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"What's done is done," Helena said, rejoicing to have Adam confirm that Priscilla had tricked the information out of him.
"Pray, do not be too severe with her. L.J have ever been an impediment between you. I should like to be one no longer.
Leaving will accomplish that— and free Aunt Lillian from the threat of my social disasters."
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"You mustn't let this unpleasant incident drive you from London! Bellemère can manage Society and you may leave Priscilla to me. I can no more allow you to go into self-imposed exile than I would permit Charis to do so."
"She has scarcely caused the trouble I have," Helena retorted wryly. "But I don't wish to brangle! Let me convey to you the news that makes essential that I leave."
In a few short sentences she summarized again what Lady Seagrave had confided to her. "You perhaps better than anyone know what I suffered at Lambarth's hands. After last night's incident, I should have wished to leave London anyway, but now I have a more compelling reason than merely avoiding disgrace. I want to meet the father I have never known. You could not ask
me to forego that."
"No, of course not." He studied her, his lips curving into the smile she so loved. "How happy you must be to learn no part of Lambarth lives in you."
"You do understand," she said gratefully. "Others see only that recognizing Seagrave will brand me a bastard."
"Better a bastard than the offspring of a man who made a travesty of the words 'father' and 'gendeman,'" Adam said fiercely.
"So then...you must leave us. When?"
She swallowed hard. "I go to Lady Seagrave tomorrow. We'll leave as soon as she can arrange passage."
"Then tonight..."
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"Must be goodbye," she finished, rising and coming over to stand by him. Her heart already raced and despite her resolve, she was so nervous she was trembling.
She made herself take his hand—the first time she had sought out his touch. After recoiling a Uttle at the spark he must have felt even as she did when their fingers met, he raised her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. His breath seemed to come as quick and shallow as her own and the heat she felt emanating from him did not, she was sure, originate with the fire.
"Kiss me goodbye—on the lips," she whispered.
At first she thought he meant to refuse. But then, his green eyes deepening with that compelling, enticing evidence of his desire, he lowered his head. "Goodbye, Helena," he breathed a moment before his lips touched hers.
She felt the gentle brush of his mouth down to her toes and heard a moan, not sure whether it was her own or Adam's. Then, before he could break the glancing contact, she stepped closer and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Ah, Helena," he murmured, but whatever else he might have said was lost as she took advantage of the slight opening of his lips to slip her tongue into his mouth.
He stiffened in shock, but before he could pull away, if such were his intention, she darted her tongue deeper, seeking his. The blast of sensation that rocketed through her when the sensitive tip of her tongue caught
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the plush fullness of his so weakened her knees that she almost fell.
Fortunately his hands closed on her shoulders to pull her nearer. Curving her body to fit against his, she leaned her weight on him and gave herself up to the exquisite game of fencing tongues, advancing to tease and tantalize, withdrawing to await his pursuit, then sending the full blade of hers gliding across his.
She could feel his heartbeat thundering in his chest and lower, a hard ridge pressed its heat against the thin silk covering her abdomen. She murmured and twined her fingertips in the tendrils at the nape of his neck, pulling his head closer still while she stroked and parried and stroked again with her tongue.
Everything within her seemed to turn molten, coursing in heated waves from her belly, the sensitized tips of her nipples down and outward to knees, fingertips, toes. A throbbing began at the junction of her thighs, pulsing in time to the stroking of their tongues.
She had just decided that she needed hotter, closer, when Adam broke the kiss and took a staggering step backward.
"Helena, no," he mumbled, his eyes wide and unfocused, his breathing erratic. "This is... madness."
"Yes," she said fiercely, and brought his head back down to capture his mouth and his tongue again. A second later, with a strangled cry, he crushed her against him.
This time he was the aggressor, his tongue pursuing hers, laving it with quick, hard strokes, hers the strangled cry as she scratched his coat, desperate to pene-346 THE UNTAMED HEIRESS
trate the material and find bare skin. With her other hand, she inched down his waistcoat, straining to reach his arousal. She took his cry in her mouth as her fingers found purchase, shaping and caressing the long hard length of him straining against the trouser flap.
