The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(21)

Fury flashed in his eyes, and he grunted. “If you are wise, madam, you will refrain from kicking me.”

Helena spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ve faced far more threatening creatures in my life,” unarmed no less, “than one inert, pompous toff.”

He tightened his mouth. “I must say I’ve never received quite a reaction after spending the night in a woman’s b—”

Helena buried her foot in his hip. “The insolence of you,” she whispered furiously. As though she’d ever bed such an insufferable, overbearing lout. She studied him a moment: tall, elegant, graceful, refined. Everything she would never have. Everything she should never want. He remained seated with his knees drawn up, sinfully beautiful even in repose.

She swallowed hard. Rule fifty-seven . . . do not desire insufferable, overbearing noblemen. She brought her foot back. In one swift movement, he caught her ankle and yanked hard.

Helena gasped, and teetered precariously. She shot her arms out, righted herself, and brought her heel down hard on the inset of his palm, satisfaction surging through her at the hiss of pain to slip past his lips.

“Bloody hell,” he barked.

Again, he tugged at her ankle.

She toppled forward. Her blade flew over his shoulder and fell uselessly to the carpet. Sprawled upon his naked chest, she forlornly eyed her weapon. Disarmed by a fancy lord. Whatever would her brother say?

Helena stiffened as the man settled his hands loosely about her waist, hovering a moment, and then traveled higher, almost searching, exploring her. He rolled her onto the carpet and came up over her. He propped himself upon his elbows and effectively blocked escape.

Trapped in the frame of his powerful arms, she swallowed hard. Weren’t lords supposed to be well-padded, well-rounded figures? This gentleman was chiseled in muscle to rival a stone statue she’d once seen at the British Museum she’d insisted Ryker take her to one birthday. They two had earned disapproving glances and condescending sneers from the other visitors that day. It had been the last time she’d ever wanted to enter the glittering world of the haute ton.

“My name is Robert.”

She gritted her teeth. “I don’t care if you are a duke or prince or the King of England.” The ghost of a smile played on his lips, and he palmed her cheek, quelling the vitriolic curses she’d been about to heap on his arrogant head. Her breath caught at his gentle caress. Never in the course of her life had a man put his hands upon her in anything other than violence. As a young woman and now a woman, her brother would maim or kill the man who dared to touch her as this man now did. For a heady moment borne of madness, she closed her eyes and accepted the gentle ministrations of even this stranger. “After our meeting in the corridor, I do not remember last evening,” he said quietly. He brushed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip and her mouth trembled.

Was there regret in his admission?

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep silent.

“What is your name?” he pressed.

She shot a longing glance over to the door and a brownish-red tress fell over her eye. She blew it back. When it became apparent he had no intention of relinquishing his strong hold on her, she capitulated. “Helena.”

“Helena,” he repeated, as though testing it. He brushed the stubborn lock back. “It rather suits you.”

Perhaps noblemen were sorcerers after all. For instead of the appropriate reservations, the hard wall of his body flush against hers stirred a shameful wanton heat at her core. “Why?” The breathy utterance tumbled from her lips.

Robert brought the strand to his nose and breathed in. “Whimsical, fanciful, bold. There is nothing common about you, Helena.”

She curled her toes into the soles of her feet. A bastard daughter raised in the streets by a violent gang of warring young men, there was everything common about her.

Which only stirred the long-carried hatred and fury for all men of his ilk, who’d failed to see lesser people like her around, and killed the hypnotic hold he’d woven. “How fancy you are with your words,” she spat. “I’m not so foolish that I’d be swayed by your glib tongue.” Deep inside, where truth lived, she recognized the lie there. “But then a man who’d force himself inside a woman’s room and steal into her bed would hardly care.” She renewed her struggles, twisting and gyrating under him, ringing an agonized groan from Lord Robert With-No-Surname.

“Will you stop moving?” There was a pleading quality to those words, as if he were in pain.

Then against her belly, his manhood prodded her and she froze. She was a virgin still, but she was not so much an innocent that she didn’t understand the significance of that hardness. Heat scorched a path up her body.

With his thumb, the stranger continued that distracting little movement that sent the oddest flurry of sensation throughout her being. He went on, his tone far gentler than she’d expect from one such as him. “I’d not ever force myself on a woman.”

No, with a face and frame to rival the archangel Gabriel, he wouldn’t need to. She clamped her lips tight.

“Nor do I normally make it a habit of getting soused . . .” A mottled flush stained his cheeks as though he were embarrassed by his actions last evening. Which was preposterous.

Noblemen were overindulgent, self-serving cads who placed their material comforts above all else. “I do not normally imbibe as I did,” he finished quietly.