She sank down in an overstuffed armchair beside his desk and gazed unseeingly into the dying embers of the fireplace. Sighing, she rubbed the bridge of her nose, squeezing it between her fingers.
The sudden opening of the door followed by it clicking shut had her sitting upright in her chair, an explanation on her lips. She expected Mama to stand there, ready to chastise her for abandoning their guests . . . especially the favored Buckston. She had not bothered to hide her joy at Aurelia’s renewed interest in claiming a suitor.
But it was not her mother. Max stood there, his imposing figure framed against the door. The flickering shadows cast his face into sharp lines and hollows.
She shot to her feet, fisting the fabric of her skirts in both hands. They stared at one another for one long moment against the distant trill of the pianoforte.
“What are you doing in here?” she finally asked. “We shouldn’t be alone.” Although she knew no one in her family would think askance of the two of them alone in a room together. Mama, Will . . . neither would ever suspect either one of them would behave in a manner that would require supervision.
“What are you doing with that fop Buckston?” he asked, his voice a low rumble in the dark warm space.
“What does it look like?” She lifted her chin defensively. “I’m being properly courted.”
Why she emphasized the word proper, she had no idea. Perhaps because she and Max were only ever improper with each other and she wanted to fling that at him. She wanted him to know that there existed gentlemen who thought her deserving of courtship. Not a great many, but some.
“Properly courted by that fool dandy? You can’t possibly think the two of you will suit?”
And why did that question suddenly make her remember what it felt like to be caught up in Max’s arms? The hard sensation of his body against her? The way his lips devoured her mouth? There was more to compatibility than physical attraction.
She flushed hotly. “What concern is it of yours?” Her speech stalled as he started toward her, his strides long and predatory. She swallowed, then resumed speaking. “First you objected to Mr. Mackenzie . . .” She snorted. “You’ll be relieved to know that he has ceased to call on me.” Something in Max’s expression gave her pause. It was as though a veil dropped over his face. He also halted his advance.
“Camden?” She stepped closer, her gaze narrowing as a sinking sensation settled in her belly. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
He studied her, and she could almost see the calculation behind his eyes. He was trying to decide what to admit to her.
“Camden?” she pressed.
He shrugged one shoulder as if it were of no import.
She crossed the short distance separating them and punched him in the shoulder with her fist, but that probably hurt her hand more than it wounded him. She shook her wrist lightly. He smirked and she was tempted to try again.
“Feel better?” he asked lightly.
“No,” she snapped. Her eyes burned. She pressed a hand to her chest. “You know how important this is to me.”
He looked uncomfortable for a moment, and she knew she had him. “You didn’t want Mackenzie.”
Her chest lifted on a quick inhale. “I could have wanted him.” In time.
His square jaw clenched. Even in the dim shadows, she detected a muscle feathering along his cheek. “It would have been a mistake.”
“And why is that?”
“Because …”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve better,” he bit out.
Her mouth closed with a snap, his flattery now mingling with her anger. She pushed the softer sentiment away.
“What was it you said to me?” she whispered, pressing fingers to her suddenly aching temples. She felt as though he were yanking her left, then right, up, then down. Kissing her. Pushing her away. Chasing her. Running away. “Cease behaving as a child? Well, Camden, why don’t you take a bit of your own advice and stay out of my life?”
She stepped around him, giving him wide berth, but his voice stopped her before she reached the door. “The difference between you and me is that you fail to exercise good judgment.”
Anger returned in a searing flash. She turned slowly, a red haze filling her vision. “Is that what you call your behavior?” She advanced on him. “I’ve watched you live your life as you please with little thought to decorum or propriety.” The words flew from her lips like mortar. Emotion clogged her voice and tightened her chest. “I watched you tup a maid in the greenhouse when I was fifteen years old. I thought I loved you.” At his shocked expression, she added, “I know, senseless, yes? It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. I see that now, but back then I was hurt and drew that horrible picture of you. I didn’t mean for it to be discovered. You never even heard me out when I tried to apologize.” Her voice cracked and she forced a shrug. “Since then we’ve been at this stupid war, and I’m just weary of it. So very weary. I want it to stop. I want you to stop and leave me alone. Let me live my life.”
Color flushed his cheeks. His mouth worked before he asked, “You were there?”
