A Dangerous Love

His gaze narrowed.

“I swear.” She breathed hard, shaking now. “I heard the music, I could not help myself.”

His stare remained enigmatic. “And were you amused? Did our primitive way entertain you?”

She inhaled. “The music…the dancing…it is wonderful.”

He made a sound. His attention slid to the edge of her bodice. “Isn’t it late, Miss de Warenne, for a stroll across your lawns?”

He was too close. She could feel his heat and smell his scent. She could so easily touch him if she tried. Her anxiety escalated. “Yes. I should go. I am sorry to intrude.” She started to rush past him.

He seized her wrist, restraining her. “But you are my guest.”

Her entire arm, bare to the cap sleeve of her dress, was pressed against the hot, wet skin of his chest. She felt dizzy, faint. The hollow aching became acute. “Is that what you told them?”

“We do not like gadjos in our midst.” Suddenly he smiled at her. “But you have become the exception to our rule.”

Didn’t he care that he was indecently dressed and practically naked? Didn’t he know that he held her entire arm against his chest? Couldn’t he feel her trembling with more than distress, with more than fear?

“Do you really want to go?” he murmured, his tone becoming a caress.

She stared into his warm eyes. She didn’t want to leave and they both knew it.

“The evening has only begun.”

“I don’t know…I only came to investigate.” The moment she spoke, she realized how bigoted that sounded.

“Most proper ladies would not dare such an investigation at such an hour,” he said. He released her arm.

She could have moved farther away from him, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked at his muscular chest where she’d just been so intimately pressed. His abdomen was concave. She reached up to touch her cheek—it was on fire. And her own body was perspiring almost as much as his.

He smiled again. He leaned close. “But an improper lady might venture out at such an hour. Can I help your investigation?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Of course you did. You want to compare.” He sent her a rather cool smile and took her arm.

He tugged her to a small table near one of the wagons, farther from the dancers. He poured two glasses of wine from a hefty jug, handing one to her. Before she could refuse, he drank thirstily, as if the wine were water. His gaze moved down to the edge of her silk bodice.

Her nipples tightened. That look was as bold as if he’d reached inside her dress, past chemise and corset. “I didn’t mean that I had come to investigate.”

“Of course you did. Drink the wine. You will enjoy the night even more fully.”

“I have already had wine with supper.”

His white teeth gleamed. “But you are so nervous, as much as a schoolgirl or debutante. I do not bite, Miss de Warenne. Nor do I cheat or steal—or seduce unwilling ladies. It is Miss de Warenne, is it not?” His attention strayed to her left hand.

She came to her senses. “It is Miss de Warenne. I don’t believe in stereotyping. Of course you don’t cheat or steal— or seduce unwilling women.” She thought she flushed. This man had a way of making his every word seem sexually suggestive.

His brows lifted. “So you are the single gadjo without prejudice? How laudable.”

“Bigotry is wrong and I am not a prejudiced person,” she managed.

He turned aside, lashes lowering, but not before sending her a long glance.

Ariella raised her glass and took a gulp of the wine. Had that look meant what she thought it did? She gulped again. She had seen her father, her uncles, even her brother and cousins look at women that way. That look had one meaning. What should she do?

She should stay and let him kiss her.

Almost in disbelief, ready to wonder if this were a dream, she took another draft of the wine. She was an enlightened thinker. She didn’t care about propriety and she had never been interested in a kiss before. There was no doubt about it—she was highly interested now.

As if he sensed her decision, he murmured, “If you did not come here to investigate, then I wish to do so.” He laid his hand on her waist.

She tensed, but not with fear. Instead, her body hummed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I wish to understand why a beautiful, unwed and proper lady of your age is wandering into my encampment in the middle of the night.”

“I am passionate,” she whispered, “about knowledge. I want to know more about the Romany people.”

“The Romany people—or me?”

She went still.

“Give up the pretense,” he murmured. His hand moved up her side, a shocking caress. “You didn’t come for the music or for them. You came for me. I am your investigation.”

Ariella couldn’t speak. He was right.

His smile twisted as he pulled her closer. “You aren’t the first Englishwoman to wish for a Romany lover.”

