The Secrets of a Scoundrel

by Gaelen Foley

  She gazed into his eyes. “If I were yours, there’d be no need.” She leaned forward and suddenly kissed him.

  Nick held very still as she pressed her lips to his, tasting him in searching speculation. Once more, he fought with all he had to hold himself back. The temptation nearly overpowered him.

  He could have no doubt of her intent as she cupped his jaw and brushed her satin lips longingly against his, teasing him. “Do you know what I want for dessert, hmm?”

  His pulse pounded as an idle smile passed over his lips. Her touch felt so good it was nearly painful. “The macaroons weren’t enough for you?”

  “Not nearly.”

  “We shouldn’t do this,” he murmured breathlessly as she toyed with his hair.

  “We both want it.”

  “Yes. But some of us don’t deserve it.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Don’t deserve to be happy?”

  He stopped her, grasping her arm firmly to force her back a small distance, making her meet his serious gaze. “I’m not some perfect knight, Virginia. You know that now. If you’re still caught up in girlish daydreams about me, once the truth sinks in, you’re going to hate me. You might even hate yourself if we do this. I’m a bad man.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she answered, staring into his eyes. “I know what you are. I also know what you’ve sacrificed. You’ve given everything,” she whispered. “Until you had nothing left to give. Oh, Nick. I know it’s dangerous to love you, but the only way I’ll hate myself is if I don’t take the chance.”

  Her words intoxicated and slightly terrified him. Love me? He told himself she only meant that one, most dangerous word in the physical sense, surely.

  Whether or not this was true, resisting her was futile. The gentle stroking of her fingertips down his cheek crumbled his resolve.

  Overwhelming attraction pulled him to her like a planet swallowed up in her field of gravity. Enslaved. Passion gusted through him, a fire taking hold. Irrevocably drawn, he tilted his head as his lips approached hers. “So you like a gamble, too, then, do you?”

  “You’re worth the risk,” she breathed.

  He doubted it. Indeed, he was slightly bewildered. He still wasn’t sure what all of this was . . . what her sleeping with him meant. Had he gone from being her prisoner to one of her “gentleman friends,” or was she merely playing out a fantasy, sampling him just for the adventure of it?

  He could not say. Everything in him feared what this could lead to, but when she licked her lips in anticipation of his kiss, he lost the fight. Sensuality glowed in her cobalt eyes, beckoning him, and he was helplessly seduced.

  He cupped his hand around her nape and kissed her, slow and hard, his whole body throbbing with need.

  It had been so very long.

  Caught up in his kiss, Gin thrilled to the touch of his hands sliding around her waist, savoring her curves. She was already emboldened by wine, but his soft groan of pleasure inflamed her senses. She moved more firmly onto his lap, astraddle him; resting her elbows on his broad shoulders, she tangled her fingers in his silky, raven hair. Then she pulled his head back a little so she could kiss his neck and throat, and began untying his cravat.

  Her fingers trembled with excitement. This was a dream come true. Nick Forrester in her bed. Paris. Together on a mission fraught with danger and excitement, and all night long to give their passions free rein.

  He sat relatively still, his eyes closed, letting her do as she liked with him, hers for the taking. When she had done away with his cravat, she kissed her way back up over the stern angle of his jaw, roughened by his day’s beard. His chest was heaving with want as she cupped his cheek gently and claimed his mouth once more, wantonly parting his lips with her tongue. She delved into the wine-­flavored cove of his mouth to taste him more deeply while her busy fingers parted the V of his shirt.

  She stroked his tongue eagerly with her own as her roaming fingertips discovered the sweet, beguiling notch between his rugged collarbones, a tiny spot of vulnerability.

  Then her touch ventured downward while she went on kissing him. She dipped her fingers slyly inside the recesses of his loose white shirt to touch his beautiful body, marveling at the warm, sculpted chest that had inspired her lust since that day in the hot-­springs cave.

