Jonet felt Cole’s weight bear her down into the softness of his bed. The coverlet had been turned back by an efficient housemaid, and the starched white sheets were cool against her skin. As if it were an afterthought, Cole lifted himself to kneel over her, one big hand holding the impressive weight of his cock, the other skimming up her inner thigh. Seductively, he slid his long, capable fingers into the slick folds of flesh between her legs to test her readiness.
She was. Need like nothing she had ever known knifed through her. “
Ah, ah
. . .
a-a-ah,
” she breathed, arching off the bed, one hand knotting into the bedcovers. Mouth open, Jonet turned her head into the down of the pillow, wanting to drown in the dusky, masculine scent that lingered on Cole’s bed linens. She yearned to feel his skin against hers, hungered to taste the heat of his passion, needed to draw in his scent and become, if only briefly, a part of Cole.
In the flickering lamplight, Jonet looked up at him. His knees braced on either side of her thighs, Cole towered over her, his long, elegant fingers still caressing himself, still caressing her. She drew in her breath and let her eyes drink him in, stunned to realize a man could look so . . . dangerously, deliciously masculine. His eyes were black and glittering, his hard jaw heavily shadowed with an unexpectedly dark beard. Sweet heaven, but he was a big man.
Everywhere
. The lamp cast a golden glow over the taut skin of his chest and arms, which were perfectly sculpted and lightly corded. A fine trail of hair led from his breastbone and down his lean belly, growing thick and dark at the base of his manhood.
As she watched, Cole drew his hand down the length of his shaft once more, and, no longer able to resist, Jonet made a choking, desperate noise in the back of her throat and reached out for him. Everything happened quickly then. A little roughly, Cole shoved her knees apart. Eagerly, she let her hands skim down the small of his back and over his taut hips, feeling the muscles tense as she urged him hard against her. And then he was on her, probing, hot and urgent, at her entrance. Only the sheer size of him cut through the haze of sensuality, and fleetingly, Jonet considered asking him to go slowly.
A desperate knock upon Cole’s door made that unnecessary.
Atop her, Cole’s entire body drew taut. His head jerked up, like a wild cat sniffing the air for danger. “
What
—
?
” he rasped heatedly.
A long moment of silence held sway. “It’s j-j-just me, sir.” Stuart’s voice was small and terrified. “I th-think there is something under my bed.”
And then his body jerked away from hers. Sick, Jonet felt the mattress dip and creak as Cole rolled to one side. Worse, she felt the revulsion and shame that flooded through him, washing away all desire for her. She felt shame, too, but she shut it away, for at that moment, her every instinct drew her to Stuart.
What had she been about to do?
Her children were alone and frightened, and she lay naked in their tutor’s bed like a common slut. It was unconscionable. Biting her lip, she turned her face into the pillow again, dragging up the hem of the sheet to cover her shame.
“
Go
—
!
” she whispered urgently, giving a little shove against the small of his back.
Without looking at Jonet again, Cole sat up at the edge of the bed. He exhaled once, sharply, then dropped his head into his palms, his broad back and shoulders limned in the lamplight. “It is all right, Stuart,” he said, his words unerringly gentle. “You’re safe. Sit down at my desk. I’ll . . . be right out.”
Jonet watched as Cole stood, hitched his trousers up over his narrow hips, and dragged on his shirt, roughly shoving his arms through the sleeves. His flaming desire had burned down to a smoldering anger, which seethed through the room like a palpable, living thing. But was it directed at her? At himself? Jonet could not be sure, and at that moment, she did not care.
She cared only that Stuart was frightened. She had heard the terror in his voice. Even now, it took every drop of willpower she possessed not to go to him. But she couldn’t very well let Stuart see her crawling from her would-be lover’s bed, could she? Again, she had failed her child.
Cole buttoned the close of his trousers and turned to whisper over his shoulder without really looking at her. “Jonet,” he coldly mouthed the words. “Go back downstairs to your bedchamber.”
Levering herself anxiously onto one elbow, Jonet looked at him. “No,” she whispered, shoving a heavy length of hair back over her shoulder. “I must be sure he is safe. That there is nothing . . .”
