Accepting her unspoken invitation, he slipped his hand inside her bodice, to free a single breast from her corset and chemise. The cool air inside the dovecot caressed her, and her nipple drew up into a hard nub, aching for him to place his hot mouth on it.
“I’m kissing you, Diana,” he murmured distractedly, his attention focused on her nipple as he slowly circled it with his fingertip, “because I very much want to. And no other reason.” He looked down into her eyes as he repeated, “Why are you letting me?”
“Because I very much want you to,” she answered, the raw truth tearing breathlessly from her.
With a wicked grin, he dipped his head to her breast, to trace the tip of his tongue teasingly around her nipple the way he’d just done with his finger.
She shivered at the torturous caress, so close to giving her the pleasure she craved yet still impossibly far away. She dug her fingers into his hair to pull his head tighter to her breast.
With a groan, he closed his lips over her, laving her with his tongue and sucking softly. Oh, the sensation was divine! His mouth on her breast twisted all the tiny muscles in her lower belly into an achingly tight knot.
As if worshipping her, he suckled at her, slowly but intensely, drawing her breast deep into his mouth as his hands caressed over her hips. She couldn’t fight back the moan of pleasure rising from her lips. It had been such a long time since a man had kissed her like this, had made all those wantonly delicious sensations spiral inside her. So very long…
“Seduction,” he rasped huskily, naming the wicked thing he was doing to her with his mouth. “What do you know of it, a sweet angel like you?”
More than you know. But she could never tell him. Certainly not now, when his hands at her hips were guiding her backward to a rough worktable placed against the wall, even as his mouth never left her breast. Not when he sent such pleasures rippling through her that she could do little more than cling to him, yet welcome every touch and kiss he gave her.
“Don’t call me that,” she panted out.
Leaning into her, he shifted her onto the table, until half of her bottom rested on the edge. Her hip was propped at such an angle that one leg lifted scandalously off the ground.
“But you are an angel,” he murmured, trailing kisses along her jaw. “Absolutely beautiful and lovely…heavenly.”
He had her off-balance now, both physically and emotionally. She clutched at his shoulders to keep from falling away as his hand strayed down her leg to her ankle and calf, exposed by the skirt hitched up beneath her. As if he simply couldn’t resist touching her. But then, she understood his desire, because she couldn’t resist the pleasure of his touch.
His hand brushed up her leg and pushed her hem up to her knee. “You have no idea, do you, the effect you have on men? How much every man who sees you longs to have your attention, your touch, even your sharp wit, focused only on him?”
He stroked his hand behind her knee in featherlight tracings, not daring to go any higher. Yet he teased his fingers playfully at the top of her stocking, as if contemplating removing it and baring her leg completely. If he did, would he place his mouth there the same way he’d done to her bared breast, to give her yet another kind of wonderful kiss? She trembled at the temptation of it.
He murmured yearningly against her lips, “You’re the angel every devil wants to possess.”
“No.”
He froze at that single word, his hand stilling immediately against her leg. But she could feel the tension inside him, the longing to keep touching her—and more—even as he slowly lifted his head to stare down at her in surprise.
“I mean—” Heat flushed through her cheeks. “That’s not—”
Flustered, she tightened her hold on his shoulders to keep him from moving away, only to bite back a groan when she felt his muscles flex so invitingly beneath her touch. If she had any sense at all, she would shove him away and hurry back to her blanket and book where she belonged.
But she simply couldn’t bring herself to leave his arms. He truly was well on his way to seducing her, and he didn’t even realize it.
A wanton and reckless thought sparked inside her…What if I let him?
How wonderful it would be to lose herself in his strong arms, if only to temporarily push away all the worry, pain, and fear, all the horrible sadness and grief she carried inside her that sometimes flared up so intensely that she thought it might just devour her. For a few precious moments, he could make her forget. She could lose herself in him, and he would never ask for more. Not him. A man like him would never ask to court her, would never want to marry her…would never ask for a future she couldn’t give.
She could never have him completely, but she could claim these few moments of harmless kissing and touching that would never lead to anything more.
“I’m not an angel.” Closing her eyes against the bittersweetness of the moment, she reached for his hand and guided it up between her thighs.
His breath hitched. “Diana,” he murmured in pleased surprise against her temple.
“Touch me,” she whispered, then heard him groan softly at the invitation she offered as his hand slid up to tenderly caress her.
She closed her eyes against the stinging emotions rising inside her and let the wave of pleasure consume her.
He teased lightly at her, as if afraid she might yet stop him. But doing that would simply end her. With subtly increasing pressure, his caresses grew firmer and deeper, making her squirm beneath him with both pleasure and longing for more. There was no point in denying her desire for him, not when he could surely feel it. Her sex grew slick and slippery beneath his fingers as he caressed her— No, he was exploring her, taking all kinds of gentle, little caresses to discover her most intimate place, to learn where to touch her to bring her the most pleasure.
