She gasped and laughed. “I am having a lovely time, thank you!”
Her words brought him more pleasure than they ought to have. “I am glad.”
“You should be.” Her smile was blinding. “It is all because of you, you know. If not for you I would be at a ball somewhere, listening to ladies gossip about each other.”
Grabbing her about the waist, he whirled her around the floor to the rousing music. “Sounds dreadfully dull.”
“Oh it is, it is. Not like this. Spinton would hate this.”
“Yes, he probably would.”
“But I adore it. I adore you. Always have.”
“Me too.” Had she any idea how deeply her words touched him? Obviously not, or she would not toss them about so carelessly.
“I have seen so many old friends tonight. I cannot believe it. Did you arrange this just for me?”
He could lie, but what would be the point? He wanted nothing more than to see her smile again. “I did.”
He was not disappointed. Her smile was like a beacon in the dark. “Thank you!” Pulling from his embrace, she wrapped her arms about his neck. Laughing, North wrapped his around her waist and lifted her off her feet, swinging her around as though she weighed no more than a child. She squealed and clung to him all the tighter, but her laughter was pure delight.
The music ended as he set her down. She swayed visibly on her feet. Then her gaze locked with his.
“It is time to leave, Norrie.”
So soon? Was she ill? “Do you want to go back to Mayfair?”
“No. Not yet.” Her gaze was dark and intent. “Take me to your house. Take me home.”
Octavia knew going to North’s was a mistake, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Ever since he’d revealed that he had engineered that party just for her, all she wanted was to be alone with him. Just a little more time with just the two of them before she had to return to reality.
“Oh! You have turned the parlor into an office!”
He tossed his coat onto a chair. “I do not have much use for a parlor.”
“I like it.” She twirled around on the carpet. “Is this where you keep your wine?”
“No,” he replied with a patient smile. “I think you have had enough to drink.”
She stopped twirling. Thought she was foxed, did he? “Not yet. Not until you have a glass with me.”
He smiled. “All right. Claret?”
“Please.”
She watched him cross the carpet to a cupboard on the far wall, his shoulders swaying with masculine grace, his trousers caressing his buttocks and thighs. Her body hummed at the mere sight of him. Oh, but he had always had that effect on her. He was the finest, most handsome, physically perfect man she had ever seen.
And to think she had been his first lover. The first woman to ever touch that chest, that glorious back. No matter how many other women he had lain with, she would always have the pleasure of knowing that somewhere, in the back of his mind, he had compared them all to her.
God help her, she hoped it wasn’t she who came up lacking.
He came back to her. Brazenly, she admired his front as well. He handed her a glass. There wasn’t much wine in it.
“I am not drunk, Norrie.” No, if she were drunk, she would be numb and wouldn’t feel this fire burning inside her. If she were drunk, she could excuse her thoughts, but she was just sober enough to know that what she was thinking was wrong.
But not sober enough to stop thinking them.
He swallowed his claret in one gulp. The tilt of his head allowed her to watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. What a lovely throat. Did all men have such nice throats? It seemed a shame to cover them with stocks and such if they did. There was something about North’s neck that made her want to bury her face in the crook between it and his shoulder.
“Do you want more?” He asked.
“Oh
yes
.” Then she realized he was talking about the wine. “No, thank you. I think you are right. I have had enough.”
He frowned. “Are you not feeling well?”
She ought to tell him not to come any closer, but she couldn’t convince her tongue to form the words.
“N-no. I am fine.”
Not nearly as fine as you.
“Are you certain?” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. He hadn’t shaved earlier. She liked it.
“You looked lovely tonight.”
He chuckled, his eyes lighting with amusement. “Customarily the man says such flattery to the lady.”
Octavia shrugged, her muscles as wine-loosened as her tongue. “One day you shall make the face of heaven fine, Norrie.”
He took her empty glass, and set it, along with his own, on the desk behind him. “You are foxed, Vie.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps I have lost some of my reason, but that does not stop me from wanting to kiss you, dear friend.”
“Octavia,” he said, backing away. “This is folly.”
