“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.
He blinked. In truth, he had no answer for that very valid question. He’d dragged her from a party in a most public way over jealousy he had no right to.
Except he felt it, just as he felt the connection that was so powerful between them.
“Benton?” he snapped out.
The color left her cheeks and she spun away from him. “What about him?”
“You would walk with him, Sophie?” he asked.
Her shoulders lifted, tension filling her every fiber. She didn’t look at him. He wanted her to look at him.
“What I do is none of your affair,” she said softly.
He moved on her then, without meaning to, just as had happened on the terrace. It was like he couldn’t stop himself. She stole his control.
“Isn’t it?” he growled as he stepped in front of her, forcing her to glare up at him. “I think I could make a good argument that I have every right, considering.”
Her lips parted. “Considering what?” He arched a brow and she gasped. “How dare you! You would throw up what happened between us in my face?”
When she said the words, shame filled him. She was right.
“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “That was incredibly ungentlemanly. Worse, it was unkind. You don’t deserve that.”
Her expression softened. “I didn’t expect your apology.”
He shrugged. “You should. I can admit when I’m wrong.”
“Then why say what you did in the first place, if you knew it was wrong?” she whispered.
He took a small step toward her, closing almost all of what distance remained between them. Her breath hitched and that tiny sound hit him in the groin. His cock began to throb, harden, making his lust very known.
“Because the last time I saw you, you were shuddering beneath my tongue. And the first thing you did today was walk away from me. And I hate that. I shouldn’t care, Sophie, but I do care very much what you do. And with whom.”
“Rowan,” she whispered.
He smiled. She had said his name so many ways in the past few weeks. He loved each one. Just as he loved…
He loved her.
He drew back a fraction as that realization hit him. He loved her. That was why she was all he could think about, that was why he needed to be near her at all times, that was why he was so uncomfortable with the idea of using her or the knowledge he had about the bargain she’d made with her aunt.
He loved her, and it had nothing to do with what he might gain from a union with her. All he wanted from that union was the right to call her his. To share his life with her.
All of his life. Now he just had to convince her to open up and see the same future that flashed so beautifully before his eyes.
“Will you come with me?” he asked softly.
She tilted her head. “Now?”
He nodded and extended his hand to her. “Please.”
She hesitated, but only for a beat of time. Then she took the hand he offered and followed him.
Sophie didn’t truly understand what was happening, but she could feel that something had changed. Rowan had been angry, and then his stare had shifted and it was like the weight of all her problems had been pulled away. There was only him.
He squeezed her hand gently as he took her to a closed door far from the parlors and the party. “I have no right to ask you to share any part of yourself until you see me,” he said.
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer, but simply turned and opened the door. He motioned for her to enter, so she released his hand and did so. She caught her breath. This room had very likely once been a parlor, but it had been transformed. There was a little furniture within and an easel in the middle with a canvas covered in cloth. Other paintings leaned against the walls.
Every one was more beautiful than the next.
She turned toward him as he entered the room and watched her. “What is this, Rowan?”
“My—my studio,” he said, and color filled his cheeks as his gaze darted away.
She took a sharp breath and looked again at the art, thinking of the other paintings she’d seen on the walls about the estate.
“Yours?” she whispered. “Are you saying that you painted these?”
He nodded slowly. “I did.”
She couldn’t help it—she staggered forward and bent to examine the pieces more closely. “Rowan,” she breathed as she took in the expert brushstrokes, the fine composition and color choices and the emotion that brightened each scene. “My God, they are wonderful.”
“Thank you,” he said softly.
“But how—what—?”
He smiled. “I know you have many questions. Women in Society are meant to be accomplished, but the men are not given such leeway.”
She pondered that. It was an opinion she’d never considered. “I suppose you are right. I’ve never known a man who painted, especially one who did so this proficiently.”
Rowan moved forward, his gaze sliding over the works as he murmured, “I showed a talent with paint at a young age,” he explained. “My father and mother both encouraged me in the work and even brought in masters to teach me. Of course, it is complicated. My father’s name could be sullied by such a thing. And I didn’t want to trade on it at any rate. About five years ago, I began to try to sell my wares, under another name.”
He motioned to the signature, and she leaned in to look closer. “W.R.?” she asked.
“William Reynolds,” he explained. “My nom de plume of sorts.”
“I like Rowan Sinclair better,” she said, daring to hold his glance.
His pupils dilated slightly, his lids lowering. It was a possessive look, and her stomach clenched with desires she was beginning to accept were undeniable.
“Would you like to see my latest piece?” he asked as he pointed to the easel in the center of the room. “Not another soul has looked at it but me.”
She blinked. “You would give me such an honor?”
He didn’t respond with words, but by taking her hand and drawing her close. He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips and then moved her to the piece. He took a deep breath, and she saw his uncertainty in that moment. This man who was always so sure and centered and all too arrogantly perfect was now nervous. About her. A role reversal if there had ever been one.
