The Study of Seduction: Sinful Suitors 2 (15 page)

“Edwin?”

Blast. He’d missed whatever she’d said. “Sorry. Could you repeat that?”

“You’re not even listening to me!”

“I’m thinking through the problem.”

She eyed him askance. “You didn’t
look
as if you were thinking through anything. You looked like you were thinking of something far more enticing. Or even
someone.
Your friend
Lucia
, perhaps?”

Now,
that
was jealousy. He might not previously have been on the receiving end of it, but he could tell it when he heard it. And it had the most peculiar effect on him, heating his blood until he felt on fire.

He wasn’t the only one igniting. As he circled her, he noted the sudden flush in her cheeks. “You seem very interested in my association with Lucia.”

“You seem very
comfortable
with her. And she is quite beautiful, after all.”

“She is indeed,” he said, just to see her reaction.
“Despite being nearly my age, she has a youthful quality about her that never seems to fade.”

Her mouth formed a mutinous line. “You’re not that old, you know.”

“You’re the one who said I wasn’t getting any younger.”

“Well, you’re not. But that doesn’t mean you’re about to keel over.” She stared ahead, not meeting his eyes. “And she’s only a bit older than your former fiancée. No wonder she has a youthful quality.” She tipped up her chin. “Whether she will keep it is another matter entirely.”

Biting back a smile, he said, “I thought you admired her.”

“I did. I do. It’s just that . . . well, I don’t think—”

“That she’s right for me?” he said, echoing her remarks the other night about Miss Trevor.

“Don’t be silly. Of course she’s not right for you. She’s an actress.”

“And it would bother you if I married an actress.”

“Married!” She snorted. “You would never do any such thing. You’re too circumspect for that. But you might . . . well . . .”

“She already told you that she isn’t, nor ever was, my mistress.”

Clarissa walked over to stare into the mirror of a nearby dressing table. “But you’ve had mistresses?”

The question surprised him. Gently bred females didn’t ask such things. Unless they were very interested in the answer. “I should think that’s my private business,” he said, trying to provoke her into admitting her jealousy.

She whirled on him, her expression stiff. “Which means you
have.
Otherwise, you would have denied it.”

“Fine. I have. Why do you care?” He held his breath. It suddenly seemed very important to hear her reply.

“I just never thought of you as . . . well . . . that sort of man.”

That sparked his temper. “What sort of man? The kind with physical needs?” He stepped closer. “The kind who can find beauty intoxicating and intelligence stimulating?” When her breath began to quicken, he lowered his voice. “The kind who can be tempted to do what he should not?”

She nodded, her gaze dropping to his cravat, as if she were afraid to stare into his face.

Wanting to see her eyes, he tipped up her chin. “I’m not perfect, minx, as you know quite well. And certain women are a very potent temptation to me.”

Temper flared in her eyes. “Like Lucia.”

“Like
you
, you silly fool.”

He lowered his head slowly, giving her a chance to balk. When she merely gazed up at him like a startled fawn, he kissed her.

God, how could he have forgotten how lush her mouth was, how sweet the taste of her? When she willingly opened to him, he exulted and deepened the kiss. He wanted to sink into her like a warm bath, to explore every inch of her lips and tongue and teeth.

She came up on tiptoe, and he fisted his hands in her sleeves to hold her closer. She stilled, and he did, too, afraid of frightening her off as he had the other night.

But then she melted against him, and he was
well and truly lost. He couldn’t summon an ounce of his usual control—he wanted to devour her. Her mouth was a revelation, showing him the difference between merely desiring a woman’s body and desiring her mind and her soul. He plundered her lips over and over, drinking her soft gasps, growing more aroused by the moment.

She tore her mouth free of his to whisper, “Why are you doing this? You know you shouldn’t.”

He bent to nibble her ear. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I . . . I . . . No. But I do want to understand why . . . this is happening between us.” She nuzzled his cheek. “You don’t like me.”

Choking back a laugh, he murmured, “You don’t like
me
. Yet here we are.”

