by Gaelen Foley
Standing by the edge of the table, Jordan swiftly unfastened his trousers. He knew they did not have much time. Someone could come along at any minute. But the element of risk only added to his arousal.
Without a moment to lose, he slid his hands up her legs, smoothly lifting her skirts. When he grasped her bare hips, he wasted no time pressing into her.
They both moaned in blissful relief at their joining.
“Oh, God, I’ve needed this.” The low, breathless utterance escaped him helplessly.
She relaxed beneath him, her body softening, the sparkle in her dark eyes needy and hot as she gazed up into his eyes, taking him in more deeply. “Jordan. Did you mean it when you said you are all mine, or was that mere gallantry?” she murmured in a dreamy tone.
“It was true,” he breathed. “It has always been true, Mara. Surely you know that.”
She shook her head slowly. “I only knew that it was true for me. That I am yours.” Then she wrapped her legs around him, her wet, slick passage greedily enfolding him, and he lost himself in the heaven of taking her.
By the single candle’s glow, he watched her enjoying his lovemaking. The shine of her lips, her luminous skin flushed, her sumptuous gown straining below her heaving breasts as he possessed her. His already-raging hardness swelled with appreciation to even greater size at the glorious sight. In response, he glimpsed her white teeth as she bared them in the darkness, biting back a rapturous groan.
The sounds she made did wild things to some primitive part of him, deep within the civilized diplomat.
He longed to tear her gown apart, this delicious wrapping that hid the splendor of her naked body from him; but somehow, he restrained himself, for at least, the thin, delicate fabric proved little obstacle to his wandering hands. He cupped her breasts with pleasure as his hips pumped between her thighs.
At length, he linked his fingers through hers and leaned down, gently pinning her wrists over her head against the hard surface of the table.
“Oh God, Jordan, you satisfy me so deeply.” She writhed beneath him, apparently thrilled by the light restraint. He fucked her harder. He heard a small, muffled noise of fabric pulled to the breaking point, expensive threads fraying like his wits, but the small noise did not pierce the thick fog of his passion. In that moment, he could not have adored her more.
In raw, ferocious tenderness, he could not take his eyes off her, this one, lovely, unforgettable woman who had taken his soul captive from the first time their paths had crossed.
He had to grit his teeth against the sudden bewildering urge to blurt out the truth, that he loved her so much he would die for her without a second thought. But the inward flash of these words took him off guard; he’d have to think about it. For now, he did not dare spoil the perfection of this moment.
Then the sweetness of her overtook him, and he closed his eyes, savoring every second. Time slowed, the rest of the world disappeared. There was only Mara.
She writhed beneath him, pulling him down to kiss her. Soulfully, she held his face and caressed his cheeks and neck and hair as she plied his mouth with her kiss. “Give me a child, Jordan.”
Her breathless whisper shook him to the core. He literally shuddered, tears springing up behind his closed eyelids. He knew these were merely utterances born in the heat of passion, but they toyed with the deepest needs in him, needs that had gone unmet for too many lonely years.
No, he could not even let himself think about that possibility. It hurt too much.
But she was relentless, lifting her hips, raking her fingers slowly through his hair, fucking him, seducing him.
He knew she meant it. She wanted his babe in her belly. Jordan felt the room spinning. With each second that passed, his body begged for release like a tightly coiled spring.
“It’s so good,” she moaned. Too breathless even to sustain the kiss in which she had captured him, he rested his swollen lips against her chin and thrilled to the sound of her breathy gasps in time with his every stroke.
“God, Jordan, you know I can’t resist you.”
She was trembling beneath him, and he did not know how much longer he could hold back.
“Come for me,” he rasped.
She required little further prompting, as wild with desire as he, but he touched her clit to heighten her pleasure, letting his thumb alight with a feather-soft caress on her rigid nub. It roused a frantic note of pleasure from her lips.
He closed his eyes, panting, determined not to lose control as he gave it to her as fast and hard as his passionate lady demanded.
I am going to lose my mind if you don’t come soon, he thought, a marvel in itself, for he never lost control.
And perhaps that was his whole problem in life.
Determined to ride his quivering, wanton filly over the finish line before instinct mastered him, as well, he squeezed his eyes shut and began mentally reciting the emperors of Rome in chronological order, with the dates of their rule.
The old schoolboy trick didn’t help.
She was afire beneath him, no demure passive female, but as hot and real and scarlet as any high-priced whore who had ever faked it for him in some foreign capital.
Her sudden wrenching cry of bliss was the signal he had been waiting for, holding back the tide; deep inside the warm, velvet grip of her body, he felt the slippery surge of her womanly release, and with that, it was all over for him.
Blinded by the sheer wave of pleasure crashing over him, he grasped the silken pillowed flesh of her sweet buttocks, driving in hard to impale and claim her.
Oh, yes.
She was molten flame beneath him, consuming him in undulating waves that flowed out from where their bodies joined, as though these seconds touched eternity.
Explosive charges crashed inside his senses, like so many mines laid for an enemy, dams bursting, walls crumbling under the onslaught of her love, towers blown to smithereens, leaving him nowhere to hide, no way to return to the old life he had known.
