What Price Love? (15 page)

He paused, gazing unseeing down the lake, then went on, his voice even but with darker currents rippling beneath. “They wanted me to act as a runner, organizing jockeys to hold back their mounts—a common enough scam in those days. I was just…cowardly enough to convince myself that falling in with their plan was my only choice.”

This time, his pause lasted longer, the emotions ran deeper; Pris could find no adequate words to break it, so she waited.

Eventually, he stirred and glanced briefly at her. “Flick stood by me. She got Demon to help, and together they pulled me free of it. They exposed the race-fixing racket and the gentleman behind it—and forced me to, gave me the opportunity to, grow up.”

“What happened to the cowardly streak?” When he glanced at her, she pointed out, “You wouldn't have mentioned it if you weren't sure you'd grown out of it.”

His teeth flashed in a brief, cynically acknowledging smile before he looked back at the lake. “The coward in me died the instant the blackguard behind the scheme pointed a pistol at Flick.” His gaze shifted over the silent water. A moment passed before he said, “It was strange—a moment when my life truly changed, when I suddenly saw what was important and what wasn't. To have someone I loved suffer because of something I'd foolishly done…I couldn't—absolutely and beyond question could not—face that.”

“What happened? Was she shot?”

He shook his head. “No.”

He said nothing more. She frowned, analyzing, then it came to her, like a premonition, only more certain. “You got shot instead.”

Without looking at her, he shrugged. “Only reasonable in the circumstances. I survived.”

A penance, a payment he didn't want to discuss. She had a good idea why he'd told her what he had, and where he was steering their conversation—in a direction she didn't want it to go. “The wild and reckless.”

She waited until he looked at her, met her eyes. “Being wild and reckless is part of your soul.” She knew that as well as she knew her own. “You can't lose characteristics like that, so where are they now? What do you do to satisfy the craving for excitement and thrills?”

She was curious; his eyes traveled her face, and she suspected he understood. That he saw that that was a question to which she'd yet to find an answer herself.

The smile that curled the ends of his lips suggested a certain sympathy. “Back then, I wondered—feared—that I'd become addicted to gambling, but to my relief, I found that wasn't so. I am”—he tilted his head her way in wry acknowledgment—“addicted, but to the rush of excitement, the thrill that comes with…success, I suppose. In winning, in succeeding, in beating the odds.” He glanced briefly at her. “Luckily, my addiction didn't care in which endeavor I succeeded—it was the achievement that counted.”

“So which endeavors have you been succeeding in?” She opened her eyes wide. “I can't imagine tending the Breeding Register for the Jockey Club qualifies.”

Dillon grinned. “Not on its best day. My position there is more a long-term interest, almost a hereditary one. No, through Demon and the rest of his family, the Cynsters, I became involved in investing.”

“Not the Funds, I take it?”

The dryness of her comment made him smile. “Having been educated by the best in the field, some of my wealth is of course deposited in the Funds, but you're right—the excitement and thrills come from the rest. The ferreting out of new opportunities, the evaluating, the projections, the possibilities—it's a wager of sorts, but on a much grander scale, with many more factors to take into account,
but if you learn the right skills and use them well, the chances of success are immeasurably greater than in gaming—and the thrills and excitement commensurately more intense.”

She looked at the lake and sighed. “And therefore more satisfying.”

He eyed her profile. He wasn't entirely certain why he'd told her so much, but the telling had only reinforced his sense of obligation. He owed so much to so many—to Flick most of all, but also to Demon and the Cynsters in general. When he'd been in trouble, they'd freely and openly given him the aid he'd needed to reclaim his life. Through them, he'd made friends, acquaintances, and connections that he valued immensely, that were fundamentally important to who he now was.

Others had given him a great deal when he'd been in need.

Now Pris Dalling, and whoever she was protecting, needed help; he couldn't walk away, couldn't not offer his aid in turn.

“I told you about my past so you'd understand that, if you or whoever you're protecting has become embroiled in any illicit scheme and are finding it difficult to break free, then I, of all people, will understand.” He waited until she turned her head and faced him, he sensed reluctantly. “If they're in trouble and need help, I'm prepared to give it, but in order to do so, you'll have to tell me who they are and what's going on.”

Holding his gaze, Pris found herself facing the crux of her problem. She knew in her heart Rus would never willingly have become embroiled in any illicit scheme, but why hadn't he come forward and reported what ever it was he'd learned? Why was he hiding?

