Passion for the Game (Georgian 2)

“I have. I do.” Breathing deep, Colin fought to control his temper. “You know I do.”

And it ached when he did; every woman he took beneath him was a temporary relief from his raging desires, but nothing more. His heart had belonged to Amelia since he was a boy. His love for her had grown and changed, matured, even as his body did. She was guileless and innocent, her love for him pure and sweet.

He rested his head against the horse’s neck. Amelia was everything to him, had been from the day Viscount Welton had hired his uncle. Pietro had agreed to work for far lower wages than other coachmen. It was the reason he had kept his job all these years rather than being replaced often, as the governesses were.

Colin would never forget the way Amelia had run up to him with that bright, open-hearted smile and placed a dirty hand in his.

“Play with me,” she’d said.

Having come from a large band with many children, he had been afraid of loneliness. But Amelia had been a dozen playmates in one. Blessed with an adventurous spirit, she had been willing to learn all of the games he knew and then she’d set her mind to besting him at every one.

Over the years he’d come to appreciate her with a man’s awareness enhanced by a joyous history of friendship and true companionship. He had grown into love with her, not fallen, his affection rooted deeply in the past. Perhaps Amelia’s was, too, but how could he know for certain? He had experience with other females. Amelia had only him. Her feelings could change as she gained understanding of her choices. His never would. He would love her always.

Colin exhaled wearily. Regardless, even if she felt the same, he could never have her.

“Ah, boy,” his uncle said, placing a large hand on his shoulder. “If you love her, leave her be. She has the world at her feet. Don’t take that from her.”

“I’m trying not to,” he said hoarsely. “I’m trying.”

Christopher sat in a wingback in his sitting room and stared into the glass in his hand. He was not quite certain what it was that he was feeling. It was rather the way he had felt when he’d overheard Eddington and Maria in Brighton, only now the tightening in his chest was nearly unbearable. Inhaling and exhaling was a conscious task.

“You should return,” he said to Tim, his voice so low and raw, it startled him a moment. He scarcely recognized himself. He was not thinking, acting, or speaking like the man he had been before meeting Maria. “We do not want you to be missed.”

He thought wryly about Tim’s position in the Wintry Widow’s household. She was so confident of her inevitable success that she freely allowed a serpent in her midst.

“Aye.” Tim turned to go.

“If Eddington returns, I want to know the details of the exchange.”

“Of course. I won’t disappoint you again.”

Christopher nodded, his gaze still deep in his glass. “Thank you.”

He was vaguely aware of his bedroom door closing, but other than that, he was lost in thought. He prided himself on his ability to judge character and read people. He would not be alive today if he lacked that skill. Why then did he find it nearly impossible to convince himself that Maria felt no tenderness for him? The facts were there, clear and indisputable, yet in his heart he still believed in her.

Snorting, he lifted his glass to his lips and drained it. Therein lay his problem. His heart was directing him, and not his brain. Sadly, he loved her. That traitorous woman. His Jezebel, a seductress whose livelihood was dependent upon how many men she could lead to their rewards.

A knock came to the door, pulling him from his maudlin thoughts. “Come in,” he called out.

Next he knew, he was rising to his feet by sheer habit, his pulse leaping into a passionate, riotous pace at the sight of his lover returning.

How much time had passed? A glance at the mantel clock told him nearly two hours.

Turning his head, he caught her gaze, saw the glimmer of pure pleasure that said she felt similarly, then it was quickly masked by a seductive smile. She was hooded, the black cowl framing her delicately seductive beauty, with those big, dark eyes and pouty red lips.

Christopher took a deep breath, then walked toward her before circling behind her. He set his hands on her cloaked shoulders and breathed her in. Warm, luscious woman. “I missed you,” he murmured, reaching around her to the frogs at her throat.

“Will you always greet me dressed only in breeches?”

Always, as if there were a possibility of a future between them.

“Would you like me to?” He unclasped the cloak, gently lifted the hood from her head, and then allowed the entire weighty mass to puddle on the floor at their feet.

“I would prefer you naked,” she said.

“As I would you, a preference I will see to directly.” He began the task of undressing her, appreciating how much easier it was to accomplish when sober. His fingers moved nimbly, quickly freeing buttons and tapes.

“How was your day after I departed?” he asked.

“Lonely. I missed you, too.”

