Chapter Eighteen

Evie may have been the one playing with fire.

But Weston was the one being consumed by it.

Flames lapped at his self-restraint as her inquisitive hand trailed across his chest. He steeled himself against the heat. The temptation. The savage desire to take and be taken. But even as he resisted, he knew it was a battle he was losing. A battle he no longer wanted to fight.

And thus he threw up his white flag…and surrendered.

He surrendered to the attraction between them. An attraction that had begun as a spark on the ballroom floor, and had since grown into a raging inferno.

He surrendered to his primal urges, long stifled beneath layers of propriety.

But most importantly…he surrendered to Evie.

Exquisite, alluring Evie. An ebony-haired siren wrapped in silk and sin, just as he'd envisioned her. Except the reality of having her in his arms was far better than any dream.

His stool clattered to the floor as he shoved to his feet. A single step, and she was his, her hands clutching his hips as he spun her forcefully around on her seat.

She tilted her head back and gazed up at him in wordless anticipation, her throat giving a delicate jerk as she swallowed and then wet her lips, affording him a tantalizing peek at her pink tongue. Her dusky nipples were swollen and erect, their pointed shape clearly visible through the thin fabric of her wrapper and nightdress. Bathed in the glow of firelight, her slender body was all but quivering for his touch.

She reached for him, but he gently deflected her arm. With midnight at their backs and sunrise hours away, they'd all the time in the world. And he intended to use every second to bring her pleasure.

He began by removing the pins from her hair. One by one, he set them beside her on the table. When the last had been freed, her curls tumbled down around her shoulders in a tumultuous curtain of black satin. Weston sucked in a sharp breath. Pinned against the table with her hair undone and her eyes heavy with lust, Evie had never looked more arousing.

A log shifted in the hearth. As sparks danced in the air, he sank his fingers into her lush mane and lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss that was as deliberately slow as it was consuming.

Their lips parted. Their tongues entwined. Their bodies throbbed.

Cradling the back of her skull with his left hand, he used the right to untie the sash holding her wrapper closed. A few deft tugs and the garment slithered down her arms to pool at her waist before it slipped, already forgotten, onto the floor. Uncovered, her cotton nightdress clung to her curves. It was simple and plain, the only decoration a blue ribbon trimmed in white lace stitched across the bodice. But then, Evie's natural beauty needed no frills or adornments.

He kissed her again, lingering over her lips with lazy abandon as he explored every inch of the warm, damp cavern inside of her mouth. She whimpered with impatience, a tiny, mewling cry of suppressed desire that went straight to his loins. Grabbing the hem of her nightdress, he yanked it past her thighs and then up over her hips, before whisking it off the top of her head.

Completely exposed to his gaze, she didn't shy or blush. Not his Evie. She was a woman empowered, a woman in power. Over him, his body, his mind…his heart and soul. A beckoning tilt of her chin, a lascivious smile, her fingers sweeping in tantalizingly slow motion across her ribcage before she cupped her own breasts…and she controlled him. All of him. Every bit. Even the parts he'd sworn that he would never give to anyone.

His mouth went to her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone…and then her nipples. Drawing one bud between his teeth to lick and nip and suckle, he permitted his hands to continue further down, across her slightly rounded belly to the curls between her thighs where she was wet and wanting.

Her legs fell shamelessly apart as he petted her there; stroking along the pearl of her womanhood before delving deeper. To the first knuckle, the second, the third, he gradually sheathed his finger all the way within her velvet heat.

He groaned when he felt her clench around him. Reaching for her hand, he guided it to his trousers where he was as hard and as hot as a railroad pike in the midafternoon sun. Lightly wrapping her fingers around him through his pants, she gave a small, experimental stroke along his shaft from base to tip. He jerked in her embrace, as inexperienced as it was, and would have spilled his seed then and there had he not grinded his teeth together with such force that a ligament popped in his jaw, loud but painless.

