Her Missing Marquess (Wicked Husbands #5) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,46
pressed the back of her hand to her brow in the darkness. No. It would have been an excellent excuse. Perhaps the only reasonable one for what she had done.
She had made love.
With Jack.
In the folly. In the midst of a thunderstorm.
When Tom was returning in a matter of days to run away with her.
She groaned, rolled to her belly, and buried her face in her pillow. What had she been thinking? How had she allowed herself to succumb to her weakness for him? She could blame her actions upon the thunderstorm, upon her fear something ill had befallen him as he tended to their mounts, upon her eagerness to gain revenge. Certainly, it was what she had told herself initially.
But by the grim light of the moon, she had to admit that was a blatant, glaring, hideous untruth. She had made love with Jack because she had wanted to. Because, regardless of what had passed between them, regardless of the time and distance and hurt and distrust, she wanted him more than she had ever wanted any other man.
More than she wanted Tom.
“Saints preserve me,” she muttered into her pillow.
What a fool she was. Had the past three years of heartache and loneliness and pain taught her nothing?
Apparently not, because lying here in her bed alone, thinking of Jack next door, was making an achy need pulse to life between her thighs. Her pearl throbbed. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples hard. Longing thrummed in her blood. What a curse he was. To her heart, to her life.
Why could he not have stayed gone? Why could he not have remained on the Continent, or wherever he had been in his travels? Why had she agreed to go riding with him? Why had the storm come up with such sudden force, leaving them with no choice but to seek shelter in the folly?
It was the questions that were keeping her up. The questions and the infernal, blasted desire.
She rolled over to her back and glared up at the shadows on the ceiling. She knew what was there regardless of the light—delicate plasterwork with scrolls and roses—but its intricate beauty was lost upon her now. All she could think about was him.
Jack.
On a frustrated sigh, she threw back the bedclothes and rose from the bed. Sleep was not forthcoming, it was clear. She walked to the windows on the far end of the room, parted the window dressings, and looked out into the night.
Hot.
She was so hot. The summer evening was hot. Her blood was hot. Her flesh was hot and hungry. Deep in her core, she wanted him again. She throbbed and ached. Why had she allowed him to touch her? Why had she allowed him inside her?
Because now he was all she wanted. All she craved.
No. She must put an end to this madness. Surely it was nothing more than old passions, long dormant, now reawakened. Surely she would feel this same way if it had been Tom she had been alone with in the folly, the storm raging all around them…
A pained cry tore from her as she rested her head on the window, because she knew the answer. She would not have reacted similarly to Tom. She would not have kissed him breathless, and he would never have hauled her into his lap, nor would she have ground herself against his straining cock…
She had to stop thinking about what had happened. She had to stop aching for Jack. He had broken her once, and she could not bear to allow him the opportunity to do so again. That was the difference between Tom and Jack: the danger to her heart. One posed none at all, and the other possessed a terrifying power to crush her.
Beyond the leaden panes, the moon was large and full, high over the sky, glinting on the lake in beckoning silver. How alluring it looked in the darkness, filled with the promise of cooling her skin. Distracting her. Quenching her unanswered ardor.
She had not gone swimming in years, not since she had been a wayward child. But there was something about the allure of the cool water sliding over her flesh that called to her. Perhaps that was the solution. Perhaps a nice, long swim would be the distraction she needed. If nothing else, it would certainly cool her off.
Her mind decided, she donned her dressing gown and slipped into the dark hall. The walk to the lake was peaceful. Outside, the summer