The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (17 page)

“Then why do you care if I try to expose them now?”

His hands held her more gently, but no less firmly. His thumb stroked one of her cheeks. He looked at her as if he held and studied a fascinating possession.

“If I knew who they were, I could protect you. But I do not know who they are, or how dangerous they may be.”

“So you think my father was right! You believe—”

His lips brushed hers, silencing her. “You will give this up, Leona. There is nothing to be gained by it.”

His touch and kiss stole her breath. Excitement began to vanquish good sense. “They killed him,” she whispered. It sounded more like a plea for help than an accusation. “Little by little they destroyed him until he
was broken. Even if they violate no English laws, the world should know them for what they are.”

Again his lips teased at hers. The warmth of his palms on her face made her whole body flush. “He would not want you doing this. He would have charged you with this duty if he did want it, and told you everything he knew so you could carry on for him. Did he?”

She looked in his eyes, into dark depths that both thrilled and frightened her.

“Did he?” he repeated.

She barely shook her head. She barely breathed.

No victory showed in his eyes at her response. He held her to a different kiss, one that closed the door on their argument.

There was care in that kiss, as if he mostly sought to soothe the turmoil this discussion had raised in her spirit. If he also wanted to influence how she weighed the truth of what he said, he failed, because the kiss distracted her from making any judgments at all.

His embrace wrapped her with strength and support. The dark intimacy surrounded her too, both comforting and exciting this time. She did not know if he intended a seduction. She did not care. Her heart sensed kindness in him, and genuine concern. Both altered his desire and even his power to something less threatening.

He lifted her chin with the crook of his finger and stroked her lips with his thumb. He kissed her again, almost discreetly. “You believe me, don't you? That I did nothing to harm or betray your father and you?”

Right now she did believe him. His embrace had banished the anger and suspicion. The sweetest calm
settled on her, a calm so complete that she could feel and note the little beats and pulses in her body that said she would not stay calm long if they remained like this.

The waters of a wave were gathering. She and he were not in a garden near a party now. It was time to run and hide again, or be swept away.

He kissed her again. He drew her deeper into the intimacy. Trickles of pleasure began a hundred trembling paths through her body.

He was good at seduction. Too good. The pleasure in the night garden had left her with fewer defenses. Delicious anticipation spoke louder than any caution.

Whatever his intentions had been with that first kiss, he had others now. There was nothing tentative in the way he held her, or in his expression as his kisses sought her neck and pulse. His caresses moved over her body. Luscious sensation flowed and crested and finally submerged her.

She gasped as his mouth sent lively heat to her blood. She arched against the firm strength of his body and turned her head so he could make it worse.

An embrace, so close and tight that she felt his heartbeat. His voice, ragged and low near her ear. “Where is your chamber?”

“Isabella.…” she murmured.

“She will not interfere.” He lifted her in his arms.

His arms cradled her above his long strides. She barely saw the doors and walls slide past. Her heart remained in her throat and her eyes on his face. She experienced the climb up the stairs in a dreamy, half-stunned state.

He found her chamber. He held her to one hot, reassuring
kiss, then laid her down. He cast off his coat, then joined her immediately, boots and all, as if he knew that the shock of her position raised misgivings. He kissed her, and all questions and thoughts retreated. She grasped him to her, for reassurance and warmth. His sure hand caressed down her body, raising delicious expectations of that stroke on her flesh. He dominated her with his body, his embrace and his power, and she surrendered.

Hunger slashed through him. Hard. Aggressive. The acceptance in her embrace, the fire in her biting kisses and clutching hands, stretched his control. It was all he could do to restrain himself, and a wonder he did not tear her skirts off and take her at once.

His hand was between her thighs and his caress sliding in her cleft before he tamed the ferocity in himself. Her hips flexed above his hand. Her cries and slickness said she was aroused enough, but it would be stupid and thoughtless to ravish her, no matter how ready her body might be.

