She felt dazed, looking up at him. The strong line of his jaw was so lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely. He would make a handsome statue on the chest of drawers in her room in Newport.
Ahhh, Newport. How she missed the gulls and the smell of the sea.
“It smells funny here,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Like sheep.”
She felt a little nauseated suddenly. And dizzy. But still giddy.
Damien’s arm slid around her waist, he scooped her up, and then she was floating toward the front door of the inn. No, not floating. She was being carried there. By a handsome black knight in not-so-shiny armor.
He smelled like the outdoors. Fresh and clean and manly—though there was a vague aroma of horse mixed in. Some horses were very manly. Yes. He was a stallion.
No, he was a knight. A knight with big, sturdy hooves.
She sighed and rested her face against the rough wool of his black coat, feeling it rub roughly against her cheek. Her eyes were closed now. She sighed happily. Wasn’t life wonderful?
Carrying Harold’s snoozing, deadweight fiancée in his arms, Damien followed the innkeeper up the stairs to her room on the second floor. She was mumbling something about her sister, asking why she wanted the blue bowl, when the white one was closer.
Damien carried her into the bedchamber and laid her down on the bed, careful not to wake her. He sat down beside her and moved the fallen locks of hair away from her face. She moaned softly.
“She hasn’t slept in four days,” he told the innkeeper. “She’s been ill.” It was the only explanation he could come up with, as he didn’t want to give away the details of their situation.
“Is she all right now?” the man asked.
“Yes, she just needs to sleep.”
He gazed down at her freckled face in the gray light of the afternoon. She smiled and moaned again and rolled over on the bed toward the wall. The feminine sound of her voice and the gentle curve of her hips sent a wave of desire through Damien’s tired, exhausted body.
He imagined for a moment what this moment might be like if she belonged to him. If she did, he would lie down beside her and hold her, and he would stay with her all night until she woke the next morning, feeling rested and more herself.
“Should I bring soup?” the innkeeper asked, startling Damien out of his thoughts.
He stood. “Perhaps later, after she’s had a chance to sleep awhile.” He reached for the wool blanket at the foot of the bed and covered her.
“She’s your sister, you say?” the man asked with a hint of doubt.
Damien met his gaze squarely. “Yes.”
The man inclined his head. “So, I presume you’ll be wanting another room?”
The man was perceptive. He was checking to see if some other arrangement might suit Damien better. Another arrangement certainly would suit him better, but he would keep his room and hold tight to his integrity. Though it was squirming like a wet fish in his hands.
“Yes, another room would be most appreciated.”
“Very well, sir. My wife will prepare one now.” The innkeeper walked out and closed the door behind him.
Damien moved to stand over the bed where Adele lay sleeping, and let his gaze drift lazily over the exquisite, appealing length of her body. Yes, if she were his....
That very instant, something thumped in the next room—probably the innkeeper’s wife making the bed—and Adele sat up. She gazed vacantly at Damien’s face for a few seconds before she spoke.
“Did I sleep? Is it morning?”
“No. You’ve been asleep for only five or six minutes.”
“Five minutes?” Her voice revealed utter disbelief. She was hopelessly discouraged. “Why can’t I sleep?”
He ran his hand down her arm. “You need to relax and know that you’re safe.”
“I’m trying. When I’m awake, I know he’s not coming back, but when I go to sleep....” She took hold of Damien’s lapel between two fingers.
She was touching him. Touching his clothes....
“Please stay with me tonight,” she said. “No one will ever know. I won’t tell. This is the last night of our travels, and tomorrow I’ll be with my mother and sisters. Everything will be normal then. But I can’t meet Harold looking and feeling the way I do. I can’t.”
She gazed up at him with bloodshot, puffy, pleading eyes, and his blood burned like fire through his veins. It was all he could do to keep from pulling her close and pressing his lips to hers.
For a sizzling moment, he fought to subdue his desires. God help him, he wanted to kiss the warm, supple flesh of her body and hold her naked in his arms. He wanted to make love to her.
There it was. In plain terms.
He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He thought of Harold. Then he thought of his mother, who had betrayed his father. His father had died. His mother had died, too. So much of what happened that day had been Damien’s fault. He had been the one to tattle on his mother. He’d had no tact; he was only nine. His father had not taken the news well. The situation had exploded.
Then he thought of Harold again, who trusted him completely. Harold, who, for the first time in his life, had not only fallen in love, but had found the courage to propose. Then he’d asked Damien to help him—to bring his fiancée home.
No. No! Nothing could ever happen between Damien and Adele. Not ever. She belonged to Harold. She was to become Damien’s cousin by marriage. He could not permit himself to feel what he was feeling. He could not devastate Harold. He had to bury this desire.
“Please, Damien,” she said. “All I need is one good night’s sleep, then I’ll be myself again. You need only spend one night in a chair, with a promise that you won’t leave. A good night’s sleep will cure me, I’m sure of it. I just can’t think straight. My eyes hurt, and I can’t seem to differentiate between what’s real and what’s a dream.”
