Lady of Seduction (21 page)

His hands circled her waist and pulled her up against him. His kiss turned hot and hungry, as if he felt that same rush of
new life between them. Through the blurry heat of passion, she felt him slide her coat from her shoulders and throw it aside,
and felt his fingers on the lacings of her shirt as he tugged them free. The boy’s clothes she still wore fell away.

The chilly air of the room made her tremble, but she wasn’t cold for long. Grant’s mouth traced a fiery ribbon of kisses along
her throat to the vulnerable hollow at the base of her neck. He drew the linen of her shirt away as he went, kissing her,
touching her, just where she most craved. He knew her body so well now.

Her eyes closed as he pressed a soft kiss just between her breasts. Surely he could feel the erratic pounding of her heart
that said just how much she longed for him? She twined her fingers in his hair and tried to urge him even closer, but he evaded
her. He spun her around to face away from him and drew her shirt off over her head.

“What are you…” she began, and gasped when she felt the slide of fabric over her eyes as he covered them with his cravat.
The light was blotted away, leaving her in hot darkness where she could only feel. Every soft sound of his movement behind
her was amplified.

His hands fell gently on her shoulders, caressing her as he held her still. She felt the rough strength of his long fingers
slide down her arms to hold her hands still, keeping her from pulling off the blindfold.

He kissed the nape of her neck, his breath warm against her skin.

“You wouldn’t let me touch you when you tied me to the bed,” he whispered. “It only seems fair now that you can’t
see
me. You can’t see what I’ll do to you…”

“Grant,” she said weakly. His lips traced along her neck to her shoulder and bit at the soft curve where they met. Her legs
trembled, and he caught her as she started to fall.

Her back was pressed against him, not even a breath of air between them, and she felt the hardness of his erection on her
hips. His palms covered her naked breasts, caressing in rough circles until she cried out at the pleasure of it. The air felt
so heavy around her that she couldn’t breathe.

He swept her up in his arms, the whole room whirling around her, and laid her across the bed on her stomach. The blankets
chafed at her skin, so sensitive from his touch, but he drew them back until she lay on the softer
sheets. She could hear his breath, his every movement, as he slowly removed her shoes and her breeches, leaving her naked.
Her blindfold seemed to form an exquisitely sensitive connection between them, as if the whole world narrowed to just the
two of them alone.

Caroline felt him leave her and heard the rustle of wool and linen as he shed his own clothes. The cold swept around her again,
and she tried to roll over to face him, but his hands stopped her, gentle but firm. She was his prisoner.

“Not yet,” he said. His body lowered over hers again, bare skin to bare skin, completely intoxicating. As he kissed her shoulder,
she felt every caress, every movement, a hundred-fold. She wanted more and more and had to bite her lip to keep from begging.

She didn’t need to say anything, though—he seemed to know exactly what she needed. He knew just where to kiss to make her
cry out. She felt his open mouth, hot and wet, slide down the arch of her spine and bite at the soft curve of her backside.
He kissed the top of her thigh as his hands slid beneath her and drew her up.

She pressed her hands flat to the bed in front of her to keep from falling again. Grant moved slowly down the curves of her
body, exploring every inch. No soft spot went unkissed; he caressed the back of her knees, her feet. He licked at her ankle,
touched each freckle and sensitive spot. Then he moved back up again, and she cried out as his finger slid deep inside of
her damp womanhood.

“You are so beautiful, Caro,” he whispered against her ear as he pressed his touch even deeper. Another finger slid inside
and another, and he knew just where to caress to make her want to scream. She lowered her head to the
sheets and buried her face in their softness so no one could hear her.

“So beautiful,” he said again, kissing her shoulder as his fingers moved faster. “Like a fierce goddess of the hunt, Artemis
or Babd. And when you find your pleasure your skin turns the loveliest shade of pink—just like
that.
”

Caroline’s climax exploded inside her, a burst of fiery pleasure. She screamed into the sheets as her hips arched back into
his touch.

“God help me, Caro, I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” he groaned.

She had barely begun to float back to earth from the heights of sensation when she felt him draw her hips back even higher
and his manhood slid into her. There was nothing slow or careful about their lovemaking now—they surged together in hot need,
rough and fast. His hands were hard on her hips as he slid back and thrust forward, deeper and deeper. His skin was hot and
damp against hers, their bodies clinging together.

“Grant!” she cried as the pressure carried her up again. “I can’t—bear it. I can’t…”

“I’m here, Caro,” he said. “You’re safe. Just let go.”

And she did. She let herself fall completely into his hands, let herself be only in that moment with him. And in losing herself,
she found herself more fully than she ever had before. She was free.

As she shouted out her climax, she felt his body surge once more into hers and tighten above her.

“Caro,” he groaned, as if in the deepest, darkest grip of pleasure and pain. His hands seized on her hips and then fell away.
She felt him next to her on the bed, and she
took off the blindfold to look at him. After the intensity of what she just experienced with him, it was almost as if she
saw him for the first time.

Grant lay on his back beside her, his head turned away and his arm flung over his eyes. His lean, strong body glistened with
the diamond-like sheen of sweat, his skin a glowing bronze in the dying lamplight. His hair was tangled against the sheets.

He had said she looked like a goddess, but surely
he
was the immortal spirit. He was so like her images of a Celtic warrior-god resting from battle, fierce and beautiful. Like
those fighters, he protected what he cared for and what was his.

But who protected him?

Caroline reached out and gently touched his hair. It was like a skein of damp, tangled silk that wrapped around her fingers
and bound them together. He grew tense, but he didn’t move away from her. He didn’t uncover his eyes.

