After a moment, she ventured, “I don’t think you understand.” She didn’t, either, but she was starting to suspect…
She felt the sigh he suppressed; his defensive tension eased a fraction. “She might be meek-a perfect cipher-but she’s precisely what I need, what I want, as my wife.”
“You want me.” Francesca shifted beneath him, defying him to deny the obvious.
He sucked in a breath-she felt his glare. “I desire you-I neither want nor need you.”
Her temper erupted. A hot retort burned her tongue, but she got no chance to utter it.
“I know you don’t understand.” The words were tight, harsh. “You’ve never known a man, certainly not one like me. You think you understand me, but you don’t.”
Oh, but she did, she did, and she was understanding more with every second that passed.
“You think because I am as I am, I would want a passionate wife, but the opposite is true. That’s why I chose Francesca Rawlings as my bride. She’ll fill the position of my countess perfectly-”
Francesca let him talk, let his words flow past her while her mind flitted back over the weeks since she’d first run into him in the shrubbery and rescripted every scene.
Gyles suddenly realized he was doing the very thing he’d said he wouldn’t. Why, for God’s sake? He didn’t owe the gypsy any explanation…
Except that he was rejecting her, deliberately turning his back on her and on a passionate liaison none knew better than he would burn brighter than most stars. She’d never offered herself to any other man; she wouldn’t still be virginal, so untried, if she had.
He felt guilty, severely at fault, for turning her down. Ludicrous, but he felt guilty for hurting her even that much, even for her own good. He felt equally guilty that, even now, he was so obsessed with her he couldn’t even form a mental picture of the woman he would marry on the morrow-a woman who was her close friend. There was guilt enough to sink his soul in this tortured situation.
He stopped speaking, then sighed. “At least she won’t have brought those blasted dogs.”
Silence.
She was still looking at him, staring up at him; he felt her breasts swell and ease against his chest.
A sense of unease slid down his spine. “She hasn’t, has she? Brought that pack of lap spaniels?”
The silence stretched, then he felt her gaze refocus. She hadn’t truly been watching him.
“No-your bride did not bring the dogs.”
Every word vibrated with a determination he couldn’t place. He felt her draw breath.
“She did, however, bring me.”
Her hands had been resting against his chest-Francesca pushed them over his shoulders, twined them tight about his neck, yanked him down, and sealed his lips with hers.
Fury ignited her passion, fueled it, merged with it. She deliberately let go. Let the fire inside her rage unfettered. It was the only thing she could think of to hit him with, the only thing to which she knew he was not immune.
She couldn’t begin to enumerate her hurts, her feelings, her rational, logical reactions, but her instinctive response she had no doubt about.
He’d pay-and in the coin that would cost him most dearly.
He went under-she knew it-sensed the moment the tide dragged him down. Sensed the moment when his will was submerged beneath a tide of need too strong to deny.
She fanned the flames, kept them racing. Their mouths were fused, tongues dueling, tangling. She didn’t need to hold him anymore. Sliding her hands free, she went to reach down-his hands closed about her breasts and she arched, and forgot, for the moment, about caressing him, reveling in the sensations as he caressed her.
Between
them, they opened her short jacket and blouse. Her chemise he undid with two flicks of his long fingers, then his hand was on her breast and she gasped. His lips returned to hers just in time to catch her cry as his fingers closed about one nipple. As the sharp sensation eased, heat flooded her. She struggled to breathe, struggled to cope, struggled to keep pace with him. She’d never done this before, and he was an expert; she’d seen more than most innocents could even imagine, but she’d never been the woman at the heart of the storm.
And it was a storm-of heat, of sensations too acute to express. She writhed like a wanton beneath him, and knew she was arousing him, driving him on.
So she writhed some more. Everything she could think of to do she did, every action that would further enflame him. She wasn’t of a mind to accept anything less than his complete and abject surrender. To her-to their passion. To all that he’d thought to keep out of his life.