One Wicked Wish Read online

  His grip on her hips tightened, and he tilted her higher. “Is this uncomfortable?”

  “Do you count dying of embarrassment?”

  A grunt of laughter was the response. “I mean is this hurting your back? If it does, I can position you another way.”

  It was her turn for a brief laugh. “Can you indeed?”

  “Or I can save this variation until next time I kiss your quim.”

  Next time? She wasn’t even sure she’d survive this time. Even more embarrassing, sinful curiosity demanded to know how his mouth would feel on her sex.

  “No, please, go ahead,” she said with ironic politeness.

  She opened dazed eyes and stared up at the elaborate plaster roundels on the ceiling. Another batch of sulky unicorns sneered down at her. No wonder. What happened in this bed was too brazen to believe.

  Gray’s mouth descended to her cleft. Her ability to see anything at all deserted her.

  Molten pleasure streamed through her and made her judder, as his mouth explored the delicate folds. His tongue fluttered and tasted and enticed. Her grip on the sheets tightened until her hands hurt. Above her thundering pulse, she heard her rasping breath as Gray lit her world with vermilion.

  With a tattered cry, she tipped over the edge into a fiery universe. She rode the spasms of pleasure, then realized Gray again stroked her with intent, even as she quaked and moaned.

  It took a huge effort to lift her head. He appeared very pleased with himself. He also looked as if he struggled not to jump on top of her.

  “I can’t…”

  “Of course you can.” His smile held a definite tinge of self-satisfaction. “You liked it?”

  She gave a wry laugh, although delight still radiated through her and speaking tested her limits. “You know I did.”

  “Excellent.”

  “But have a little mercy. I’m only human. “

  His smile widened. “Deliciously human.”

  He dipped his head to kiss her between the legs, and her protest died unspoken as pleasure that had barely ebbed coiled anew.

  By the time she drifted down to earth again, tears ran down her cheeks and her lungs hurt with the effort of filling them.

  Gray watched her with an arrested expression. At least he wasn’t looking at her sex, but she wasn’t sure she liked the calculating light she read in his eyes.

  He released her hips and wiped his mouth. The deliberate gesture made her shiver. She’d imagined that she knew what it was like for two ardent lovers to unite. It turned out that she was a complete novice.

  With a powerful surge, he slid up her body to kiss her mouth. The salty taste on his lips was her. She shivered again. The act seemed so intimate.

  And yet…

  His hands slid down to stroke her swollen folds and despite her exhaustion, warmth stirred anew. This time, though, she stiffened and rolled away. “Gray, stop.”

  Supporting himself on one arm, he leaned over her. “What’s wrong?”

  She stared into his face and struggled to define what worried her. “You don’t have to do this.”

  He frowned. “I want to. I love to please you.”

  She swallowed to moisten a dry throat that hurt after she’d cried out at her peak. When Gray said he wanted to make her scream, he’d meant it. “You do please me.”

  “But?”

  Stella feared what she was about to say might anger or even hurt him. Tonight she’d discovered quite how touchy his pride was. “I feel…I feel like you’re trying to prove something.”

  His brows lowered further. “That we’re perfect together.”

  “We are.” She touched his cheek. The first moment of genuine sweetness since he’d set out to conquer her with rapture, she realized with a shock. “Because we are, you don’t have to work so hard to convince me that you’re the invincible rake, impervious to feeling.”

  Stella now realized just why she’d asked him to stop. It was because Gray used his sexual expertise to banish any recollection of his reluctant, harrowing confessions about his childhood.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, although he avoided her gaze and that telltale muscle jerked in his cheek, betraying his discomfort.

  “Do you know what I liked best tonight?”

  Displeasure tightened his lips, and he shifted away until they no longer touched. “Well, at least there’s something.”

  She took an awful risk. Mustering her courage, she continued. “I liked it best when you pushed me up against the wall.”

  “I was a barbarian.” Self-disgust edged his voice. “I did nothing to prepare you. I didn’t even linger to make sure you found your pleasure.”

  “I did.” She made herself continue. “I liked that you weren’t thinking. I liked that I was your partner and not your toy.”

  Stella swallowed once more, hoping that what she said didn’t destroy his interest in her. Because even after a few hours, she knew that she’d hate it if he denied her his sensual skills.

  But then, she wasn’t talking about his sensual skills. Those were never in doubt. She was talking about emotional connection. A connection he found as troubling as she did.

  Before he could protest, she rushed ahead. “Gray, knowing that life has left you with one or two scars doesn’t stop me wanting and admiring you. The reverse. I want to hold a real man in my arms, a man with hopes and joys and sorrows.”

  Although his gaze was steady, she couldn’t interpret his response. Was she insane to complain about a man willing to devote himself to her satisfaction with such single-minded dedication?

  Stella dared to go on. “You said earlier tonight that I don’t have to hide myself from you.” She sucked in a shaky breath and forced herself to finish, whatever the risk. “I want you to understand that you don’t have to hide yourself from me either.”

  Chapter 13

  Dear God, how could he resist her?

  A great rift opened inside Halston as he stared down at Stella. She saw what nobody else did. She saw too much. He was vulnerable with her in a way he’d been vulnerable with no other lover.

