She clung to his hand. “You owe me nothing. I have brought danger into your life. I do not expect you to aid me. It is asking far too much of you. Besides, you have Verity to worry about. Your first concern must be keeping her safe.”
His heart warmed, and more of the lingering doubts he held about her were chased away by her concern for his daughter. “This is the best way to keep her safe. Your brother must be stopped, Johanna, before he has the opportunity to hurt more innocents.”
Johanna nodded. “Yes, he must be. Violence is not the way to achieve political victories, and history has taught us that over and over. But I fear very much, where Drummond is concerned, that he enjoys inflicting pain upon others. This quest is not so much about Ireland as it is his desire to control others and to watch them suffer.”
Irish Home Rule was not an unworthy cause. Felix himself understood and agreed with it. What he did not agree with, however, was the Fenians’ attempts to strong-arm the government into getting what they wanted by putting innocents in danger.
“Are you prepared for what will come, after I contact Scotland Yard?” he pressed gently, for he could feel her trembling.
She took a deep breath. “I will do whatever I must. I have known, all along, that when the time came for me to go against Drummond, it would not be easy. But it is what is right.”
Felix did not dare reveal his connections to Scotland Yard, the Home Office, and the Special League with her. He was not yet certain he could trust her. Time would tell. For now, he had the information he needed from her. It was a beginning.
“You are a brave woman,” he told her, and this, at least, was truth.
Going against her brother’s edict and breaking the seal on the correspondence he had given her to make copies of the documents had been bold. Perhaps even foolhardy. And it was all the more reason why her remaining here with him was so imperative. When McKenna learned his sister had gone to Scotland Yard, he would be in a murderous rage, Felix had no doubt. If he wanted to keep such a valuable witness safe, he would have to see to her welfare himself.
Yes, that was the only reason he wanted her beneath his roof, he told himself.
Liar, accused a voice within him.
A voice he promptly ignored.
“I am not brave,” she denied, tears studding her lashes as she met his gaze. Her distress was palpable. “If I was, I would have taken a stand against him that first day. I would never have allowed him to control me.”
He thought of the girl she must have been, terrified and young, running from a father who beat her. Changing her name. Finding her own path. Christ, he could not fathom it.
An overwhelming surge of emotion hit him then, right in the chest. In the heart.
He didn’t think. He lowered his head. Kissed those tears. Stole them with his lips. Licked up their salty misery. He wanted to take away her pain. To thieve her fears. To hold her in his arms and keep her safe from her brother. Safe from all the world, from anyone who would do her harm or bring her sadness. To chase away her grief.
To keep her here with him.
Always.
That was a dangerous want. A ridiculous need. It made no sense.
But it was there, beating inside him. He pulled her closer, his arm still around the soft curve of her waist. She felt so right. Johanna fit against him perfectly. As if she belonged. As if she had always been meant to be tucked into him, right there at his side.
“Felix,” she whispered.
His name, that was all.
His undoing, that was everything.
He could not exist for another second without claiming her lips as his. When their mouths met, it was different from their last kisses. This kiss was gentle and soothing, two people lost in a maelstrom, seeking shelter and solace. Seeking each other. He went slowly, not opening his lips at first. Just pressing their mouths together, absorbing the silken heat of her, breathing in her breaths.
He ran his nose along hers, and somehow, his hand had come free of hers and found its way to her face. He caressed her cheek, where she was smoother, her skin as luxurious as velvet and every bit as soft. She made a helpless sound of need, and it sent him over the edge.
His restraint shattered. So, too, his control.
His fingers sank into her hair. Pins rained on the settee around them. He did not care. His mouth opened over hers with an almost savage insistence, but she answered him with a sigh. She opened for him, her tongue sliding against his. She tasted sweet, like the cocoa biscuits that were Verity’s favorite. He had requested them for breakfast that morning, hoping it would cheer her after all she had endured the night before.
But God, he did not think he would ever be able to consume one bite of them himself without thinking of Johanna. Without his cock going rigid in his trousers as it was now. One sip from her lips was all he required, it seemed, to become a ravening beast.
Because now, he could not stop. She was kissing him back with a desperation to match his. Her arms twined around his neck. And she was pressing nearer to him, her body wrapped around his until she was almost in his lap. The thought of her in his lap was enough to make him more rigid. His ballocks drew tight.
He wanted to haul her atop him, her thighs bracketing his so she was open to him. He wondered if her cunny would be as soft as the rest of her, if it would be wet, if she would taste just as sweet. And somehow, he knew she would. He imagined her skirts pooled around them on the bench of the settee, opening the fall of his trousers so he could slide into her hot sheath.
But he could not do something so depraved.
Could he?
No, said his rational mind.
Yes, said the rest of him.
The base animal within him, the one who had wanted to consume Johanna whole from the moment he had first laid eyes on her when she had commanded the stage at the Crown and Thorn, overtook him. And he was helpless to stop.
