Winning Lord West (9 page)

His eyes darkened, and a muscle flickered in
his hard cheek. “Merciful God.”

She tugged at the damp strands of hair at his
nape. “Good?”

“Damn good.”

This time she contracted on purpose, and
exulted in his shudder. Giving West pleasure was a pleasure.
Perhaps he hadn’t been quite as unselfish with her as she’d
credited. She arched up to bite his neck, and he shuddered
again.

“You’ll kill me before you’re done,” he
grated out.

“At least you’ll die smiling.”

Her eyelids fluttered in bliss at the slow
glide away. When he slid inside again, she rose to meet him,
bringing him deeper.

Helena’s wordless encouragement broke some
last bastion of his will. He began to move with inexorable purpose.
She thrilled to his male power. His breath escaped in soft grunts,
and his muscles turned hard and hot as granite under a noonday
sun.

With luxuriant enjoyment, she ran her hands
down his long back to his firm buttocks. How she loved West’s
possession. She felt like the only woman in the world.

Astonishingly, as he pursued that relentless
rhythm, a now familiar response fermented in the pit of her
stomach. The sensation spread, flooding her with heat. By the time
his control frayed, she trembled on the verge.

He surged up hard and fast. The tendons on
his neck stood out in relief. His grip on her hips turned
unyielding. On a great groan, he plunged one last time.

She dived into the fire, closing hard around
him. This response was deeper and purer than the first time. As she
crashed out of the mundane world into the brilliance of the sun,
West stayed with her. Her fingernails scored his shoulders, and she
arched toward him in shaking, incoherent delight.

“Damn it, Hel,” he bit out.

As she
quivered in helpless rapture, he held her beneath him.
Then
with another rasping groan, he wrenched out, and pumped his seed
onto her naked belly.

West rolled off Helena and slumped facedown
in the tangled sheets. He gasped for air. She’d been the answer to
a dream—better than a dream. Damn it, he’d come so close to
spilling himself inside her. He’d never taken the act right to the
edge like that before. Withdrawing had nearly killed him.

The magic of Helena.

“West?” she asked in a threadbare voice
beside him.

“Nggrrr,” he managed. If she expected a
coherent conversation after that thunderous ride, she overestimated
his stamina.

“West, talk to me.”

God help him, the woman really wanted a chat.
When at last he managed to shift, he was surprised he didn’t creak.
He’d given her everything he had. He never wanted to move
again.

Exhaustion weighted his limbs, but the need
to care for her forced him from the bed. He stoked the fire before
crossing to the washstand. The water in the jug was still blessedly
warm. He cleaned himself off, then splashed fresh water into the
bowl, collected a cloth, and returned to the bed.

Helena lay splayed against the pillows like a
naked odalisque. In recent years, she’d always been elegant and
self-possessed. Seeing her like this, disheveled, flushed with
passion, thick black hair spread about her and showing an endearing
and previously unnoticed tendency to curl, made him feel she let
him in on a wonderful secret.

“Come here.” He piled the pillows behind her
and helped her sit up.

When he began to wipe away the sticky mess,
she caught his wrist. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least a gentleman can do.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

He met her gaze. She looked tired and
replete. “So now you know there’s nothing wrong with you?”

It still boggled the mind that Crewe hadn’t
been able to satisfy his wife. She was desire incarnate.

“You know, some people say I have a sharp
tongue, and a few brave souls accuse me of intellectual
arrogance.”

He wrung out the cloth and stroked between
her legs. Her lack of self-consciousness was unexpected and
gratifying. “Brave to the point of foolhardy.” His amusement faded.
“You’re the kind of woman a man longs for all his life. Passionate.
Responsive. Generous. Beautiful.”

“West, you wax poetic.”

The sardonic response didn’t rattle him. The
change from sweetness to irony meant she was afraid. Right now, his
Helena scrambled to restore damaged defenses.

He’d let her do that. Because no defense
could keep him out, not when he’d been deep inside her and touched
her soul.

“Don’t I just?” He set the bowl on the floor
and slid into bed beside her. “Move over.”

“Are you staying?”

