Your Wicked Heart

  He would not dignify that with a response. “Why were you sitting out here?”

  A cloud broke free of the moon, and the strengthening light revealed her face, grave and composed. “I was lonely,” she said.

  The admission struck him like a fist in the gut.

  He had thought her foolishly brave before. But it seemed to him now that it took greater courage yet to confess loneliness so plainly, without shame.

  Certainly he could not do it, though as he stared at her, he felt the truth of it: I am lonely, too. His aunt had been right. Though he had a family, and so many responsibilities, he felt more often alone than not. And . . . he did not want to be alone.

  Not when he might have a companion like her, who saw the world with such wonder that her view became contagious, filling his own with colors to which he’d been blind before.

  Around her, he never felt alone.

  “The man who jilted you was an ass,” he said. “You will find someone better. Someone to adventure with.” The thought blackened his mood. “Within a year, I’d wager.” A woman like her could not escape the notice of some honorable, upstanding man. Not in the world into which Spence would put her—a world of decency, away from those who did not deserve her.

  “Will I?” Her shrug was barely perceptible. “I am no one out of the ordinary—”

  “You are beautiful.”

  Her silence seemed flavored by astonishment.

  “You are.” He stepped toward her, close enough now to touch her. Though he wouldn’t.

  “You’re mad,” she said unevenly. “Or drunk.”

  “Beautiful,” he repeated. “You see beauty everywhere you look. Do you never look in the mirror? Or do you require a guidebook to explain even this? Trust your own eyes, Amanda; or, if you won’t, then trust mine.” Slowly—restraint; he would exercise the greatest restraint—he reached out to catch a stray tendril of her hair. “Imagine the passage in that guidebook: ‘hair like the summer sun.’” So soft between his fingers. “‘Softer than silk.’” He smiled slightly. “The author, mind you, is known for clichés.”

  “Oh, no, I . . . quite like the author.” Her eyes on his were rapt.

  “But I suppose clichés become so for a reason.” He placed his thumb on her cheekbone. “They are time-tested truths. ‘As blue as the Mediterranean, as deep as pools’ . . . that is a precise description for your eyes.” The warmth of her exhalation along his wrist raised the small hairs on his nape, causing his body to tighten painfully.

  Restraint.

  “The neck of a swan,” he said, and brushed his knuckles down her throat. If he were a poet, he would do so much better. But he meant every hackneyed word. “Graceful, regal: you carry yourself like a queen, Amanda.”

  She swallowed. “This is too much.”

  “But I’ve only just begun.” He laid his thumb on her collarbone. “The guidebook would dwell on this angle, you know. Would direct admiring gazes to the hollow here. The elegance of your bones.”

  “I fear this guidebook would disappoint,” she whispered. “Young bachelors do not look for the elegance of a woman’s bones.”

  “Oh, this is the censored version,” he said. “The other version—it would require brown wrapping at the bookshop. And it would be twice as long. You would object to the language, I fear.”

  She bowed her head. For the life of him, he could not remove his hand from her. He felt her presence along every inch of his skin. It brought his skin alive.

  From the depths of the garden came the cry of some unseen bird and the chittering of small insects in the grass.

  Move away.

  In a moment, he would.

  “You should know,” he said, “that you will have my support, once we’re in London. I’ll find you a position. You needn’t worry for letters of reference.”

  For the space of three heartbeats, she made no reply. And then her hand rose to cover his, and she lifted his hand to her mouth.

  His fingers flexed in pure surprise. With the simple press of her lips against his palm, she knocked the breath from him.

  “You are wonderful,” she said softly.

  Back away.

  Her hand tightened to hold him in place, and then she stepped forward, into him, and kissed his mouth.

  For a moment he let his worst nature run untrammeled; he closed his eyes and kissed her back, putting every skill he lacked in words into the message of his lips and tongue. You are beautiful; you are beautiful; you are beautiful.

  And then, as the lust in his belly uncoiled like a snake and the message abruptly grew hotter, he stepped backward.