With another little sigh, he pulled back the cloth. Sophie stared at the picture, her hand coming up to her mouth in shock. The painting was of her.
She was seated on a bench in a garden, her body half-turned, as if she’d had her name called by the painter. Her hair was loose, framing her face, and her gown was beautiful, the same color as her eyes. The portrait version of herself had a wide smile and bright and expressive eyes.
“Rowan,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to say!”
He pursed his lips. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s wonderful,” she whispered. “I’ve had portraits commissioned by my aunt over the years, but never one so special and wonderful as this. You make me look far more beautiful than I am.”
His brow knitted as he looked from the picture to her and back again. “No,” he said. “You are far more beautiful than I could ever capture, even if I painted you a dozen times. A hundred.” He moved toward her, his fingers threading through hers slowly. “And I would very much like to paint you a dozen times. A hundred. A thousand.”
She blinked. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”
He drew another deep breath, his face still taut with uncertainty. “I know.”
Then his mouth was moving to cover hers and she lifted into him, opening when she knew she shouldn’t, sighing with relief and pleasure when his tongue breached her lips.
He pulled away, stroking his fingers over her cheek lightly. “I know you don’t want passion—”
She jolted. “No, it isn’t that I don’t want it. I want you, Rowan, I do.”
“Then what?” he asked, so gentle. As if she could let her walls come down at long last and he would be there. That she could surrender all her nos and at long last say yes and know she would be protected. He touched her cheek again. “Tell me.”
She drew a shuddering breath. He’d been so honest, so open to show her this glimpse into his life. His art. If she wanted him to understand, the time had come for her return that honesty. “I suppose it’s because of why I became Lady No,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’ve always said it was because I did not want to play with fortune hunters, and I suppose that is partly true. But the real reason I’ve hesitated is because of my—my father.”
He wrinkled his brow. “You’ve mentioned him before. The strain of your relationship, even though you were very young when he and your mother died.”
She nodded. “Yes, I was a child, but I wasn’t a fool. My mother adored him, but he was a liar and a philanderer. He dangled love just out of her reach, giving her just enough that she felt she could catch it. Snatching it away the moment it was in her fingers. I saw what that did to her. How it broke her. She was willing to do anything to keep him, to capture him. She would say yes to anything he asked. Even go riding in the park when he was blind drunk after a night of carousing.” She dipped her head as she recalled watching the two of them stagger into her father’s fancy phaeton that fateful morning.
“She said yes to anything. And so you decided to say no to everything,” he whispered.
She nodded, the pain of those words like a stab to the heart. “Yes. Until…until you.”
He moved closer. “But you and I are not your parents.”
“I don’t know if that is true.” Her voice broke, tears gathering in her eyes. “When you touch me, I lose all control. Do you see how abjectly terrifying that is to me?”
He tilted his head. “I hadn’t thought of that. How much your past would make you fear this. Me. Us.”
She nodded. “Perhaps I cannot overcome that fear. Not even with you.”
He drew her against his chest for a moment, his arms closing around her. She rested her cheek to his chest and heard the steady thud of his heart against her ear, felt the way his breath rose and fell. Slowly, she allowed her breath to match his. And somehow, some way, the peace she wanted came to her. She drew away, looking up at him in wonder.
He was smiling back. Gentle and loving. Giving and caring. “Sophie, I’m not your father. I’m not. I know I’ve always appeared idle and feckless like he was. Bored and looking for something to occupy his time, for good or for bad. But it isn’t true.”
She knew that. Of course she did, on some level. “Why do you do it then?”
He motioned around them. At the artwork, including the portrait of her. “Because of this. My behavior is an act, a way to obtain entre into the places where I might sell my work. The truth of me is far more than that.”
She stared at him, seeing him in a new light now that his creativity surrounded her. “And what are you?”
“Passionate. About my painting, about my life, about you. I want to touch you so very much. I want to show you how good passion can be. How it can ground you, not just sweep you away. And that when it does sweep you away, it will always bring you home again. To me.”
Tears stung her eyes at those beautiful words, more seductive than even his touch. “They’ll be waiting,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door. “There will be a scandal if we’re gone too long.”
He was silent for a beat, and then he said, “Perhaps. But what will the scandal matter if we wed?”
She staggered back, breaking from his arms with a gasp of shock. “Marry? You wish to marry me?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation. “I wish to marry you, Sophie. If you will have a man like me.”
Sophie lifted her cold hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. This was not at all what she had intended for this day. She’d planned to come here as a test of her willpower, to avoid Rowan to show herself that she could. But not only was she standing in the middle of his studio, surrounded by the art that felt so intimate, pondering surrendering her body to him…but he was asking her to be his bride.
