Taming an Impossible Rogue (28 page)

She sat forward, placing feather-soft kisses on his mouth, his cheeks, his throat. For a moment he thought he would completely destroy his reputation as a jaded rogue and come right there in his trousers.

“I didn’t know you then,” she said, removing his waistcoat and the ruined cravat, then running her fingers and her lips down his chest. “I see who you are now. You’ve protected me, encouraged me, educated me,” and her hands crept down to brush across the uncomfortably tight jut of his trousers, “and made me think I don’t have to be so afraid.”

Keating closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on her curious, novice hands roving his half-clothed body. “And yet I’m still bedding another man’s wife.”

Rising up, she tangled her fingers into his hair. “I’m not yet married,” she whispered, licking the curve of his ear.

His well-honed control snapped. Keating pushed her backward on the couch, rising up over her to plunder her mouth in a hard, deep kiss. Yanking down the front of her demure gown, he ran his fingers across her breasts to lightly pinch and tug at her nipples.

Camille whimpered beneath him, pushing at his hips so she could reach the fastening of his trousers. It reminded him that she’d instigated this, and he complied. A low moan escaped from his chest as she undid the last button and shoved the material down over his hips. As he sprang free, new arousal coursed through him, and he lowered his head to take her soft left breast into his mouth.

She gasped, arching her back to bring him still closer. In response, Keating flicked his tongue across her captured nipple. The taste of her, the scent and feel of her … He hadn’t been celibate over the six years he’d been away from London, but she made him feel as if he had been.

“Take off my dress,” she said, pushing at him again and half twisting so he could reach the trio of buttons running down her spine.

He actually had to take a mental breath to keep from simply ripping the offending fastenings off the gown. Women didn’t appreciate having their clothes ruined. And she wasn’t in the position where she could simply purchase a new gown every other week.

Keating paused with his fingers on the last button. She would be in that position, very soon. And he wouldn’t be the one stripping her out of them. He would have to stand back, watch her go home with her husband, spend his nights imagining her in another man’s arms.

With a low growl he undid the button and lifted her half upright so he could pull the soft silk over her head. As she settled into the couch’s deep cushions again he went to work on her hair, pulling out the dozen carefully placed pins so the butter-white cascade tumbled down her shoulders.

“Now you,” she breathed, taking the tail of his superfine shirt and pulling it over his head.

Disliking being confined around the thighs, he sat to yank off his boots, and then kicked out of his trousers. “Much better.”

“May I touch you … there?” Camille asked, her gaze lowering to his cock.

“Please do. No jabbing or yanking, though.”

Shifting so they could both look at what she was doing, Keating ground his jaw shut when her fingers stroked the length of him and then curled around his girth. “I’m glad I’m not a man,” she finally said, the edges of her voice shaking despite the matter-of-fact words. “I would be like this every time I set eyes on you. Everyone would know.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Not that he developed an erection every time he thought of her, but that people would know just from looking at the two of them that he’d fallen. And hard. “It takes some practice,” he returned. “And I’m also glad you’re not a man.”

Camille grinned a bit breathlessly. “Show me why that is,” she suggested, sliding her fingers across the sensitive head.

He jumped. “Good God,” he muttered, tugging on one of her legs to turn her flat onto her back again and rising over her.

She bent her knees, opening to him, and with a slow, relentless thrust he entered her. Tight, warm flesh enclosed him, pulling him deeper, and he groaned. She was damp, hot, and panting, and he had no intention of disappointing her.

Keating stroked into her again and again, holding on to every sliver of control he owned to keep from spilling into her. He wanted to; he wanted to claim her as his, and have everyone know it. But that would only hurt both of them—and everyone else involved in this mess.

Beneath him, around him, she grew taut, and then he kissed her deep and openmouthed to stifle her cry as she came. He pumped harder and faster, then raised up to pull away from her.

“Stay,” she gasped, wrapping her legs tighter around his thighs.

“But—”

“What does it matter? Stay.”

