by Julia London
Wild, raw anger shot through him; Grayson dove into the small foyer and grabbed the man by the shoulder. When he saw the sneer on the man’s face, the wild, raw anger soared dangerously. “Unhand her!”
Kate cried out; Grayson grabbed the bastard by the lapels of his coat, shoved him hard against the wall, forcing him to let go of Kate’s hair. He held the man against the wall, one arm across his throat, his knee in the man’s groin. “I should kill you,” he breathed.
“She owes me money!” the man insisted.
“You have an abusive way of asking for it,” Grayson said tightly, and pushing him toward the door.
The man stumbled and righted himself; Grayson lunged again, pushing him so hard that he went tumbling out the door, almost landing on his arse. A couple passing by cried out in alarm, but the bastard was already up and running, disappearing around the corner.
Grayson stepped back in and closed the door. His hat, which had come off his head, lay on the floor. Kate was standing just where he’d left her, her eyes wide, her chest rising with each deep breath, looking appalled and frightened. Her beautiful corn silk hair was rudely messed.
“God help me—are you all right?” Grayson asked, and started toward her, but Kate gasped and took an abrupt step backward, as if she now feared him. Grayson hesitated, uncertain what to do. He made a move toward her again, and she suddenly ran into the drawing room, looking wildly about, as if seeking an escape.
“Kate!”
Kate ran to the window. “They aren’t locked. They must be locked!”
Grayson strode forward, catching her before she could run again, putting his arms around her and pulling her back against his body. “It’s all right, Kate,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe. I’m here now, and you are safe.”
“Oh God, Christie …” She sagged with relief. “The windows—”
“I’ll get them,” he said, and reluctantly let her go to check them, finding them locked.
“I am so very sorry,” Kate said.
Grayson whirled around. “Why should you apologize? Are you all right? Did he harm you?”
“No, not really—”
“What is his name? Give me his name and I will see to it that he never bothers you again.”
She made a sound of helplessness. “Your sort of power has no meaning in his world.”
“His world? What world?”
“It’s too complicated.” She suddenly covered her face with her hands.
Feeling helpless, Grayson reached for her, but she dipped to her right to avoid his hand. “Where is your butler?” he demanded.
“Gone,” she said. “They’re all gone. He made certain of it.”
His anger began to rise again. “What do you mean?” She was shaking, and he put his hands on her shoulders. Kate flinched, but at least she did not move away. “Who is he?” Grayson demanded.
“Fleming, his name is Fleming. But here now, I will not have you believe I owe him money!” she said suddenly, and gripped his arms. “I am not a debtor! I let a pair of rooms from him and he recently—very recently—decided to increase the rent.”
“Rooms?”
“Rooms,” she said, wincing. “In St. Katharine’s, down by the quays.”
St. Katharine’s? Grayson knew the area of St. Katharine’s. There were parts of it, most notably around the old hospital and church, that had once been respectable, but today the streets on the water’s edge were quite mean.
Kate colored slightly at his expression of surprise and dropped her hands from him. “I lease the room for some … acquaintances.”
Grayson instantly thought of the sort of “acquaintances” she might have that required a room.
Kate realized what he was thinking, because she gasped. “Oh no. No, no, not that,” she said quickly. “My acquaintances are young women who have no home,” she clarified. “They need a place to live, and if they didn’t have the place I let—I assure you, it is hardly more than a hovel—I fear they would have to take different accommodations … if you take my meaning.”
“I do,” he said, frowning. “But it is dangerous for you to go there.”
“Now you sound like Digby,” she said wearily. “He will not allow me to go there unaccompanied. But as I’ve said to Digby on more than one occasion, I am probably better suited to St. Katharine’s than he is, as I hail from there, whereas he hails from Southwark.”
