Escape with A Rogue (35 page)

Guilt flooded him. His best friend and business partner, Stephen, was Bess’s son. Even though Stephen was older by two years, Jack had promised Bess he would look after Stephen and keep him out of trouble. Stephen was not too clever and easily led. He’d grown up even more angry, bitter, and vicious than Jack had ever been. But Jack had failed to keep his promise because Stephen had ended up involved with treason—

“Protect her?” Madeline’s gentle voice broke in on his memories. She shifted on the bed, so she was kneeling, naked behind the sheet she held up. “From the gentlemen who . . . who visited her?”

He felt a rueful grin tug his lips at the ladylike way she tried to describe it. “Yes. From her pimp also. He was supposed to give Bess and my mother ‘protection’ in return for most of the coin they earned. If they didn’t pay, he hit them.”

“You fought with him, didn’t you?”

Could she see into his soul? That had been in the days when he’d been an angry stripling, quick to use his fists. “Many times. He almost killed me once.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “Did he kill your mother? No, you said it was a peer you—you killed.”

She waited with her head cocked, her beautiful blue and gold eyes filled with concern. Now he was about to lose her forever. It was for the best.

“Aye, it was one of my mother’s clients. I tried to stop him from hitting her, but I was too late. She’d endured beatings before, but nothing like that one—” He remembered how he had stood in shock for precious seconds, too stunned and terrified to move. Then something in him had cracked. Wild anger had taken control of him.

“He punched her, kicked her, then he threw her across the room and her head slammed into the floor. She lay still, utterly still. But then he lifted his boot, intending to kick her again. I jumped on him from behind to stop him. He shoved me off and kicked me instead. I crawled to the corner of the room, sure he was going to kill me. I was damned if I would let him win. I knew he’d kill my mother if I died first. I grabbed his leg and tripped him. We fought together and he pulled out a knife. I remember the feel of it—the cuts were cold at first, then they stung like the blazes. I got behind him again and he thrust back, trying to stab me. Next thing I knew, he was sprawled on the floor in front of me and his head was twisted sideways. I’d snapped his neck. But it was too late. She was already dead.”

“Jack.”

He had to shut his eyes, because he must have sickened her. He leaned against one of the bed canopy columns. “I’m sorry.” And he was, from the depths of his soul. “You didn’t need to hear all of that. He was a viscount and I’d committed a murder. I went to Stephen. He helped me get rid of the body. We tossed it in the Thames. Stephen was older than I, as well as bigger and stronger. He saved my life in the stews more times than I can count—he saved me from beatings and robberies. That day, he saved me from the noose.”

The bed creaked. Footsteps padded toward him. He opened his eyes, stunned. She touched his shoulder. Caressed him without any hesitation. “You killed the viscount by accident and you did it to protect your mother. Jack, this was before William Hart took you in, wasn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Heavens, you were a child, Jack, and your life was in danger. You were fighting to save your mother. Of course I understand what you did and why. I do not blame you for it. But if you still do not want to take me with you—”

“Madeline, I’d be condemning you to a life on the run. You deserve so much better.”

He watched her chest rise on a deep breath. “Then you should run now. On your own. You don’t need to stay here for me. You don’t have to feel any obligation to me. I just want you to be safe.”

“Do you know why I want to protect you, Madeline?” He’d spoken without thinking, angered she believed he saw her as an obligation. The real answer thundered in his heart.

“You wish to prove you are a gentleman—” She broke off, shook her head fiercely. “No, to prove you are
better
than a gentleman.”

Her words knocked him back on his heels.

“Well, you are. You are better than any gentleman I know,” she declared. She kissed him hard. Her hands skimmed over his neck and shoulders, then dropped to grip his arse in lusty abandon. Shadows and memories fled, and he kissed her back.

He lifted her right leg and slid it around him to pull her closer. A shock of pain hit his back, but he ignored it.

For the first time in two years, he wanted a future. He wanted to fight for his life. Was he too late? Even if he could have his future, how could he have her?

He lifted her, cupping her curvy naked bottom, his fingers spread to make a seat for her. Ignoring the pain in his back, he pressed her against the wall, kissing her with his mouth open wide, and his tongue playing hungrily with hers.

