Shameless (39 page)

She put up her chin at him.

“You say that as if you
wished
I was such a puling creature.”

His face tightened dangerously. “What I
wish
is that you had enough sense to recognize that you would be better off far away from me. Bunn came after me, but he would have killed you without a qualm. And I—I’m no better than he. This whole situation—you, me, married—is nothing short of utter folly. I’m a killer, damn it, by inclination as well as training, as ruthless as they come, with no conscience at all. You think I’m sorry for all the lives I’ve taken? I’m not. This is what I am. This is what I do. Underneath this thin layer of civilization I’ve shown you, I’m a savage, a vicious animal who’s no longer fit for any but the lowest of human company. You may rest assured the devil has a special place reserved in hell for those of my breed.”

Beth felt her heart lurch as she realized that he truly believed what he was saying.

“Oh, pooh!” she said. “What nonsense.”

For the merest instant something flickered in his eyes—disbelief? admiration?—and then he pulled her up onto her toes and took her mouth in a kiss that was as savage as he claimed to be. The sheer force of his mouth on hers caused her lips to part instantly beneath the onslaught; his tongue took fierce possession of her mouth. Lips hard and cruel, he kissed her as if he wished to reinforce his words, to frighten her, to cause her to pull away from him, but instead she kissed him back just as fiercely, her lips clinging to his, her tongue clashing with his in a war that she was afraid, for his life, to lose, because if she did she was as certain as she’d ever been of anything that he would thrust her away from him and vanish into the night, to take his chances on his own.

When he lifted his head at last to glare down at her, she matched him furious look for furious look.

“You may try as you will. You can’t scare me,” she said, though her heart pounded and her breathing came way too fast.

His eyes flamed down at her. She held his gaze without flinching.

“Oh, can’t I just?”

Lips twisting, he released one arm at last—his grip was hurting her
now, though she would be boiled in oil before she would give him a sign of it—and then, before she guessed what he would be about, he locked his fingers over the neck of her night rail and yanked downward. The sound of ripping material was as shocking to her ears as the sudden breath of night air on her skin.

“What the
devil
do you think you’re doing?” It took her a second to recover from the shock, and then she glanced down at herself, aghast. The night rail, ripped past her navel, was already falling from her shoulders. Her breasts, her waist, the curve of her hips and belly, were all laid bare to his view. Only his grip on her arm kept it from dropping away entirely.

“Teaching you the truth about what I am.” Reaching inside the edges of the ruined garment, he fondled her breasts, not gently but crudely, handling her as if she had no say in this at all and he could do with her as he would. To her surprise, her nipples responded to his roughness with shocking eagerness, hardening and thrusting against his palm. Her knees grew weak. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Glancing down at herself, at the full pale slopes of her breasts from which her nipples thrust, now quiveringly erect, feeling the heated tightening in the pit of her stomach that was becoming almost familiar to her now, she knew that there was no mistaking the desire he had roused her to, and that he recognized it as well as she did. One look at the expression on his lean, handsome face as his eyes raked over her told her that.

“I know what you are.” Embarrassed at the physical evidence of her own response, she yanked her arm from his hold and whisked out of his reach, grabbing for the edges of the ruined night rail before it slithered to her feet and pulling them together. His unfamiliar aggression had ignited her temper—ordinarily, no man, not even he, would use her so and live to tell the tale!—but for once in her life she tamped it down. The stakes were too high. She was determined to keep him with her, to keep him safe, no matter the cost. “A gentleman. A kind man. And a good one. Though you try to hide it, that’s what you are at heart.”

He laughed, the sound harsh and grating, with no amusement in it at all.

“You won’t long think so,” he promised.