He pulled her into his lap in truth, never breaking their kiss. She went willingly. Easily. And she knew what he wanted, it seemed, because she wanted it, too. She straddled him on the settee, her skirts trapped between them. In his fantasy, he had not realized how voluminous they were, how the layers of her petticoats and silk and satin would become an impediment with which he needed to wrestle. But wrestle with them he did, until they were no longer a mountain pinned against him but a great, billowing waterfall.
One of his hands sank deeper into her luxurious golden curls, grabbing a handful in a gentle grip to angle her better for his kisses. The other went beneath her skirts. He skimmed over the warm curve of her hip, denied her flesh by her lacy drawers.
Until he reached the split.
Nothing could have prepared him for that first touch. He ran his fingers over her slick seam, parting her folds. She was wet, so damn wet. He groaned, wanting to taste her there, to slide his cock home. Not yet. For now, this was all he dared take. All he wanted her to give.
He found the plump bud of her sex and circled it with his forefinger. Johanna cried out, thrusting herself into his hand, grinding against him as if she could not get enough. He circled her again, then worked over her with firm, quick strokes. All the while, he continued to kiss her, swallowing her broken cries as the pleasure he gave her made her increasingly mindless.
She rocked against his hand, thrusting as if they were making love.
He broke the kiss at last, and urged her head back, wanting to watch her face. He slicked her dew back down to her opening, abandoning the greedy flesh he had been torturing. Holding her gaze with his, he slid a finger inside her.
Damn.
Her channel gripped him, and he was engulfed in tight heat. He moved his finger in and out of her in a slow, delicious rhythm, gratified when she moaned and clamped down on him, drawing him deeper. Her eyes were half closed, her breath coming in short pants.
Her mouth was red and swollen from his kisses, the tender skin around her lips pink from the stubble of the whiskers he had yet to shave. She had never been
more beautiful than she was now, wearing his marks, lost in the pleasure he was giving her.
He added another finger and fucked her deeper, finding a place that made her jerk and cry. She was so wet now that the sounds of him sliding in and out of her echoed erotically through the salon. He grazed over her pearl with his thumb as he moved.
She bit her lip. Her fingers were in his hair now, clasping fistfuls, tugging on him. And she was riding him, her body undulating along with the rhythm he had begun. What he wanted more than anything in that moment was to sink home inside her with his cock. But it was too soon, and he knew it. He would settle for this, for her dew dripping down his fingers, for the tight clamp of her. For watching her take her pleasure. The desire rolling over her features.
She was getting closer now.
Her body was tensing and her movements were increasingly jerky. The desperate little sounds she made drove him to the brink, but it was worth it just to watch her spend. He was a man with a purpose. He would not stop until she came, until she reached her pinnacle and shattered into a thousand little shards in his arms.
“I want you to spend for me,” he told her, moving faster, curling his finger slightly to reach that magical place inside her once more. “I want to watch you when you come.”
He had never in his life uttered such wicked words to another woman before. They were torn from him now. Edged with desperation. With a desire so potent and frenzied, he could not control it or himself.
But the words did not shock her. Instead, they seemed to push her over the edge. Her back bowed and she clamped down on his fingers, shuddering around him as she threw back her head. A low, lusty moan escaped her. He stayed with her, thrusting in and out until the last spasm rippled through her.
He withdrew from her, his heart hammering in his chest, his cock so hard he swore he was going to explode if she so much as shifted on his lap. But as desire thundered through him, he knew he could not finish what they had begun.
Indeed, he had never intended for things between them to progress so far.
Reality seemed to intrude upon Johanna’s bliss as well. She released her hold on him and scrambled from his lap, clapping a hand over her mouth.
“Johanna,” he began, “I am sorry. I had no intention of—”
“Nor did I,” she interrupted, flushing from head to toe as she shook out her skirts.
It was the same gown she had worn yesterday evening, and after a night running through the rain and a fire-damaged townhome, it had already been worse for wear. Being crumpled in his lap had not helped matters.
He stood, a throbbing, unfulfilled ache in his groin he did his best to ignore. “Forgive me, Johanna. I only meant to offer you comfort, not ravish you.”
Her color deepened, her fingers twisting in her skirts. “The fault is mine, Felix. I thank you for your kind offer of protection and for extending me your hospitality, but I think it best if I return to my hotel.”
With a curtsy, she turned and fled the salon before he could stop her.
Still rocked by what had just happened, he watched her flee.
And then, he could resist temptation no more. He raised his fingers to his lips and tasted her at last.
He had his answer.
She wasn’t just as sweet. She was sweeter.
And he had not a chance of resisting her.
Johanna fled.
It was her first reaction. Her instinct.
Over the threshold of the salon, down the hall to the main entrance. Out the front door. It was not until she reached the bustling street that she realized she had left behind her gloves, hat, and coat. The air was chilled, and one glance down at her bedraggled state, and she knew she looked a fright. Her thoughts were a reckless, rushing jumble, every bit as disheveled as her outward appearance.
