“Has the man no shame?” He curled a hand into a fist and became the perfect image of outrage. Before she could interrupt, he continued. “Donovan is adamant that you and Rockingham will suit, but I must remove myself from the situation, take forbidden temptation away so that I don’t inadvertently ruin your life or sour the budding romance you have with the marquess.” Despair filled his eyes once more. “That is the reason I do not wish to remain on this mortal coil.”
“Both of you are the biggest, bacon-brained idiots I’ve ever seen. You especially, thinking to end your life due to a woman’s fickle mind,” she hissed out as her ire built. Her cheeks heated as her anger raged. “What I do or who I see is not my brother’s decision,” she fairly spat out.
“Ha!” Rafe narrowed his gaze and the terrible glow from that ring quelled, but only slightly. “But you haven’t made a decision, thus his interference. He is afraid that you will pass a life of sorrow if you pick me.”
Due to the curse. Donovan had long ago told her of the specifics. Marriage to a Cursed Lord would bring nothing but heartache and sorrow, especially if the female in the relationship couldn’t accept the man and his cursed half as a whole. Many of the past generations could not do it, for those beastly sides were abhorrent and oftentimes violent and demanding.
Yet, she wanted Rafe still, and her whole body heated as she stared at him.
She shook her head, refusing to give into either of those thoughts, so she focused her indignation on him. “Then you would give up so easily?” Annoyed at him, at herself, at her brother, and lastly at fate who’d dumped them all into the situation, she advanced upon him, while he stood his ground. “You would leave me to Donovan’s machinations and have me sacrifice myself on Lord Rockingham’s altar?” A curl of fear tightened in her belly. Did that mean he didn’t care for her any longer?
“Why shouldn’t I?” The stark need in his darkening eyes clashed with the desolation lingering there as she closed the distance between them. “You have made it clear where I stand with you.” His whispered words hung in the air. “There is only so much I can take when I look at you and see fear in your expression, or watch as you run away yet again once there is a hint of fangs, or know you’ve been out with Rockingham, and that he is the better, more human, man.”
She paused, a mere six inches of space between them. “Life is confusing at present.” Her chest heaved with the force of the emotions clogging her person.
“Bloody hell, Lizzy. It really isn’t.” He threw up a hand, and when she thought he would try to touch her, he curled his fingers into a fist, tucked both of his hands behind his back. Instead, he implored her with his eyes, and the red ring flared. “Is it me—my beast—that you truly fear, or is what you feel for me—the man—that is the cause of your reticence? One I can work with; one I cannot.”
How did he know her so well? Every beat of her heart screamed his name, but how could she forget what he was when the world wasn’t watching and the night fell? How could she ever forget the terror of that long ago bite? “Don’t turn your inability to find your resolve back on me.”
The growl he emitted reminded her of Donovan when he was enraged. His eyes, now more green than brown, roiled with animosity. If looks could kill, she would surely be on the floor. “What the devil do you want from me, for I cannot glean the truth through all of your waffling. I am no longer a patient man.”
Elizabeth didn’t answer him. How could she when she alternatively wished to slap his face and embrace him? Not to mention she hadn’t found a way to dislodge the fear she held for his vampire half. When presented with his fangs and claws, his need to feed on human blood, the remembrance of how his bite had felt, how could she screw her courage to the sticking point and overlook such a thing?
Could any woman for a lifetime?
She forced a swallow into her tight throat. “Rafe, I…”
“Buggar it.” He took a step back, widening the gap between them. “I shall take your silence as a decision, so I will tell you goodbye. I wish you well, Elizabeth, and am sorry that I misjudged you.” When he strode to the balcony doors, urgency broke her from her frozen state.
“Wait!” Panic propelled that one word through the air. Perhaps fear of losing him was greater than her horror of what he truly was. That had to mean something. Her whole body shook. Since becoming aware of Rafe as a man again, she’d fallen into wrack and ruin, and the desire for him swelled.
“Why?” Rafe faced her once more, but he stood his ground.