  Nick, meanwhile, ran his big, capable hands smoothly up and down her back, caressing her. His palms slid without opposition over the slippery surface of her satin dressing gown. Then his hands moved to her hair, playing with it as he kissed her.

  She could feel his fascination in his touch. With all the time he had spent in that cell—­and before that, on the run from the Order, fearing for his life—­who knew how long it had been since he had savored the texture of a woman’s hair. She wondered ever so briefly about his former lovers. Had there ever been any especially important women to him in his life? Had any of them ever reached his guarded heart?

  Could she?

  She let the wistful question go when his hand trailed down from her tresses to her breast. He stopped kissing her, as though he had just forgotten how.

  She smiled sensually against his mouth when she heard his whispered groan. “Is this really happening, or am I asleep?”

  “Shall I pinch you, my lord?” With her hand still tucked inside his shirt, she pinched his nipple lightly in response.

  He let out a throaty laugh. “You are such a naughty little baggage,” he said in a dreamy purr.

  With an arch smile, she gave his lower lip a little love bite in response. “Always happy to help.”

  He dragged his eyes open, heavy-­lidded with desire, and gazed at her. His pupils were as black as the night sea, but their usual fiery expression—­soulful, tortured, brooding—­had changed to a glow of pleasure.

  She was delighted by the change. “What is it, darling?” she prompted in a whisper.

  He just shook his head, fixing her with a wary look of wonder.

  “Relax,” she breathed, and as she pressed a gentler sort of kiss to his lips, he reached for the cloth belt of her robe.

  He untied it, parting the edges of her dressing gown like he was unwrapping a present. She supposed he was. But this night was also a gift to herself, the long-­awaited culmination of a dream. She hoped she didn’t regret it.

  But how could she, when she felt how tenderly he stroked her chest? How delicately he moved the strap of her negligee aside and explored her shoulder, as if he had never touched a woman before.

  She remembered how rough and rude he had been on the docks that night outside the Topaz Room. Wicked boy, she thought. He had certainly been trying to teach her a lesson that night, put her in her place. He was so different now. It seemed tonight he’d let his guard down for her. It was an opportunity she did not intend to waste—­and a small, private triumph in itself that she knew she’d always treasure in her memory.

  Having bared her breast, he cupped it in his hand with the most heavenly touch; he stopped kissing her again, as though all his marveling attention was focused on the curve and the weight and texture of the soft flesh in his hand. Increasingly restless with desire, Gin tilted her head back with a small groan, feeling that her body had been made for this moment. For him. She licked her lips and groaned aloud when he squeezed her swollen nipple softly. “You are beautiful,” he uttered, as if the words were wrenched from his very soul.

  She somehow managed to lift her eyelids to gaze at him and immediately thought, So are you. But she already knew he didn’t want to hear it. Nothing could be permitted to break the spell that had gathered around them and encircled the bed in this deepening enchantment.

  With a shrug, she let her dressing gown slip off her shoulders. The satin whispered to the floor. The night air was cool against her bared arms, but her skin blazed with desire.

  She helped Nick pull off his black jacket. Got rid of the untied crava
t hanging around his neck. Feverishly unbuttoned the black waistcoat he still wore, and shoved it off his shoulders with a growing desperation pounding in her blood.

  Their lips barely grazed in a panting kiss as he threw his shed garments aside. Gin pulled his shirt free of his trouser waist, then he paused to lift the shirt off over his head.

  A happy little sigh of admiration escaped her at his sculpted male beauty. He smiled and lowered his head ruefully—­which only delighted her more. How could such a dangerous man be so adorable? she wondered. She shook her head, mystified, as she gazed at him, then he started kissing her again.

  Inspired by his sculpted muscles and velveteen skin, Gin became a woman on a mission. While his heated kiss trailed down her neck, and his fingers plied the hem of her floor-­length peignoir, slowly hitching it up over her thighs, she unfastened his black trousers and freed him. She sighed with anticipation as she trailed her fingers up the hot, silken sides of his shaft in a teasing caress. He shuddered when she wrapped her hand around it and vigorously squeezed, then took up a no-­nonsense rhythm, stroking, pleasuring him.

