Page 70 of The Dangerous Lord

“If you despised me, it would be one thing,” he went on in a low voice. “But you don’t. You want me, too. And the perfect solution to all this bloody wanting is for us to marry. So you and I shall come to an agreement. Tonight.”

The thought of marrying him tempted her fiercely, not only because of “this bloody wanting,” as he called it. The boys liked him. He would give her a future—security and a home of her own, free of financial worry.

A home of her own where her husband didn’t trust her with the truth about his life. Yes, he’d revealed a little about himself this evening, but the important things he still kept secret. Nothing had changed from before. How could she live with a man whose past was so dark even he wouldn’t hold it up to the light? Could she entrust her future and that of the boys to such a man? More importantly, could she gift her heart to someone who didn’t love her, who only wanted her because he needed an heir?

She could not. “I told you before, I won’t marry you.” Drat it, why must she sound so hesitant, as if she didn’t even believe her own words? Perhaps she too was tired of struggling against the feelings he roused, of being wise about the future.

“Then I must convince you otherwise.” His shadowed face hovered near hers, overwhelming, tempting. “It’s time you see what you’re denying yourself.”

Her heart beat faster. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you.” He kissed her again, this time so thoroughly she felt dizzy. Angling his head, he found a virgin patch of skin under her ear and kissed it, then nipped her ear lobe. “Where’s your bedchamber, querida? Where can we be private?”

She blinked at him in dazed confusion. “Wh-what?” She felt as if someone had filled her mind with cotton.

“Never mind,” he growled. “I’ll find it. Or someplace equally acceptable.” Scooping her up in his arms, he strode down the darkened hall.

She would have fought him—really, she would have—if he hadn’t kissed her again. It wasn’t much of a kiss, a brush of his mouth against hers, but it left her aching for more. As he continued down the hall, past the open doors of her study, her parents’ old bedchamber, and Mama’s sewing room, she marveled at her reluctance to stop him.

What mad spell had he spun about her? Everything seemed unreal, as if in a dream, a dream where he belonged to her in every sense of the word. He paused outside her bedchamber, then entered it. After setting her down, he shut the door behind them, turning the key with the twist of one hand.

The click of the lock jerked her out of his spell. “We shouldn’t be here ... we should—” She broke off, eyes narrowing. “How did you know this was my room, Ian? Have you been spying on me?”

He laughed and shrugged out of his frock coat. “This is the only room on this floor with a fire going and the bed turned down. It wasn’t difficult to deduce.”

Then it hit her what he’d meant by saying he would show her what she was denying herself. Not a few kisses and caresses like before. Seduction. What a dunce she’d been not to realize it sooner! “Ian, this is wrong!”

“Not in the least. As I recall, this all started because you were determined to make sure Katherine went into marriage with her eyes open. Well, I’m offering you a similar opportunity. If you’re determined to be a spinster, you should go into spinsterhood with your eyes open.” He stripped off his waistcoat and went to work on his cravat. “I intend to open your eyes, show you what you’ll be missing if you deny me, querida.”

A weakness seized her limbs. She wished he’d stop calling her darling in that husky voice. Spanish or no, it did naughty things to her. “My eyes are completely open. You opened them the last time you touched me, if you’ll recall.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I recall very well. I recall the way you kissed me back, the way you rode my thigh, the way you groaned when I touched your breasts.”

The frank words shocked and titillated her at the same time, sending wild and indecent images surging through her memory. Her skin heated under his knowing look, and she had to glance away before he could see the effect of his words on her.

“But I didn’t open your eyes completely,” he went on. “That’s the only reason you refused my proposal of marriage. I wonder what your answer would have been if I’d taken you to bed instead.” Approaching her, he lifted his hand to cup her burning cheek. His thumb dipped down to stroke her throat, then outline her chin before caressing her bottom lip silkily. “Shall we find out?”

Why couldn’t she say “no”? Why did the word stick in her throat, damn him? “I don’t think ... that’s wise.” But she said it on a breathy little gasp, and her head reeled from the intimacy of his fingers against her face, not to mention the jumble of images his words had provoked.

He caught her around the waist, bringing her back into his embrace. “Yes, but since when did you ever do what was wise, querida?”

He had a point. Then he was kissing her again, and she was lost. Her reason shut down, along with her will and her common sense. All of them fell subject to the beating of her heart and the sheer wanton desires trampling through her unruly body.

It didn’t matter what her mind screamed at her—that he’d primed her for this since that night at the Worthings, that it was a mistake, that she’d regret it later. Right now she didn’t regret it. She couldn’t. And she couldn’t even hate him for using her weakness—her secret and shameful urges—against her.

She opened her mouth to his bold tongue as eagerly as the wanton she evidently was. His hands unfastened the buttons at the back of her gown with amazing deftness, and all she could do was twine her arms about his neck. She matched his every wicked impulse with one of her own, abandoning herself to his greater experience in a fever of need. And when his hand slid inside her gown to stroke her thinly clad back, a luxurious sigh escaped her lips.

“I like to touch you,” he whispered as he dropped his hand lower inside her gown to squeeze her bottom. “And you like having me touch you, don’t you?”

She buried her flaming face in his shoulder, unable to admit aloud the painful truth—that she craved his hands, that she wanted them all over her body. Good Lord, how shameless of her! A sensible, respectable woman would evict him this minute!

Obviously, she was neither. But how could she resist the glittering temptation he presented? It was like having her sultan step out of her dreams and into her bedchamber. He transformed the dreary room with its simple oak furnishings and ragged curtains into a magical oasis where any sensual act was acceptable, even expected.

Dark eyes blazing with promises, he stepped back and tore impatiently at the buttons of his shirt. She waited with in-drawn breath to see what lay beneath the civilized veneer.

She shivered at the sight. Skin the color of coffee with milk, skin that attested to his mixed heritage, his wild Spanish blood. A patch of rich, springy hair arrowed downward—as black as that on his head, but curly where the other was straight. As he opened the shirt, her gaze followed the trail down to where the hair thinned into a line, then disappeared beneath his waistband.

“Do you like what you see?” he asked, the sound deep and rumbling.