Set the damn fear aside for a moment. The man needed truth or she’d never see him again. “I want you. The man you were that night long ago, the forceful, authoritative man.” She gasped at the admission as his eyebrow rose into his hairline. Her cheeks burned from embarrassment. Would he somehow think her depraved? “And the fact I want you like that scares me, shows poorly on my integrity,” she managed to finish in a choking voice.
Surprise lined Rafe’s expression. His eyes darkened into brown, the red ring flaring. “You desire the man who bit you?” The whispered question echoed in the silent room. Hope flickered across his face. “Does this mean you accept me fully?”
“No,” she fairly gasped out the admission, and his crestfallen look crushed her heart. “I want the man who showed me what passion could be.” Mortified by her own need as well as her obvious prejudice, she whirled around, presenting him with her back as she pressed the fingers of one hand to her trembling lips. Why is embracing what he is so difficult for me? It wasn’t as if she’d not been brought up around a cursed being.
“Ah, now I see.” That handful of words dripped with sarcasm and annoyance. “You merely want me for the release.” She turned in time to catch loathing in his face—for her. “How silly of me to think you might prove different than the whores at my club.”
The words shot through her with the accuracy of knives, shredding all the way through to her soul. “I cannot explain…” She shivered and rubbed her silk-clad arms.
“Gah!” He threw up a hand, his expression still full of disgust. “I’m leaving unless you wish it otherwise. I cannot continue to carry a torch for you when you only wish for my carnal services.” The last two words held so much bitterness that tears sprang to her eyes.
Emotions crashed through her, boiling beneath the surface, ready to break. She settled on anger and kept it at the forefront. It was safer. “Coward.”
We both are.
“If I am, then so are you,” he growled. Proving once again his uncanny knack for reading her mind. Then he sprang, pounced upon her position, held her by her upper arms with a strong grip. The red ring in his eyes glowed. “Dash it all, Lizzy. Why are we always at odds?”
Before she could respond or even wrench away, Rafe brought his mouth crashing down on hers. He kissed her with such determination, she reeled and her heart beat so fast she feared it would pound right out of her chest.
“Rafe…” Oh, this was the man she remembered, the man she’d dreamed about before those dreams shifted into nightmares.
He continued claiming her mouth, her soul, with rough kisses. Desire tingled into every nerve ending. The stubble shadowing his jaw and chin rasped over her skin to add heightened awareness to the moment. When he allowed her breath, he fisted his hands in her night attire and ripped both the wrapper and dress asunder. Cold air slid over her bared skin and tightened her pebbled nipples. “Do I have your consent, Elizabeth?” he asked, his whisper graveled with the same need flooding her. “I refuse to have you say later I attacked you.”
“I would never.” She clung to his lapels when her knees wobbled. Oh, why was he talking when she wanted his mouth on her body?
He snorted. His eyes flashed. “I would like to believe that, yet here we are, both wanting each other in the basest of ways with your brother sleeping just down the hall willing to kill me for merely looking at you because of our history.”
That only added an edge of excitement to the affair. Elizabeth nodded and slipped
a hand up his chest to cup it around his nape in an effort to tug him closer. “Yes, I want this. I want you in my bed.” She licked her lips. Hot pleasure streaked through her when his gaze dropped to her mouth. “I will not hold you to any obligation or cry foul later.”
“After what you said to me this night, I will give you exactly what you wish for.” Rafe embraced her and claimed her mouth with bruising force but not once did she feel the prick or bite of fangs. What sort of control must he exert to keep the beast at bay when fully aroused? The bulge at the front of his breeches bore testament to how much he wanted her. There was so much she didn’t know about him yet suddenly wished to.
Elizabeth met each kiss with equal enthusiasm, and when he palmed her breasts, rolled her aching nipples, she moaned, remembered at the last second to muffle her reactions. “Rafe, please.” She’d waited years for this moment, and the pent-up passion, the unfilled need, nearly broke her.