“You said you wanted to talk. And as always,
I’m your humble servant.”

“Not so humble.”

How true. They were both proud creatures. If
they weren’t, they’d have found their way back to each other before
this. “No, not so humble. Shall I stay?”

“Yes, please.” With beguiling eagerness, she
curled up beside him.

He pulled the covers up. Now he wasn’t mad to
possess this woman within the next minute, the air was cold on his
bare skin. Helena had whipped him into a frenzy where nothing else
mattered. He could hardly wait for her to do it again.

When she leaned her head on his shoulder, his
embrace firmed. Generally he didn’t linger to cuddle and confide.
But his gut knotted in denial at the thought of leaving this bed.
“Comfortable?”

“Oh, yes.” She tipped her face up. “By the
way, I was thanking you for something else entirely.”

He smiled. “Gad, what an obliging fellow I
must be, if you have so much to thank me for.”

She arched her eyebrows, but didn’t squash
his pretensions. “If you want to corner me into marrying you, a
pregnancy is a powerful bargaining chip.”

West shrugged. “I don’t need to cheat to
win.”

She tensed without moving away. “So you’re
still committed to that nonsensical proposal?”

After what they’d just done, nonsensical was
the last thing he’d call making Helena his wife. “We settled on an
affair.”

“While we’re here.”

“Until you choose to end it.” He dipped his
head to kiss her shoulder. She smelled delectable. Warm, sated
woman. “Let’s not quarrel.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t disagree. If what
they’d done had changed him—and he was still discovering how
much—it seemed to have changed her, too.

She relaxed and rubbed her cheek against his
shoulder. The artless, affectionate gesture set his heart
stuttering in a way that should worry him. But he was too damned
pleased with life to seek out trouble.

“Precautions were unnecessary.”

Some women tracked the weeks to work out the
safest times for a tumble. Given Helena hadn’t taken a lover since
Crewe, he hadn’t expected her to bother. “I’ve never trusted the
counting method.”

She shook her head. “Nothing so complicated.
My best guess is I’m barren. There was never any sign that I’d
conceived with Crewe.”

“You forbade him your bed.”

“After a year or so. He was attentive at the
beginning—however many other women he pursued at the same
time.”

“I’d kill him for you if I could.”

Her gaze was puzzled. “You sound like you
mean that.”

“Believe me, lovely, I do.”

She stretched up to kiss him. A contact
without heat, steeped in friendship. Odd that it should shake him
as deeply as those voracious kisses when he’d been inside her.

“Thank you.” With a sigh, she settled back
against him. “I’m sorry I spent all these years blaming you. It was
childish. My disastrous marriage is my fault.”

West sat up abruptly, dislodging her from his
chest. “You were a naïve girl, just seventeen, and Crewe set out to
snare you.”

She looked troubled, lying upon the pillows
and staring up at him from fathomless black eyes. “I should have
been clever enough to see what he was.”

“At that stage, few people did. In his
younger days, he did his best to hide his vices. I’d known him
longer than you, and I assumed like most of us, he sowed a few wild
oats before settling down. And he could be damned charming when he
wanted something. You didn’t stand a chance. You’ve stopped blaming
me for what happened. It’s time to stop blaming yourself.”

He watched her consider his statement without
accepting it. By God, before they left Woodley, he’d convince her
to forgive herself, or die trying. “I have a suspicion about
Crewe.”

Her lips twitched. “I had lots of suspicions
about Crewe. Most of which unfortunately proved true.”

“For a man who scattered his seed far and
wide, I never heard he fathered a bastard.”

“Oh? Perhaps he was careful.”

Not bloody likely. “Perhaps he was
sterile.”

A faint line appeared between her marked
black brows. “The opium and brandy can’t have helped.”

West shrugged and lay down, sliding his arm
around her. “It’s purely a theory. But if you’re embarking on a
life of sin, don’t rely too much on past history.”

“A life of sin?”

He smiled at her. “Obviously I’d like you to
sin with me alone.”

Her lips flattened in disapproval. “That
would be like getting married.”

“Perish the thought.”