She started to protest but he murmured, “Why else would you come to me, gadji, at such an hour?”

She had no answer to make. She stuttered, “I don’t know… I wanted to come…I was drawn.”

“Good. Be drawn. I wish for you to want me.” His eyes smoldered. “We are open about our passions. Wait here.”

Ariella stared after him, shaken, while he went back to the crowd. She saw him pause before the violinist, an older white-haired man. She realized she was hardly the only woman staring at him with yearning. The younger Romni women were beautiful, and a few of them were watching Emilian as closely as she was.

But he returned to Ariella, smiling and holding out his hand. “Dance with me.”

Dancing had never interested her and she had two left feet. Did he think to have her whirl about like the Gypsy women? She would be a laughingstock. “I can’t dance.”

“All women can dance,” he murmured again, very, very softly. Suddenly the strains of a waltz began, coming from the violin. “The music is for us.”

She was surprised, but before she could finish an internal debate, he took her hand and reeled her slowly in. Suddenly they stood hip to hip, thigh to thigh. His hands closed on her shoulders, her back. He swayed his body, moving her with him. She had never known such a sensation of male strength and male promise.

Their bodies were almost fused. Her cheek had somehow found the bare skin of his chest. She shuddered. All she could think of was his soft breath on her ear, and his hard manhood, so obviously aroused, against her hip. This wasn’t the waltz: this was a couple swaying to soft music, the brush of breast against chest, the rubbing of loins and hips. This was a prelude to passion.

He said against her ear, “This night is for lovers.”

She didn’t want to move her cheek from his wet skin, but she looked up. He had danced her over to the trees, where the night was heavy and dark.

“Can you feel the music in your body, against your skin?” he whispered. “Can you feel it in your blood?” His gaze was searing. “It is throbbing there, with need, with passion.” His mouth twisted. “Do you want to kiss a Gypsy?”

They weren’t moving now. They stood in an embrace and she felt her heart thundering—or was it his? And she felt herself nod. She thought she might die for his kiss.

“I thought so.” He suddenly caught her face in his hands. “Be forewarned, I never do anything halfheartedly.”

Ariella whispered, “Emilian.”

His eyes blazed. He covered her mouth with his and Ariella stiffened, for his lips were hard, fierce and demanding. She gasped as the pressure became painful; he made a sound, and before she knew it, he had thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth. Alarm began. She pushed at his shoulders. This wasn’t the kind of kiss she had expected—she wasn’t sure it was a kiss at all. There was rage in his actions.

He went still.

She began to shake, frightened, for now she realized she was truly at his mercy. Her strength was no match for his.

He tore his mouth from hers. Ariella again tried to push away. This had been a terrible mistake. But he caught her and held her against his hard, trembling body, his arms a vise from which there was no escape. “Don’t go.”

She continued to shake in genuine alarm. But standing still, his body throbbing against hers, she felt her own pulse begin to surge and race. He hadn’t hurt her, she reminded herself, but for one moment, she had sensed that an explosion of brutality was imminent, a violence for which she had been entirely unprepared.

His tone was soft. “I won’t hurt you. I want to love you. Let me.” She felt a shudder go through him as he looked down at her.

His eyes weren’t cool or mocking, nor did they blaze with a heat that was almost angry. They were searching for permission from her.

That hollow feeling inside her became acute. Her breasts tightened impossibly. She became aware of his arousal between them. She shifted. Flames fired across her belly, between her thighs. He made a harsh sound.

And before she could even decide whether to allow him any further privileges, he caught her face in his large hands. She tensed but he only lowered his mouth to hers, slowly.

His lips brushed hers, just barely, like the touch of a feather. Her heart exploded, as did so much sensation that she ceased to think. He dragged his mouth across hers, again and again, and her eyes closed as she began to swim in the pleasure of heat and sensation. He rubbed his lips back and forth, testing and teasing, until her lips were soft, open.

He made a sound, rough laughter, and his tongue flicked the seam of her lips. Ariella gasped, seeking his tongue with her own. He deftly avoided her, this time closing his mouth over hers for a long, deep, endless kiss.

