Page 47 of The Seduction of Lord Sin
“Or we can wait here for help,” she added, still looking around for any further danger.
He was worried too. He had a pistol. It lay beside them in the pocket of his discarded jacket. But he only had one shot. If the villain approached, he’d have to make the shot count. Hard to do when he was right-handed, and it was his right arm that was injured. With his good arm, he reached for it, trying not to alarm Charlotte.
“Why did he try to shoot you? Devlin is to be my husband.”
That thought had crossed his mind, too. Lady Charlotte may not blind men with beauty, but her intelligence shone like a beacon. For a man who understood how a beautiful face could hide treachery, intelligence was far more alluring than any pretty false smile. “Perhaps they mistook me for Devlin.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever this is, we will no longer play this game. It’s far too dangerous. One man is already dead.”
“We can’t stop now. Our plan is working. He grows more desperate. He’s making mistakes.”
She gave a delicate snort. “The plan is working? How do you think that? He shot you, not Devlin, for a reason. He could have—the shot could have killed you,” and she let out a sob which she promptly stifled with the back of her hand.
Just then, a low rumble of thunder rolled across the sky, making their situation appear more ominous. They glanced at each other and he reached for her hand. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. You have more to lose than I.”
“Ah, well,” he imparted with a pain filled sigh. “We both have much to lose, but I’m not about to let that happen.” He had more than his life to lose. He was slowly deducing that this woman who stayed by his side, even though danger was all around, could steal his heart, and that frightened him almost as much as death.
A thunderbolt sounded above their heads and he felt Charlotte jump. “We’re going to get wet,” she said as large drops of water splashed down upon them.
He raised his face to the sky and closed his eyes. His arm hung useless by his side, his head throbbed, his hip hurt when he tried to move, bruised from his fall, but he didn’t care. With her tiny hand safely in his, nothing else mattered.
So disappointment added to his misery when she pulled her hand free, but when he looked, she’d gathered his jacket and placed it around his shoulders. He shook it off. “You should use it to keep dry.”
She smiled, and he loved how radiant she became. “I have my riding jacket on. You only have your shirt.” She tucked it around him once again. Her breath hitched as she said the words. He looked down, seeing that the rain had plastered his shirt to his chest, becoming completely see-through.
Heat filled her gaze, and visions came to him of leaning forward and kissing her, tasting her mouth, undoing her jacket and cupping her bountiful breasts in his hands, caressing her until she forgot her silly idea of marrying any man except him.
Shaken by that thought, and the intensity of his ever-building impulse to claim his vision, he looked away. He could have any woman as his wife, except this one. He eyed her from under lowered lashes, the raindrops almost blinding him. She really had him completely under her spell, and yet he hardly knew her. He thought he’d known Arianna, but in death, he’d learned she’d been a complete stranger. Never would he have thought she’d deceive him as she had.
What if Charlotte was deceiving him too and had lied about her innocence to entice Devlin? To make him think she could have children?
You just want to find a reason to not like Lady Charlotte.
Didn’t he owe it to his friend to find out?His friend?It was he who needed to know. He’d kissed her before, and she had tasted of innocence, but could that be faked? After all, she was a clever woman.
He turned toward her as another clap of thunder, sounding closer this time, was preceded by a flash of lightning. She moved closer, and he took the opportunity to use his good hand to tilt her chin upward and press a kiss to her sweet lips.
She opened for him and he swept in. Oh, the taste was ambrosia. She kissed him back, and soon it was more than his head throbbing.
Striving for sanity, he closed his eyes, but her scent invaded his air and she was too tempting. He lost the battle, dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her throat. Her groan did nothing but fire his desire. He didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly she was on her back, her head tilted back as if offering herself. He ignored the pain in his arm and covered her throat in kisses while the rain fell.
He didn’t know how long they lay there, his weight pressing her into the wet ground, holding and touching, exchanging kisses as if they were the only two people in the world.
With her warmth seeping through him, he was as raw and heated and uncertain as the virgin in his arms. Yes, she was so innocent. He ignored the voice in his head, telling him to stop. Instead, he became intensely aware of her hands sliding over his body, exploring his back, his sides, his hips. Somehow she’d untied his cravat, and she pressed her lips to his throat and he swallowed back a groan.
Lust slammed through his body despite his pain. He gave her leg a nudging caress, opening her thighs, allowing him to lie between her legs. He was rock hard, and only moments from hiking up her skirts and taking what he so very badly wanted—her innocence. He took her lips and swallowed her moans as her hips rose to press against his hardness.
His pulse was wild, and he could feel her own heartbeat pounding throughout her body. Then she ran her fingers through his hair before pressing his head closer to hers.
He broke the kiss on a groan. “Tell me about your husband,” were the first words that popped out of his mouth. He needed something, anything to take his mind off his driving need to take her.
The fire in her eyes suddenly died. Resignedly she answered him, with confusion now in her eyes. “He was a kind man. I don’t think he meant to trap me in a platonic marriage, but on our wedding night, he just couldn’t come to my bed. It probably didn’t help that I’m not a ravishing beauty.”
“I suspect it was more to do with the fact he was old enough to be your father.” He wondered if Charlotte realized that some older men could not function in the bedroom. He pushed back into a sitting position and she rose onto her elbows.
She laughed, the sound mixing with the rain. “I admired him really. He loved his wife and hugged her memory to him until he died. He was never mean or vengeful to me. He treated me politely, like a guest in his home rather than a woman who slept in the room next to his. I think he was just consumed with grief and then guilt as he realized what my life had become. A wife who wasn’t a wife. A woman who wasn’t a woman. A lady who would never have a child.”
