Chapter Five
Diana stood in the kitchen, pulling chunks of meat from the bones of the chicken she had just taken from the spit over the fire. She had always liked to cook and had done so for her father for years. The science of it was very similar to the science of poultices and tinctures, so the act felt familiar and soothing.
Not that it was working at present. Despite the occupation, her mind kept taking her back to thoughts of Lucas. It had been twenty-four hours since she had reopened and cleaned his wounds. He’d been sleeping ever since, a deep sleep of powerful pain and, she hoped, healing at last. He deserved that after the nightmare he’d been through over the past six months.
She’d checked on him nearly every hour. Told herself it was her duty as a healer, but that was only half the reason. The other half was the thing that kept her staring up at her ceiling in her bed. He had kissed her. Deeply and thoroughly and with all the experience a man of that type would have. She should have turned away, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t.
It was deeply disconcerting to admit that, even just to herself. But she’d felt a strange and powerful draw to Lucas from the moment she saw him. Something unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
She’d wanted that kiss. More and more with each passing hour she spent with him. Worse, she wanted another. That was why she came in to check on him. To study those surprisingly full lips. To consider what they would feel like if they touched hers again. If they brushed over her skin until she came completely undone.
“A very hazardous path,” she muttered as she speared the carcass and tugged more steaming chicken from the bone. “One you’ve traveled before, to your detriment.”
The Duke of Willowby was dangerous, full stop. There was nothing more to be said on the matter.
Except her mind kept saying a great deal more. Dangerous but so handsome. Dangerous but undeniably charismatic. Dangerous, but when he looked at her she wanted things she knew were wrong. Things that could destroy her entire world.
She shook her head, trying, for what had to be the hundredth time, to remove those wicked thoughts from her head. In her distraction, she moved her hand and grazed it along the side of the hot metal tong that was sticking out of the chicken’s middle. “Ouch!” she barked, lifting her hand to her lips to suck on the red flesh.
“Let me help.”
She turned and started at the sight of Lucas standing in the entryway of the kitchen, leaning on the doorjamb, his face pale. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair wild from sleep, but her body began to tingle nonetheless at the sight of him.
“What are you doing?” she asked, rushing forward to help him and forcing herself to focus on her role as healer, not wanton. “God’s teeth, you should sleep another day after what you endured.”
“Another day?” he repeated, his eyes going wide. “How long have I slept already?”
“Twenty-four hours, a little more, actually,” she said.
He tensed and his lips thinned. “What did you give me? Laudanum?”
She helped him to a seat. “Something like it, mixed into the poultice to help with the pain.”
“I don’t like laudanum. It makes me out of control,” he said softly.
She frowned as she lifted her hand to her mouth again. He caught it before she could reach her lips and turned it over to look at the minor burn that abraded the skin of her palm.
“You must have some magic for this,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers.
Once again she was captivated by his expression. Once again she lost the ability to think clearly and rationally. What was it about this man? What was it about herself that opened her to such thoughts and desires?
“I can make a quick mixture,” she admitted. “That will help it heal.”
“Let me,” he suggested, waving at the seat next to his. “Just tell me what to do.”
She pursed her lips but decided against arguing. After all, she could see that he would not allow her to do so. This man was accustomed to getting his way, just as she had suggested before. So she drew a long breath, then began to give him orders about which herbs to use and how to mix them for her. To her surprise, he followed her instructions to the letter, without so much as an argument.
She stared as he crushed the items with her mortar and pestle, his muscles working in his good arm as he ground them together. He was very focused on the work, his mouth drawn into a deep frown, his gaze on the bowl. She could see the spy in him then, motivated, driven, undeniable.
Entirely undeniable.
“Now what?” he asked.
She jumped, drawn from those unexpected, unwanted thoughts. “Er, we—we put it on the burn,” she stammered.
He turned toward her and smirked. “Well?”
She blinked. “Well, what?”
“Hold out your hand, Diana,” he said, leaning in close enough that she felt his warmth.
“Yes, yes, of course,” she breathed, and turned her hand over to show him the injury.
He spread the greenish paste he’d made across the burn. “Do you have a cloth to cover it?” he asked.
She nodded. “In the cupboard there.”
He moved away and she took the opportunity to suck in a few deep breaths. The tension, the spark between them…God, it was powerful. She felt like she was losing all control and it terrified and thrilled her all at once.
He returned, soft flannel cloth in hand. He met her eyes as he gently wrapped her palm. He only looked away to tie it off. She followed his gaze and frowned at the knot he had used. It seemed familiar somehow.
“Some would call that witchcraft, you know,” he said, plopping down next to her and stealing a piece of chicken from the plate where she’d been stripping the meat away.