* * *

Her bottom bumped squarely against the wall and set the pictures above them rattling. Madeline gasped. She’d never imagined anything so intense, so erotic—

Jack held her with one hand beneath her cheeks. Which meant his poor hand had been banged against the plaster instead of her rump. He broke the kiss long enough to dazzle her with his smile. Once she’d dreamed of seeing the wonders of the world, but Jack’s smile of pure delight, of fiery arousal, was more breathtaking than she’d ever imagined the South Seas or a sunset in Venice could be.

How could he do this when he’d been injured? She couldn’t believe his strength.

Her heart was singing. He wanted to take her away. She believed it. He was refusing for her sake. Knowing she’d captured his heart made her wild with desire. Daringly, she thrust her hips against him, grinding against his hard stomach and the ridge of his awakening erection.

He bent and kissed the swell of her breast, his lips hot and knowing, sending pleasure streaking through her. “I should have a sheath,” he murmured. “To protect you.”

No. She didn’t want to stop. She wished she could be completely free with Jack. No barriers. No fears. “I’ve heard men can . . . um . . . pull out—”

“I will,” he vowed, as he massaged the plump head of his erection against her aching quim.

It was stunning to be held this way—up in the air, with her feet hooked around his back.

Make every moment last
, she whispered in her head. She explored the corded strength of his neck. Tickled his earlobes with her tongue—a caress that made him breathe heavily between kisses. She ran her feet down his low back and stroked his derriere with her heels. “I want this to be an adventure.”

His laugh was low and aching. It was the sound of a person finding pleasure despite darkness clinging to the heart.

“I love you when you’re wild, Madeline. This is how you were meant to be.”

Her head dropped back to rest against the wall, to bump against the frame of a painting that hung above, and she moaned in delight. At this moment, she believed him.

He moved his hips forward, and she was so wet, his cock eased in. Their groans joined together to float in the room. Their gazes locked. She felt so much more than just joined with him. She arched forward at the same instant he gave a hard thrust of his hips, and in a heartbeat, he was buried inside her to the hilt.

He began thrusting inside her, moving his hips slowly. She’d waltzed several times in her life, but this was more fluid and enticing. This was a dance she never wanted to end.

Heat surrounded her, made her wanton and dizzy. She buried her face in the crook of Jack’s neck, breathing in the heady, arousing scent of his sweat. “I don’t want slow. I want exhilarating.”

“I’ve never known a woman who wanted it hasty.” His eyes held luminous warmth.

“Lose control with me, Jack,” Madeline urged. He was just like her—he always tried to restrain his emotion. “That’s what I want.”

Hades, Jack wanted nothing more than to please her. But he had to slow down. She was grasping at excitement—at happiness—and he wanted this adventure to be more than she’d ever expected.

He lifted her so her legs wrapped even tighter around his waist. He loved the feel of this—her long limbs embracing him. Control, Jack. She had no idea what would happen if he lost it—he would climax on the spot, with the intensity of cannon fire. He held her with his right arm, braced the wall with his left, and plunged deep. She answered with throaty moans, then worked as hard as she could to meet his thrusts.

Her breasts crushed against him. He was addicted to this—to her—more than any man in his hells had been addicted to gaming. She’d given him a glimpse of heaven, where the pain of old sins could ease and a man could know contentment, peace, happiness. No man who’d felt that could ever turn away.

But he was going to have to.

Here, now, he felt like he belonged with her. He cupped the full globes of her bottom, lifting her so his shaft rubbed across her aroused clit with his every thrust. She melted on him, clung to him. Then she leaned back against the wall and she urged him to go harder by hammering her ankles against his arse.

This was an adventure for him, too.

“Oh,” she cried, and he knew how close she was. Another thrust made her bite back a scream beside his ear.

“It’s just as glorious as the first time—times.”

He had to laugh, proud as punch, his heart full to bursting, as her eyes shut tight and her mouth opened wide in a silent cry, and she lurched wildly on him. She came away from the wall and held him. Her nails dug into his neck. She sobbed and rocked. Licked him, kissed him, suckled him, bit him. Her climax almost knocked him off his feet. He held her, marveling at how far he’d taken her beyond control.

