A Dangerous Love

She didn’t understand. Who cared? The trees whirled and she bit down hard, tasting his sweaty skin and his blood.

She was still spinning when she realized he had laid her down on the ground, in the wet grass. The terrible, wonderful spasms slowed and dulled. Her breathing remained labored. She felt his fingers on the bare skin of her back. She tried to understand the pleasure and passion she had just had. Now, she could comprehend why love was so highly coveted.

His fingers skimmed lower on her spine. Ariella blinked and opened her eyes. Emilian knelt beside her, his face strained with passion. He was attempting to divest her of her dress. She seized his wrist reflexively.

His smoldering gray eyes shot to hers. Surprise tainted the desire smoking there.

She breathed hard. “Wait.”

His eyes narrowed. Suspicion began.

“What…what are you doing?” Her skirts were tangled around her waist and she lay sprawled like a ragged doll. She sat up, and some sense of modesty began. She jerked her skirts down. Her bodice slid downward, but she pulled it up and looked at him.

He sat back on his heels, dangerously annoyed. “You wish to stop now?” He spoke far too softly.

“I…I didn’t come for this.”

“Of course you did.” Anger flared in his eyes. “You came for passion. You want to compare me to your English lovers. I am not satisfied,” he added in a dark tone.

The top buttons of his breeches had come undone, as if they could not bear the strain of what lay beneath the fabric. She wanted to speak but couldn’t.

“That pleasure is nothing compared to the pleasure we will have when I am buried inside your body.” He reached out and stroked her face. “Let me make you cry out in pleasure another time. Let me cry out in pleasure, too.”

She went still.

He began to smile. “We both know this is why you came to me.” He reached for her bodice and gripped it.

She clung harder. It would be so easy to give in to this man. His words, his look, were mesmerizing. But a kiss was one thing. This was another. She wanted to go further, but she also wanted to keep him at bay until she could understand what was happening. “This is a misunderstanding,” she whispered.

His eyes went wide.

“I didn’t come to compare you to my other lovers.” She held her bodice up fiercely now. “There are no other lovers.”

He just stared at her, his expression so uncertain it was almost comical.

“I’m not even married,” she whispered. Did she have to be more succinct? “No one my age has lovers. Women my age have husbands first.”

A terrible silence fell.

She became nervous. How had he assumed she was a woman looking for an illicit affair?

“Do not tell me you are a virgin,” he said. “Virgins do not wander about at midnight, to rendezvous with and tease strange men.”

She hesitated. He looked as savage as a lion awoken from a deep sleep while in its den. “I don’t know why I came…to see you…. I only wanted a kiss.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HIS STRIDES WERE SO LONG and hard that she had to run to keep up with him. Ariella stumbled. “Wait!”

He didn’t answer her and he didn’t pause. His profile was a taut mask of frustration and anger. He was heading up the hill, toward the sleeping house. Clearly he wished for her to return home and this was his manner of escorting her safely back.

“I am so sorry,” she cried, racing to catch up to him. Of course he had expected a liaison—her behavior had been so bold. But why was he so angry now? “I didn’t mean to mislead you.”

He finally looked at her, halting so abruptly that she went past him. He caught her arm, dragging her back to his side. “If you don’t wish to mislead a man, stay in your fine, fancy house, in your fine, fancy bed, where well-bred virgins belong at this hour!”

She trembled, dismayed. “My curiosity led me astray. I heard the music and it was so enchanting.” She hesitated, because that was only half of the truth. She had been curious about him. He was clearly unmoved. “I meant to watch from a distance. I didn’t mean to intrude. I didn’t think anyone would notice me. I didn’t mean for…anything…to happen.”

His mouth curved, but not with mirth. “Didn’t you?”

She tensed. “Of course not!”

“The way you looked at me this afternoon—and this evening—left me with one inescapable conclusion.” He spoke so softly she could barely discern his words.

“You are wrong,” she tried, but he was right and they both knew it.

His expression hardened.

She hugged herself, flushing. “All right! I will admit that I was staring at you, but surely you are accustomed to ladies admiring you. I did not mean to be coy—I have never been coy in my life.” She felt herself blushing. She would never admit she had started thinking about his hard, male body when she had seen him dancing—and even earlier, during his confrontation with her father.

“That,” he said harshly, “I do not believe. I believe you know exactly how to use your blue eyes to inflame a man— and you did so with purpose.” His eyes flickered. “You inflamed me.”

She was already breathless. Her pulse surged wildly in response to his frank words. Too well, she recalled being in his arms, their mouths fused, their bodies on fire. She didn’t want to leave, not yet. In fact, a new and wanton part of her wished to explore what they had begun.

His laughter was harsh, as if he knew what she was thinking and feeling. “You need to go, before my baser nature defeats my sense of honor. It is getting light out. You have a reputation to maintain and I am not inclined to maintain it for you.”

The sky was beginning to gray, but she did not move. They couldn’t part company this way, especially when he was leaving Rose Hill shortly. “Why are you so angry? I am sorry—I have already said so, twice. Will you accept my apology?”

“Why should I? I do not like being played, Miss de Warenne.”

Her heart slammed. He was not going to accept an apology from her, even after she had explained her intentions.

He laughed harshly. “Am I the first man that will not do as you wish when you flutter your lashes at him?”

“I am not a flirt,” she said.

“Good night.” He nodded abruptly at the house, clearly wishing her to go.

Ariella took a deep breath, determined. “We have gotten off to a terrible start.” She smiled at him. “Obviously a third apology will not soothe you, so I won’t offer it. But can we start over again? We hardly know one another. I should like to further our acquaintance, if at all possible.”

His eyes widened and then narrowed, gleaming. “Really? How odd. Proper ladies—proper virgins—do not have Gypsy acquaintances. In fact, the ladies who wish for my acquaintance want one thing and one thing only—which you have clearly refused.”

“I will not believe that,” she whispered, aghast. Surely he was exaggerating!

He shrugged. “I do not care what you believe. Now that our ill-fated liaison is over, I do not care about you at all, Miss de Warenne.”

His words actually hurt. After what they had just shared, she could not believe he meant them. “I think you have decided to dislike me, although I cannot comprehend why. I think you decided to dislike me this afternoon, almost at first sight, even though I was trying to help you convince my father to let you stay the night here. Yet you liked me well enough a moment ago.”

He stared. Finally he said, every muscle in his face tensing, “Spoken with so much naiveté, I might actually believe you.”