Grayson stilled a moment and looked at Kate. If she thought she’d said anything unusual, she certainly didn’t show it. He didn’t know what he expected, really—he supposed he thought her a merchant’s daughter, come to London from some village. Some place not quite as … as loathsome as St. Katharine’s. “You hail from St. Katharine’s?” he asked carefully.
“I was named for it, actually. Not the quay, mind you, but the church.”
He couldn’t think of that now. “Did this Fleming come for the rent?” he asked. “Do you need some assistance—”
“No!” she exclaimed, clearly mortified by his suggestion. “No, no, his anger is with Digby. He happened to see a mention of the ball in the morning Times, and he believes that you are my benefactor, and … and well, you know, he thinks I am swimming in lard.”
Grayson may not have used those words, but he knew very well what she meant—the man thought she had money. There were charlatans and users who always sought to use him and his family ill because of their money. He sighed sadly and caressed the side of her face with his palm. “I am sorry that my burden has extended to you, Kate. It is a burden that comes with privilege.”
“There is a certain burden that comes from having nothing, too,” she said. “He was convinced I’d never speak of this to you for fear of losing everything— Oh, but it never would have happened, for Aldous is always nearby, and I … I thank you, Grayson. Thank you for saving me.”
Saving her. He hadn’t saved her, he couldn’t save her from her life. He’d just arrived at the right moment. He stroked her hair again. “Tell me you are all right.”
“I’m all right,” she said, and tried to smile, even though tears filled her eyes. “I have weathered worse.”
“That does not ease my mind.” He twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. “That does not ease it in the least, for you are an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and I, like most breathing men, cannot take my eyes from you. I cannot bear to know there are those who would take advantage of that beauty.”
Kate had been told all her life she was beautiful, but when he said it, it sent a flash of warmth through her.
“But as much as I admire your beauty, I think I admire your spirit far more,” he added, and caressed her cheek with his knuckles.
It was the one thing Kate desired above all else, to be admired for something other than her looks. In Grayson’s blue eyes she could see her yearning mirrored back at her. She felt wholly desirable for the first time in her life and not simply like a vessel into which he could shed his lust, as she’d felt with Benoit and the prince and other men who looked at her in that way. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t say those things.”
One of Grayson’s brows rose quizzically above the other. “Why not?”
“Because it makes me want you,” she said. “I am safer if I don’t want.”
Grayson frowned and touched his thumb to her bottom lip. “How tedious,” he said softly. “If you don’t allow yourself to want … and to want with every fiber of your being … how will you know pleasure?”
“That’s easy for you to say—you’re a duke,” she said, helplessly entwining her fingers with his. “But I would risk everything I have for pleasure.”
“I risk more than you know—I have been entrusted by my prince to keep you safe for him.”
“And I have given him my word. It’s all I have; I cannot go back on it. Just your being here is a risk, although I am grateful for it.” She peeked up at him. “But why did you come?”
He didn’t answer straightaway, but slipped two fin
gers beneath her chin and studied her face. “I had to see you.”
Kate shook her head. “You are attempting to seduce a seductress—”
“It is dangerous, it is insanity,” he quickly interjected. “I told myself as much, yet I could not stay away.”
She couldn’t listen to this; the temptation was too great. Kate abruptly turned away from him, took several steps to put some distance between them. When he stood so close—
Grayson moved to where she stood and drew his finger down her spine. She gasped softly at the sensation. “One moment,” she said raggedly. “One moment is all it would take to put me on the street.”
Grayson responded by moving her hair and then kissing her nape.
Kate knew she should move away, ask him to leave, to go, to stop tempting her. But her yearning weakened her. “Just one moment,” she whispered.
“I cannot help my desire,” he said, and kissed her nape again. “It grows, it beats a constant drum—”
“Stop!” she cried, and whirled around to face him. “Please don’t say another word.”
“I am not asking you to act on it, but I must know if you feel that desire, too.”
