“Never ask a question you do not wish to have answered.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to her new companion, Humphrey, while debating the sinister intentions of her recently dismissed lady’s maid.
Somehow, she had convinced herself it could not be worse, that the gnawing pain of his rejection had been experienced to its fullest, and that hearing the truth would only confirm her worst suspicions, allowing her to finally untether herself from him.
But it was worse. Much worse.
She stumbled backward, her hand forming a claw at the center of her chest, needing to rip out her own heart. Needing the anguish to stop. Turning blindly for the door, her steps were awkward and unsynchronized, the world around her moving out of rhythm.
Someone was saying her name. Someone was holding her from behind.
“I must go,” she whispered.
“No, Jane. No.”
“I have to leave. I cannot stay here.”
“I will not let you go. I will never let you go.” The cry was an echo of hers—the same torment. The same need.
She squeezed her eyes shut, his body curving around hers from behind. His arms held her so fiercely, she nearly lost her breath.
“Jane,” he groaned, his voice raw, his face pressing into her neck. “My Jane.” His hands found hers where they pressed into her abdomen. He clasped one and brought it up to cup his cheek, holding it captive there. “Touch me. Please, Jane. Don’t go.”
He was holding her up, his arms strong, his heat surrounding her. But she was numb, not understanding why he would cling to her this way.
“You do not want me, Harrison.”
He turned his face and pressed his lips to her palm, cupping her fingers so they curved along his jaw. “I ache for you.”
She shook her head. “You ache for someone. Not me.”
“Only you.”
“No,” she whispered, her denial one of self-preservation. “I am tired, Harrison. Victoria has invited me to stay at Thornbridge. I shall leave with her tomorrow.”
“You cannot leave.”
“I cannot stay.”
“Why?” His voice was tortured.
For long moments, she debated telling him the truth. Everything inside her cried out not to reveal herself. But, in the end, her heart wanted its say. She turned in his arms, facing a man she had not seen since the night of her abduction. “You cut me too easily.”
Pain and confusion darkened his blue eyes to the color of an angry sea. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know it would not be your intention. But you also will never love me. Not as I love you.”
His head jerked back, his eyes flaring.
“Because I do, Harrison. I love you.”
“Do not say that.”
“Why not? It is true.” And it was surprisingly relieving to say aloud.
He pulled away from her, shaking his head. “You cannot love me.”
“So many admonitions,” she said, softly chiding. “I cannot love you. I cannot leave. Well, here are yours, my darling husband: You cannot prevent it. You cannot control it. You cannot control me.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
“Only for you.” She moved toward him, but he maintained the distance between them, retreating step for step. It made her more determined. Soon, she felt like a cat stalking a wolf. Most strange, indeed. “What do you fear, Harrison?” At last, she cornered him near the sofa. “You pull me closer, then push me away. You do not want me to love you, and yet you will not permit me to leave.”
“You are my wife. You belong here.”
Her body came within a breath of his, her neck craned to meet his troubled eyes. “Do I? Even you admit Mary Thorpe would have made a better Duchess of Blackmore.”
Angry indignation sparked in his eyes, the first flash of lightning across heavy clouds. “The devil I did. I would never say such a thing.”
Her mouth worked, struggling for words at his peculiar denial. “You—you just did, only minutes ago.”
“No. I said I would not have treated Lady Mary as I have treated you. And that is true.”
Jane tried twice to speak, succeeding on the third attempt. “What is the difference?”
He stiffened, his jaw clenching, his neck straightening. “It does not matter.”
“It matters very much to me.”
“You are a fine duchess. The only one I desire.”
“Why would you have treated her differently?”
He looked hunted, his eyes darting over her shoulder, then down to her bosom, then back up to her face. Looking as if he had decided something important, his chin came up a fraction, his gaze resolute. “She is not you. And you are my weakness.”
His weakness? She shook her head, now breathless. “That is … that is merely …”
His lips twisted. “Lust? No.” He stroked her cheek with heartrending tenderness. “I would kill for you. I very nearly did.”
