“A portion of your response is desire.” His open mouth brushed behind her ear and she shuddered violently. “But a portion of it is fear. Why? You must know that I would never hurt you.”
Unable to speak, Sophie agreed with a jerky nod. His teeth bit gently into the tender flesh where her shoulder met her neck. Her knees weakened and his free arm came around her, banding at her waist to support her. Taking further liberties, his thumb stroked the side of her breast in a soothing rhythm that did nothing to calm her.
Sophie’s eyes closed and her damp forehead rested against the door. His chest labored against her back, the heat of his body set hers on fire. Her nipples peaked hard and tight, aching. As if he knew, he cupped her breast and kneaded it. Her sex clenched in rhythm with his grasp and she grew wet, slippery and hot.
“Oh dear God,” she moaned, quaking. How did a woman manage a desire such as this? She had lusted for Langley and relished his lovemaking, but those emotions had not reached this depth. She hadn’t the experience required to control her responses. “You overwhelm me. I cannot think or breathe.”
“And I am undone.” His mouth was moving over her bared skin. Nipping, licking, biting. “This is passion, Sophie. Need and hunger.”
“It is insanity, my l-lord.” Her voice broke as he continued to fondle her intimately. “With a small ch-child dependent upon me, I cannot afford to go in-insane.”
“There is only one cure,” he murmured. “Shall we administer it?”
She shook her head, but lack of energy gave the movement no strength. “I do not understand…what is happening.”
Justin breathed deeply. “We are becoming lovers, sweet Sophie.
He tilted his head and took her mouth. She gasped at the contact, the tingling of her lips urging her to press them hard against his. Her angle was awkward, but she did not care. The kiss was perfect, his lips so soft, yet firm, the taste of him dark and delectable. She could not temper the ardent way she answered him. Her response was instinctual and greedy.
The groan that left his throat made her shiver, so filled with rough longing and ravenous need. He licked deep inside her, his tongue gliding back and forth against hers, the measured tempo blatantly erotic. She whimpered softly as tension coiled in her womb. He pulled back at the sound, breathing harshly. “Stay with me tonight.”
Her lower lip quivered, her thoughts scattered and unable to settle. Justin licked the soft curve of her mouth, his touch so reverent it coaxed a tear to blur her vision, then slip down her cheek. He wrenched himself away. She felt his loss keenly; the lack of his warmth left her cold, the lack of his support left her shaky.
“Damn you.” The look he gave her scorched. “I can make you stay. I can make you beg me to allow you to stay. But that is not what I want. You will give yourself to me. I will have you no other way.”
Sophie turned to face him, lifting her fingers to press against her kiss-swollen lips. “You have always…” She reached behind her and gripped the knob.
“Always what?” he asked gruffly, the lust within him a palpable thing, barely leashed.
“Always been too much.” With a quick pivot, she opened the door. “Good night, my lord.”
She fled, leaving him standing there staring after her.
George whined softly. Edward paced at the threshold.
Justin knew just how they felt.
Chapter Three
“Lady Sophie said something to me last evening that perplexes me,” the marquess murmured to his mother the next morning as they descended the stairs to the lower floor for breakfast.
“Oh?”
“Yes, she said I have always been ‘too much.’ I’ve no notion of what that is supposed to mean.”
Her mouth curved innocently, an affectation reinforced by her pale ringlets and light blue gown. “Interesting.”
He glanced aside at her. “Do you know what she is referring to?”
“Hmm…Perhaps she means to say you are overwhelming.”
“Yes.” Justin scowled. “She said that, too.”
“Truly? How did I miss this discussion? I recall you two sat quite some distance from each other in the parlor after dinner.”
“Never mind that,” he muttered. “Can you explain what the devil she is talking about?”
She linked her slender arm with his. “When you both were children, she used to make up stories about you. You were a ‘prince’ most often, though sometimes when you were surly, you were cast as a toad or an ass.”
He choked.
“I noted something in her stories. You were usually set atop an intimidating pedestal. A character who ruled over all with an iron fist and nary a smile. She would speak of you with awe.”
Justin shook his head, frowning. “I was a boy.”
“A very serious boy,” she corrected. “You changed a great deal after your father passed on.”
“I have a great deal of history to live up to.”
“Yes, you do.”
“She has a bastard child.”
“Yes, she does.” The dowager patted his arm. “Your father and I didn’t wait either.”
His eyes turned heavenward. “I could have lived my entire life without that knowledge, Mother, and been quite content.”
“Stuff. Don’t be prudish.”
Heaving out his breath, the marquess prayed for the rest of his day to improve upon his morning. He had spent restless hours the night before contemplating Lady Sophie and her circumstances, and how he could have her.
Had she stayed the night with him, it would have been something he would have regretted as much as she. A man of his station could not marry a woman in her circumstances, she was absolutely correct about that. Which left him with only one option-to take her as his mistress. It was an offer he could not make to her, not to Sophie. He respected her too much to suggest such an arrangement; the mere thought sickened him.
But not having her at all was impossible. He
His mother shot him a narrowed side-glance as they reached the parquet floor of the foyer. “I should like to see a man retain his virginity until marriage.”
“How progressive of you,” he murmured.
“With all your rumored excesses with females of unsavory reputation, I would think you’d appreciate a woman with a healthy appetite for sexual congress.”
“I will not discuss anyone’s sexual appetite with you, not mine and most definitely not yours.” He steered her toward the dining room.
“Why not?”
“I would rather go to the tooth-drawer’s,” Justin muttered, “or wear a hair shirt.”
He assisted her into her chair at the end of the table. “I had decided to remain in residence for a few more days, but that does not mean you should send for the parson. Do I make myself clear?”
The startled, yet hopeful glance the dowager bestowed on him over her shoulder made him smile and bend to kiss her cheek. God help him, he adored her, daft as she was.
That same kiss-when witnessed by Sophie as she entered the dining room-inspired tender feelings of a different sort. Her stomach fluttered madly in response. She came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, her
“See?” Lady Cardington whispered. “A good man. Do not let that stiff-as-pudding exterior fool you.”
Sophie could say that she wasn’t fooled, not after visiting his rooms last night, but she held her tongue and shivered when he straightened and caught sight of her. The look he gave her flared instantly from innocuous to indecent.
“Good morning, my lord,” she greeted, in a voice remarkably composed.
He approached them with that animal grace that made her breathing shallow. All the incongruities about him