Before his brain could compose a counter to that, his body took charge. Moaning, he thrust forward and spilled into her. Breathing hard, Keating lowered himself onto her, tucking his head against her neck.

Confounding, mesmerizing, unique—he was beginning to run out of known adjectives in his search to adequately describe the woman currently running her fingers languorously down his spine.

He lifted his head. “What do you mean, ‘what does it matter?’” he rumbled, his heartbeat still fast and hard. “It’s one thing to be gossiped about, and quite another to be unmarried and sport a babe on your arm.”

“I won’t be unmarried, will I?” she returned, stroking his arse with both palms. “And I daresay your cousin firstly would think a babe of his would look something like a babe of yours, and secondly wouldn’t dare confront you with any suspicions.”

It made sense. “That’s rather mercenary of you.”

“I’ve discovered that there’s a difference between comfort and happiness. Between propriety and pleasure. Whatever you wish to call it. And before I surrender to one, I want the other.”

He frowned into her serious blue eyes. “It’s not surrendering. It’s returning to a position that will leave you happier.”

“Happier than what, precisely?” She took an unsteady breath. “But of course you’re correct. I certainly know what it is to have nowhere else to go, and no one to care for me other than myself. I prefer a roof and security.”

“As you should.”

Her change of mind seemed rather sudden, but then perhaps her pleasures interfered with logical thinking as well. It happened that way with him. This time he kissed her slowly, savoring sensation, the body-to-body heat of the two of them.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d savored anything. The next pleasure, the next risk or reward, always waited just ahead, and by the end of one he was already looking to the next. “May I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you like Fenton?”

Her brow furrowed, and he smoothed at the lines with his thumb. “I’m disposed not to,” she said after a moment, “but I’m not entirely certain that’s completely his fault. After all, how many times have I complained that I didn’t wish to marry a stranger? No one listened. I didn’t even listen, until I was forced to do so.”

“You’ve walked and dined with him now, at least. Does he seem … pleasant?”

“Pleasant enough to marry, you mean? He claims excessive wealth, several properties, a title, and he’s not old enough to be my parent. That’s something, isn’t it? When my requirement is security?”

Kissing her breasts as he rose, Keating sat up. “You are walking a very winding path to avoid answering me. I’m not an idiot. Generally.”

Camille sat up in front of him, their legs still comfortably entangled. If eight or nine months ago someone had told her that she would be employed at a gentlemen’s club, living under its roof, and bedding an impossible rogue, she would have scoffed. Or more likely fainted in horror.

But as she looked up at the lean, hard-muscled man currently toying deliciously with her hair, it wasn’t horror she felt. Not in the slightest. In fact, if not for the matter of ten thousand pounds, his cousin, her parents, and a son he’d never met, she would be the most content—and most alive—she’d ever felt.

“I’m not trying to be evasive,” she said slowly, his touch still making her shiver in delight. “And I don’t particularly want to discuss marriage at the moment.”

“I insist,” he returned in a low voice.

“Very well. He doesn’t seem horrid, and even though I embarrassed him and continue to leave him feeling … harmed, as far as his reputation is concerned, he hasn’t said anything truly terrible.”

“I believe that’s called ‘damning with faint praise,’” he observed.

“What I mean is, I require some things, and you require some things. We’ll both receive them as a result of this match. And he’s not terrible.” She scowled. “Actually, he’s rather handsome, and if he at least remains polite I think I might eventually grow to like him. At this moment, I will tolerate him. And I think he will tolerate me.”

“You think he’s handsome?” Keating asked, something dark and predatory and chill entering his voice.

“You’re the one who came here to send me after him, so don’t complain that he isn’t some warty toad.”

He blinked his pretty brown eyes. “Point taken.” Gently he tugged at a curl of her light hair. “Perhaps I’m being foolish, but I
do
want you to be happy. Not merely secure.”

If all she required was happiness, if all
he
required was happiness, she didn’t need to look any further than this little couch. For a moment she almost suggested that she would be happy if he continued to call on her like this, even after her marriage. That, however, would not happen. She knew enough about his past and his regrets to understand that.

