She undid the latch of the sash window and opened it. She looked up to take a deep breath of fresh night air and yelped. There, on her balcony, with the moonlight shining upon him like the marauding heart thief that he was, was Asher.
“Hello, Guin.”
His voice slid over her like a warm waft of air, causing a ripple of gooseflesh to shiver over her skin. She could not move. She could hardly breathe. And every thought was one of a rapidly increasing awareness of her desire for this man who had the power to destroy her.
He raised his arms and set his hands somewhere above the window. She swallowed, her heart moving to her throat. He was sans cravat, and his shirt was open to show just a bit of the top of his delicious chest. Her dratted fingertips prickled, beckoning her to press them against his revealed flesh.
He leaned in, and the scent of whisky swirled around her. Her tongue tingled with the sudden desire to taste him to see if he had imbibed. He leaned closer, and his heat became one with hers. By God, they would go up in flames.
His lips curled back in a savage smile. “Who were ye opening the window for, Guinevere?”
It took a moment to gather her wits, but once she did, she glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
He nudged past her to enter through her window, and without a word, he stalked across her bedchamber, his boots tapping against the hardwood. After a second, her bedchamber lock clicked into place. A foolish thrill swept through her, remembering what had occurred between them the last time he’d locked a door. She shoved the burgeoning desire down. She would keep control of her wanton self.
When he turned to face her, moonlight slashed across his face, and for one breath, before he stepped out of the light and into the shadowy darkness of her bedchamber, she could have sworn she saw longing on his face. He strolled toward her this time, each of his measured steps making her heart beat a little faster, a bit harder.
When he finally came to stand before her, she set her hands on her hips and looked up at him. “Why did you lock my bedchamber door?”
“It wouldn’t do to be discovered in yer bedchamber.”
She laughed at that. While it was true, she felt just mulish enough to say, “How considerate of you not to want to ruin me. Oh, wait! You already ruined me.”
“If I recall, Guin, there were two of us involved in that kiss in the woods.”
She remembered every single solitary thing about that kiss. From the way his mouth had hungrily covered hers to the feel of his strong hands encircling her waist, the hardness of his chest as she pressed her palm against it even as she threaded her fingers into his thick hair and pulled him closer. She heard his guttural growl as his tongue parted her mouth and her own whimper as her emotions roiled within her.
“You initiated that kiss,” she said, wincing at her feeble attempt to deny her own passionate response.
“Mm-hmm,” was all he said in response, but it was the way he said it so knowing, so sarcastic, blast the Scot devil.
“I repeat, why are you here?”
“Ye bade me to come,” he replied, humor in his tone.
The man was impossible! “Tomorrow,” she said. “I bade you to come tomorrow.”
“I thought we needed to clarify some things between us if we are to formalize our betrothal.”
That word if stole her breath. Did he not plan to wed her? Perhaps he did not have a speck of honor, after all. She wanted to hide under her coverlet and avoid the dark fate of herself and her sisters if he broke the betrothal, but she shoved her shoulders back and arched her eyebrows. “Such as?”
“Such as I will only wed ye if ye can stand here and vow to me that ye want me more than ye want Kilgore.”
Fury made her cheeks flush. “So you need to know you bested him even now? Is that why you are here?”
“What?”
Was that astonishment she heard in his tone, or was that merely what she wanted to hear?
“Nay, that’s not why I’m here. Was I not clear?”
She had no trouble discerning his tone now—annoyance. She sucked her lip in and then popped it out, trying to control her own mounting irritation, but it was no use. The thread snapped under the weight of her heavy heart and indignation. “You are not being clear, you louse,” she bit out and punctuated it with a poke in his unrelenting chest. “I’ve no idea what you wish me to say!”
Oh, blast. It seemed that the thread that was holding her self-control together had been good and pulled, and now she was unraveling. She felt helpless to stop it. “Do you wish me to say you win? You bested Kilgore? Well, the last laugh is on you, isn’t it, because we both know you did not want to keep me, only to beat Kilgore!”