Then he came after her, his face hard, moving as swiftly and silently as a panther, catching her around the waist and lifting her clean up off her feet when she disdained to retreat before him, then stripping away in a single ruthless stroke the ruined night rail, which fluttered down to land on the carpet, white as a flag of surrender in the darkness. Suddenly as naked as he was himself, shocked to feel his arm curling beneath her bare bottom as he lifted her up against his solid, muscular warmth, she gave a squeak of surprise. Grabbing his wide shoulders for balance, her eyes locked to his, which burned into hers, Beth found her back pushed up against the cool plaster wall near the door. He crowded against her, both hands on her bottom now, forcing her legs to open as he positioned himself between them, pulling her hard against the cradle of his hips. Even as her thighs obediently parted to straddle him he thrust inside her, impaling her without warning, hot and turgid and every inch the conquering male as he filled her to capacity and beyond.

“Oh!” She cried out at the shock of it, at the sense of sudden harsh violation, at the force of his penetration. Giving her no chance to do anything but capitulate, he clamped his mouth down over hers to stifle the sound, kissing her with a deep, almost barbaric intensity that made her instantly weak and dizzy. Then he took her there against the wall with a single-minded ferocity that she would have resisted with every fiber of her being had it been turned on her by anyone else. Clinging to him, legs wrapped at his silent direction around his waist, she endured the hard thrust of his hips crushing her into the wall, the carnality of his hot, wet mouth on her lips and neck and breasts, the fierce possession of his hands cupping her bottom and holding her captive for his pleasure, until suddenly shocked endurance no longer described what she was experiencing at all. This lovemaking was rough, it was atavistic, it was as far removed from the gentle caresses she imagined she desired as anything could possibly be, but all at once she found
herself melting inside, on fire with need, moving with him, wanting, wanting . . .
more
.

“This is sex, my girl,” he whispered into her ear as he rocked himself inside her. “It’s dark and dirty, nothing like that pretty parlor game we’ve been playing up ’til now. How do you like it?”

“Doubtless—I shall become accustomed.” Her voice was ragged, but her tone was defiant.

Her answer seemed to drive him wild. He made a harsh sound under his breath and drove into her, pinioning her against the wall with deep, hard thrusts that seemed to reach to her very core. Trembling, back arching, holding on to him now for all she was worth, kissing him as if she would die if she didn’t, she felt him come into the hot liquid center of her again and again and again. Eyes closed, breathing erratically, heart pounding, in the grip of an urgent throbbing tension that seemed to be winding ever tighter, she realized that she would not free herself even if she could. She didn’t want him to stop. Not now. Not yet. Oh, God, not ever. There was no sound except for the harsh rasp of his breathing and the frantic coupling of their bodies. The scent of what they were doing was all around them. His skin was smooth and slick with sweat and so hot it seemed to burn her everywhere they touched. They were joined together, one flesh, and he took her as thoroughly and as furiously as if he had every right, which, she realized with the tiny part of her mind that wasn’t dazzled with heat and shock and a tide of rising passion, he did, because she had given it to him.

Married past redemption.
Instead of regret, the thought was accompanied by a quaking wave of heat.

“God in heaven,” he groaned at last, his voice thick and tormented. He ground into her one more time, holding himself inside, spilling his seed in a scalding burst that liquefied her bones.

“Neil,” she whispered in shaken answer, but he was kissing her again and the sound of her voice was swallowed up by his mouth, so she knew he didn’t hear.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the onslaught was over. He held her captive for only a moment longer before disengaging their bodies
and allowing her to slide to her feet. She still breathed like she was dying, though his breathing was already under control. Her arms still wrapped around his neck, although he was already putting her away from him. Her body still burned and yearned and ached for him, for something that she sensed still eluded her that he could give her, although his passion had clearly been spent.

It was over. She had survived.

“Now run away, little girl.” His voice held a jeer. “Run, while I’m still willing to let you go.”

Beth’s eyes snapped open. As shaken as she was, she had not yet lost sight of the goal. She could not let him drive her into sending him away into the night.

“Running away may be in your nature. It isn’t in mine.”

Their eyes clashed.