“You know I do.” She felt it deep in her marrow. She felt it so deeply that she was on the verge of risking everything for love, real love, the sort of love she’d never dared dream of. “Just … don’t,” she said again, as if those words somehow protected her. But at the same time, she leaned closer to him, so that her lips were only a breath from his.
His fingers moved lightly across her jaw, to the bottom of her ear, inflaming her skin. “I want to kiss you but my conscience fights me. If I do that, I have betrayed the prince and enticed you to do the same.”
His words only weakened her further. She didn’t have the power or the desire to turn away from him. She had nothing in her but need—raw, pulsing need.
His dark blue gaze fell to her lips. “And I will have betrayed someone else.”
She knew precisely whom he meant, but Kate hadn’t thought of his lover until this moment. That was the thing that would hold him back.
Her disappointment was sharp; she lowered her head.
Honestly, she could be such a fool at times. There was nothing here for her; she was living a fantasy, still waiting like a little girl for faeries to come and carry her off. Bitter dismay had her by the throat.
“Fear of risk will often outweigh a man’s desire,” he muttered.
Kate looked up. “I suppose this is one of those times.”
Grayson laid his palm against her cheek and shook his head. “No, Kate,” he said. “No, this is not one of those times. This is a moment unlike any other.”
He kissed her.
The tension in Kate’s body didn’t ease with his kiss; her anticipation of more only heightened it. He put his hand on her waist and slowly slid his palm up, to her ribcage, to her breast. Her body thrilled to his touch; she gravitated closer to him.
Grayson suddenly caught her in an embrace, his hand sinking into her hair, pulling her against his body as he kissed her with the same wild need swirling in her.
Another breath, and they were on the settee. Grayson’s hand was on her ankle beneath the hem of her gown, sliding up her leg, to the top of her stocking and then to her bare thigh, to the space between her legs.
Kate dug her fingers into his shoulders and gasped into his mouth when he touched her there. She was damp, and as his fingers danced in the furrow of her sex, shivers of passion began to radiate through her body. There was no going back. She had crossed the boundary of integrity for a maddening desire.
Grayson suddenly shifted about. “Your gown,” he said breathlessly, “it must come off.” His fingers eagerly began to fly down the buttons of her back.
Kate stopped him. She took his hands from her body and pressed them to his chest. He watched her with avid curiosity. Madame Albert had once told Kate that men are aroused by what they see, and women by what they hear. She stood up and slowly, carefully, pushed the gown off one shoulder. Grayson swallowed, his gaze on her shoulder. She pushed the gown off the other shoulder and let it slide down her body and stepped out of the gown.
Grayson’s blue eyes darkened as he looked at her body. His nostrils flared with his intake of air as his gaze skimmed over her breasts that strained against the fabric of her thin chemise. “My God, you are feminine perfection,” he said roughly and quickly shed his coat, waistcoat, and neck cloth.
She smiled wantonly and untied the ribbon of her chemise. It gaped open and his eyes fixed on her breasts. A moment later, Kate lifted her chemise over her head and tossed it aside. She stood before him completely bare, letting him see her. His arousal was evident; Kate stepped over his legs, straddling him, and lowered herself to his lap.
He groaned with pleasure, and put his hands to her breasts. “Beautiful Kate,” he said, and bent his head, kissed one shoulder, then the other, biting her lightly, then took her breast into his mouth.
The sensation was divine; Kate’s head fell back and she closed her eyes, floating along on the desire he stirred in her.
As he teased her breast with his lips and tongue, Kate moaned. “You are snatching my breath away,” she whispered, and pushed her fingers through his hair.
“You are snatching my reason away.” His hand moved up her leg.
“Are we mad?” Kate asked breathlessly as her hands began an exploration of their own.
“Utterly and completely.” He suddenly gathered her in his arms and stood from the settee with her, then put her on her back on the rug before the hearth. His body covered hers, his lips on her lips.
