Page 18 of Someone to Watch Over Me
The words sent Vivien reeling. She was openmouthed, dazed, suddenly limp in his grasp. “No.”
“We’ve been lovers ever since you left Lord Gerard. I’ve visited you in your town house on several occasions. We’ve kept things discreet, but we were on the verge of drawing up a proper contract.” Grant told the lies without a shred of guilt. The deceit would hardly hurt her, after the sordid life she had led, and it served his purpose. He wanted her, and this was the most expedient way to have her.
“Then you and I are…” She choked on the words.
“Yes.”
“You’re lying!” Vivien strained against him, pushing, twisting, but his arms were like steel bands. Soon she was exhausted by the fruitless struggle. She couldn’t help but be aware that her movements had aroused him. The hard protrusion of his masculinity pressed high against her stomach, branding her with its aggressive heat. How in God’s name could she have been intimate with this man and not remember?
Trembling, she collapsed against him, leaning full into the long, muscled length of him. She was too exhausted to move. A pleasant mixture of linen and spicy shaving soap clung to him, and she breathed deeply of the fragrance. Her head fell to his chest, her ear pressed to the resounding beat of his heart. “You’re wrong,” she said, too bewildered to cry. “I’m not that kind of woman. I just can’t be.”
He did not reply, and she realized that he was so convinced on the matter that it didn’t merit arguing. A flicker of fury intruded on her confusion. Very well. She would not further exhaust herself by denying the accusation…Time would certainly prove him wrong.
“What do you want from me now?” she asked in a thick voice. A shiver chased down her body as she felt his hand move over her back, the heat of his palm sinking through the muslin.
“I’m going to keep you here,” he replied, “for your protection and my convenience.”
His convenience? That could only mean that he intended to continue their previous arrangement, regardless of her memory loss. She glanced over her shoulder at the oversized bed that had seemed such a haven until now. If he planned to take her tonight, she wouldn’t be able to stand it. She would flee the house and run screaming through the streets in her nightgown. “I can’t oblige you tonight, if that’s what you’re planning,” she said rebelliously. “And not tomorrow night, either. And not—”
“Hush.” For the first time a note of amusement entered his voice. “I’m not such a bastard that I would inflict myself on you while you’re ill. We’ll wait until you’re well enough.”
“I won’t want to ever again! I’m not a prostitute.”
“You’ll want to. It’s in your nature, Vivien. You can’t change what you are.”
His matter-of-fact statements infuriated her. “I won’t want any man from now on. Especially not you.”
Her defiance seemed to trigger something inside him, unleashing a grim determination to prove something to her…and to himself. Swiftly he pulled her into his arms, before she had time to think or react. He carried her to the bed and deposited her on the neatly folded-back covers. His dark face obliterated the glow of the fire as he leaned over her.
“No,” Vivien gasped.
There was a cruel edge to his mouth, but when he fitted his lips over hers, the kiss was soft, slow, utterly consuming. He placed his hands flat on the mattress on either side of her head, not touching her with any part of his body except his mouth. Had she wanted, she could have rolled away from him easily. But she stayed beneath him, transfixed by the sweet, hot flowering of sensation that spread rapidly and made the downy hairs all over her body rise.
She lifted her hands to his face in a halfhearted gesture to push him away, but he angled his head and kissed her harder, and any thought of resisting him disappeared. His tongue ventured inside her mouth, teasing, stroking. He tasted of coffee, and some pleasant masculine essence that lured her own tongue to respond timidly. The feathery touch seemed to excite him. Breathing deeply, he twisted his mouth over hers in long, searching kisses, each one more tender and intimate than the last. Vivien relaxed helplessly beneath him while a heavy, delicious ache formed in her breasts and low in her stomach and between her thighs. Her dazed mind no longer comprehended what was happening, or even cared. All that existed was sensation, every part of her focused on the consuming heat of his mouth.
With a suddenness that stunned her, Morgan tore his lips away and pinned her with a simmering gaze. “You see?” he said hoarsely. “Now tell me what kind of woman you are.”
It took a moment for Vivien to understand what he had said. Ashamed and furious, she rolled to her side. “Go away,” she gasped, pressing her hand over her exposed ear, blocking out any words he might utter. “Leave me alone.”
He obliged at once, leaving her curled on the bed in a silent huddle.
Barely aware of where he was going, Grant made his way downstairs, his mind overtaken by questions, sensations…“Vivien,” he muttered more than once, the name alternately a curse and a prayer.
He found himself in the library, a haven of leather and oak, fitted with comfortably worn chairs and specially designed bookcases. The cases were fronted with beveled glass, and brass grillwork on the bottom shelves. He collected books obsessively—anything between two covers would do. The stacks of newspapers piled on desks and tables often moved Mrs. Buttons to complain that the house was the greatest fire hazard in London.
Grant never sat for a quiet moment without a book or paper close at hand. When he wasn’t working or sleeping, he read. Anything to keep himself from thinking about the past. On the nights when regrets lingered in his head like ghosts, driving out all possibility of sleep, he came to the library and drank brandy and read until the words blurred before his eyes.
Prowling past the shelves of leather-bound talismans, Grant sought something to divert his attention. His fingers trailed lightly over the cool, shining glass doors, opened one, brushed over a row of books. But for once, the touch of leather repelled him…His hand ached for soft female skin, for silken hair, for round breasts and hips…
He caught sight of his reflection in the glass, his face set and miserable.
Turning away with a groan, Grant went to the sideboard fitted between a pair of small matching cupboards. One of the cupboards was used as a cellarette for wines. He rummaged in the cabinet until his hand closed around the flattened lozengeshaped body of a brandy bottle, sloshing with dark liquid. Uncorking it, he drank directly from the bottle, the fullness of expensive French brandy rolling down his throat. Waiting for a familiar warmth to spread in his chest, he felt only emptiness.
His mind returned to the image of Vivien, the sweetness of her mouth, the innocence of her response. As if she weren’t used to kissing, as if she were an awkward but willing pupil in the hands of an experienced teacher. All an illusion.
“Innocence,” he muttered with an ugly laugh, and poured more brandy down his throat. Vivien was prime quality goods to be sure, but she was a whore nonetheless. And he was a fool for feeling protective of her, wanting her, and worst of all,likingher.
He sat in an armchair and braced his feet on the edge of his desk, and silently acknowledged the mortifying truth. If he didn’t know who and what Vivien was, he would be mad for her. What man wouldn’t? She was lovely, intelligent, and seemingly vulnerable. Her response to the news that she was a courtesan had been a perfect blend of anger and bewilderment. The way an innocent woman would react. His instincts and his brain had rarely given him such opposing messages, and the few times they had, he had been inclined to trust his instincts. But not in this case. He knew all about Vivien’s unique brand of faux innocence. It didn’t matter how she behaved at present, she would sooner or later revert to character.
