He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She pushed aside the little flare of jealousy Lady Winford’s attentions had caused. “You had to see it, feel it. And if you pursued it—”
His fingers tightened against her hip, cutting off her breath and her words. Great God, but she wanted him to do that without so many layers of silk in between the flesh.
“I don’t play like that,” he said, slowly and with a calm fortitude.
“No?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper as the song slowed and ended. “Then what is this with us?”
He stared at her without breaking contact, without gathering her to leave the dancefloor like everyone else was starting to do. “It’s not that,” he said at last.
Suddenly the room felt very close, not just with the desire that coursed through her body at those words. But also with the guilt. He was not playing a game with her. He said it and it was clear by the look in his warm brown eyes that he meant it. Whatever had sparked between them was genuine. And it was for her, too.
But she was willing to use it against him. No matter how wrong that was, no matter how little he deserved it. She was using his desire against him, stoking it and playing it. And in that moment, she hated herself for it.
She stepped away from him, heat burning her cheeks.
“Thank you for the dance, Mr. Huntington,” she choked out softly. She didn’t wait for him to reply, but turned and scurried away. She needed air, that was all. To regain her composure on the terrace away from this man who inspired feelings in her she had long ago put away. If that was possible.
She burst onto the terrace, gasping for air as she crossed to the low wall and gripped her fingers around the edge. The stone dug into her flesh, and she welcomed the pain because it forced her to be present, not relive every moment of her dance with Derrick.
“Please, won’t you finally tell me what is going on with you?”
She startled and pivoted to find Vale slipping from a darkened corner of the terrace. She was wearing a plain ball gown, but she was so lovely that it could have been a sackcloth and she would have belonged in the ballroom behind them.
“I didn’t know you were out here,” Selina gasped, lifting a hand to her chest. “What are you doing?”
Vale arched a brow. “I’m your companion in this farce we’re playing out, not your servant. It makes sense that I might join you for the ball to be of assistance and as your chaperone.”
“I suppose,” Selina said, fanning herself with her hand.
“I was watching you,” Vale said, stepping up beside her to look out over the garden with her. “Through the window with Huntington.”
Selina worried her lip. “There wasn’t much to see,” she said, lying and hoping to keep things light. “We danced. It was…boring.”
“Bollocks,” Vale whispered with a glance around to make certain the terrace was as empty as they both believed. “How long has it been since you had a lover?”
Selina tilted her head. “Getting a bit personal, are we?”
Vale smiled slightly. “We both know you aren’t a shrinking violet. It’s one of the things I admire most about you.”
Selina shrugged. “I don’t know, a month or two?”
“Then perhaps you’re just lonely. Being lonely can lead a person to make mistakes, so I have to ask you, Selina—are you getting confused when it comes to Huntington?”
“No!” Selina responded immediately, but Vale pierced her with a withering stare. She folded her arms. “Fine. Maybe. He is just…so…honorable.” She let out her breath in a huff. “Truly honorable. How can I—”
Vale snorted. “No one is truly honorable, Selina. And no one will take care of you but you, no matter how tightly he holds you on a dancefloor or how handsome he is.” Her voice gentled. “You know that.”
Selina let out a sigh. Her whole life she had known that. Depending on others had never ended well—she’d long ago stopped doing it. Selina held Vale closer than anyone else in the world. But even so, if Selina needed rescue, she still assumed she’d be rescuing herself. Old habits died very hard.
But now, watching her brother with his friends, watching Derrick and seeing how seriously he took his duty…
“I see kind people all around me,” she said softly. “Loving people, Vale. Caring people who help others without a thought of what they could get in return.”
Vale shook her head. “Don’t get soft on me, Selina. That’s the shortest route to an early death in our world.”
Selina clenched her teeth, but before she could respond, the door to the ballroom opened and Derrick himself stepped out. Selina’s breath caught, just as it always did when he stepped into her presence.
Vale arched a brow at the reaction and leaned in. “I’ll go see what I can find out about Lady Winford’s servants. Just be careful. Please.”
Vale nodded to Derrick as she slipped off into the dark again, off to do the wicked things Selina had rarely thought twice about. Until the man who stepped up to stand before her made her think twice about…everything.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“My companion, Vale Williams.”
“Ah.” He said nothing more, but held her stare evenly, keeping her in place as much as if he’d nailed her to the terrace floor.
She fought to find her feisty self again. The one that challenged him. But her mind was spinning and her heart was racing and she was reacting the way she shouldn’t, couldn’t. Had always told herself she wouldn’t.
Why did he do this? How?
He cleared his throat. “We were playing in there, I know, but I want to make clear that you can’t be involving yourself in my work.”
She folded her arms as a spark of annoyance flared in her. “You keep saying that. But perhaps I should make it clear that you shouldn’t underestimate people, especially those you don’t know. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
His eyes narrowed and she wished she could take those pointed words back. Especially when he said, “And what are you capable of?”