"Bloody hell," he gasped. With a flinch, Evie withdrew her hand.

"Did I do something wrong?" she whispered, blue eyes luminous in the lamplight.

His only answer was to take her wrist and direct her back to his cock as he sought her mouth.

Time blurred after that. Or maybe it ceased it exist altogether. Weston didn't know. Quite frankly, he didn't care. There were a hundred different things he had to do come morning. Obligations. Duties. Ledgers. God, were the ledgers never ending. But in this kitchen, in this moment, in this sweet paradise of carnal pleasure, his only concern was Evie.

Their breaths grew more frantic, their motions more uninhibited, their passion more desperate as they recklessly plunged towards oblivion. And when the mountain crumbled beneath their feet and they spread their wings, they took flight together.

"We did not spill the milk," Evie noted, somewhat impressed.

"So we didn't," Weston said gruffly as he shook out her wrapper, then held it out.

After adjusting the arms of her nightdress, she accepted it gladly. Without the warmth of the earl's body pressed against hers, and with the fire in the hearth all but extinguished, a slight chill had overtaken the air.

Needing to give her heart a chance to resume its normal rhythm and her scattered thoughts to organize, she took her time with the sash. When it was finally tied and she was properly dressed, she flitted a glance at Weston. He'd moved across the room to the fireplace, exposing half of his countenance to the muted light from the dying flames as he stood with an arm braced against the wooden mantel that stretched the length of the hearth.

As if he could feel the weight of her gaze upon him, he looked at her over his shoulder, and she braced herself, both inwardly and out, for the rejection that she knew was to come. But even though she understood that their interlude had probably changed nothing, she did not regret it.

Not a word, not a kiss, not a touch.

Especially not a touch.

The feelings he'd elicited from her body…it had been like a burst of sunlight.

No, not a burst.

Burst was far too mild a word.

An explosion, she decided. An explosion of sunlight.

And now came the shadows. Slithering, sneaking their way in to douse the light and dampen her spirits.

"I suppose this is the part where you tell me what we just did was a mistake," she told Weston quietly. "That it won't happen again, and you're terribly sorry–"

"But I'm not," he cut in. "I'm not sorry. And whatever that was,"–he gestured at the chair behind her–"it wasn't a mistake."

Her lips parted. "Then…what…you…I…"

"I don't have all the answers." He ran a hand across his face. "Hell, I don't have any answers. This is a position I've never found myself in before."

"You mean you've never ravished a woman in the kitchen?" asked Evie. At his resulting flicker of guilt, she gave a peal of delighted laughter. "You rake, you have! Who was she? A maid? A lady? Your mistress? Do tell. I should like to know what company I keep."

His eyes narrowed with annoyance. "It occurred once several years ago, and she is now happily married with several children. The hour is getting late, Miss Thorncroft. We should seek our beds."

"Yes, we should," she agreed.

But neither of them moved, and as the air grew noticeably heavier, Evie wound her arms around her chest to brace herself against the brewing tempest.

"Do you still plan to ask for Lady Martha's hand in marriage?"

"No. Yes." He raked his fingers through his hair, and muttered a curse. "I don't know."

"You don't know," she repeated slowly. "Tell me, Lord Hawkridge, what is it you do know?"

His eyes, as dark and volatile as a storm cloud, shot to hers. "I know that I should not desire you as I do. I know that it was easier when I hated you. And I know…I know that no matter what I do, I cannot stop thinking about you. Those are the things that I know."

It was better than the cold slap of rejection that she had anticipated.

But it was far from the declaration of love that she needed.

"Then let me tell you the things I know," she said, proudly lifting her chin. "I know that I will not be a second choice. Not for you. Not for anyone. And I know that I will not leave my heart in your hands indefinitely. So take care to treat it kindly while you have it, Lord Hawkridge. For you may miss it far more than you realize when it's gone."

With that dire warning, she left the kitchen to seek her bed…and pray for a dreamless sleep.