  “I do not want your gratitude,” he said hoarsely.

  “You idiot. Gratitude? Hardly.” Her deep breath was audible. “Kiss me again.”

  “No.” His mouth had gone dry. “You’re an innocent. I have no intention—”

  “I’m an adventuress,” she said. “You were right—an adventuress, and you are my adventure. You, Ripton.” A strange laugh edged with wildness slipped from her. “And also, it seems, my safety as well. So catch me!”

  She leapt toward him. His arms closed around her by instinct; her weight sent him staggering back a single pace. Her hands hooked into his hair—“Soft,” she said—and then she took his mouth again.

  And the hunger of her kiss shattered his resolve. He bent and picked her up, his mouth on hers swallowing her laugh.

  Yes, he would be her safety. Tomorrow he would be her safety.

  Tonight was for adventure.

  * * *

  It was her eighty-year-old self who had persuaded Amanda to seduce him. As she’d sat in the garden under the starlight, the warm breeze coasting over her and setting the pale flowers around her to nodding, laughter had drifted over the high stone wall. Listening to it, she had felt suddenly how the night teemed with possibilities . . . magical possibilities that waited just out of reach, being enjoyed by other people, as she sat here alone.

  In that moment a vision had come to her of herself, white-haired and raddled, looking back on this night from a distant future. And that old woman had whispered, You could have seen more, done more, felt more. You could have been so much wilder. What was there to lose?

  The thought had magnified her loneliness into a terrible ache, for it was true that she hadn’t much to lose: no position, no money, no reputation, no family, no particular aim beyond security . . . which sounded, when one thought on it, such a dry and lifeless hope. Security. What was the purpose of a life in which one strove only to get by, to get through, to continue on?

  But that was the task ahead of her. In a few days’ time she would be in England again, and her main business would be survival.

  Only these last few days remained to truly live. And how many of them she had already squandered! From the moment she had given her resignation to Mrs. Pennypacker, she had been, however briefly, free. But she had realized it too late. When Ripton had kissed her in the alley, and she kissed him back and come alive to the world, and to the mysteries in herself—then she had realized it.

  But now so little time remained.

  His entry into the garden had interrupted these thoughts, and as she had looked at him, her intentions had crystallized. He’d seemed wearier than any elegant dinner rightfully should have left him, but she had understood, intuitively, why that might be. She had understood him. Like her, his main business was security, stability—for his family, if not for himself.

  And as with her, that task had muted his spirit, for security was never about living, really. It was never about one’s own desires, the desires of one’s . . . heart.

  But until they reached England, he, too, was free.

  And her heart wanted him.

  Did he feel the same? For she could sense now, in the way his arms wrapped so fiercely around her as he carried her across the threshold into his room, the great urgency gripping him. She could see it in his riveted expression as he laid her across his bed; could feel it in the way his han
d shook slightly as he cupped her cheek.

  They kissed, a long and languorous kiss in which his body came over hers. Sweet, blissful pressure: to feel his weight atop her, to feel the solid, strong contours of his flanks and ribs, the bulk of his upper arms, the tautness of his waist. She stroked his back and he caressed her throat; they kissed for long minutes, as though there could be no end apart from this: his tongue in her mouth, the softness of his lip between her teeth; the shape of his ear, his lobe so startlingly soft, a precious discovery beneath her curious thumb.

  At length, his mouth shifted to her temple, his ragged breath hot against the sensitive skin there. “Are you certain, Amanda?”

  She did not pretend to misunderstand him. “Yes,” she said. She had never been so certain. This was her chance. She would not return to England unchanged. She would have a grand story to tell herself when she was eighty.

  Perhaps that story would be one of heartbreak, in the end. As he pulled away to shrug out of his coat, she suddenly thought it possible. She had never seen such a beautiful sight as his broad-shouldered body, the stern, sculpted line of his mouth in the starlight that fell through the window. Even if she did manage to travel to Egypt, the Pyramids would not awe her so much as her ability—her right—to sit up now and touch him, kiss his shoulder, run her hand down his abdomen, and feel the muscles beneath his waistcoat contract.

