A Dangerous Love by Sabrina Jeffries (11)

Griff trudged up the servants’ stairs, weary to the bone and hungry besides. It must be near time for dinner. He usually didn’t search for so long, but if Rosalind had held to her word her footman would be gone, so who’d notice? She could hardly sit outside his door waiting. And if she did, it would serve the vixen right to wait a long time.

As usual, he’d found nothing. There were plenty of documents—he’d even stumbled across the family Bible with its list of marriages, births, and deaths—but his parents’ marriage had not been recorded at all. And he’d found no sign of his parents’ marriage certificate.

Damnation. The earl must have a safe secreted away somewhere, probably in his room. That was where Griff really needed to look—but the old bastard never left his bed. And Daniel had given Griff only three more days.

Daniel, that self-righteous scoundrel. They’d never been at odds before, not like this. With his sleeve, Griff wiped the sweat from his grimy brow, streaking soot across the lawn fabric. He stared at it in the staircase’s dim candlelight. Long ago, he wouldn’t have soiled his shirt so heedlessly, for every shirt cost him more than he could afford. Now he could soil them at will, even throw them away if he liked.

Since when is a title or an estate so important to you? You have all the money you need, and Knighton Trading is doing well.

His hand balled into a fist. Daniel would never understand. It wasn’t about money. It was about making Knighton Trading strong and powerful, worthy of respect. In his small-minded way, Daniel failed to consider the larger good—the people Griff employed, the trade that would be stimulated. How dare the man imply that Griff had only vengeance in mind, that he merely sought to further some petty ambition? Daniel was wrong, and he’d surely see it in time.

Griff reached the piled-up footstools, broken chairs, and bric-a-brac and climbed warily over them. On his first trip down the stairs, when his leg had fallen through a step, he’d discovered exactly why the servants never used this route. Now he was more careful where he trod.

At least he no longer needed to do this too often, not with Rosalind calling off her footman. He only hoped it didn’t mean a renewal of her appearances at his side—that was one war he was rapidly losing.

All his tactics to put her off succeeded only in arousing him. When they were together, it was a veritable feast of sensual innuendo. The first course—her searing questions. The second—his spicy answers. The third—her delicate blushes. Then it all repeated again in endless stimulating variations until it finished with him wanting her for dessert.

What had started as a method to drive her away had become a dangerous erotic game, one that could only end with her in his bed.

He shook off the thought. That was impossible, of course. Seducing a virgin was unacceptable. He had no intention of marrying her, and she certainly had no desire to marry him. So why did he persist in thinking of it?

Because the woman was an “original” in every sense of that overused appellation. Wealth didn’t impress her; flattery didn’t sway her. She ordered everybody in the household about, yet her servants spoke fondly of her, and her footmen sang her praises endlessly. She had an annoying tendency to call a spoon a spade, yet her wildest plans often succeeded despite her haphazard manner of executing them. He’d even grown to like her outrageous preference for brilliant-hued gowns. Intense colors suited her.

What most kept his desire simmering, however, was remembering how she’d kissed—throwing herself into it, excitement barely tempered by innocence, passion cloaked in wonder. How could such sheer enthusiasm fail to rouse a man’s basest instincts?

Damnation, after this afternoon’s dance of billiard seduction, he didn’t know if he’d survive another day without throwing her over his shoulder like a slavering beast and carrying her off to his lair.

He reached his room and entered quickly, telling himself he was merely eager to exchange the dank musty stairwell for the brightly lit bedchamber. But the truth was he couldn’t wait to prepare for his next skirmish with Rosalind.

He’d already shut the door behind him when he spotted her. The object of his ridiculous obsession sat in a chair with her head slumped on his writing table. He halted in shock, wondering if the intensity of his need might have conjured her up. But no, if he’d dreamed her into his bedchamber, she would already be naked. Instead, she wore the bold emerald gown he’d imagined ripping off with his teeth during their game of billiards.

Frustrated lust rapidly twisted into fury as he realized the woman had actually sneaked into his room. She’d unlocked the door and entered without his permission or knowledge. By God, was nothing sacred to the warrior queen?

