The Player (Rockliffe Book 3) (41 page)

Caroline wound her arms round his neck and blinked
the foolish tears away.

‘Why don’t you just kiss me?
 
Preferably without asking permission first.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ murmured Adrian, the ghost
of a smile back in his voice. ‘I wish I’d thought of it.’

And with a tiny gurgle of laughter, she said,
‘Yes.
 
So do I.’

Using one arm to pull her closer, he slid the
other into her hair to cradle her skull and burned a trail of kisses along her
cheek and jaw until he arrived at her lips.
 
Caroline sighed, feeling the warmth of his breath; and then his mouth
was on hers, suddenly not tentative at all but making it clear what he
wanted.
 
He’d kissed her before, both as
Claude Duvall and as himself, and every time had been sweeter than the
last.
 
But this was different.
 
This was need and hunger and demand … oddly
mingled with invitation.
 
This
sent sparks spiralling through her
veins until her bones started to dissolve in the resulting conflagration.
 
And when he released her mouth to nip gently
at her earlobe and slide his tongue over the hollow beneath, a wave of
answering desire washed over her.

Adrian found the acutely sensitive dip at the base
of her throat and savoured it while his hands moulded her back and hips.
 
Her skin was soft and honey-sweet.
 
He wanted to taste every inch of her and take
his time doing it.
 
He felt her untie his
hair and gather it into her hands while she rained kisses over his throat and
jaw.
 
A small purring groan escaped him
and he took her mouth again while his fingers sought and found the laces of her
gown. Distantly, he wondered how, in little more than a week, he had come to
feel this way. It felt as if he had been waiting for this one moment all of his
life.

He eased the gown from her shoulders and let it
slither to her feet.
 
Feeling it go but
continuing to explore the contours of his back through the fine lawn of his
shirt, Caroline murmured, ‘My lovely dress.’

‘Mm,’ breathed Adrian, lifting her clear of the
pool of silk.
 
‘My even lovelier
Caroline.’

 
He kissed
his way across her shoulders and let his hands stray to new, uncharted
territory.
 
She gasped and clung,
pressing herself as close as she could to the hard length of his body.
 
Molten heat was flooding every part of her
and setting up a clamour in her blood; a clamour for more of some mysterious
thing she could only identify with one word.
 
Adrian
.
 

Her stays followed her gown to the floor and when
his hands found new paths to follow, she gave a sobbing moan and tugged at his
shirt.

‘Please.’

‘Yes.’
 

His breathing as disrupted as hers, he released her
for the second it took to pull his shirt over his head and cast it aside. Immediately
aware of the dressing on his shoulder, she said helplessly, ‘Oh. I forgot.
 
Perhaps we shouldn’t …’

‘It’s fine.
 
I’m
fine,’ he managed.
 
‘And we absolutely should. Unless … unless …’

Then she pulled his head down to hers and his
brain stopped functioning.

Time sped up, slowed down … ceased to exist.
 
Clothing melted magically away until they
were lying skin to skin on the bed, burning with mutual fires as Adrian’s mouth
followed the teasing trail of his hands.
 

His every touch produced shocks of heat and
pleasure. Tremors shook her body and incoherent words tumbled from her
lips.
 
She hadn’t known it was possible
to feel like this; her entire body alight with sensation that left her poised
on the brink of some momentous discovery; and throughout it all, like a
shining, golden thread, the knowledge that this man … this beautiful,
incredible man was finally hers.
 

Adrian waited until he was sure, beyond any shadow
of doubt, that her hunger was as great as his own and that his self-control was
sufficient to offer the grace and care she deserved.
 
And then, he finally allowed himself to go
where he most wanted to be.

He soothed the first, inevitable moment of
discomfort away with kisses and murmured endearments in French.
 
Then he watched her eyes open on his, full of
wonder and love.
 
For a few seconds,
emotion gripped him even more fiercely than physical pleasure, almost stopping
his breath and driving out every thought save the one that thundered so loudly
through his head than he thought he might actually have said it.

I love you
.

Later, drifting in a sea of lassitude and bliss,
Caroline dozed for a time, her head pillowed on his good shoulder.
 
Then she said dreamily, ‘I thought I knew
what to expect … how it would be.
 
But I
didn’t.
 
Not at all.’

‘I hope you weren’t disappointed.’

She heard both the smile in his voice and the fact
that it wasn’t a question.

‘You know I wasn’t.’

‘Good.’
 
He
settled her a little closer.
 
‘It will be
better next time.’