Christopher’s hands paused. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm the part of him that flared white hot at her words. In his mind, he relived the afternoon—the way she had loved him, the way she had opened to him. That startled, almost frightened look she’d had when she came for him. The way she shivered when he touched her and melted when he kissed her.

When they were in bed, they were stripped and bared to each other beyond mere clothing.

“I have delicacies to feed you,” he murmured, kissing the angry scar on her shoulder, “and flowers to woo you. I did not intend to start the evening in bed, but I find I cannot wait.”

His hands slipped into the gaping back of her gown and reached around to cup her breasts through her chemise. He found her nipples hard, and he tugged on them with his fingertips in exactly the way she liked.

Maria’s head fell back against his shoulder with a low moan.

“I love your breasts,” he growled, his lips to her ear. “Tonight I intend to suck on them until you come with my cock deep inside you. Remember how that felt? How tight you gripped me?” He rolled his hips. “My cock is hard with the mere remembrance of it.”

“Christopher.” There was something sad and plaintive in the way she said his name, and all around them hung a heavy air of melancholy.

Impatient to reach the heart of the matter, he released her to tear open the back of her gown, which sent tiny, cloth-covered buttons flying out to either side.

“You will leave me with nothing to wear,” she said, her breathlessness betraying her secret desire to be taken. He knew this, of course, and suspected that Quinn’s relatively easy acquiescence to her ending of their sexual relationship was the other man’s downfall. Perhaps if the Irishman had pursued Maria more doggedly, she would not be here in Christopher’s house now.

His impatience grew at the thought and he tore at her tapes and ties with even more ferocity. Her chemise rent with a loud ripping sound, and then Maria turned and was in his arms, her bare breasts pressed to his bare chest. He caught her up, taking the mouth she offered, lifting her feet from the floor.

Her tiny hands cupped his face; her soft, sweet lips worked frantically beneath his. Desperation, he could taste it and felt it in his own blood.

He nearly ran to the bed, so quick was his stride. He tossed her down and tore at his breeches.

“Spread your legs.”

Wariness passed over her features, and Christopher knew why. He was not affording her the chance to hide.

Stepping free of his lone garment, he joined her on the bed, his hands catching her knees and opening her wide. She struggled, but he gave her no quarter, pinning her hips so he could take her cunt with his mouth.

“No,” she cried out, her hands gripping his hair. “Not that way…”

Framing the ebony curls with his hands, Christopher parted her, exposing the soft pink skin and the hood that shielded her clitoris. With the pointed t

ip of his tongue, he rubbed it, teased it, coaxed it to come out and play. The moment it emerged, he wrapped his lips around the surrounding area and sucked gently. Maria moaned and arched upward, all the while begging him to cease, to fuck her with his cock, to give her time to regroup and be less vulnerable. She did not say the last, of course, but he knew it.

He also knew the moment she opened her eyes and saw the mirror above his bed, because she gasped and stiffened.

“Appreciate the view?” he purred before returning to his ministrations.

Maria stared up at the lewd reflection of Christopher’s golden head between her legs and was devastated by what she saw. Glassy eyed and flushed from head to hipbone, she looked nothing like the grim, determined woman she had seen in the mirror at home. The woman she saw now was lost to the pleasures bestowed by a man she craved with a deep-seated, almost innate hunger. A man who had sought her out with the express purpose of leading her to the gallows in his place.

She could forgive that, knowing she had come to him with a nefarious purpose. She understood how many individuals relied on his support for their livelihood and that they were likely his motivation for saving himself. He would not bother for his own sake.

She knew this because she understood him, the man she thought he was, the man who once had a brother he loved as much as she loved Amelia. But the fact remained that his motives might not have changed from their original purpose and the man between her legs might be a man who wanted her dead.

“Maria.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and felt him move. He pressed a kiss to her clitoris, then moved up to lie beside her.

“You are far from shy,” he murmured, “yet the sight of my making love to you has chilled your desire.” Cupping her hip, he rolled her into him so that the heat and hardness of his erection pressed into her belly. “Is it too intimate?”

Maria opened her eyes and studied him, noting both the soft affection in his deep blue eyes and the intensity of his perusal.

“Is it ‘making love’?” she queried in a small voice. “Or is this sex between two people who fit well together?”

“You tell me.”