One Wicked Wish Read online

  “It’s frightening to put aside my mask.” Her gaze focused on his face. “I’ve lived behind it for ten years.”

  Halston kissed her again, taking his time to savor her. When the kiss started to catch fire, he drew away. He felt more than just physical hunger for Stella, but at this moment, unsatisfied desire threatened to sweep everything else away. “I’m delighted that I can offer you a few hours of freedom.”

  “I was free growing up. Perhaps too free.” Her eyes were troubled. “I’m not a virgin, Halston.”

  “That doesn’t make me think less of you.”

  She looked rueful. “It matters to most men. At least when it comes to things like marriage, or my ability to guide a young girl into adulthood.”

  “Nobody could question your devotion to Imogen.” He rolled off her and sat up to lean against the bedpost again. Lying on top of Stella was too tempting.

  “She’s a darling. It’s not hard to love her. Even if I wanted to wring her neck when she played that trick at the Lumsden ball.”

  A faint smile lengthened his lips, as he raised a knee and rested one arm on it. “I’m forever grateful to her for that. If she hadn’t, I might still be pining for you from afar.”

  Stella pushed herself up until she rested against the headboard with her legs stretched out in front of her. “I still don’t know why you noticed me.”

  He tilted his eyebrows at her. “Even after those kisses?”

  A wave of her hand dismissed his question. “That’s after the fact.”

  “You’d noticed me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re very noticeable, as you well know.”

  He frowned, trying to put the inexpressible into words, even as he curled his hand around her leg just below the knee. He couldn’t have her, but by God, he’d touch her while he could.

  “So are you. Or at least you are to me. The first time I saw you, I thought of a trapped flame. And having seen you, I couldn’t not see you, if that makes sense.”

  “I suppose it does. I felt the same, although you seemed far beyond my reach.”

  “You were the one out of reach.” He stroked her leg, pushing up her skirts to reveal shapely calves in serviceable brown stockings. “I’ve never pursued a woman so hedged about with thorny fences. All those stern old biddies quite daunted me.”

  She didn’t smile. “You could choose any lover.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t want any lover. I want you. You ask why I noticed you? Was it fate? Who knows? But I looked across that room and saw a woman whose manners screamed propriety and whose eyes glittered with fire. I knew she was the one for me. That feeling has only deepened since.”

  “Oh, Halston…” she sighed.

  He couldn’t resist the melting surrender in her golden eyes. Surging up the bed, he lashed his arms around her, kissing her until his blood turned into a hot torrent.

  By the time he lifted his head, they were both breathless. He had to stop now, or he wouldn’t stop until he thrust inside her. The prospect made him as hard as granite. Telling himself that his chance would come in a few hours didn’t soothe the ache in his balls.

  Stella looked delightfully ruffled. The severe knot that confined her hair showed signs of collapsing, and her lips were full and red after his kisses. He itched to sweep away these trappings of the prim governess, trappings that had so little to do with the real Stella.

  Tonight.

  “You should call me Gray.”

  “Should I indeed?”

  He gave her a quick kiss. “It’s what I want to hear you scream when you’re shaking in my arms.”

  Her laugh held a hint of irony. “And of course you’ll make me scream.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  She brought his head down for another kiss. He loved that she took the initiative. When she shifted to meet his eyes, she looked pensive. “You weren’t surprised.”

  “When I kissed you?”

  She shook her head. “When I told you I’m not a…virgin.”

  “Ah.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d guessed.” Halston settled against the pillows and drew her into his side. Cuddling Stella was damnably pleasant. “Nothing we did shocked you.”

  “I was shocked at how I felt.”

  “That’s capital.” He glanced down at her, fearing that he must look completely besotted. “Why should I mind? I’m no virgin either.”

  She smothered a snort. “I’m hoping you’ll give me the advantage of your experience.”

  “Perhaps I’m hoping you’ll give me the advantage of yours.”

