Читать книгу Diamonds in the Rough - Portia Da Costa - Страница 9

3

The Most Aggravating Man in the World

The touch of Wilson’s lips rocked Adela in her shoes. Seven years ago he’d done exactly this. Grabbed her and kissed her. Now it felt as if barely a second had passed between that kiss and this one, and just as before, all her resolution melted, lost in a heightened perception so intense it almost pained her.

Her cousin’s mouth was like warm velvet moving against hers, infinitely teasing and tantalizing, and she could smell his shaving lotion and his soap, the notes of each one quite separately distinct. On his lips there was a very faint flavor of something sweet and spicy, plum cake perhaps. It was on his tongue when it traced the seam of her lips.

These impressions crowded into the space of a small, surprised fragment of a second, each one of them enough to rock her heart.

I should push you away. I should push you away and run like the wind. This is all wrong and it will only lead to trouble, no matter what Mama thinks.

Yet with this rationale in her mind, Adela still wound her arms around her outrageous cousin instead of thrusting him away. He was, and always had been, the most aggravating man in the world, but still she parted her lips for him, instead of clamping them shut and grabbing him by the ears to get him off her.

Oh, how she’d yearned for Wilson once, yearned for him with all her young heart and soul. But until a moment or two ago, she’d believed the urge done and dead, crushed by circumstances and Wilson himself. Now, it was patently obvious she’d been completely wrong about that. Her feelings for him were as alive and rambunctious as ever. The taste of his mouth and tongue thrilled her just as it had all those years ago. Sliding her free hand boldly beneath his dressing gown, she clasped his strong, lean back and pressed her body close to his, metaphorically waving adieu to her wits.

Ah! I’m not the only one with feelings alive and well, then....

His cock was hard, and it pressed against the curve of her belly, just beneath her corset, as hot and ungovernable as it had been those seven years ago. In the frozen moment of time that they stood together, his eager flesh seemed to twitch, calling to hers. Even though there were layers and layers of clothing between them.

Adela rocked her hips, the response like breathing. Wilson gasped, making a gruff sound in his throat, countering her action.

What was she doing? This was absurd. Unthinkable. In the space of a few fractious exchanges, he’d unmasked her. Compelled her to reveal her secret self, just by...just by being Wilson! Trying to back away, Adela shoved hard, her hand spread against his chest to dislodge him. No more blindly clinging and cleaving like a hysterical trollop. It was madness.

“Wilson! For heaven’s sake, what are you doing? You can’t just grab me and kiss me as if you own me!” He seemed reluctant to let her go. His grip even tightened. But then he succumbed, fingers relaxing their hold on her arms. “Have some decorum. You’re not a rutting dog!” Adela cried, jumping back a step.

“Decorum, eh? I’m not the one who threw her arms around me just now.” Oh, that voice, that damned voice. It was familiar, thrilling, deep, its resonance playing across her senses like a bow across a violin. A narrow smirk curved her cousin’s beautiful mouth with its sharply defined upper lip. “All I was hoping for was a chaste and cousinly peck on the cheek. I didn’t expect to be manhandled.”

You are an insufferable beast who should be thrashed and pummeled.

“It was just shock, cousin dearest. You kissed first and it surprised me. I wasn’t quite in my right mind.” She darted back farther, still clutching her portfolio of sketches. She had to get out of here. But just looking at him made it difficult to leave.

Her distant cousin Wilson Ruffington had always been an eccentric, and even his liaison with a notoriously fashionable French adventuress didn’t appear to have tidied him up very much. In fact, he was more a wild man now. His thick, wavy black hair was longer than when she’d last seen him, curling around his ears and on his collar, tousled and yet shiny and clean.

Which summed him up, really. He was scruffy and fastidious. A puzzle in every possible respect.

