it.

“So are you.” Propping herself up on her elbows, her hands sought him. He watched her, his eyes intense and burning, his large body unmoving, still as stone as she unfastened his breeches and shoved them down his lean hips.