Tears of emotion watered her lashes at his thoughtfulness, and she brushed her lips over his cheek, unable to put into words her gratitude for making her feel so feminine and beautiful. So desired. He would never know how much this encounter meant to her, nor could she ever tell him. But she could show him, and with a trembling sigh, she parted her thighs as wide as her skirt allowed.
With her name nothing more than a rasping murmur, he gently sank a finger fully into her tight warmth. She gasped at the wonderful new sensation, and he kissed her to drink up the sound of mixed surprise and pleasure on her lips.
He stroked slowly inside her as he continued to kiss her. The feeling was simply exquisite, somehow both exciting and comforting at the same time. Each sinking caress came as a smooth and gliding stroke, each retreat a swirling tease, and every movement grew the throbbing ache at his fingertips.
Unable to stop the trembling that overtook her, she buried her face against his neck. A second finger joined the first, stretching her intimate lips wider and eliciting a throaty whimper of pleasure from her at being filled so deliciously. Her arms tightened their hold around his shoulders, and she pressed into his hand, shamelessly begging for more. It had been so long since she’d felt this feminine, this wanted…too long, and now that it was happening again, she didn’t want it to stop. She forced from her mind all the gossip she’d ever heard about Christopher, the fear over her brother’s disappearance, even her own grief and pain, and simply let go.
His thumb delved down into her folds to strum over the little nub at her core, and her hips bucked against the edge of the table. “Christopher!”
With whispered assurances her desire-fogged brain couldn’t comprehend, he teased at the little bead again. All the muscles inside her clenched down tightly around his fingers, drawing a growl of appreciation from him. He stroked her there again, and a shuddering cry tore from her, followed immediately by a wave of coursing heat and light. Her body clenched hard around him, only to release a heartbeat later in undulating pulses of pleasure that sped out to her fingers and toes. She clung helplessly to him, the bliss he’d given her overwhelming.
In the stillness that
followed, the silence between them was broken only by the sound of her breath as she fought to regain both it and her balance. She kept her face buried in his neck. She was too overcome—and inexplicably too shy—by what they’d just done to look at him.
As if he realized the confusion inside her, he kept her close within the circle of his arms and rested his lips against her temple. “Are you all right?”
She nodded against his shoulder, then bit her lip to keep from crying out in protest as he slowly slipped his hand away from her.
“I hadn’t intended—” He stopped himself, then paused, as if searching for the right words, before admitting, “But I don’t regret it.”
“Nor do I,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder for fear that her voice would crack and reveal how confusion warred with pleasure inside her.
He smiled against her temple. “Thank God.”
To hide the seriousness of what she felt, she forced out a teasing, “Because you don’t want to face down the general at the end of a dueling pistol?”
When he loosened his hold around her and shifted back far enough to stare down at her, the expression of desire and determination on his handsome face stole her breath away. “Because I very much want to do it again.”
Her heart stopped with a brutal thud.
Of all the things to say… He had no idea of the cut he’d just sliced into her chest. The impossibility of what he was asking. He waited for her reply, but she couldn’t make that promise. No matter that she wanted more—so very much more! And with him, a man who was beginning to mean more to her than she would admit.
But too much was at risk. Too much that could be ruined forever.
He touched her chin, holding her face still as his eyes locked with hers. “When all of this with your brother is over, then you and I will—”
“Then it’s over,” she whispered, interrupting before he could say anything that would break her heart. Because there was no future with him. Absolutely none.
She somehow managed to find the strength to not crumple beneath the surprised flare in the blue depths of his eyes, a flare that instantly dulled to resentment. Another stab to her heart, yet it couldn’t be helped. She had to keep him away.
She hadn’t lied to him. She didn’t regret what had just happened. How could she, when it had been simply wonderful, and only because of him? But she also could never let it happen again.
Unable to give him the explanation he deserved, she slipped from his arms to put the length of the dovecot between them. Her hands shook as she pushed her skirt back into place and readjusted her bodice, aware of his eyes on her the entire time.
“Diana, we need to talk.”
She ignored that and hurried toward the door. “I have to get back to Meri.”
“Meri will be fine for a few more minutes.”
Yes, but she wouldn’t be. Not here in this small space, not when the scent of him still clung to her and she still pulsed with the pleasure he’d brought her. Not when her desire for him beckoned her to surrender completely, in every way, to the sheer bliss she knew he would give her.
And not when he was still determined to learn her secrets.
“She gets into so much trouble, you have no idea.” She opened the door before he could stop her and charged out into the bright sunshine, rapidly blinking her eyes but only partly because of the light. Christopher didn’t immediately follow, but based on the bulging state of his breeches, she hadn’t expected him to.
She hurried back to the blanket and gazed down the lawn, then turned in a circle to look everywhere around her. Meri was nowhere to be seen. As usual.
With a grimace of aggravation, she hurried toward the trees, calling out the little girl’s name. Of all times for her to run off—
“Meri! Where are you?”
She loved playing in the trees, taking her dolls and stuffed animals there to reenact whatever story the general had most recently read to her from the big book of fairytales she kept at her bedside. But today was not the day for hiding in the thicket.
