She reached up and released the tie on the end of her braid to shake her hair free
as she smiled down at him. A muscle tightened in his jaw, but his stare never wavered
from her face. She took his hands and moved them from her waist to hold them to the
mattress. She leaned down and laid her open mouth on his naked chest. His hands jerked
but he didn’t push her away.
She tasted him with the tip of her tongue, swirling it lightly over his flat, brown
nipple. It hardened under her kiss, and she felt him draw in a sharp breath of air.
She nipped her teeth over him.
Surely she would always remember this, no matter what came tomorrow. It was like a
dream, a lustful fantasy before she had to go back to her real life. His taste, his
smell, the way his body felt as it slid against hers—she would remember it all.
She licked at the indentation along his hip, that
enticing masculine line of muscle that dipped toward his erect cock. She breathed
softly over the base of his penis, touched him once with her tongue, and sat upright
atop him again.
“Witch,” he groaned. “How do you do this to me?”
“What do I do to you?” Sophia closed her eyes and laid her hand lightly between her
bare breasts. Slowly, very slowly, she traced her touch down her own body, over her
abdomen, until her fingers lay over the place that was so wet for him she ached with
it. She slid one fingertip between her damp folds, and then his perfect stillness
shattered.
“Bloody hell, Sophia!” he shouted. Her eyes flew open as his hands closed hard around
her hips. He pulled her body up along his until his mouth closed over her womanhood
just where her hand had been. She knelt over his face as his tongue plunged deep into
her.
Sophia cried out and grabbed the scarred wood of the bed as his mouth claimed every
intimate part of her. His fingers dug into her buttocks as he kissed her, licked her,
tasted her skillfully. She was no longer the one in control, but she didn’t even care.
She only wanted his mouth on her, his touch.
His tongue flicked at that tiny spot high inside her, and she moaned. One of his hands
let go of her, and he drove one long finger into her as he kept licking. He moved
it slowly in and out, pressing, sliding, until she cried out his name over and over.
“Oh, Dominic,” she moaned. “How do you do this to me?”
“Just let go,” he whispered against her. “Let go for me…”
Another finger slid into her, and she felt the pressure building up low in her abdomen.
He had done this to her in that warm, dusty hut, too—it didn’t seem to matter where
they were, who they were, only that they were a man and a woman drawn together by
a deep need. That heat built and built, expanding inside her like a fire out of control.
Her whole body seemed to soar upward. Dominic’s tongue pressed harder as his fingers
curled inside her, and she shattered completely. She screamed out loud and clutched
at the bed to keep from falling.
But he wasn’t done. He lifted her off him and pushed himself up to sit against the
bedpost. He drew her body down until she straddled his hips again and was spread open
over his iron-hard cock.
“Ride me, Sophia,” he commanded.
She could hardly focus through her pleasure-dazed mind. She stared down at him as
she held onto his sweat-slick shoulders. His eyes were still dark with lust, and she
could smell herself on him. It made her want him, need him, all over again.
She raised herself slightly until she felt his tip nudge at her opening, and then
she held on to him tight as she slid down. Lower, lower, until he was completely inside
her. His head fell back as his hands closed hard on her waist.
“Sophia,” he groaned. “You’re so tight, so perfect. I can’t…”
She raised up again and sank back down, over and over, faster, until she found her
rhythm. His hips arched up to meet hers, and they moved together, harder, faster.
Until she felt her climax building all over again.
She leaned back and braced her hands on his thighs as he thrust up into her. She closed
her eyes and saw
whirling, fiery stars in the darkness, exploding around her in showers of green and
white as she cried out his name. He shouted out a flood of incoherent curses as his
whole body went rigid. She felt him go still deep inside her as he let go and soared
free with her.
Sophia sobbed and let herself fall to the bed. Her legs were too weak to hold her
up any longer. She trembled as she let the bone-deep exhaustion claim her. The ceiling
above her spun around and around as she tried to catch her breath, to make sense of
what madness had just happened.