She smiled, though his words made her stomach clench. “Indeed, you are right, even if you tease. Not that long ago I might have been accused of just that. Burned for it in some parts. Even now it isn’t as if people trust a woman in such a vocation.”
He examined her face closely, too closely, and she swallowed hard under his regard. What was he thinking?
“The female spies I’ve known over the years have said much the same,” he said at last. “Their talents are unseen. I suppose it would be just as difficult to gain the respect you deserve.”
She bent her head. “It is. But those who mattered gave it to me.”
She felt him still watching her, and his voice was strained when he said, “Your father, you mean.”
She caught her breath and stood, motioning to the chicken. “It’s good you came down, actually. You need some nutrition. It will help your body heal.”
“I’m so very glad you’re in the business of protecting my body,” he said, his voice suddenly rough.
She thrilled at the tone, knowing full well what it meant. Feeling her body call back to him no matter how wrong it was. To maintain some distance between them, she pivoted and found two plates. Quickly she dished out the chicken she’d been preparing, alongside carrots from the garden, which she had roasted in a wine sauce.
“Simple, but it is filling,” she said as she set the plate in front of him and one at her own place, which she took.
He arched a brow and took up a fork. He speared both a slice of chicken and a carrot at once, and his eyes lit up as he chewed them. “Excellent,” he said.
She laughed as she took her own bite. “You sound mightily surprised.”
“I am,” he admitted with a laugh as he all but poured the food down his throat. “I don’t know any ladies who can cook.”
She stiffened. “Well, I am not a lady.”
“You were a gentleman’s daughter,” he said softly. “And a gentlewoman yourself. Anyone with eyes can see you are a lady.”
“Hmmm.”
She’d hoped the noncommittal answer would veer him to other subjects, but of course it didn’t. He was focused now, driven, as spies tended to be when something struck them as odd.
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“Our housekeeper didn’t mind showing me when I expressed an interest. I suppose she hoped it would keep me off my father’s path. She was wrong, of course,” she said with a sigh. “In truth, Father liked me cooking, for it is very much like making medicines. There’s a recipe, a precision, a science.”
He chewed thoughtfully. “I can see that would be true.”
“When Mrs. Smith died, I took over in her role as housekeeper and cook for my father,” she explained. “And assistant, when he needed it.”
Lucas stared at her in what was clearly confusion. “He didn’t want…more for you?”
“More?” she asked, feigning a lack of understanding when she knew full well to what he referred.
“A life outside of his world,” he clarified. “A husband. Children.”
She flinched as she set her plate aside and broke her gaze from his. “I doubt my father thought of me in that way. To him I was a tool. To be trained and used as needed.”
“Didn’t you want more, Diana?” he asked. “Don’t you want more now?”
She pressed her lips together. He was dancing perilously close to an edge she could not risk gliding along. So instead she moved to take his empty plate. “May I get you something else?”
He shook his head and caught her wrist, keeping her from backing away. His hands were remarkably strong and she could see there would be no point in fighting. Worse, she didn’t want to fight. She liked the weight of his fingers against her skin. She liked the intensity in his stare as he looked up at her.
She liked the dance between them, even if she knew the outcome could be nothing good.
“I don’t want more. I’m not hungry.”
She swallowed hard. “I cannot imagine that is true, Lucas. You ate so quickly and—”
He tugged her a bit closer. “I’m not hungry for food.”
“Lucas,” she whispered, though she offered no resistance as he drew her down, slow as molasses, into his lap.
She settled there carefully and now they were face-to-face. His breath stirred her lips, and he never broke eye contact.
“You want what I want,” he whispered. “Or do you deny it?”
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice cracking.
He tilted his head, his expression challenging her, telling her he knew full well what she wanted. That she knew what he wanted too.
Which of course she did. There was no denying what he wanted. It was evident from the heavy length of his cock that pressed against her thigh as she sat in his lap. Evident by his dilated pupils and the way his hands clenched against her.
But he didn’t say those things. He didn’t say anything at all. He merely cupped the back of her head and drew her closer. And just like in his bedroom earlier in the day, she did nothing to resist him. In fact, she tilted her head, granting him greater access as his mouth met hers.
For the briefest of moments, the kiss was gentle. But then it shifted and suddenly she found her arms around him, she was lifting against him, his mouth was open, devouring her with passion that had been bubbling beneath the surface for days now. Finally it overflowed and she felt no desire to fight it or him.
She wanted this. After years of loneliness and grief and pain, she wanted something…good. And she wanted it now.
As if he sensed that, he pulled away. He was panting as he said, “Come upstairs with me, Diana.”
She swallowed hard. This was her opportunity to regain purchase over herself. To deny him, to deny herself, and do what any other person in good society would consider the right thing.