His hands came to her upper arms and gripped her firmly. “Guin, I already told ye. Ye are no prize to me.”
“You devil!”
“That is not what I meant.”
“Pardon me if I don’t believe you,” she replied, allowing the sarcasm she felt to drip from every word.
“I do not lie, Guinevere.”
There was an accusation in his words, and a flood of uncontrollable fury overcame her. “You!” She poked him in his infuriatingly hard chest once again. “You!” She clenched her teeth, but it was no good. She could not hold the tide of pent-up hurt and rage back. “You stand here and act as if I am the deceiver! You led me to believe you cared for me five years ago, and then I discovered you used me to spite your father and then lied about it again in the garden because you still wanted to best Kilgore.”
“I already told ye I did not pursue ye to spite my father. Not completely. Hell, only for a moment.”
She tried to tug away from him, but he held firm. “Damn it, Guin.”
“Damn you!” she said, flushing from head to toe at the foul words he’d drawn from her lips. “I know the truth! You can quit the game!”
“What game?” he asked, frowning.
There was that seeming befuddlement again. She would not have believed him to be such a fine actor, but it seemed she was wrong. “Don’t bother denying it! I know the truth! Kilgore told me.”
“Kilgore,” he said, his lethal tone making her shiver. “Kilgore would say anything to seduce ye, Guin, and ye seem only too willing to let him.”
She knew exactly of what he was speaking, or at least she thought she did. “The skit was just an act, and the kiss in the garden, well, Kilgore kissed me.”
“Ye didn’t push him away.”
It was an accusation. And it sounded like a jealous one. The possibility that he was jealous because he cared made her suddenly less angry. “If you had but stayed, you would have seen me slap him.”
Asher’s eyes widened. “A hard slap?”
“Stinging. And a shove, too.”
The corners of Asher’s mouth tugged into a smile, and he said, “There was a wager made five years ago at White’s. Kilgore wagered an enormous sum with an anonymous lord that he could seduce ye and three other ladies. The time limit is up in one month. Kilgore is trying not to lose, so he lied to ye.”
Anger burned in her gut at Kilgore. Had he really wagered he could seduce her? Snippets of things he’d said came to her now. Things that had been startling or odd or contradicting of other things he’d said. And things that seemed to confirm what Asher was saying. I tire of my life, and you are the one woman who has failed to succumb to my charms. And she had asked him if he wished her to succumb, and he’d said, I pray you don’t succumb and prove me wrong.
She clenched her teeth as suspicion rose and more of Kilgore’s words came to her. I am every bit as debauched as you believe me to be. Have you forgotten the terrace five years ago?
He’d said he was a man at war with himself. He’d said he did not want to compromise her, and yet at every turn his actions belied his words. He’d admitted that someone else had set him on his path. And he’d tensed, visibly tensed, when she’d made mention that most men went to war to protect another. He’d also said he would offer for her if she wante
d, then was visibly relieved when she had declined. And when she’d pointedly stated that it had never been about her, but about protecting someone, he had not agreed or disagreed, but she had known she was right. It was a gut feeling.
“Guin?”
She blinked. Kilgore did not want to seduce her, but he had felt he had to do so. She may have been a fool, but she did not think it was simply because he would lose an enormous amount of money. She vowed it had something to do with Lady Constantine.
He had tried to warn her in his own way, even as he had tried to destroy her chance with Asher. She wanted to hate him, yet she could not. She felt he had tried as best he could to be honorable, though that did not excuse what he had done. Why had Kilgore lied to her?
“It was never simply about me with Kilgore,” she said.
“Guinevere, I vow on my mother’s grave, I am not lying.”
Her eyes met Asher’s, and she could swear concern burned there. Asher’s mother had meant the world to him, but even without that heartfelt vow, she believed him. She did. But there was an unanswered question she desperately needed him to answer.