  Except that all his life, he’d been a stranger in the world. With Stella, he felt like he found a home.

  Steady caramel eyes focused on him. In vain, he searched those golden depths for judgement or disdain or even triumph. All he found was acceptance. And desire.

  She was right, damn it. He’d used that desire as a weapon against her. And he’d used the techniques that he’d learned through a lifetime of meaningless affairs. He had a painful presentiment that whatever else this affair proved to be, it wouldn’t be meaningless.

  He’d hated revealing his weakness. He’d hated hearing his self-pitying meanderings.

  But her gaze was warm and admiring. He didn’t need to pretend that he was a heartless rake. He didn’t need to show her that all that mattered was how many climaxes he could give her.

  He swallowed, then swallowed again to shift the unaccustomed lump of emotion in his throat. “Yet still you mean to leave me in a few days.”

  “We have so much.” The glow faded from her eyes, and he glimpsed her turmoil. “Don’t spoil it by worrying about what’s to come.”

  She curled her hand behind his neck, drawing him down for a kiss unlike any he could remember in all his years of debauchery. It was a kiss that offered wordless acceptance. It was a kiss that questioned, demanding more than he knew he could give. It was a kiss that offered him everything in a way that not even that furious fuck against the wall had. Or that shattering moment when she took his cock into her mouth with such sweet willingness, that he ached to recall it.

  The kiss burned away calculation and strategy, leaving only his need for this extraordinary woman.

  Taking charge, he rolled over her. He was hard again. When he stroked her cleft, he discovered she was ready, too. He shifted between her spread legs and drove forward. There was that same sleek welcome that he felt the first time.

  Halston
rested his weight on his elbows, so he could see that unforgettable face. He settled deeper and watched pleasure brighten her eyes. Eager hands caught his shoulders, as she lifted her hips.

  He dipped his head to kiss her, then began to move in long, deliberate strokes that pushed her deep into the mattress. At the peak of every thrust, Stella caught her breath in an audible sigh that turned into the music of arousal. She closed her eyes and gripped his back, joining the possessive dance. Although he couldn’t say who was the possessor and who the possessed. Another change from his usual amours.

  He’d climaxed twice already. This time, he meant to give Stella a long ride.

  The skin on her face tautened, as she succumbed to another climax. He thrust hard into her convulsing body. Her fingernails dug into his back. After tonight, he’d bear her mark.

  Halston kissed her with all the primitive power that blazed between them and moved again until she shuddered and cried out. Then he took her across one final time in a gentle release that seemed to wash over her like the waves of a warm tropical sea.

  ***

  “Oh, Gray, I had no idea.” Stella still clenched around him.

  Halston kissed her again and circled his hips, but this long, slow joining reached its end. He shifted once more before he drew free and pumped his seed onto her stomach. He shifted to the side and studied her as she lay next to him.

  They’d barely spoken since he’d joined his body with hers. Now she opened tear-bright eyes and gave him a shaky smile. Exhaustion shadowed her striking features, and her mouth was bruised and swollen from his kisses.

  It was unworthy to gloat, but Halston was delighted that he’d taken her to places she’d never been. “We’ve only just started.”

  This time, her smile held a trace of a grimace. “I might have hit my limit for the moment.”

  After their eventful night, she must be sore. More, she hadn’t had a lover in years. He should have been gentler, curse him.

  Halston brushed his index finger across the purple shadows beneath her eyes. “I’ve tired you out.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can wait until tomorrow night to do this again.”

  Familiar wry humor diluted her seriousness. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk tomorrow.” As if to remind them of time passing, the clock on the mantel chimed half past four. Her lips quirked. “Today.”

  “I’ll help you down the staircase to the dining room, you poor old thing.”

  His small joke made a clumsy landing. Sorrow weighted her gaze. “Once the sun rises, we go back to being strangers.”

  “I hate that,” he said, all urge to smile abandoning him as well.

  It just seemed so bloody wrong that he had to hide his attraction to this wonderful woman as if it was a shameful secret. Halston wanted to shout her praises from the rooftops. He wanted to flaunt his pride in her. He wanted to walk beside her so that everyone knew she belonged to him.

  But daybreak rushed in upon them and with it, the demands and conventions of the world they lived in. It was a world of hypocrisy and glittering appearances that masked darker realities. But Halston had to bow to its power.

  “I hate it, too,” she confessed. She stroked his shoulders, claiming him in a way that she never could in the light of day.

  As if to confirm the end of a night that had changed him forever, a lark started to sing from the trees outside. He’d spent weeks scheming to bring Stella Faulkner to his bed. Now he had, and he’d reveled in hours crammed with pleasure. More surprising, they were hours full of emotion and revelations, and a closeness he’d never felt with anyone else.

  He and Stella had pursued sin with a wholehearted fervor that had shaken his world. They’d sin again tonight.

  The pity of it was that right now, the real sin seemed to be that she must leave this bed and return to her room. It felt so wrong that they should be apart.

  Halston collapsed at her side and rested his head on her shoulder. Her scent flooded his senses. Satisfied woman. A trace of sweat. A hint of the sandalwood soap that she must have used when she washed in his dressing room.