Through clenched teeth, Cole looked at her, his face hard in the lamplight. “There
is
nothing. Just a stormy night. If I discover otherwise, I will knock on your bedchamber door and tell you so.” Then, with an icy calm, Cole picked up his lamp and went out the door.
Jonet listened intently as, in the sitting room beyond, Stuart began to explain. “It is probably just my imagination, sir,” he said, sounding marginally less frightened now. “But you did say, sir, that I ought to wake you. And really, I thought it better for you to have a look than to wake Mama or Nanna. Was that . . . was that all right?” He sounded sheepish.
“Perfectly all right, Stuart,” came Cole’s soft response. The rest of his soothing words were lost to her as they left Cole’s suite and went out into the hall.
His feet bare, the throat of his shirt open, Cole walked slowly along the corridor, the lamp held aloft in his left hand, his right laying lightly upon the young marquis’s back. Rhythmically, he patted Stuart as they walked. Inwardly, however, he cursed himself for a fool. An irresponsible, libidinous fool. Dear heavens, what if Stuart had not paused to knock? What if, terrified by something real or imagined, he had simply burst into Cole’s bedchamber, only to see his lecherous oaf of a tutor pounding himself inside his mother? Oh, what a comforting sight that would have been!
Cole wanted to reach around and kick his own arse. Stuart was nine years old, and boys of that age were not altogether naïve. He would have had some idea of what was going on. Most certainly, he would have known that it was
wrong
. The vision made Cole’s gut clench with shame. What had he been thinking? Good God, what had Jonet been thinking, come to that? The woman was going to bring him nothing but trouble, and he had known it since the start. They were neither of them any better than rutting animals, clawing, licking, and panting all over one another. Now, his cock limp with humiliation and his chest tight with fear, Cole realized that he had made a terrible misjudgement.
Was it possible that what he had taken for Jonet’s terror in the schoolroom had been nothing more than her own lust? Perhaps she really was just that shameless. Cole hardly knew enough about women to be sure. Perhaps she had merely wished to spite Delacourt. Or perhaps her willingness was motivated by nothing more than pure physical desire for him.
Oh, of course!
he thought sarcastically. There was the answer! He was irresistible. And perhaps he should have felt flattered by it all, but he bloody well did not. What he felt was
used
.
Jonet waited but a moment before crawling out of Cole’s bed, yanking on her nightrail, then wrapping a blanket lightly about her shoulders to follow them. Stuart’s door stood half closed, probably Cole’s way of encouraging her to make a discreet disappearance down the stairs. But Jonet had no intention of leaving her son when he was so obviously frightened.
After dinner tonight she had sent David straight home so that she might curl up with the boys on the sofa in her sitting room. There they had remained, Jonet trying to comfort them, until Cole had come up to say that Rogue was indeed on the mend. Yet Jonet now chided herself for not realizing that there would be aftereffects of such a crisis, particularly with Stuart, who was both sensitive enough and old enough to take seriously things that often escaped Robert.
Jonet was comfortable with her femininity—too comfortable, in fact, to continue to reproach herself for desiring a man like Cole Amherst. But she deserved a scathing scold for failing to anticipate her children’s needs. It was yet another sign of just how precariously taut her thread of logic had been pulled. Was it wrong to want him as desperately as she did? Certainly it was wrong to be anything less than circumspect about it. Making love to a man on the floor of her children’s schoolroom was not discreet. Undressing him without locking the bedroom door was so witless as to defy justification.
But that recrimination also fled as she turned the corner into Stuart’s room to see Cole on his hands and knees, his narrow hips in the air, his head thrust beneath the bed. The boy lay facedown atop the mattress, peering rather anxiously over the edge. Cole’s lamp sat on the floor beside him, and in the yellow glow that shone up into his face, Stuart looked pale and drawn.
The sight broke Jonet’s heart. Rashly, she rushed toward him. “Oh, Stuart!” she whispered urgently. At once, Cole jerked at her voice, and the heavy crack of bone against wood sounded beneath the bed.
“
Damn it!
” came Cole’s swift response. He emerged from beneath the mattress, assiduously rubbing the back of his head and glaring at Jonet, who now sat on the bed, Stuart caught in her embrace.