“Fine.” With the speed his curse allowed, he crossed the room with her, and at the bed, when she assumed he’d toss her amidst the rumpled sheets and follow her down, he merely spun her around, pushed her upper body onto it and then wrenched up the filmy bits of her skirting. Chilly air wafted over her buttocks. “This is the only thing you want, so there’s no need for finesse or even a connection, is there?” Anger shook in his voice, and the deep tenor reverberated in her chest as he parted her legs.
“But I thought…” What exactly had she assumed? That he’d romance her after what she’d said, after how she’d reacted to him? From her bent position she looked at him over her shoulder while he manipulated his frontfalls. Her breath caught as his engorged length sprang from his clothing. He was eerily beautiful in the moonlight with passion in his expression and vengeance in his eyes, his blond hair flowing to his shoulders.
With a hand on her back, Rafe slipped his other between her thighs. He easily found the swollen, aching center of her and he rubbed his fingers over that nubbin until she squirmed. Sensations consumed her while bliss danced just out of reach. Elizabeth wriggled her hips in invitation. Her lover increased the friction, never saying a word. The pressure building within her mounted. It swiftly broke, for she’d been primed for too long. She buried her face in the quilt to quiet cries of release.
But he wasn’t finished with her.
Silent as the grave, he fit the wide head of his hardened member to her opening, and when she pushed back, still not fully recovered from the release he’d already given her, Rafe thrust into her with such authority that stars erupted behind her eyes, and he didn’t stop the impalement until he was fully seated.
His moan blended with hers, but that was the only vocalization he made. Did he not care that this joining felt right, that she was just seconds from being sent flying merely because they were finally together again? Instead, he gripped her hips. She’d wagered he’d leave bruises, and then he began to move.
Over and over he stroked into her. Again and again he shoved inside her body so fast and so hard and so deep that the slap of flesh against flesh echoed in the room. Though Elizabeth was nearly out of her mind with desire and pleasure, a part of her died, for she couldn’t see his face, look into his eyes; indeed, she didn’t feel a connection. Something was missing during the shared intimacy, and though he delivered the force that she’d craved, it wasn’t quite as nice or as memorable as their last time together.
“Do try to attend me, Elizabeth,” he commanded in a whisper, went so far as to fist a hand into her hair and gently pulled. The added stimulation and pain sent her hurtling closer to that glimmering edge. “When a lady demands that I service her, I expect she’ll remain in the moment.”
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. He treated her little better than the women he fed from at the club. And perhaps she deserved it after what she’d done, what she’d said. She buried her face in the bedclothes as shame mixed with the mounting pressure inside her. Then he slipped a hand around her hip, and when his long fingers found her swollen button once more, she shattered.
Intense pleasure swamped her, and he thrust through the flutters contracting in her core. Once, twice, he went deep as if he searched for an elusive part of her—the piece she couldn’t give. When she thought waves of bliss would never end, he pushed once more, and with a stifled shout, he collapsed onto her body, while his length pulsed and jerked inside her.
Elizabeth didn’t brush at the tears that streamed down her cheeks. Yes, there was much joy from the physical release of being with him, but there was also incredible mourning for something she couldn’t quite grasp, and that elusive something troubled her.
“Bloody hell,” he finally whispered and he wrenched away from her, taking his warmth, his weight, his touch with him. “This is not who I am or what I want to be any longer. I have grown as a person in the years we’ve been apart.”
The annoyance in his voice brought her into a standing position even as her knees shook and every muscle in her body gave off a pleasant ache. She looked at him and gasped. His fangs were out, as were the claws where his fingernails used to be. He fought for control by taking deep breaths, his half-erect member still on display. Both horrified yet fascinated, Elizabeth stared. “What… What do you mean?” Would he spring at her again and this time take her blood like her took her body?
Rafe shook his head. He briefly closed his eyes, and for long moments that were marked only by the rapid-fire beat of her heart, he stood there, breathing deeply until finally the claws receded as did the fangs. When he opened his eyes, the red ring around his irises wasn’t as intense. “Why can you not see I am trying to be the man you deserve?” His wounded tone cut straight through her heart. “You warrant better than this…” He gestured, presumably to encompass the scene of their violent lovemaking. “Better than the man who just did that.”
