He could do little else than hold his breath, his every sense hanging upon her next words. What would be her verdict, he wondered? Would she compliment or condemn him?
“You’re an angel, aren’t you? An archangel, perhaps. Or a fallen one? A warrior…” she decided. “But… for which side?”
“I’m no angel,” he warned. “I’m nothing but a shadow.” Morley hated to disappoint the fanciful woman, hated to dispel whatever magic she was weaving through him with her touch. But it was better he told the truth. Better for them both.
“How ridiculous of me, I beg your pardon. I’d like to say that I’ve been caught up in all this fantasy, but it’d be a lie. I’m like this all the time.” At this she gave the ghost of a giggle, and the sound was more pleasant than the rush of the fountain beneath which they’d fallen. “You’re a very solid shadow, sir, if I may say so.” Her gaze finally focused to resolute. “How much?”
He frowned. “How much?”
“How much?” she encouraged meaningfully with a thrust of her sharp chin. “For you? The—er, footman told me to select any one of the Stags of St. James who were not previously engaged. And I’ve decided upon you. I want to make love to you—or rather, I want you to make love to me. But only i-if you don’t have other women—er—plans. I mean, that is, prior engagements.”
“Prior engagements?” he echoed.
Her hopeful features fell into a petulant pout. “Did someone already make an appointment at Hyde Park for tonight?”
“No,” he said carefully, wondering what to do next.
She brightened immediately. “Excellent. Then…tell me how this works. I’ve never…hired a man to make love to me before. And I confess I’m ignorant of how else to proceed rather than plainly. So, would you do me the kindness—er—the honor?”
Morley blinked down at her as three things had just become inexorably clear to him.
The first was this woman talked incessantly when nervous, and her babble was oddly endearing.
Second, she was from a wealthy family, likely blue-blooded and likely married.
And tertiary…he’d lived probably nearly forty years and had never met a woman he’d so keenly desired to fuck.
A hunger awakened within him with all the ferocity of a hibernating beast. It had teeth and claws and tore his decency to shreds before going to work on his restraint. His heart kicked at his ribs, which restricted in turn, relieving him of breath.
He was a moral man, goddammit. Lawful and without prejudice or vice. He’d lived as a veritable monk for more years than he cared to admit, and there was good reason for it. He should bloody well stand up and take his leave of her. Right now.
Except, what if she didn’t go home? What if she lingered in search of a different stag?
That wasn’t going to bloody happen. He wouldn’t let it.
He could throw her over his shoulder and return her to her father. Her husband. Or whatever woebegone individual had the responsibility for her safekeeping.
He made to do just that when another variable struck him.
What if she returned tomorrow night? What if she took her pleasure with another man?
What if… he missed his chance?
The hungry demon within him snarled at this, raked his claws and expelled scalding fire through his veins like a hell-spawned dragon until Morley had to force himself to inhale and expel a protracted breath.
He was no kind of man to consider such a proposition. He was neither starving for coin nor lacking in romantic prospects.
No, this was ludicrous. Nothing more than a flattering fantasy.
He opened his mouth, preparing a gentle rejection. “What do you want me to do to you?”
His lips slammed shut. The question had ricocheted through his mind since the moment she’d asked him to name his price. But it’d been the last thing he’d expected to escape his lips.
Blotches of color stained her pale cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “I-I’d like you to do…whatever it is women pay you for the most often.” She reached into her hooded pelisse and retrieved a satchel of coins. “The skill you’re most proud of. The thing that makes them come to you on a night like this.”
Morley didn’t know what women paid for sexually, but he knew enough about people to reply. “A bird like you knows her mind. She don’t come looking for a man like me ‘less she has some idea of what she intends to get from the encounter.”
What the bloody hell was he saying? He wasn’t even considering this… so why—
She made a wry sound. Half laugh, half gasp, as she reached up to smooth at the collar of his shirt, which had bent when he’d torn off his cravat. Something in the nervous gesture touched him. Something that had begun to unstitch him the moment she’d fallen, and now was quickly unraveling.
“My fiancé. He’s a selfish lover. I don’t think he’d ever…” She trailed away for a moment, before imparting information about a man Morley hoped to never meet, lest he murder the bastard. “I found out that he—well, he’s not faithful. And understand he doesn’t have to be—that most men of my class aren’t. But I will be. If I take a vow of marriage, I shan’t break it, but I’ve said no vows yet.” She tilted her head to look back up at him, a defiant little furrow appearing beneath her dramatically arched brows. “He does not own me yet.”
Tears colored her voice, though none had fallen, and something inside Morley twisted. Pain did not sit comfortably on features such as hers. She’d a visage that glowed with an inner light, even in the sinful dimness of this lusty place.
She didn’t belong here in the dark, committing sins on the ground. Hers was a face for the sun. She was a spoiled woman experiencing her first heartbreak. Learning her first terrible truth about the world of men in which she lived.
She didn’t know the first thing about pain.
And yet…the courageous way she fought her threatening emotion, tied him up in knots.
Christ, this shouldn’t be happening. That he was even entertaining such an idea was lunacy. This woman was obviously an emotional disaster he didn’t need and there was a killer to find.
And yet…she was warm and fragrant, and they were surrounded by sensual indiscretions, the sounds of which glided through this infernal glade with increasing intensity. She smelled like a delicacy waiting to be devoured and his mouth would not cease watering.
So he held her, his cock hard as a diamond, and Lord save him if her eyes were not dilated black with passion. He knew he could give her what her fiancé would not, and that knowledge ate him up inside.
Inflamed as his body was, as hungry as the demon within him seemed to be, he gave one last feeble resistance.
“Making love to me won’t make nights with him any easier,” he warned.
“I know,” she whispered, dropping the coin purse on the ground next to him so she could trace the hollows beneath his cheekbones with those soft, questing fingers, angling down toward his lips.
Morley’s terse mouth softened involuntarily as her featherlight touch sensitized the rim of his upper lip as she charted whatever curve she found there.
“I—overheard tell that there are those of you who can bring a woman to completion with—with your mouth. I find I’d—very much like to know how that feels. And then… I’d like you to…” Her lashes swept down again as she battled with her own breath for a moment. “Lady Westlawn told me that some of you could make a woman come for you more than once…”