He reached for her hand. Even through her glove, his touch scorched. “Now for pity’s sake, come with me before I lose my mind.”
He jerked her against him and slipped one hand behind her head. He kissed her thoroughly. Her toes curled in her brocade slippers, and pleasure flooded her veins.
When sensation threatened to overwhelm her, she wrenched her head back. In the darkness, she couldn’t read his expression. His breathing was tattered, and his heart raced under the hand she rested on his chest.
How she wanted him. Desire should ease her way. Instead, it made everything fiendishly difficult. She hadn’t expected to navigate the rapids and ravines of emotional involvement.
Untold danger lay ahead unless she controlled her responses and remembered she did this monstrous thing for purely selfish reasons. She wanted something from Lord Ashcroft, and once she got it, he was no more use to her.
He groaned and leaned his forehead against hers. Their breath mingled in the space between, almost more intimate than his kiss. “You torture me. Damn it, Diana, I must have you.”
“Not tonight,” she forced out, even as the urge to yield, to run away with him and never look back made her shake with longing.
For all her harsh reminders of why she was here, it was impossible to forget what they’d shared tonight.
She wanted one last memory to carry home. Her kiss was soft, tentative, unlike the earlier passionate ravishing. His lips were soft, too, like warm satin. She clung for a sweet moment that whispered innocence. She glanced swift kisses at the corners of his mouth and along the hard line of his jaw.
His scent filled her head. Musk and clean skin and some essence that was Ashcroft himself.
Temptation drew her on. She feathered her mouth across his commanding blade of a nose, hearing his sharply in-drawn breath. Almost as if she were blind, she glided her mouth over his cheeks, felt a hint of bristle. This evidence of masculinity made her toes curl again.
She cupped his face between her hands and returned her attention to his lips. His hold tightened at her waist, and he opened his mouth. Any hope of restraint evaporated in incinerating heat. He took control, lit the kiss to flame.
She was lost to the world before something, the whicker of a horse or the rattle of a carriage, pierced her flaring madness.
He speared his hands through her hair in a rough gesture that scattered bright shards of desire through her veins. His voice was rough too. “My house. Tomorrow.”
Diana struggled to muster her thoughts, difficult when his kiss still tingled on her lips. She couldn’t mistake his urgency. His urgency fed hers.
“No. Someone might see me.” Whatever tonight’s excesses, she couldn’t compromise her reputation.
“You came to me before.”
A wry smile crooked her lips. “The risks were equal to the rewards.”
“Your house?”
“No. Someone might see you.”
The greater danger was he’d learn where she lived. When she ab
andoned him, as she would once she’d conceived, she didn’t want him tracing her in London or even worse, back to Marsham.
“Hell, Diana…” A thoughtful expression crossed his dark face. “There’s somewhere. Where do you live? I’ll collect you in my carriage.”
“I’ll meet you,” she said hurriedly, noticing the way his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “The Serpentine in Hyde Park at four.”
“Three.”
Poor fool she was to find his eagerness flattering. Poor fool she was to capitulate so readily. She wanted to say it was because her scheme promised to reach fruition all the sooner. But in her heart, she admitted it was because she ached to see Ashcroft again.
She needed time apart from this rake before she forgot what was at stake.
“Three then.” He leaned forward and kissed her. A brief, uncompromising salute expressing frustration and desire. “Are you sure you want to go home alone?”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t sure at all, part of the reason she must leave. Her mind was topsy-turvy. Her blood still thundered with the echo of pleasure. She needed to remind herself she hadn’t embarked on this cause to become a whore in her soul as well as her actions.