She spun. The fever in her body became a conflagration; she moaned and he sparred with her, tongue to tongue. She pressed against his huge hardness shamelessly now. He laughed again, clasping her buttocks through her skirts and petticoats, hard. He hiked her higher, against him.

She moaned, clinging, lips locked. Somehow he had positioned himself exactly where she needed him to be and she felt maddened with urgency now. She moved more frantically upon him.

The kiss raged on. Vaguely she felt his hand slipping up her leg, inside her thigh, beneath her skirts and over her silk drawers. She gasped with more wild pleasure. Vaguely, she knew that this was far more than a simple kiss and she did not care.

Without hesitation, his fingers slid into the slit of her drawers, against her bare, wet skin. Ariella whimpered, tearing her mouth away, pressing her face to his hard, wet chest. She was blinded now. She wasn’t sure what she wanted—other than more unbearable friction. She wept.

He spoke to her in his language, slid his entire hand inside her drawers, palming her, cupping her. She became dizzier. He spoke, rough and guttural, but in English now. “Come for me.”

She didn’t understand. Who cared? The trees whirled and she bit down hard, tasting his sweaty skin and his blood.

She was still spinning when she realized he had laid her down on the ground, in the wet grass. The terrible, wonderful spasms slowed and dulled. Her breathing remained labored. She felt his fingers on the bare skin of her back. She tried to understand the pleasure and passion she had just had. Now, she could comprehend why love was so highly coveted.

His fingers skimmed lower on her spine. Ariella blinked and opened her eyes. Emilian knelt beside her, his face strained with passion. He was attempting to divest her of her dress. She seized his wrist reflexively.

His smoldering gray eyes shot to hers. Surprise tainted the desire smoking there.

She breathed hard. “Wait.”

His eyes narrowed. Suspicion began.

“What…what are you doing?” Her skirts were tangled around her waist and she lay sprawled like a ragged doll. She sat up, and some sense of modesty began. She jerked her skirts down. Her bodice slid downward, but she pulled it up and looked at him.

He sat back on his heels, dangerously annoyed. “You wish to stop now?” He spoke far too softly.

“I…I didn’t come for this.”

“Of course you did.” Anger flared in his eyes. “You came for passion. You want to compare me to your English lovers. I am not satisfied,” he added in a dark tone.

The top buttons of his breeches had come undone, as if they could not bear the strain of what lay beneath the fabric. She wanted to speak but couldn’t.

“That pleasure is nothing compared to the pleasure we will have when I am buried inside your body.” He reached out and stroked her face. “Let me make you cry out in pleasure another time. Let me cry out in pleasure, too.”

She went still.

He began to smile. “We both know this is why you came to me.” He reached for her bodice and gripped it.

She clung harder. It would be so easy to give in to this man. His words, his look, were mesmerizing. But a kiss was one thing. This was another. She wanted to go further, but she also wanted to keep him at bay until she could understand what was happening. “This is a misunderstanding,” she whispered.

His eyes went wide.

“I didn’t come to compare you to my other lovers.” She held her bodice up fiercely now. “There are no other lovers.”

He just stared at her, his expression so uncertain it was almost comical.

“I’m not even married,” she whispered. Did she have to be more succinct? “No one my age has lovers. Women my age have husbands first.”

A terrible silence fell.

She became nervous. How had he assumed she was a woman looking for an illicit affair?

“Do not tell me you are a virgin,” he said. “Virgins do not wander about at midnight, to rendezvous with and tease strange men.”

She hesitated. He looked as savage as a lion awoken from a deep sleep while in its den. “I don’t know why I came…to see you…. I only wanted a kiss.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HIS STRIDES WERE SO LONG and hard that she had to run to keep up with him. Ariella stumbled. “Wait!”

He didn’t answer her and he didn’t pause. His profile was a taut mask of frustration and anger. He was heading up the hill, toward the sleeping house. Clearly he wished for her to return home and this was his manner of escorting her safely back.

“I am so sorry,” she cried, racing to catch up to him. Of course he had expected a liaison—her behavior had been so bold. But why was he so angry now? “I didn’t mean to mislead you.”

