by Heather Snow
Derick trembled all over, no longer with passion but with the effort of holding still with a writhing woman in his lap.
She must have felt the change in him because she grabbed his forearm with both of her hands, just above where his hand still rested between her thighs. “Derick?”
She was so beautiful with her eyes clouded, her muscles tight and twitching with her need. “Please,” she said, her voice shaking. He knew she didn’t even know what she was asking for. She only knew she needed it. Badly.
Tension coiled in him, pushing away every conflicted thought save one. This was his fault, not hers. Still, there was no way he could consummate what they’d begun. But neither could he leave her like this.
“Shhh…” he crooned, gentling her. He opened his hand over her mons again, his fingers returning to their swirling movement on her clitoris. His other hand left her hair, skimming down her spine in a soothing motion. “I know what you need, Emma. Trust me to give it to you.”
He had tupped scores of women in the name of duty, never once losing his head like this. Now he called on this other self. The one who wrung pleasure for a purpose. Only this time, his purpose was simply to give Emma the release he owed her.
He brought her down gently, then helped her start a slower climb, bringing to bear every bit of experience he’d gleaned in all of those years of seducing women for their secrets. He knew precisely how to shift his touch when her pearl quivered beneath his fingers, how to gently suck her tongue into his mouth to give her a point to focus on when the sensations wracking her body became unbearable. He knew when to spear his fingers into her body, when to plump her breasts and when to pinch her nipples to push her just to the very edge.
But what he didn’t know was how to stop his own body from climbing with her. Derick gasped for breath, when by all accounts his only exertion at the moment was with his hands and mouth. Alarming bursts of pleasure sporadically rocketed through his body. Damnation. He’d never had this problem with any other woman. He’d always been able to wring from them whatever he needed, without becoming any more engaged than necessary to be able to complete the deed. But with every gasping moan from Emma’s lips, Derick was strung tighter and tighter. He hoped to hell she came soon, as her every cry of pleasure twisted him.
“Derick!” she cried out as she crested.
Thank God.
She clenched his hand tight between her thighs, clasping his head to her chest with a strength that screamed the power of her climax. She jerked in his arms, moaning in hiccuping little waves.
Derick’s breath strangled in his chest as a fierce burning started in his spine. What the hell?
Emma shuddered again, her bottom notching against his still-clothed arousal.
Pleasure exploded through him, shocking him, spasming through his cock in hot violent spurts. “Ah—ah—ah—ahhhhh!” Derick shook, mindless, grinding Emma’s hips against him until every last bit of him was spent.
As their cries died out, only their harsh panting echoed in the room. Derick buried his face against the humid skin of Emma’s throat, and he couldn’t help himself from licking her, tasting her salty sweetness.
She slumped, boneless, in his arms. Derick let his hands skim over her back, her hair, in long, soothing strokes. But the more she relaxed, the more tense he grew. By all rights, he should be as languidly sated as she. Instead, tension grew to alarm.
He’d just been undone, popping in his trousers like a lad during his first slap and tickle. He, whose longevity and sexual prowess had been whispered about throughout countless ballrooms on the Continent. And even though Emma had never actually touched him, it had been the most wrenching, wringing, intense climax of his life.
It was unthinkable, what he’d done. He’d lost control.
An even more disturbing realization struck him.
He’d liked losing control.
He was in serious trouble.
Emma struggled to catch her breath. Not just her breath, but her thoughts. Words danced into her mind, jumbling together in combinations that made no sense. Much like others saw her equations, she imagined. She let them go, too tired, too…blissful to try to hang on and make sense of them.
Unfamiliar physical sensations flitted in next. An odd moisture between her thighs. A humming, tinglingly raw pulsing there as well. A twinging in her breasts. A full-body ache, as if she’d climbed one of the great hills White Peak was named for the day before and had the sore muscles to prove it. And yet, it was all overlaid with a golden honeyed glow. What had Derick done to her?
