Kiss of a Traitor (32 page)

Earlier, she visited her father. Her heart moved into her throat at the colonel’s condition. He seemed to have shrunk and transformed into a white-haired old man. The bedclothes nearly swallowed up his frail body. Her father was always so robust and full of life. But now, a deadened pall of shock made her limbs wooden and rooted her to the floor. Close to death, he stared unseeing at the canopy above his bed. Shallow breaths hardly lifted his thin chest. She stumbled forward and dropped into a chair by the bedside. Picking up his cold hand, covered in almost translucent skin, she spoke to him. For the barest moment, she imagined he clutched her fingers. That small movement lifted her hopes.

Afterward, dispirited by her father’s image, Willa suffered through a hellish supper with Digby presiding like a king at the head of the formal dining table. Her lip curled as she silently vented her contempt at his audacity in usurping her father’s place and at Marlene’s callousness in allowing him to do so. The price was high, but she choked down the tirade stinging her throat. It would serve no purpose. Marlene had trained Willa well in the futility of expressing her opinions. When Marlene quizzed her on her weeks of absence and hurled imprecations at her head because she refused to offer an explanation, Willa pushed back from the table and retired to her bedchamber.

The door squeaked behind her back. “I have an exceedingly sharp knife that howls for your blood, Digby,” she said without bothering to identify the intruder. “Turn right around and take yourself off, or I shall gut you with glee and feed your putrid corpse to the ‘gators. Do not make the mistake of believing I am unwilling or unable to carry out the act.”

“I have no doubts concerning your will or your abilities, wildcat,” a deep voice answered. “You forget I have personal knowledge of your expertise with a knife. Will you not give a condemned man his last earthly wish?”

Willa whirled around, her eyes lighting on a man’s tall frame leaning against the closed door. “Aidan,” she said on a whispered breath.

He reached behind him and turned the key in the lock. “Disappointed I’m not Digby?”

A smile kicked up the corners of her mouth. “To some degree. I was looking forward to slicing open his belly.”

“Ahhh,” he said, his eyes pure silver from the moonlight’s reflection. “I know you so well, my bloodthirsty, little heathen.”

She grew thoughtful at his presence in her house, in her bedchamber so late at night, but her body perceived his reason without seeking an explanation. A tingle of awareness spun through her belly to concentrate in her loins, and her heart swelled with the love inside her. ‘Twas magic. An invisible rope united them. Whenever Aidan moved, she felt it deep inside. The same sensation had struck her the first time their eyes met and held as she lured him into her trap in the swamp.

“How did you get in here?” she asked.

He smiled wistfully. “A spy has his ways.”

“Why have you come?” She silently begged him to say the words her heart longed to hear:
Because I love you and cannot be without you.
She swept her gaze down his tall frame. Like her, he was barefoot. Was his heart as bared and vulnerable, as well?

He pushed off the door and paced toward her in a seamless tread. “I imagined you might desire some company tonight.”

She caught the nuance of sorrow in his voice. “You heard,” she stated. “You know about Papa.”

His nod was but a slight inclination of his head. Drawing her into his arms, he pulled her against his chest and smoothed a hand up and down her spine. She released the torrent of tears bottled up until this point. Now she seemed helpless to stem the deluge.

Aidan sank into a chair and pulled her onto his lap. As he cradled her in his embrace, he rocked her while she poured out her fury and grief. “That’s it,” he whispered. “Let out all the pain.” His lips pressed to her hair, and he dropped kisses along the part on her scalp. While she sobbed into his shirt, he tightened his arms around her.

When no more tears would come, Willa lifted her face and peered into his eyes. She imagined she saw love in them and questioned whether her assessment was merely wishful thinking. What she saw could be pity rather than more tender feelings. He combed her hair back from her face and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the pads of his fingers.

“Will you remain with me tonight?” she asked between sniffles.

“Should you promise to sheath your knives, it will be my pleasure.” Aidan lowered his head to settle his mouth on hers in a kiss that burned straight to her heart.

Digby splashed brandy from Bellingham’s cut-crystal decanter into a snifter. “You may have my word on it. That little bitch knows.” He raked a hand through his hair, disordering its perfection. “She had the temerity to threaten me.”

“What of it?” Marlene murmured from the sofa against the windows where she reclined, her bare feet tucked up under her bronze gown. “'Tis not as if she could act on her suspicions. George is insensate. Even were she to go so far as to inform him the moon was purple, he would not comprehend.”

He leaned back against the liquor cart. “What if dear George recovers his faculties? What then? I daresay I shall be ruined, and more likely than not, called out. Your husband is a better shot than I am, even on his worst day.”

She lowered her eyes to examine her fingernails. “Rest assured, Tom. He will not recover. I have seen to that.”

“Would that you thought to see to that viperous chit instead,” Digby said with a grimace as he stripped off his coat and tugged on the knot of his cravat.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “When George dies, I shall send Wilhelmina to England to live with her sisters.”

His shirt hanging open, breeches half-unbuttoned, he advanced on her with angry steps. “And should she spout her suspicions to her sisters? What then? Do you not expect they will open an investigation into the death of their beloved father? Especially once we wed?”

She contemplated it. “I’d not considered that eventuality. Perhaps I shall arrange an accident for my imprudent
daughter
.”

Digby nodded and sat on the sofa to pull off his boots. She leaned over to run her hand through the hair on his chest. When she tweaked a flat nipple, he slapped her hand away and seized her jaw between his fingers to grind his mouth against her lips. Marlene moaned as excitement at his roughness shot through her lower body. After pushing her away, he continued to disrobe.

“Have you found the will?” he asked with a speaking look.

