Page 40 of A Remarkable Rogue

“I can’t help you unless you confide in me,” he cajoled as gently as his fingertips caressed the swells of her breasts.

“I won’t tell you.” But her husky whisper undercut all resolve in her answer.

“I think you’re afraid to tell me,” he murmured and traced a circle in the gold dust, “because it might be your secret you’re keeping, but it isn’t yourself you’re protecting, is it?”

Her heart pounded so fiercely that she was certain he could feel it racing beneath his fingertips. “I don’t know what you mean.”

With a wry smile at her blatant lie, he pushed the satin ribbon strap off her shoulder and down her upper arm, baring her right shoulder.

“At first, I thought your secret involved Michael Berkley.” His voice grew hoarse as he drew over her shoulder with his fingertip and left a trail of gold across her skin in its wake. “But you were engaged to him publicly, and his death wasn’t suspicious. No secrets there.”

None that Nate would ever discover.“Michael died a long time ago.”

“I know,” he said quietly. His compassion for her was evident in his gentle caress of her shoulder.

Her arm tightened around his neck as her body arched traitorously toward him. She should run away from him as fast as her slippered feet would take her, yet she couldn’t find the willpower. Not when goose bumps sprang up across her skin beneath his tantalizing caresses. Not when he stared down at her cleavage with the haunted look of a starving man.

Shamelessly, she wanted to let him devour her.

“Then I thought it was something about your late husband,” he mused. “But you never loved him, did you?”

When he pushed the ribbon off her other shoulder, his palm brushed lightly down her arm, and a shiver followed after. He was undressing her, one tiny piece at a time, and she wanted him to keep going until she was naked in his arms.

“If not enough to properly mourn his death”—his hand returned to the valley between her breasts and drew a rasping inhalation from her—“then certainly not enough to keep secret anything that might endanger his reputation, even in the grave.”

“No,” she admitted. “I hated that man, and he hated me.”

He stilled at her confession, but except for a flick of his eyes up to hers, he registered no surprise at her brutal honesty. For a moment, she thought he wanted further explanation about Rowland and their farce of a marriage. Instead, he leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her shoulder.

Somehow both arousing and unexpectedly soothing, his kiss stirred an aching warmth inside her that she couldn’t deny and that she didn’t want to stop. She closed her eyes beneath the lingering caress of his mouth as it swept back and forth across her bare shoulder. The delicious sensation of this featherlight tease sparked through her and made her tremble.

Yet even now she felt the distance between them and recognized the fine line he trod between wanting her and keeping his desire in check. He was caressing her because it was only a fleeting touch, she knew, and kissing her because it was only a taste of the feast he wouldn’t let himself enjoy. Joining his body with hers was a far cry from this.

Frustration burned through her. She didn’t want him to hold back. She wanted his hands to caress her entire body and his mouth to lick over every inch of her. Sweet heavens, she wanted him to pull down her bodice and kiss her breasts the same way he was kissing her shoulder.

“But there was another man,” he murmured against her skin. When he lifted his head, she whimpered at the loss of his mouth, unable to suppress the sound of her desire for him. “The lover you took after your husband died.”

Her eyes flew open in sudden bewilderment, and she blinked at his dark expression as he waited for her to confirm his suspicions. Her…lover?

“Is he the one you’re protecting?”

“He wasn’t my lover.”Loverimplied a relationship, ongoing meetings, and happy times shared. He’d been nothing like that. “He was…”

A mistake.

At that moment, she couldn’t remember a second of being in that other man’s arms. All she knew was Nate, the wonderful feel of his mouth against her and the undeniable feeling of being protected and safe.

She gave an awkward laugh and caressed her hand against his cheek to encourage him to keep kissing her. And to stop interrogating her. “He wasn’t what you think.”

“What I think, Baroness, is that Scepter is using that man to manipulate you.” He took her hand and lowered it. “The thug at your house was there to warn you to keep your silence or Scepter would harm Robert.”

Robert.Her body flashed numb, and she would have fallen off his lap if not for the tightening of his arm against the small of her back to hold her in place.

“That’s why you’re helping them, isn’t it?” he pressed. “That’s the leverage they’re holding over your head. They’ve threatened your lover.”

Oh, he was wrong! So very, very wrong… But Sydney couldn’t correct him, because as long as Nate believed that, then her secret was still hers. Everything she did now was to keep Robert safe. Her own life mattered nothing.

She dodged in a breathless whisper, “They’ve threatened Robert’s life in all the messages they’ve sent.” Guilt stabbed her for her lie of omission to Nate, yet she had no choice. “I will do whatever I have to in order to protect him, including delivering that message to General Braxton.”