  A flush heated her cheeks and made her look younger. She might claim to be a woman with a romantic past, but she possessed an essential innocence that called to him. Which was strange as he wasn’t a man who dealt in innocence. “I’m not…I’m not that experienced.”

  “But you knew enough to tell me to finish outside you. I like that I needn’t coax you through each step to intimacy. We can get to the good stuff faster, if I don’t have to talk you over the first hurdles.”

  She laughed again. “You’re such a man.”

  He smiled, even as he thought about what she’d said. “I’m guessing there’s been nobody since you came to live with Deerforth.”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t known a lover’s touch in over ten years. I haven’t wanted a lover’s touch.”

  “Until you met me.”

  Her glowing eyes settled on him. “Until I met you. It was lucky I didn’t want to pursue a flirtation. My uncle wouldn’t have approved, and life was hard enough as it was.”

  Halston drew her closer. “I hate that things have been so difficult.”

  “I’ve been safe.” She paused. “And now I’m not safe, but I’m happy.”

  That made him kiss her again and again, until his control threatened to crack. This was torture. This was bliss. This was too risky to continue, blast it.

  Halston pulled away and settled her head upon his shoulder. “Talk to me,” he said gruffly, despite his words, brushing his lips across the top of her hair. “If we keep kissing, I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

  “I haven’t felt like this since I was a young girl in the throes of first love. I’d always imagined that the fires burned lower as one got older.”

  He groaned and closed his eyes. Her scent was the air he breathed. Sensible lemon soap. Something warm and female that had nothing sensible about it at all. “If you keep saying things like that, you’ll find yourself compromised in the blink of an eye, my girl.”

  She lifted her head to land a clumsy kiss on his jaw. “What shall we talk about?”

  He fought against reacting to that kiss with more kisses. She’d escaped a good swiving by a hair’s breath, but he knew his limits. “I believe you were telling me about your colorful past.”

  She frowned in puzzlement. “Do you care?”

  The stark truth was that he did, and not just about her first lover. He wanted to know everything about her. “Indulge me.”

  “Very well, but please stop me if I’m boring you.”

  He gave a grunt of amusement. “I’ll try to stay awake.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard that Mamma rejected a rich marriage and ran off with Papa to Italy. It created a massive brouhaha. After that, Papa made a meager living as an artist, but we were happy together and we had one another. And I loved Naples.”

  “That’s where you and your lover met?”

  “Yes. We planned to marry, but Niccolo was killed fighting the French. Mamma and Papa had died in an epidemic the previous year. I’d spent months trying to manage on my own, but it was impossible. Even more impossible when Napoleon ordered his armies into the city. I was lucky to get back to England where my uncle took me in.”

  “I’m sorry about Niccolo.” More, Halston couldn’t bear learning that she’d been alone and afraid. “You loved him?”

  The golden eyes were full of such grief that Halston hardly needed to ask. N
o question that she’d loved him.

  “When he died, I felt like my life was over. But I was just nineteen, and a broken heart only kills people in stories.”

  Halston struggled against a painful and unworthy stab of jealousy. He could imagine how tough life had been for Stella, left destitute and grieving in Naples, then arriving in England to bear the weight of the scandal of her parents’ elopement. “Does your uncle know about Niccolo?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Good heavens, no. It’s bad enough that I share my mother’s wild blood. If he knew I’d gone to a man’s bed, he’d never give me the time of day. He believes that whipping is too good for a fallen woman.” Her expression darkened in a way that disturbed Halston. “As it was, he gave me a pompous lecture on controlling my reckless impulses. The threat was clear that if I didn’t toe the line, I was out on my ear.”

  Another reminder, should Halston need one, of what risks she took, now that she succumbed to this attraction. “The swine.”