“Too rash, too unadvised. Yes, I know. Kiss me, North. Just this once. I want to taste you again. I miss your taste.”
He would have backed away if not for the desk preventing his escape. Never in her life had Octavia been so thankful for a piece of furniture.
Well, except for North’s bed twelve years ago, of course.
Running her hand up his chest, Octavia rubbed the crisp hair peeking out of his open shirt. Her other hand came up behind his neck, holding him with all her strength as she lifted herself up on her toes to press her lips against his.
He was as immobile as a statue, as unyielding as rock, and yet he still felt better than anything she’d felt in a long, long time. Was he truly that immune to her? No, he wasn’t. She could feel the evidence of her effect on him hard against her hip. He wanted her and yet he resisted. Why? She was offering him whatever he wanted to take and was asking nothing in return, save that he give her exactly what her body—what
she
—demanded.
Finally, she pulled away. “It is different. You do not taste as you did that night.”
“It is the absence of tears.”
“Ahh yes.” She remembered now. “We both cried that night, didn’t we?”
He nodded. “We did.”
Her fingers traced the lines bracketing his mouth. “You were so sweet, so gentle.”
“I was foolish and fumbling and I made an idiot of myself.”
“You were perfect. Do not ever think otherwise.”
Before he could argue further with her, she pressed herself against the solid warmth of him, feeling his heart beating against her chest, the heat of him seeping through the thin fabric of her gown. Lifting herself on her toes, she placed her mouth on his—without hesitancy, without regret.
Oh, but he tasted divine! All man and sweetness. Mindlessly, she devoured him, licking at him with her tongue, nipping with her teeth. And when the muscles in his arms tightened beneath her hands, when she felt the hardness of his erection press into her hip, she groaned in triumph. Such power came in the knowledge that his body responded to her.
But instead of holding her as she wanted, he pushed her away.
His breathing was shallow, his eyes bright. “Do not tempt me, Vie.”
Wantonly, she shifted her hips against his. “Are you tempted, Norrie?”
He growled low in his throat—she was certain she heard him growl. “Hell, yes.”
“By what?” She trailed her fingers up his arm. “The chance for a tumble, or by me?”
“By you. Only you.”
Then his fingers were in her hair, pulling and massaging at her scalp, and it was she who now ran the risk of being devoured. She didn’t care.
Her fingers—far less nimble than she would have liked
fumbled with the fastenings on his waistcoat, stripping the offensive garment from him in quick, jerky tugs. No sooner had she dispensed with it than her hands seized the soft linen of his shirt, pulling it free of his trousers, plowing her hands underneath, caressing the silky flesh of his back and ribs as she shoved the fabric upward. Still he did not stop her. In fact, he broke their kiss so that she could pull the shirt over his head, and then he balled it up and tossed it to the floor.
He was so beautiful, so overwhelmingly male, so vibrantly sensual. The sight of him made her tremble, the sound of his breathing raised the delicate hairs on her limbs, and the look in his eyes tightened the tips of her breasts.
“So very fine.” Her lips pressed against his shoulder, her tongue snaking out to lick the salty flesh there. “Dear Lord, who would ever think a man could taste as good as you?” And he did taste good. He was tangy sweet, warm and firm beneath her hands and mouth. That skinny boy was gone, replaced by a man all muck and muscle, as her mother used to say. But he was still her boy, her Norrie, and he filled her senses like no spirit or opiate ever could—twice as potent and ever more addictive.
And she, unrepentant wanton that she was, wanted to twine herself around him, take him into herself until she tumbled into the darkness of oblivion.
“Ach,” she whispered in a Scottish lilt, pressing his mouth to his throat. The pulse there beat heavily against her lips. “You are bonny and fine, Norrie Sheffield.”
His arms stiffened, putting distance between them. “Do not mock me, Vie.”
“Mock you?” She reached for him, unable to keep herself away from that golden flesh. “I love the sound of your voice. I always have, especially now that you do not try to hide your accent.”
His eyes were pale stones in the rigid set of his face. Anyone else might mistake his expression for one of anger, but not Octavia. He was trying to fight the attraction between them—trying to fight
her.
