To Wed a Scandalous Spy (28 page)

He pulled his head back to look at her, surprise in his eyes. Then he let his gaze travel down to where their bodies joined. When he met her eyes again, the heat was back. "I like the way the animal in me looks in you," he told her, his voice a heated growl.

Willa blushed at his openness but couldn't help a squirm of reaction.

Nathaniel threw his head back in response and pressed her hard to the wall. "Oh God—I want to do such things to you."

"All right."

Wrapping her back into his arms, Nathaniel held her a moment, still buried deep inside her. Then he slowly withdrew, despite her whimper of protest, and carried her back to the bed.

"Sweet Willa. I should make love to you gently, tenderly, the way you deserve."

He laid her down on the tumbled covers and sat beside her. He ran one finger from her lips to her throat and down between her breasts. Slowly, he trailed it farther, past her navel, and teased the soft curls between her thighs.

"Well, enough of that." She wriggled impatiently. "When are you going to let the animal back out again?"

He laughed and shook his head with regret. "Oh, darling, you don't know what you speak of. You aren't a girl of the streets, to be used so harshly."

"What does that mean, 'used harshly' ?"

"To take my pleasure of you, and give you none in return. To do things to you and have you do things to me, dark things that have nothing to do with caring."

"But if you… cared for me, as I care for you, then you wouldn't be using me, would you?"

"Willa—"

"Because there are things I would really like to do to you."

She was going to kill him. "Such as what?" he choked out.

She thought a moment. "Such as bite you."

"You want to bite me?"

"Well, not this very moment, but I did feel the urge to bite your shoulder when you picked me up like that. Not hard, of course. Lightly."

His throat threatened to close entirely. "Well, that would be nice."

"Yes, I rather thought it would." She pondered him. "Do you want to bite me, too?"

Nathaniel looked away. "The thought has crossed my mind."

"Would you bite hard enough to bleed?"

He was appalled. "Of course not!"

"Well, neither would I." She took a breath. "So that is resolved. We may bite when the moment strikes, then?"

She was a force of nature. Hurricane Willa. He could not resist her. "Yes, Willa, I think biting when the moment strikes will be all right."

"So biting is acceptable." She put her chin on her hands. "What else?"

"What else what?"

"What else would you like to do to me?"

Nathaniel felt as though he were in a dream. "This is the strangest conversation I have ever had."

"I know. It isn't my fault. I'm an orphan."

"So you've said." He peered at her. "What do you mean, exactly?"

"Don't change the subject. What else do you want to do to me?"

He laughed helplessly. "You aren't going to let this go, are you?"

"No."

"Fine then. If you must know, I want to put my mouth on you. Right here." He stroked a fingertip along her dampened slit and she shivered.

"All right And may I put my mouth on you as well? Right here?" She grasped him in her hand and was gratified by some rapid expansion. Fascinating.

Breathless, Nathaniel agreed with a vigorous nod.

"What else?"

"I want you to ride astride me."

Willa thought about that. "That sounds agreeable. What else?"

"Dear God, Willa, have some mercy!"

"No. I like this. I feel very powerful, with you in my hand this way. Tell me what else."

He was nearly panting. "Very well. I want to take you the way a stallion takes a mare. From behind."

"Oh my." There was no saucy retort for that. "Oh
yes
."

"And up against the wall."

"From behind?"

"That, too."

"Oh yes, please."

"Oh, dear God…"

He was huge in her hand now. Willa could feel the beat of his heart, and her own sex pulsed in response. "Nathaniel?"

"Yes?…"

"I think I would like to try that stallion deed now."

"Oh, thank you, God!"

He flipped her over neatly, facedown on the pillows. He tugged her hips high. The position was almost embarrassing, until his shaft probed her slit and he bent low over her, covering her and giving her a tiny bite on her shoulder. Then nothing mattered but his animal and her animal and their undeniable primitive urge to mate.

"Are you ready for me, love?"

"Yes," moaned Willa.

His massive length drove into her slowly but implacably. New places awoke to his presence. Willa shrieked softly into the pillow.