Her eyes popped open. Derick. He was…beneath her, would be the best way to describe it. And yet between her, and around her, too…and fully clothed, while she—dear God—was half naked.
She stared down her body as if it were someone else wantonly splayed in a man’s lap in the middle of the morning, on top of a desk, no less. Her breasts spilled out over her dress, nipples darkened and throbbing, a dark head nestled between them. And—and her thighs were bare. Heat flooded her once again, this time from embarrassment. Thank God Derick’s body blocked the rest of what she knew she’d see—her most private of places, bared and pressed tightly against him, pinkish white skin against the dark brown material of his pantaloons.
She tensed, the urge to reach down and yank her bodice up and her skirts down overwhelming. And yet…This was Derick. The one man she’d always wanted. She relaxed a little, comforted, and breathed him in again. Were she ever to do…well, whatever they’d just done, he was the man she would have chosen. And that had to make it all right, didn’t it?
Because he’d chosen her, too.
She stroked his silky black hair as a contented smile lifted her lips.
Derick flinched beneath her. The harsh jerk reverberated through Emma, sending her heart into her throat. Her smile dipped. Why would he flinch at her touch?
He pulled back from her. The sudden loss of his heat against her bare chest sent a chill through her and left her feeling cold. And strangely alone, which was ridiculous, as she’d never been less alone in her life, still seated as she was, so intimately on his lap.
As he straightened, his hands moved to tug her dress up over her chest. Emma shivered as his hot palms delved beneath the lace of her neckline, efficiently shifting her breasts back into place. Efficiently…and almost impersonally—nothing like how he’d touched her before. Why?
When she was decently covered, Derick’s hands moved to grip her upper arms. “Can you stand?”
“Of course,” she said automatically, but could she? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to. Emma searched Derick’s face. His expression had gone blank—firm and emotionless. Confusion twisted in her belly. “If you wish it…”
“I do,” he said in a clipped tone, and Emma’s throat constricted painfully.
She hadn’t pleased him.
Shame flooded her. She turned her face away, unable to look at him as she braced her hands upon his shoulders so that she could gingerly slide her legs from atop his. Derick gripped her waist, standing to assist her glide to the floor. Her legs trembled and ached as she gained her feet, but she ignored it. She stepped back, pushing his hands away when he tried to help her smooth her skirts down. She focused her gaze on the patterned rug as she finished the task herself.
Derick’s booted feet disappeared from her view, leaving only her discarded fichu crumpled on the floor.
Emma rubbed her forehead with the fingers of her left hand. She had no experience in these things, but she’d thought for certain he’d found the same unnameable bliss as she, given his throaty cries there at the end. Hadn’t he shaken with the same pleasure she had?
“What did I do wrong?” The question flew from her lips, and at once she wished she could call it back. And yet she couldn’t stop the torrent. “Was I too wanton? Too eager?” She braved a look at him. “Or am I the opposite? Too…boring? Not worldly enough?”
Derick stood only feet from her in profile, his darkly clothed form
in stark relief against the light color of the door. His chest lifted and fell with a heavy breath. Emma drank in his sleek angles, the perfectly formed lines that defined his face, the precise balance of sinew and bone from head to toe.
And then she knew. Derick was beautiful—perfectly proportioned, physically magnificent. One of those beings graced by the Divine, without flaw. Whereas she…Emma winced, hugging her arms around herself. She was not. Her breasts, she knew, were disproportionate to her small frame, her hips a degree too wide while her waist dipped too narrowly. He would have seen all of that, felt it. He must think her severely lacking when compared to what he could have, what he deserved.
“Do you find my form distasteful?” she whispered, ashamed. But she had to know.
A choke emerged from his throat as his face whipped around. He pinned her with his glittering gaze. After several long seconds, the strained lines around his eyes softened. “You don’t actually believe that, Emma,” he murmured. He squinted at her a moment longer. “Do you?”
She certainly did. She was so tightly wound, she couldn’t utter a “yes,” though. She could barely manage a shrug.