“Neither can I,” he whispered, feeling more than a little exhausted himself. The past few days had been grueling—first with the disturbing news of the kidnapping from Harold, then with his own quest to find Adele and bring her home safe to his cousin.
His fight was gone. He couldn’t do it anymore. He closed his eyes, tipping his head forward to rest upon hers.
“Please just stay in the room while I sleep,” she whispered, and he reveled in her wine-scented breath on his face.
He couldn’t argue anymore. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was adoration. Who would ever know?
But what did it matter why he couldn’t argue? All that mattered was that if he slept in the chair in the corner, everything would return to normal in the morning. Adele would sleep well, then remember her life and again become the woman Harold had proposed to. She would be ready to go home to him. Damien would deliver his cousin’s fiancée to him as he had promised. Then he would be on his way.
He shook his head at the decision he was about to make. “All right. I’ll sleep in the chair.”
“Do you promise? You won’t leave?”
“I promise.”
She immediately fell back onto the pillows but continued to hold his hand. “Thank you, Damien. I swear I’ll make it up to you somehow. Honest, I will.”
She closed her eyes and fell asleep almost instantly, leaving him tense and worried, and wondering how he was going to resist collecting on that promise. Especially in the hours to come, after the sun went down and the moon began its rise.
Chapter 6
The innkeeper knocked on the door a short time later and delivered a key to the other room, which had been prepared for Damien. Damien thanked him but requested that he and his wife refrain from knocking on Adele’s door again through the night, as his “sister” was struggling to sleep and could not under any circumstances be disturbed. They would not likely be taking any supper.
The innkeeper gave a sympathetic nod toward the bed. “You have my word, sir. I hope she’ll feel better in the morning.” He walked out and closed the door behind him.
Damien spent the next fifteen minutes sitting in the blue chintz chair, grappling over his promise to stay and contemplating the worst temptation of his life: He desired his cousin’s fiancée. He couldn’t stop thinking of her; he wanted to be with her. Hold her. He wanted her in every possible way a man could want a woman, even while he knew it would betray the cousin whom he had always felt a need to protect.
Damien sat forward and covered his face with his hands. He despised himself. He knew he had to resist and bury this madness, but he had not yet done so.
Just then, Adele woke up again and sat up. Instinct pulled him out of his chair. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, wondering how the hell he had gotten across the room so fast before his brain had any say in the matter.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, hoping, praying that she would.
“Is it morning yet?” Her eyes looked as if someone had poured salt into them.
“No. It’s been only fifteen minutes since the last time you woke.”
She rubbed her eyes. “You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Yes.”
She tugged at the collar of her dress, buttoned tightly around her neck. “The bed is spinning. I’m not comfortable. I need to get out of this.”
Perhaps this was some kind of test, Damien thought. If it were, he would pass it, no matter what it took.
“What do you need?” he asked.
She glanced around, looking almost confused, as if she didn’t know where she was. “Nothing. I just need to take this off.” She began to unbutton her bodice.
“Adele,” he whispered quickly, curling his hand around hers to stop her. “Wait.”
Her bloodshot eyes met his, and her forehead crinkled with frustration over her fatigue. Wait for what? he asked himself, realizing he needed her to stop only because he wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready for this to be harder than it already was.
He told himself she probably wouldn’t remember any of this. She was still drunk and half asleep.
“How can I help you?” he asked, because no matter how difficult this was for him, she needed his help and he would give it to her, because he wanted her to sleep, and sleep well, so things would be normal again.
“Help me unbutton this.”
He took a deep, slow breath, then carefully reached down and put his fingers on the tiny covered button under her chin. One by one, he unfastened them.
“You’re good at taking care of people,” she said sleepily.
He said nothing. The bodice fell open in front, and he caught a glimpse of white undergarments beneath. He found himself comparing this moment to all the other moments in his life when he had gazed upon a woman’s undergarments. There had been many times, but he had never felt like this.
“Would you be so kind as to look away?” Adele asked as she began to shrug out of the bodice, hardly giving him a chance to react.
He stood and went to the window, looking out at the darkening sky. He was completely worn out. He would be glad when night fell. Then he wouldn’t be able to see her. He would go to sleep himself, then he would wake up and it would be morning and he would take her directly to Harold.
He heard the sound of clothes rustling and the bed creaking. “I’m finished,” she said. He turned, and she was under the covers, lying on her back.
Damien returned to the chair. He sat for about an hour, trying to fall asleep, but couldn’t. All he could do was watch Adele in the dim light and imagine with a deep, physical yearning what it would be like to lay beside her.
A short time later he heard footsteps in the hall. He stood up and opened the door. The innkeeper’s wife was passing by.
“Pardon me,” he said. “Would you send up a glass of brandy?”
“Certainly,” she replied with a polite smile.
Five minutes later, she delivered a tray with two glasses and a full bottle. He had only wanted one glass, but he was very grateful for the bottle.