Beside her, Dominic had collapsed to the pillows. They didn’t touch, but she could
feel the heat of his body close to hers. His breath sounded rough and uneven, and
suddenly she remembered the injuries that had brought him to her door in the first
place. She sat up to frantically examine him, worry replacing the languor of sexual
pleasure. Had she hurt him? What craziness had come over them to do something like
that?
But he looked well enough. His arm was still bandaged in clean white linen, and the
cloth wasn’t spotted with blood. His eyes were closed, his hair falling in damp waves
over his brow. She gently brushed it back, and he caught her hand in his to kiss her
palm. Sophia felt a sudden wave of unwanted tenderness wash over her. Tenderness—for
Dominic St. Claire of all people! Her head was spinning, as if the reality of what
had happened could hardly sink in. She had never felt quite that way before. The heat
of sex and need was all tangled up with the past, and she didn’t know what would happen
next.
She didn’t even know what she
wanted
to happen now.
She was so close to getting back with her family. There was only this one unreal moment,
here alone with him.
She laid her hand gently against the side of Dominic’s cheek. In the dying candlelight
she could hardly see his bruises now, but she knew they were still there, and her
heart ached at the pain he had suffered. He had said some of them weren’t inflicted
by his attackers, but from an organized prize fight in some cheap gin palace. It even
sounded like a regular event for him. There was so very much she didn’t know about
him.
Sophia traced the hard line of his roughened jaw and the softness of his sensual lips.
He was so very handsome; why would he do such things to himself? What drove him to
seek out such pain? Was it his lost love? Did he do it to drown memories of her?
Her touch drifted over his closed eyelids, and she felt his breath drift softly over
her skin. His arm wrapped around her waist, and he drew her down to the bed beside
him.
“Sophia,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice distant as if he was drifting into sleep.
“What is it that you do to me?”
She shook her head. What did they do to each other? He made her crazy, made her forget
everything else when she was with him. She had gone down the winding path of mad infatuation
before. And even though she knew Dominic was not really much like Jack, he did have
a wild streak to him that led him to fighting and gaming. A wild streak that would
only encourage her own. She couldn’t fall for someone like that again.
But she couldn’t make sense of any of it, not now with sleep and the languorous pleasure
of sexual satisfaction weighing down on her. Not here in Dominic’s arms,
where she felt so warm, so deceptively secure. Sophia rested her head on the pillow
next to his and closed her eyes. She would let herself sleep here, just for a moment.
And in the morning, when things were bright and clear again, she would talk to Dominic
and try to decipher what it was about him that had such a hold on her.
But Sophia slept deeply and dreamlessly, and when she woke, the sun was already splashing
through her window. Its bright rays illuminated the tangle of ropes and bandages on
the bedside table, the twisted cord of sheets over the bed. She heard the stirring
of the house outside her door, the clatter of the maid walking down the corridor with
her coal bucket, and the traffic from the street below.
Sophia rubbed at her itchy eyes, and for an instant she was disoriented. Was she still
half-caught in sleep, or was this really the day beginning? She rolled over on the
bed, and as her aching body gave a twinge, she suddenly remembered
everything
. Dominic, his injuries—their lovemaking.
She sat straight up on the bed and looked around frantically, only to find that she
was alone. Dominic was gone. Only those ropes and bandages told her she had not imagined
the whole thing.
And now she was alone. Sophia pushed away a sharp pang of disappointment. She shouldn’t
be hurt that Dominic was gone. This was merely what happened when the illusions of
the night were burned away by the daylight.
Yet she
did
feel disappointed. And worried. How had he even made it home in his condition? The
ungrateful wretch.
“Men,” she muttered. She swung her aching legs off the bed and looked around for her
chemise.
She found it on a chair, neatly folded. On top of it was a slip of paper, covered
with bold, slashing black handwriting. Sophia’s cynical disappointment was suddenly
cut by a flash of ridiculous hope, and she reached for the note.