“I imagine I’ll be perfectly fine,” she lied, keeping her voice light and disinterested.

“Then you will agree to marry him.”

“Unless something untoward occurs between now and the date of the wedding, yes. I believe I will.”

What he likely didn’t realize was that she wasn’t agreeing to this for her own security, and certainly not for her happiness. She was doing it for him.

From what she’d seen, Stephen Pollard was stiff, easily embarrassed, and without a romantic bone in his body. In a sense it was reassuring that her first, brief impression of him had been spot-on. But while she might be twenty-two years old, a mere one year older than she’d been when all this chaos had begun, she felt miles wiser.

Some of the gentlemen members of The Tantalus Club appalled her with their airs of superiority, the way they sized up every lady employed by the club as if they were sides of venison. These were supposedly the best of Mayfair, the most powerful, the gentlemen every gentleman wished to be. She wouldn’t dare meet any of them in private—unless she was very much mistaken they were concerned only with their own enjoyment, their own reputations, and everyone else could go hang themselves.

Lord Fenton didn’t appear to be one of those men. Yes, he was entirely self-absorbed, but he didn’t seem … cruel. Merely uninterested in anything other than her hand with his ring on it. In light of what had transpired over the past year, and particularly over the past few weeks, she could tolerate that.

What she
wanted
for herself was another thing entirely. Perhaps being presented with Keating Blackwood, being literally close enough to touch him and not be able to keep him, was her punishment for straying from propriety in the first place. If that was so, it seemed utterly cruel to show her joy and delight and happiness, let her taste it, and then take it all away from her again.

For a moment or two she wished she could be one of those self-absorbed aristocrats and demand either that Keating continue to call on her after her marriage, or that he keep her for himself. But she’d seen the regret in his eyes when he talked about Lord and Lady Balthrow, and the … need he had to make things right for young Michael.

“You look very solemn,” he commented, tilting his head as he gazed at her. A strand of his dark, tousled hair fell across one eye, making him look younger and far more innocent than he truly was.

“I’ve a great deal to think about,” she returned, stroking the stray lock back behind his ear.

He cleared his throat. “Are you and your sisters close? Because I did notice that they barely spoke a single word between them earlier.”

“I thought we were. I can’t imagine what my parents must have said to them after I left, and they’re both far too young and … dependent to risk being put out of the house. If I’m able to mend any more fences, perhaps I’ll be able to talk with them about all this.”

Keating nodded. “And are you and I going to continue with our … friendship until your marriage?” he asked slowly.

The wisest thing would be to say no. She felt so tangled up in him, literally and physically, that prolonging the pleasure would only increase the pain. But giving him up when she didn’t yet have to would be even worse. “I am amenable to that.”

“Good.” Cupping her cheeks with both hands, Keating leaned into her for a deep, plundering kiss. “Then let’s not waste time.”

*   *   *

Keating didn’t leave The Tantalus Club until just after sunrise. Enough people had tried the jammed door in the upstairs sitting room that likely every employee knew what Camille and he had been up to, but she didn’t seem to mind. These women, after all, had all faced their own scandals. If nothing else, the club had at least gained her some true friends. Of course, whether they would be welcome at Pollard House after her marriage was another question entirely—and he had a good idea of the answer.

Greaves’s coach driver had evidently decided Keating wouldn’t be returning, because the vehicle was nowhere to be found on the street behind the club. With a sigh he hailed a hack and gave the address of Baswich House.

He had what he wanted, apparently. Camille had outright said she would marry Fenton. A few weeks ago he would have been ecstatic, already contacting his solicitor with arrangements to portion the blunt out to Eleanor and packing his trunks to return to his home in Shropshire. Havard’s Glen and the sheep and the quiet had been his haven when he’d desperately needed one. Without them he would likely have put a ball through his head by now.

Looking back, he’d been restless and angry and drinking far too much. His brawls in the local taverns were to the point they’d almost become local events, scheduled for the nights he’d sent off most of his income to London for dispersal to Eleanor. He hadn’t been angry that the money was going out; no, he’d been upset that there wasn’t more of it.