She nodded, the dreaded burn of tears threatening.
“Oh, Aurelia.” He stepped toward her and she held up a hand. He stopped as though she had erected an invisible barrier between them with that hand.
“No,” she commanded. She couldn’t have him touch her again. Not anymore. It addled her head.
He angled his head, looking at her almost tenderly. “Aurelia,” he repeated.
She shook her head fiercely, hating herself for having told him. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”
He moved again, cautiously, slowly, as though she were some small animal of prey and he was afraid of startling her.
“Not another step,” she warned, hating how her voice shook, how weak she must appear right now.
“No.” He nodded yes as though she had not disagreed and closed the distance between them until the flat of her hand met his chest and stopped him. “I’m sorry, Aurelia. I was young and stupid.”
“You’re still stupid,” she charged, her voice cracking, making her feel weak and equally senseless.
He brought a hand up to cup her face, and the tenderness undid her. His thumb stroked her cheek. “I am. I know it.”
She closed her eyes at the sensation of his hand on her face, but it did no good. She could still see him looking down at her tenderly. “Stop looking at me like I’m something pathetic to be pitied.”
“Open your eyes. Look at me.”
She complied. He cupped her face, fingers spearing through her hair as he pinned her with a stark-eyed gaze. “Never. I’ve never pitied you. It’s not possible. You’re not pitiable.”
Her chest clenched. She shook her head, completely flummoxed. He wasn’t supposed to be this. He wasn’t supposed to be gentle and kind and sincere. He wasn’t supposed to be anything other than a rakehell who burned a path through the hearts and bedrooms of women everywhere. And he was not supposed to touch her anymore, affecting her and making her want him in a way she could never have him.
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair that he could be this way. The hot dash of tears tripped down her cheeks. He caught her tears with his fingers in an attempt to rub her cheeks dry. She fought a sob but it escaped, a choked, strangled sound.
“Don’t cry, Aurelia,” he soothed, still sliding those blunt-tipped fingers over her tear-damp cheeks.
“What are you doing? Please . . . don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry.” He pressed butterfly kisses to her cheeks. “I can’t . . .”
She sniffed, hating and loving his tender ministrations. But it had to stop. It was tearing her apart and wrecking her resolve.
“You can. We have to stop this.” She circled his wrists with her fingers and tried to tug his hands down. He wouldn’t budge his grip.
He dragged warm lips over the moist tear tracks on her face, ignoring her words and offering the intimacy that made her stomach heat and flutter.
“Stop,” she whispered as his mouth inched toward the corner of hers.
Her heart pounded fiercely in her chest. She trembled from the restraint of not lifting her chin that tiny inch and kissing him.
He had no such qualms.
He settled his mouth over hers, his lips loose and open, but not a true kiss.
“You don’t want me to stop,” he said against her mouth, lips grazing ever so slightly and spiking sensation straight to every nerve.
“I know.” The two words forced her lips to brush against his in a close simulation of a kiss. And perhaps she over-exaggerated the movement, savoring the tantalizing sensation of his mouth. His warm, dry lips softer than she ever thought possible. A shudder racked her.
“Good,” he rasped. “Because for three days I’ve only thought of you. Of this mouth. The things I want to do to it . . . the things I want to teach it.”
She moaned softly and his mouth claimed hers. Seized. Completely. Totally. No more tentative dancing around it.
There was no room for breath. His tongue thrust against her tongue. His mouth slanted hotly on hers. A simmer built inside her as his hands buried in her hair, tipping her head back, angling her for his ravaging mouth.
She whimpered, lost, completely at his mercy as he backed her up until she collided with the desk. Something rattled and fell to the floor with a thud. She had a fleeting hope that it wasn’t the ink well, and then she did not care. A stampeding herd of llamas could have charged through the room and she wouldn’t have stopped kissing Max for a single moment of it.
He loosened his grip for a split second to grab her by the waist and heft her on top of the desk. Then his hands came back for her face, fingers both hard and tender, burrowing through her hair again, scattering pins.
Another thing she didn’t care about. She didn’t care about having to explain her fallen hair or missing pins. She only cared about his mouth on hers . . . about the deepening ache between her legs that needed assuaging.
