by Heather Snow
She brought her lips to his, a sweet, trembling kiss that was there and gone almost before it registered.
“Won’t you love me, too?” she whispered against his mouth.
Derick’s pulse drove hard and fast, desire—both physical and dangerously, unfamiliarly, emotional—pumped through his veins, pushing away his resistance beat by beat by beat.
She deserved better than him. And he deserved so much worse than her. But…
Could he have a fresh start with Emma? Could her love wash away his past? How could he forget the bad if she were always with him, a reminder of who he’d been and where he’d come from?
He reached out and cupped her face between his own hands, just as she still held him. He eased her back just enough that he could see her eyes, and his breath caught. They brimmed with an emotion he hadn’t felt in years. One he’d almost forgotten. One he desperately needed.
Hope.
He widened his legs as his hands left her face and pulled at her shoulders instead. He tugged Emma down upon his lap, cradling her across his thighs as he took her lips with his. She whimpered as his mouth crushed hers, but in relief rather than fear, he knew. Still, he gentled, his hands returning to her face in tender caresses.
God, he trembled like a boy as he touched her skin with reverent strokes. It was as if what he’d told her earlier was true, as if he’d never done this before. And he hadn’t, he realized. Not even when he’d been with her, because then he hadn’t known he loved her.
“Oh, Emma,” he gasped between kisses, not wishing to part from her even long enough to draw breath. “I need you,” he whispered, the truth falling from his lips before he could stop it. He closed his eyes so that he could breathe her in, experience her through his other senses. “God, how I need you.”
“I know,” she moaned. “I’m only glad you finally figured it out.”
Derick’s eyes flew open and he barked a startled laugh. Leave it to his darling Pygmy to say just what was on her mind. He pulled back and caressed her cheek. “Well,” he chuckled, “we’re not all as brilliant as you, love. It takes some of us longer than others.”
Emma flushed a delicate rose. “I didn’t mean it that w—”
“I know.” And he kissed her again.
He spent long minutes simply playing about her lips. Their tongues intertwined, rubbed along each other, caressed, danced away, and caressed again. Never had he experienced such intimacy. He thought of nothing else but the pleasure to be had between just her mouth and his.
“Derick,” she moaned. “Please…” She tugged at his wrist, as if begging him to move his hands from her face and touch her anywhere. Everywhere.
He blinked, trying to pull himself out of a daze. Lost as he’d been in her, he’d nearly forgotten there was anything in the world beyond her kiss. Had he ever felt this way? Such a desire to meld with another person, to melt into her so that he didn’t know where he ended and she began?
No. It was amazing, this ability to lose himself, to forget. But now that she’d brought his attention to their burgeoning need, he felt it keenly. He slipped an arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back, gathering her to him as he rose from the chair.
“Where are we going?” Emma asked as she pressed tiny kisses against the corners of his mouth.
“I’m going to take you in a bed, properly this time.”
Emma turned her head to the massive four-poster, draped in blue velvets of varying shades. “No, please. It’s too dark. I want to see you when you touch me…” Her lashes fell, as did her voice. “When you’re inside of me.”
At her words, a fierce primal instinct clamored. Damn, how he wanted that, too. And then she raised her gaze to him. The intensity blazing from her eyes sent a hot shiver through him. “I want to see you when I touch you, too,” she purred.
Her words stilled his feet, but sent his pulse racing faster than it ever had, even those times when he’d been nearly captured with information that would have gotten him tortured and killed.
“By the fire,” she suggested huskily.
Derick started toward the bed again, and Emma moaned her protest. “I’m only snagging the coverlet, love,” he promised as he reversed course, dragging the thick blanket along behind them. When they reached the hearth, he let her down gently, enjoying the slow glide of her body against his until she gained her feet. Silently she took one end of the coverlet while he took the other. They folded it over and spread it in front of the fire.
When it was settled, they stood facing each other, exchanging hungry looks but nothing more. Christ, he was at loose ends, unsure how to proceed when he had no agenda but pleasure. Hers and his…sex not as a device, but as a way to cherish another person and let that person cherish him.
Emma seemed to understand. She stepped forward and took his hand, tugging him to the center of the blanket. “Stand here,” she murmured. He did, spreading his feet shoulder width apart. He found himself shifting nervously, like a virgin bride. Damnation.
Emma let go of his hand and rested her palm against his stomach. It leapt beneath her touch, and a hot thrill shot through his body. Then she circled him slowly, her palm dragging along his hip. She nudged him until he raised his arm, allowing her to pass under and behind, skimming across his buttocks. She did the same as she came around, caressing his other hip until she stood before him again. Heat as he’d never felt radiated above and below the sensual equator she’d traced.
And yet her touch had been more than sexual. It had been an exploration, a claiming. And that made him burn all the more.
Emma tugged his shirt from his trousers and placed both palms beneath the fabric, against the bare skin of his stomach. “Emma,” he gasped. His entire body had been rock hard and rigid from the moment she’d first placed that trembling kiss upon his lips. He didn’t know how he’d be able to stand much more, which was bloody laughable. She’d barely touched his body! Yet it was as if since he’d acknowledged his love for her, her ability to excite and entice him had magnified. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly.”