Adela compressed her lips. Why, when he was so annoying and often hurtful, did he still make her want to smile? Her fingers just itched for her pencil, and in her mind she was already drawing him. Aggravating or no, he was a sight for sore eyes, tall, wiry, intriguing and stylish in a way that other men just weren’t. Flagrantly bohemian, he still affected his dressing gown during the daytime, as he’d done seven years ago at Ruffington Hall. He’d swanned about in his robe then, much to the consternation of the Old Curmudgeon—who’d called him a nancy and told him to brace up—and it seemed he’d not broken the habit. Today’s example was a blue silk paisley confection, and beneath it he wore an equally absurd waistcoat in a different pattern entirely. His trousers were thankfully quite normal, but he wore his white shirt sans neckwear or even a collar, and a little open.

He was a ragamuffin prince, almost a comic opera figure, drenched in a wayward male glamour. Beside him she was the drabbest dark crow.

And yet...and yet the way Wilson was looking at her seemed to say otherwise. His blue-gray eyes, so pale and all-seeing, monitored every detail of her appearance even as she assessed his. And they were hot. Searing, despite their icy color, their devouring heat confirming what she’d felt at his groin.

How could he want her after what he’d said six months ago? And the way he’d scrupulously avoided any chance of being alone with her for seven years? He probably wanted any woman, and Adela had simply blundered unawares into his line of sight. Society talk—which she told herself was tedious and uninteresting, yet followed avidly—said that he and the famous Coraline had parted recently, so her randy cousin was probably just missing his regular quota of carnal pleasures.

Adela narrowed her eyes back at him, imagining her head clamped in place for a formal photograph. Wilson would not make her back down and look away.

“I see you haven’t improved your habits of dress yet, cousin.” She raked her glance from his toes to his shaggy head, schooling her face to not show the lustful feelings she couldn’t suppress. Far from a lady in that respect, she must not allow him to perceive her true nature, her dangerous secrets.

“I dress for rationality and comfort, Della, and to please myself. You should leave off your corsets and try it. You’d feel so much better.... Far less prone to fits of temper.”

Ah ha! How little you know, Mr. Clever Boots.

At home, Adela had abandoned her corsets. She’d happily embraced a rational form of dress, inspired not only by Mrs. Wilde and other lady aesthetes, but also by some of her free-thinking friends at the Ladies’ Sewing Circle. She’d joined the group just over a year ago, and found it a revelation, in ways she’d never have imagined. The loose, comfortable garments and lighter underclothing affected by some of the ladies were pure bliss after the restrictions of corsetry, and even better, through them she’d been introduced to a dressmaker whose charges were exceptionally reasonable. It was a lot less pricey to run up a lightly shaped “aesthetic” gown than it was to tailor a formal, fitted costume.

Adela was trussed up now only because Mama had insisted, even if it did mean that her only “presentable” gowns were those left over from mourning her father.

“Women wear corsets, Wilson. It’s simply what we do. They’re an aid to good posture and they create an elegant silhouette.” Damn him, why did he provoke her to lie? And behave badly... Why did the way he looked at her make her suddenly long to rip the whole lot off, corsets, petticoats, drawers and all, just to make those silvery eyes pop wide? “And pray tell me what’s so rational about the juxtaposition of that waistcoat with that dressing gown? It’s sartorial chaos, an assault to the eyes and to the sensibilities of anyone with even the tiniest appreciation of good style.”

“Ouch!” Wilson clutched dramatically at the offending waistcoat, even while his eyes still seemed to pierce her clothing and lasciviously view the body underneath. “But seriously, you don’t need a corset, Della. You have immaculate posture and a perfect silhouette without one...and I should know, having seen it.”

Curse the beast! Why had she ever even hoped that he wouldn’t refer to their “incident”? Their tryst. It had changed her more radically than any other event in her life, but a thousand what-ifs made it far too painful to reflect on often. And she didn’t want to discuss it or refer to it now. Not with the one other person on earth who knew it had ever occurred. Her closest friends from the Sewing Circle, Sofia and Beatrice, were aware that there had been a boy, in her youth...but Adela had revealed only the most oblique details. She’d never spoken of what still sang in her flesh....