He kissed her soundly while he bridled the ruthless drive that compelled him forward. He drew her back from her own frenzy for now. A frown of frustration said she was less than pleased.

He kissed her furrowed brow. “It will end badly for you if it continues like that, and I do not want to hurt you.”

She nodded but her expression remained petulant. He rolled her to her side and worked at the dress's fastenings.

She began to roll back when she realized what he was doing. He stopped her with gentle pressure against her shoulder. “You will not stop me. There is little enough left for me to see, and I will not be denied.”

She did not stop him again. He guessed her state accounted for that as much as anything. Or perhaps her resistance had been more instinct than will.

It pleased him to undress her. He slid the dress off completely and went to work on the stays. Her breaths came deeply, as if this affected her as much as love play. He rolled her onto her back.

Her dark eyes watched him from beneath lowered lids while he slipped the stays away. The full sensuality of her body was already visible beneath the filmy chemise. He slid it down until she was naked except for her hose and the pretty garters above her knees. They added a piquant erotic touch. He decided to leave them on her.

She was beautiful. More beautiful than he had imagined when his mind had stripped her in the years since they met.

Her full breasts rose, round and firm, their dark tips tight and provocative. He traced his fingers around those swells, then down along the curve of her waist to the flare of her hip. He splayed his hand over her stomach, enjoying the contrast of her glossy soft skin against his palms.

He dipped his head and kissed the side of one breast, then its hard nipple. She flexed sensually from the sensation and her gaze turned smoky.

“You are perfect,” he said. He enjoyed no special advantage with her, other than the immediate connection
that formed whenever their gazes met and the spiritual intimacy that sexuality created. He explored a mystery like any other man did when he gave her pleasure, and had to rely on instincts more primitive than in the past. The sheer normalcy of it fascinated him, as did the discovery that the less secure sensing could be more profound than the literal one.

Her naked body luxuriated in his caresses. An indescribable expression softened her face. He saw the pleasure in her. Felt it. And as she became more lost, more abandoned, he sensed it.

No fear. No holding back. She embraced more than his body. A deeper closeness existed in their mutual desire and warmth, in her cries and yielding. A state akin to the dark center formed, only she was in it too. It was not selfless and empty but full of need and it tremored with the ecstasy waiting.

He pulled off his clothes while he kissed her soft curves. He flicked his tongue on her nipple until she cried out. He used his mouth and hand to take her deeper into madness. He wanted her screaming from the pleasure, begging for him, so that his possession would be complete when she gave herself and she would never again question how it must be.

His own body tightened with each indication of her arousal. The darkness closed in more. He spread her legs and knelt between them and gazed down at her. She looked so erotic that his jaw clenched against the fury throbbing in him.

Her lids rose, revealing glistening, enraptured eyes. She watched as he extended his arms and smoothed his hands down her shoulders and around her breasts. They
were fuller now, tighter, and extremely sensitive as she approached her climax.

She watched his hands and her breath shortened. She arched when he gently teased her nipples and she whimpered softly in her need. He caressed down her hips to where her thighs were parted near his knees. Moisture sparkled on dark hair around soft, pink flesh that her vulnerable pose made visible.

She did not try to contain her delirium at all. She gasped with his first touch, then descended into cries while he stroked in ways that he knew would make her cry even more.

A thundering pulse beat stronger and stronger and the darkness obscured every thought except the urge to have her. He made her come so any pain would not matter as much, then pressed his erection into her. He lowered his body into her arms and eased into her tight passage.

Her body resisted. Even the throes of her release did not obscure her pain. He gritted his teeth and waited for the worst to pass. He lifted one of her knees to the crook above his hip to open her and ease it for her.

Her hot breaths panted against his chest. He moved carefully, restraining the driving urge to ram deep and hard. She slowly relaxed, opened, accepted. She looked up at him, into his eyes, and captivated him with the wonder in her own.

The dark center grew then. Nothing existed in it but the sensation of her flesh against his and the howling pleasure and the awareness of two climbing to ecstasy together.

