One kiss had led to another, and then another, until they had both collapsed, sweaty and sated upon the bed, and neither one of them had been of a mind to move.
He had never before slept in the beds beneath this roof. This home had been for the slaking of mutual pleasure, nothing more. He had taken mistresses because he had possessed no interest in obtaining a new wife. Hattie had been the wife of his heart, and he could not bear the thought of tethering himself to another woman in the same way.
He had Verity to look after. Though he had the burden of his title and the need for a male heir, he had spent all the years since his period of mourning had officially come to an end—officially, for it had never stopped, in his heart—avoiding matrimony. No other woman could have compared.
No other woman could have matched the way Hattie had made him feel.
But then, Johanna had come along. And she had changed everything. She had made him aware, so keenly aware, of everything he was missing. She had brought him back to life in a way he had not imagined possible.
She was a complication he had never expected.
The last woman he should have allowed into his fragile heart after losing Hattie. Everything about her was wrong: her past, her brother, her future. What place could they have in each other’s lives? She was an American fleeing a desperate situation, an actress who earned her bread on the stage, one who intended to carry on to Paris and Lord knew where else after her time in London.
She would be gone then.
Out of reach. Nothing but a memory.
Something deep inside him railed against the thought of Johanna McKenna ever leaving his side.
And because she was here now, he could not resist kissing the top of her head, and then the tip of her nose. From there, he could not stop. He had to have her lips as well. And he did, kissing her awake.
She made a soft murmur and her arms wrapped around his neck.
Their tongues slid together in a slow, lusty rhythm.
His cock was instantly hard and ready. The night before had done nothing to slake his hunger for her. If anything, it had only made it grow stronger. He could not stop himself from rolling his hips into her, letting her feel the effect she had upon him.
She broke the kiss, tipping her head back to look at him.
What a sight she was, her golden curls a riot around her beautiful face, naked and sleepy and flushed.
“Good morning,” he murmured.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I thought I dreamt you.”
“I am all too real.”
She shifted against him, her eyes going wide, lips parting. “I feel that.”
She referred to his erection, which was painfully hard and ready for her, aching to be deep inside her once more. She moved against him, bringing him into contact with her hot cunny.
He reached between them, his fingers sliding over her folds. Bloody hell, she was already wet for him. He had not intended to stay the whole night. Nor had he intended to wake like this in the morning, voracious for her. But he had, and he was.
And unless he was mistaken, she felt the same.
“The hour is early,” he said, teasing her pearl. “Everyone else is likely still abed. Shall I go?”
She licked her lips, her pupils dilating wide. “I think…perhaps you should stay a bit.”
“Just for a bit?” he asked, tracing her seam before sinking one finger inside her.
“Oh,” she breathed, gripping him tight with her sheath, pulling him deeper. “Yes, you definitely must stay. But longer, I think. I am not sure a bit will be enough.”
Nothing would ever be enough when it came to her. He knew that much instinctively.
“Last night was…” He paused as he struggled to find words.
There were none.
“It was,” she agreed softly.
He had not just allowed this woman into his heart. She had made her home there.
He was in love with her.
Realization hit him in a blinding moment of clarity, so strong and undeniable, so shocking, he could do nothing. He stilled, staring at her. Losing himself in her eyes. Probably, he had fallen in love with her the moment he had heard her singing with Verity.
“Felix?” Johanna’s brow furrowed. “Is something amiss?”
Yes.
He was not meant to fall in love with her. Not with anyone. Indeed, he had not imagined such an emotion would be possible for him ever again. Not after losing Hattie as he had.
And now, he had fallen in love with the sister of his enemy. A woman who was connected to the Fenians he was sworn to defend his country against.
“Everything is well,” he forced himself to say. For in a sense, it was.
He had not felt such a sense of rightness in his chest since the day he had asked Hattie to be his bride. It seemed a lifetime ago now. He had been much younger. Not yet a duke. Not a father. The world had seemed so much simpler, the weight of responsibility so much less heavy.
“You are frowning,” she observed, glancing her fingers lightly over the grooves which had undoubtedly settled in his forehead.
That gentle touch was his undoing.
He nudged her fingertips with his nose, and then he kissed them, and then he withdrew his finger from her sheath, painting some of her dew lazily over her clitoris. She responded instantly, her body moving against his.
“I do not frown,” he told her slowly. “Not when a beautiful American is naked in my arms.”
“You are attempting to distract me,” she accused without heat.
He grinned, playing with her some more. “Is it working?”
“You know it is, you wicked man.”
“I am very wicked,” he agreed.
And he was, because he was going to make love to her again. And again. And he loved her, he knew her story, but he had yet to tell her his. He had yet to tell her the truth.
But he would not think upon that now, because Johanna’s hand had closed over his cock, and she was stroking him slowly. He thought he might die from the pleasure. Besides, they had time, yet, to plan a course of action. For the truth to be fully revealed between them.
“Bloody hell, woman, you are going to have me spending in your hand.”