He caught sight of the sheaf of papers spilling from her slack fingers, and his blood thundered in his ears. What had he left lying about? Was there anything to reveal his deception? Stalking to the table, he peered over her still form at the papers fanning out from her hand.

They were nothing of consequence, just bills of lading. No doubt their tediousness had put her to sleep. But had she done this before—come in here while he was gone, perhaps even during the day while he’d been with her footman?

It didn’t matter—it would not happen again. It was one thing for her to tease and taunt him; quite another for her to intrude on his privacy. He refused to tolerate such behavior. He lifted his hand to her shoulder to shake her, then spotted the chunk of quartz he’d been using to weight down papers.

With grim purpose, he picked it up and hefted it. Yes, that would do nicely. Moving to one end of the table, he leaned over and dropped the rock as near her head as he could without hitting her. It struck the oak with a loud thunk.

She shot up, her eyes glazed with confusion, her cheek red and bearing finger-shaped creases.

The instant she spotted him, he bent forward to plant his fists on the writing table, and growl, “What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”

The sheaf of papers slipped from her hand to drift like molting feathers to the floor. “Why I…there was…”

“You have no right to let yourself into my locked room without my permission, and you know it!”

For a moment, she just gaped at him, her agitation evident in her jerky breathing. Then she glanced over to the bureau pulled away from the wall, and her eyes narrowed to slits. “You have the audacity to accuse me? How many locked rooms have you entered without my permission? Tell me that!”

“As many as I pleased.” He smothered any flare of conscience. Every room in this house belonged to him in principle, which meant he had the right to search them. “It’s not as if I had a choice. You refused to allow me privacy, so I took some.”

“You gave up the right to privacy when you began snooping about my home!”

Anger exploded in his brain. Catching her under the arms, he lifted her bodily from the chair. “And you gave up the right to courtesy when you let yourself into my room! Now get out!”

He released her, and she stumbled back a step, clearly shocked by his rough handling of her. But as usual, his Amazon remained undaunted. Steadying her shoulders, she scowled at him. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what you’re up to. You went to a great deal of trouble to make sure you could move freely about the house. I want to know why. What are you looking for?”

“A place where I’m not bedeviled by nosy women!”

She sniffed. “I won’t be put off by your surliness. I want to know the truth, and no amount of bullying will dissuade me from finding it out.”

He glared down at the vixen, momentarily at a loss. Then her rosewater scent drifted through his senses, and an acute awareness of her body crashed through all his anger.

Rosalind was in his bedchamber. Alone. With him.

He ate her up with his eyes. Her shawl lay somewhere on the floor, leaving bare the two creamy half-moons of flesh above her green bodice. Like lily petals floating on a turbulent sea, they rose and fell madly with her angry breaths. He watched entranced, before dragging his gaze back to her trembling chin and her full, parted lips.

Those damnable lips that never failed to jolt his cock erect.

“If bullying won’t teach you to mind your own business,” he grated out, “I know what will.”

Grasping her by the shoulders, he lowered his head, but before he could kiss her, she whispered, “Don’t you dare!” in a tone almost pleading. It made him hesitate until she added, “Don’t you dare kiss me, Griff Brennan!”

Hearing her marry his name to Daniel’s was the last straw. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” he rasped. Then he brought his mouth down hard on hers.

He’d expected a struggle from his battle goddess, but what he got was a perfect stunned stillness. Perhaps her nap had lowered her defenses. Or perhaps she was as randy as he’d been from the minute he’d seen her in her wrapper brandishing a sword.

He didn’t know; he didn’t care. The most tempting female ever to plague a hot-blooded male was in his arms in his bedchamber. And he desired her. Damnation, how he desired her!

He forced his tongue past the barrier of her lips, winning entrance after a moment of effort. With a deep groan of satisfaction, he laid siege to her mouth. And what a glory of a mouth—soft and warm and inviting, tasting of the cinnamon from those apple tarts she seemed to love. He could feed on it all day and never be satisfied.

But unwise though it might be, he needed more than kissing this time. A great deal more.

Rosalind could feel the difference in him, the urgency and determination. Curse him, he only wanted to distract her from learning the truth. So why was she letting him?