A wholly seductive grin wreathed her face. “Bend down for me,” she said, and pulled his shirt over his head when he complied.
When his mouth came free of the cotton, Emma captured it with hers and everything became a blur of sensation and emotion, touch and devotion. His mind could hardly keep track of where she touched, where he touched. Lips to neck, tongue to ear, hand to breast, mouth to nipple. Moans of pleasure and need, all charged with an undercurrent of tenderness, and the completely novel sense of giving himself to Emma.
Was this what it felt like to make love? Always he’d measured every movement—always in control. He’d focused solely on what he needed to do to drive a woman to tell him her darkest secrets while giving away nothing himself. Yet when Emma touched him, it was all he could do to think at all. And he was on the verge of confessing his very soul to her. He would give her anything right now.
When they’d been together before, she’d been able to push him beyond his conscious control at certain points, yes, but he hadn’t allowed himself to wholly feel. But now that he’d accepted his love for her, he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t halt the sensations rioting through him at every touch of her hand, every stroke, every murmured word of love.
And then, somehow, his pants were gone. Her pale green bodice was well beneath her breasts and the flowing skirt high about her waist and he was poised above her, at the entrance of her body. They were still kissing—desperately, hungrily, intimately. And they held that kiss as he entered her, both emitting low moans that were captured by the other.
“Emma,” he whispered when he was fully inside, encased by her heat, enveloped by her love. He withdrew slowly, savoring the slick slide as she gripped him, all the while understanding that the hold she had on him was so much more than physical.
“Emma,” he said again as he drove back into her depths. “Emma. Emma. Emma.” Her name became a litany upon his lips, mu
rmured with every hard thrust, echoed by her cries of passion. It had never been like this. This urgency combined with a sense of rightness. That he was joining with the one person to whom he belonged.
Within him, the tumult built. Within her, too—he could feel her tightening around him. Mindless now, he pulled her hips harder to him as he continued to thrust, pulled her along with him toward glorious oblivion.
It burst upon them—first him, he thought, but his wild thrashing triggered her release right after. Then they flew together, clinging to each other as pleasure buffeted them, took them up in the whirling storm, and tossed them back out again. Pleasure so intense it bordered on painful, at least for him. It could only be because so much more than his body had been given, to Emma. Only Emma.
The first thing he registered as his conscious mind returned was her soft cheek resting against his, hot and damp with sweat. Then he heard their rasping breaths, his, hers, blending together in satiated harmony like the final movement of a symphony after a thrilling crescendo.
His arms trembled, his muscles spent and weak. He should move. He must be crushing her, and yet he couldn’t fathom being apart from her, either. Ever. He shifted to his side, taking her with him so they might stay joined. Then he sealed their lips in another deep, languid kiss, wanting nothing more than to prolong this new intimacy between them forever.
Emma tasted of warm sunshine and fresh air and promise—impossible, he knew, but her kiss made him feel as if endless summer days stretched out before him once again. Carefree days, like the ones before his world had changed irrevocably.
She also tasted of salt and of…tears? Alarm chased away his sanguinity. Had he hurt her? She still kissed him as tenderly as he did her. She hadn’t tensed in his arms, had made no sounds of distress. And yet he knew that not all pain was physical. Damn it all, he’d known one of them would get hurt if he gave in to his desire for her.
Derick framed Emma’s face with his hands and eased back, prepared to demand why she cried, to do anything it took to soothe her. Her amber eyes had gone a deep gold and were dilated with spent passion…but they were also completely dry.
Derick licked his lips, the taste of tears still strong upon them, just as Emma gasped softly. She touched her hand to his face and caressed his cheek. “Oh, Derick,” she whispered.
He frowned, bringing his own hand up to his other cheek, and was met with warm moisture. It was he who wept? Yes. Silently, unconsciously, moved by the beauty he’d found in her arms.
Despite the shock, a peace unlike any he’d ever known settled over Derick. One he would never have believed possible. Emma loved him. He pulled her tighter to him, melting as she tucked her face into the crook of his neck.
He never wanted to let her go.
“Emma,” he whispered, “come with me.” He brushed his hand over her hair, his fingers tangling in the damp curls. It might be a mistake. It might be unfair to her, but he no longer wanted to fight what had always been between them. What he knew now always would be. “Come with me to America…as my wife.”
Wife? Elation burst in Emma’s chest and her heart soared toward the stars…until it stalled…froze in midflight…hurtled back to the earth in an out-of-control spin. “A-America?”
She couldn’t have heard him correctly.
Emma lifted her head, pulling back as far as Derick’s embrace would allow. “Did you say America?”
His chin dropped in a determined nod. “It’s where I intend to make my home after my work for England is complete.”
“But—” Emma wiggled out of his arms. What was he saying? She couldn’t think properly tucked so close to his hot skin, with his intoxicating scent fogging her senses. She brought herself to a sitting position, glancing down at her wanton state. She certainly couldn’t think half-naked, either. She tugged her bodice up, the soft cotton scraping roughly against her still sensitive breasts. Derick’s eyes flared at the movement, as if he regretted she’d removed them from his sight. Her hand shook as she pushed the skirt of her night rail back down her legs and scooched back from him. He actually sighed at that.