“Sophia,” it read. “A thousand thanks for your kind nursing last night. I’m sorry
I have to leave so early, but I have rehearsal, and you are sleeping so peacefully.
Please let me show my gratitude by taking you to supper tonight at the Café de Paris—if
you can bear to be seen with such a battered fool. Dominic St. Claire.”
Sophia smiled as she carefully refolded the note. She knew she should refuse. Last
night had shown her just how weak she was when it came to Dominic. Yet an elegant
supper out with him, in public at the Cafe de Paris…
How dangerous could that be?
No matter how many times Dominic tried to read the scene in front of him, the words
simply wouldn’t come together. He couldn’t concentrate at all on his work.
This new play was meant to open at the Majestic Theater as soon as they returned to
London, but every quiet moment when he should be working was filled with thoughts
of Sophia. Thoughts of her black hair spilling over her bare white shoulders, filling
his hands. The taste of her skin under his lips, the smell of the curve of her neck.
The way her body felt against his in the darkness. Sophia, Sophia.
“Damn it all!” Dominic threw down his pencil and slumped back in his chair. He could
hear the sounds of the rehearsal echoing from the stage, through the warren of walkways
and corridors to his small office, but no one had dared approach him there yet.
He ran his hands through his already disheveled hair and resisted the urge to hit
the wall. Destroying the office would solve nothing. After last night he was done
with fighting.
Dominic buried his face in his hands and closed his eyes. Making love to Sophia again
had seemed like a hot, feverish dream. Here amid the grubby, colorful, familiar world
of the theater, he was almost sure it hadn’t happened. As if his potent craving for
her and the pain of his injuries had caused an illusion. A vivid, glorious dream.
He had thought about her for too long, ever since that night at the Devil’s Fancy,
and their frantic coupling at the picnic had only made him want her even more.
Behind his closed eyes he saw her again. She had lain on her side away from him, with
her hair spread over the pillows and wrapped around his arm, as if she would hold
him to her. Her bare skin was pale and perfect in the rosy sunrise light, and all
he had wanted was to touch her again. To wrap his arms around her and know she was
real.
That feeling of tenderness—toward Sophia, a Huntington—had shocked him to his very
core. All his life he had been told that the Huntingtons had ruined the St. Claires,
had stolen their rightful place in Society and cast them out to the underworld margins.
That his first duty was always to his family, always to remember. And now he was literally
in bed with a Huntington, and what was worse, he wanted only to stay there.
His life was good as it was. He had his work, his family. He had rebuilt after Jane
died, had come to terms with the knowledge that he was better off alone. That he was
too hardened, too marred, for a lady to ever understand him.
But when he looked down at Sophia asleep next to him, when he saw her beautiful face
and the soft smile on her lips, he wanted to stay with her. So he had left, gathered
his clothes and crept out of her room, afraid that if he stayed until she woke, if
she looked at him with those deep violet eyes, he would never leave. Yet once he made
it to the front door, something deep inside him, some spark of chivalry he had thought
long dead, made him go back and leave her a note asking her to supper.
He hadn’t yet heard from her. Perhaps she had more sense than he did and was resolved
to stay away from him. They
should
stay away from each other.
Once he had been able to see her as only a Huntington, albeit one of their more scandalous
family members among the more stiff-necked dukes and ladies. She had seemed ripe for
trifling with, a small revenge against her family. A weapon against them.
But after last night, he feared he saw her as far more than a beautiful, rebellious
girl he could use. Her sad words about her short-lived marriage, her laughing dismissal
of her troubles, the quickly hidden tears—they had all given him a glimpse of her
inner heart he almost wished he hadn’t seen.
He saw the person who didn’t want to be hurt again, who refused to trust—and he recognized
that, because he hid just such emotions in himself.
Emotions were of no use to anyone. They only caused trouble, caused pain. It was better
to push them away and hide them until they vanished, leaving only toughened scar tissue
behind. He had long known that, and Sophia was learning it. And that was why it was
better not see each other.