He wrenched out her name in a strangled whisper.
In the exquisite violence of surrender, he was utterly undone.
And after, awash in panting silence, in the deep, profound calm, he knew, whatever happened, he could never give her up. Whatever happened, he could not lose her again. She must marry him.
She must. Because he could not live without her. He would not. Never again.
But with his mission still hanging over his head, he did not dare entangle her in this any more deeply. He must wait until the mission was over and the danger receded.
His heart protested, but he reminded himself he had already waited twelve years. He could survive a few more weeks without Mara for his wife. He held her, cradled her protectively, and made that promise to himself.
She captured his chin and turned his face to kiss him gently. They stared into each other’s eyes.
You are a dream, he thought, flooded with gentleness as he stroked her hair. My dream.
She smiled at him. “Sometimes, Falconridge, you really quite outdo yourself,” she murmured, joy shining from her dark, sparkly eyes.
He laughed softly; she joined him with the enchanting, husky laughter of a woman thoroughly satisfied.
“Thanks, I think,” he murmured.
“No, my love, thank you.” She gave him a kiss, then pushed against his chest. “Off with you, now.”
He withdrew from her body with a sigh. Then he fastened his trousers and helped her up.
While she drifted over wearily to the mirror to try to repair her appearance, Jordan took out his handkerchief and blotted away the sweat of passion. As he watched her, he found himself struggling with a small niggling doubt that cropped up in the back of his mind.
What if an offer of marriage was not what she wanted to hear? As much as she enjoyed her widow’s freedom, he was not altogether sure she would give him the desired answer. Maybe she preferred their current arrangement as it was.
Well, if indeed he had planted h
is babe in her belly, as she asked him to, then he was not going to give her any choice. She would marry him and make a proper family with him whether she liked it or not.
Masking the fierce hunger deep in his soul for just that situation, he sauntered up behind her while she stood at the mirror fretting over her appearance. He laid his hands on her smooth upper arms and bent his head to kiss her shoulder from behind her.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered.
“I am a tousled mess! And I’m afraid we’ve got another problem. You’ve torn my gown, you rogue.”
“Hmm, I cannot say I am sorry,” he drawled, his eyes dancing as he looked into the mirror at the two of them, he, standing behind her, holding her about the waist.
“How wicked you are.”
“I’ll take you home,” he murmured, savoring the smell of sex that clung to both of them.
“Stay with me tonight,” she whispered.
“Only if you’ll make me a sandwich,” he teased in silken innuendo. Lowering his head to kiss her shoulder, he shot her a smoldering stare in the glass.
“To be sure,” she laughed with a hint of a delightful, girlish blush. She reached and cradled his cheek against her palm. “And then, my lord, once you’ve replenished your strength with some food, you can do that to me again.”
“With pleasure,” he growled, and squeezed her around her waist. “Mine.”
“It would seem so.” She accepted his hold around her waist serenely and laid her head back against his chest.
He planted another loud, hearty smooch of a kiss on her neck and released her, moving toward the mirror to try to put himself back into order.
Mara gazed at him, smiling dreamily as he whisked his fingertips over his short hair and straightened his cravat; nevertheless, the lingering lover’s flush in his skin, the glow in his now-heavy-lidded eyes all gave him a clearly sated look. By Jove, he had enjoyed this party more than the Regent would ever know.
“Somehow we’re going to slip out of here without the whole world seeing us.”
“Oh, we can take the Regent’s private stairs. They’re just through those doors and a short walk down the hallway.”
“Ah.” Jordan followed her nod past the pillars. The way Albert had gone. “Can we get out through there without being seen?”
Mara shrugged. “Only by a few servants. Better bring the candle,” she added. “It’s likely to be dark back there.”
“What’s that door over there, do you know?” he asked casually, nodding at the smaller doorway in the corner.
“Oh. That’s the Regent’s private office. Not that he uses it much,” she jested. “He doesn’t believe in paperwork.”
“I second that.” Jordan smiled back.
“Come on.” She beckoned him over toward the exit by the pillars.
Jordan got the candle, then hauled open the heavy door for her; Mara slipped through first, then led him down the central hallway of the Regent’s private apartments.
“I hope His Highness will not mind our intrusion so close to his personal chambers.”
“Under the circumstances, I think he’d understand,” she said dryly. “Our Prinny’s had a few trysts in odd places, too, in his day.”
“Thank you, I really did not need that picture in my mind.”
She giggled as they hurried down the darkened hallway.
When they came to a side door, Jordan went first, opening it a crack. He could hear the party taking place in the antechambers a few rooms away.
Realizing they would no longer need the candle, he blew it out and left it in the hallway. Then he nodded at Mara, opened the door, and they both slipped out silently, hurrying down the Regent’s private stairs.
Her skirts flowed out gracefully as they stole away down the steps, hand in hand, and arrived outside in the starry night.
Jordan told an attendant to bring his carriage. When he saw Mara shiver in the midnight chill, he took off his tail coat and draped it over her shoulders. She smiled at him. He sent her a look that promised he’d warm her up soon—under the covers.