She had no notion of what time it was.
No way of getting back to her hotel.
She was likely missing her rehearsals for the second straight day.
The Duke of Winchelsea’s fingers had been inside her.
At the last thought, another aching surge of pleasure throbbed between her thighs. The delicious languor of her spend was still licking through her body, still humming in her veins. No man had ever brought her to such a searing, delicious crescendo with nothing more than his fingers and his words.
His words.
Dear God, his words.
I want to watch you when you come.
And he had watched her. And she had come. The pleasure had been terrifically intense. Mind-numbing.
What had she done? She had entrusted all her secrets to a man she scarcely knew. And then she had entrusted herself to him as well.
She paced on the front walk, her hair wild and half-unbound around her shoulders, her mind an utter mess. Back and forth until she was dizzy with it. Carriages and hacks moved on the street with disinterest. The sounds were familiar: jangling tack, the distant dissonance of voices and wheels rumbling over the road. Last night’s deluge had given way to the morning’s fog.
What was she going to do now? She did not have her reticule, she realized. That, too had been left behind within the duke’s home. She was too prideful to make a return in her crazed state. She had just run as if fleeing a house aflame.
And for the wisdom of her actions, she may as well have been.
Once, long ago, she had entrusted herself to a man. He had been charming and handsome as well. He had kissed her and courted her. Patrick had been another actor in the first company she had ever toured with. And she had believed he had loved her. Had allowed him to pressure her into giving him her body. He had left in the night when he had discovered she was pregnant, and she had been alone to raise Pearl, as a girl of seventeen.
In all the years since, she had not allowed another man to touch her, unless it had been within the bonds of a scene. Acting was permissible. Trusting another man was not. Nine years had passed, and yet it would seem she was as foolish as she had ever been. She had not known the Duke of Winchelsea for two weeks, and already she had allowed him not just kisses but far, far more.
And allowing him anything at all was dangerous.
Reckless.
Stupid.
Because her heart—her wild, foolhardy heart—already felt things for him. Things she did not want to feel. That she had no right to feel. She was leaving soon. She would never see him again. And he was a duke, a man who had not invited her to his home until it had been burning down.
What was wrong with her?
She was making another pass of the walk when a man walking on the opposite side of the street caught her attention. It was a combination of his height and the way he moved that struck her as painfully familiar. He wore a hat pulled low, and his face was averted. But she paused, mid-stride, watching him.
For the second time in the last half hour, her heart was pounding frantically, but this time not because of desire but for another reason entirely.
Fear.
Raw, blistering, fear.
She was imagining things, she told herself. Drummond was not here in London. He would not be here, where he could be arrested at any moment. Where the police wanted to throw him into prison for life. He would never put himself at such risk.
And yet, she could not stop watching the man. He turned toward her slightly, as he walked, and their gazes met. Shock washed over her, making her mouth go dry. She was rooted to the spot, unable to move.
Good, sweet, Lord.
It was…
“Johanna!”
At the sound of Felix’s voice calling her, she turned instinctively to find him stalking down the walk after her, his expression clouded with worry. “Come back inside before you catch a chill. You don’t have your wrap.”
She wrenched her gaze back to the street, still robbed of speech, but the man was gone. Had it truly been Drummond? Her mind refused to believe it. How? And why?
Felix was behind her now, his hand on her shoulder as he gently turned her back to
him. He was frowning, his gaze searching. “What is the matter, Johanna? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”
And she felt almost as if she had.
She shuddered, inhaling slowly and forcing her racing heart to calm before attempting to explain. “I thought I saw my brother,” she managed. “In the street just now. But when I turned back, he was gone. I am certain it was my worried imagination, but it gave me a fright.”
Felix drew her into his side, his arm a comforting band around her waist. “Come back inside with me now. Whether or not it was your brother you saw, I promise you I will do my utmost to keep you safe, from this moment forward.”
“I cannot let you do that.” Sadness crept over her, the shame at her recklessness returning. She had given in to her weakness for him twice. She must not do so a third time. “I will look after myself, just as I always have.”
Because she had learned her lesson a long time ago, that no man could be trusted.
Including this one.
No matter how much she wanted to.
She gazed up at him, reminding herself this man, this duke, was not for her. He could not be. She was a danger to him and his daughter both. And there was no future for them together. She was leaving for Paris. He belonged here in London. She was an actress. He was a nobleman.
He was still frowning down at her, every inch the aristocrat. “You can let me, and you will, Johanna. If the man you saw in the streets just now is your brother, then you must allow me to help you.”
“Felix,” she began to protest.
“Johanna,” he interrupted. “You promised me.”
“I did not.” But part of her was vacillating now. Part of her wanted to accept the Duke of Winchelsea’s offer to keep her safe. To accept his every offer, and all his kisses, his every touch, too. To spend every night between now and the day she left for France in his bed.
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