Nathaniel stopped. "Are you all—"

Willa thrust backward, burying him deep within her. With a wild cry, she pulled away to drive herself back on him again. Hard hands grasped her hips and held her immobile.

"Let me—"

With the last of his control, Nathaniel set a rhythmic pace of thrust that was almost more than he could stand. Deeply, then deeply again. Again and again.

He felt her begin to shake and held her more tightly, not letting her go even when she began to buck wildly in his grasp.

With a quivering wail, she disintegrated in his hands. With a few last lovingly ferocious thrusts, he lost himself in her. Riding the pulsing waves of pleasure down, he eased them both down to lie on the bed, still planted within her.

He wrapped her tightly in his arms and tucked her into his body. Pressing his face into her hair, Nathaniel took a deep breath of Willa and fell asleep.

Nathaniel was walking through the air, with nothing below or above him or even around him. Gray twilight stretched forever. His first response was almost relief. There was no disgrace, no dishonor, here. He need fend off no contempt or bow to censure. Here he was not disowned, not despised.

For the first time in a long time, he felt as though he could breathe deeply without the weight of his burden.

Then the emptiness at his side became almost palpable. In the nothing, there was no Willa. There was no cold disdain, but there was no warm acceptance, either. No bright-burning woman to light his endless dusk. No softly giving lover to wrap him in her nourishing embrace.

He could not have just one, he realized. He must accept his dark if he wanted to see his light. He had made his choices; he had reached out to take on his own burdens. He wanted his burdens, for they had brought him his Willa.

Willa
! He wanted to call for her joyously, expecting her to come bounding into his arms.

But his voice would not come and he could not call. He'd thought he'd come here to make a choice, but there was no choosing.

There was nothing.

On and on, only the endless nothing.

Nothing but the warmth of Willa's arms around him and her soft voice in his ear. With each shuddering breath, he took in her womanly scent, letting it cleanse his head of the dizzying eternity of loss.

"Shh. Shh."

Her small hands spread against his back and rubbed tenderly. He pulled her close, burying his sweating face in her silken neck. He was safe.

He wasn't alone.

"Do you want to tell me?" Her whisper was gentle, not pushing him. "Sometimes it helps."

"It was only a dream," he said. "It was nothing."

He could feel her disappointment in the way her fingers paused in stroking his hair and in the slight sag of her shoulders. He was so bloody tired of disappointing Willa.

"There are things I cannot speak of," he said slowly.

"I know."

She didn't sound bitter about it, but Nathaniel knew how living with a man full of secrets could erect barriers of doubt and bitterness. He never wanted her to feel the way he had felt as a boy, that his stepfather—his
father
—had held him of less importance than his work.

When Nathaniel was small, he'd tried to accept it, but as he grew and needed his father more and more, it became increasingly hard to fight the resentment. Willa could come to hate him in time, he was sure.

As Victoria had come to hate Randolph.

For the first time, Nathaniel caught a glimmer of how his mother's life must have been.

Finally, Nathaniel eased his hold on Willa to look into her eyes. Running her hand along his cheek in a tender caress, she kissed his jaw. "Your life has been difficult lately, I know. It will get better, my love. Time does take the edge off the blade."

Nathaniel pulled her close and rested his chin on her hair. He had sadly underestimated her. His Willa was no simple country miss. She was a woman, profoundly wise and generous. "You have not been sheltered but have simply not traveled much."

She sighed and snuggled closer, trailing her touch down his back. "Well, I've traveled now, haven't I?" She kissed his chest, then bit him gently.

"You've come very far indeed." He smiled at her. He only hoped he could keep up.

Just as he was nearly asleep, she started. "Oh! I almost forgot to ask you—"

"What?"

"Am I being presented to the Prince Regent tomorrow?"

Dear God, had he forgotten to tell her? "I'm sorry, Willa. It was not meant to be a surprise. It is traditional for a young lady of Society to be presented for her debut. You've had no debut as such, but I think you must do it before you wed me."

"I must?" She swallowed. "To the Prince Regent?"