  Time had lost all meaning, but it seemed barely minutes had passed when he shifted her forward onto his lap, his hands shaking as he gripped her around the waist.

  Gin’s heart thundered with her yearning for him.

  Bracing the balls of her bare feet on the floor, she rose from his lap, kissing him hungrily as she guided him to the dew-­slicked threshold of her passage. Then she took him in, inch by hard, velvet inch, lowering herself, and gasping with pleasure at his penetration.

  They fit together perfectly—­though he was wonderfully large. Her body opened to accommodate him.

  “Mmm.” She closed her eyes and dug her fingers into his steely shoulders as she settled fully onto his lap, savoring him so deep inside her.

  He kissed her shoulder and breathed some utterance, incoherent in his thrall. His motions were gentle as he held her on his lap, but with their bodies joined, she could feel every inch of him throbbing. He was a thunderstorm of hard, needy lust, trying with all his might not to break.

  “Quit holding back.” She barely mouthed the words at his ear, they were so soft. Yet they made him groan.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he rasped.

  “You won’t,” she promised, petting his head for a moment, pressing a dazed kiss to his brow, rooting for him to let go.

  She loved a storm. Always had, since her youth. She used to sneak outside when one hit and throw her arms up to the sky, spinning in the rain as it drenched her face, her hair. Admittedly, she had never flung herself into one so powerful before.

  Maybe it was madness to bait him, but she wanted to give herself to him. She had no regrets. Anyway, it was too late now. He was deep inside her, there on the edge of the bed. She sat astride him, and it felt more right than anything she had ever known.

  Nick had his eyes closed and a rapturous look on his face as he pulled her closer, fixing her more firmly on his member. He could not even speak.

  She could see he was absorbed in sheer sensation as he took hold of her hips and began to rock her. She let him move her as he willed, happy to comply; she joined his churning motion as he took his pleasure of her. He gripped her buttocks harder; she set her knees on the bed. After a time, she slowly pushed him down on his back.

  Her hair fell forward, hiding them together in a veil of secrecy as she lowered her head to kiss him again and again. She stroked his bare chest as she rode him, but within moments, he’d had more than he could bear. He thrust her roughly onto her back and mounted her, his hard body sweating and heaving, crushing her deliciously under his weight.

  She wrapped her legs around him in total surrender as he took her, until, all of a sudden, he gasped out, “I’m sorry, I can’t hold back.” The words tore from him, ragged with passion and shame. “I need you—­”

  “It’s all right,” she breathed with more tenderness than he was capable of noticing at the moment. “Come to me,” she whispered, arching her back to brush her breasts against his muscled chest.

  Nick obeyed, unable to do otherwise. She thrashed with pleasure, goading him with her body, as massive jolts of sweet torment racked him. He clutched her hair and her shoulder so hard as he came that it hurt a bit. She didn’t mind at all, enraptured by his anguished cries of ecstasy.

  He pulled out at the last second and spilled his seed into the folds of her peignoir. She supposed that was wise, but her body flinched at the denial. A fleeting thought of having his child only inflamed her the more, especially now that he had left her still craving release.

  It was a state of affairs he remedied well as soon as he recovered some semblance of his wits. She lay there watching him, still on fire herself, but so gratified by the glow of pleasure that had come over him.

  “Well, that took the edge off,” he panted at length.

  “It was good?”

  “Earth-­shattering, I believe, is the word.”

  She grinned. “I’m jealous.”

  “Patience, darling.” He stripped her naked, getting rid of her ruined silk peignoir with a mumbled “Sorry.”

  She waved off his apology with a chuckle and a shake of her head. It did not signify. She had dozens more back at home, and he could ruin them all in this manner if he liked. When she took it off, he ordered her under the covers with a smoldering stare.