  “He’s not a swine.” She pursed her lips. “He’s just a self-important prig with a narrow range of understanding. I’m even grateful to him. He’s been good to me, according to his lights. It would have been easy to ignore my appeal for help.” She stopped. “Although if Mamma’s aristocratic friends from the English community in Naples hadn’t written to him and extolled my good character, he’d never have taken me in. Don’t forget he placed his daughter in my care. My virtue or the lack of it does matter.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “My uncle? I doubt I’ve ever loved him.”

  “No, you absurd creature. Niccolo.”

  The delay before she answered felt like torture. Which was mad. Love was never part of his dalliances.

  While he couldn’t remember wanting a woman the way he wanted Stella, and he liked her more than anyone else he’d met lately, this was only another short-lived affair. Hell, she’d told him that it was over, once they returned to London. Even for Halston, less than a week was brief for a liaison.

  “Does it matter?”

  It shouldn’t, by God. After all, they were both aware of their arrangement’s parameters. A few days of sensual pleasure before they retreated to their respective corners. “I’m interested in you.”

  Her glance was unimpressed. “I know.”

  He laughed. “Not just as a bed partner.”

  “So you want us to be confidants as well as lovers?”

  “A little conversation will fill the gaps between lovemaking. We’ll need to get our breath back now and then. You pointed out that we’re both advancing in years.” His voice became serious. “And you can talk about these things with me, knowing there’s no danger. There’s not even any judgement. It would be the height of hypocrisy to condemn you for one adventure, when the angels have stopped keeping track of mine.”

  Halston expected her to smile, but instead she studied him. Her attention stirred a vague discomfort. He had an unwelcome inkling that she saw all the way down to the vacuum where most men had a soul. In general, that lack didn’t worry him. But something about this unusual woman made him wish to be a better man, wish to be worthy of her.

  “Part of being free?”

  “If you like.”

  “Then, yes, I still love him.”

  Halston stopped himself from grabbing Stella by the shoulders and ordering her to think of no man but him. The red mist obscuring his vision meant a few seconds passed before he realized that she was still speaking.

  “Although it’s truer to say I remember loving him. He was a sweet boy, and I was a sweet girl when I met him. If I hadn’t sketched him so often and kept the drawings, I wouldn’t even remember what he looked like. It’s been ten years. I doubt he’d like the woman I’ve become.” While she sounded sad, it was an old sorrow.

  The thought of Stella weeping over drawings of her lost love made him want to punch his fist through the wall. When he had no right to be jealous of what she did ten years ago. And with a dead man.

  “So you’re not pining for handsome Niccolo?”

  Her smile was wistful. “I still think about him and how unfair life was to him. He was killed trying to save his brother from a French patrol. He deserved better.”

  “You did, too.”

  “Perhaps.” He admired her lack of self-pity. “How did you know that he was handsome?”

  “I guessed.” The image of a liquid-eyed Italian Adonis only stoked his shameful jealousy.

  “Niccolo was dark like you, but in a very different style. He was a black-eyed angel, whereas you’ve got all of Satan’s wicked allure. He was also ridiculously chivalrous. I had to drag him into bed. He was determined to wait until we spoke our vows. But I was mad for him. This might make me sound like a brazen hussy, but I’m not sorry I gave him my maidenhead. Or that we came together half a dozen times after that. Knowing that I made him happy, even for a few short hours, has been some consolation. Deerforth is right. I share my mother’s wild blood.”

  Halston frowned. “Your mother fell in love, and you did as well. Wanting to take that love to its rightful conclusion doesn’t turn either of you into the Whore of Babylon.”

  Stella was a passionate creature. He’d sensed that from the first. Her kisses in the hired carriage, and even more during the tumultuous minutes he’d spent in her arms this afternoon, only confirmed that.

  He suspected that she’d been the dominant partner in her tragic amour. Her description, terse as it was, gave him a fair idea of what Niccolo had been like. Charming. Beautiful. Romantic. Just a little weak. Something told Halston that however powerful her first love, the years might have revealed that she needed a man capable of standing up to her.

  Curiosity sparked in her lovely eyes. “You’re kinder than I imagined you’d be.”

