Say Yes to the Marquess (Castles Ever After #2)(52)
Author: Tessa Dare

And then she kissed him with a sweetness that made him want to weep.

One of her legs wrapped around his, smooth and strong. Her fingers laced tight in his hair. She was holding him as though he belonged nowhere else. As though everything in his dark, needing, desperate soul was hers.

And maybe that was the truth.

This was everything he’d dreamed about since the age of fifteen. She was so passionate, so responsive to his touch. And as much as he wanted to get inside her and spend all that long-frustrated lust, he wanted what would come afterward even more.

Closeness. Affection. Perhaps even . . .

Oh, devil take it.

Perhaps even love.

“You understand what this means, for us to lie together.” He worked a hand between them, gathering the gauzy hem of her shift and hiking it upward. “You do know what will happen.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be frightened. I’ll be careful. I’m going to be so good to you.”

The murmured words sounded trite even to his own ears, but Rafe meant every syllable. Few would suspect a man built like a brute to be capable of gentleness. And in the past, women hadn’t wanted that from him anyway. But he had a great deal of tenderness he’d been saving. Whole years’ worth of it.

Tonight, he was going to lavish it all on her.

“I’m not frightened in the least,” she whispered. “But you must let me go, just for a moment.”

He licked and nibbled his way up her neck, treasuring each inch. “Not a chance.”

Now that he had her in his arms this way, he would never let her go.

“I need to go to my chamber. It will only take a moment. They’re in the top drawer.”

The top drawer.

If this were another woman, he would have thought she was referring to sheaths. Or a sponge. But he had been her first kiss. She was an innocent. He knew she’d been making strides toward independence, but surely Clio wasn’t so modern as that.

“What’s in the top drawer, love? Surely it can wait.” He slid his hand up her leg, and his touch met the silken slope of her inner thigh.

Good God. He was inches from the heart of her. All that sweet, tight heat.

“It can’t,” she gasped. “It’s the papers.”

Chapter Seventeen

The papers,” he echoed.

Clio nodded. She was so breathless with excitement, she could scarcely speak. The wicked magic of his tongue had driven her wild. The hard heat and weight of him atop her, so fiercely comforting. So dangerously safe.

Now his hand was on her thigh, and the pad of his thumb was . . .

Oh, so close.

She wriggled beneath him, craving friction. Pressure. Anything. She would have never expected herself to be such a wanton, but Rafe made her feel so cherished. He’d stripped her of any shame.

“Please,” she begged. “Just sign them first. Then I’m free, and there won’t be any doubts or regrets.”

“Right.” He withdrew his hand from her shift.

Despite the temporary loss of his caress, Clio rejoiced.

This was finally going to happen. They were finally going to happen, she and Rafe. Clio felt as though she’d been waiting for this moment—not for days or years, but all her life.

She twisted to a sitting position, fumbling to button her shift. A giddy laugh escaped her. “It won’t take but a moment. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t bother coming back.”

His sharp tone startled her. “What?”

“I’m not signing.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t want this.” He gestured at the space between them. “You just know that I want this. What you want is to escape.”

Clio didn’t understand. Just a moment ago, he’d been pressing passionate kisses to her breasts, and now he seemed . . . upset. Almost angry.

Or was he feeling hurt?

“This has been your plan the whole week, hasn’t it? It’s the reason you let me stay.” He turned away from her, reaching to gather his trousers from a nearby chair. “You know my reputation. If I won’t sign the papers you put in front of me, surely I’ll seduce you. And that would work just as well. I’d have no choice but to sever the engagement.”

“No,” she hastened to assure him. “No, that wasn’t my plan at all. I promise. Rafe, you’re misunderstanding.”

He stood, hiking his trousers. “This is why you came to me in Southwark. It’s why you’ve let me kiss you, see you, touch you . . . You’re too timid to confront him yourself, and I make a convenient villain.”

“You are not a villain,” she said.

“Of course I am. You’ve followed my career. You know my reputation. I’m the Devil’s Own. In your eyes, I’m useful for one thing—destruction. Dissolving your engagement. Ruining you for marriage. Punching holes in tavern walls to sell beer.” He threw her an angry glare. “You don’t want me. You just want a way out.”

Now Clio was growing angry, too.

“I am not timid. Not anymore.” Her hands balled in fists. “All my life, I’ve been raised to believe that I am worthless on my own. I’m nothing but a dutiful gentleman’s daughter on her way to becoming an aristocrat’s compliant bride. Even at that, I haven’t been successful. You have no idea how much bravery it took to even conceive of breaking this engagement.”

“Then find the courage to tell Piers yourself,” he said. “I won’t sign your papers. Not today, not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Not ever?

Her stomach lurched. “You can’t refuse. You promised me.”

“You made promises of your own to Piers.”

“I was a child.”

“You aren’t a child any longer.” He loomed over her, bracing his hands on the mattress. One hand on either side of her hips. “You’re a woman. Twenty-five years old, a lady of property and fortune. You could have broken this engagement at any time. Written him a letter ages ago. But you didn’t. You’ve put your family through this weeklong charade of wedding plans just to spare yourself one uncomfortable conversation.”

His accusations poked at her, pushing her toward a dark, unpleasant corner—but the cage of his arms left her nowhere to hide.

She said, “I just want the chance to make my own choices, define my own life. You must understand. I know you want that, too.”

“I know who I am. I’m a prizefighter. I’m not a hired brute. If you want to deal a man a sucker punch after eight years, make a fist and do it yourself.”