“Well, I’d be grateful if you’d expunge that sight from your mind, Wilson, peerless as you claim it to be. The incident during which you saw it never happened. I thought we agreed to that?” She edged toward the door once more, then faltered, shocked by Wilson’s expression. He’d winced, pain in his eyes and the taut, high lines of his cheekbones. It lasted only an instant, then disappeared again completely, eclipsed by a narrow, wolfish grin.

“I’m not sure I ever agreed to that, Della. But if you say it never happened, then it didn’t...or did it?” Slowly, lasciviously, his tongue touched the center of his lower lip.

Her heart thundering like a runaway locomotive, Adela yearned to escape. But somehow her muscles just wouldn’t work. Just the simple task of opening the door and exiting the room was a mountain to climb.

“Don’t go, Della.” His sharply angled face gentled, the look on it conciliatory if not precisely pleading. “Please stay a little while.”

It was dangerous. He was dangerous. He was a colossal hazard to her peace of mind in a dozen different ways...and yet he was as irresistible to her as he’d been those seven years ago.

And retreat was cowardice, too, something she despised.

But what was better, a wise coward or a valiant fool? Despite his blandishments, Wilson’s attention was most definitely straying perilously in the direction of her portfolio now and again, and if he saw its contents, she’d never hear the end of it for the rest of this weekend, at least. What he saw could become a weapon to wield against her almost indefinitely.

Wilson was shrewd. Brilliant, in fact. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he was probably a genius, one of the greatest minds in the empire. Yet even the simplest male thinker would probably be able to put two and two together, based on the evidence of her portfolio and her presence in this room. Her cousin was probably a hundred steps ahead of that already, portfolio as yet unseen.

Why, why, why did I bring it? I should have come only to look, not to compare, then sketched afterward in private. It’s not as if I can’t remember what I’ve seen....

But there were certain drawings reputed to be in the earl’s collection, special items of which pastiches had been requested. It didn’t do to disappoint her more discerning and extravagant customers.

Though Wilson would go to town on her having “customers” at all.

“So, will you stay...or scuttle off?” His pale eyes were narrowed again, as if he’d read everything passing through her mind. “Running away seems to be a habit of yours.”

That did it. Adela’s fingers tightened, ready to wallop him about the head with the portfolio, but in a massive effort of containment, she resisted.

“I will stay. Just for a little while. But only because I want to.”

“Capital. Now let’s inspect this toy of yours, shall we? It doesn’t seem to be working very well.” With a swift, tight, insultingly faux little smile, Wilson swept back to the desk and the praxinoscope that had amused her before his arrival, his silk dressing gown fluttering in his wake. He hadn’t forgotten her portfolio, though, that was certain, and in one portion of his devious, extemporizing mind, he was no doubt still speculating on its contents with typical Wilson relish. Adela tightened her grip, just in case.

Watching him, she almost wished she’d powdered her cheeks a little, as Mama had begged her to do. The praxinoscope’s picture strip was a risqué item, especially inflammatory in motion, and with her nemesis beside her a blush rose inevitably in Adela’s face. She braced herself for the equally inevitable ribald comment.

But for Wilson the scientist, and tinkerer with all things mechanical, a close inspection of the mechanism proved irresistible, thankfully. Reaching under the drum, he probed for a moment, then lifted it clear. Removing the picture strip, he set it aside and turned the circular container over to study it closely before shifting his attention to the spindle on which it rode.

“Hmm...most interesting. Not a bad example. But obsolete, of course. The future of moving images is photographic, utilizing perforated celluloid film.” For a moment he seemed apart from her, his mind turning over, sifting through possibilities in his grand passion for technological innovation. “There have been some exciting advances.... It’s an area I’d take a crack at myself if I had the time, but there’s a lot of trial and error involved.” He was still frowning at the spindle, but Adela imagined him picturing other devices, assessing their flaws and strengths in fractions of moments. “I saw the Le Prince exhibit, and the work of Friese-Green...but there are still difficulties. Hand-cranking the camera makes it almost impossible to produce an entirely smooth result. The same with the method of projection.... I suspect the all-conquering Edison will prevail in the end. He mostly does....”