She was working the buttons to free him when he caught her hand. "No, Helena," he panted. "We... mustn't."
She curled her hand around his erection, exulting as he shuddered. "Do you not want this? Do you not want me?"
"Yes... no!"
"One night, Adam. Just one stolen from all the rest of our days. One night when nothing else exists, not duty, not obligation—nothing but you and me and this. Only you and I will ever know. Can you send me away without tasting this for just one night?" Massaging his length as she spoke, she pulled his head down for another long kiss.
After a moment he broke away again, though his hips still angled into her stroking fingers. "Are...you sure? I'm trying to resist, but another moment of this—" he rubbed against her "—
and I'll be beyond stopping."
"Don't resist." She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and nipped it. As she slid her tongue back into his mouth, his leaped forward to meet hers, mating fiercely as if they were lovers long parted.
But as her fingers manage d to undo the first button of his trouser flap, he thrust her back. "Not.. .here."
"You'll come to my room, then?" she whispered.
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"Yes."
"Now? You promise? For I swear if you are not there in ten minutes, I will come to yours."
He kissed her hard, running his hands down her back to cup and squeeze her buttocks. "I'll be there. I promise."
Like stealthy accomplices, they slipped from the library and hurried up the stairs. In her room, Helena lit a brace of candles,
then pulled back the bed linens and tossed her satin dressing gown to the floor.
What would Adam prefer? she wondered. To find her waiting between the sheets—or to have her meet him at the door, candles outlining her body beneath the silk?
Then the door swung silently open as Adam entered. The collar of a shirt peeked out from beneath his dressing gown and his hair was tousled, as if he'd disrobed quickly.
. "Adam, my love," she whispered, walking over to him.
He framed .her face with his hands. "You are so beautiful," he said hoarsely. "I've wanted you for so long, I can't remember not wanting you."
She took his hand, led him to the bed, stripped off his dressing gown. Beneath it he wore only his shirt, hanging below his waist where it tented out over his erection. She nudged him onto the bed and pushed him back against the pillows. When he reached out to tug at her night rail, she pulled it from his grasp. "Not yet. First, let me please you, Adam."
He let the silk go, his gaze never leaving hers as 348 THE UNTAMED HEIRESS
once more she gently pushed him against the pillows and placed his hands at his sides. Perching beside him, she leaned over and kissed him, found his tongue and twined it with her own.
The heat of his body through the fine linen shirt warmed her more than the blaze from the library's hearth. But she wanted
more, wanted the feel of his bare skin against the thin material of her gown. Still kissing him, she worked loose the buttons on his shirt, pushed it aside and ran the pads of her fingers over his chest, tracing his ribs. He gasped, sucking her tongue deeper when she drew his puckered nipples between her fingertips.
Suddenly she wanted to taste him, his chest, his nipples, the hollow beneath his throat. Laving his mouth with a final stroke, she broke away to trace her tongue across the raspy stubble of his chin, nipping lightly, over the ridge of his jaw, up to the tender curve of his ear, around to the soft skin just behind it. Lowering her mouth to nibble at his neck, she leaned her weight against him and skimmed her other hand from his chest down the flatness of his belly, thrilling to the texture of his bare skin.
He tensed as her fingers approached his erection, his breath little gasps at her ear, then uttered a strangled groan as she grasped his naked shaft. A pulse of exquisite sensation rippled to her core as he quivered in her hand. The skin was so taut and smooth, the head, where a drop of moisture beaded, almost silky to her exploring touch.
Tracing it with one fingertip, she whispered, "Does this please you?"
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"Y-yes," he gasped.
But she wanted him beyond speech, beyond any response but the thrust of his hips. Still outlining his length with her fingers, she moved her mouth downward, rejoicing as he shuddered against her when she rasped her teeth across one taut nipple, then the other. Cupping her hand around his shaft, she de scended his abdomen, laving, nipping, gliding her cheek across the soft skin.