Chapter 7
At some point in the night, Damien became aware of a soft feathery kiss on his cheek. Still half absorbed in what felt like a dream, the seasoned lover in him responded with primitive instinct. He turned his head on the pillow and met the sweet, teasing lips with a deep, sensual kiss. It was only then, as his hand came up to brush the silky hair away from his lover’s face, that he woke and realized whose lips these were and whose bed this was. Yes…he remembered…. He had stretched out beside Adele not long ago. He’d only wanted to be comfortable for a moment or two.
Gracious lover that he was, he brought the kiss to a polite and graceful finish before he spoke. “Adele,” he whispered, inching away from her while he struggled to squeeze a tight fist around the neck of his desires. “Wake up.”
“I’m awake,” she replied, and only then did she seem to realize what had just occurred. “I’m sorry…I don’t know why I did that. I just wanted to thank you.”
For a man who had shared beds with many interesting and experienced women, he found himself stumbling outside of his usual range. He was looking upon absolute innocence—virginal and naive beyond any imagining. And so beautiful, she knocked the wind out of him.
He raked a hand through his hair for he was problematically aroused.
“Please don’t go,” she said, “because I actually slept with you here. Finally.”
He knew he should at least return to the chair on the other side of the room, but something prevented him from doing so. It was the part of him that wanted her, no matter the cost, no matter who he hurt in the process. He was incapable of rising from the bed. His body wouldn’t let him.
He put his arm around Adele, and she snuggled close. Together they lay in silence while a voice in Damien’s head warned him it was not wise. You shouldn’t be doing this.
He was intensely aware of Adele’s slender hand on his chest as she moved a finger back and forth over the rough wool of his waistcoat. Was she experimenting? Curious? Testing his limits? Or did she honestly have no idea how dangerous this was?
Damien clenched his jaw as she nuzzled his cheek with her nose. He didn’t move a muscle.
For a moment more, he stared at the dark ceiling until the lover in him somehow gained a foothold. His blood quickened and before he had a chance to consider right from wrong, he was rising up on one arm and rolling on top of Adele in one smooth, fluid rush of movement.
If she had resisted, he would have stopped, but she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and welcomed his kiss. He devoured her soft lips, her sweet, silky tongue, and her deep, wet mouth. Damien lost himself in sensation, in the burning need to possess her, and was soon oblivious to the tenets of obligation and loyalty.
He pulled her closer, more snugly into his feverish, roused body, and reveled in the desperate quenching of his desires, until a thought emerged from somewhere in his consciousness. It came out of his childhood memories. He thought of his cousin and immediately sensed shame and disaster in the offing.
Forcing himself to drag his mouth from Adele’s, Damien fought for control and exerted every effort to smother his passions. He rested his head on the pillow over her shoulder and breathed deeply and slowly, steeling his body against an impossible firestorm of desire.
“I feel safe at last,” she whispered in his ear, and he wished she hadn’t spoken.
“You’re not safe,” he replied. “Not from me.”
“But I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be Adele.”
They both stilled on the bed.
“I know this is wrong,” she said shakily, “but I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to let go of you. I want to hold on tight.”
He lay very
quiet for a long, agonizing moment. “We have to stop this. I’m in your bed, and I’m not made of stone.” He buried his face into the hair at her neck. “Push me away.”
She made no move to do so. “Not yet. In a minute I will. I swear it.”
He lay still, waiting.
Then he found himself bending to the whims of his sexual desires again, falling into a place where his principles lost touch with the workings of his body. He parted her thighs with his hips and gently thrust forward against the barrier of clothing between them. Slowly. Gently. Long and gradually.
If this were actual sex and he was not wearing trousers, he would be deep, deep inside her.
“Am I hurting you?” he whispered. “Your wound?”
“No,” she replied breathlessly. “It feels good.”
He was breathing harder now. Quite unable to stop himself, he slid his hand down to her knee and up under the cotton fabric of her shift, up the outside of her thigh to her bare, fleshy hip. She felt like heaven—soft and warm and succulent.
With his face still buried at her neck, and his eyes squeezed shut amid the battle that was raging inside him, he stroked her soft skin. How easy it would be to slide his hand around to the front, into the damp depths between her thighs, and discover for himself whether she was a virgin or not after the kidnapping. He could answer that question right here and now. Set her mind at ease.
If, on the other hand, she was not a virgin....
A host of possibilities—both glorious and horrendous—loomed in his brain. What if he made love to her, and they let people presume it had been the kidnapper?
No. He couldn’t contemplate such a thing.
What was this woman doing to him?
Still breathing hard, he turned his face away from her again while his body trembled with need. He’d never wanted a woman like this before—perhaps because he wasn’t used to waiting and wanting. He only ever engaged in this sort of activity with women who were ready and willing.
But no, it was more than that. Deeper than that.
In Love with the Viscount (American Heiress Trilogy Book 3) Page 7