Just as he was about to lower her feet to the floor, she snapped her eyes open and demanded, “More.”

“This time we go slowly,” he whispered.

A thought suddenly struck him. Had anyone heard them in here?

He pumped into her sweet, hot slickness with slower undulations of his hips, while keeping her pinned to the wall. His cock felt hard and heavy as a cricket bat, throbbing and hot. They moved together, moaned together. Her loose hair poured over her shoulders and spread out like faery wings.

But slow only lasted for seconds, then they were wild again. She took every deep, long thrust he gave her, and clutched his shoulders to slam her hips to his. Sweat gleamed on her face. She looked like a fey creature—untamed, radiant, and beyond beautiful.

The picture above them rattled. They pounded the wall on which it hung, and it swung out and thudded back with each thrust. “We should—” he began.

Too late. He clasped her tight to him, and with his cock still buried deep inside her, he turned them away from the wall. The picture’s hanger pulled free, plaster dust flew up in a puff, then the large, gilt-framed painting smashed on the floor.

Madeline wriggled on him, to see the wreckage, too. “I never did like that picture,” she said.

That one last twist of her tight, blazing cunny on his rock-hard cock was too much. He tried to hold back, tried to fight the instinctive buck of his hips. But he couldn’t hold it off. He managed to arch his hips back and withdraw. The head of his cock brushed her bare thigh—

His legs shook, his muscles went immediately weak as his bullocks sucked up tight and pleasure exploded in him.

Jack saw bright lights. He heard angels—or possible just the roar of his heart. “Maddy,” he groaned. “My precious angel.”

He took unsteady steps toward a chair and braced Madeline’s bottom against it. His head fell forward, stars streaked beneath his shut eyelids, and his whole body shook with the force of his climax.

He’d never felt that he might go up in flames in an orgasm before. Even coming with Madeline was an adventure. He didn’t think the spasms would stop, and had the mad fear his spine would dissolve and shoot out with his seed. He must have spurted over her thighs. She must be shocked.

But she held him and stroked his cheek with a gesture so loving it weakened his already shaking knees. Jack opened his eyes to see Maddy watching him with shining eyes and a smile that speared him to his heart.

They had to get her dressed and out of his bedroom. On jerking legs, he carried her to the bed and set her down. He wished they could collapse on his bed and lay there forever.

He knew why no one had come when the painting fell—then he remembered he’d been put in a little-used bedroom in the oldest wing. He assumed no one had been close enough to hear the crash. It gave them some time, but he still had to protect Maddy from discovery.

From a pocket of his breeches, he yanked out a handkerchief, a clean one, and quickly cleaned Maddy’s soft thighs. Even thought he’d withdrawn at his climax, he knew he could have impregnated her.

“Come, love,” he murmured, “We have to hurry.”

“My legs are rather sore,” she said softly, “and I can barely move.” She sighed sadly. “But I’ll try to move quickly.”

With fingers fumbling in his haste, he helped her slide her nightdress back on. Then, despite sharp pains from the cuts on his back, he pulled on his breeches, without bothering with his linens underneath.

What had he been thinking?

He couldn’t take her with him, forcing her to live without a home or a family. Living with the constant fear of capture. But what if she carried his child?

Could they be safe if they ran away together? They could acquire a house, live under false names. Could they actually get away with it—?

“I can’t run away with you, Jack.” Madeline stuck her feet into her slippers. Her voice was strangely cool. Devoid of emotion. “You don’t need to worry. I was just speaking wildly. My mother needs me here, to look after her. She is so confused and that frightens her. She always took care of me. I must do the same for her.”

Her calm speech stunned him. A few moments ago she had been passionate. Now she sounded . . . dead inside. He’d thought she belonged here in her life as an earl’s daughter, but now he saw she was trapped here. This was her prison, just as the stews and then Dartmoor had been his. Her acceptance of it broke his heart. All thoughts of hurrying her out of the room vanished. He didn’t want to let her go.