The Wedding Game(37)

She cast her eyes down, her face still pink from their previous conversation. ‘I decided that it would be best if only one of us married.’ She paused. ‘It would not be so unusual if Belle took in her spinster sister when she found a husband. Then I would be there to help her with the running of her household.’ There was an entreaty hidden in the words, though she tried her best to make them hypothetically innocent.

‘No.’

Her eyes flew up to meet his, surprised at the vehemence of his response. ‘She is not as feeble minded as you might think, after conversing with her. But neither can she manage alone.’

‘I did not claim that she could,’ he agreed. ‘But that does not mean I want you in my house.’ Although he was still not sure that he hadn’t agreed to it when talking to Belle in the carriage.

The colour was draining from her face now from the shock of what she must assume was an insult. ‘We have had our differences,’ she admitted. ‘But please, let them end immediately. You are to marry Belle and I will not stand in the way of it. All I want is that she has a kind and gentle husband who will take the time to understand her. You can be that man. I can help with everything else.’

‘No.’ She was near to trembling with mortification. He wanted to go to her, offer comfort and assure her that it was nothing she had done to make him reject her. But he did not dare, for the same reason he could not have her in his house. ‘You are the last person in the world who can help with my marriage to your sister.’

‘But why?’ She reached out a hand in petition.

He stared at it for a moment, fascinated by the graceful curve of fingers and the way it cut through the space between them. His skin prickled in awareness, as if she was actually touching him. Every nerve came alive to fight against reason for possession of his soul.

Then he looked up, into her eyes. The lashes were spiked with unshed tears. The dark centres were huge, the gold in the left one balanced like treasure at the edge of a bottomless pit. If he claimed it, he would fall. And nothing would ever be the same.

‘This,’ he said at last and gave in as the pounding tide in his blood battered the last of his resistance to rubble. As he seized her, the empty brandy glass fell from her hand, shattering on a mahogany side table. Then he was kissing her. She tasted sweet and heady like the liquor she’d been drinking. He wanted to drink her in and get drunk on her, as if he was not already intoxicated just by sharing a room with her.

Apparently, she felt the same for she made no effort to fight against him as he loosened the string at the neckline of her gown and let the bodice gape so he could touch her bare breasts. ‘Did your books tell you of this?’ he asked, tugging her chemise out of the way and taking a tight pink nipple into his mouth, sucking hard.

The answering groan told him what he already knew. Reality was better than any book. Her back arched and he looked up to see the delicate curve of her throat begging to be kissed. He obliged, stroking her breasts with his hands. Then he used them to push her backwards and down on to the divan behind them.

He stopped for a moment to admire the perfection of her, effortlessly wanton and waiting. Brown hair was wild about her face and her head was cradled on one arm. The muscles of it tugged at one breast so it rode higher than the other, nipple pointed toward the heavens.

If she was painted, just like this, it would result in the sort of masterwork that drove artists mad and made collectors kill to possess it. But he alone would have the flesh behind the canvas. There was no way he could live innocently as a brother to a woman like this.

Perhaps she would learn her lesson, after today. But he feared he never would. It sometimes seemed, the more unattainable a woman was, the sweeter she tasted. To test the theory he went to her, resting one knee on the cushion between her legs, and pushed her skirts to her waist.

‘What are you doing?’ She tried and failed to make the words sound like a scold, but there was too much eager curiosity in them to warn him away.

‘If you don’t know, then you’ve been reading the wrong books.’ He ran his hands up the naked thighs above her stockings, then wrapped his arms about them and lifted her to his mouth for the most intimate kiss.

Her body gave one brief jerk of shock before she relaxed and opened herself to his mouth, letting him take her, sweet and salty, musky and wonderful. He eased his fingers into her and took her in easy thrusts as his tongue pushed her to heaven and beyond. And now she was shaking in the throes of orgasm.

Was it her first? he wondered. The first given to her in this way, he was sure. In a few moments, he would be her first in the only way that really mattered. First, last and only. His erection gave an eager twitch at the thought of entering the tight channel that his fingers had found.

Her spasms of pleasure were subsiding. Her eyes were closed tight. Straight white teeth bit her full lower lip. Strands of that glossy brown hair clung to her face. Her gown pooled at her waist, where he’d pushed it, her perfect breasts still tight with desire.

He eased her legs down from where they had been resting on his shoulders, covering her mound with his palm. She opened her eyes again, watching, silent. And once again he balanced on the brink of disaster, unable to pull himself away. ‘I do not want you in my house,’ he whispered. ‘I want you in my bed. I want you in my life. I want you to fill every moment of my future.’

She sighed. The hand that had reached for him before touched his face and he felt it tremble as her knuckles grazed his cheek.