As he kissed his way down her neck to her throat, she uttered a shuddering breath. “I do like you.”

“And clearly I like you, or I wouldn’t be standing here giving in to temptation.” He tongued the hollow of her throat, reveling in her soft moan and the way she slid her hands up his coat lapels.

“But this is . . . more than liking.”

“Yes.” He took her mouth again.

Definitely more than liking. Desire had him in its grip and he didn’t want to be free. So, as long as she didn’t push him away, as long as she was tangling her tongue with his and twining her arms about his neck, he would take advantage.

Clarissa couldn’t believe she was
letting
Edwin take advantage. But he kept coming to her defense with Durand even when it ruined his own plans, and it made him so . . . so endearing.

That was the only reason she clung to him and pressed herself against him, the only reason her blood was racing and her heart hammering and her body heating to boiling. Gratitude for what he’d done, that’s all.

Even she wasn’t fool enough to believe
that
assertion.

Breaking the kiss, she turned to face the mirror and tried to get hold of herself. “We must stop. Someone might see us.”

“Nonsense. We’re out of sight of the hallway.” He slid his arm about her waist to draw her back against him. “They’d have to enter the room.”

He wasn’t lying, judging from what she saw in the mirror.

“Even if they did,” he murmured against her hair, “they wouldn’t say anything to anyone. They’re theater people—they mind their own business.”

When he kissed a path along her bare shoulder, alarm briefly skittered down her spine. But his arm held her lightly, so lightly, and his kisses were tender, coaxing. For once, what uncurled in her wasn’t panic or fear.

“Besides,” he added, “we’re engaged.”

“Not . . . really.”

His gaze locked with hers in the mirror as he stroked one finger along the edge of her bodice. “We could be.”

She was so intent on what he was doing with his finger that his words didn’t quite register. “We could be what?”

“Really engaged. To each other.” His finger dipped just beneath the edge to skim over the rise of her
breasts in a slow caress. Watching him do it in the mirror made it so erotic that she had to plant one hand on the dressing table just to keep steady. “Why . . . Why would we . . . do that?” she choked out.

“I need a wife.” He nuzzled her ear. “You need protection from Durand. It would make things simpler.”

“Except that I don’t want to marry anybody, even you.” Though the words sounded hollow in her ears.

He slid his hand inside her bodice. “Only because you don’t realize the advantages of it.”

She was finding it hard to breathe. “For whom?”

A lazy smile played over his lips, and he pulled down the cup of her stays inside her bodice to bare her breast to his hand. “For us both.”

As he covered it, she caught his wrist. “Edwin, what are you doing?” But she knew, and it felt awfully pleasurable. Then again, it always did at the beginning. It was later, when the man grew rough . . .

“I’m doing what I’ve craved for years—touching you,” he whispered, his eyes searching hers in the mirror. “To show you what it could be like between us.”

Her nipple was pebbling beneath his hand, belying her caution. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

When she tightened her grip on his wrist, he stopped moving his hand. “I promise not to hurt you.”

Still, his expression, full of heat and want, gave her pause. When the Vile Seducer had fondled her breasts years ago, it had started out pleasantly enough. But then she’d protested and he’d ignored her and the whole experience had rapidly twisted into . . .

That won’t happen
, she reminded herself. For one thing, Edwin was at her back and they were standing—she could fight him off much more easily. There were people on the other side of the wall, and hatpins on the dressing table that she could use to stab his arm. She was probably safer here with him than she’d ever been with any other man.

Besides, the way he waited patiently for her permission before he would continue reassured her that if she so much as tugged on his hand, he would stop this right now. But if she did that, she might never have another chance to explore these things with him.

Did she want to explore these things with him?

Yes. Oh, yes.

She released his wrist.

For half a second she feared she might regret it, because something dark and daring glittered in his eyes. But before she could react to that, he turned her head to the side with his free hand so he could kiss her mouth over her shoulder.

Then he was devouring her lips, and his hand was fondling her and it felt so astonishing that she soon found herself
pressing
her breast willingly into his palm. With a low groan, he kneaded it so deftly that it made her feel urges she’d denied herself for years. They were sweet and hot and rousing and all the things she’d never thought to feel again.