She smoothed the hair back from his brow and carefully traced her fingertips over the pattern of the scars on his cheek. She
leaned over him and kissed them softly, every jagged line that spoke of his pain. If only doing that could erase all the hurt,
and everything that was past.

But it was the pain of the past that brought them together, so she could not change even a terrible moment of it.

She kissed his shoulder and pressed her forehead against his chest. She wanted to curl up into him, to be part of him and
know his secrets at last. Maybe then they would both be free.

But after the frightening intimacy of their lovemaking, she could feel him drawing away from her again. He was pulling back
into himself even as his arm came around
her and drew her against him. He held on to her as if she were a lifeline to the world.

“You should get some sleep,” Grant said. “We’ll have to leave early in the morning to make a run for the mainland.”

“I’m not tired,” Caroline said, even as she felt the tug of foggy sleep pulling her down. She wanted to savor this moment
with Grant, just the two of them alone without the demands and perceptions of the world pressing in on them.

She had a terrible feeling such moments grew fewer and fewer.

“Then tell me more about your life in Dublin,” he said. She felt his hand smooth gently over her hair. He loosened the tangled
curls from what few pins remained and spread them over his chest.

“My life in Dublin is quite dull,” she said with a laugh. “For instance, while there, I’ve never been called upon to free
anyone from a medieval dungeon or set out across the sea at a moment’s notice.”

“Then you’re lucky you have me to fill your time now,” Grant said. “But you must do something with your days there.”

“Oh, yes. I visit the library of the Hibernian Society or one of the bookshops to see if they have any new arrivals. I take
tea with my sister if she’s in town. I drive in the park or go walking. Sometimes if I feel up to it, I sit with Anna in the
visitor’s gallery at Parliament to hear the debates, but it is dull since the Union moved all the interesting business to
Westminster. In the evening, I go to a salon where there is talk of books and ideas, or to the theater, or if forced, I attend
a ball or the assembly rooms. I play cards,
though luckily for very low stakes since I am quite bad at it. Then I go home and write until it’s time to retire.”

“You say it is dull, but I think it sounds as if your life is quite busy.”

“In the last few months it has been. My stepdaughter Mary, who is also my dear friend, got married and I helped her plan the
wedding. My own nuptials were a quiet affair, so I never realized what a lot of work invitations and bouquets could be! But
since she left on her honeymoon, things have been dull again.”

“So you came to chase danger on Muirin Inish?”

Caroline laughed. “I had not realized quite how dangerous it would all be. I only wanted a book, and…”

“And?”

She hesitated and traced a light pattern over his shoulder with her finger. “I suppose I wanted to see you again.”

His arm tightened around her. “I would have thought you were overjoyed to be rid of me after all that happened.”

“It seemed as if there was something left undone between us, something I could not quite let go,” she said. “At first I thought
you were dead, and we would never bring things to a close.”

“What did you think when you heard I still lived?”

Caroline’s hand stilled against his skin, and she pressed her palm to his shoulder. She remembered when she learned Grant
would recover from his wounds but would not come back to Dublin. It was in the midst of her wedding preparations with Hartley,
when she was about to step into a new life. She had felt that tug toward Grant even then, a rush of longing that had to be
buried deep. He was far away, and they had both chosen their own paths.

“I felt terribly relieved, of course,” she said. “It was as
if a grief had lifted, and I could move forward in my life with that chapter closed. You only seemed to be a strange aberration
in my life, which had already been laid out on its path by others.”

“And is that what happened? Did you move forward in your contented life as Lady Hartley?” he said. “That is how I always imagined
you—happy and safe. Even though I could never see you again, I wanted that for you.”

He had thought of her in their years apart? Caroline propped herself on her elbow to stare down at him. “I thought it had—until
I saw you again. Then I knew all too well, but there were so many things my life as Lady Hartley could never give me.”

“But you were safe in Dublin.”

She smiled at him and traced the furrows on his brow in a caressing touch. They smoothed under her fingertip. “Perhaps safety
is overrated after all.”

He caught her hand in his and kissed it, each finger one by one. “I promise I will get you back to Dublin, Caroline. I’ll
see that you get your life back, just as it was before I came into it again. I’ll make sure you’re safe, for good this time.”

Caroline studied his face, all sharp, elegant angles in the dying light. How very dull her old life would seem without him
in it! How dry and colorless.

“Dublin is a long way away,” she said. “A lot can happen between here and there.”

He stared at her intently, as if he wanted to argue with her. But he just tugged her down to lie beside him again and wrapped
his arm around her shoulders.

“It is a long journey,” he said. “And we’ll have to make an early start in the morning. You really should sleep now.”

Caroline nodded. “I think I can sleep.”

He kissed her temple as her eyes drifted closed and sleep pulled her down deeper into misty forgetfulness.

“Oh, Caro,” he said softly. “I think I couldn’t leave you even if I wanted to.”

“I need to find passage on a boat headed to the mainland tomorrow,” Grant said. “Killorgin maybe or another port, it doesn’t
really matter.”

The hard-faced woman behind the bar eyed him suspiciously as she wiped at the dirty glasses. The loud merriment of earlier
in the evening had faded, leaving a few people playing cards and muttering together as they watched Grant, a few drunks snoring
under the tables. It seemed calm enough.

But Grant knew better than to ever let down his guard. He watched the woman steadily until her gaze fell away and she nodded.
One good thing about his scars, they usually meant no one wanted to start any sort of trouble with him. They were a clear
indication that he was no stranger to battle.