  She smoothed his hair. Even that action conveyed deep weariness. It also betrayed a tenderness that he feared might become as addictive as the magic contained within her slender body.

  Halston closed his eyes and battled the need to sleep. When he sucked in a deep breath, the air tasted like sex. She’d drained him to the dregs. He felt tired and satisfied, and heavy with lingering pleasure.

  She must go soon. The maid would be in to tend the fire, which had burned down to embers while he’d dwelled in paradise.

  “I should go.” He heard aching regret in Stella’s voice.

  A thrush joined the lark, then a robin and a blackbird. As if Halston needed reminding of time’s cruel progress.

  “Not yet,” he murmured, extending his neck to encourage her caresses.

  When she dropped a kiss on top of his head, he responded with a low hiss of enjoyment. The deep, comforting peace extended for ten minutes, fifteen, before she shifted.

  Halston bit back a futile protest. So far, he’d cared for her reputation. He wouldn’t let her down now. But, oh, what agony it was to accept that the long, eventful night drew to a close.

  He was too sapped to do much more than lie in her arms and dream about the night just passed. But that was sweeter than the most torrid encounter with any other woman.

  Sweetness wasn’t the usual currency he traded in. It was strange to discover that after all their passion, it was sweetness that held him captive.

  “I must go,” she said again with even less conviction.

  How Halston wished he lived in a world where he could tell everyone to go hang themselves while he basked in this delicious aftermath.

  He sighed, and this time he was the one who moved, although only far enough to rise on his elbow. His eyes drank Stella in, as if he might never see her again. The hours before he had her to himself once again felt like a chasm. “Let me clean you up before you go.”

  “If you like.”

  His gaze swept over her. By God, she was a peach. He frowned and touched the chafing on her neck. “My beard caught you.”

  Her lips turned down in acknowledgement. “I’ll have to wear a scarf.”

  With great reluctance, he left the bed and crossed to the dressing room. After a quick wash, he tugged on his red robe.

  He returned to Stella with a bowl of water and a flannel. “The water’s cold. Do you want me to try to warm it on the fire?”

  She sat up, still naked. He liked her lack of shyness. Hell, he liked her.

  “We don’t have time,” she said, stretching out against the rumpled sheets.

  To his regret, those words didn’t apply just to the heating of some water. He approached the bed and set the bowl on the bedside table.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, eating him up with her eyes.

  “I want to,” he said. “Lie back and enjoy it.”

  She gave a short laugh. “Lucky me.”

  “No, lucky me.” With a gentleness that paid tribute to her, he began to sponge her pale stomach. “Is the water too cold?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes and gave herself over to his ministrations.

  Halston rinsed out the flannel and dipped it between her legs. Stella hid a wince.

  Remorse pierced him. He lifted his hand. “I was too rough with you.”

  She opened her eyes and regarded him with such yearning that he cursed the hour and wished he could keep her here. “I loved every moment of what you did to me.” She shot him a mocking glance. “Even when you set out to prove that you were in charge.”

  That hadn’t come to anything, had it? If he’d hoped that a good fuck would loosen her hold on him, he’d been utterly misguided. Having Stella just made him want more.

  He kissed the soft plain of her stomach. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “See you don’t,” she murmured, softening the r
eprimand with a touch of her hand to his shoulder.

  Too soon for his liking, he finished washing her and bent to retrieve her peignoir. “Here.”

  She stood and tugged it on, tying the belt. “Do you mind coming along the passage with me?”

  “Not at all.” He’d already lit a chamberstick. He was desperate to wring every second from these last minutes with her that he could.

  He stepped forward and caught her hand. “Are you ready?”

  She gave him another of those intent looks that made him burn, despite what he’d already done, despite knowing that she was in no fit state to take him again. “I don’t want to go, mad as that sounds.”

  “That doesn’t sound mad at all.”

  “It will feel like an eternity until I come to you tonight.”

  Halston grimaced. “I’m wishing every one of my esteemed guests to blazes.”

  “Give them lots to do today.” He could tell that her smile took an effort. “Lots of busy, active things so they go to bed early.”

  His amusement was muffled against her lips, as he lost himself in a kiss that wasn’t light at all, but a turbulent expression of longing for what he couldn’t have. Stella kissed him back with the passion that he now knew was her essence. He hauled her closer and devoured her mouth to make up for the endless hours when he couldn’t touch her.

  After they drew apart, his head was swimming and his heart pounded. In a daze, Halston watched her cast a comprehensive glance around the room. It was as if she etched every detail on her mind. Then she took his hand and turned toward the secret doorway.

  Chapter 14

  On the fourth night of the house party, Lord Halston held a small ball for his guests and neighbors. He’d booked an orchestra from London and had the great hall of his elegant house bedecked in garlands of flowers to welcome the arrival of spring. For once, the weather cooperated, so he set lights in the gardens, in case anyone wished to wander the paths outside.

  “Isn’t this just grand?” Imogen brought Stella a glass of champagne in the brief interval before the dancing started again. She looked charming in a leaf-green gown that would probably find its way to Stella in time. That pretty color would make her look bilious.