“It’s late, Suzanne.”
One of his hands was at her hip, the other smoothed from her shoulder to her elbow and back again.
“You should return to your suite,” he said.
“I should.”
“Emily will be waiting for you.”
“I dismissed her for the night,” she said.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking but decided that it would probably be more prudent to keep her curiosity to herself.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said. There, a little more honesty for him. “I could always invite you to my bed, but then it would be difficult to hide you from Emily. Or pretend that I’ve been virtuous.”
“Suzanne.”
There was a note in his voice she couldn’t identify. Did he object to her staying?
“Do you lie?”
“What?”
“You intimated that Roger was skilled in lying. Is that a function of being in the Silent Service? Have you ever lied to me?”
The seconds ticked along ponderously.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
She pulled back to look at him. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
There was an expression in his beautiful green eyes she couldn’t decipher. Bemusement, perhaps.
“It never felt right to lie to you, Suzanne.”
She sank back against his chest, feeling a lightness streaming through her like sunlight. It didn’t banish the darkness completely, but made it gray more than black.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said, giving him the truth. “I don’t want to.”
He said something half under his breath, a word that was so startling she rose up to look at him again.
“Do you truly want me to leave, Adam?” Did he know how difficult a question that was to ask?
She was so worried about his response that she didn’t anticipate the kiss. Was it possible for the top of your head to simply float off and vanish? Every part of her body welcomed him, wanted his touch and the magic that he brought her. She’d never before considered herself a sensual person or one motivated by her baser instincts. Such things were for people who were lax in their morals or hadn’t been trained to be proper. At least, that’s what she’d always been taught. But what if everything she’d learned up until now was wrong? What if you could be entirely decorous and yet love with abandon?
She sat up, never losing contact with Adam’s lips, and wound her arms around his neck.
He breathed her name against her mouth. No doubt it was an admonition of some sort.
Was he cautioning her about her own behavior? Or was it his lack of control he was warning her about? Either way, she didn’t care. Let them both be profligate and unwise and wild.
She thought she heard him say her name again, but she was concentrating on kissing her way across his face and down his throat. He had a beautiful neck. She had never noticed a man’s neck until now.
His hands were holding her shoulders in a tight grip, but she noticed he didn’t push her away. If she wanted to leave, now was the time.
Why would she choose lying in her solitary bed, staring up at the ceiling, in exchange for being with Adam? Kissing him and anticipating what they would do together? She might have been foolish at times in her life, but she learned from her mistakes quite quickly.
She was not leaving.
Delight was threading through her body, making her aware of muscles and nerves and sensations she had never truly noticed until this moment.
She nibbled on his ear, smiling when he muttered something under his breath.
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I don’t want to.”
“Heaven forbid I make you do something you don’t want, Your Grace.”
She leaned back, smiling at him, happiness rushing through her. She shouldn’t have been so filled with joy at that moment. He was teasing her again and no one ever had. His eyes were intent as they studied her, and there was something in the depths of them that made her heart soar.
“Thank you, Drummond.”
He frowned. “What for?”
“For liking me,” she said.
He shook his head. “Sometimes, Suzanne, you say the most ridiculous things. Who wouldn’t like you? Who wouldn’t cherish you? And love you?”
She was going to cry again and it had nothing to do with grief or sorrow. Her heart was so full that she couldn’t bear it.
All she could do was frame his face with her hands and kiss him gently and tenderly. “And you, Adam? Who wouldn’t love you? And cherish you? And admire you and respect you?”
He abruptly stood and carried her to the end of his bed. It was smaller than hers, the mattress thinner and the sheets not the quality designed for a duchess. Yet she wouldn’t be anywhere else, because it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the look in his eyes as he slowly unbuttoned her bodice, giving her time to protest or refuse or stay his hands.
Instead, she reached up and began to unbutton his shirt, freeing him from his clothes with sudden talented fingers. When had she become so adept at undressing a man?