  So. Heartbreak, perhaps. But it would be well earned. The mad summer when I fell in love with a viscount.

  She would take her fill of him tonight. It would be a tale worth the telling.

  Rising to her knees, she looped her arms around him, taking from him a long, deep kiss, openly sexual, a kiss such as she’d never shared with any man. Her body suddenly seemed full of arcane knowledge—how to kiss as an invitation; how to twist against a man’s body in a way that made him catch his breath. As he gathered her against him, that strange instinct of sinuousness only grew stronger. She felt gripped by it, a drugging excitement that made her move her hips against him so that he gasped.

  Breaking from the kiss, she dragged her mouth down his throat—a distant corner of her mind marveling at it: Ripton’s throat, Ripton’s skin, finally hers to explore. No ancient argonaut had ever felt more triumph at his discoveries than she did. Her hands closed on his shoulders, smoothing down the densely muscled slopes of his arms, the foreign territory of his ribs and waist and hips, and then—so daringly that she held her breath, amazed by herself—the firm rise of his buttocks . . .

  He growled low in his throat, an animal sound that made her stomach tighten. His fingers plunged through her hair as he dragged her mouth back to his. Now his lips grew savage. They demanded compliance, and she felt herself go softer, hotter, in reply.

  Until it occurred to her that he was still wearing his waistcoat.

  She squirmed to put an inch of space between them, then went to work on his buttons. His low laugh coasted over her, and then he shrugged out of the clothing, and did her one better: he pulled his shirt off over his head.

  She felt knocked back by the sight—literally. The mattress caught her as she fell backward.

  He was extraordinary. Chiseled like a classical statue, not a spare ounce of flesh to disguise the bands of muscle strapping his belly. She reached out, hesitant, to touch his navel, and then froze as he hissed out a breath.

  He caught her hand and held it flat against him for a moment, breathing hard. And then he caught her other hand, too, and raised both to his mouth, kissing each wrist, a hot, wet benediction, his tongue trailing up the center of her palm. She bit back a noise when his teeth closed around her middle finger.

  Delicately he sucked her, then pulled free, sitting back on his haunches to look at her. A poet might have created him from an opium dream: darkly intent, a satyr come to devour her.

  “Unbutton your robe,” he said, very low.

  A flutter moved through her, nerves and heat combined. She did not know the rules of this game . . . but what of it? The mood upon her was wild enough that she did not care if she erred; she would simply invent a new method. And she would make him like it.

  Yes, she thought: that was who she was, a woman who could make him like anything she wished. She had power in this moment, power over him—that was clear in the way his eyes followed her hands’ progress over the buttons at the front of her robe, tracking her progress down her body, his lips parting slightly as she parted the dress to reveal her linens.

  She wore no corset tonight. The garden was private to their two rooms.

  She rolled her shoulders to let the robe fall to her elbows.

  Without hesitation, he came for her—and moved behind her, his hand threading through her hair, lifting away her tresses so his lips could touch her nape.

  Her eyes closed. Her muscles seemed to be unwinding, so pliant did she feel. His mouth traced down her spine, tongue flicking, as he worked the robe free inch by careful inch. Still kneeling, she lifted her hands out of the sleeves, and his palms slid around her waist and down over her belly, which contracted on a bolt of heat. Past her thighs now he reached until he was leaning over her, holding her calves. She watched his dark hands work up the hem of her chemise, pausing now and then to smooth over the skin his efforts had bared: first her knees, then her thighs, his fingers gripping and massaging her.

  “Ah,” he said, nearly soundlessly.

  His hand closed over the juncture of her thighs.

  The pleasure caused her to jerk and gasp aloud. He rubbed—once, twice, settling into a steady rhythm, slow and deliberate motions that raised a quickening pulse, an ache that beat a fiercer demand with each stroke he gave her.