A surprisingly peaceful silence fell as she
snuggled against him. What a night it had been—and a million miles
from what he’d expected. He hadn’t been sure he’d manage to steal a
kiss, and now they were lovers.

“Are you tired?” she murmured after a long
while. She inched one hand under the sheet and across his
belly.

West, who
had lapsed into a pleasant reverie, went on instant alert.
“Are you?”

Her black eyes sparked with devilry. She
looked like the spirited girl, not the self-contained and acerbic
widow he’d known in London. “We’re only here another week. Time’s
a-wasting.”

With one powerful movement, he rolled over
her, staring down into a face alight with laughter and desire.
“I’ve acquired an imperious mistress.”

Her hands ran up his chest and linked behind
his neck. “Aren’t you lucky?”

“Aren’t I just?” His cock hardened and nudged
between her legs. One part of him wasn’t sleepy at all.

She kissed him, her mouth hot and eager.
While his tongue swept between her lips, he toyed with her nipple.
She tilted her hips in brazen invitation.

Sizzling sensual pleasure beckoned. West
wasn’t a man to say no.

When Helena wandered downstairs the next day,
it was close to noon. She made her way to the morning room where
Caro and Fenella sat gossiping over tea.

West’s theory that her fellow Dashing Widows
were too spellbound to notice much else around them was borne out.
Helena was a notorious early riser—most days in London she rode in
Hyde Park at dawn—but neither of her friends questioned her tardy
appearance.

Helena fell upon the tea table with
enthusiasm. A night of debauchery played havoc with a polite
appetite.

“That’s a pretty dress,” Fenella said from
the couch near the fire. As usual, she had her embroidery on her
lap. “I haven’t seen it before.”

With a self-conscious gesture, Helena’s hand
strayed to the high lace neckline. She’d bought the yellow and
white gown last season, but had decided she didn’t like its
Elizabethan collar. She had no idea why her maid had packed it. But
when she’d looked in her mirror this morning and seen the marks of
West’s teeth, she’d decided this dress was her latest favorite.
“It’s new.”

“More demure than you usually wear,” Caro
said from the sofa.

Helena’s cheeks heated. Making a great show
of filling her cup, she avoided her friends’ eyes. “I feel like a
change of style. Would either of you like tea?”

“I’ll ring for more,” Caro said. “That’s been
sitting there for half an hour.”

While Caro summoned a footman and arranged
more refreshments, Helena sought a seat in the room’s darkest
corner. Luckily it was a typical February day, gray, wet,
miserable. Gloomy. Despite copious amounts of Milk of Roses, her
face was still pink with whisker burn. Tonight, she’d make sure
that West shaved before he came to her, however exciting his beard
had felt rasping against her skin.

Tonight…

How odd it felt to anticipate a meeting with
a lover. And what a lover. She shivered to recall the way his mouth
had explored every inch of her. From her toes to her eyebrows and
everything—everything!—in between. She shifted on her brocade chair
and stifled a gasp of discomfort. Today her body ached in so many
unfamiliar places.

“Amy’s back the day after tomorrow,” Caro
said, returning to her place without looking at Helena, which was a
good thing. She feared she looked completely besotted.

The woeful fact was that she felt completely
besotted. She put it down to discovering sexual fulfillment so late
in life. But right now, her logical world was awash with
butterflies and unicorns and rainbows.

“I’ve never met her,” Fen said. “She lives
here most of the time, doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” Helena said. “She does a jolly good
job of running the place. She might be only seventeen, but she’s
quite the expert on modern farming. The rest of the family arrives
the day before the wedding.”

Heaven help her, she’d better get a grip on
her reactions before her younger sister turned up. Her two oldest
sisters, Mary and Sally, would be too busy managing their broods of
children to pay her much heed. But Amy had the sharpest eyes in
England—and the least discretion. It was lucky she was staying with
Sally right now, or Helena’s fall from grace would no longer be a
secret.

“It’s a pity Robert couldn’t be here, too,”
Caro said. “He’s mapping some obscure corner of the South American
coast and couldn’t get leave.”

“I haven’t met him either,” Fen said.