She didn't know; until she did…grimacing, she looked back at the lake. “I can't tell you.”

Despite her best efforts, the words rang with real reluctance; despite her loyalty to Rus, the urge to grasp the hand Dillon held out was surprisingly strong—especially after that incident with Harkness, compounded by Cromarty's appearance that evening.

Since sighting Rus on the night he'd tried to break into the Jockey Club, she'd learned nothing more of his whereabouts. And with Harkness stalking the Heath and Cromarty swaggering about the ballrooms, her ability to search was becoming restricted.

She needed help,
but
…

Dillon moved, drawing his hands from his pockets and shifting to face her.

He was regrouping to press her further; she struck before he could, offense being infinitely preferable to defense, especially where he was concerned. She looked at him, let their gazes clash and lock—suddenly very aware of him, large, dark and dangerous, one muscled arm draped along the sofa's back. “I need to know the implications of what I'm telling you before I do. If you'll tell me what's in the register…?”

He held her gaze for a heartbeat, then inflexibly replied, “I can't.”

Where the compulsion came from she didn't know—part aggression, part rising fear, and partly that wild and reckless craving for excitement and thrills that was as intrinsic a part of her as it was of him.

“Perhaps I can persuade you…?” The words fell from her lips, sultry and low.

Before he could react, raising her hands to frame his face, she leaned forward and kissed him.

P
ris wanted nothing more than to distract him, and herself. To set aside her escalating troubles and for just a few minutes be herself. To soothe her restless soul with just a taste of the wild and reckless.

He tasted of both, of a dark flaring need that tempted and taunted, that teased her with a promise of illicit and dangerous pleasures, of atavistic delights beyond her ken.

His lips met hers without hesitation, returning the pressure, but no more; he took what she offered, but made no demands, left her to make the running as if aloofly sitting back to see how far she would go—how serious she was about persuading him.

Not in her wildest imaginings did she think she could, certainly not like this. Her wish to see the register wasn't the reason she leaned into him, traced his lower lip with the tip of her tongue, boldly entered his mouth when he parted his lips, and tempted him more.

Asked for more. All but pleaded.

He moved; his arm left the back of the sofa and slowly encircled her, then tightened, urging her to him. His other hand rose, fingers splaying to cradle her head as he smoothly slid the reins from her grasp, drew her nearer yet, all but into his lap as he angled his head and took control.

Of the kiss, and all else she would cede to him, but passivity wasn't her style; she drew a line and held to it, letting him kiss her as
he would, show her what he would, but reserving the right to redirect their play if she wished. If she wanted.

Now, this minute, she wanted him. Wanted to feel his tongue stroking hers, wanted to experience again the hot tide of wanton desire he so readily called forth. His lips moved on hers, demanding, definitely commanding, yet still unurgent, still effortlessly, arrogantly, controlled.

She met each questing stroke of his tongue, dueled, retreated, allowed him to explore, then grasping his head tightly between her hands, boldly returned the plea sure.

Sensed, then, just for an instant—a second of hesitation when she felt his control momentarily crack, and she saw past it—what he hid behind his sophisticated façade.

Something not sophisticated at all. Something primal, powerful, and predatory, something with teeth and claws and burning eyes, a desire so wild, so reckless and passionate that, if let free, unrestrained, it possessed power enough to shake both their worlds.

The ultimate temptation for the wild and reckless.

The ultimate sin for those who couldn't resist the lure.

She saw, craved. Hungered. She reached for it, without hesitation sank into him, drew him deep into her mouth, and with lips and tongue invited.

Dillon inwardly cursed, and resisted. He'd intended calling her bluff, nothing more. Intended letting her masquerade as the
femme fatale
she pretended to be—he knew it was a pose—to let her play out her hand and learn she couldn't win…

He'd forgotten how susceptible he was. Not to her, herself—the simple appreciation for a female body he could and would have easily controlled—but to the passion she evoked and sent racing down his veins, to the sheer unadulterated lust that, with her in his arms, fogged his brain.

He tried to ignore it, battled to block it out—and failed. Heat swirled through him, rose like a tidal wave he couldn't hope to hold back. In desperation, he gripped her waist and tried to ease her back, to create space between their heating bodies, preferably to break the kiss—an engagement that was rushing down an increasingly slippery slope to raging, mindless need.

She wouldn't have it, simply wouldn't be denied; she came up on
her knees, clamped her hands on his shoulders, and used her leveraged weight to wedge him into the sofa's corner. The angled sides restricted him; she compounded his problems by sinking more definitely, more enticingly against him, and letting her hands roam.

