He slumped down onto her and pressed a fervent kiss to her shoulder. Holding her steady, he looped his arms around her waist. The aftermath of blinding pleasure left him shaking. He buried his forehead in the crook of her shoulder, feeling her ragged breathing and her quivers of receding rapture.
The only sounds were the gentle patter of the rain outside and the ragged inhale and exhale of their breathing. Then he started to laugh, so exhausted that the sound emerged in unsteady bursts.
He felt her shift, then, God help him, soft tenderness as she reached behind her and stroked his damp hair. Did she know how she slashed away his every defense when she touched him like that? For a brief, deceptive moment, he could almost believe she was in thrall to him as he was in thrall to her.
“What is it?” She sounded as awestruck as he felt.
He raised his head so he could suck air into his starving lungs. “I wonder what Perry will say when I tell him I don’t want the books, but I’ll give him £10,000 for this desk.”
Afternoon faded toward evening when Robert met Diana at the French doors. She was panting and flustered, and all because she was breathlessly eager to see her paramour. For the tenth time in an hour, she cursed herself for being so utterly hopeless. Over the last week, she’d spent hours in Ashcroft’s arms. And each hour away from him, thinking about him.
She was like a dreamy-eyed sixteen-year-old with her first love. Every encounter was more passionate than the last. Every encounter threatened what little emotional distance she managed to maintain.
She’d never known a man like Ashcroft. Fatalistically, she knew he was the one lover who would leave a permanent scar on her heart.
As she followed Robert, she surreptitiously laid a hand over her flat belly. Did a child grow there? A child with Ashcroft’s beautiful green eyes and gift for joy? And if there was a child, did she have the heart, the gall to conceal its existence from its father?
When she slipped into the library, Ashcroft’s dark head was bent over the desk. The desk where he’d taken her so masterfully and completely a week ago.
Hot color swept into her cheeks as he raised his gaze to hers. “Diana.”
Knowledge of the direction of her thoughts sparked in the glinting eyes between their thick forest of black lashes. Of course he knew she was remembering that incendiary encounter. He seemed to have a preternatural ability to read her thoughts, except, thank the Lord, when it came to the purposes that led her to seduce him.
Pray God he never discovered the truth behind that. After these days of closeness, she couldn’t bear for him to hate her. As hate her he would if he knew what she did.
“I thought you’d be upstairs.” They’d established something of a pattern in the last days.
Without shifting his attention from her, he straightened. “I’ve got something to show you.”
“I think I’ve seen most of what you’ve got to offer.” Automatically, she fell into a flirtatious, sultry tone.
In Ashcroft’s company, she became a different person, sensuous, confident, teasing, witty. She’d miss that Diana when she went back to her old life. Or when she became the respectable Marchioness of Burnley.
But not as much as she’d miss her daring and ardent lover.
She suppressed the thought. She was with him
now. She refused to ruin the present by contemplating their inevitable parting.
He laughed, and she couldn’t stem the warmth that seeped through her when she heard the appreciation in the sound. “Not by a long shot, my love.”
His love…
Diana spoke quickly before the endearment could take root in her heart so deeply that she could never eradicate it. Although she suspected it had been too late from the first time he called her his love. “That sounds promising.”
His eyes narrowed and focused on her with a harder, more concentrated regard. A hot tide of unadulterated lust coursed through her.
“Come here,” he said in a low growl.
Poor dazzled fool she was, she didn’t hesitate. His arms lashed her to his body, and his mouth pressed hot and hard on hers. He only lifted his head when she was dizzy, and her heart pounded so crazily, it made her deaf to any other sounds.
“Why did you wait so long to come back?”
She closed her eyes in agony and fought to come up with some reasonable answer. She’d left his bed late this morning and spent the remainder of the day in a restive haze, waiting to return to him. The pretense of having a life separate from his grew so thin, it threatened to rip asunder. “It’s only…it’s only been a few hours.”
“Years.”
Oh, God help me.