Their lips met, and the kiss was long and deep, laden with promise.
She tipped her head back, breaking the kiss, her gazing meeting his. “I want you inside me, Felix.”
Those words from her lips.
God.
He was lost.
His cock was rigid and ready.
“Ride me,” he told her.
Her expression changed instantly to one of adorable befuddlement. She truly was an innocent, Miss Johanna McKenna. He would enjoy every moment of debauching her. He kissed her again, and then rolled onto his back.
“I will show you,” he said, the words emerging from him as a growl.
He positioned her over him, her hair a sweet-scented curtain of billowing golden curls. Her breasts were such pretty temptations, full and tipped with hard nipples he could not wait to suck. Gripping his cock with one hand, he guided her with the other.
She sank down on him, gripping him with her slick heat.
They sighed in unison at the pure bliss of it.
He was ballocks-deep inside her, and nothing had ever felt better. Until she began to move. She undulated slowly, and he helped her to find a rhythm. His hips were thrusting beneath her.
“Oh,” she moaned, arching her back.
He leaned up and caught her nipple in his mouth, suckling hard. She cried out and pumped against him wildly. Her breasts were as sensitive as her cunny. He liked that about her. In truth, he liked everything about her. The way she tasted. The way she drenched his cock whenever he said naughty things to her. The way she looked as she rode him.
She was uninhibited in her passion, and he liked that about her too.
He moved to her other breast, losing himself in the rhythm, in the delicious friction. Lo
sing himself in her. Her rump was moving in swift, sensual strokes as she took him deep and then slid back up, almost freeing his cock before sinking back down on him again.
Harder. Faster. Their rhythm was wild. He felt her tightening on him and knew she was near to spending. The sight of her fucking him alone was enough to make him come. But he could not release his seed inside her. He knew he must not. He could control himself. Prolong this delicious moment between them for as long as he could.
But then she lowered herself on him once more, and when she did, she came, clenching on his cock with so much force that he could not hold back the torrent of his own release. His restraint snapped. He spent inside her, coming with such ferocity that his vision went white around the edges. He emptied himself as the spasms of her own pleasure rocked her.
And though he knew it had been wrong, he could not summon up even a modicum of regret.
Mine, he thought to himself. Not just for now.
For forever.
Somehow, he had to make it so. Because he could not shake the feeling he had found the second chance he had sworn did not exist. Not a replacement for Hattie—no, never that. But someone he could love every bit as much.
Someone who might, he hoped, love him back.
Johanna woke once more to find herself in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed. As an actress, she had become well accustomed to changing beds, rooms, cities, states, countries. Nothing was permanent. She had never truly had a home, not since she had been fifteen, and the brick edifice she had inhabited along with her father and brother had hardly qualified as a home in the true sense.
She stretched, arching her back. The bed was more luxurious than she was accustomed to. So too the linens covering it. She felt as if she were enrobed in luxury. But she also felt deliciously languorous. All through her body was the steady pulse of sated desire.
Belatedly, she became aware of where she was: in Felix’s home. Of what she was wearing: not a blessed stitch. Of what she had done with him the night before. And in the midst of the night when the moon had been high over London. And again early this morning, when the sun had just been beginning its ascent.
She ached in strange places.
But she felt so strangely, wonderfully alive. As if the world around her had taken on a new, vibrant color. As if everything had changed.
Of course, that was silliness.
For nothing had changed except her determination to cling to her honor. She was still plain old Johanna McKenna, masquerading as Rose Beaumont, still a woman who needed to earn her wages at the Crown and Thorn tonight. Still the sort of woman the Duke of Winchelsea would never wed. The sort of woman he would make his mistress.
And take to his bed.
Just as he had.
Still, she could not regret what had passed between them. He was a risk she would willingly take. Whatever it was that burned whenever they were together was too hot, too magnetic, to be ignored. She could not help but to want more of it.
He was a generous lover, she had discovered, with a wicked side. Those beautifully molded aristocratic lips liked to say the filthiest things. And she loved it.
Because she loved him.
Johanna sat up in bed, clutching the bedclothes to her as the knowledge hit her with the force of a blow. Somehow, along the way, she had done the most foolish thing she could have possibly done. More foolish than giving her body to a duke she was bound to leave.
She had lost her heart to him.
She had fallen in love with such ease, she had not realized it was happening until it was too late to stop her feelings. But of course she had. He had done nothing but care for her and fret over her from the first. He was a wonderful father. Watching him with Verity had opened her eyes to a new, previously unseen facet of his personality.
She could not pinpoint now, as she sat there in the rumpled bed that still smelled of him and their lovemaking, when it had happened. Perhaps the fall had been gradual, a natural progression beginning from the day he had swept her from the ballroom at Mr. Saville’s and had proposed his wager with her. Certainly, it had been finalized the moment she had watched him chasing after his daughter, laughing with her.
And she loved his daughter too.