Because he did it so bloody well. His unyielding hands held her head still for a series of hungry kisses that made her pulse stammer and start and leap. His splayed fingers tugged restlessly on her coiffure, dragging it free of pins already loosened by her unplanned nap. Her hair tumbled down her back like a flag of truce unfurling.

That frightened the devil out of her. What in God’s name was she doing? She had her sisters to think of and Papa’s strongbox.

With a burst of will, she tore her lips from his. “I shan’t let you do this. I shan’t…let you distract me.”

“Why not?” he growled, raining kisses over her cheeks. “God knows you’ve distracted me for days.”

She jerked back from him. “Don’t lie to me!” She couldn’t bear to have him pretend again and hurt her as he had the last time he kissed her.

His gaze searched her face. “Lie to you? About what?”

Focusing on the grimy shirt that further attested to his devious activities, she gulped breath after breath. “You may think me…too stupid to realize what I lack, but I do know my deficiencies. I know I don’t possess the beauty and form required to excite a man’s…urges, and that you do this only to distract me from your secretive plans. You couldn’t possibly find me—”

“Lovely? Seductive? Maddening?” Grabbing her by the shoulders as if to shake her, he laughed harshly. “All this time I’ve gone insane trying to keep from kissing you, while you actually believed…” He held her at arm’s length, his gaze raking her with thoroughly blatant desire. “Trust me, Rosalind, you don’t lack a damned thing. Except the good sense to stay the hell away from a man who spends his nights lusting after you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. The truth of his need was written in his face—in the starkly drawn jaw, the haunted eyes…

The lips lowering to hers again. She groaned as she surrendered to his kiss, with a thrill born of knowing that he desired it, he desired her.

Worse still, she desired him. Until now she’d resisted him only by reminding herself how he used seduction to drive her away. But if he truly wanted to seduce her, she was hopelessly lost—because God knows, she wanted it.

From the way he kissed her, he realized it, too. He tore down her barriers as if they were straw, scattering them like forgotten treasure beneath the griffin’s talons.

It took all her effort just to angle her lips away to beg. “I know you’re not always the rogue you pretend to be, Griff,” she murmured desperately against his whisker-rough cheek. “Please…please don’t play the rogue now. For once, play the gentleman.”

She should have known better.

“It’s not the gentleman you want.” He kissed her ear, worshiping it with his mouth and then his tongue. Excitement spun through her body in widening waves. “And why shouldn’t I play the rogue when you’re playing the wanton?”

Blast the man for knowing her secret vices so well. Her hands already mocked her protests by sliding around his waist. His chest was nearly naked, with only a lawn shirt covering it. She could feel his ribs through the fabric, feel his muscles flex and purl beneath her questing, curious fingers. The intimacy of touching him so freely intoxicated her.

His hands swept down her arms to her waist to urge her against his bulging trousers. “You’re tempting me again,” he rasped against her ear.

“Then release me.”

“You first.” He pressed hot, openmouthed kisses along her jawline. “I’ll let go if you will.”

She couldn’t. She wanted to, she earnestly did. Griff’s caresses fogged her mind when she needed to think clearly. But she was incapable of letting him go.

Feverishly, she tried another tack. “If you don’t stop this, I’ll…I’ll tell Papa.” It sounded ridiculous, a child’s threat, and she regretted the words as soon as she said them.

Especially when he chuckled in her ear. “I’d like to hear that conversation.” He nipped at her earlobe, then mimicked her in a low voice, “‘Mr. Brennan kissed me when I let myself into his locked bedchamber and fell asleep by his bed.’” His breath warmed her ear. “You might as well tell him you came to me willingly.”

“But I didn’t!” she protested, arching her head away from him. “And I certainly didn’t mean to fall asleep!”

He branded her neck with a searing kiss. “I suppose you didn’t ‘mean’ to prance about in your wrapper the night we met, or let me kiss you in the orchard.” Walking her backward to the bed, he growled, “Little girls who play with fire shouldn’t go crying to Papa when they get burned.”

Taking her by surprise, he tumbled her back onto the bed, then quickly covered her body with his, fitting himself between her legs, lying in the valley of her skirts between her thighs. His heavy weight and intimate position should alarm her; instead it felt indecently delicious.