“I goaded you into it, and for that I apologize.” When he moved to the window, tucking his now flaccid length back into his breeches and doing up the buttons, she went after him. The ragged and torn nightclothes fluttered about her still-throbbing but sated body. She laid a hand on his back, staying his movement. “Rafe.” When he turned and met her gaze, she rushed onward before her courage deserted her. “Please don’t give up on me.” She’d behaved horridly toward him, and if he forever hated her for it, she would somehow manage to live with that. “I need more time to come to terms with what you are, and I am struggling.”
Wariness shadowed his handsome face. A flicker of compassion gleamed at the back of his gaze. “You have had all of our lives.”
“I know.” She slipped her hand to his forearm and squeezed. The solidness of him gave her comfort. What would it feel like to have those arms wrapped around her in support and protection? “I know, but I’m ready now to try.”
He blew out a breath. “What do you want me to do, Lizzy?” he asked again, his tone as weary as his expression.
A thrill raced down her spine to land in her core at his renewed used of her nickname. “Court me despite Donovan’s threats. Spend time with me so that I can see the real you.” She held his gaze and hoped he saw only earnestness in her eyes. “I want to understand you—all of you, no matter what… happens.”
For long seconds he searched her face. She stood stock-still. Would he find her worthy after all? Finally, he nodded, and she wanted to dissolve into a pool of relief on the floor. “And the curse? If it doesn’t end up breaking?”
She tamped down on the urge to give into a shudder. “One day at a time, but this will be a fine start, don’t you think?” Please, please say yes.
He grinned and her world spun into sunshine and rainbows despite the midnight inkiness beyond her windows. “It will indeed.” With a shaking hand, he cupped her cheek and turned more fully into her. “I will be every bit the gentleman you need,” he whispered and trailed the pad of his thumb along her lower lip.
“I do not care about that,” she said and with stark honesty and a quivering voice, she added, “Be the man you are
, and that is who I’ll need the most.” She returned his smile, sighing when he slipped his arms around her and simply held her.
Oh, yes, it felt wonderful indeed.
They stood like that for a long time before he kissed her forehead and set her away. “I shall call on you tomorrow.”
“No. Meet me on the bridle path in Hyde Park. Then we can be assured Donovan won’t muck up our plans.” She went to the balcony doors with him and her heart squeezed when he gently eased them open as he’d done all those years ago. “Promise you’ll be there?”
“I have yet to break a promise made to you.” With a wink, he vaulted out the window, and when she rushed onto the shallow balcony, there was no trace of him in the winter-bare gardens below.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
December 12, 1815
Rafe couldn’t help his grin as he nodded to his groom, mounted his charger—Midnight—and then set off through the streets of Mayfair bound for Hyde Park. The gloom of dawn settled around him like a cloak, and since clouds blanketed the sky, the colors of the rising sun were muted. Still, the anemic pastels provided a nice contrast to the gray.
The dawn’s valiant fight against the clouds reminded him of his own with Lizzy. Last night—or rather earlier that morning—had been a breakthrough between them and had given him a new outlook on life. Lizzy had begged him to join with her—despite the fact he’d agreed out of anger and annoyance—but she’d also encouraged him to defy her brother and court her, to help her understand his beast. She truly appeared to wish to try and know him as he was.
That is more than I’ve ever had before.
A gentle breeze ruffled through his hair and tugged at the tied strands. Nothing could punch a hole in his uplifted mood this morning, and he grinned again. Meeting her behind Donovan’s back brought a wicked edge to the morning’s plans, and in Hyde Park to boot. Not that many notables of the ton were abroad to catch them together. Years ago, he and Elizabeth had gone for long walks in the park. They’d talked of everything and nothing, content to enjoy each other’s company.
Bitten By the Earl (Lords of the Night Book Two) Page 14