In part, it was his words, spoken like a confession. But mostly, it was the way he looked at her—as though she were infinitely precious, as though he had mapped her heart and mirrored the pattern precisely. Jane’s body flooded with heat. Tingling sparks showered across her scalp and down her spine, trailing along her arms to her fingertips and down her legs to her toes. They lingered in her breasts and between her thighs, firing her blood. Cupping his hand against her face, she tilted her head and pressed a kiss to his thumb. He took her gesture as encouragement.
“The way I feel is dangerous, Jane. It is a fire. And it must be controlled.”
She moved into him, pressing her body against his, laying her head against his chest. Finally, she was beginning to understand. He had not gone cold because he found her wanting. He had retreated because he feared loving her.
“That fire burns inside me, too,” she confessed.
His lips rested against her hair. “Not the same,” he whispered. “I see you with other men, and I want to take them apart.”
“Earlier, I wished for Lady Mary to experience a calamitous indignity involving Cornelius and her slippers. That is unbecoming, perhaps, but not dangerous.”
“You don’t understand, Jane. Jealousy made my father beat a man so badly, he nearly died. I once believed I was nothing like him, but I now know the truth. He was cold because allowing his true nature free rein was unthinkable.”
She pulled away enough to see Harrison’s face. He looked quite grave. “Was this something that happened often with your father? Was he a violent man?”
A frown tugged at his brow. “No, at least, not that I ever knew. I only recently discovered the incident. Before they married, he was deeply infatuated with my mother. That came as a surprise to me.”
“They were not affectionate with one another?”
“My father was not affectionate with anyone.”
Including his son. Harrison didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. From everything he and Victoria had told her, she had a clear and unflattering picture of the man who had sired the man she loved. “And you believe the way your father dealt with his ‘true nature,’ as you call it, was worthy of imitation?”
Stiffening again, he pulled away and paced to his desk. “Can you suggest an alternative? Because I have tried, Jane. God knows I have.”
Walking toward him, she began to pull pins from her hair, letting the strands unravel and tumble down her back. Boldness had never come easily to Jane, but if ever a night called for it, this was the night. With Harrison, here, in this moment, she would be bolder than the Jane who had crept through Lord Milton’s window. She would be bolder than the plain Oddflower who had dared marry the catch of the season. She would be bolder than the duchess who had demanded two highborn, ill-mannered guests leave her home.
“As a matter of fact, I do have an idea,” she said, her voice dusky and low. Drawing up next to her tall, achingly handsome husband, she deliberately brushed his arm with the tips of her breasts.
He sucked in a breath and shifted until his thighs edged the desk.
She did not retreat, but moved around to his back, running her hands slowly up over his broad, muscled shoulders and arching until her breasts flattened against him. “What if, instead of dousing the fire …” She hooked her fingers inside his collar and tugged until his tailcoat began to peel off. “We let it rage.” Dropping the black coat to the floor, she next slid her hands around his waist. Her fingers reached beneath his waistcoat to grasp the linen hem of his shirt and pulled it clear of his trousers. “And you love me fully. With your entire soul. As I do you.” She unbuttoned the first few buttons of his fall, just enough to slip inside, where his cock greeted her with heat and hardness. “And we burn together.”
He gasped, groaned harshly, fell forward and caught himself with his hands on the dark wood. “Jane,” he panted as she squeezed and stroked. “I—I cannot love you.”
Her thumb swirled around the very tip, teasing and pleasuring, before she ringed the head with her fingers and tightened just the way he liked. Another groan rumbled through his chest and into her ear where it pressed against his back. “There’s the rub, my love,” she said, her own voice breathless with arousal. “You already do.”
In the next instant, he grasped her wrist, withdrew her hand, and pulled her around until the edge of the desk dug into her backside. His face was flushed and fierce, his need stark. “No,” he growled. “I will not love you.”
“You will. And quite thoroughly, I’ll venture.”
His breath sawing in and out, his cock furiously engorged and arched high against his belly, she could see he was close. But perhaps he needed another nudge.