Under his coat, over his chest, opening and brushing aside his waistcoat, sweeping wide, then down to grip his sides while her tongue played havoc with his senses, and the soft weight of her firm feminine curves, supple and giving, beckoned and lured…that prowling, predatory side of him he barely recognized, yet knew to be him. That facet of him she so effortlessly provoked into being.

He fought to catch his mental breath, to get a firm grip on his wits if not his senses. Metaphorically girding his loins, he gathered his will and tried his level best to sit up and move her back—

She felt his muscles bunching, countered his move.

He raised his shoulders free of the corner, only to have her determinedly bear him down, fractionally to the side and around so that his back hit the raised arm of the sofa. The shuffle of female limbs screened by fine silk over and between his thighs, the shushing shift of her skirts as she twitched them and wriggled, totally distracted him.

Then somehow he was leaning back against the sofa's padded arm, his legs angled across the seat, with her poised over him, in his arms, straddling him, her warmth seeping through the cloth of his trousers as she settled over his hips.

His mind, his wits, his senses reeled, struggling to assimilate every aspect, every contact.

Her lips had never left his; now they firmed, and she brazenly engaged him, flagrantly incited, sirenlike, sinuously shifting over him…

Was she really as innocent as he'd thought?

Before he could accumulate sufficient wit to attempt an answer, she blew all chance of rational thought from his brain.

At his waist, her small hands gripped his shirt, tugged it free of his waistband, then slid beneath.

Her touch—the feel of her small, warm, intensely feminine hands pressing avidly, greedily to his already heated skin—seared like a brand.

And incinerated every civilized safeguard he possessed, shredded his vaunted control, and blew the tattered remnants away.

He reacted. Caught her head, palmed her nape, and ravenously kissed her back, but it was no longer the he who usually was, but a merged entity, a seamless melding of the dangerous predatory male and the cool, clever, experienced gentleman.

The primitive and possessive, and the arrogant and demanding.

He was lost, and so was she. Some distant, disconnected part of his mind knew it, but was helpless to act, to access sufficient will or strength to pull them both free.

Of the completely ungovernable, totally irresistible tide of passion that roared into being and captured them both.

Swept them into a sea of desire and hot, urgent yearning. Onto a plane where for both of them nothing mattered beyond the next heated touch, the next explicit caress.

Her desperate fingers fumbled with his cravat; he groped blindly with one hand, trapped the swinging end of the braid that anchored her cape at her neck, and wrenched it free.

The cape slid from her shoulders, down and away with a sibilant
shush.
His palm touched the silk of her gown, rose, and found her breast, cupped, then he closed his hand and kneaded. He was incapable of disguising the need in his touch, the possessiveness that drove him. Releasing the firm mound, he sought and found her laces, and quickly, expertly undid them.

The instant her bodice loosened, he drew it down, slid his hand beneath, pressed the material farther away as his palm caressed hot silken skin. She shuddered. A prickling tide of sensual relief swept through him at the contact, not easing but flagrantly arousing, heightening his need, deepening his lust. The kiss turned incendiary; he held her head immobile as he plundered her mouth, soft, giving, intensely feminine. Intoxicating. His hand surrounded and seized; his fingers closed, possessed, then captured the tightly furled peak and tweaked, squeezed.

On a gasp, she broke from the kiss. Desperate for air, she tilted her head back.

Inwardly he smiled, and seized the moment. He released her nape, let that hand trace down the line of her spine to settle at the back of her waist, simultaneously took advantage of her instinctive offering; leaning forward, he set his lips to her vulnerable throat, pressed a heated knowing caress to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then skated hot kisses down that tempting line.

He paused to lave the pulse that beat wildly at the base of her throat, paused to taste, to savor the galloping desire that held her in its grip. Satisfied, he moved on, down, with his lips tracing a path over the swell of her breast to the tightly ruched bud his fingers had teased to aching, throbbing hardness.

He closed his lips about it. She jerked in his arms.

He soothed it with a wet lick, and she trembled.

His mind took note, but the beast within him, aroused and needy, saw no reason to stop and consider. Instead, he bent to the task of teaching her all he could make her feel, all she could experience if she gave herself to him.

With expertise aplenty on which to call, he quickly reduced her to a state of sobbing need. Fractured and ragged, her breathing rang with a sensual desperation that was music to his ears.