  Then he got up and finished the job of undressing. She leaned against the headboard and folded her arms behind her head and watched him in possessive appreciation.

  He kicked off his shoes, then stripped the rest of the way down. When he had shed his black trousers and short drawers, her sultry stare traveled down his sculpted body in leisurely fashion, lingering on his phallus. Still engorged but no longer erect for the moment, it hung thickly from its surrounding tangle of black hair.

  “Get a good look?” Nick drawled as he returned to the bed.

  “You’re a beautiful man,” she said with a shrug.

  He scoffed as he slid under the covers with her. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “It’s true!”

  “Right, well, yes, it’s always been my life’s ambition to join the dandies.”

  “Cheeky!” When he turned his back, reaching out to check the nearby candle, burning low, she gave his bare arse a playful slap.

  He looked over his shoulder at her in astonishment.

  She bit her lip, her eyes dancing.

  “Careful,” he warned. “I might like that. Or maybe you do.” He suddenly rolled her over. “Does milady need a spanking?”

  “Don’t you dare,” she whispered, though she could not hide how she thrilled to his warm, taunting caress as he rested his hand on the curve of her backside.

  She shrieked when he suddenly clapped her bottom with a hearty, stinging slap.

  “What a bad girl you are,” he said.

  “You are outrageous!”

  “And what are you going to do about it?” he demanded.

  She forgot to answer when he reached between her legs and began stroking her from behind. Still wet and oh so needy, she let out a desperate little gasp as he slipped a finger into her quivering passage.

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, Virginia,” he continued, instructing her with his lips at her ear and his pleasantly scratchy chest against her back. “Whatever I say.”

  “Never happen,” she denied in breathless tones.

  “Watch,” he replied, an edge of amusement in his whisper. Kissing her shoulder, he brought his fingertip slicked with her teeming nectar to the rigid and acutely sensitized center of her mound. He touched her as lightly as a butterfly. She groaned aloud and arched against his hand, until he laid her on her back and kissed her all over her body.

  She was utterly enthralled as his mouth descended down her throat over her chest, where h
e surely heard the thunder of her wild heartbeat. He spent a good deal of time sucking her nipples, but soon he moved on.

  It was torture, waiting, as his lips skimmed down her belly, until at last he pleasured her with his mouth. She ran her fingers through his hair, writhing with his kisses, moans of bliss spilling from her lips. Her arching body begging for release, he made her scream with fraught delight in seconds, but by now, Nick was ready to go again.

  The cries of ecstasy had barely faded from her lips when he moved up to cover her with his body, and took her again. He kissed her with brazen aggression, dominating her just as he had promised. There was nothing she could do about it. Nothing she willed to do but anything he wished.

  She could taste herself on his lips as he threaded his fingers through hers, pinning her to the bed. “Is this what you wanted, my lady?” he growled in deep, primal knowing.

  “Oh, God, yes,” she gasped, swept up in her ravishment. She raked her nails down his back, as though marking him, in turn, for her own.

  And so it went throughout the night.

  He made love to her for hours as the white autumn moon sailed across the black November sky and cast its ancient glow of magic over Paris.

  Chapter 14

  Nick awoke the next morning with Virgil’s daughter sleeping in his arms, her head resting on his chest. Awareness returned gradually until he opened his eyes to find the flat gray light of morning filtering in through the closed doors of the balcony.

  He felt curiously calm. Everything was peaceful. That was the first thing he noticed.

  His constant companions, lo these many years—­anger and loneliness—­were noticeably absent. Gone. An anchor’s weight from which his heart had been unexpectedly cut free.

  He marveled at the light sensation as he listened to her breathing, slow and deep and restful, felt the play of each exhalation tickle his chest where he cradled her sweet head.

  For a moment, he stared at her, taking in the exquisite rightness of her being there—­just where she was, wrapped in his embrace. As if she were always meant to be there.