A Beginner's Guide to Rakes (27 page)

She drew him as well. At least he was aware of it. And he’d seen more of her than her knife-sharp, seductive side. Even so, he couldn’t help moving closer to her as they made their way to the foyer.

“Juliet,” she said, flexing her fingers as if to be certain she still retained possession of all of them. “Please inform Genevieve that I will be … unavailable until five o’clock or so in the morning.”

How pitiful was he that he took the words “or so” to be a sign that she might be softening toward him? Shaking himself, Oliver nodded at the butler chit. “Likewise, Langtree. I don’t want anyone pounding at my door this time for anything less than a fire. Is that clear?”

“I’ll see to it, my lady,” the servant said, not even glancing in his direction.

Oliver stifled a grin. Clearly the chit knew who buttered her bread. “I’ll remember this, Langtree,” he commented, and gestured Diane to lead the way up the front stairs.

Once they were inside his front room, he closed and latched his door. That damned foreign chit was too unpredictable to risk leaving it open. Then he faced Diane again, to find her gazing at him. To his eyes, at least, her face in the lamplight seemed almost ethereal in its beauty. Every part of him, skin to soul, wanted her, and it took all his willpower to remain where he was.

Slowly she looked him up and down. “Well, come along,” she said, her voice breathy and rough. “A bargain is a bargain.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t about a bargain.”

“Then why am I here?”

Oliver took a slow, controlled step closer, halving the distance between them. “Because you want to be here.”

She tilted her head. “Are you certain about that?”

For a heartbeat he weighed how much he wanted her against how much he wanted her to choose him. He swallowed, knowing he was an idiot for relying on hope after what he’d done. He much preferred skill, but that wouldn’t serve him until after he got her clothes off. “If you want to leave, then go.”

“And the eight hours?”

“Wiped clean.”

“Are you certain of that?”

No.
“Yes. That debt is finished with. You still owe me the walk in the park, though.”

A grin, sultry and aroused, touched her mouth. “Then I can leave if I wish to?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” She continued to look at him. “Why so generous?”

“There’s something about compelling you to join me in bed that I find … distasteful.” He shrugged. “Odd, I know.”

“Very odd.” Diane folded her arms across her chest, then lowered them again. “Step aside, then.”

Cursing himself in every language he knew, Oliver moved away from the door. He’d played games of faro and whist with thousands of pounds at risk. He’d lost huge amounts of money, albeit rarely. And he’d just lost this game.

She walked past him and put her hand on the latch. “You truly aren’t going attempt to stop me?”

“Truly.”

“You don’t want me to stay?”

He blew out his breath. “Of course I want you to stay.”

“Then ask me.”

Was she simply playing? Asking him to look even more foolish than he already felt? He deserved it, he supposed. “Diane, would you spend the night with me?” he asked, unable to keep his voice steady.

For a long moment she looked straight into his eyes. “Perhaps,” she finally murmured. “But not tonight.” She unlocked the door. “If you want me again, Haybury, then you’re going to have to prove that you truly have changed.” With that she slipped back out to the landing and closed the door behind her.

Chapter Sixteen

Diane had to give Oliver a great deal of credit for not pursuing her down the stairs.

Considering the raw ache coursing through her, however, perhaps he wasn’t able to run. She stifled a somewhat hysterical chuckle and continued down to the foyer. Oh, she wanted him. But now, at least, they were a bit closer to being even. And with Anthony making much more blatant accusations and threats, she needed to think. In Oliver’s intimate company, thinking became supremely difficult.

“My lady?”

She blinked as Juliet materialized in front of her. “Ah, yes. Never mind what I said earlier.” Shifting to ease the material that abruptly seemed far too tight across her breasts, she grimaced. “Though I will be retiring to Adam House for the evening. Have someone prepare a cool bath, will you?”

“A
cool
bath?”

“I don’t have to look at you to know you’re smirking, Juliet,” she said over her shoulder, heading for the half-hidden door that led through a short corridor to her private home. “A
cold
bath.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Even as she stripped out of her black gown and stepped into the uncomfortably cold water thirty minutes later, her mind continued to argue with her body. Why should she deny herself a night of pleasure—and being with Oliver Warren was infinitely pleasurable—simply because he’d erred two years ago?

