Too Wicked to Tame (The Derrings #2)(22)

“Does it make me selfish to want things I have no right wanting?”

“No,” Portia replied, her voice gentle. “I’d say that makes you fairly normal. You want what every woman wants.”

Except you, a voice whispered. Portia desired freedom. Pure and simple. Autonomy. The very things a wife never found within the bounds of matrimony.

“Well, if it’s so natural, then why can’t they understand me wanting these things?”

Portia sighed, unable to answer. She couldn’t say whether or not the Moretons should bar themselves from marriage—from procreating. Was it guaranteed their offspring would inherit this affliction? Could the risk be so great?

“I don’t know,” she offered, wincing at such an ineffectual reply.

“I want love, a husband, children.” Mina pulled her slight shoulders back. “You’re right, Portia.

My brother doesn’t rule me, nor does fear of a disease that may or may not strike. I’ll show him.”

With that said, she rose, pressed a quick kiss to Portia’s cheek and headed for the door, calling over her shoulder, “Thank you for the advice.”

Portia sat up, reached out and grasped air. “Mina, wait. I simply said you should talk…to…your brother…”

But she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

Portia fell back on her pillow, an uncomfortable knot forming in her chest. Perhaps she had overstepped herself this time in dispensing advice.





Chapter 9


Heath closed his eyes and settled his mouth over Della’s. Moments ticked by as he waited for the familiar haze of lust to steal over him, to thicken his blood and consume him, to block out the rest of the world and free his mind from everything that had driven him from the comfort of his library and across the moors in the dead of night.

Della sighed against his lips, her hands running expertly over his shoulders and down his back.

In the dark night of his mind, however, a face appeared—a minx with flashing blue eyes full of bright indignation.

His eyes flew open, and he tore himself from Della’s soft embrace as if he had been submerged in icy water.

“Heath,” she purred in a voice that usually succeeded in making his blood simmer. Usually.

Except not to night.

Scowling, he looked down at her face, concentrating on the pert nose and full lips, willing the image of Portia as he had seen her to night to flee his mind—clad in that damned virginal nightgown with its frayed hem, her ink dark hair sliding like a pelt over her shoulders. He took one long, steadying blink, but she still dwelled in his thoughts, residing in his head, in his blood—the last place she belonged.

Della pursed her lips and slid her hand down his chest and lower still, until that plump palm of hers rubbed the length of him in hard, rhythmic stokes. Such a move would typically have him flinging her on her back, yanking up her skirts and taking his fill. But Portia had ruined that.

Damned chit. Now he couldn’t even enjoy Della—the one woman he had enjoyed without worry.

Three marriages and no offspring to account for left little room for doubt—Della could not conceive a child. A more perfect mistress he could not have found—someone safe, incapable of passing on the Moreton madness. And someone he did not love.

He had dallied with other women—but always stopped before the final intimacy. The risk was too great. With Della, his passions could flow free. So why not to night?

More determined than ever, he trailed his tongue over the wildly thrumming pulse point at her neck, intent on satisfying her, intent on raising a reaction in himself, to free himself of Portia’s hold. “Just…distracted,” he muttered.

Della gripped a fistful of his hair and guided him to her breasts. “Well, don’t be.”



Easier said than done. Even as he turned his attention to Della’s bountiful breasts, that dulcet, vexing voice replayed itself in his head. I have no intention of leaving Moreton Hall until I’m well and ready. With a groan of aggravation, Heath fell back on the bed. With an arm flung over his forehead, he stared up at the ceiling grimly.

“Heath?” Della leaned over him, her brown eyes wide with concern. “What’s wrong?”

He turned his gaze on her, noting with dispassion the fetching tumble of copper waves—

frustrating, when he had only ever looked on her with desire.

A deep sigh welled up within him. He had no future. A fact that he had come to terms with long ago. He had accepted his lot in life. It couldn’t be changed. Why waste his time lusting for a girl he could never have?

Pulling her nightgown to her hips, Della straddled him. He frowned. The sight of those plump thighs did nothing to tempt him. For the last eight years, those thighs had been enough. Della had been enough. More than enough. Annoying how to night she couldn’t make him forget what waited, lurking in his blood to claim him. Nor could he forget a certain pair of blue eyes and the willowy figure that enticed him as Della’s generous curves no longer could. No matter how hard he tried, he could not forget the woman who slept beneath his roof, the bespectacled chit who invaded his library, his home, his blood.

Patting the generous thighs straddling him, he muttered, “Appears I’m not in the mood for company to night.”

Frowning, Della rolled off him and pushed her gown over her legs. “I see,” she said coolly. “My mistake.”