“I adore almost everything about you.” Her hands slid up the solid wall of his chest, the crisp hair tickling her palms. “I adore
you
, North. I always have. You are and always will be one of my dearest—”
“Memories,” he cut her off. “Promise me after we find this admirer of yours you will make me a memory, Vie. It is the way it has to be, we both know that.”
“Why?” She winced at the whine in her voice. “We cannot be friends because I had the advantage of being born legitimate? That is stupid!”
He held her at arm’s length, despite how she struggled to free herself from the forced separation. “Maybe so, but that is the way I want it. Nothing good will come of our association—not for you.”
“
You
are good, Norrie. Regardless of everything else, you are still the only person who knows the real me, whom I can trust with all my secrets and know that you will never turn your back.”
His expression was resolute as he relaxed his arms. She took advantage and stepped closer. “Not when you need me, no. But I will turn my back on you when this is over, and unless you are in danger I won’t ever come back.”
He meant it, and it hurt her beyond his knowing to hear him say it.
She lifted her face to his, her fingers kneading deep into the muscles of his shoulders. “Then give me something to hold on to. Something to remember you by.” She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let go of him. Not yet. Not when she had just found him again. She didn’t know if this was lust or desperation or something else entirely, but the need to hang on to
him, hang on to the one thing in her life that had ever been good and pure and hers alone, was all-consuming.
She slid her hands up to his neck, his jaw, his face, cupping his head with her hands, twining her fingers in the glossy curls of his hair. Her body she pressed to his, feeling the heat of him through the fabric of her gown.
“Kiss me. Kiss me and then I will let you go.” Begging, blackmail, coercion, she didn’t care. She had no pride, no shame where North was concerned. She never had.
She didn’t have to beg twice. He did kiss her, and when his lips touched hers, she opened herself to his plunder, matching every lash of his tongue, every taste with one of her own. If she could climb up him, she would. If she could merge their two bodies into one whole, she would—that was how desperate she was to have him. The control she prized above all else was ready to snap, and she did not care.
In fact, she wanted to lose control. She wanted this man—her Norrie—in a most violent fashion. She wanted his possession, wanted to possess him, and if it left her bruised and tender, aching with reminders of his passion, then so much the better.
Again he pushed her away. Why couldn’t he give up his control as well? It hadn’t been this difficult to seduce him before.
“God, Vie, this has got to stop.”
“Not yet.” She raised her gaze to his. “It has been so long since I felt this way, Norrie. Not since that night.”
His eyes burned with icy fire as raw as the low timbre of his voice. “There has been no one else?”
“No one.” The room seemed to shrink around them as she raised her fingers yet again to his cheek. “Just you, my dearest friend.”
Something changed then. The air thickened, becoming more difficult to breathe. The temperature soared, damping
her hairline with perspiration. Everything swam out of focus save for the harsh male beauty of North. He stared at her as though he could sense the direction of her thoughts, the tingling deep inside. And she knew that if he made love to her this night, he would not be foolish and fumbling.
Desperately, North tried to collect himself, but to no avail. He hauled her flush against him, bruising her lips with his own, his tongue ravaging the sweet confines of her mouth. He wanted her with a desperation he had never felt before. Wanted to plunge inside her warm wetness, wanted to feel her wrapped around him until this torment inside him ceased. It had been a mistake to bring her here. He knew that before they left the party, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for it, not even now, knowing she was another man’s fiancée.
No, technically, she wasn’t Spinton’s fiancée. She had agreed to discuss marriage with him after this investigation was over. She wore no ring. Not yet.
And a good thing that was too, as she was clawing at his clothes like a cat trying to get to a mouse. Lucky for him, he enjoyed being mauled.
But this wasn’t how he wanted things to be between them. He didn’t want to make love to her when her judgment was so impaired. Oh, perhaps she knew what she was doing, but he didn’t want to give her the opportunity to hide behind her drunkenness once he returned her to her own world. If they made love again, it would be when both of them had clear minds, were aware of the consequences, and there could be no recriminations between them.