Panic flooded her, but she breathed into it. This man was no threat. No matter what he made her feel, she had the upper hand. And if she remembered that, she’d get out of this with her hide intact.
She forced calm and then stepped a little closer. She lifted her hand, watching him track the motion, and settled it on his hard chest. She clenched her fingers a touch, smoothing them along his jacket front. Watching his pupils dilate.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she whispered. Then she smiled and turned away, walking back into the house without another word. She could feel him watching her. She knew she had won this round in the game.
But she couldn’t feel good about it. It was becoming increasingly clear that this was the most dangerous game she’d ever played. And she feared the bitter consequences if she didn’t win.
Chapter 10
Two days after the ball, Derrick stood on the same terrace where Selina had whispered not to underestimate her, frustration pumping through his veins like a poison. Two days and he felt no closer to the identity of the Fox. Two days of watching and waiting and quietly questioning and all he had was a headache. The Fox seemed to leave no trace, no whisper in his wake.
Whoever he was, he was good.
And so was Selina. Derrick looked across the wide expanse of the parapet and found her instantly. Although there was a small party taking place around them, a tea with laughter and friends, she was alone by the terrace wall. Very near where he’d come out of the ballroom to find her two nights ago, actually. She looked off into the garden, the perfect image of repose and gentility.
Only that was a bloody lie. Over the past two days she had danced around him, smiling and winking and playing. Always near him, although she’d made what felt like a concerted effort not to directly speak to him. She was always off chatting with some other guest, enchanting them in a cloud of her boldness. Just like she did with h
im.
And what did she talk about? The same damned thing he was asking around about. How many times had he tried to ask a casual question about the necklace or the Fox and had his companion say, “Funny, Miss Oliver asked me the same thing.”
His jaw clenched just thinking about it. And looking at her in that pretty salmon-pink dress with the warm yellow highlights that seemed to draw his eye to every curve in her body. She just stood there being beautiful and he was going mad with it.
Madder still when she was approached by another guest. And not just any guest, but Lord Winford. Oh, he’d seen how the man looked at her over the past two days. Seen the ever-increasing leer. If Selina thought Lady Winford would give over secrets to him through seduction, certainly she would have equal luck with the earl.
And he hated it. Especially when she straightened, laughing at something the odious man had said to her. Seemingly oblivious to the way his gaze focused on a spot a foot below her eyes.
Lord Winford was dangerous. Derrick had gleaned that from the first interaction he had with the man. He had a cruel bent to him, a wickedness that radiated as much as the meanness of his wife. Derrick didn’t want Selina near him, let alone laughing at his blasted jokes.
He forced his fists to his sides, trying not to involve himself where he didn’t belong and cause a scene that could hurt his investigation. And he almost had himself under control when Selina looked past Winford in Derrick’s direction. She met his gaze, held there and then…she winked.
She bloody winked, and it was enough.
He crossed the terrace in a few long paces, fighting to retain some semblance of calm on his face, knowing he wasn’t by the way her eyes widened. Feeling it in the way Barber tracked him from the opposite side of the terrace where he stood with other guests. But it didn’t matter. Derrick was drawn to Selina like a magnet to metal.
He reached the pair, breathless with incandescent rage at her recklessness.
“Miss Oliver, Lord Winford,” he forced himself to say with what he hoped was a little politeness. “I hate to intrude, but I wonder if I may speak to you about that matter we were discussing earlier, Miss Oliver.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide for a moment, then glanced at Lord Winford, who looked mightily annoyed that his seduction attempt had been thwarted.
“Ah, yes,” she said slowly. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
“The library might be a good place to talk about it, since it’s in regards to that…that book,” he stammered, wishing he could manage himself a bit better.
“We’ll have to continue this conversation later, Lord Winford,” she said with an apologetic nod. “Lead the way, Mr.—”
She didn’t get to finish. He caught her elbow and guided her away, weaving through the crowd, hoping it didn’t look like he was dragging her when that was exactly what he was doing.
He pushed through the terrace doors from the parlor and took her through the room and down the hall. The library was a few paces away and he pulled her inside, shutting the door behind them. He stared at the ornate knob with its little key in the shape of a feather sticking from the lock. And slowly, he turned the key, even though he knew he shouldn’t. Then again, when it came to this woman, it seemed everything was what he knew he shouldn’t do. And it didn’t matter one fucking bit.
“Derrick, what are you thinking—” she said, apparently oblivious to the fact he’d locked the door.
“Lord Winford is not a safe person,” he snapped as he pivoted to face her. “You are being foolhardy.”
She arched a brow, the teasing back on her face. “Am I now? By speaking to a man in public view on my brother’s terrace? You think that is more foolhardy than dragging me into the library and locking the door?”
He flinched. So, she had noticed he’d locked them in. But she hadn’t protested. “I cannot have this conversation where we might be interrupted, Selina,” he said, but his voice was shaky. “It is too important.”
She was quiet a moment, then stepped a little closer. “Is a conversation what you want to have? Or is there some other reason you dragged me in here?”
