One Night With You (The Derrings #3)(25)

She would not get away this time. He would not be fool enough to let her walk away from him. Not this woman who made the blood burn in his veins, who stared at him without fear or revulsion in her gaze, but something else. Something unidentifiable, something akin to admiration. Here, he thought, was a woman he could have… perhaps even keep. Drinking in the sight of her, he vowed to believe whatever he read in her gaze. If only for tonight. For one night he would allow himself to believe he deserved whatever she would lavish on him with her eyes, and, the devil take him, her body.

Jane felt his presence before she saw him. A heat radiated at her back and the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck tingled in familiar awareness. With a small gasp, her hand flew from the stone railing she clutched and she spun around to find herself face-to-face with Seth. He was alone. No sign of his companions. No sight of the lady he was supposed to evaluate as his bride. She had imagined finding him ensnared in the spell of another woman. Despite deliberately wearing the gold dress and black domino again, she feared he would be too enthralled to give her notice. Relief pinched at her heart to see his dark gaze fixed on her face with single-minded intensity.

She opened her mouth to say something, to offer up some witty greeting, one of the countless quips she had heard during the years she had propped herself against ballroom walls, watching and listening to coy debutantes.

Before she could utter a syllable, he grabbed hold of her wrist and turned, pulling her away from the courtyard and down one of the many dark winding paths. He avoided the wide lamplit lane where groups and couples strolled, choosing dimmer paths where many a maid or matron had lost her virtue.

Still, Jane found she could not speak, could only bid her feet to keep up with his swift pace, could only pray her pounding heart did not burst from her chest. She had ventured out tonight to prove to herself that no one ruled her—that stealing her clothes and jewelry did not steal her spirit, her will. And, if she were perfectly honest with herself, she had come to immerse her barren heart in what it had long been denied. To finish what they had started today at Seth's townhouse.

They rounded one bend, then another, the hedges seeming to thicken around them. Still, Seth strode ahead, his long strides so purposeful she felt certain he had a destination in mind. His fingers slid from her wrist to her fingers, twining with them. The intimate hold sent her heart racing even harder, and she recalled the times she had stared at his hands, watched in longing as he took her sister's lily-pale hand in his own when they walked ahead of her. How she had wanted to feel her own entwined with his. To walk through his family's orchard with him at his side. Her chest grew tight at the feel of their palms pressed tightly together. He stepped off the path and plunged them into the foliage. She tripped over a root. He caught her close to his hard chest, and she imagined she could feel the beat of his heart, as wild as her own, through their clothing. Her free hand came up to grasp a hard bicep and his muscles tensed, bunching beneath her touch.

In one sudden movement, he backed her against a tree, its trunk a wide wall at her back, scratching the delicate fabric of her gown.

"I will not let you go again," his voice scraped the air, hard with resolve.

"I do not want you to," she returned. The truth, but irrelevant. Because she would go. No matter what she wanted. She would have this time, this moment. And she would go. She could barely make out the outline of him looming over her. The crowd laughed in the distance and faint applause filled the air.

Almost as if he read her mind, he vowed thickly, "It's going to be good between us." His hand cupped her cheek, the callused pad of his thumb tracing the seam of her lips. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She had no idea what to say at this point. A coy response felt wrong. Instead she bit the pad of his thumb, then sucked where her teeth had nipped.

He groaned. "I've not stopped thinking of you."

"Me too," she breathed, then flushed with embarrassment. "I m—mean," she stammered, "you…

I have not stopped thinking of you." For nearly all my life.

"There is no escape this time," he announced, his hands coming down on either side of her head, caging her in as he had done earlier today.

Her heart tripped. I don't want to escape you. I never did. You were the one I wanted to run to. Almost as if he heard her words, he answered the call to her parched soul, her deprived body, pressing his solid length against hers so that she felt his every angle, every hollow, right down to the hard bulge prodding her belly.

And then he was kissing her.

Her eyes drifted shut, lost to the joy of it. Bliss. Seth. The very one whom she had spun impossible fantasies. As a girl, she convinced herself that if she wished it enough, if she hoped and prayed hard enough, he would be hers. One day it would happen. Could happen. Eight years had passed since her heart had harbored that foolish dream. Since Seth had disappeared. Since she had wed Marcus. Since she had forgotten how to dream.

But tonight, it seemed, the dream would become reality. Tonight, he would be hers. Or rather Aurora's. For a single night, at least. It would be enough. She would make it so. Tongue tangling with hers, his fingers slid into her hair, scattering the pins. And with those pins, her inhibitions—if any remained—fled. A lick of heat curled low in her belly, tightening and twisting until she grew wet between the legs. His hands slid lower, seizing her buttocks through the fabric of her gown.

She moaned into his mouth, hating the skirts in her way, barring her from finding relief. She pressed herself against him, winding her arms around his neck, wondering at the insistent ache throbbing at her core. She'd never felt anything like it, not at the start of her marriage when Marcus had sought her bed. Those nights, however fleeting, had never been more than… nice. Never had she felt this blistering passion. Never had she burned.