The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(58)

Clara flashed an icy smile. “Do it, then. Regina and I will both be free of this place soon enough and answer to no one.” She flicked a mocking stare over him. “And certainly not you.”

He sank back on his heels, knocked off-balance, and then quickly righted himself. “By God, I will sack you.”

Reggie stepped between them. “Don’t be a bloody arse.” Of course the first words Reggie hurled at him would be an insult. He was in the wrong, when she’d gone missing, leaving without a damned trace. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” She looked to the former madam. “May we have a moment?”

He gnashed his teeth. By God, had she always been this brazen?

Clara stared mutinously back and, with a quiet curse, stalked out of the room.

Broderick drew the panel shut behind him and turned the lock. “I’m not pleased with you.” He hurled his leather gloves onto the Serpentine side table. “I’ve had men out, searching all day for you.” And me . . . and my family.

“You’re displeased with me?” A sharp, cynical laugh he’d believed her incapable of . . . until now burst from her. “My God, the arrogance of you. I told you I’d not be a prisoner, followed about by your minions.”

Broderick narrowed his eyes. His minions? She’d paint him as a lowly street thug of Diggory’s ilk? “Yes, you did,” he purred. He leaned a shoulder against the doorway, still fighting for equilibrium in a world where Reggie went head-to-head with him. “But lest you forget, I never made you a promise either way.”

She reeled. Her mouth moved, but no words came out. And then she exploded forward. “How dare you?” Storming over to the cluttered table, she grabbed up the contract signed in his hand and gave it a sharp wave. The abruptness of those movements sent several strands of curls falling over her shoulder, drawing his gaze unwittingly downward to the creamy swells of her small breasts. He gulped. “You play with your words the same way you do a person’s life. But I have it here in writing”—she jammed a finger at the page, her chest rising hard and fast, crimson color staining her cheeks, dimming those freckles—“that my time is my time, and my services were not required.”

“My God, I thought something happened to you,” he cried.

It was harder to say who was more shocked by the shout that echoed around Clara’s room still.

Reggie’s lush mouth parted in a moue of surprise that matched his own. “You were worried,” she said softly as if she’d been handed a piece to a puzzle that didn’t fit in the frame she worked with. “About me?”

Of course he’d been. That was the flippant reply. She had been his friend and confidante, and yet . . .

He crossed over in two quick strides and, cupping her by the nape, covered her mouth with his. Heat. Stinging, searing heat exploded throughout him at the contact as he kissed her as he’d longed to since their meeting in that decrepit hall she now owned. He kissed her with that need which had haunted him since.

Reggie went still in his arms, and then with a low moan, she dropped the pages. They fluttered to the floor in a whispery afterthought as she climbed her arms about his neck and returned his kiss.

After days of having noticed the plump roundness of her lips and the luxuriant feel of her crimson curls, he explored them, tasting her, learning the lush contours, molding his mouth with hers in a way that etched an eternal memory of that flesh.

He slanted his lips over hers again and again, and she met every fiery meeting with a boldness that fueled his ardor. “What is it about you, Regina Spark, that tears at my reason?” he rasped against her mouth between kisses.

She met that query with a low moan and drew him down closer, pressing herself against him, a siren pulling him deeper and deeper and deeper into her snare, and he had the answer as to why those mere mortals had been lured. Because a taste was not enough. A taste of her was a mere taunt. Temptation. Sin wrapped in splendor. And he wanted all of her, rules of honor be damned. For he didn’t give a jot that this woman was in his employ or about the years of friendship between them. His body knew nothing but the hunger to know her in the most primitive way.

With a groan, he plucked free the pins holding her chignon in place, and those locks cascaded around them like a fiery-red waterfall. He tangled his fingers into those silken strands, angling her head to better avail himself of her mouth.

Reggie parted her lips, and he swept inside, stroking the tip of his tongue against hers. Searing heat blazed through him at the contact.

Their chests rose and fell in a like rhythm, their breath noisy and desperate in the quiet of the room, a wicked symphony of lust and desire.

Broderick filled his hands with the generous swell of her buttocks, and not breaking contact with her mouth, he anchored her legs about his waist and guided her onto the tea table. The porcelain rattled noisily. Broderick moved between her parted thighs, and they fell open in welcome invitation as though he belonged there, as though she, too, had been set afire these past days and welcomed the burn of that conflagration.

Yes, there would come time enough later for proper shame.

But for now, all he saw, tasted, and yearned for was the feel of Regina Spark.



Reggie’s first kiss had been quick and sloppy, stolen from her then fifteen-year-old self by the village innkeeper’s arrogant son.

The second—and ones to come after—had all been delivered by a cad who’d promised her forever. They had been no less sloppy, only tinged of spirits and syrup from the sweets he’d had a taste for, and she’d despised every minute of it but yearned for the promises he’d made.