The whole world split apart. His mind disappeared
for a long, black moment of bliss. The center did not shatter, however. Instead it absorbed everything, in a fulfillment that he had been promised since the first time he had looked into her deep, dark eyes.

She did not want to return to herself. It was too pleasant floating like this, somewhere above the world, surrounded by his arms and nothing else at all.

The intimacy soothed her. It deepened as his scent and warmth entered her head. His heartbeat sounded in her ears, quieter now, no longer the escalating rhythm of hot blood seeking a conflagration.

Slowly she grew aware of her nakedness in the cool breeze of early evening. She noticed how her face pressed against his chest and the encompassing nature of his embrace. She felt small against him, but not as vulnerable as when he was in her and his power flowed unchecked, commanding surrenders that she had not expected.

She opened her eyes and looked down his body. In the heat of her sensual abandon she had not really noticed when he undressed. Nor had she been shocked to see him without clothes kneeling above her, his dark hair framing eyes that all but scorched when he looked at her. Now his nakedness made her blink, and become more aware yet. His body reminded her in very frank ways of the implications of what she had just done.

Her contentment did not permit much thought about that now. The world and its rules would not be denied, but she did not have to invite it into this chamber yet. She let her gaze meander down his flat stomach to the
dark curls and soft phallus, and on to the legs, one half bent. He had very nice legs, she decided. Well formed, with dark hair covering lean, taut muscles.

She shifted, seeking more closeness to his warmth. She felt moisture on her stomach and legs. She looked at her own body, and the streak of blood on her thigh.

A memory came to her, of an instant of surprise when he withdrew from her as the climax broke in him. Her own mindless state had permitted no more than the briefest sense of loss, and the smallest relief that he had been more careful with her future than she had been.

Her head rose and fell on his inhales and exhales. They came so regularly that he might be sleeping. Or meditating. Only he wasn't. His hand kept touching her head, his fingers languidly penetrating her topknot in a charming, comforting touch.

“Do you sleep, Leona?”

She turned her body so she could see his face. Her topknot tilted, then sagged to her shoulder. She spied a stack of hairpins on her pillow. She plucked at one more that dangled near her eye. Her hair tumbled more.

“Kneel so I can see you,” he said.

As she did so her hair fell around her body, a chaotic mass of curls that made Branca curse when she was a girl. She drew a corner of the sheet to her body, to cover what the hair did not.

His arm reached out. A fine arm, revealing more strength than his tall, lean form implied in garments. The same tight muscularity could be seen in his shoulders and torso. For a recluse he appeared surprisingly athletic.

He plucked at the edge of the sheet and peeled it
away. Their nakedness suddenly made her shy. It was one thing in the frenzy of desire, and another in the cool light of day when rationality returned.

“You are perfect,” he said. “I always knew that you would be.”

His gaze almost made her believe him, even though she knew she was not perfect. Not nearly so. She certainly was not fashionably pretty, especially here in London. Now, after what they had shared, he saw her through very kind eyes.

His words touched her, and not because of the flattery. He alluded to the past, and to the time apart. It would be nice to believe that she had not fallen from his memory all those years, only to reenter it when he saw her name on the calling card given to his aunt that day.

“You must come to Grosvenor Square, as my aunt's guest. I will send the servants to move your belongings tomorrow.”

“That would not be wise. You have announced your interest in me. If I now live in that house, everyone will think—everyone will know that—”

The objection sounded silly even to her own ears. Everyone would think and know what they already thought and knew. Except it was not really silly at all.

“I do not want society's heralds to announce me as your mistress. I do not want that kind of notoriety. It would not be wise for me to be that indiscreet, or that dependent.”

He did not care for her resistance. But then he was Easterbrook, and a man, and did not care what anyone thought. “So you are going to force me to slip in your
door, and leave before dawn? I would much prefer if you were up the stairs or down the corridor.”