“I’m not a little girl,” she whispered fiercely.

The eagle gaze of the griffin traced a greedy path down her neck to where her breasts, rising and falling more quickly under his rapacious look, nearly spilled from her gown. “No,” he said in a husky whisper, “you’re definitely not a little girl.” He shifted one hand to cup her breast through her gown, kneading it so scandalously she gasped. “But you’ve tempted and teased me for days, my sweet, and now it’s time for a reckoning.”

Delectable shivers danced down her spine. How would a griffin take a reckoning? she wondered with a frisson of excitement. But she knew. Oh, yes, she knew.

Because his lips now took a reckoning of hers, pillaging every inch without conscience. His tongue took a reckoning of her mouth, plunging rashly, possessively into its depths. And his hand slipped underneath her back to take a reckoning of her gown’s fastenings, finding them shamefully easy to tear loose.

She wrenched free of his mouth as he worked her gown from her shoulders, then slowly down past her breasts. “Griff, you can’t—”

“Clearly, I can,” he said hoarsely. He abandoned her gown at her waist only to reach for her chemise ties.

Eyes widening, she caught his wrist. “Do you intend to ruin me?”

His gaze locked with hers, wild, needy…insistent. “No. Only to satisfy some of my cravings. And yours.” To her utter shock, he bent forward to drag the tie of her chemise loose with his teeth. A rakish grin crossed his face as her chemise gaped open to reveal more flesh. “Let me look at you. Let me see what you ‘lack,’ my sweet.” He shook his wrist free of her hand and dragged down her chemise to bare a plump breast for his dark, devouring gaze.

His breathing quickened, grew ragged. “‘From the east to western Inde,’” he quoted softly, “‘No jewel is like Rosalind.’”

“You’re a devil indeed to use Shakespeare against me,” she protested, though secretly delighting in his fulsome compliment.

And the heat of his admiring gaze that sparked a fiery blush to lick along her naked skin. Dear God, this was more than playing with fire—it was playing with gunpowder, with pistols, with cannons.

That was the trouble—danger made it even more thrilling.

Then he bent his head toward her shamelessly naked breast. “Griff, what do you think you’re doing?” she whispered in alarm.

“Tasting my favorite variety of plum,” he quipped, then closed his mouth around the rosy nipple.

She’d never been so shocked. But shock gave way to excitement at the first devilish flick of his tongue. Soft sighs spiraled out of her as he began sucking and teasing and caressing her breast. Enthralled, she slid her eyes shut to savor the wonderful heated pleasure. Oh, heaven…this was heaven…It was turning all her insides wild. His fingers slipped inside her chemise to pluck at the nipple of her other breast, and she nearly fainted from the surge of sheer delight.

When she made some low sound in her throat, he stopped sucking her breast to murmur roughly, “You’ve convinced me about the sweetness of plums, Rosalind. I’m a convert forever.”

He tweaked her other nipple, and her eyes shot open at the tumult it unbridled deep in her belly. He was watching her face roguishly. “Shall I taste another?” His eyes gleamed at her as he kissed down the slope of her breast into the valley, then licked his way up the other side. “Would you like that?”

“Yes, oh yes.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

With fervent hunger, he tasted and sucked, and she arched up for more, clutching his head to her breasts as he alternated between each with headier and headier caresses. His hair was rumpled satin in her hands, a delight to stroke. But she wanted to stroke other things, touch other parts of him, and soon she was curling her fingers restlessly into his lawn sleeves as if she could tear them off just by pulling.

With a laugh, Griff levered himself up from her. “Did you want something else, my lady?”

Wordlessly, her face burning, she unbuttoned his dirt-streaked shirt. His smile faded abruptly, replaced by a look of rampant need. Harsh breaths jerked out of him as he braced his upper torso off her with both arms to allow her better access.

When she’d dispensed with the last button, he rose up on his knees only long enough to pull off his shirt and toss it on the floor. His arms were thicker than she’d realized, his shoulders broader, but that was all she had time to notice before he fell on her again like the ravening half-eagle, half-lion creature he was. She dragged her hands eagerly over warm velvet skin and bold masculine muscle that leapt beneath her touch.