She saw in Verity not the daughter she had lost but a sweet girl with her father’s eyes. A young lady with an impish smile and a clever mind, but who was desperate to have a mother in her life. Johanna knew the feeling, because she was desperate to be a mother. Desperate for the only role she had never been fortunate enough to play twice.
She blinked back tears and threw the covers away from her, only belatedly recalling she was nude when cool morning air hit her. The fire which had been stoked the night before was nothing but a gentle glow on the opposite end of the room. She looked about for her dressing gown and found it with some difficulty, for it was not where she had discarded it in her mad rush to make love with Felix.
Johanna took a deep breath and shoved her arms through the sleeves of her robe with shaking hands. She could not dwell upon these unwanted emotions roiling through her. She did not belong here. Not beneath this roof, not in Felix and Verity’s gilded world, not even in this city, this country.
And every minute she tarried put the people she loved at risk of Drummond’s wrath.
Resolutely, she walked to the dresser where a basin and pitcher sat. She poured some cool water into the bowl and splashed it on her face, seeking to calm her rioting emotions. The first splash was a jolt to her senses. The second was almost calming. The third was necessary to stave off a rush of tears.
She closed her eyes, hunched over, her face dripping, the sleeves of her dressing gown damp reproaches against her wrists. She would have to leave this morning. Say goodbye to the little family she had just come to know and love. Goodbye to Felix and Verity.
But she had loved and lost before.
She could survive this, she told herself. Because she had to survive it. For Felix’s and Verity’s sakes.
Besides, even if she lingered, there was no future for her here. She would not be the secret he kept tucked away in this home, waiting until he replaced her with another. She had meant what she had told him what seemed a lifetime ago now. She would not be a kept woman. Not anyone’s, but most especially not his.
“The news is not good, I am afraid,” the Duke of Arden told Felix the moment he had entered the townhome’s small library later that morning, his expression grave.
“You have spoken with Ravenhurst,” Felix guessed.
Arden nodded. “He is refusing to make a concession for Miss McKenna.”
Raking a shaking hand through his hair, he paced away from Arden. Bloody hell, this was not what he wanted to hear. Not what he needed to hear, especially after last night.
“Why not?” he demanded, turning back to the duke.
Waking to Johanna in his arms had been nothing short of miraculous. He could still feel the sweet warmth of her curves, her bare skin pressing against his. For the first time in years, he had felt a connection with a woman that was deeper than desire. It was real and true, pounding through him.
He had vowed to protect her, and protect her he would. Because she was the woman he loved.
“Ravenhurst’s division has been watching her since her arrival in Liverpool,” Arden explained, his voice somber.
“I know all that,” Felix said dismissively. “I am the one who alerted the department of her impending arrival. I am the one who arranged the whole damned thing.”
And he felt sick over it now.
He felt as if he had betrayed her. Which was impossible, because he had not known her then. But he knew her now. As intimately as a man could know a woman.
“Ravenhurst tells me they saw her exchanging a parcel with another known Fenian they have been surveilling,” Arden continued then.
Fear knifed into him, along with the icy claws of dread. Damnation, the meeting he had witnessed that day in the Royal Aquarium. He had not seen any signs
of her having been followed. But if the man she had met with was being watched, it stood to reason she would have been seen as well.
“She did meet with a Fenian,” he agreed slowly, “but this, too, was at her brother’s behest. She copied the entire contents of the package before turning the parcel over to the man.”
“Christ, I was hoping you would tell me Ravenhurst was bluffing.” Arden scrubbed his hand along his jaw in agitation. “This is not good, Winchelsea. Not good at all.”
He could see, of course, where Arden was coming from. Hell, he could see where Ravenhurst was coming from. It all must look quite damning.
But it was not.
He knew it was not.
“I have the copies of the documents within the package in my possession,” he said. “Johanna intended to turn it over to Scotland Yard along with the dynamite.”
“So she says,” Arden pointed out, his mien more grim than it had been before. “You must understand how it appears to Ravenhurst. This female is entangled with Fenians. She smuggled dynamite into England—”
“At the behest of her brother, a villain who has perpetuated a reign of terror upon her,” Felix interrupted. “Damn it, Arden, she is an innocent in all this.”
“It hardly looks as if she is innocent,” Arden said. “If she were truly innocent, she would not have smuggled the dynamite and the correspondence to begin with. She would have refused her brother’s demands.”
“And have him beat her or worse?” Felix’s ire was fast getting the better of him, blood pumping through his veins, and he needed to move once more. To walk, to pace, to keep from smashing his fist through something.
Like the Duke of Arden’s face.
Because his quarrel was not with the Duke of Arden. Nor was it with Ravenhurst, who was only doing his duty as the chief of his division. Rather, it was with Drummond McKenna, just as it had always been.
“Do you have proof he beat her?” Arden asked softly.
Of course he did not, aside from the fear he had witnessed in Johanna’s eyes. The terror in her voice. The tears she had cried. Tears which he had tasted.
Scandalous Duke Page 18