She turned into his arms and his hand fell away from her, but only so he could hoist her onto the dressing table. “Edwin!”

“Yes, minx?” He began kissing his way down into the valley between her breasts. “I want to taste you. Will you let me?”

“A-all right.” Her blood howled through her veins, wanting things, needing things. She was living dangerously now, but she had to know, had to see if Edwin would push and prod his way past her walls.

Half of her wanted him to. The other half was terrified he would.

Yet she buried her hands in his hair as he maneuvered one breast free of its trappings and covered it with his mouth.

The Vile Seducer hadn’t done such a thing—just mauled her through her bodice. But Edwin . . . oh, heavens. His silky, warm mouth explored her, sucking and soothing until she dug her fingers into his scalp. “Ohh . . . that is so . . . so . . .” She let out a shuddering sigh.

“You like that, do you?”

“Don’t
you
?”

He uttered a choked laugh against her breast. “As if you need to ask.” His tongue flicked her nipple. “Can’t you see how I forget myself when I’m with you?”

His hair spilled over her hands like black satin as she clutched his head to her bosom. “But why?” she breathed. “You’re always . . . chiding me.”

“That’s to keep everyone from realizing that I want you in my bed.” He stared up at her, eyes gleaming. “I feared the whole damned world could tell.”

“That isn’t why you chide me,” she said wryly. “You disapprove of me, admit it.”

“You do make me insane.” He teased her breast lightly with his teeth, making her arch up against him. “And if we were to marry—”

“You would shoot me inside a month. Or I would shoot you.”

“Would you?” He straightened, dragging his open mouth up her neck in a series of hot kisses. “You’re not shooting me now.”

“No. But you’re . . . doing naughty things to distract me,” she gasped. “Later, I’ll regret letting you.”

“So I’ll marry you.” His hands caressed her other breast through her clothes. “Then you’ll have no regrets.”

“Edwin . . .”

He took her mouth again, to silence her.

But his hands were on her above and below, and she felt consumed by
those
feelings again, and this time panic swelled up from below like a mighty wave. It was too much. Too much!

She shoved him back, then slipped from between him and the table, grabbing a hairbrush as she went, which she brandished in front of her like a cudgel. Frantically, she struggled to pull her bodice up with the other hand.

His gaze dipped to the brush. “Clarissa?”

The shock in his voice brought her up short. Lord, he must think her mad.

She forced herself to lower the brush as she fought for calm. He must never guess her sordid past. She could only imagine what he would make of it. Bad enough that she had let him go as far as this.

With a steadying breath, she said firmly, “I will not let you ruin me.”
I won’t let you hurt me.

“Ruin you?” He seemed disturbed by the words, for his eyes narrowed. “Surely you know I would
never
ruin you. I would never dishonor you so.”

The very mention of honor made her despair.
He couldn’t understand, and if he ever learned the truth . . . “Men dishonor women every day, without a thought.”

“True.” He stepped closer, and she barely stifled her panic. “But I am not that sort of man. I am not my brother.”

The mention of Samuel reminded her whom she was dealing with. This was Edwin. She was being absurd. She set the brush down on the table.

He released a long breath. “Indeed, I am willing to marry you.”

Willing
. But not exactly eager. “To protect me from Durand,” she said as she finished restoring her clothing.

With a nod, he said, “It makes sense. We’re friends, are we not?”

She swallowed. Edwin was ever practical. They were friends, so they should marry. Because it would “make sense” and be convenient. “It hardly seems a good basis for a lifetime together.”

He came near enough to cup her cheek. “All I ask is that you consider it. Just think about it, all right?”

Her breath stuttered out of her. She was a jumble of nerves, and given the heat in his eyes, she was horribly afraid he might try to kiss her again. She wanted it; she feared it. Most of all, she worried she might do something stupid in response . . . like shy from him and give herself away.

But just as he bent toward her, slowly, carefully, the door opened.