And yet, she didn’t do that. She stood, holding out her hand to him, and he took it. Slowly they made their way up the back stairs, down the short hallway. At the door to his chamber, he stopped and faced her.
“I need to be very clear, Diana—I want you. I want to make love to you. And under normal circumstances, I’d take the lead until you were begging beneath me. But such as I am—”
She lifted up on her tiptoes and pressed two fingers to his lips to silence him. “I know what to do,” she whispered as she reached around him to open the door.
His eyes grew wide, but he didn’t question as she backed him into the room, across it to the bed. He stopped there and winced as he reached up to remove his shirt. She stepped up to push his hands away and did it herself, unfastening and sliding the fabric gently from his shoulders until it fell behind him on the floor. She followed with his trousers, thankful that he was barefoot so they wouldn’t be impeded by her removing his boots.
And then he was naked, standing before her, and she stopped breathing.
She stared at him, just as she had every time she’d seen him this way. The first time she’d tried, and perhaps failed, to look at him with the eyes of a physician. Tried to see him as a body she was meant to repair.
Tonight she stared at him as a woman was meant to stare a man she would have as her own. She drank him in slowly, enjoying every inch of toned flesh, even the damaged ones that were hidden behind the bandage she had wrapped earlier. Her gaze flitted to the flat stomach, the narrow hips, and at last she settled on the hard cock that flared up in desire.
“I have not been touched by anyone but those meant to heal me in a very long time, Diana,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion as well as desire. “Please.”
She swallowed, for his words struck far too close to the core of her. She, too, had missed the touch of another person. A touch of love or desire or pleasure. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until the night he held her while she wept and reawakened all the desires she’d tried to pack away.
There was more than one way to heal, wasn’t there?
She moved forward, holding his gaze as she placed her hands flat against his chest. He hissed out a sound of pleasure, tracking her movements as she glided her fingers down his flesh, letting her thumbs flick at his flat nipples before she stroked them over his stomach.
“God’s teeth,” he grunted, dipping his head back as he used his good hand to balance himself on the bed.
She swelled with feminine power at the reaction. She liked making this powerful man tremble as he trembled now when she stroked just one fingertip along the length of his hard cock.
His eyes came open, spearing her with his gaze once more. As she teased him, he lifted his hands and unbuttoned her gown in a few deft motions that gave her a glimpse, once more, of what this man had been like before injury. She shuddered as he pushed the gown open and tugged it over her arms until it collapsed on the floor beneath her feet.
Her undergarments were simple, a short chemise over a pair of drawers. For once in her life, she wished she collected pretty underthings, but the plain cotton that separated her from him seemed not to bother him. He just stared at her, his pupils dilating until there was almost no brown left, his hands shaking as he slipped them under the straps of her chemise and pushed it down, lower and lower until her breasts were bared.
“Diana was a goddess,” he whispered as he bent his head and blew warm air against her nipples. They hardened, and sensation rushed through her as she thrust her fingers into his hair and tangled them into the unruly curls.
“Y-yes,” she said, her voice breaking.
“You are aptly named,” he murmured before he darted his tongue out and traced the hard peak of her nipple. He swirled his tongue around and around, and her knees nearly buckled at the pleasure. She found herself tugging him closer, holding him against her in a silent demand for more. For everything.
He chuckled against her flesh and looked up at her. “Shall we continue this on the bed?”
She nodded and watched as he took his place against the pillows. He lay on his good arm, propping himself up as he left a spot for her to join him.
She drew a long breath. Here was another of those chances to run away from this. From him. But she didn’t. Instead, she shimmied her drooping chemise away. He sat up a little more, stalking her with his gaze as she untied the bow at the waist of her drawers and slowly slid them down around her ankles, as well.
She was naked. They were naked. Once she got onto that bed with him, there would be no going back. He would touch her and she would touch him and everything would become moonlight and foggy pleasure. It would change everything about what she had agreed to do to help him.
And she wanted to do it despite all that.
She wanted to do it because of it. And because she had been alone and hurting for so long. Didn’t she deserve the pleasure this man promised with every turn of his head and blink of his eyes?
“Changing your mind?” he drawled.
She blinked and realized she’d been standing naked before him, musing on what would happen next. He didn’t look perturbed, though.
“Not that I don’t enjoy the view,” he continued. “But I do not take what isn’t fully and happily given, Diana. Once we do this, it cannot be taken back. And I can make no promises along with it. Not with my profession.”
She drew in a long breath. “I appreciate that honesty, Lucas. But I do not hesitate because I want promises. I would not ask for them, nor would I accept them if they were made.”
He examined her for a moment, then held out his hand. “Then we are of a mind.”
She nodded, and her own hand shook as she took his and joined him at last on the bed. She settled onto the pillows on her back beside him. For a moment he did nothing but look at her.