He had begun to kiss her throat. He stopped to answer. "Yes. I'm sorry that you must go through this alone. If I go, it will only be worse for you. If you are with Myrtle, who has agreed to accompany you, then perhaps you will simply seem to be one of the many debutantes with a chaperone and no one will notice. If you had some family here in London, they could accompany you, of course."

"Well, I haven't been entirely honest about one point," she said slowly.

He went back to what he was doing. "What is that?'' His voice was delightfully muffled.

"The folk of Derryton led you to believe that I have no family left at all… but I do."

He raised his head to look at her. "You do?"

She nodded. "I have a sort of uncle—rather half uncle, I suppose—here in London. Of course there are more relatives and such on his side of the family, but none of them have ever taken any notice of me. Only this one uncle, and only when I was very young, although he was fond enough of my mother. When my parents died of the fever, he sent me a letter of condolence and he asked if I wanted to come to live with him in London."

Nathaniel propped his head on his fist. "That was just what you always wanted, was it not?"

She shook her head. "No, not then. I'd lost so much—" She shrugged. "I couldn't bear the thought of leaving Moira, too. So I wrote him and asked if I could stay where I was. I told him that someday John wanted to own the inn himself and that he and Moira would be responsible parents to me. My uncle sent a man to buy the inn and give the deed to John." She lay back down. "He used to write to me. We were quite jolly correspondents for a time. Then his letters began to come less frequently, and finally not at all. Although I'm sure it isn't his fault. He's a very busy man."

"Do you think he will object to me?" Nathaniel said slowly. "I cannot ask you to go against your family's wishes."

Willa grabbed him by his open collar. "Don't you dare, Nathaniel Stonewell. You're not getting away from me that easily. It is far too late for anyone to object now. Besides, I'm sure my uncle will not object. I could have married Wesley Moss for all he cared, and Wesley was only a farmer's son."

"I'd forgotten about poor Wesley Moss." With a small laugh, Nathaniel shook his head. "Then that settles it. If your uncle was too busy to care for you properly, then I don't think much of him at all."

She blinked. "You don't?"

"No. So if you don't wish to contact him now that you're here, I'll understand completely."

She smiled. "Thank you. I do think it would only complicate things."

She curled into his arms. He held her close and the warmth grew between them. Suddenly Willa started again. "Oh! I forgot to ask you—"

Nathaniel chuckled helplessly. "What?"

"Kitty said Lord Etheridge obtained the invitation for this evening. She said he doesn't treat you badly, but he doesn't like you, either. I don't understand that."

"Dalton? He's having a little trouble forgiving me for something I did."

"What did you do?"

He shrugged, jostling her slightly. "I shot his wife."

She raised her head to look into his face, her eyes wide. "Shot?"

"I didn't mean to. I was trying to shoot him."

"Oh," she said faintly. "That makes perfect sense, of course."

"I mean, I was trying to miss him."

"Right. Because you weren't aiming at him."

"No, I was. I mean… Look, I can't really explain it."

"No, I don't imagine you can."

"Do you think me a villain now?"

She hesitated. Then she took a breath and smiled at him. "No," she said staunchly. "If you shot Clara, then I'm sure you had a very good reason."

"I truly did."

She nestled her head back onto his shoulder. "I'm sure."

They lay quietly for a while, wrapped in each other's arms. The night was ending around them, and the noises of a London morning were beginning to intrude. She was almost asleep when he nudged her.

"Willa?"

"Yes, love?" she murmured.

"It was an excellent reason."

"Yes, love."

"I simply wanted you to know that."

"I know, darling."

"Good night, Willa."

"Good night, Nate."

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Nathaniel was gone when Willa awoke late that morning. Not only was he gone, but so was any evidence that he had ever been in her bedchamber. When she was dressed and on her way to find a bit of breakfast, she passed by his room. The door was open—well, unlocked anyway—so she peeked within. His chamber was vast, much larger than even her room, and composed of two rooms that she could see. Past the sitting room she could see a small portion of his heavily carved tester bed.