He had been her tutor in passion, and now the pupil was impatient to demonstrate everything she’d learned from him.
“You are wearing entirely too many clothes,” he said a moment later.
“I would say the same about you.” They smiled at each other.
Fingers flew as well as buttons. Laces were loosened and then a corset was tossed across the room. She stood to rid herself of her dress. Her cameo was placed on his bedside table, but she had no idea where one stocking had gone. Its mate was draped over the chair where they had earlier sat. And her shift? It was the last garment to be dispensed with and she stood there before him, naked and as vulnerable as she had ever been in her life.
She should have covered herself with her hands. She should have grabbed the blanket at the end of his bed and draped it over herself. She should have done something other than just stand there and let him look his fill. The light on the desk in the other room was sufficient to expose her. Unlike last night, she had no shield of darkness. Nor did she want one.
He was bare-chested and had removed his shoes, but his trousers were still on. She approached him and began to unfasten the placket.
He reached out and smoothed his hands down her arms, and then he pressed his palms to her nipples and cupped her breasts. She had never realized how sensitive her breasts were until Adam touched her. She closed her eyes at the sensation.
She blocked out the past and the future and concentrated only on this, the present with him.
He bent to kiss her, but she shook her head.
“Not until you’re undressed. It’s only fair. If I’m naked, you should be naked.”
She’d always been modest. She hadn’t liked being completely naked even in front of her maid. Why was she being so brazen now? She thought it was because of the look in his eyes again, that same intensity that warmed her from the inside out.
Or could it be that desire was heating her body, turning her into someone else? The Suzanne she’d always wanted to be. The girl who reveled in her freedom. Being naked in front of him, unafraid, untouched by modesty was the greatest demonstration of freedom she could imagine.
They tumbled onto the bed, the mattress sinking in the middle, almost creating a well around them and causing her to laugh. They didn’t wait. Instead, he entered her and she widened her legs, first wrapping her feet around his calves and then his waist. They were so close, so wound together that their heartbeats seemed to match, their breathing in tandem.
This was different from before. Before when he’d loved her, it had been sensual and erotic, then gentle and sweet. This was a maelstrom, fury and fire. She’d wanted wildness and abandon and he gave it to her and demanded, with each movement, that she come with him and experience the wholeness of passion with him.
It was Adam, so she put her trust in him, wrapping her arms around his neck, lost in his kisses. His thrusts and withdrawal teased and pleasured her at the same time. His mouth left hers to gently bite at the base of her neck, a gesture of capture, a demand for surrender. Then his lips were pulling at her nipples, saying her name against her breasts.
Her body shuddered, clamped around him with a demand of its own. She saw darkness and sparkles behind her eyelids as if the heavens had exploded in a black night sky.
For a moment, she wasn’t Suzanne. She was simply a being, a creature of pleasure insensate but for bliss. Her hips thrust up to implore him to return. Her arms clung to him as his back arched.
Her body responded so perfectly to him, with him, as if they were destined to love each other. Nor was it simply her physical body that was involved, but her mind as well. She’d given him trust and he’d returned it. They’d revealed secrets to each other. With him she didn’t have to be anybody but herself. Not a woman with a title. Not the daughter of the fantastically wealthy Edward Hackney.
She held him as he shuddered in her arms a few minutes later, his body reaching completion. She realized that in this, too, they were alike. Each needed the other, not only for pleasure but for holding in the aftermath, to treasure that small window of time when it was acceptable to be so open and vulnerable, to be weak.
She didn’t try to hide her tears. She doubted she could have if she’d wanted to. This weeping came from another place entirely. Not grief exactly, but something similar. Anticipatory loss, perhaps. Seeing something troubling ahead and being unable to stop it.
He collapsed beside her, the sound of her name now coated with wonder.
She wanted him to stay, to remain with her. Sometimes being a duchess didn’t matter at all.
Tomorrow they would go and label a man a traitor.
Yet tonight was hers and she wasn’t going to give a second back to the world.