“If you had truly cared for me five years ago, if you had not been pursuing Elizabeth, how was it that you ended up in a library with her? How was it that you were discovered kissing her?”
Deafening silence descended. It was tormenting.
“Ye throw accusations at me as if ye yerself are blameless, as if yer very actions were not what drove me to her.” His voice was deceptively calm, but she could feel his fury. It pricked her skin. “How is it I came to be in the library, ye asked?”
Each word lashed her with its force. “You know that’s what I asked,” she shot back, refusing to be cowed by him, though she felt as if she had awoken a sleeping wolf.
“I’ll tell ye.” He drew so close to her that she could not have put a thread between them. “When I met ye that fateful night in the ballroom, ye cast a blinding light before me when I had not even known I was standing in utter darkness, and all I could see from that moment on was ye. And by the end of that night, I came to understand that yer beauty was the least mesmerizing of yer qualities.”
Her breath caught at that. No one had called her beautiful back then. She had been pudgy with freckles, and her eyes and mouth had been too large for her face. The boys had all teased her. Asher had never told her these things before. “You could not possibly have thought me beautiful.”
His gaze burned into hers. “I did. Ye smiled across the ballroom at me when everyone else merely gazed curiously. Ye met my eyes straight on and smiled. It was the friendliest, most welcoming smile. In that crowded ballroom where I was a curiosity—the man who had thought he was a bastard but discovered he was a toff—ye were the only one who did not look at me as if ye were judging me. Ye looked at me as if ye could not see why I would not belong, be I a marquess, a chimney sweep, or a future duke.”
This man, the one talking now, was the man she had fallen for almost instantly that night. He had looked at her as if he wanted to hear what she had to say, as if she was not a nuisance to be tolerated simply because her family was wealthy. Could his words be believed?
“Yer wit intrigued me,” he continued. “Yer intelligence fascinated me. Yer smile warmed a place inside me I had not realized was frozen from years of being scorned.”
Her jaw went slack at his words. It was all the things she had ever wanted: to be loved for who she was on the inside. Her heart thudded in her ears as the blood rushed through her veins, pushing hope and fear through her. He had to be deceiving her, but if he was not…?
She found her tongue with a will she did not know she possessed. He had given her pretty words. No, good God, they were magnificent words. She wanted to weep at the beauty of them, but they did not answer her question. She could not allow herself to be willfully blind. “And how did these things lead you to kiss another woman in a library?”
His mouth twisted, and his expression grew hard. “Because, Guin, I saw ye that night on the terrace with Kilgore. Ye were in his arms kissing him just as tonight—” Asher cursed and grew rigid. “He kissed ye.”
“Yes,” she said. “Just as tonight.”
“I am the biggest fool,” he replied.
His admission made her feel dizzy and discomfited. And…and hopeful. Blast him. “You must have left the terrace before I pulled away. Kilgore kissed me without my permission, but can you say the same? Was it Elizabeth who kissed you?”
“Aye.”
Guinevere’s hope soared.
“But—”
“Why must there be a but?” she wailed, forgetting to keep her voice low. She wanted to pummel his chest and knock sense into his male Scot’s brain. “But you kissed her back because she was too tempting to resist?” she flung out, flailing her arms like a wild woman. Her pulse strummed in a whizzing fashion.
He’d done this to her! He’d stolen her heart, then broken it. Then she’d tried to repair it—or rather fortify it—only to have him stroll back into her life and force her to confront how her heart still beat for him as it never had for another. He’d stuffed her full of hope to yank it away again.
He captured her wrists with his hands and brought her palms against his chest. His heart hammered into her skin, and her eyes went wide. By heaven, he was as wildly affected in this moment as she was.
“But,” he said slowly, “Elizabeth told me that ye had always wanted Kilgore and were merely using me to make him jealous.”
Guinevere’s lips parted at the revelation.