“Selina,” he groaned, running a hand through his hair. “God, but you test me.”
“Are you passing or failing?”
He glared at her, but she winked again in return, and the frayed rope of his control, the one he had managed and controlled all his life…snapped. He barreled across the room and caught both her arms, pulling her against him hard. He looked down at her, expecting her to find fear in her eyes or some kind of regret at pushing him so far.
But instead, she looked up at him…and she smiled. And in that moment he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking what he wanted, no matter what a mistake it was going to turn out to be. He leaned down and his mouth crushed to hers, hard and hungry, and he claimed, at last, what he had been denying himself for days.
Selina had known that when Derrick’s control finally broke it would be spectacular, but this was explosive. His mouth crushed against hers, devouring as their tongues tangled. His fingertips dug into her arms, holding her hostage against his hard, hot body. She didn’t want to escape him, and she also didn’t want him to loosen his grip. She nipped his lower lip and he growled from deep in his chest, backing her across the room.
They hit the wall with a thud, and his hands dragged away from her arms and found her hips. His mouth still hard on hers, he ground against her, his hard cock pressing into her belly as she lifted up against him with a muffled moan of pleasure. Yes, that’s what she wanted, what she needed. And not just as a means to control this man.
As a means to everything.
He glided one hand to the back of her thigh, his fingers burning through her gown as he hitched her leg up. She locked it around his own leg and lifted as he thrust so that he hit her sex with every grinding movement. Pleasure arced, muted by the clothing between them, but already hot and powerful regardless.
She whimpered as she tugged at his jacket, shoving it down, dragging her lips away from his to lick along his jawline, bite his chin. He slammed against her again and her vision blurred. Christ, but he’d make her come before he had her skirts lifted.
She slid her hands down his sides, clenching against hard muscle, over his hips that churned against hers. Somehow she managed to wedge a hand between them, and he froze as she rubbed his cock through the rough fabric of his trousers. They held gazes, panting in time as she stroked him over and over. His eyes fluttered shut and he let out a low groan.
She smiled as she unfastened his fall front and tugged the loose fabric away. His cock bobbed free, pressing to her palm in heated insistence. She swallowed hard as she stroked him again, this time without impediment. Oh yes, this was going to be fun, because it was a fine cock. Thick and hard and perfect in every way.
He opened his eyes again as she stroked him, his pupils so dilated there was hardly any brown left in the circles. He tugged at her skirts, pushing them up, past her knee, over her thigh. His hands moved beneath, tracing the line of her legs, his fingernails abrading gently and making her twitch with pleasure. He shoved her drawers open at the slit and stroked his fingers across her, coating them with her wetness.
“Fuck,” he muttered, she thought more to himself than to her. He peeled her open, thumb finding her clitoris, and for a moment they just rubbed each other, eyes locked, challenging and surrendering all at once.
She was drowning in him. She felt herself going under with every expert flick of his fingers against her. Pleasure pulsed, harder, faster. She was going to come, that was a certainty. But she didn’t want it to be against his fingers, nor him into her palm. She lifted slightly, and he nodded at the unspoken request and moved his hand.
She guided him to her and he helped by lifting her, pressing her hard against the wall as he slid into her in one long thrust. She cried out at the pleasure of him stretching her, then buried her head in his shoulder so the rest of her cries wouldn’t bring
the servants running to her aid.
And as she had hoped he would, Derrick fucked her. Hard and heavy and fast, he pinioned his hips against hers. Their mouths met again, and she lost herself in all the sensations of mouth and tongue and teeth and cock. He wasn’t gentle and she didn’t want that. She wanted his passion and he gave that gift freely.
His pelvis swirled against hers, she clenched in time and the pleasure that had been mounting between her legs since the moment he crossed the room like a bull to a matador finally exploded. She thrust out of control, digging her fingers into his back for purchase as an orgasm more powerful than anything she’d ever felt before ripped through her body.
He gave her no respite, taking and taking and taking until her head lolled back against the wall and her breath was nothing but short gasps. Only then did he withdraw, and with a long, heavy groan, he came against his hand.
He didn’t part their bodies for a moment, but kept her helplessly pinned to the wall as he gasped for breath. She stared at him, the thin sheen of sweat on his brow, the utterly sated look on his face. She couldn’t help herself. Pressing his control was too fun. She glided her hand back between them and caught his cock once more, stroking him, using his own essence as lubricant. He jerked against her with a cry as he glared at her and made her pussy flutter once more with need.
He set her down slowly, sliding her down the length of his body as he did so. When her feet were on the ground, she stared up at him. It was a funny thing. When he took her, that was such an intimate act. But right now when he was just standing there, staring into her eyes, she felt much more vulnerable.
So she slipped away to push her skirts back into place around her hips. She kept her eyes from him as she stepped up to the mirror above the fireplace and checked herself. She looked flushed, well-pleasured, but it wasn’t something that anyone else might notice when she went back to the party on the terrace.
The Heart of a Hellion Page 10