With his lower lip snagged between his teeth, Wilson appeared intent. He seemed completely focused on the job at hand, but who knew what was going on with him? When he set the drum on the desk, he reached into the pocket of his robe. Ah, the ever-present tool kit. She should have known he’d have it with him. Drawing out the leather pouch, small but containing a comprehensive selection of miniature tools, Wilson set to work without a heartbeat’s hesitation. Utilizing several of the tiny appliances, and a few drops from a vial of oil, he made a number of swift but confident adjustments to the contraption’s workings.

“Well, it’s not exactly a miracle of the modern world nowadays...but Monsieur Reynard’s mechanism still has its charms, I must admit.”

Seconds later, Wilson reassembled it, then waggled his fingers—as if to say “jump to it”—indicating that Adela should pass the picture strip to him. Still keeping a firm hold on her precious drawings with her left hand, she complied, but her heart sank when Wilson glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. No matter how entranced he was with the praxinoscope, he certainly hadn’t forgotten the portfolio, either.

Blessedly, he didn’t remark on it, though, and got on with the job of setting the picture strip back in place. On a trial spin, the spinning mechanism worked perfectly, with just a smooth, swishing sound.

“Good Lord!” Wilson’s dark eyebrows shot up and a smirk widened his handsome mouth as the drum whirled round and round, round and round.

The little scenario lasted barely seconds, but that was more than enough to get its point across. The colorful and surprisingly well-executed drawings depicted a red-faced, mustachioed gentleman of military demeanor in the process of spanking the bottom of a plump, brazen-eyed floozy wearing nothing but her stockings and what appeared to be a rather flashy diamond necklace. In a particularly piquant touch, the spanking colonel’s manly member was poking proud and stiff out of the front of his trousers.

I must not look at Wilson. I must not look at Wilson.

Adela fixed her gaze firmly on the saucy show, and the repeated jerking and wriggling of the painted young woman and her rampant regimental beau. If Wilson was to look into her eyes right now, he’d know everything, her every dark secret, instantly. Then the whole scandalous farrago would be out in the open.

Yes, I might look like a drab, severe spinster, and a veteran of too many disastrous seasons...but I’m really just as much a libertine as Miss Spanked Bottom.

Nobody other than Sofia and Beatrice, and the boys at Sofia’s private “establishment,” were privy to Adela’s hidden self-indulgence of her senses. Nor did more than a handful know that she earned her pin money as “Isis,” one of London’s most famous erotic artists, whose works were much sought after by the great and the broad-minded.

Wilson must never, ever know that she paid men to service her...or that she drew their naked bodies to pay her family’s mounting bills.

The picture show circled on and on. The rude gentleman of the prominent member smacked the saucy young minx again and again. Wilson chuckled and leaned in closer, clearly entranced.

Adela waited for the worst. For the words that would say he’d worked it all out...and that she was damned.

“I do believe she’s wearing the Ruffington diamonds while she takes her licks,” he murmured, casting Adela a glance out of the corner of his eye. “She wouldn’t by any chance be modeled on you, would she?”

Silently, Adela let out her held breath. It wasn’t what she’d feared, but it still skimmed dangerously close to those shoals. Leaning closer, but not too close, she studied the painted necklace as best she could while the image still moved. It looked nothing like their family treasure, so why had Wilson made the comparison? He must have some ulterior motive, but as happened so often, his razor cheekbones supported an unrevealing mask.

“So, do you still find such activities titillating, Della?”

The taunting devil. That, at least, he did know.