As they waited for his carriage, he glanced back over his shoulder at all the glowing windows of Carlton House.
Countless questions still swirled in his mind after Albert’s outrageous break-in. The first was obvious: What the deuce had the suspected Promethean been searching for?
But a second, subtler question still nagged. He shook his head to himself, pondering. Albert had unlocked the office door, and the Regent’s desk, as well.
So, where the devil did he get the key?
What a bloody nerve-racking night.
Albert Carew, the Duke of Holyfield, was finding dukedom not at all what it was cracked up to be.
As his ornate carriage approached his brother’s grand, ducal mansion outside of Town—er, his ducal mansion now—he scanned the moonlit property for any sign of the dreaded intruder.
Thank God, the place looked quiet, no strange vehicles or horses in the circular drive around the elegant fountain set before the house.
It appeared he was in the clear, at least for now, but one could never be too sure. Dresden Bloodwell might pop up at any moment like an outbreak of the plague.
No wonder my nerves are jangled. That devil breathing down my neck. Albert hoped at least he’d have some time to think up an excuse to explain why he had failed.
It was not his fault! Nothing ever was, really. That was Albert’s policy in life, and it usually served him well.
A few minutes later, when his coach halted and his footman handed him down, he went striding into his giant home, drawing off his white evening gloves, his formal black satin cape billowing out handsomely behind him.
His butler let him in the front door with a sweeping bow.
“Any visitors?” he asked tersely.
“No, Your Grace.” His butler removed the luxurious cape from Albert’s shoulders and accepted his gloves. “Do you require refreshments, sir?”
He merely scowled at him. Who could possibly eat in this state of apprehension?
“Shall we draw your bath, then?”
Albert paused, took a deep breath, and ordered himself to relax.
His butler’s civilized queries helped reestablish at least some sense of normality. It comforted him. “Yes. I’ll have a bath. And use the lavender bath salts,” he ordered. “It helps me relax.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” His butler bowed and went to tell the staff to wipe the sleep out of their eyes and start carrying the hot water up to His Grace’s chamber.
Feeling rather better, Albert headed there himself. As he passed the pier glass in the cavernous entrance hall, he paused, attracted to his own reflection. He sent himself an approving glance, even as the ugly word “treason” slid through his mind.
Absurd! he immediately denied, though his innards recoiled. He ignored it. I’m no traitor. He hadn’t meant any harm. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. He’d had no choice.
He was merely trying to stay alive. The devil made me do it, he thought darkly, but at least the mirror comforted him, confirming that he was still just Alby, still himself, only better, a duke now, but still a Bond Street Lounger at heart, a pink of the ton, with a permanent place in the high court of White’s bow window, where the ruling dandies like him sat on display for all the world to admire.
Traitor, indeed! Who would dare to say so?
Certainly he did not look the part of some skulking thief who would break into the Regent’s desk to try to steal his private papers.
His mouth went dry as he recalled his failed adventure of this night. But, no. He must erase it from his mind. Every true dandy knew that life only counted when others were watching. If no one saw him do it, then practically speaking, it was the same as if it had never occurred.
Refusing to ponder the knowledge that he was completely out of his depth, he hurried on, leaving the entrance hall to jog up the staircase to his bedchamber.
He took the stairs two at a time
, like a man trying to outrun his own folly. But even before he reached the upper floor and strode down the corridor toward his chamber, the memory of that darkened library returned to haunt his mind.
For a moment back there, Albert had briefly imagined he had been seen. What a close call that was! He thought he had sensed another person in the library—hiding, watching—and then Mara had come pounding on the door looking for her blue-eyed stud, but she was mistaken.
She had to be. Why the deuce would Falconridge bother to follow him? That didn’t make any sense. No, his disturbingly appealing new whist partner had given Albert no reason to distrust him. Falconridge had a reputation for honor and a steady, earnest calm that put everyone at ease. It was absurd to think of the earl, of all people, lurking about like—well, like Dresden Bloodwell.
No one had been in the library besides himself: Albert needed to believe it for his sanity’s sake. The eerie sensation of being watched was just a figment of his own increasing paranoia.
God knew, he was not made for intrigues. Constant, gnawing fear had him jumping at shadows ever since Dresden Bloodwell had first infected his life.
Even now, when he gained his large, shadowed bedchamber, he hesitated, like a child scared of the dark.
But he saw no signs of danger. He closed the door behind him in relief. Sauntering into his opulent haven, he pulled off the cravat that had taken his valet half an hour to perfect.
Drawn by habit to his vanity table, Albert tossed the cravat aside and watched himself unbuttoning his white silk waistcoat. But as he stood before the mirror, he suddenly gasped when the nightmare appeared behind him in the glass.
“Did you get it, then?”
He whirled around, nearly jumping out of his skin. “Christ, you scared the hell out of me!”
“Did you get the list?” Bloodwell asked in the same relentless monotone that sent chills down Albert’s spine every time he heard it.
His heart beat so hard he could not quite catch his breath for a moment. Albert took a step back from Bloodwell, avoiding the penetrating gaze of the deadest eyes he had ever seen.