  Halston shifted in embarrassment. He was used to women admiring his looks or his virility – or most often of all, his large fortune. A compliment on something like kindness felt unwarranted. “I’m trying to lull you into trusting me.”

  “I’m about to go to your bed. My reputation is in your keeping. I’d better trust you, or I’m an empty-headed little fool.”

  He dropped another kiss onto her disheveled hair. “You’re certainly not that.”

  When she turned her face up, he pressed his lips to hers. Even that brief kiss was too disturbing. “You must have known frustration as well as sorrow.”

  Her smile wasn’t far off a grimace. “What do you think?”

  Arousal ripped through him, as he pictured what she might do in the privacy of her bed. “I think you must have spent many nights touching yourself and imagining that the hands were Niccolo’s.”

  Her lashes fluttered down. “It’s a sin.”

  Halston made a contemptuous sound deep in his throat. “Most things that give us pleasure are called sins.” He swallowed to moisten a dry mouth. “We should stop talking about this.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Are you disgusted to know that I sought my own satisfaction?”

  This time, the sound he made was closer to a groan. “For God’s sake, Stella, quite the opposite. It’s far too stirring, when I have to keep my hands off you until tonight.”

  The color in her cheeks deepened when she glanced down to where his cock tented his trousers. In so many ways, he’d been right to call her innocent. “Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed.” He caught her hand and brought it down over the front of his trousers. This time, his groan was long and fervent and expressed frustration as well as pleasure.

  A gloating smile curved her lips. “I’m glad I don’t suffer alone.”

  “Your frustration ends tonight. Mine does, too.”

  Her smile intensified. “I do hope so.”

  Halston kissed her with rising ardor, even as he recognized that there was no point to all this excitement. When he raised his head, he met eyes glittering with a sensual interest to match his own.

  “There’s something else that you should know.” Her voice was low
and husky and combined with her touch to heighten his agitation.

  At this rate, he’d need a swim in the icy lake after he left her. Or he’d be in no state to play host to all these damned annoying people he’d invited to his house to disguise purely private intentions. “Oh, yes?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes looked even more like gold. “Since I first saw you, I don’t picture Niccolo when I touch myself. The man I think of when I’m alone in my bed is you, Gray.”

  As he struggled to come to terms with her confession, her hand moved under his and she shaped his erection. “Stella…”

  Halston dragged her into his arms, ignoring another complaint from his injury, and kissed her with open-mouthed urgency. He pushed her down onto her back. A few rough tugs followed, and the sound of ripping fabric.

  Her breasts spilled free into his trembling hands. His heart slammed against his ribs with such force that he feared they must crack. Her breasts were so damned pretty. Not large, but sweetly formed and with delicious light brown nipples pointed with arousal.

  He shifted onto his side and cupped one delicate curve. A perfect fit in his palm, just as he was sure their bodies would fit together when he slid inside her.

  His thumb brushed the sensitive tip. On a broken cry, Stella arched up to encourage him. When his tongue teased her nipple, she tasted delicious. Scraping his teeth across the beaded tip, he began to fondle her other breast. She cried out again and dug her fingers into his scalp.

  It took far too long to notice that she wasn’t caressing him. She was pulling on his hair and saying something. Dazed, he raised his head to meet eyes heavy with need.

  “Gray, if you keep going, I won’t be able to say no.”

  Regret that involved a fair measure of guilt pierced Halston. Hell, this was torture. He wanted to feast on her without worrying about anything else. Stella looked forsaken, too, spread across the bed in an abandoned pose that did nothing to fortify his control.

  They must stop. Even recognizing that, it took an almighty effort to remove his hand from her bosom. She was no longer touching his dick, which was a good thing.

  Or at least so he told himself.

  He couldn’t remember a woman who swept him away from the real world the way Stella did and into a realm where all that counted was desire. The sad irony was that with this woman, the real world and its judgements counted more than with any other lover.