“I was not entirely honest,” he said at last.
She tensed. Dishonesty was to be expected but it terrified her nonetheless. “About what?” she forced herself to ask in a calm tone that belied her inner turmoil.
“I do make one promise.”
“And what is that?” she whispered.
“Pleasure,” he murmured, and then he placed his warm hand on her stomach, spreading his thick fingers across her flesh as she arched slightly against him out of pure instinct and desire.
“That’s all I ask from you, all I want,” she choked out.
She cupped the back of his head and drew him down, drowning once more in his kiss as he stroked those fingers lower, lower, to her hip, to her thighs, and finally he pushed her legs open a fraction and rested his palm against her sex.
She broke the kiss with a gasp. She had forgotten what it was like to be touched so intimately. To feel the rush of desire flow through her and to want so much more than just the brush of fingers. In that wild moment she wanted those fingers inside of her, she wanted his tongue, she wanted his cock. She wanted everything, and she shuddered with the power of that unfettered desire.
And also unbridled terror.
“Doesn’t this hurt, using your bad arm to—” she began, struggling to sit up and bring reality back to this wild fantasy.
He laughed softly. “Stop being a healer for the next…half an hour,” he said. His smile widened. “Or hour. If there’s pain, it’s worth it.”
As he spoke, he parted her folds and stroked his finger across her entrance. He was gentle as he did so, almost teasing. She collapsed back at the touch and arched, almost against her will at the sensation. When she glanced up, she found him watching her face. Watching her surrender.
“More,” she groaned, because she couldn’t resist anymore.
His eyes widened. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She caught her breath. He assumed she was untouched. That she was offering her virginity and he was trying his hardest to maintain control when he took it.
Her hands were shaking as she reached down and covered his hand with her own. She pressed him hard against her, feeling his finger breach her a fraction.
“There is nothing to hurt or to steal, Lucas,” she promised, her cheeks flaming as she whispered that confession. “Just touch me.”
He stared at her a moment, his eyes wide and filled with questions. She prayed that spy part of him, that part that investigated and prodded and examined, would be silent. That he would let her have her secrets and just give her what she wanted in return.
And her answer was given when he drove two fingers deep inside of her. She bore down against him with a gasp of pleasure. He grunted his own and began to stroke deeply within her. He curled them as he pressed his thumb against her clitoris. She was writhing now, taken instantly to the edge of madness. To the edge of pleasure.
He took it with his skillful fingers, drawing her to the brink and then dragging her over the cliff. She arched her back, digging her heels hard into the bed as wave after wave of pleasure tore through her. Changed her. Reminded her of all she wanted and all she’d lost. She cried out his name as she shook and clawed and pled for more and for less.
At last the spiraling sensation eased and she flopped back against the pillows with a sigh of relief. He removed his fingers, held her gaze and lifted them to his lips, where he sucked her essence from the tips.
She shuddered as desire flowed through her again. She wanted more. It was obvious he did too.
She sat up and cupped his cheeks, kissing him deeply, tasting herself on his tongue for a brief moment. Then she pushed him back, taking the pressure off his battered body and rolling him to his back.
“The goddess takes control?” he teased, though his voice was thick with wanting, not anything playful.
“If you want to be in control, consider it incentive for you to do as you’re told and heal,” she said as she straddled him, shivering as his cock slid against the apex of her body, but not yet positioning herself to take him inside.
“Incentive, indeed,” he growled as he sat up a fraction and tugged her down for another kiss. His fingers tugged tight on her head, leading her despite his precarious position.
She shifted, sliding a hand between them. She stroked his cock from base to tip once, then twice, feeling him twitch with pleasure against her. Then she maneuvered him to her slick entrance and glided down over him in one slow stroke.
He broke the kiss with a wild cry as she fully took him. His hips bucked, forcing her to thrust, and she gripped the pillows on either side of his head as she began to ride him hard and heavy and fast. He dragged her back into the kiss and she lost herself to passion she’d never thought she’d ever experience again. She pushed harder, grinding down against him, seeking the release she’d already had again. Wanting it with greedy, miserly desire.
He reared up beneath her, and that crash of their pelvises gave her what she desired. She cried out, driving her tongue into his mouth as she came for what felt like a blissful eternity. He caught her hips and kept her moving, drawing out her pleasure.
When she could refocus at last, she saw how his neck strained, how his breath was ragged. With a yelp, she moved away from him, caught the length of his cock and stroked him, keeping up the rhythm that had been created until he jolted out a cry and his essence spurted from him in heavy bursts.
She collapsed beside him, tucking herself into his good shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. He did not speak or ask her questions, she did not offer explanations or discussion. It was peace and quiet and gentle pleasure. And that was how she fell asleep, in his arms and in his bed.