Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)(69)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

—from The Legend of the Harlequin Ghost of St. Giles

Isabel lay in bed that night, her silk coverlet pulled to her chin, and wondered what she was doing. She’d rejected Winter—told him flatly that she could not marry him. With any other man, the news might’ve been met with relief: He could continue a clandestine affair with her without the commitment of matrimony. His choices then were either to continue as they were or to break the thing off.

Instead he’d managed to move into her household.

She wasn’t naïve. The man was stubborn and proud. He hadn’t given up his ridiculous notion of marrying her. Perhaps he really did love her.

She closed her eyes in the darkness, her heart squeezing painfully in fear at the thought. She hadn’t let herself think it before now. It was simply too terrible to contemplate. She wasn’t like him, a person capable of deep caring. She’d shied away from strong emotions of any sort practically all her life. In her heart Isabel knew: She simply wasn’t worthy of his love. Someday he’d find that out, and when he did—

There was no sound, but she felt a movement, a shifting of the air in her room, the warmth of another presence.

Isabel opened her eyes. He was there, at the foot of her bed, a single candle in his hand, dressed only in shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and breeches.

“Forgive me,” he whispered as he set the candle down. “I could not stay away.”

She lifted herself on her elbows, her pulse beginning to speed as she watched him shrug out of his coat.

“It’s an oddity, actually,” he said, almost as if he were musing to himself. “My self-control is rather strong as a rule. I’ve managed to keep the secret of the Ghost for nine years, from both friends and family. I don’t lose my temper often. I’ve sustained wounds and never by action or word let anyone know, even if it meant cleaning and sewing up a wound myself.”

He unbuttoned his waistcoat. “I think, objectively, that we can agree that my control is better than the average man’s. I was, after all, celibate until I met you, and nearly content with that state of affairs.”

He folded his waistcoat and placed it on a chair. “But then I did meet you and everything flew out the window, including, it seems, all of my rules of behavior, which, I think, is entirely your fault.”

That outrageous remark prompted Isabel into speech for the first time since he’d entered her bedroom. “My fault?”

He nodded, as somber as a judge. “Indeed. Let us look at the facts. You joined the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children and immediately began a campaign of taunting me.”

She sat fully up, fascinated both by this line of thought and the fact that he was now removing his shirt. Really, his chest might be her favorite thing in the entire world.

Not that she was about to tell him that. “Taunting?”

“Taunting.” He folded the shirt as well, the muscles in his arms rippling in a quite distracting manner. “The little quips, the sly looks letting me know you’d once again thought yourself quite clever as you shot a dart at me, the low, provocative bodices—”

Isabel involuntarily glanced down at her bosom. “My bodices aren’t provocative!” Well, not all the time, certainly.

He glanced at her sternly. “Provocative.” He flicked open the buttons of his fall, and she nearly forgot what they were talking about. “And that doesn’t even take into account the later double entendres, the lessons in flirtation, and the dancing lessons in which you took every opportunity to touch my buttocks.”

“I never, ever”—hardly ever—“touched your buttocks. On purpose.” She opened her eyes as wide as she could and cast a look of shock and innocence at him that would’ve melted a Spanish Inquisition priest’s heart.

He lowered his brows into a thunderous glance and stripped off both his breeches and his smalls, revealing an erection that stood nearly vertical and stretched to his navel.

“You,” he said softly, menacingly, as he advanced to the bed, “are a wanton seducer of innocent young men, too unworldly to escape from your whiles, even supposing they wanted to.”

He was up on the bed, looming over her so suddenly, his heat beating against her, that she squeaked.

He braced himself on one arm and ran his other hand down from her throat, between her breasts, over her belly, to her mound, where he spread his fingers wide in possession. For a moment he simply stared down at his hand covering her femininity.

Then his gaze rose to hers and she saw that all teasing had left his eyes. They had gone so dark they were almost black. “How could I help falling under your seduction? How could I help succumbing to your lures? Is it any wonder at all that I’m here tonight?”

She swallowed, for she’d never seen him in this mood. She realized now that his earlier joking had hidden the fact that he almost seemed to resent her and her “lures.” “What do you want?”

His eyelids drooped as he examined her mouth. “Oh, you know very well what I want.”

He didn’t wait for answer or permission. He simply took her mouth, opening his own wide over hers as if he could swallow her.

As if he could make her his.

He licked and nipped at her lips, never letting her draw him in more deeply. Controlling and guiding their lovemaking. She could feel his naked chest under her palms, the strong, excited beat of his heart. His heat and tension were all around her, yet she could not get him to lie upon her. To seduce his tongue into her mouth.

She whimpered under his teasing onslaught and she thought she heard him chuckle.

That made her yank her head back and dig her fingernails into his chest muscles.

“No,” he said firmly as if to a child. “I am the one in charge tonight, my lady. I am the one who holds the reins.”

He rose over her, athletic and quick, and grasped her hips to flip her over.

“Oof!” She struggled to get her hands under her, but now he had chosen to lay his entire length over her, pressing her into the mattress. “Winter, let me up.”

“No,” he murmured in her ear. His hot breath stirred the hair on the side of her head as he gently brushed back the locks. He stroked her hair as if he had all the time in the world.

As if his thick cock weren’t pressing firmly into her bottom.

She wore only a thin silk chemise to bed, the fabric as delicate as tissue, and no barrier to the feel of his body on hers. In fact, it seemed to heighten the sensation, allowing him to slide against her with exquisite friction with every movement.