In three long strides, he stood directly before her. His long-fingered hands delved into her hair on either side of her face and he pulled her toward him. Emma was so surprised by his suddenness, all she could do was uncross her hands and bring them to rest, palm down on his chest, before his lips took hers.
She welcomed his tongue as if it were as natural to her as long division. He groaned at her easy acceptance, and the sound pushed away the ache of tears that had been threatening.
“God, Emma,” he whispered when at last the kiss broke. Still, he pressed tiny kisses around the corners of her mouth as he continued. His hand left her face and spread out over one of her own atop his chest. “Don’t you feel the way my heart pounds when I touch you?”
Beneath her hand, beneath the cambric of his shirt, beneath the heat of his skin, she felt his pulse racing. “Yes,” she whispered, her own heart threatening to leap from her chest. “Like mine.”
His hands skated down her sides then, fanning out when he reached her hips to cup her bottom. He pulled her tightly to him and a hot thrill swirled up Emma’s middle as his unmistakable arousal dug into her. “Believe me, I don’t find you distasteful,” he growled before taking her lips once again.
A warm glow infused her with every slide of his tongue, with every caress of his hands, with every hitch in his breathing. When, at last, Derick gentled the kiss and set her away from him a few inches, they were both panting for air.
“But we can never do this again,” he said.
“What?” Perhaps she hadn’t heard him correctly through the rush of blood still pounding through her ears. “Why?” She reached for him, intending to protest his ridiculous pronouncement with a rash of fresh kisses, of heated touches.
He blocked her, taking both of her hands firmly in his own, holding her at arm’s length. A pained expression crossed his face and his emerald eyes darkened. “You made me lose my control, Emma.” His voice scraped, as if he’d confessed some dire sin.
Emma tugged at his hands, her shoulders dropping in frustration even as the feminine side of her rejoiced. She’d made Derick lose control? She? “But you made me lose mine as well.” Sensation arced through her as she remembered that moment, that feeling of flying apart, of not being able to stop herself from shattering into more pieces than even she could count. It had been terrifying, but also exhilarating. Unlike anything she’d ever known. And she desperately wanted to feel it again. And again…to infinity. Didn’t he? “Isn’t that a welcome thing?”
His eyes shuttered and he released her hands. “Not to me.” Derick stepped back from her, and she let him. “This never should have happened. I’m…sorry, Emma.”
“I’m not,” she said simply. Nor did she glance away from him, refusing to grant him the easy way to escape her gaze. Her blood raced faster the longer their eyes locked.
Derick broke first. He turned his face toward the door. “I’ll just let myself out, then.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Only when the door clicked behind him did she allow herself to consider what had just happened. But rather than regret or tears, it was hope she felt.
Derick had fled the room. She knew he wasn’t a coward. How could a man who had served his country behind enemy lines, the threat of discovery looming over him at all times, be a coward? And yet he’d been fleeing just the same.
You made me lose my control, Emma.
She walked over to her desk, snagging a piece of chalk from the leather-topped surface before continuing on to one of her boards. Absently she picked up the corner of her muslin skirt and used it to wipe the bottom of the board clean.
Then she set to it, the familiar clicking of chalk on slate a welcome balm.
A + B + C = D²
She stepped back, staring at the simple equation, which was turning out not to be as simple as she’d expected.
You made me lose my control, Emma.
Derick hadn’t thought that a good thing, had he? She supposed he must prize it, his control. It had likely saved his life countless times over the years. And yet, something told Emma that that was the key. The integral integer that her equation was missing.
She stepped back up to the board thoughtfully and added in a pair of parentheses and a multiplier.
S (A + B + C) = D²
There.
“S equals seduction,” she said into the empty room. Because for reasons she couldn’t fathom, something about her touch had driven him to losing his vaunted control. If she were going to win him, she’d need to push him to it again and again, until he finally broke.
