He’d never known that pleasing a woman could affect a man so deeply. But then he’d never made love to woman like Rosalind, who put her whole heart into it, who enjoyed the pleasure unabashed. It left him in awe. And rampantly aroused.
When she’d come to her senses enough to look at him through eyes still dazed with satisfaction, he said urgently, “My turn.”
While she watched heavy-lidded, he stood and tore off his trousers, then his drawers, popping off buttons in his haste. Dragging her to a stand, he embraced her a moment, kissing her, fondling her breasts as she swayed into him, still dizzy with her own pleasure.
Then he sat down on the settee and drew her toward him. He’d intended to have her straddle his lap, but before he could maneuver her there, she dropped to her knees at his feet. “What are you doing?” he growled.
“You said it was your turn,” she whispered, gazing up at him bewildered. “Isn’t this what you meant? Can’t a woman do to a man what you did to me with your mouth?”
While he gaped at her, she leaned forward and kissed his cock on the very tip. The damned thing nearly shot its seed right then, and it took all his control to haul her up onto his lap instead of shoving his flesh into her darling mouth.
“But Griff,” she said, staring at him in perfect innocence as he positioned her astride his lap, “do women not—”
“Sometimes, yes,” he said hoarsely. “But tonight that would bring our lovemaking to a quick end, so we’d best save that variation for another time.”
“Another time,” she echoed with a hint of regret.
He groaned. Would she ever stop amazing him? Nobody but the most experienced whore had ever offered her mouth to him like that, so her offering it was an astounding gift. He shouldn’t be surprised, however, that his inquisitive darling would show interest in all the delights of love, even ones most women found disgusting. Indeed, she was already staring down at his rigid member with obvious curiosity.
“What I meant by ‘my turn,’” he rasped, “is that I want to sheathe my ‘sword’ inside you now.” Under her avid look, his cock behaved…well…damned cocky. He filled his hands with her ample breasts, tugging eagerly at the satiny nipples.
Her face flushed as she lifted her eyes to his. “While we’re…like this?”
“Oh, yes. You might find it interesting.” God knows he was finding it fascinating to have her honeypot so deliciously exposed on his bare thighs. “Can you guess what to do or shall I show you?”
A purely feline smile curved up her lush lips. “I think I can guess.” With an uncanny instinct, she raised herself up and slid down on him so slowly, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.
“God, Rosalind…yes…oh, my darling…” He grabbed her hips and shifted her until she fit against him as tightly as the position would allow.
She clutched at his shoulders and stared down into his face. “Now what?”
“Now you make love to me…as I made love to you this afternoon,” he managed to explain, though the intense pleasure of being inside her honeyed body muddled all his thoughts.
“You mean like this?” she asked, rising up and coming back down on him, glove-tight and hot and glorious.
He was too far gone to do more than nod and thrust his hips up to urge her into continuing the motion.
But she was a quick study, his Athena, riding him into battle with her copper-tinged hair for a banner and her generous bosom for a breastplate. Now that he’d given her the chance to take control, she seized it like the battle goddess she was, flaunting her sensual power, her body clamping around his cock with an urgency that matched his own. By God, she would kill him for sure. And he hoped she did it often.
She gazed down at him, eyes alight, her hair a glorious tangle of damp curls about her face and shoulders. “Is this considered…very naughty?”
“Very,” he bit out. “But we bastards…are a naughty lot…and we like our women naughty.” He dragged her head down to kiss her, twining her hair about his hand.
With his other hand he caressed her breast. He loved her magnificent breasts. Merely touching them made him ache to taste them, so he broke off the kiss to fasten his mouth around one large, plum-hued nipple. When she gasped, he tugged hard at the sweet tip with his teeth and was rewarded this time with her long groan of pleasure.
He thrust up into her faster, and she quickened her pace in instant response to his rhythm. She rode him hard, his Amazon, sheathing him in hot silk, sucking him into her as if to steal his strength. He’d relinquish it willingly as long as she used it always for this, ever for this.
Soon the drive to fulfillment became too much to withstand. He was near to exploding, so he felt for the tiny nub nestled between her legs, stroking it to make sure she found her release, too. Then they finished the battle together, the drumbeat rhythm of their joining erupting into a climax so shattering they both uttered a cry as they succumbed to the victory, and he spent himself inside her.
As she collapsed against him, he clutched her tightly, possessed by a fierce joy unlike any he’d ever known. She was his, his, damn it. He’d never let her go.
He stroked her tousled hair from her face and pressed a kiss to her temple. He’d never thought to find such a wonder in Warwickshire. He only wished Swanlea had invited him sooner, for he begrudged every day he’d lived without her.
Sated and pleasantly tired, he lay down on the settee and pulled her on top of him. With a sigh, she settled her body on his. Though she wasn’t exactly light, he liked having her weight on him, liked having her heavy breasts crushed to his chest, and her head tucked against his shoulder.
Rosalind, however, could hardly bear to have him holding her so intimately, knowing that she’d soon be leaving him. But when she tried to move off, he murmured, “Stay here a while, darling. I want to hold you.” A hint of humor tinged his voice. “Besides, if you move, you’ll stir up my St. Peter again.”