During their shared summer visit at Ruffington Hall, all those years ago, they’d found other naughty treasures such as this. The Old Curmudgeon had his own clandestine collection of erotica, as so many of the nobility did, and after picking the library lock, she and Wilson had investigated it. Several very fine eighteenth-century etchings had made her blush like a peony, and had almost certainly ignited fires that they’d put out together, later, by the river.

Wilson didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t answered him. “I was expecting to see dancing Harlequins or dogs doing tricks, not saucy libertines performing unspeakable acts of lewdness,” he murmured.

“Well, you would be the one to know all about unspeakable acts of lewdness.”

No! Why had she said that, of all things? Why did she let him goad her this way? Only ten or fifteen minutes in his company, and he’d already turned her into a complete nitwit again. Did his mighty brain act like a sponge and soak up all the intelligence in a room?

But it wasn’t only her mentality he’d made deficient. Her body was still in a riot from that kiss. And it had been even before that. Wilson Ruffington could render her a madwoman with barely any effort at all, and the worst of it was, her senses adored it. Despite the potential for an almighty disaster, there was nothing she longed for more than his touch.

“Yes, I’m fully conversant with most acts of vile libertinage. How about you, cousin dear? How goes your sensual education these days? It must be a work still in progress, or why else would you be in here in the first place?” Wilson’s voice was flippant, but there was an edge to it, as ominous as it was vague. His eyes were hard as he turned from the praxinoscope.

What’s the matter? Have I touched a raw nerve? Surely you’ve not been thinking of me all this time, so it must be that woman.

“That woman” was the way Adela always referred to the famous beauty Coraline in her mind. She’d avidly gobbled up every tidbit of news about Wilson’s association with the Frenchwoman, scanning the gossip columns and scurrilous rags like Marriott’s Monde, all the while hating herself for paying any attention. Wilson’s life was no longer her concern. Yet she’d still tortured herself, even purchasing a cabinet card of Coraline, then ripping it up, muttering over that woman’s straight, exquisite nose and flawless, pearly complexion.

I’ll bet you never aggravated her enough to make her run blindly into the branch of a tree, did you?

No, he’d probably murmured only sweet endearments and compliments to that woman, while they’d played exotic sensual games together. They’d have frolicked and indulged in spanking and other recherché practices. Adela ground her teeth, imagining them together, Coraline all flashing eyes, lush red lips and sublime, plump bosom, lust arcing between her and Wilson like the crackle from a demonstration of electrical power.

“Nothing to say?” Wilson’s voice was harsh. Was he really hurt by his lover’s desertion? “Don’t tell me you haven’t even thought about erotic pleasure since I touched you... I don’t believe that for a minute.”

Adela’s fingers went white on the portfolio. Again came that urge to whack him, barreling through her like a giant rolling ball. She was normally even-tempered, scrupulously in control, but he turned her into a termagant. Emotions surged. Anger. Jealousy. Desire. Burning, fulminating desire, and a longing to murder him, to dispatch him by means of intense pleasure.

“I have some knowledge of erotic arts and pastimes.” She hurled the comment at him, her chin up, her back straight.

“Really?” Wilson’s eyes flashed. His grin was back. “Pray expatiate, cousin. Have you perhaps sampled the arts of flagellation?” He nodded to the now still ’scope, and the wriggling woman and rampant man, frozen in time. “I didn’t even know you had a beau.”

“One doesn’t have to have a beau.”

Oh, please, stupid woman, don’t dig the hole even deeper!

Was Wilson closer now? It felt so, though she hadn’t seen him move. All she was sure of was that she’d made the most tremendous error, the worst possible. By nature her cousin was inquisitive, investigative. He was a bloodhound after the faintest of scents, a Scotland Yard detective picking at the most obscure clue. “I simply read widely,” she finished, praying he’d accept that, but waiting for his pounce.

“Hence your desire to breach this fortress.” He gestured around the book-lined room, at its potential treasures. “To further that erotic education of yours.” His tongue peeped out, just touching the center of his plush lower lip. “But there’s a big difference between reading books and looking at pictures...and doing what we did together seven years ago.”