  “Forward,” he whispered into her hair, and then nudged her shoulders so she was bending at the waist toward her knees.

  He pulled the shift out from beneath her bottom, lifting it over her head.

  Leaving her naked.

  For a heartbeat she was uncertain—not afraid, but . . . unsure. And then she twisted to face him and beheld his expression as he looked on her—his eyes riveted, his lips parted, the look of a man who had been struck a hard blow.

  “My God,” he said. “I never . . .”

  She felt a strange catch in her heart. Reaching out to touch his face, she whispered, “You are beautiful, too.”

  Their eyes held for a long, still moment.

  “I could write a thousand books in tribute,” he said, “and I would not run out of words for you.”

  She rubbed her thumb along his cheek, feeling the light stubble of beard.

  “You’re a . . .” His laughter was strained and brief. “. . . a fever dream come to life. Venus’s curves and . . .” His fingers combed through the heavy weight of her curls, lifting them away from her shoulder. “. . . Rapunzel’s hair.” He kissed her along her collarbone; she felt him inhale deeply. “The princess in the tower,” he murmured. “Like alabaster.”

  It was too much. Her blush, she feared, traveled the full length of her body. “You said you weren’t clever with words!”

  He laughed even more softly, a ghostly sensation against her skin. “I’m uncovering new inspiration.” Catching her around the waist, he laid her down so quickly that she cried out, and then startled herself by laughing, too—but the sound caught in her throat as he began to kiss her again.

  He had an aim. That was clear from his rapid descent down her body, which he paused only to nip lightly here and there until his breath heated her breast. The light brushing of his lips across her nipple teased her. “Roses,” he murmured, his tone marveling. “You’re the color of roses.”

  “Please,” she said, wanting only—

  Ah. His lips closed around her, sucking hard. She made a noise—astonished, she heard it escape her, and put her knuckles into her mouth to silence herself.

  “No,” he said, pulling her hand away. “Let me hear you.” And then he lowered his head again and gently rasped her with his teeth.

  Yes. She would let him hear her. No pla
ce for hesitance or modesty now; this was the wildest adventure she would ever know, and it took brazenness, daring, trust—

  His mouth trailed lower yet. She tensed. That could not be his destination!

  Parting her with his thumbs, he ran his tongue along her most sensitive spot—and the cry that she loosed frightened her. Someone would hear!

  She tried to squirm free, but his grip on her hips held her in place. “Shh,” he said—and then he licked her again, and her worry drowned in a tide of pleasure so violent that she feared she might come apart.

  “Hurry,” she moaned, barely understanding herself, but he seemed to. His mouth suckled her steadily now, but his hands fell from her hips, and she felt the mattress creak beneath his movements. When he came up over her again, she sucked in a breath at the contact of his bare thighs against hers—and a hard, blunt pressure, which felt, as it pressed against her, like the answer to the most urgent question she had ever known.

  “Yes,” she said, and planted her hands in his hair, pulling him to her as she opened her legs and tilted her hips in invitation. “Yes, yes, yes—”

  A steady intrusion, at first blissful, and then—the burn startled her, made her shrink back. Suddenly she remembered the tales the girls told, in giggling whispers, at the typing school. It was going to hurt very badly; it was—

  His hips moved, one sharp motion. The breath went from her.

  She was full, impossibly full. She dared not move. Nor did he. Dimly she was aware of his gentle caress on her cheek. “All right?” he murmured.

  “I . . . think.”

  Strained amusement threaded through his voice now. “Shall we see?”

  And then he began to move.

  Nothing, no words, could have prepared her. It felt . . . strange. Strange, and then . . .

  Wonderful.

  The thrust of his hips summoned back her hunger. Stoked it higher and higher yet. Some instinct surfaced, animating her; it demanded that she move. She pushed up against him, uncertain, clumsy; his hand found the small of her back, and by that steady pressure he guided her. Now they were moving together, like dancers, only they were creating something together, a mounting need which their bodies fed, which his body answered . . .