“Erred,” she muttered, stifling a shriek as she sat down in the bathtub and cold water rose to her chest. If erring consisted of abandoning people without a word—people who’d begun to care for him a great deal and deserved some kind of explanation, which he
still
hadn’t offered—then yes, he’d erred. Very badly.

And she was not some fainting daisy who melted into his arms simply because he knew how to kiss and he knew how and when to say the correct thing to her and about her. Or because he’d proved to be quite helpful, more so than blackmail strictly required. The bastard.

At least the icy water cooled her ardor. For heaven’s sake, twenty minutes ago she’d barely been able to put two sentences together. Blowing out her breath, Diane squeezed her eyes shut and splashed her face. If he deserved credit for not chasing after her, then she deserved credit for escaping from him when what she wanted to do more than anything was feel his weight on her and his cock moving inside her.

Growling, she splashed more vigorously, gasping as the water’s wake reached her armpits. An abrupt solid thud seemed to rattle the room around her, and she gasped again.

“Mary?” she called, flinching as the thud repeated, reverberating against the ceiling. Her maid, though, would be down in the kitchen helping sort out the food orders during the Demeter Room’s busiest hour.

Another thud. This time, dust and plaster shook down from above. At the next blow, the end of what looked like an axe carved a hole into her ceiling and then vanished again. “Good heavens,” she muttered, and scrambled out of the bath.

Pulling her thin dressing robe over her shoulders and knotting the belt around her waist, she dove for her bed stand and the pistol she kept there. Wood and plaster dropped to the floor as she grabbed the weapon and cocked it.

With a last shuddering thud, the ceiling exploded. A good portion of it hit the floor a few feet in front of her, followed by a figure that fell and rolled to its feet. His feet.

“Oliver?” she gasped, leveling the pistol at him.

“Langtree and your damned behemoths wouldn’t let me back into the club,” he muttered, brushing plaster dust from his shoulders as he straightened. “And don’t shoot me again, damn it all.”

“You made a hole in my ceiling!”

“No, I made a hole in your floor above. Hope no one falls through it. I put a vase on either side, but you never know.” He shrugged.

“You’ve gone mad!”

Moving faster than she could follow, he stripped the pistol from her hand and tossed it into the bathtub. “More than likely.” Keeping his unreadable gaze on her, he moved sideways until he could dip his fingers into the bathwater. “Cold,” he said, as though that meant something. Which it did, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

This was beyond mad. “You released me from your stupid bargain. Go away!”

“You said you wanted to be convinced that I’ve changed.”

“Yes, convinced! Not … frightened half to death by men falling through my ceiling.”

“And how am I supposed to convince you of anything when you keep avoiding me? I know you, and you know me better than any other woman in the entire damned world. So you want flowers, I suppose? Jewelry? Fine gowns?” He walked toward her. “Poems? You would laugh in my face.”

“Flowers are very nice,” she returned, stumbling a little on the wet, debris-covered floor as she backed toward the door leading to her private sitting room.

“Men give you flowers every day. I’ll wager you don’t even recall the names of the men who sent you flowers today.”

“I’ve told you numerous times that I don’t wager.”

“Lord Quence, Michael Penn-Haller, and Lord Peter Selse.” He took another step closer to her. “I’m not giving you any bloody flowers.”

Her heart skittered. “You make note of whoever sends me flowers?”

Oliver’s gray eyes narrowed. “Every damned day.”

Diane took another step backward, and her spine bumped against her bedchamber door. “I think you should know, cutting holes in my ceiling and refusing to bring me flowers is not how I would convince me of anything but your lunacy.”

“Isn’t it?” Stopping a foot in front of her, he reached out and ran a finger from her throat to where the neck of her robe closed over her chest. “I can feel your heart beating.”

“That’s what hearts do.”