He finally looked at her, halting so abruptly that she went past him. He caught her arm, dragging her back to his side. “If you don’t wish to mislead a man, stay in your fine, fancy house, in your fine, fancy bed, where well-bred virgins belong at this hour!”

She trembled, dismayed. “My curiosity led me astray. I heard the music and it was so enchanting.” She hesitated, because that was only half of the truth. She had been curious about him. He was clearly unmoved. “I meant to watch from a distance. I didn’t mean to intrude. I didn’t think anyone would notice me. I didn’t mean for…anything…to happen.”

His mouth curved, but not with mirth. “Didn’t you?”

She tensed. “Of course not!”

“The way you looked at me this afternoon—and this evening—left me with one inescapable conclusion.” He spoke so softly she could barely discern his words.

“You are wrong,” she tried, but he was right and they both knew it.

His expression hardened.

She hugged herself, flushing. “All right! I will admit that I was staring at you, but surely you are accustomed to ladies admiring you. I did not mean to be coy—I have never been coy in my life.” She felt herself blushing. She would never admit she had started thinking about his hard, male body when she had seen him dancing—and even earlier, during his confrontation with her father.

“That,” he said harshly, “I do not believe. I believe you know exactly how to use your blue eyes to inflame a man— and you did so with purpose.” His eyes flickered. “You inflamed me.”

She was already breathless. Her pulse surged wildly in response to his frank words. Too well, she recalled being in his arms, their mouths fused, their bodies on fire. She didn’t want to leave, not yet. In fact, a new and wanton part of her wished to explore what they had begun.

His laughter was harsh, as if he knew what she was thinking and feeling. “You need to go, before my baser nature defeats my sense of honor. It is getting light out. You have a reputation to maintain and I am not inclined to maintain it for you.”

The sky was beginning to gray, but she did not move. They couldn’t part company this way, especially when he was leaving Rose Hill shortly. “Why are you so angry? I am sorry—I have already said so, twice. Will you accept my apology?”

“Why should I? I do not like being played, Miss de Warenne.”

Her heart slammed. He was not going to accept an apology from her, even after she had explained her intentions.

He laughed harshly. “Am I the first man that will not do as you wish when you flutter your lashes at him?”

“I am not a flirt,” she said.

“Good night.” He nodded abruptly at the house, clearly wishing her to go.

Ariella took a deep breath, determined. “We have gotten off to a terrible start.” She smiled at him. “Obviously a third apology will not soothe you, so I won’t offer it. But can we start over again? We hardly know one another. I should like to further our acquaintance, if at all possible.”

His eyes widened and then narrowed, gleaming. “Really? How odd. Proper ladies—proper virgins—do not have Gypsy acquaintances. In fact, the ladies who wish for my acquaintance want one thing and one thing only—which you have clearly refused.”

“I will not believe that,” she whispered, aghast. Surely he was exaggerating!

He shrugged. “I do not care what you believe. Now that our ill-fated liaison is over, I do not care about you at all, Miss de Warenne.”

His words actually hurt. After what they had just shared, she could not believe he meant them. “I think you have decided to dislike me, although I cannot comprehend why. I think you decided to dislike me this afternoon, almost at first sight, even though I was trying to help you convince my father to let you stay the night here. Yet you liked me well enough a moment ago.”

He stared. Finally he said, every muscle in his face tensing, “Spoken with so much naiveté, I might actually believe you.”

“I am hardly naive,” Ariella said.

“I did not ask for this,” he continued roughly. “I did not ask for a beautiful fairy-tale princess to appear in my life, offering me a temptation I can barely refuse. You are a noblewoman, an heiress. You will clearly wed some English Prince Charming one day—and he will take your innocence in an ivory tower. Go home, Miss de Warenne, where you belong.” He turned to go.

She was finally angry and she seized his arm. She wasn’t strong enough to detain him, but he faced her, his eyes as cold and turbulent as a winter storm. “If I refuse to judge you, why do you insist on judging me? You know nothing about me. I am not like other women of my class and age, desperate for a proper husband and home, and while it might appear I am like those ladies who wish for your attentions, I am not like them, either. I did not seek you out for a love affair!”