Ah, now the knife goes right in! I should have run when he first arrived.

But running from Wilson had never been a successful strategy. Even if it would have allowed them the dance of polite avoidance during the rest of the weekend, instead of engaging in special combat, no holds barred.

“I was young, and I was a silly nincompoop.” It was hard to keep her voice cool. She was still a silly nincompoop where this man was concerned. The more she argued with Wilson, the more her body told her in no uncertain terms what her last shreds of good sense pleaded she deny. The tips of her breasts ached against the rigid edge of her corset, and in the pit of her belly the surge of desire was like a pain.

“And I paid for it in more ways than one.” Unable to help herself, she touched the bridge of her nose, where the tree branch had struck. It didn’t hurt now, but it had been agonizing then, so blindingly intense that it had expunged the golden glow of lingering pleasure.

“I’m sorry.” Before she could stop him, Wilson captured the hand that had touched her face, squeezing it gently. The apology was unspecific. It could have been for the tree, or for blunt words then or later, she didn’t know.

How she wanted to hate him. She had plenty of reasons. What he’d said. What his infuriating arrogance had made her angry enough to do. The simple fact that he was a man, a Ruffington, and alive, and thus the future recipient of all her stubborn, misogynistic grandfather’s wealth, as well as his title.

But none of this made any difference. Wilson’s pale, glowing eyes and eccentric male beauty still muddled her. There was no way to remain rational and sensible when she was anywhere near him. He besieged her without even trying.

Run. Run now, her mind said.

Stay, for pity’s sake, stay, said her body, singing with lust and energy.

Wilson’s fingers were warm, the heat in them traveling through the point of contact and flowing around her like the glow from a jigger of brandy. She couldn’t pull free. She no longer wanted to. And even if she did, she was hampered by the need to cling on hard to her portfolio.

What if I show him the wretched thing and be done with it? He’ll find a way to see it, anyway. He’s Wilson.

When Wilson kissed her fingertips, the thrill made her tremble.

“Well, it can’t be helped now,” she muttered, and his lips curved again as if he knew that was the most acknowledgment he would get of his scant apology.

Curse the man, he could see the effect he was having on her, and the only consolation was that effects worked both ways. When Adela stole a look at his groin, that was obvious.

Jigger of brandy? Surely she’d consumed a pint of it, but with just the intoxication and none of the detriments. To be desired so could turn any woman’s head, not least of all hers.

Wilson laughed, following the direction of her glance, then nodded toward the portfolio. “So what’s in this, then? More pictures of gentlemen’s nether regions? That seemed to be what you were specializing in last time I saw your work.”

With the words came another pounce. And prestidigitation this time. Wilson plucked the portfolio clean out of her hand, and Adela squeaked and tried to grab it back, without any luck. As he whirled away, his dressing gown billowed about him and he strode toward the desk. The praxinoscope had lost its allure now, and he shoved it aside and set down his prize.

Adela shot after him, her mind filled with the rudest insults. Confound his “sorry.” It’d just been a trick to get under her guard. He was already picking at the ribbons securing the binder. “No! Don’t! That’s private. You have no business prying into people’s belongings.” She tugged at his sleeve, but he just went on, his long tapered fingertips easily conquering the fastenings. “Just because you’re grandfather’s heir doesn’t give you any rights over me and my things. Leave that alone!”

Miraculously, he hesitated, the ribbons unfurled across the desk. He placed a hand over hers, on his shoulder, and his eyes were sly as silver ice as he regarded her sideways. “Why should I? Give me some incentive.” His look made her blood run hot, then cold, then hot again, surging pell-mell through her veins. She wanted to kill him, but at the same time she wanted to lie down on the carpet and demand that he mount her. “Perhaps you could beg?”

Damn you! Damn you to damned damnation and back again, you despicable swine!