“Meredith!” Her calls grew angry despite her attempts to keep her frustrated exasperation from showing, especially if Christopher happened to stroll out of the dovecot and see her. Oh, the last thing she needed was for him to know the true effect he had on her! “Meri, answer me!”
But only the sound of the breeze in the leaves and the chirps of the birds replied.
She walked to the edge of the plantation and tried to peer through the trees but couldn’t see very far. The plot hadn’t been harvested for wood since before her family had bought the farm, and the underbrush had been allowed to grow unchecked.
She stood still and listened—nothing.
“Meri, answer me this instant!” With a harsh sigh, she started down the narrow dirt path that the girl had worn through the trees from all of her play. “If you don’t answer me right now, you won’t get any pudding with your dinner.”
No sound, no movement… An icy chill of worry began to creep down her spine. Hunting through the undergrowth, she stepped further into the thicket, then froze.
Meri’s favorite doll lay discarded on the ground in the weeds.
Panic seized her chest as she ran to it and snatched it up, then wheeled around in a circle, now frantically screaming for Meri. She would never have left this doll behind!
“Meredith!” she yelled, all of her shaking with fear.
Christopher hurried through the trees to her and took her arm to stop her from dashing frantically through the brambly bushes, which had already snagged at her dress and bit bloody scratches into her arms and legs. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t find Meri!” She desperately grabbed at his lapels to keep her knees from buckling beneath her. “She’s missing.” The fears of her worst nightmare tore from her in a hoarse cry, “She’s been taken!”
Chapter 12
Kit slowly stalked the perimeter of the overgrown chestnut plantation, his eyes searching the ground and underbrush for any sign of what had happened to the little girl.
In the hours since Meri went missing, while everyone in the household had split into pairs and taken a different section of the property to search, the afternoon sun had slowly drifted toward the horizon. Now, it was sinking below, and darkness was coming. They would have to call a halt to the search soon, and Kit dreaded the anguished expression he’d see on Diana’s face when he told her that they had to stop for the night.
The countryside around the old manor house seemed alive as the servants moved slowly over the property, looking for any trace of Meri. Kit had quickly organized them, after taking a distraught Diana back to the house and putting her into the housekeeper’s care. In her upset state, the last thing he wanted was her running frantically across the property, putting herself in danger. Each servant had strict orders about what to do if they found anything—to stop right where they were, immediately send up a hue and cry, and not touch anything. He wanted to see everything for himself, to discover any clues that might be there about who took Diana’s sister.
Only the general and Major Paxton insisted on riding out on horseback to the far edges of the property. She wouldn’t be there, Kit knew. She would either still be close to the house or completely gone from the property by now. But he didn’t stop the two men, wanting them as far out of his hair as possible while he searched the more likely places she would be. His attention had been glued to the ground, and his eyes had never stopped moving, never lifting from the first two feet of undergrowth where a child of Meri’s height would have disturbed it.
Nothing.
And now, unable to see clearly because of the falling dusk, he had no choice but to stop. He bit out a viscous curse and turned back toward the house.
With every step he took, he became more convinced that whoever had taken Meri was the same person who had tricked Diana into believing that her brother had been kidnapped. And that person worked inside the general’s household. Which was why Kit h
ad insisted that the servants search in pairs.
True, someone could have sneaked onto the estate by foot without being seen. He or she could have gotten close enough to the house to wait within the cover of the woods for the right moment to take the little girl. But there was no sign of a struggle, and at three years old, Meri was big enough to have put up a fight if a stranger approached her, would have known to scream for help.
That meant whoever took her wasn’t a stranger and had simply been waiting for the right opportunity.
Guilt ate at his gut. He’d been the reason that Diana hadn’t been watching over her sister as she should have been.
He raked a furious hand through his hair. Bad enough that his pursuit of Morgan was interfering with his Home Office duties, but he was letting himself be distracted by Diana, in all kinds of ways. Now a little girl’s life hung in the balance. If anything happened to her, Diana would never forgive him.
He’d never be able to forgive himself.
What the hell had he been thinking? The worst woman in the world for him to have an assignation with, for many, many reasons. Not the least of which was that her brother was a traitor and murderer, the same man he was determined to hunt down and watch swing. Or that her father was General Thaddeus Morgan, a deadly shot and not at all a man Kit wanted to face across a dueling field. Or that she’d been courted by his cousin Robert—why on God’s earth had Robert let her get away? His wife, Mariah, was a wonderful woman, Kit would admit, but Diana…
She was right. She wasn’t an angel.
“The blasted woman’s a goddess,” he muttered.
What had he been thinking? He hadn’t. He’d temporarily lost his mind. When she’d been in his arms, he’d completely forgotten the reason he’d come to Idlewild in the first place. There’d been no revenge, no treason, no duty to fulfill. There had been only her, with the softness of her flesh beneath his hands, her lavender scent engulfing him, her wit making him laugh even as he wanted to ravish her.
After the Spy Seduces Page 13