“Furthermore,” she said, tugging her bodice and the cups of her corset down until the edge of the cloth scraped her nipples. “You will say it to me.” Her fingers delicately teased the hard tips forth from their covering, let the folds of fabric elevate her breasts impossibly high until they spilled over like ripened fruit, lush and swollen with summer’s heat. “Before this night is ended, you will say it.”
His control was near to breaking. She could see it in his eyes, transfixed on her flushed, hard, naked nipples. “This is madness,” he rasped. “You do not know what you are asking.”
“Hmm,” she purred. “Why don’t you show me?”
She expected him to kiss her. Harrison always kissed her. But he did not. His face near unrecognizable with lust, he moved so swiftly, she could not even take a breath, his hands clamping on her waist, spinning her around until her back was to him. The room tilted as he bent her forward over the desk, pressing his hand against her neck, pressing her aching nipples against the hard wood. Cool air whisked across her legs as he raised her skirts, tossing them up onto her back. Then came the warm slide of his fingers, moving through the slick folds between her legs. Two sank deep into her core, as his heated breath stroked her ear. “You wanted fire,” he growled. “This is what my fire feels like, wife.”
She moaned her pleasure, squeezing his fingers and wriggling her hips. He removed his fingers and replaced them with his cock. The thrust was ferocious—deep and hard enough to bring her up on her toes. His hips hammered into hers mercilessly, and she was helpless in his embrace, her core stretched and pleasured and on fire with the friction. He felt enormous from this angle, a force of nature demanding her obedience. But this was not everything. He must give her everything.
“Harrison,” she panted, grunting as his thrusts quickened. “Touch me, my love.”
Immediately, one of the hands gripping her hips loosened and glided up her back, the silk of her dress rustling as he passed, a counterpoint to the quiet slap of flesh, the heavy sawing of his breath. His hand tickled over her nape, curved over her jaw. His forefinger teased her lips, demanding entry. She opened for him, letting him slide inside, tasting herself on him. He withdrew his finger then gave her a second one. She circled it with her tongue, suckled briefly. His hand left her mouth and traveled back to her hip, where it curled around her thigh, sifted past her skirts, and used his wet fingers to lay a stunning kiss against her fiercely swollen bud.
The sensations were simply too much—too sharp, too intense. She cried his name, her core gripping furiously, her fists clenching on the desk, body demanding more. And he gave her more. But still, not enough.
Arching her back, she reached behind her to grasp his hand where it dug into her hip. “Come closer,” she rasped, her voice all but gone, so near climax, she felt it gathering in her toes.
He slowed his pace and, on the next thrust, held himself deep inside. It was almost too much. “Is this not close enough for you?”
She refused to release his hand, tugging until he bent forward over her, his face dropping next to hers. She pushed herself up until her back was warmed by his front, then brought his hand around to the center of her chest. “Say you love me,” she whispered. “For, this”—she tapped the back of his hand where it rested over her heart—“is yours. And I wish to have one for myself.”
“Ah, God, Jane.” His lips found her neck, his hips now thrusting in small, helpless movements. “I cannot.”
“Say it, Harrison. Say it, my love.”
“Nooo,” he groaned, his voice guttural and raw.
“It is all right. Just say it. I love you.”
His thrusts increased in power and pace once again, the sounds from his throat wordless pleas.
But she would show no mercy. He would say it. He would bloody well say it.
And then, as if something had shattered inside him, he pulled her in tight, his arms hard and relentless across her waist and her breasts. His lips dragged from her shoulder to her cheek.
The first time he said the words, she didn’t so much hear as feel them, a hot caress against her skin. “I love you.” Then once more, whispered louder. “I love you.” Soon, he was grunting the words, growling them in rhythm with his thrusts. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” Over and over. The climax that had been standing at the gates rushed in upon her with tidal force. She screamed her pleasure and clawed at his arms. Her hips writhed and ground back against his, and within seconds, he followed her into the abyss, filling her with his seed, taking her heart and giving her his own.
*~*~*