His mouth at her breasts, however, soon made her insensible of anything but a strange urge to thrust her pelvis against him. When she did, he groaned and ground himself into the juncture between her thighs, making her gasp with pleasure.

“If you keep that up, my teasing vixen,” he growled against her breast, “I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Teasing vixen, was she? Some naughty instinct made her arch against him again, if only to see what he’d do. He tore his mouth from her breasts, then hovered above her, jaw taut and unyielding as he stared down into her face. Without moving his gaze, he shifted his body off to lie at her side. She couldn’t prevent a murmur of disappointment, but it was short-lived, for his hand seized her skirts and dragged them up her legs.

“Gr-Griff?” she stammered.

“Little girls who play with fire…” he murmured thickly.

And his mouth crashed down on hers once more. This kiss was blatantly carnal, however, fraught with smoldering flames and dangerous promises. Dimly she felt her skirts clear her upper thighs. Then his hand cupped the sweet aching place between them, startling savage urges to life within her loins. For a moment, all he did was press the heel of his palm against her, kneading her, making her squirm restlessly against the hand that didn’t quite satisfy.

Then something slid inside her.

She twisted her mouth free. “What are you…” She trailed off as what felt like his finger delved deep, in an intimate stroke that wrung a moan from her. “Ohhhh…Griff…that’s…dear God, it’s…”

“Indescribable, judging from your curious inability to speak.”

He was gloating over her, blast him, and she couldn’t even rouse any anger to retort. “Indescribable, yes. Oh, do it again.”

“Witch,” he whispered with a devilish chuckle, then did it again. And again. And again, until soon two fingers were caressing her, making her writhe against his hot, hard palm in a restless urge for more.

“You like that, do you?” His voice sounded tense and guttural now, as if it cost him great effort to speak. “You like that, my wanton Amazon?”

She loved it, reveled in its luxury of sensation. If that made her a wanton, then she was a wanton indeed. At last she understood about the dairymaid she’d caught laughing and blushing in the barn with the groom, her blouse all undone and her skirts rucked up around her thighs. Though Rosalind had fled in embarrassment, she’d thought of the woman as a wanton for days after.

Now she knew how easy it was to be a wanton. And how very, very delicious. The strokes of his fingers quickened, tugging her forward into a hidden forest where beasts roamed to ravage virgins as he ravaged her. Yet she wanted his ravaging…oh, yes…she felt as if she were running through the woods to meet it…faster and faster as he drove deep into her…over and over and over…

The explosion came like quicksilver lightning, tightening her loins, dragging a low, shameful cry from her lips as she arched into his hand.

She finally sank back onto the bed, half-sated, half-bereft, though his thigh still lay heavily across hers and his fingers lingered inside her. A second passed, during which the only sound in the room was his rapid breathing and her faint gasps, before he withdrew his hand from between her legs and wiped it on his trousers.

Sudden embarrassment seized her. Trying to hide her face from him, she turned her head into the coverlet, but couldn’t escape him there, for it smelled of him, musky and male.

“Rosalind…damnation, Rosalind…” he growled as he bent over her to scatter ardent kisses along her neck, her jaw, her cheek. His whiskery skin scraped her, heightening the varied delights of his kisses. Then his breath warmed her ear. “Touch me, too,” he whispered. “I want your hands on me. Please…Only a little…”

Her gaze flew to his. Touch him? All this time he hadn’t asked her to do anything, hadn’t even said please. But the unquenched ache of desire hardened all his features as he stared down at her.

He caught her hand and flattened it against the bulge in his trousers. “Touch me, my sweet, or I’ll go mad.”

She nodded fiercely, overwhelmed by a desire to please him as he’d pleased her. When she curled her hand around the clothed rigid flesh, it jerked beneath her fingers.

Groaning, he shoved it against her hand. “Yes, darling Rosalind…like that but…harder…”

She smiled with feminine satisfaction as she took firmer hold of it. With a growl, he thrust against her hand, then hungrily drove his tongue inside her mouth with deep, bold strokes.

