It was a kiss such as the mythic gods of love might have bestowed upon those mortal women they chose as lovers.
Hartley parted her lips with his tongue and she let him inside. The lower half of her body had begun to throb in a way she could not mistake. For most of the past five years, she had denied it the satisfaction and completion it craved, testing her will against that of the men the ton called her lovers. Never quite surrendering. Saving herself… for what, she did not know.
Until now. Until Hartley. This was what she had waited for. She admitted it freely, for denial was pointless. He moved his tongue in such a way that she felt as if she lay naked beneath him on the soft grass while he thrust deep between her thighs.
Yes. The image gave her no shame. She wanted him hungrily, greedily, desperately. She was all desire, swept back to the one time when a man had carried her to paradise. She had tasted it and yearned to taste it again. She, Lady Eden Winstowe, whom everyone assumed took a new lover each month, rumored to be deliciously skilled in the arts of love, was hardly more than a virgin.
She perched on the edge of a limitless crevasse, ready to hurl herself beyond the reach of redemption. If she gave herself to Hartley—oh, as she so longed to do—she would not be indulged by Society as she had been in London. She would become an outcast among her own, a traitor to all the ton held dear. Her previous life would be truly over.
That she might sacrifice willingly, but not Donal’s future. Not everything that was to be, must be his.
“Hartley,” she murmured. He was using lips and tongue in a hundred delightful ways on her face and neck, finding places she had not known could bring such pleasure. She wedged her hands between them. “Hartley, stop.”
He obeyed instantly, with none of the reluctance other men might show. Her skin felt icy where his hot mouth had been. He stepped back, and a wind as bleak as winter rushed between them.
In his eyes was that same coldness, as if he had been expecting her protest. Her rejection.
And hated her for it.
“Hartley,” she whispered. “It is… it is not what you think.”
His mouth curled in a parody of his glorious smile. “Are you not about to tell me that you have decided that this was a mistake? That you have remembered who you are and what I am?”
He mocked her, but she could not fault him for it. She had started this. She had to make him understand. “I have never forgotten who I am.”
“But you cannot admit that I—this rough form you despise—did to you what no other man could.”
His arrogance seemed designed to provoke her anger. But he was right; a thousand men could attempt to seduce her, and every one would leave her indifferent from this moment on. Had she been so transparent, so ingenuous?
“Will it help you if I admit it?” she said, lifting her chin. “Is it so important to you that I become your… conquest?”
He expelled a harsh breath. “If I had wanted to conquer you, I could have done it with ease, and your petty defenses would be useless.”
She laughed. “How gallant of you, Hartley. You make it quite impossible for me to forget your station.”
He moved a step closer, crowding her with his body. “Should I play the role of a true blackguard, Eden? Do you want me to force you, so that you need feel no shame at having a common lover?”
She held her ground. For all his quicksilver changes of mood and many contradictions, Hartley would not stoop to rape. Dark he might be, and unpredictable, but at heart he was a good man. Yes… a good man who had been wounded, as she had been.
Perhaps that was all they had in common—that, and desire. Lust. Physical attraction that would bind them for a short while until both were sated.
“Hartley.” She took his stiff, unresponsive hand in hers. “I am not pushing you away.” She flushed, realizing that what she was about to admit could not be recalled. “It is only that… that I want you so much that I fear… I fear I may hurt my son.”