Heated water was a luxury he often did not concern himself with, leaving the parlor maids who worked at The Sinner’s Palace to tend to his sisters instead. “Heated water is for nobs. I ain’t a nob.”
He hated himself for the rusty sound of his voice. For the weakness in his flesh. For the temptation she presented.
She lingered, not bothering to put any distance between them, though her task was complete. “Hart?”
He ground his molars against another violent wave of longing. “Milady?”
“Emma, if you please,” she said. “Milady sounds like an insult.”
That was because it was an insult.
A reminder she inhabited a different world than he did. That she was the enemy.
“Emma,” he allowed. “You should dress.”
“Why?” Her chin went up, her daring defiance making its stunning return. “You paid for me. Should you not have me?”
Floating fucking hell.
Those words swirled around him, the greatest temptation he had ever known. Have me.
“What game is this?” he forced out.
“Your game,” she said, and then she caught her night rail in her fists and pulled it over her head. “Take what you paid for, Hart. I cannot bear more of this suspense.”
Bastard that he was, his eyes roved every part of that lovely form. Her shoulders were elegant and smooth, accented by the protrusion of her collarbones. Her breasts were full and pale, tipped with pebbled, pink nipples. His gaze traveled down, along the sweetness of her waist, the fullness of her hips. To the golden curls between her legs. And God, all the rest of her, from her toes to her lustrous hair, was utter seduction.
“Take me,” she said.
Hart was lost. His hands were moving, landing on warm, silken skin the color of fresh cream. She was soft, so soft. And she smelled decadently lovely, and she was naked, and she was his for the next week and she had just offered herself to him. How was he to resist?
The last of his control, already painfully stretched to the brink, snapped. He pulled her into him and lowered his head, claiming her lips with his.
* * *
Emma’s armstwined around Hart’s neck as he dragged her into his solid frame with a strong arm. One hand clamped on her waist, his fingers biting into her tender flesh with a possessive touch that was not painful and yet was commanding and firm. His other hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers tightening on her hair, as he angled her head and devoured her mouth. His lips were full, hot and insistent, moving over hers with skilled authority.
His kiss was not anything like Lord Vincent’s had been. That tepid moment in the shadowy alcove at the Addington ball paled, as interesting as sawdust in comparison. Hart’s kiss was like air after having been deprived of breath. His mouth was a prayer, answered. Her lips responded, coaxed by his, as he showed her what he wanted.
And she gave herself to him, gave him her lips the way she would do the rest of her. Take me, she would have said if she had been capable of speech. Take everything I have to give, make me feel whole again. But her mouth was sealed to his, and there was no time for words.
She had not felt the same since her spectacular fall from grace. The pressure on her to make a match had been tremendous, and she had failed. Had failed miserably. Failed her sisters, put their futures in jeopardy. One stupid kiss, one reckless moment, and it had not been worth the weight of the shame, the sting of the punishment, the abject loss of the stature she had enjoyed in polite society. She might have secured the perfect husbands for Abigail and Cassandra. But she had been selfish and weak, easily charmed by a handsome lord who had led her astray and then fled at the first sign of scandal.
He had not paid the price.
But she had.
Only, this moment, her body pressed to Hart’s, did not feel like a punishment. Rather, it felt like a reward. She had spent every hour of every day in fear since her father had first presented her with the preposterous notion that she might sell herself in an effort to pay his debts and provide for her sisters’ futures. She had feared the man who paid for her innocence would be rough and cruel, that he would abuse her or humiliate her.
But Hart Sutton was neither rough nor cruel, and he had done none of those things.
His tongue slid across the seam of her lips, tentatively seeking entrance, and she opened for him. He licked into her mouth, his tongue demanding and possessive as his touch, sliding sinuously against hers, staking his claim. Although she had shed her night rail in a desperate bid to force him to stop making her await the inevitable, she was not cold. Every place he touched her, and all the places he had yet to caress, were aflame.
She was burning, yearning. Returning his kiss with an ardor that surprised even herself.
Her fingers slipped into the inky strands of his hair, finding it surprisingly smooth. Her breasts were pressed to his bare chest, and the connection of skin to skin only served to heighten the longing swirling through her.
Nothing mattered but him, his mouth on hers.
He made a low, guttural sound of desire and tugged at her hair, his kiss growing firmer. She pressed nearer, meeting his lips, matching his tongue thrust for thrust. The old Emma was gone forever, and in her place was a new version of herself she had never known existed.
She did not know what had come over her, where this boldness that had seized her emerged from. Perhaps it had been the counsel of Madame Laurent, perhaps the effect of waking up to Hart naked from the waist up, water dripping down his sculpted chest and muscled abdomen and from his angular jaw.
The source ceased to matter when he lifted her in his arms, just that lone arm banded around her waist, and then he was moving them both. Guiding her to the bed while his kisses never ceased. He was a strong man, but she did not feel cowed by his musculature.
She knew a moment of trepidation as he tipped her to the mattress. But then he was there with her, joining her, straddling her hips. And he was kissing her again. Kissing her everywhere. Down her throat, across her collarbone to her shoulder. He dragged his lips between her breasts, cupping her with one hand and brushing over her aching nipple with his thumb.
And oh.