She rubbed against the stiff thickness in his trousers, increasing the pressure as he caressed her breasts and lavished fiery kisses over her cheeks and brow. Her curiosity about that part of him intensified until she cursed the layer of kerseymere that separated her hand from his flesh. Well, if he could pull up her skirts…She fumbled to release the buttons of his trousers.

He froze and caught her hand to halt it. “No, my sweet. I already want you beyond endurance.” Raw need sculpted his face. “And if you take my cock out, I swear I’ll bed you, virgin or no.”

For a moment, she simply stared at him stunned, the word cock ringing in her ears, so crude and coarse. Then the rest of his sentence hit her, and she realized the enormity of what she was doing. What she’d just done.

“Dear God,” she whispered as horror swept over her. She jerked her hand back from him. “Dear God, oh, dear God…” she kept chanting as she rolled off the bed.

Frantic to cover herself, she grabbed at the front of her gown and yanked it up, but it wouldn’t stay because he’d unfastened it. Vainly she twisted her arms behind her back to reach the buttons while sheer mortification overtook her.

He leapt from the bed with a curse. “Calm down; you’ll tear it!”

“Blast you!” she whispered, as he moved behind her and began deftly fastening the buttons. Her breath stuttered from her in quick gasps. How humiliating to have to rely on him to hook up her gown. And why must he be so very good at it? That could only mean one thing.

“You probably do this all the time,” she said with irrational jealousy, “play the lady’s maid for all your women—”

“All my women?” he bit out. “You make it sound as if I have a damned harem.”

“For all I know, you do!” It dawned on her that she hardly knew him. He might actually keep a mistress. Or two or three…He’d probably had virgins before, too, prettier ones than she.

Her heart sank under the horrible thought. “How you must be congratulating yourself on seducing me into acting the wanton not once, but twice!” she lashed out. How could she have been so reckless?

“Seducing you?” He swung her around to face him, frustration tightening his features into a scowl. “Don’t blame me for this! I warned you what could happen. I didn’t ask you to come here, of all places! I tried to throw you out!”

It was true, curse him. She’d brought this on herself. Even now, with his hands gripping her shoulders and his bare male chest only inches away, all firm and muscled and sprinkled with hair, she wanted to have him kiss her again, take her back to the bed.

She covered her face with her hands. Dear God, she truly was a wanton. “You’re right.” She pulled away from him. “I’m entirely at fault.”

“I didn’t say entirely—”

“This can’t happen again, do you hear? It mustn’t! You have no interest in marriage and I—”

“Want to be an actress,” he finished coldly. “Yes, I know. You made that perfectly clear before.”

She lifted her head to stare at him. An actress? Dear God, that dream seemed so remote from this wretched muddle. And she couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t denied his lack of interest in marriage.

Knowing his past, she’d be surprised if he had any pangs of conscience about what they’d done. He certainly wasn’t the sort to marry a woman who practically threw herself at him every time he kissed her.

Not that she wanted the rutting beast to marry her. No, indeed! The last thing she needed was an impudent, devious man of affairs with a criminal past ordering her about.

Still, if he and his employer stayed here much longer, she didn’t know how she’d resist him. She’d never excelled at self-denial. If he continued these…cursed sweet seductions of his, he would either take her virtue, leave her with child, or both. It was one thing to be a spinster and quite another to be a ruined pregnant spinster.

She must stop this madness. She must do something to put Griff—and his employer—out of harm’s way, before she succumbed entirely to him and Juliet married Mr. Knighton. She could think of only one way, one plan that might work.

Bending to scoop up her fallen shawl, Rosalind headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” he ground out from behind her. “We must discuss this.”

“What’s there to discuss? We agree it shouldn’t happen again, and I intend to take steps to ensure it doesn’t.”

“Take steps? What the hell do you mean?”

She hesitated at the door. “I’ve been foolish and selfish. I thought I could stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“All of it. Your being here. Juliet’s marrying Mr. Knighton. But I’ve tried and I can’t. And the longer I wait, the more chance…” That I’ll yield to you. She sucked in a painful breath. “There’s only one way to stop it. Helena won’t marry him, and I refuse to let Juliet marry him, so that leaves only one of us to offer herself in marriage.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze, to say the words that might buy her temporary protection. “Me.”