The Edge of Desire

“The reason he uses that name.”

Christian snorted and they let that subject fall.

She kept pacing back and forth as the minutes ticked by.

He sighed. “You do realize that the entire purpose of this evening was to distract you?”

“Yes, I know. But I can’t get my mind off what, come Monday, we might learn. I have a very bad feeling about the Orient Trading Company’s business.”

So did Christian.

“I mean,” she went on, one arm sweeping wide as she turned, “why did Randall-and Trowbridge and Swithin, too-go to such lengths to keep the company so hidden? I can understand not wanting to be openly associated with any mercantile trade-they certainly wouldn’t have wanted that if their underlying purpose was to be accepted within the haut ton-but distancing themselves from any legitimate enterprise could easily have been done by appointing an agent, or man-of-business. Lots of others do that-why didn’t they? Why did they instead work so hard, with codes no less, to keep the whole enterprise an absolute secret?”

Sweeping up to where he sat, she halted dramatically and fixed him with an uncompromising stare. “The business of the Orient Trading Company has got to be something scandalous. That’s the only viable conclusion. You all think so, I know.”

He held her gaze. “As Jack pointed out, given the incoming sums are so large, it can’t be what we all thought.”

Folding her arms, she looked down her aristocratic nose at him. “The sums being so large might also be because whatever scandalous doings Randall and his cohorts were-are-involved in, and have now involved me in, is run on a grand scale.”

It was pointless to argue, especially when she might well be right. Yet her restless energy was still building; unless it subsided, she’d never sleep.

He’d tried distraction. He’d tried talking.

That left…

She humphed and swung away, pacing once again across the room.

Soundlessly, he rose and followed her.

The next time she swung around, she turned into his arms.

He caught her to him, bent his head and kissed her. Given distraction was his aim, he didn’t hold back; he parted her lips, surged into her mouth and laid claim.

She was passive for all of two heartbeats, then her hands were in his hair, holding his head while she kissed him back.

Voraciously.

Her mouth was as hungry as he was, her lips pliant and wantonly seductive, flagrantly demanding. She stepped into him, pressed her slender body to his, wordlessly communicated her desire.

In that, at least, they were as one.

Letitia knew why he was kissing her-knew what his stated purpose would be-and even though she suspected he had a deeper motive along the lines of seducing her into loving him again, she didn’t in that moment care.

What she cared about was the heat, the instant firing of her blood-just because he was who he was, and he wanted her.

Tonight, for his stated purpose and for her, that was enough.

Enough to let her set aside her reservations and grasp-seize-him with both hands. Enough to have her moving against him, blatantly inviting, with her body demanding his heated attentions.

And more.

Tonight she needed more, as much as he could give her to hold back the tide of her unsettling thoughts, to bury the sense of something dreadful approaching that had burgeoned with each successive discovery about her late husband’s business.

Tonight she wanted to forget-to set it all aside and be at peace. And in Christian’s arms she knew succor lay.

Not peace, not yet, not while passion and desire, the flames and the fire, were upon them. But tonight they could let them burn, could surrender themselves to the conflagration and be consumed.

So she kissed him back, with her lips and tongue teased and taunted, then reveled as he took control, as his tongue found hers and stroked, then arrogantly explored, reclaimed.

As he deepened the kiss and she surrendered, as she felt the rising heat melt her bones.

His arms tightened about her, crushing her breasts, already peaked and tight and aching, to the hard solid planes of his chest. One large palm swept down her back, pressing her to him, then sliding lower, over her hip, to grasp her bottom and angle her hips to his.

So he could move against her, so he could mold her against the rigid length of his erection, let her feel and anticipate having that hard length inside her. Thrusting into her, filling her, taking her…

Her mind reeled. She broke from the kiss on a gasp. “Upstairs.” The word was breathless, weightless. She hauled in a breath and tried again. “We should go up to my room.”

He stared down at her, gray eyes dark with passion-the passion she’d stirred, that had turned every muscle in his large body to hard-edged steel.

Then he blinked, focused-and she realized he’d been so caught up in having her, if she hadn’t spoken he would have had her there-on the rug before the fire or bent over the desk. A shiver of awareness and something more illicit slithered down her spine.

Before she could rethink, he managed a stiff nod. “Yes. Upstairs.” His voice was low and gravelly, already choked with desire. Another shiver threatened, this time one of sheer anticipation.

He had to force his arms to release her. The instant they did, before she could surrender to her baser self she turned and led the way from the room. He followed on her heels, close, close enough when they turned onto the stairs to rest a heavy, possessive hand on her back. Low on her back, on the curve of her bottom. She’d forgotten that-how, in the distant past, when they’d slipped away from balls and parties to be together, he’d always touched her, steered her, like that.

As if he couldn’t wait to touch her even more intimately.

As if he couldn’t wait to have her naked.

He often hadn’t.

But that had been then, when he was younger. Now, as she opened her bedchamber door and led him inside, she was very aware that he, the man at her heels, the male she would give herself to that night, was no callow youth.

Halting in the center of the room, she faced him. Saw him still by the door, watching her. Heard the click as, his gaze on her, he snibbed the lock.

Then he moved.

He walked toward her slowly, shadows and moonlight dappling his large frame.

When he halted before her, less than a foot away, he was all heat and power in the darkness, his very maleness sliding like a hand over her skin, leaving her nerves flickering. Waiting for his touch.

Moments ticked by as he looked into her face. Although she was tall, he was taller, broad and heavy where she was slender and slight, so much stronger she should have felt fear, yet she never had.

His strength was under his absolute control, and hers to command; she’d always known that.

So it wasn’t fear of that sort that sent a tingling lick up her spine.

He seemed to sense it, for he moved. Lifted both large, hard palms and framed her face.

Gently. As if to remind her his strength wasn’t to be feared.

But she felt something else in his touch, sensed it in his gaze. An intent she couldn’t name, that she hadn’t before encountered in him, that she had no experience of to draw on.

His lips curved subtly, as if he could read her sudden wondering in her eyes. He lowered his head-slowly-until his breath washed over her lips.

Making her hungry, making her want-until she tried to stretch up and press her lips to his and take what she needed-

And discovered she couldn’t.

That although his touch was gentle, it was enough to restrain her.