Her fist squeezed around the chalk. That could be a challenge. Neither of them had expected her to reach up and kiss him today. He might very well be better prepared next time, since he was so adamant that it not happen again. So how was she going to go about seducing him?
She glanced woefully at her bookshelves. Plenty of material about murder and mayhem, but nothing about how to tempt a man beyond his reason.
Well, perhaps she could send off for a volume or two that might shed some light for her. But it would be days, maybe a week or more, before she’d receive them. Something told her she couldn’t allow Derick that kind of time to erect his defenses. No, she had to act now, while whatever magical momentum she had over him held sway.
She tried to think back to their encounter, to pinpoint the exact moments that had so affected Derick, so she knew what to do again. Well, let’s see…She’d kissed him. He’d resisted at first, but then she’d whispered his name. Yes, then he’d lifted her up and…And…
Emma closed her eyes, rubbing her thumb and fingers together, searching for the memories.
They wouldn’t come. Her lids flew open. Though it had only happened moments ago, she couldn’t recall the specifics. All she could bring forth were the echoes of ecstasy. Not how she’d gotten there. Not how she’d driven him there, either.
That was a first. She always remembered everything. It was as if the pleasure had muddled her brain, made her memories foggy.
Fig.
Well, she was an intelligent woman. She could figure this out. She was just going to have to rely on her instincts.
Obviously she’d need to endeavor to get Derick alone, as much as possible. She could dovetail that in nicely with her plan to help him remember his boyhood by revisiting some of their childhood haunts.
She’d need to touch him, of course—that went without saying. She wasn’t certain yet how she’d accomplish that without being transparent, but she’d figure that out when the opportunities arose.
She glanced down at her chalk-dust-streaked dress. It couldn’t hurt if she made up a little, either.
That didn’t help you in London, did it, my girl? No one wanted you then. What makes you think Derick will want you now?
Emma frowned. Her memory might not
be working properly, but it seemed the negative voice in her head was as strong as ever.
“He wants me already,” she argued aloud. For whatever reason, by whatever miracle, he did. Physically, at least.
And she planned to take full advantage of it. Then the rest would come.
Chapter Fourteen
He was being a coward. He knew it. But he wasn’t prepared to do anything about it just yet. He’d been away from upper Derbyshire for three days now, but it wasn’t enough time to cool his growing need for Emma Wallingford—a need he couldn’t act upon. All right, couldn’t act further upon.
After that scorching interlude in her study, he’d had no choice but retreat. In an effort to keep himself from going back for more, he’d set out to interview innkeepers not only in the village but in a few neighboring towns about the tourist Emma had mentioned the other night, Stubbins. Then he’d discovered where Smith-Barton, the man who’d jilted her, had moved and paid him a visit. She was well shot of the smarmy prig, who’d gone on and on about how he’d dodged a bullet by not marrying her. Just the idea of Emma as Smith-Barton’s wife turned Derick’s stomach. What the hell had George Wallingford been thinking, introducing his sister to such an ass? She deserved a man who appreciated how unique and extraordinary she was. A man like—
Derick wouldn’t allow himself to complete the thought.
Smith-Barton remained a strong suspect. Not only did he raise Derick’s hackles—usually a good indicator, though Derick admitted they could well be raised on Emma’s behalf—but Smith-Barton lived rather opulently for a mere mister, though he’d claimed he’d gained his fortune through his recent marriage.
Derick had then sent an inquiry to the War Department, asking them to dig deeper into the backgrounds of Harding, Stubbins and Smith-Barton. But he wondered if it was for naught, given what he’d learned about his mother. He hated to think the traitor he hunted was actually his own flesh and blood, but he could believe it, given the faithless way she’d lived her life—an ability she’d passed on to him. Not to mention the circumstantial evidence that was piling up. Before leaving the castle, he’d had disturbing discussions with various members of the staff. His mother, it seemed, had been hastily packing in the days before her suicide. She’d been preparing to run. From what? Justice? Had Farnsworth’s asking questions about her spooked her? Had she been guilty and feared the agent was onto her?
