Page 25 of With Good Grace
His lips claimed hers with heart-stopping precision, cutting off her rambling thoughts. Elemental sparks flew between them when his capable hands greedily roamed over her back, pulling her against him until her body collided with the solidity of his and her few remaining thoughts disintegrated into pure sensation. The explosive amalgamation of mutual desire lit a spark in her bloodstream as hunger fuelled their passion. She slipped her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with fervour. Desire for this intelligent, highly-complex, confusingly contradictory man made her reckless and she pushed her pelvis against his burgeoning arousal to prove the point.
With a tortured groan, Jake broke the kiss and held her shoulders in a firm grasp. Just as well, since at that precise moment, Olivia was suddenly unsure if her legs would support her unaided. Jake had kissed her many times before, but his kisses had never been so passionately reckless. She was perfectly sure he had not planned to embrace her the moment they were alone together and the analytical side of her brain wanted to know what she had done to fracture his iron self-control.
‘I spent the entire night worrying about you,’ he told her.
‘Best not let Parker hear you say that,’ she replied lightly. ‘He will be disgruntled if he thinks you did not trust him to do his job.’
‘Oh, Olivia!’ Jake’s sigh was deep, expressive and just a little tortured. ‘What am I to do about you?’
‘What is it, Jake?’ She felt sufficiently in control to shake his hands from her shoulders, walk across the room and take a seat beside the fire. ‘I have never seen you in such an introspective mood before.’
‘You are my vulnerability,’ he replied, with what was for him exceptional candidness. ‘The one aspect of my life, my heart, over which I have absolutely no control. Trust me, I know because I have tried to get you out of my system, but you simply refuse to quit it.’
Olivia’s own heart soared as he made the admission. ‘How tiresome for you,’ she replied with a soft little sigh of her own. ‘I know just how much you like to be in control.’
‘I should never have involved you in my affairs.’
‘Personal or professional?’
‘The latter led to the former.’
‘Well then, we had best make the best of things.’ Olivia decided that the time had come for a little plain speaking. ‘We have been dancing around the issue of our feelings for one another for quite long enough and one of us needs to be honest. I love you, Jacob Morton.’ She fixed him with a challenging glower. ‘I wish I did not, for it is most inconvenient, but I do, and there is not a thing I can do to alter that situation. Believe me, you are not the only one to have tried. I have repeatedly told myself that you are I together is possibly the worst idea in the world, but it does me no good. My heart refuses to listen to my head.’ She spread her hands. ‘Of course, if you think you might be able to conquer your feelings, given time, or that my notoriety will make youpersona non gratain society’s eyes, then I quite understand.’
‘Hang society!’
‘You say that now, but you would miss it if doors were closed to you.’
‘My love!’ Jake took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘I am a dangerous man to love.’
‘Perhaps that is what attracts me. Life around you is certainly never dull.’
‘For me, you are an addictive drug. The more I have of you, the more I need to function as a man, as an earl, and especially as Thorndike’s damned whipping boy.’ He traced the curve of her face with a delicate touch. ‘I am nothing without you; a shell of a man.’
Olivia’s heart soared. ‘You do not have to be without me.’ But it wasn’t the right time to ask in what capacity he wanted her. He would come to see in time that he could not marry her and still have…well, respectability. That was all right. She had never anticipated becoming his countess and would be content to be his mistress. A part of Jake would be better than nothing at all; she was that much in love with him.
‘It cannot be.’ He sighed and looked away from her. Olivia’s heart lurched. ‘We ought not to have this conversation now. Instead, we ought to be trying to find Grantleyandwhatever it is that your late husband had in his possession that likely got him killed.’
‘Oh no!’ Olivia planted her fists on her waist and glowered at him. ‘You don’t start pouring your heart out to me and then change the subject as though we had been discussing something of no greater import than the weather.’
‘What you possibly fail to appreciate is that my life will never be routine. I shall spend the rest of it, most likely, looking over my shoulder.’
‘Are you trying to let me down gently, Lord Torbay?’
‘I am being realistic, my love.’
‘Then thank you for the warning but you will have to do a great deal better than that if you mean to deter me.’
‘I cannot,’ he said, again pulling her into a fierce embrace, his expression tortured. ‘I can no longer talk myself out of something that I want so very much, even if by admitting to my feelings, I will be placing you in a state of perpetual danger.’
‘What feelings would those be?’ Olivia asked, canting her head and sending him a reproachful look. ‘I have yet to hear you express them.’
‘Do you really need me to say what—’
There was a tap on the door.
‘Damnation!’
A moment’s reflection was sufficient for Olivia to decide that the interruption was probably just as well. Jake was right about one thing. Now was not the right time, but their difficulty was that there never seemed to be a right time.