‘Better?’
 
She
investigated the muscles of his chest. ‘Is that possible?’

The smile became a laugh but he said, ‘That and
many other things, sweetheart.’

Silence fell between them for a time but, at
length, Adrian said, ‘Do you remember that arrogant, bloodless fellow who
offered you marriage in Kensington Gardens?’

‘The one who said we might “deal agreeably
together”?’

‘Yes.
 
Him.’
Propping himself on one elbow, he concentrated on twining a lock of her hair
about his fingers. ‘I expected my re-entry into society to be fairly unpleasant
and thought a cold, forbidding demeanour would deflect the worst of it – so I
invented Sarre. He was the last in a long line of similar parts. Until this
last week, I’d become a rag-bag of all of them; a collection of miscellaneous
bits and pieces – so many that, somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten who I
really was. Or, at least, who I might have been had life worked out
differently.’ He raised his eyes to hers and said simply, ‘You made me remember
… and I could love you for that alone.
 
Except,
of course, that there’s so much more.’

Caroline’s breath snared in her throat and she said
raggedly, ‘Adrian – you don’t have to say anything.
 
I know you care for me and it’s enough.’

 
‘No. It’s
not.’
 
He laid a finger lightly against
her lips to stop her speaking. ‘Let me say it. It’s the least – the very least
I owe you.
 
And you deserve something
better than an emotional coward.’
 
He
paused briefly, struggling to find the words he needed. ‘You should know that there’s
been a … a sort of void inside me for years.
 
A dark empty place that I’d become so used to, I no longer noticed it was
there.
 
And then you came along and, in
some way I can’t explain, you made me whole again. So I don’t just care for
you, my darling.
 
I need you and want you
and … love you.’
 
Sliding his hand to cup
her cheek, he said softly, ‘There.
 
I’ve
finally managed to say it. I love you, Caroline Devereux.
 
And I’ve known it since the moment that
objectionable parson declared us man and wife because that was when – though I
tried not to admit it, even to myself – I realised how afraid I’d been that you
might change your mind. The possibility that you could still leave … the idea
of you no longer being here to fill my life is the very worst thing I can think
of.’

‘Then don’t think it.’
 
She twisted her head to kiss his palm. ‘Don’t
ever think it again.’

‘No. Perhaps now I won’t.’
 
He kissed her slowly and then folded her
against his chest.
 
‘There’s one other
thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘There were a lot of good, practical reasons for
letting Marcus go … but the truth is that the thing that tipped the balance in
his favour wasn’t any of them.
 
I let him
go because I realised that, albeit unwittingly and unintentionally, he’d
finally done me a favour.’

Caroline held him a little tighter.
 
She said, ‘He shot you.
 
I don’t see anything good in that – or
anything else he could do that might outweigh it.’

 
‘Then you
haven’t thought, darling.’
 
There was a
smile in his voice, along with rare, naked emotion. ‘But for him, you and I
might never have met.
 
So in essence,
he’s brought me the most precious gift in the world.
 
You.’

‘That is so …’ She swallowed hard.
 
‘I don’t know what to say to you.’

‘No?
 
Don’t
you want to take advantage of my currently weakened state by making me promise
something I’ll probably regret?’

‘You’ve already promised me everything I
want.
 
How could I possibly …?’ She
stopped, realising that he was teasing because he didn’t want her to shed tears
now – not even ones of undiluted happiness . ‘Oh.
 
Anything?’

‘Anything,’ he agreed, wondering what she’d
choose.

‘Then … will you take me to your gaming-club?’

She felt the shock of his laughter.

‘God.
 
I
expected a surprise – but not that.’

‘Will you?’

‘If that’s what you want – yes.’

‘And to visit Grandpa Maitland?’

‘Yes. And to the stars, if you like.’

For a moment there was silence as Caroline nestled
a little closer.
 
Then she murmured
wickedly, ‘What – again?’

~
 
*
 
*
~
 
*
 
*
 
~

 
The
Legend of Claude Duvall

Here lies
Duvall; Reader, if Male thou art

Look to thy
purse – if Female, to thy heart.

Much havoc
has he made of both; for all

Men he made
to stand and Women he made to fall.

The second
Conqueror of the Norman race

Knights to
his arms did yield and Ladies to his face.

Old
Tyburn’s
glory; England’s illustrious thief

Duvall, the
Ladies’ joy

Duvall, the
Ladies’ grief.

Born in France in 1643, Claude Duvall was hanged
at Tyburn on January 21
^st
, 1670.