Cole was obviously annoyed that she had disobeyed him, but he was wise enough to direct his words to Stuart. “There is nothing under there, Stuart,” he explained calmly. “I believe you may safely go back to sleep. Indeed, I suggest that that is what we
all
should do.” He turned to look pointedly at Jonet. “And the sooner the better.”
Despite the fact that Cole’s shirt billowed loose at the throat, exposing a rather enticing expanse of chest and muscle, Jonet ignored him. Instead, she turned her attention to Stuart, pressing her lips fervently to his head. “I thought I heard a disturbance—and of course, I came up to investigate,” she murmured.
Stuart lifted his head from his mother’s chest to stare at Cole. “See?” His eyes widened again. “Mama heard something, too.”
Cole merely darkened his glare and began to shove in his shirttail with sharp, violent motions. “I think what your mother meant, Stuart, is that she heard us rummaging around. Is that not right, ma’am?”
“Yes! Yes, of course. That is what I heard.” Nervously, she licked her lips. “And so I became worried that perhaps you were ill or frightened. Was that not very silly of me?”
Stuart nodded, hugging his mother tightly. “I was a
little
frightened,” he confessed in a small, whispery voice, “but I did not want to upset you any more, Mama. Cousin Cole has poked his lamp under my bed, and there is nothing there. Perhaps I just had a bad dream, and thought it up?” He stared up at his mother for confirmation.
Gently, Jonet eased him back into bed and pulled the covers tightly up around his chin. “No doubt that is just what happened, Stuart. In fact, I believe I had a foolish dream myself tonight.” Lightly, she kissed his pale forehead. “Now sleep tight, my darling. You did the proper thing by going to Cole.”
Together, they left the room, and Jonet pulled the door shut as she came away. A long, awkward moment passed, and then almost roughly, Cole seized Jonet’s hand and dragged her toward the schoolroom. “No,” she whispered as they reached the door. “Not here, for pity’s sake! Let us go back into your rooms where we may be private.”
Cole held the lamp high, his face a mask of stone. “You mistake my intentions, madam,” he said coolly. “The schoolroom will suffice.” So saying, he dragged her inside, set down the lamp, and shoved shut the door.
Roughly, she jerked away from him. “Perhaps you mistake mine, sir,” she retorted.
Ignoring Jonet’s words, Cole turned on her abruptly, his expression impassive. “I find that I owe you a most abject apology, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head very formally. “I fear that I forgot myself. Inexcusably. I beg you will forgive me. That is all I have to say.”
Caught in a tangle of emotions, Jonet stepped a little too close to him. “Well, that is a very pretty speech indeed,” she said bitterly. “You
forgot yourself
. You wish to
apologize
. You are ever the gentleman, are you not?”
“I would that that were true, but I continue to prove otherwise.” Cole put his hands on her shoulders and thrust her a little bit away from him. “I am sorry, Jonet,” he said softly, his eyes squeezing tightly shut.
Jonet’s mouth came open, then closed again. “You are . . .
sorry?
” she finally echoed, then took a step back from him. “Yes, I think I see. I am to be . . . dismissed, is it? Just another befuddled child who cannot discern reality from a dream?” Her voice caught on the last word.
Cole turned his back and strode across the floor, leaning down to snag something in his hand. He returned to the table and slapped down her knife alongside the lamp. “Go back to bed, Jonet. And take that if you feel you must.” He paused, and swallowed very hard. “But for God’s sake, use it only for defense. Do not ever attack a man again, do you hear me?”
Cole looked up to see that Jonet’s head now hung low, as if she did not hear him. Good God, how dare the woman sulk when he was trying to do the right thing. And trying to keep her safe! Her insolence galled him, and he was in no mood for it. A little roughly, he took her by the shoulders again and gave her a little shake. “Jonet, for heaven’s sake, listen to me!” he whispered. “You have a house full of men who are perfectly capable of coming to your aid. Just shout!
Scream!
But do not ever be so foolish as to attack a man in the dark again.”
To his acute dismay, Cole found his temper rising with his own words. He really did not want to admit the truth of how desperately he had wanted her just a few short minutes earlier. Nor did he wish to acknowledge how greatly he feared for Jonet’s safety—not even to himself. But now the words were out, impelled by fear. And panic was beginning to gnaw at him again. Dear God, she could have been killed! It had been an exceedingly reckless thing to do.