She propped her chin on his chest and stared into his roguish face. “You have a very willful St. Peter, Mr. Knighton. Can’t you control the thing?”
He grinned and suggestively thrust his barely subdued St. Peter up between her legs. “Apparently not. Besides, I see no reason to control it when your honeypot is so handy.”
“H-Honeypot?” she choked out, fighting back a blush. “Don’t tell me there are terms for a woman’s privates, too.”
“Probably as many as for a man’s.”
“Are any of those terms by Shakespeare?” she asked dryly. Really, men could be such children sometimes.
He chuckled. “Actually, yes. There’s one you’d probably like—Venus’s glove. You can generally tell what’s meant from the context of the passage. Especially now that you know exactly how all your private parts work.”
This was what she’d miss most about Griff. He never found her outrageous or shocking. Well, hardly ever. Even when he did, it seemed to excite rather than appall him. Dropping her gaze, she traced a figure on his chest with one finger, melancholy at the thought that she’d soon leave him.
He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. “I can guess what you and I will be doing with our nights—other than making love, that is. You’re going to work your way through Shakespeare deciphering all the naughty parts, aren’t you, my love?”
“I am not!” she protested, then stilled. My love. He’d never called her that before. She clung to him in a terrible confusion. Perhaps she was being too hasty in her decision to leave for London. Perhaps…
Curse him, she’d known this would happen if she let him seduce her. She’d known he would turn her heart upside down. Feeling lost, she slid off him and crossed to where her gown lay.
“Where are you going?” he asked in a rumbling voice.
“I thought I’d dress. It’s late, you know.” Too late.
“I’d hoped to stay here a while longer.”
If only they could…But no, that wouldn’t do. “We can’t, Griff. Someone might find us.” She needed t
ime to make her decision. Because if she did leave, it should be as soon as possible or he’d catch up to her easily on the road.
She also needed to talk to Helena. Helena would help her either way.
He propped himself up on one elbow. “Very well. We’ll move to your room.”
She stifled a groan. “No, we won’t. If we go there, we’re liable to fall asleep, and the maid will find us together in the morning.”
“Who cares? We’re marrying anyway.”
She thought quickly. “I know…but…It would be embarrassing.” She drew on her gown, trying to ignore the disappointment in his face.
“All right. I suppose I can wait until we’re married.” He sat up and stretched his legs out, obviously quite self-satisfied and completely unabashed about his nudity.
“Aren’t you going to dress?” she asked when he just sat there. She fastened her gown.
“What’s your hurry? I’ll dress in a minute.” He shot her a rakish grin. “I’d rather watch you dress.”
With a low curse, she strode over to where his clothes were piled and began tossing them at him. “Well, you can’t. I’d be mortified if some servant found us in here alone together.” She started to throw his coat to him, then halted when something fell out of it. A folded sheet of vellum.
She stared down at it, her heart sinking into her stomach. In a daze, she bent to pick it up. Though she unfolded it, there was no reason. She knew what it was. It shouldn’t even surprise her, yet it did. She’d almost begun to think he might care for her.
A deep sadness stole over her. She should have known better. To him, she was simply one more acquisition—the adoring wife who happened to also be a wanton. But certainly no one whose feelings would require him changing his plans.
Woodenly, she tucked the paper back into the coat pocket and walked to him. As she handed him his coat, tears welled in her eyes. He must have seen them, for he caught her by the hand before she could escape. “Rosalind—”
“I see that your haste to run after me didn’t prevent you from grabbing the certificate first. God forbid you should leave that behind.” Only then had he followed her to make his insincere declarations. “At least I know where I stand with you.”
She tried to tug free of his hand, but he wouldn’t let her. “This has nothing to do with you or how I feel about you. It’s business, that’s all.” When she refused to look at him, he softened his tone. “If I don’t attend to business, darling, we won’t eat, will we?”
It was Papa’s I-am-the-man-so-I-know-best tone of voice, the one that always infuriated her. To have Griff use it only proved her worst fears about him. “Don’t speak to me as if I’m some witless female. You’ve never done so before, so don’t you dare start now. We both know this isn’t about business, and it certainly has no effect on whether anyone eats.”
Muttering an oath, he dropped her hand and began pulling on his drawers with jerky movements. “Then what do you think it’s about? I assure you, if I wanted vengeance against your father, I’d choose something more devastating than the mere loss of his title. I could have bedded you and refused to marry you, you realize. I could have ruined him financially fifteen times over. For God’s sake, I could have had him poisoned! But that would have been pointless, foolish, and yes, morally wrong. Despite what you think of me, I do have morals. I should think you’d know me well enough to realize I wouldn’t do this for something as petty as vengeance.”
“No, you’d do it for something as petty as ambition.”
Leaping to his feet, he began to pace in front of the settee. “Ambition is not petty. Without it, there’d be no Knighton Trading. I see no reason why I should ruin my firm’s chances to garner a large share of the Chinese trade simply because you don’t want a few people speaking badly of your sisters.”
