When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,107

beading his brow. “Touch yourself for me,” he gritted out, sounding as if he tore the words from his lungs. “Please, darling.”

The idea scandalized her. Made a thrill throb in her quim.

She burrowed her hand between them, feeling the flex of his stomach muscles, the scratch of the hair above his penis.

Biting her lips, staring into his black eyes, knowing that she could never do this for another man, she touched herself. Her skin was wet and slick, nearly too sensitive, and she clenched around him at how good it felt.

Her finger ground down on her pearl, firm and right, as he continued to…to…

He was watching her.

She bit her lip, unable to meet his black gaze. What they did was so wicked.

He relentlessly stroked bliss into her, the pleasure spiraling higher and higher, her fingers slick with her own excitement, until she bowed beneath him, unable to contain the ecstasy, blind with her own crisis.

She shuddered again and again as sparks spread through her, to her heart, to her mind, to her very fingertips.

And all the while he continued to pound into her.

When she could open her eyes, she looked up and saw a beautiful devil in torment. His eyes screwed shut, his lips pulled back from clenched teeth, his entire body sheened with sweat.

As if he were falling to hell.

As if he were ascending to heaven.

She held him as he shook and buried his penis deep within her. He froze in her arms, trembling, his head falling forward to hang heavy from his shoulders as he panted harshly. She closed her eyes, feeling sated and peaceful.

At last, moving slowly, he withdrew from her and stood up.

Messalina threw down the skirts of her chemise and wrap, self-conscious now that she was no longer in the throes of lovemaking.

Gideon held out his hand to her. “Will you come to bed with me now, Mrs. Hawthorne?”

“Yes.”

She felt light as he pulled her to her feet, as if happiness were so close she could touch it. She leaned against him as they mounted the stairs. Reggie and the rest of Gideon’s men must be nearby, but they’d discreetly disappeared into the shadows.

When they came to Gideon’s room she pulled him inside and shut the door. Only then stopping and turning to look. “Do you want a true marriage?”

“Yes,” he said, his black eyes boring into hers.

She nodded. “Then I need to know one thing. What is the task that my uncle set for you?”

* * *

His blood seemed to freeze in his veins.

He couldn’t lose everything when he’d had it so nearly in his grasp.

Messalina squared her shoulders as if bracing herself. “I think if we are truly to start anew that there mustn’t be any secrets. For instance, I’ve kept from you what I intended to do with my dowry money.” She licked her lips. “I had planned to—to leave the country, leave everything and everyone to start a new life somewhere else. I did not mean to stay with you once I had the money.”

She took a deep breath and sighed as if a burden had fallen from her shoulders.

Then she looked at him with hopeful eyes.

He had to lie.

He had to.

She would not forgive him this. She would not live with him if she knew this. And she’d already made plans to leave him—leave the country.

She frowned. “Gideon?”

He stared at her, his mind spinning, scrabbling for the words to fix this. To make it better so that she’d smile again at him. To make things as they had been only minutes before.

“Gideon.”

“Messalina,” he whispered, crucified.

The fading hope in her beautiful eyes near killed him.

He reached for her hand.

She stepped away from him. “Tell me, please.”

“I…”

The hope was almost entirely gone. Replaced with something fierce. “Tell me.”

He clenched his jaw. Hating this. Wanting to stop time. To push back the inevitable disaster.

But he could not.

And somehow he could no longer lie to her, either. “Your uncle ordered me to kill Julian.”

She took another step away from him, shaking her head. “What?”

“I considered it,” he said, putting all his soul into the truth. “At the beginning. But that was before. I would never do it now.”

She closed her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to see him. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

Because he’d wanted her never to know.

Because he was a coward.

Messalina opened her eyes, pinning him with her stark stare. “You were planning how to do it without me finding out.”

“Yes,” he breathed, knowing he was killing both her hope