His own need clawed and roared; anticipation wielded a sharpened spur. He drew back, leaning back against the sofa arm, surprised to find he needed to catch his own sensual breath, that he was breathing rapidly, too…

Her gown had fallen to her waist, her chemise crushed with it. With his eyes he devoured the lush mounds revealed, the swollen, heated female flesh to which his hands and lips had already laid claim.

The sight more than pleased, it delighted, sent a hot rush of passion surging through his loins, increasingly urgent, increasingly insistent. The sexual compulsion was beyond anything he'd felt before, stronger, more powerful, more real.

Somehow more aligned with who he really was, with what he really was. Reckless and wild.

One glance at her face, at the slivers of emerald bright with desire that glowed beneath her heavy lids, told him beyond doubt that she felt it, too—the ungovernable, irresistible craving, the desire that was simply impossible to deny.

He could have her now. She was straddling him, her knees sunk in the cushions on either side of his hips. He could simply lift her skirts, release his staff, and sheathe himself in her softness, but the beast within wanted much more. Demanded much more, from her, of her.

Nothing but complete surrender. Nothing less than sensual submission.

The world had already fallen away. Only the two of them remained, cocooned in the moon-glimmered dark in the silence of the summer house. A silence broken only by their panting breaths, by the
shush
of fine material shifting.

Pris had already dispensed with his cravat. She'd pushed his shirt up to gain access to his chest, but that wasn't enough. She wanted to see as well as to feel. Wanted to know. Everything.

From beneath her heavy lids, she captured his gaze, held it as she unbuttoned his shirt. In the shadowed dark, his eyes were impossible to read, yet his expression as he watched her still conveyed a sense of control, of knowing, of deliberation.

But there was no longer any coolness in his gaze; it was hot, nearly scorching as it lowered and swept her breasts. As he examined, then raised a hand to lazily caress.

Her nerves leapt, tightened; her senses exulted in the light, taunting touch even as her mind reeled. She closed her eyes, briefly savored. She was straddling him, naked to the waist, yet far from feeling shocked or hesitant, she wanted to be there, wanted to feel his eyes on her body, ached to feel that fleeting, teasingly promising brush of his long fingers across her sensitized skin.

Her pulse beat strongly in her fingertips, under her skin, echoing the compulsion that thrummed through her, through every vein, down every nerve. How she could be addicted to something she hadn't yet tasted was a mystery, but the effect was real. She simply wanted. And had to have.

The last button slipped free; opening her eyes, she spread the halves of his shirt wide and looked down. Visually devoured as he had, then, shaking her fingers free of the material, she reached, touched, stroked. She traced the well-defined muscles banding his chest, let her fingers tangle in the crisp black hair that lay in a mat across the width, then arrowed down to disappear beneath his waistband. She found the flat discs of his nipples beneath the dark pelt, stroked, caressed, and felt them furl. Greatly daring, she leaned down and lipped, then nipped, and felt him catch his breath, felt him stir restlessly beneath her.

Rising, she slid her hands, fingers splayed, down, over the hard ridges of his abdomen; sitting back, she followed the same path with her eyes and swallowed. He was strong, steely muscled, an altogether dangerous male in his prime.

One she had half-naked beneath her.

Her lips slowly curved. Lifting her eyes to his, she caught the dark glimmer beneath his long lashes, held it, then deliberately skated her hands slowly up his chest. Following them, she leaned in and, with reckless abandon, set her lips to his.

Covered them, kissed wantonly, with lips and tongue boldly challenged, then retreated, enticed.

His hand skated up her back to once again cup her nape; he held her immobile, and blatantly, with an irresistible power, took control of the kiss. Blatantly, arrogantly, took all she offered.

And then all he wished.

A shiver shook her, a primitive recognition that here, now, he could have what ever he wished of her, that she wouldn't resist, couldn't resist.

Didn't want to resist.

Here, now,
this
was what she wanted, what she had to have. Him.

Certain, sure, emboldened, she answered his passion with her own, brazenly incited, convinced beyond all logical question that what ever she could have of him was what she craved. What she needed.

The wild and reckless. The passionate male that lurked behind his cool façade.

That was what she wanted. That was what she was determined to have.

Regardless of the cost. What ever price he asked, she would gladly pay. With his body hot and hard beneath her hands, with his lips hard and urgent covering hers, his tongue a heated brand tangling with hers, she wasn't in any mood to deny herself. Or him.