He nudged her knees apart and wedged his hips between her thighs, the fabric of her skirts bunching between them. She clutched his waist, her fingers digging deep through fabric to flesh and bone underneath.
His mouth devoured her until she turned into a boneless mass on top of the desk. She slid her hands up, clutching his shoulders, arms, wrists, straining against him, diving headlong into the kiss.
“Aurelia,” he gasped into her mouth. “I can’t stop this anymore. I can’t not want you.” He sounded aggrieved about it, pained and frustrated.
“Then don’t,” she heard herself utter back into his mouth. She wanted him to want her. To surrender to the undeniable heat flaring between them. Consequences be damned. She’d worry about that later.
She reveled in this man who was so wrecked for want of her. She never thought it could happen. She never thought she could want him like she did before.
He took one of her hands that wrapped around his wrist and dragged it down between them, placing her palm roughly over the bulge of his manhood. A ragged breath swelled her chest.
“Feel what you do to me. How much I want you, Aurelia.”
The core of her throbbed in response. The hard rod pressing against her fingers was because of her.
“I—I want to feel it,” she choked against the brand of his searing lips.
His eyes gleamed down at her, never breaking contact even as he opened his breeches and freed his erection. He very deliberately closed her smaller fingers around him, watching her hotly. “Like this,” he instructed, showing her what to do, what he liked.
He shook as she stroked him, dropping his forehead against hers. She felt empowered. Holding him in her hand and feeling him shudder with his breath hot on her lips . . . it was the most decadent thing she had ever done. She felt wild and free.
“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s like silk.” Her womanhood tightened almost painfully as she slid her fingers up and down the hard length of him. “It’s big.”
“I’m hard and hurting and it’s all because of you,” he accused against her mouth.
She laughed brokenly and wiggled closer on top of the desk, her stocking-clad knees high on his hips.
“I hurt, too,” she confessed. Desire pumped through her, pushing her far past any sense of propriety. She guided him between her legs and rubbed the tip of him against her drawers, gasping at this first contact. Shielded by only a layer of cotton, moisture rushed between her legs.
He choked her name, but she didn’t stop. She angled her hips and stroked him along her opening. It was a cruel tease, and a broken sob ripped from her throat, as much torment for her as it was for him. If possible, he grew bigger in her hand, and she felt the first stirrings of alarm.
“I don’t know . . . would we fit . . .”
“Oh, we’d make it work.” Then a pained sound escaped him. “But it can’t come to that, Aurelia. Do you understand?”
No, she didn’t. With the hard rod of him stroking against her, she didn’t understand.
She whimpered again, the throb between her legs twisting, squeezing almost in protest. She tightened her fingers around him and pumped once . . . twice . . .
He gasped. “Aurelia, stop.”
“I want it, Camden. I ache so much . . .”
His breathing grew rougher, filling her ears. “Aurelia . . . you don’t know . . .” And yet even as his uttered this, he thrust against her sex, molding the fabric to her wetness.
“I do!” Her free hand swept around the curve of his hip, digging into the firm curve of his backside. “I’m no ignorant miss. I want what you give every other woman. I want to feel this . . .” She rolled her thumb over the plump tip of him. A bead of moisture rose to kiss her thumb, and she shuddered with need. “ . . . inside me.”
He was panting now, and she felt powerful. In control of him for the first time in her life. Before, she had always felt at his mercy, floundering and powerless. Now, in this moment, she felt very much in control.
“Aurelia.” He angled his head, studying her. He lifted one hand to brush the hair back from her face.
“Don’t you want that?” she whispered, her voice throaty in a way she had never thought herself capable. It was as though she were looking outside herself, watching someone else—a siren confident in her powers of seduction.
“God, yes.”
“Then what are you waiting for, Camden?” She hiked her skirts higher around her hips. He slid a hand beneath the ribboned garters holding her stockings in place, and goose bumps broke out on her naked thighs.
She shoved a lifetime of breeding to the wayside and followed the demanding, clenching pulse between her legs, letting it guide her.
She squeezed her thighs around his hips, urging him closer. He obliged, grinding the length of him against her. She gasped at the friction, desperate for more pressure. She knew she should be mortified at the moisture dampening her drawers, but he felt too good against her. The ache low in her belly twisted and tightened. She gasped, rocking against him. Close. So close to something big. Bigger and deeper than even that day against the back of the house. Her breath quickened, noisy pants coming in quick succession.