“Don’t be absurd, Wilson. I’m simply going to ask you, as a gentleman, to observe my privacy.” His warm hand was still over hers, transmitting messages of sultry seduction, addling her brain.

“But I’m not a gentleman. I’ve never claimed to be a gentleman.” He prized her fingers off his arm and conveyed them to his lips again. The touch of his mouth minced her thoughts, leaving only urges. “Surely you of all people don’t think I’m one?”

“No. I don’t. Not anymore.” For a brief time in their youth, he’d been a prince of the universe to her, its very center. But no longer. Not for years.

His mouth moved over her skin. Was that moisture she felt? Was the lascivious devil licking her? Her entire body shuddered, and only a titanic effort of will kept her from swaying. Instead of feeling Wilson’s tongue against her palm, she seemed to feel its stroke, slow and lingering, between her legs....

She blinked, battling for control. Confused over how she’d come to this. Wilson pivoted on his heel and turned to her, still holding her hand. “How about we strike a bargain? You give me another kiss. A proper one, and a little dalliance with it... And I won’t open this portfolio of yours and look at whatever it is you don’t want me to see.” His eyes were level, daring her to accept, their slow glint ever more disorientating.

Don’t do it, Adela. Don’t agree. You know him. You’ll end up in even worse trouble. The drawings are precisely what he thinks they might be....

Why had she ever come in here in the first place? She had no need of Lord Rayworth’s erotic treasures to inspire her; her imagination was sufficient. And her memory. Her mind was like a photographic plate, and she could develop anything she wanted on it. The ability to conjure images out of air was her great artistic gift.

Adela looked at Wilson’s mouth, knowing she was lost. He was a blackguard, but he excited her more than any other man ever had or probably ever could do. She wanted those lips on hers again, and in other places, too. Zones they’d never actually explored in real life, but which cried out for him now. His eyes didn’t look quite so silver currently; the pupils were huge, dark as a thunderhead, with a lightning-crack of promise in their depths, an intensity of desire that matched her own.

“What dalliance? What do you mean?” Oh, she was such a fool....

“Don’t fret. Nothing too compromising, Della. Just a few pleasant moments, I promise...pleasure I owe you.” He smiled at her, a very imp of mischief and devilment, exotic yet familiar.

She didn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust him. He’d been incorrigible seven years ago, and she had no reason to believe from their brief social meetings in the interim that he’d reformed even in the slightest degree.

“I don’t believe you, Wilson. You’ll take liberties. It’s what you do.” She tried to tug away, but couldn’t. His knowledge of Oriental fighting arts meant he knew special arcane grips that were light yet unyielding. And even without them, his eyes would still have held her.

“But you liked liberties once, Della. In fact, you invited them.” It was his turn to tug now, and as if drugged, she moved toward him. “Surely you’ve not forgotten what we shared? I promise I’ll honor your secrets.” He glanced at the portfolio, and the fingers of his free hand flexed. “All of them.”

“You’re a devious and manipulative man, Wilson,” she hissed, and then flung herself at him, grabbing his warm face between her hands and kissing him hard on the lips.

Well, that’s one way to distract him, the rational part of her brain observed coolly, while all the rest of her reveled in his taste.

But Wilson’s soft grunt of triumph as she opened her mouth to him almost made her retreat again. She’d got him right where he wanted to be, and before she could react, his hands slid around her, gripping her tight. He was still scheming, but at least for the moment his hands were on her, not the portfolio. She let her own arms slide right around him, clinging close, her blood pounding and racing in her veins.

Oh, Lord, this is Wilson.... Wilson...

Everything always circled back to him. He’d made her what she was, a sensual woman with turbulent erotic appetites. Seven years ago, he’d turned a lever and set lust in motion, and even though they’d fallen out again almost as quickly as they’d clung together, she hadn’t given up on the pleasures of the flesh.

Wilson Ruffington was the author, albeit unwitting, of a wicked secret life.