“You’ve risked your reputation, your money,
my
money, everything you own, on The Tantalus Club. And flowers are supposed to sway you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

She hated to admit it, but he made a good point. After an arranged marriage ended in ever-increasing poverty, flowers had struck her as being overly sentimental and useless. “Then destroying my home is
your
chosen method of … swaying me?”

“Was it successful?”

At the moment, with heat twining down her spine and excitement making her hands shake, she couldn’t think of anything more arousing than a man—this man—breaking down walls or ceilings or floors to get to her. “So far.” If she’d trusted him just a bit more, she wouldn’t have hesitated at all. And that thought shook her a little.

Oliver hooked his forefinger into the material of her robe and tugged her up against his lean, solid body. She couldn’t say who kissed whom first, but within a few hard beats of her heart she was so tangled into him that she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began, even through their clothes.

“Tell me that you want me,” he murmured, pushing her robe down her shoulders and kissing her throat.

The way he said it, the slight break in his husky voice, aroused her all over again. He might have broken in to get to her, but he seemed to need to know that she was glad he was there. It was very unlike the arrogant, self-assured marquis she thought she knew so well.

Some kind of game or not, however, these days she took what she wanted. She even had a rule about it. “I want you, Oliver,” she breathed, tangling her fingers into his rich brown hair. “But not here.”

He pulled back, scowling. “What kind of damned thing is that to say?” he demanded.

“There’s a hole in my ceiling,” she explained carefully, gesturing. Clearly he was just about at the edge of reason. “I refuse to have my staff listening—or watching—us.”

His expression eased again. “Ah. I apologize. All the blood has left my brain and traveled downward.” He sent her a sly look full of sex and secrets. “As you can likely tell.”

“Yes, I can.” With a slow grin she reached behind her and unlatched the door leading to her sitting room.

Half-stumbling out of the room, they ended up pressed against the back of a couch. His mouth lowered over hers again, and she closed her eyes, drinking in the sensation of him around her, his hands on her bare skin.

“The door,” she managed shakily, using all her willpower to push him away.

“Do you think I’ll be followed?”

“The door.”

Oliver leaned his forehead against hers, then kissed her again. “As you wish.”

He closed her bedchamber door harder than he meant to; his control had clearly deserted him the moment she’d left him staring, alone, at his closing front door. For a few minutes he’d attempted to be logical and magnanimous and understand that she likely needed to hurt him so they would be, in some sense, even.

But then he’d realized that if he allowed her to dictate the terms of this relationship, he would lose too much ground. He would be the servant, the subordinate. While he had never been in that position with anyone, with her it was even more vital that he neither follow nor lead. And most important, he would be going to bed alone, hard, aching, and furious.

Returning to her, he untied the sash around her waist and pulled her dressing gown open. God, she was lovely. “You’re breathtaking,” he said aloud.

Diane responded by pushing his jacket off his shoulders and stripping him out of his waistcoat so quickly that one of the buttons popped off. “Oh, apologies,” she muttered, tossing the garment to the floor.

He grinned. “A button versus a ceiling, Diane. I’ve no complaints.” Dipping his head, he took one of her soft breasts into his mouth, flicking his tongue across her nipple.

At her responding gasp he turned his attention to her other breast, attempting to ignore the constricted ache of his cock. This was the Diane Benchley he remembered, free with her expressions of pleasure. She still might not trust him completely, but she’d begun to.

Thankfully the couch was both long and deep, and once he’d yanked off his boots he stretched out alongside her. Carefully he removed the clips from her curling hair, drawing the black, lavender-scented mass forward across her shoulders. When he lowered himself over her for another kiss, her wandering hands reached for his trousers.

In a moment she shoved the material down past his thighs, and he kicked it off to the floor. “You’re so warm,” she breathed, arching her body against his.

“You were just in a tub of cold water. Let me warm you.” With a grin he sank down, kissing her breasts and her belly and her thighs, then parting her legs to work his way up again. When he brushed his tongue and fingers along her folds, she gasped and moaned throatily.
Good God.
If she made that sound again, he would likely come right there, like some virginal schoolboy with his first chit.