“Aurelia!”
The shout of her name sounded far away.
“Aurelia!”
She blinked and jerked, noticing then that Max had fallen to disturbing stillness. Her clouded vision focused, crystallizing on his unsmiling face, his handsome features stark and grim in a way she had never seen in him.
Her heart skipped, watching him in dread. Without turning around, he tucked himself back inside his trousers. She quickly shoved her skirts back down and peered over his shoulder.
Her stomach plummeted. Will and Violet stood just inside the study. Will looked like he might be ill, all blood leeched from his face.
Violet placed a hand on Will’s shoulder, as though restraining him from moving forward.
Aurelia slid off the desk, but her legs felt like pudding. She started to crumble but Max caught her with a hand on her elbow.
She nodded her thanks, but deliberately avoided looking at him. Right now she couldn’t meet his gaze. Not with Will looking at her as though he had never seen her before. From the way her brother’s gaze swung and sharpened, she knew Max had turned to face him.
“Will,” she began. “I know what this looks like . . .”
Will’s gaze flicked to her before returning with burning intensity to Max. “Do you? Good, then. I’m glad you understand the magnitude of how this looks.”
“No,” she quickly corrected. That’s not what she meant . . . “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Indeed?” her brother asked with alarming calm. “Is that true, Max? What do you think? Is this not what it looks like?”
Max replied in a maddeningly calm voice, as though they had not just been caught in a compromising position. “No, Will. It’s precisely what it looks like.”
She swung a horrified gaze to Max. “What are you doing?” she hissed. This was the moment they should try minimizing their actions.
“Then I expect you know what needs to be done,” Will returned.
Horror seeped through her. She shook her head, hair tossing freely around her shoulders.
“Yes,” Max replied.
Aurelia swung her gaze between the two of them. “No! Nothing needs to be done. Nothing happened . . . no one knows—”
Violet stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Aurelia’s shoulders, guiding her to the center of the room. “Come. Let’s go repair your hair . . .”
Aurelia dug in her heels. “No. I’m not leaving while the two of them discuss me as though I have no say over my life—”
“Aurelia.” Will pronounced her name in a way that brought forth memories of a stern tutor she once had. Ms. Turner never smiled and only ever bit out her name like it was something foul-tasting in her mouth. “Go with Violet. I need a word with Max.”
“About me. You need a word with him about me.”
Will frowned at her. “About the both of you.”
“Then I stay.” She crossed her arms.
Her brother sighed. “Aurelia, it isn’t done this way—”
“Considering we’ve gone about things differently, it might as well continue that way,” Max announced, a humorless smile playing about his lips.
She shot her brother a satisfied look.
With a snort of disgust, he settled his gaze on Max. “I suppose it was too much too hope that you would have kept your hands off my sister. I should have listened to Violet. She said months ago there was something between the two of you.”
Aurelia swung an incredulous gaze to her sister-in-law, who smiled mildly and shrugged. “You seemed to enjoy arguing too much.”
“How long has this been going on?” Will asked.
“Not months,” Aurelia said hotly.
“Long enough,” Max responded.
She looked at him in exasperation again. He was not helping defuse the situation.
Then he went on to add, “I’d recommend a hasty wedding.”
She gasped.
Will’s jaw clenched, but he nodded.
“Wedding?” Aurelia said. “Who said anything about a wedding? I think we might be overreacting here.” She didn’t think. She knew it. They were gravely, vastly overreacting.
Will looked at her, and in his gaze she recognized that older brother who had always looked after her. When her father had been distant and not overly concerned with her, Will was the one to care, to visit her in the nursery. It had even been Will who saw to it that Ms. Turner found a different position. “What did you think the outcome of this could possibly be, Aurelia?”
She shook her head. Not this. She had not thought this. With Max, how could she? “Not marriage. I—I . . . Camden doesn’t intend to marry.” Will especially knew this.
“Plans change,” Will bit off tersely.
“No.” She looked at Max. “Tell him.”
Max stared at her for a long moment before facing Will again. “I shall start the process of acquiring a special license.”
Her lungs swelled with a ragged breath.