“No, but you did seek me out.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Let us cut to the chase. What do you want from me, Miss de Warenne?”

She inhaled. Although she instantly recalled his torrid kisses and his shockingly sensual touch, she did not hesitate. “I want to be friends.”

He laughed. “Impossible.”

“Why? Why is it impossible? I know you are leaving tomorrow, but we can exchange letters. We could even meet a few times before you leave Derbyshire.”

He choked. “Exchange letters? Meet?” He looked at her as if she were mad.

“I am interested in getting to know you, and letters are the perfect way to further our acquaintance. As for meeting, why is that suggestion so shocking? Surely you like to converse.”

“You wish to meet and converse?”

“That is what friends do.” She smiled at him. She thought her plan a capital one.

“We are not friends,” he said harshly. “I have no friends— nor do I want any!”

She was in disbelief. “Everyone has friends.”

“You do not want friendship and we both know it.” He pointed at her. His hand shook. “You are a de Warenne heiress! Your friends are tony!”

“I have all kinds of eccentric friends in town!”

“When I demanded you cut to the chase, I was merely curious as to how you would respond—and with how much subterfuge. I know why you came to the camp tonight. You sought me out for passion, Miss de Warenne, not friendship. I caught your interest and you wished to be in my arms, although not my bed. You wish to exchange letters? You wish to converse? I think not. In fact, I don’t think you very different from my gadji lovers. The difference is you only want safe kisses.” His eyes blazed. “And the kind of pleasure I so recently gave you.”

Ariella stared, taken aback, but not by his candor. He was partly right—after what had just happened, how could she not yearn to be in his arms? But why didn’t he believe that she was interested in friendship, too? She was eager to know what he thought of the world!

“I have been a sexual object for the ladies of the ton, and now, I am an object of sexual fascination for a virgin princess.” He seemed disgusted.

Ariella wasn’t quite sure what his statement meant, precisely, but she would think about it later. “I can’t possibly forget our kiss,” she said slowly. “How could I? I had no idea a kiss could be so wonderful. But I do want to be friends, Emilian. I always say what I mean. I have many unusual friends in town. If you truly have no friends—and I pray you are dissembling—then I will be the first.”

“What the hell did you mean, that you had no idea a kiss could be so wonderful?” he demanded. “I do hope you are not going to tell me that was your first kiss.”

“Why would that distress you?”

His eyes widened impossibly. “No one has ever kissed you before?”

“No, no one ever has. You gave me my first kiss. And I have no regrets—not a single one,” she cried, flushing.

He snarled, “Then I have enough regrets for the two of us.”

She inhaled. “You don’t mean that!”

“Go home and wait for Prince Charming. And stay there—with your unusual friends.”

He was rejecting her offer of friendship. Ariella was in disbelief. “But you are leaving in the morning! We can’t part this way.”

“Why not?”

She wet her lips, her heart thundering. “It isn’t right,” she floundered. “We just shared passion, Emilian.”

“We shared a simple kiss, one you will soon forget.”

She shook her head. “No. I won’t forget it. Please consider an exchange of letters!” she cried.

“Just go,” he roared.

She flinched but couldn’t tell her feet to move. How could this be happening?

He turned furiously, strode down the hill, and did not look back a single time.

AS IF A SPIDER caught in her web, he was drawn back to the bottom of the hill. He stared up at the house.

The sun had risen over an hour ago, but the camp was hardly stirring, due to the celebration the night before. He had not slept. He had not even thought to try. Emilian stared up at the de Warenne mansion. He did not want to lust after Ariella de Warenne, especially not now. He did not quite trust himself with his lust. There was too much rage.

He whirled and started back to the camp. He hoped to never encounter her again. Mariko could take care of his needs, as could a dozen well-bred Derbyshire wives. He had meant his every word. That morning had been goodbye. There would not be an exchange of letters or a flurry of meetings. He hadn’t asked for a woman like that to appear in his life, especially not now, when he was grieving and enraged.