And even though she’d spent years as Lady No, what she wanted to say, to scream, to cry to the rooftops and beyond…was yes. Yes to the thrill this man put to her belly. Yes to the passion that made her body tingle. Yes to the life filled with art and adventure and laughter and everything good and interesting.
Yes to being his bride.
None of it had anything to do with her promises to her aunt to become Lady Yes. All of it had to do with Rowan Sinclair and his impossibly blue eyes and his incredibly deep spirit.
“It’s soon,” she squeaked instead.
He laughed. “Is it? I’ve been told I’ve always been interested in you.”
She couldn’t help her smile. “Have you? For I’ve been told the very same thing. Is that possible?”
“That I’ve always watched you and tracked you and secretly wondered what it would be like to touch your cheek or hold your hand or call you my Sophie?” His gaze softened. “I’m starting to believe that is possible.”
“Would you…control me?” she asked.
His eyes went wide and a bit feral. “Control you? Would you like that?”
She blinked. “To be controlled? I—no. Wait, what does that mean that makes you look like you want to ravish me?”
“Ravishing you does sound delightful,” he laughed. “There are some ladies…and gentlemen, truth be told…who like to be controlled in the bedroom. Bound and ordered about. I assume that isn’t what you mean?”
She shivered, for bound and ordered about by Rowan didn’t actually sound so very bad. “No,” she said slowly. “What I meant was if I were to marry you, would you…control me. Give me no say in our life, give me no financial future aside from your own, keep me under lock and key unless you wished me at your side.”
His expression softened. “Is that what your father did to your mother?”
She nodded swiftly, even as heat filled her cheeks. “Yes.”
“Let me make this clear, Sophie. If we were to wed, we would be equal partners. Our lives would be led together, but I would have no quarrel with your having your own ways and friendships and interests. I have no need to be your keeper. Your lover and your friend? Oh yes, I would want to be those.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. What he was offering was so…right. Oh, there was a tiny voice of doubt that still lingered at the back of her throat, in the corner of her mind, but she pushed it away.
“I will marry you, Rowan,” she said, opening her eyes to look at him evenly as she said the words. “I will marry you.”
He grinned, and the look made him so handsome that she could not resist anymore. She closed the distance between them in a few steps and wrapped her arms around him. She lifted to him as he lowered to her, and their mouths crashed together in a passionate kiss unlike any they’d ever shared.
Yes, in this kiss there was the desire that had pulsed between them from the first night she’d encountered him lounging in the parlor, but there was also something more. She felt a connection when their mouths met, when their tongues tangled. A promise that made her feel complete where she’d never known she wasn’t whole. A sense of belonging that warmed her from head to toe.
She parted from him just enough to whisper, “Will you…touch me?”
His eyes went wide. “You don’t care about the scandal?”
She shook her head. “Let it come.”
His mouth found hers again, and he backed her away from his work, to a darker corner of the room, where a settee was hidden beneath a tarp. He broke from her just long enough to pull the cover aside and then he lowered her onto the cushions. She settled back, watching him, her body already twitching with the pleasure she knew he could give her. Now it was going to be so complete. So real. So perfect.
“I want to do this slowly,” he said with a frown
as he began to hitch up her skirt. “And with far fewer clothes, but just like last time, that is not possible.”
She blushed as her skirt came up over her knees and his hands brushed her thighs. “Can you…can you not have me this way?”
He swallowed hard. “Have you?” he repeated, his voice cracking.
She nodded. “Please?”
He leaned down, his weight covering her, and he kissed her. She lifted into him and felt the full length of him against her, including the hard thrust of him pressing to her stomach. She knew a little about what happened next, and that steely length both frightened and intrigued her.
“If you want this, I suppose it can’t hurt. You’ve agreed to be my wife,” he murmured, she thought more to himself than to her. “And God, but it’s too much temptation to deny.” He touched her face gently, tracing the line of her cheek. “Let me ready you.”
“How?” she whispered.
He smiled, and it was wolfish. “Like before.”
She gasped as his mouth moved to her throat, to the scooped neckline of her gown, down lower to press kisses over her stomach, her hip, and finally he dropped to his knees and positioned himself just as he’d been a week before: worshipping between her thighs. Her body quaked with the memory. With the reality as he spread her sex open and began to lick her.
She lifted against him. She knew what to expect this time, and she wanted it. Needed it. Needed that slick and heated and powerful release that would make her world a starburst of pleasure.
He eased her toward it, stroking her full length, teasing her clitoris, making her body tremble with need. But instead of letting her find release, as he had last time, when she was on the edge, ready to explode, he pulled away. She whimpered as he stood, but the whimper turned to a gasp as he unfastened the placard on his trouser front and let it drop.
She sat up slightly to stare. This was what the fuss was about. This thick, hard mass of erect flesh that now moved at her like a divining rod to water. She reached out, fascinated at how very different their bodies were, and stroked her finger across his length.
Lady No Says Yes Page 7