“Not yet. And I grow quite weary of your inquiring about it.” She squirmed and came up on her knees to twine her arms about his neck and suck hard at the skin below his ear. As she raised her head, she examined with satisfaction the mark she had left. “Other than the entailed estates, George willed everything to me,” she said softly. “He was quite specific regarding his intentions toward his daughter. He is done with Willa and her misbehavior. In any case, he expects her to marry well and have no need of his wealth.”

Digby untangled her arms and held them in his grip as he twisted to face her. “Can you be certain his will reflects those intentions?”

“Quite certain.” A pout formed on her mouth. “Pray cease this incessant inquiry. I want you … now.”

“Then get on your knees,” he said as he released her arms and pulled off the last of his clothing. When he came to his feet, his angry, red penis stood out in front of him like a weapon.

Marlene licked her lips like a cat lapping up cream. She flipped onto her stomach, raised her hips, and glanced back at him over her shoulder.

“Not there. I want you here.” Digby pointed to the rug before the fireplace.

She swung around with a puckered face. “The last time you took me on the rug, you left bruises on my knees.”

He cocked his head and twisted his lips in a cruel smile. “You think I care? Who will see your knees save me?” Catching her by the wrist, he dragged her off the sofa and pushed her onto her hands and knees in front of the fire. He came down behind her, lifted her skirt, and clamped his hands on her hips, lunging with a fierce thrust into her slit. Marlene threw back her head and bit down on her lower lip, drawing blood, to prevent giving voice to her ecstasy.

Aidan smoothed his palms up the sides of Willa’s legs and gathered up the lawn night rail. She sat astride him in the chair, legs draped over his thighs, arms clutching him, face hidden in the crook of his neck. His heartbeat, so strong against her own, set the pace, like a drummer keeping time. When the tempo of the beat increased, Willa’s heart matched it. Not following behind like a servant, but stepping alongside … like a partner.

He moved his hand around to dip between her nether lips. “You make me insane, wildcat,” he whispered. When her honey flowed and coated his fingers, a gravelly noise came from the back of his throat, and he brought up his other hand to catch roughly in her hair.

Willa soared, and blood sang in her veins.

As he spread apart his legs, he widened her. She was open, wet, and hot. A red tide of need engulfed her, and a greedy ripple stirred her vagina. His manhood was bold and hard beneath her. When she pushed down and rocked her hips, he caught his breath with a gasp.

“Any more of that and you’ll be obliged to mop me up off the floor,” he panted as he slid her backward onto his knees to release the buttoned placket of his breeches.

His shaft sprang free, large and erect. She allowed her eyes to dwell on it, and it grew. Its length lay against her belly, hot against her skin, its blunt head as red as the coals in the fireplace. Her tongue stole out to touch her upper lip as she clasped the organ’s breadth between her hands and squeezed. With a stifled shout, Aidan dropped his head back to rest on the top of the chair. Dark lashes swept down and veiled his eyes. Muscles in his throat strained, and he dug his fingers into the flesh of her hips.

She stroked up and down his velvet flesh, marveling at its combination of strength and softness. A pearl of wetness seeped from the cleft head and captivated her. Willa scooted farther back, dipped her head, and flicked up the salty-tasting drop with a glide of her tongue.

Aidan jerked his head forward. His eyes opened and raked her with a look that sent wanting lapping through her, set her thighs to quivering. Moving his hands up to settle around her waist, he lifted her and brought her forward. When she gazed into his eyes, they were fiery mercury pools that poured their heat into her skin. Then he lowered her, one inch at a time.

She trembled when his blunt hardness pierced and separated her. Her damp, dissolving center took him in eagerly, beckoned him with the silken essence of her desire. She accepted his length until he nudged up against her womb. Now he was deeper than she had thought possible, his girth stretching her passage with exquisite fullness.

When Aidan could plumb her depths no deeper, he rocked her toward him and scraped her sensitive bud against the hardness of his pubic bone. The breath left her in a rush, and a shiver careened up her spine. As he flexed his hips in short, deep thrusts, she liquefied around him. Her limbs quaked at the drag against her flesh and the pressure in her body’s core.

Willa leaned back, locked her elbows, and braced her hands on his knees. Her hair, now grown to her shoulders, tangled in his fingers when he cupped one hand against her spine. The fingertips of his other hand pressed downward on her mound so his shaft bumped up against the roof of her passage. Convulsions seized her sheath, and she swallowed her cries as she flung her arms outward, balanced on his lap only by virtue of his hand at her back and the impalement of his phallus. Spinning out into space, she sailed through the stars to that place where pleasure was all and pain nonexistent. Where her father was whole and healthy. Where war was only a word and not a reality. Where Aidan loved her.

Aidan tugged her forward, then got to his feet and wrapped her legs around his waist as he supported her bottom in his hands. He carried her to the bedchamber wall, backed her against the flat surface, and began to drive hard. His breath bathed her in moist heat. Willa tightened her legs and clenched the muscles of her canal. When he flexed his hips to pump harder, faster, deeper, she vowed she could taste him in her throat. Fire curled deep inside her again. With a loud groan, his essence poured into her, pulsing and white-hot. She throbbed around him and buried her teeth in his shoulder to keep from screaming. The world burst asunder in an explosion of multicolored light. Then nothing other than warm, melting darkness.

When Willa came to, she lay on her side in bed, Aidan behind and hot and heavy inside her. One of his arms lay across her waist, and his hand fondled her breast. The other was beneath her. His palm cradled her stomach and moved her hips against his urgent thrusting. She picked up the motion, and he grunted when she took over the rhythm. The sac of his stones slapped against her skin with each driving plunge. When the fire kindled and erupted into flames, Willa clamped down and rushed along with Aidan to paradise.