“And then she kissed me. I’m a damn fool, as I said. Undoubtedly one of the biggest ones who has ever lived because, in that moment, I was furious and wanted to strike back at ye, so I did not push her away immediately. By the time I did, the library door had opened and we were caught. My pride cost me everything. It cost me ye.”
“I want to believe you,” she said, meaning it. In fact, she wanted to profess her love and throw herself into his arms, but she was afraid.
“Then believe this, Guin,” he said, tugging her fully to him to crush his mouth to hers.
His tongue pressed against the crease of her mouth, and she opened for him with a groan of all the longing she had repressed for the past five years. He tasted of the whisky he’d been drinking, smoky and spicy with hints of lemon and vanilla. It was heaven. He was heaven.
Desire sprang forth hot and unstoppable, and she was helpless to resist. His nearness was overwhelming. Her need was overwhelming. Her hope that they might have the love she once thought possible was overwhelming. There was no past between them in this moment. No betrayals or jealousy.
He pulled back, leaving her breathless, and he cupped her face. “Tell me ye want me.”
“I do, I do,” she said, kissing him. “I want you.”
She didn’t care that she’d relented. They were to be wed, and she wanted her marriage to start in peace not war. She wanted love. He had been the one man she had ever believed truly wanted her for who she really was, and she would embrace anew the hope that they could have something wonderful.
He groaned, and then his lips captured hers in a kiss that burned with possession. He caressed her mouth as his hands moved softly over her hips to skim her waist and then settled on her breasts. Immediately, they grew heavy and taut, and deep in her belly, all the way to her core, her body tightened and an ache sprang forth.
He caught her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezed gently while circling them. The friction was delicious and sweet torture. She arched toward him, rubbing her hips against him and feeling the proof of his own need for her. Her hands came to his shoulders, and she gripped him, nails meeting flesh.
He pulled back, panting, and stared at her. “I want to make ye mine right now, Guinevere, but—”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Never say that word again. I despise it.”
“Ah, mo ghraidh, I will never say it again.”
“What does mo ghraidh mean?” she
asked as he brushed her hair away from her neck to trail feathery kisses down her burning skin.
He answered between kisses. “I. Will. Tell. Ye. One. Day. But not today.”
She would have protested, but his finger slipped under the top edge of her nightgown and the cool night air swept over her skin. Gooseflesh covered her breasts. She should be scandalized, should most certainly protest, but she wasn’t and she didn’t. She had fully exposed herself, set her heart in his hands once more. She prayed he would be careful with it.
The last thought was stolen from her when his tongue touched the tip of her bud. All the air in her lungs fled as her insides coiled. He circled her nipple once, twice, and she wanted to scream at the exquisite pleasure.
“Make me yours, Asher.”
He answered with a tormented groan followed by taking her breast in his mouth to suckle her. There was a pulling inside her and incessant pulsing between her legs. She wanted him. She wanted him in a way that was not proper, but she didn’t care. There was no one here to judge her or correct her. There was only the two of them and the passion between them.
As his suckling grew stronger, one of his hands moved downward to lift her nightgown up her thighs, and before she knew it, he had divested her of her unmentionables. She didn’t even blush, she was that wanton now. She loved it. With him, she would be able to be herself, and he would love her for it.
Hope sped her heart and her own desire. She tugged at his clothes, wanting to feel his bare flesh as he was feeling hers, and he chuckled approvingly. He broke contact with her breast to aid her in undressing them both. They were all frenzied hands and impatient sighs and grunts until the last remaining bit of their clothing fell to the floor and she saw his naked body for the first time. He was all hard planes and slabs of muscles, and he had several scars that she would ask him about later. He was a duke, but he had the body of a self-made man.
“Ye are so bonny, Guin,” he said, running his hands almost reverently over her chest and stomach to cup her hips. He stared into her eyes. “But that is yer shell. It’s yer insides, here—” he touched her temple “—and here—” he touched her heart “—that makes ye so special.”
Lady Guinevere And The Rogue With A Brogue (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 1) Page 18