Will nodded once. “And I shall go explain to my mother why Aurelia is not going to have the monstrous church wedding she always dreamed of.” He sent Aurelia a chagrined look. “That shall be your cross to bear, sister.”
Aurelia’s thoughts spun. Her eyes traveled over the three of them. “Has everyone in this room gone mad?”
Will sighed. Violet rubbed her shoulder in that comforting manner of hers and murmured her name like she was a child who failed to understand. Which wouldn’t be an unfair estimate. She did not understand. She didn’t understand why she and Max must marry when no one beyond the four of them need ever know what transpired in this room.
“Would you give us a few moments alone?” Max asked.
Will looked ready to object, but Violet approached his side and took his hand. “A few minutes won’t do any harm.”
At the door, Will sent them each a warning look that seemed to say: Keep your clothes on.
When the door clicked shut behind them, Aurelia spun on Max, the words spilling from her in a burning rush, “You don’t have to—”
“Don’t I?” he retorted.
“I most assuredly won’t force you.”
“You don’t have to force me, Aurelia. It’s what we must do. I realize that. Don’t you?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Who knows this even happened? My brother and Violet? Maybe he tells my mother. Perhaps. We don’t even know—”
“It’s enough that they know. I respect them. It’s important they respect me. I am only sorry . . . for you. This marriage . . . it can’t be what you had dreamed for yourself, Aurelia. I am sorry for that.”
That’s right. She recalled again that he had warned her. He wasn’t made for marriage. “I’ll be fine,” she promised, but in that moment she wasn’t certain if she was promising this to him or herself.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered miserably, giving him another chance, hoping desperately he would say it wasn’t just because of her family. That it was more than that. That marriage to her held some appeal.
“Do you truly think I would not wed you? After your brother discovered us in such a compromising position?”
It shouldn’t hurt, but it did. Her opinion bore little significance to him—she bore little—even though it was she he would be marrying and not Will.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he added, sounding so very sanctimonious she wanted to lash out and hit something.
“And you’re all about doing the right thing,” she muttered, trying to hide her hurt feelings. Why did he have to be so noble?
“I don’t know what you’re so upset about.”
“Oh, I should be grateful I suppose. I’ve snared the ever elusive Viscount Camden.”
He nodded fiercely, dragging a hand through his hair and sending the dark locks flying in every direction. “You’ve already proclaimed you need a husband. What difference does it make—”
“Indeed,” she said tightly, striking out, wanting to harm him like his words hurt her. “I want to marry. That had been my goal. Only I did not want to marry you.”
“Don’t you? Weren’t you just panting in my ear and rubbing my cock? I seem to recollect you begging for it.”
He wanted to shock her with his harsh language. She lifted her chin and clung to her composure. “That was something else. Something . . .” her words drifted. She wasn’t able to put a name to it. Swallowing against the lump forming in her throat, she lifted her chin and tried again. “It wasn’t me wanting to marry you.”
“Indeed. Sex and marriage are not mutually inclusive. But have no fear, there will be at least one benefit to this . . .”
“Mistake,” she supplied smoothly into his pause, arching an eyebrow. “Is that the word you’re searching for?” She walked backward several paces. “You mean ‘mistake.’ Us. Getting married. It would be a mistake.”
He shrugged. “So it’s not what I would have planned . . .” His voice faded and his eyes clouded. It wasn’t even as though he was looking at her anymore, but something else. Somewhere else. “We shall make the best of it. And I shall at least be the mistake you can readily avail yourself of any time you choose.”
Of all the arrogant . . .
She shook her head. “You don’t want a marriage. You don’t want a wife.”
He stared at her, and his silence was all the confirmation she needed, and yet still a bitter thing to swallow.
“Nothing need change. If we must marry, don’t let a wife alter your life.”
He laughed then. “You jest.”
“Not at all.” She nodded. “Lead your life as you always do.”
His eye narrowed. “You think such a thing possible?”
“You shall have your freedom. I shall have mine. It seems idyllic enough to me.”
“Yes. It seems so.” He considered for a weighty moment. “Why not?”
She nodded again as if a simple matter of business had been resolved and not the whole course of her life. “I should leave you now. You have a special license to look into procuring.”
Without waiting for his reply, she spun and departed the room.