She tossed back her head. “You know me, Griff—I’m not as ‘practical’ as you. I happen to care more about people than property or your bloody company’s success.”
“You care about your family perhaps, but not me. You’d rather save your sisters from gossip than see me succeed. I am practical, thank God. I don’t listen to nonsense like gossip when making decisions that benefit my company and its many employees.”
Oh, he made it sound so noble. He made it sound as if she were the one selfishly pursuing her own interests. But she wasn’t fooled. She’d heard the emotion in his voice earlier when he’d confronted her father, when he’d spoken of the pain of being a bastard. This ran deeper than any “practical” reason.
The truth came to her in a flash of insight, a simple truth that tore her heart. “Keep telling yourself this is all for the benefit of your employees, but you know better. The truth is, you do care about nonsense like gossip. You care too much.”
Her throat felt raw with anguish, for him as well as for her. “You hate being denied your legitimacy. You resent all those who call you bastard, all those in society who dismiss you for consorting with criminals, all the lords who still won’t let you into their little circle because you’re illegitimate. You want that title, and you want it publicly, so you can grind their noses in it and make them see that you were unfairly wronged by all of them, that you’re better than what they always thought.”
His stricken expression proved that she’d hit it exactly.
She went on. “You’ve tried to prove yourself with your success, yet it hasn’t satisfied you, so you intend to find a bigger, more impressive way to do it. That’s the real reason you’re willing to sacrifice anything and anybody to gain your title, isn’t it?”
“Like hell it is!” he hissed, but his face said otherwise. His lifelong hurt and humiliation and anger drove him.
He needed to prove himself to his naysayers, yet he’d never succeed. He’d never be satisfied, no matter what pinnacle he reached, because someone would always hold him in contempt. Besides, what he really wanted was to fill the empty space where his heart should be, and those ridiculous men in the House of Lords couldn’t do that for him.
“I’m so very sorry that my father did this to you, Griff. If I could change what happened, I’d do it in an instant. I’d remove your pain if I could. But I can’t. You must do it yourself. And you’re going about it all wrong.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” he ground out, “but it changes nothing.”
“Yes, I know.” That’s why she couldn’t marry him, why she must leave tonight. Because her opinion would never change anything for him as long as his past entangled him so inexorably.
She hurried to the door, but he got there first and braced his hand against it. “It changes nothing,” he repeated. “We’ll be married, no matter how our opinions differ on this. You admitted you cared for me despite my supposed faults, and I won’t let you take it back, damn it!”
She gazed up at his dear face, her stomach knotting painfully. She’d probably not see it again for some time. In a burst of tenderness, she laid her hand across his rigid cheek. Her poor fierce, tormented griffin. She now knew why he hoarded treasure and tore apart his enemies. Someone had stolen his treasure long ago, and now he only felt safe when amassing ever greater quantities of it.
Unfortunately, there was no place for love in the midst of all that amassing of treasure, was there? There was no place for her, whether he admitted it or not.
“I do care for you,” she whispered. “I love you, and that is my curse. But you don’t know how to love—and that is yours.”
When she finally dropped her hand and slipped from the room, she didn’t look back.
Chapter 21
Faith, Sir, we are here today, and gone tomorrow.
Aphra Behn, English playwright, The Lucky Chance
I love you, and that is my curse. But you don’t know how to love—and that is yours.
Long after she left, Griff sat on the settee in his drawers, fingering his parents’ marriage certificate and staring blindly at the Swanlea coat of arms on the wall across from him.
Ros
alind loved him. His Amazon said she loved him, and he knew she meant it. She might have used a deceptive ploy or two in her attempt to save her family, but he knew her character. When it came to matters of the heart, she didn’t lie.
He tossed the certificate aside and buried his face in his hands. Goddamn it, she loved him? What was he to make of that? He’d never believed in romantic love. Familial love, yes. But romantic love was a fanciful term women used for physical desire, nothing more. Or so he’d always told himself.
Now he wasn’t so sure. Unlike most women, Rosalind seemed to feel no need to call her physical desires by another name. She accepted them, even reveled in them. For God’s sake, how many gently bred women would engage in a frank discussion of the euphemisms for one’s privates? Rosalind might rail against her desires for conflicting with her morality, and she might rail against him for rousing her desires, but she didn’t pretend they were something else—like love.
No, if she said she loved him, then she did. The thought terrified him.
Affection he could handle. He felt a great deal of affection for her, too. But Rosalind in love…By God, the woman never did anything by halves. If she’d given him her love, she’d given her whole heart into his keeping.
Now what was he supposed to do with it? How could he ever satisfy her, please her if she wanted love from him in return? She was right—he didn’t know how to love. He hadn’t the faintest idea.
Feeling as if someone had punched him hard in the chest, he rose and mechanically began to dress. What of her other accusation about his reasons for wanting the certificate?
He scowled. She was wrong about that, completely wrong. Rosalind was merely being her usual suspicious self and seeing deep meaning where there was none. He did not want to “grind their noses in it,” as she had put it. That wasn’t it at all.
A Dangerous Love Page 28
