Page 33 of Some Like It Wild
Pamela’s dismay began to swell into panic. Her hand closed around Connor’s wrist, but she might as well have been tugging at a tree stump. “Please, Connor, no! Please don’t!”
Connor was so drunk with desire that it took him a dazed moment to realize Pamela’s hand was seeking to drag his fingers away from the softness of her breast instead of urging them closer. That she was no longer begging him to continue, but to stop.
He slowly lifted his head to gaze down at her, both of them going so still that the only sound in the room was the harsh rasp of their breathing.
With his hand still cupped around the glorious fullness of her breast and his groin aching in the cradle of her thighs, he wasn’t in any mood to play fair. “You promised me all the willing women I cared to woo.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “Is that what you’re doing? Are you wooing me, Mr. Kincaid?”
Her words cut him to the quick. Only seconds ago she had moaned his Christian name as if he had the power to satisfy her every desire. “If you must know,Miss Darby, I’m not in the habit of wooing women.”
A heartbreaking little laugh escaped her. “Of course you’re not. They probably woo you.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m in the habit of paying for them.”
Pamela’s eyes widened, her beautiful, well-kissed mouth forming a soundless “Oh.”
Although he made an earnest effort, he was still too aroused to keep the rough edge from his voice. “What do you want from me, lass? Flowers? Tender words? Promises I won’t be able to keep?”
He would give her all that and more if she would just let him slip her nightdress over her head so she could be naked beneath him. So he could be inside of her. Hell, in that moment he’d have promised her the dukedom itself had it been his to give.
When she finally spoke, her words were little more than a whisper. “I want you to go.”
Even as she uttered the words, Pamela wished she could take them back, wished she didn’t have to see the icy mask settle over his face, leaving it as beautiful and merciless as it had been the first time she’d glimpsed it in the moonlight.
He was up and off of her in a heartbeat, leaving her shivering in the cool night air. She sat up in the bed and raked her tumbled hair out of her eyes, wishing desperately for the courage to call him back.
He turned at the window, a shadow framed by moonlight. “If I were the real marquess, could I command you to let me stay?”
Pamela hugged one knee to her chest, finding it a poor substitute for the warmth of his body. “If you were the real marquess, you wouldn’t want to stay. You’d have no need of a woman like me.”
Although she would have thought it impossible, his voice deepened even further. “Oh, I have need of you.”
Then he was gone, leaving her to collapse on the mattress, her lips still yearning for his kiss, her body still aching for his touch.
Chapter 14
When Connor awoke the next morning, it hardly improved the ragged edges of his temper to hear a cheerful song come floating out of the adjoining dressing room:
Once there was a bonny lass
With hair as red as cherries.
Her eyes were blue as a summer loch,
Her lips as ripe as berries.
I begged her to be me bride
While down on bended knee.
She hiked up her skirts and dropped her drawers
And made a mon o’ me!
Connor sat up with a groan, casting his blankets aside. Golden sunlight poured through the row of sash windows on the far wall, searing his bleary eyes. A morning breeze perfumed with the intoxicating scent of apple blossoms drifted through the broken window pane.
He’d tossed and turned for half the night after his visit to Pamela’s bedchamber, his body aching with its undiminished need for her. He didn’t know what made him the bigger fool—sneaking into her bedchamber like the common thief he was or letting her convince him to steal away empty-handed.