“You’re a fool, Beth Banning.” His expression was as unpleasant as his tone. She moved away from him, and he let her go. She could feel his eyes following her as she crossed the room on tremulous legs, feel the weight of his gaze on the sway of her bottom beneath the tangled fall of her hair, but she kept her back straight and refused to look around or try to cover herself in any way. The Butcher’s body still lay on the floor, she saw, and realized with a twinge of surprise that she had forgotten all about it. Sparing it only the briefest of shuddering glances, she snatched a quilt from the bed, wrapping it around herself as she turned to face him. The issue still hung in the balance, she knew, and whether he stayed or went would, she feared, be a perilously near run thing.

“That’s as may be. And it’s Beth Severin now, as you may recall. There, you have shown me your worst and I still hold you to the marriage, so perhaps you could leave off trying to give me a distaste for you while we put our heads together and decide what’s best to be done about that.” A nod of her head indicated the body on the floor.

“Your life is in danger every moment you’re with me.”

“You’ve done a fine job of keeping me safe so far. From everyone
except yourself, that is.” The merest hint of humor, with which she hoped to lighten the atmosphere, underlay that last.

“I didn’t hurt you.” It was a statement more than a question, but there was something of penitence in his frown, and the curve of his mouth.

“You know full well you didn’t. You took good care not to, in fact, which I am perfectly aware of.”

His face darkened. “I wish you would rid yourself of this conviction of yours that a decent human being is lurking somewhere deep inside me. It’s no such thing, you know.”

With his own glance at Bunn, he walked toward the window. Following him with her eyes, Beth was treated to an excellent view of his small, tight derriere. It was, as she recalled, wonderfully firm to the touch. The recollection of how she came to know that made her cheeks crimson, and she turned away.

“I take it I may expect more visitations like this one?” she asked, her voice commendably composed, she thought, considering all she had recently gone through. Her heart was just now slowing to a normal beat, and her knees were just regaining their strength. Her body felt softer and more malleable than usual, and she still tingled and burned in the most embarrassing places, but that, she felt, was something she was better off ignoring. With his back still turned, she splashed water from the washstand on her face and gave herself the quickest of sponge baths. Her hair spilled about her shoulders in an unruly mass, and, once again tucking the quilt securely around her, she occupied herself with retrieving her scattered hairpins and twisting it up. The corpse on the floor was a problem, but it was one that was probably not going to fall to her to solve, so she ignored it in favor of concentrating on persuading him to stick to the plan.

“I don’t know. I hope not. Bunn worked alone, so I believe we need not fear to encounter his confederates lying in wait in the shrubbery outside. He must have got on my trail yesterday and followed us here. Until the dogs have been called off, though, another attack is always a possibility.” He was, she saw with a quick glance, looking
out the window, from which he had drawn back the shutter a crack. “The best course to follow would be for me to put you in the carriage and send you on your own to London, and perhaps meet you there.”

“Oh, no.” Beth recognized prevarication when she heard it—if she got in that carriage alone, she was as certain as it was possible to be that he would head in the exact opposite direction from London, never to be seen again—and her voice was sharp. When he turned to look at her, she planted her fists on her hips and glared at him. “We’re going to London together. You’ll be safe in Richmond House, because that’s the last place anyone would look for you, and a message will be sent to Hugh, and as soon as he arrives and the situation is explained to him he will, as you put it, call off the dogs, and neither you, nor he, nor anyone else will be killed.”

He looked pained. “Beth . . .”

“That is what we agreed to!”

“I never realized until this happened what danger I’m putting you in. If you’re with me and something goes wrong . . .” He slowly shook his head. “Well, I won’t do it. The risk to you is too great.”

The finality in his voice awoke something very akin to desperation in her. With every ounce of strength and cunning she possessed she would fight letting him ride off to an almost certain death.

“If I travel alone to London, what’s preventing the carriage from being attacked by someone who mistakenly thinks you’re in it with me, pray? If he”—she gestured at the dead man—“could find us here, what makes you think that someone won’t learn that you hired the carriage and come after it? Without you beside me, I would be defenseless. Or if, perchance, they discovered that you had married me, could they not then hold me as a hostage in hopes of luring you to come after me?”