The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,41

the angle of their kiss. She skimmed hers down his torso, resting them on his slim hips, her thumbs seeking the indentations in his pelvis.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he murmured against her lips when they came up for air.

She untied his shirt and pushed it up, until he was forced to pull it over his head. “Then why did you come here?”

He brushed his hands across her shoulders and pushed her sleeves down her arms. Her peignoir fell around the sash at her waist. “Don’t remember. Doesn’t matter.”

“Then forget that this is ill-advised. I already have.”

He picked her up suddenly. She laughed into his chest, her sleeves trailing behind them. “The only bit I regret is that we aren’t near a bed,” he said.

“You know we don’t need a bed. But I do wish it were warmer.”

He kissed the top of her hair. “Care to risk a dash to my chamber?”

She paused. The moment started to slip again, threatened like a bubble that would be destroyed by the merest brush with reality. She wanted to stay inside it, where everything was perfectly iridescent. There was no way this could end well.

Forget, she told herself.

“There’s a cushioned bench near the far fireplace,” she said. “I’ll trust you to keep me warm.”

The room was long enough for two fireplaces, but the other half, where she hadn’t lit any lamps, was full of shadows. He carried her there easily, as though for all her height she weighed nothing.

But when he set her down, she heard the same hesitation in his voice that threatened to break her. “Are you sure you want this?” he asked. “I won’t be offended if your head hurts or you’re too…cold to continue.”

It sounded like part hope, part dare. She pulled him toward the backless couch. “I want this. And so do you.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They were the words she’d used a lifetime ago, just before his control had finally broken — before he’d lost himself in her, in a fit of what he’d thought was momentary madness but he later learned was permanent affliction. He couldn’t deny her then, all that fragile hope in her voice and unwavering yearning in her eyes.

Now, with her delicate jasmine perfume and oil paints mingling again in the air, he was just as lost. When she nudged him toward the bench, he sat on the edge of it, oddly uncomfortable to be seated while she still stood. But she put her hands on his shoulders, keeping him there.

“You always worshipped me, didn’t you?” she asked.

The candles from the other side of the room lit her from behind. Her hair was a corona of flame brighter than any golden-haloed icons he’d seen in his travels. She untied her sash and let her peignoir slip to her feet. Her white nightgown, primly diaphanous, was nearly transparent in the light. He ached for her already, even though worshipping her was madness, even though taking her again — without revenge as a cloak over his desires — would ultimately drive another dagger through his heart.

He should say that he hadn’t worshipped her. The lie was tripping its way down his tongue, ready to part his lips so it could slip out and slap her. But the memory of her bloodied skirts stopped him.

What if this was the last night they ever had? He’d thought they had already had their last real night, without threats or regrets, a lifetime ago, but now that another presented itself…what if they never had another? If the man who wanted him dead found them — if Nick survived and she did not — could he forgive himself if their last moments were tainted by lies?

That thought was enough to overcome all the times he’d told himself, on the rickshaws, ships, and horses between his faraway life and her present beauty, that he would resist her. Need and memory flooded into the empty places in his heart where all his resolve had vanished.

“Yes,” he said. “I always worshipped you.”

Ellie sighed. Then she kissed him on the forehead, a sweet benediction. “Did you know I worshipped you, too?”

He clasped her hands in his. “You thought you worshipped me. It happens, the first time…”

She curled her fingers into fists within his grasp. “Let me show you how I felt. Then tell me whether you’d call it worship or something else.”

“I don’t want your worship. I never did.”

She sighed. There was something fragile in that sound, like a hidden flaw in a stone — outwardly unbreakable,