Kate had never felt anything more than tolerance at the prospect of physical relations with a man, but tonight … tonight she felt urgency, a strong and natural flow of desire for Grayson. She sought his body, her hands beneath his shirt, raking down his chest and back. Her mouth was open beneath his, her tongue twirling around his. She pressed her breasts against him, and when he pushed her hands away to unbutton his shirt, she boldly moved her hand to the front of his trousers and slid her palm down his erection.
Grayson lifted his head as if he meant to say something, but he didn’t speak at first. He could only look at her with eyes darkened by his longing. She cupped him, rubbed her hand against him.
“Kate,” he said hoarsely.
Benoit had never used her name in such intimate circumstances—he’d never said a word, really, other than “move here” or “there.” But when Grayson whispered her name with such raw desire, Kate was astoundingly aroused by it. The dam of yearning burst within her. It was unlike any corporeal sensation she’d ever experienced; it was pleasure beyond her wildest imagination. She felt no apprehension, no resignation. She felt nothing but a need to be with him, to feel him inside her body, his hands on her flesh.
Grayson removed his shirt. He was truly magnificent, his shoulders broad and muscled, his chest hard and sculpted to a man’s most alluring form. She impulsively kissed his chest, her tongue on his nipples as her hands flitted over his body.
“God help me, I want you,” he said fervently, his hand moving between her legs.
“What passion you stir in me,” she whispered breathlessly.
Those words excited Grayson’s blood to a raging river in his veins. His desire for her was overpowering him. Her hair lay in wild silken waves about her shoulders; her pale green eyes were like twin beacons of light. She was panting a little as her hands roamed his body; her plump lips parted slightly, her skin flushed.
He pushed the boots from his feet and unfastened the flap of his trousers. She was lying beneath him now, her breasts rising with each furious breath, as enticing as any woman could possibly be. Her gaze devoured him, her seductive smile conveyed the pleasure he was giving her.
That smile deepened when she took him in hand and began to stroke him. Grayson slipped his fingers into the wet groove of her sex and watched her eyes flutter shut as he stroked her with as much passion as sh
e stroked him. He moved in between her legs, pushed them aside with his knees, and when her hand fell away from his engorged cock, he pressed the tip of it against her, moving in tantalizingly slow motions against her body.
Kate’s breathing deepened; she grasped his hips, pulling him closer, her body pulsating against him. Grayson closed his eyes, concentrating on the exquisite pleasure, and slipped his hand between her legs to caress her again as he guided the tip of him into her sheath.
But as he slid into her and began to move, Kate’s eyes suddenly opened and she looked up at him as if she were surprised. For a moment, Grayson feared he’d hurt her, but then a smile of pure pleasure lit her face. “Oh my,” she said as she raked her hands down his back and lifted her knees. “Oh my.”
Her obvious delight made him burn to give her more. Grayson was beyond redemption; he stroked her as he moved inside her, kissed her with all the longing he felt, catching her bottom lip between his teeth, swirling his tongue inside her mouth. Her body fit him perfectly; her response to him was so instinctive that the force of emotion swirling in him astounded him.
Kate wrapped one leg around his back, her arms around his neck, and returned his kiss with abandon. With her hand, she reached between them to feel his body slide into hers.
When she began to pant, Grayson clasped her hard and tightly, lifted his hips, and thrust deep into her. With a cry of ecstasy, Kate’s body spasmed around his. Grayson thrust faster until the shudder of his own release racked his body.
He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. It was several moments before he could find the strength to lift his head. He was spent, his body wrung dry. He brushed Kate’s hair from her eyes and took pleasure in her glowing smile. She pressed her hand to his face. “I have never, never been so moved. I had no idea such pleasure was possible.” She caressed his face and kissed his mouth. “That was glorious, Grayson.” She kissed his eyes.
Who was this beauty? Who was this woman who could take his breath away with a mere smile? He kissed her again, eased out of her body, and rolled onto his back. Kate rested her head on his chest and draped an arm across him.