The bit of distance she’d put between them helped her get control of her thoughts, but only a minor percentage. There was still the distraction of his magnificently muscled, utterly naked body lounging inches from her. “But,” she said again, “your work for England will never be done. You may retire from spy work, but you’re a viscount, Derick. You have respons—”
“I’m no viscount,” he said harshly, swinging his leg around and rising to a seated position himself. All pretense of lounging vanished as he seemed to vibrate with tension. “I am a French bastard, Emma. Not a British aristocrat.”
“What complete poppycock!” Why was he so hung up on this erroneous conviction that it was blood that made a man? She answered her own question—because most people still were. Bloodlines were considered everything. People were fools.
But Derick wasn’t, though he was likely entrenched in his beliefs if he’d held them all these years. She wanted to reach out to him, but she sensed that would be the wrong way to handle this. If she tried to coddle him, he’d probably just tell himself that she placated him rather than admit his thinking was flawed. So she pointed an aggressive finger at him instead, determined to use logic to convince him he was wrong. “You’re a British viscount in everyone’s eyes but your own.”
He scowled at her. “That’s because they don’t know—”
“So what if they did?” she challenged. “Under the law, any issue born within a legal union is legitimate. That alone makes you Scarsdale.”
“Argh,” he growled, gaining his feet. He stalked away from her, and despite the tension in the moment, Emma couldn’t help but admire his lithe, potently masculine form. Couldn’t help but remember him moving powerfully within her, and her core went all soft and warm even as the strain growing between them tightened the rest of her.
“That’s not what matters here,” he insisted.
“No?” She stood herself, following, unwilling to let him run from this fight. “Fine. So you’re not descended from generations of Avelines. That doesn’t matter, either. History is full of men who have had titles created for them to reward them for service to the king. Even men of common birth, which you are not,” she pointed out, although she supposed he could be, at least partially. While his mother was the daughter of a French compte, she had no idea about the man who’d sired him. “Do you not think you, of all people, would qualify for such an honor after all you’ve done?”
“Emma…” he warned, his eyes gone dark and stormy.
“I’m right, and you know it. But you don’t need to have a title created for you, because you were born to one.”
“I was born into a lie,” he shouted, turning to face her. “I’ve lived a lie.” He slammed his fist into the center of his chest. “I am a lie.”
Emma’s breaths came rapid and tight, knowing they’d come to the heart of it. She reached out her hand, placing it tentatively over his fist, ready to attempt the most significant proof of her life—mathematical or otherwise.
She could do this. First step, list your statements and the reasons the statements are true.
“No, Derick,” she said softly. “You may have been born into a lie, but you lived the life given to you to live. You may have French blood flowing through your veins, but you’ve proven by your actions, your service to England, that you are just as British as anyone else born here. More so. You’ve certainly given more to your country.”
“Your country,” he muttered, but without heat. She was getting through to him. She knew it.
“Our country.”
His eyes drifted closed, midnight black lashes fanning over his cheeks in a way that made him look like a dark angel.
She almost had him. Just a couple more steps. Statements and reasons leading to the proper conclusion. “In your heart, Derick, I know you love England, or you wouldn’t have spent the last fourteen years of your life doing e
verything you’ve had to do to protect her.”
His lids flicked open and the stark sadness in them brought sharp tears to her eyes. “I do love England. And I’ve done what I can for her. Gladly.” He lifted his fist, still enclosed in her palm, from his chest and slammed it back into himself. “But it has cost me, Emma. Bits of soul that I’ll never get back.”
Emma felt his pain as if it were her chest thumped by their joined hands. A sinking fear settled in her middle. This was where math failed her…when she tried to apply it to the messy world of real people. If only she were a fraction as proficient with them as she was with numbers. But numbers didn’t come with feelings. With memories that could spoil everything.
Derick plucked her hand from his and then took both of hers in his warm grip.
“You said earlier that I could start over. That had always been my aim, but until today, I hadn’t truly thought it possible. But you gave me hope, Emma. I believe that with you I just might be able to begin anew.”
But it seemed it would be all right. Emma felt the smile building inside before it lifted her lips. “Oh, Derick, you can.”
“But not here,” he said quietly. “Not in Derbyshire. Not even in England.” He squeezed her hands firmly, almost tugging her toward him. “Come with me.”
Emma’s smile froze on her face and her chest squeezed so, she couldn’t catch her breath. Go with him? She’d always, always wanted to be his wife. As long as she could remember, even when she didn’t dare to dream it anymore. And here was her chance, but…leave England? “I can’t. My brother—”
“Can come with us.”
Emma shook her head vehemently. “And leave two titles abandoned? It’s bad enough you plan to desert your duties, but what of Wallingford lands, our tenants, our responsibilities to them?”
A muscle ticked in Derick’s jaw. She felt low for implying he was shirking his duty after all he’d given to his country, but it was true! When you were of the noble class, duty never ended.
