No true gentleman, p.29
No True Gentleman, page 29
She smiled and tucked his sheets a little higher. “You’re very bold,” she murmured. “Now, sir, may we declare a truce? I’ve come to offer you my services, and you certainly look as though you need them.”
He flicked her a wary glance. “What sort of truce? Dash it, Catherine, you oughtn’t be here at all.”
She pursed her lips for a moment. “My brother did not plot an attack against you last night,” she quietly began. “Frankly, he doesn’t think that far ahead. Nor did he murder anyone. And this beating proves it, I should think.”
Max glowered at the coverlet, clearly weighing his words. “Officially, Catherine, he’s a suspect,” he quietly insisted. “Because it is remotely possible that the man who attacked me last night had another reason for doing so. I doubt it, but in my line of work, a man makes enemies.”
“I am not one of them, Max.”
He shook his head, squeezing shut his eyes. “I’ve never wished to think your brother guilty, Catherine,” he rasped. “But don’t you see that such a wish is the very thing which can make a man careless? It means one must try twice as hard to be impartial—”
“But Max,” she interjected. “Have I hidden anything from you? Ever evaded your questions? No, because you’ve asked me nothing. Instead, you’ve seized every opportunity to thrust distance between us. And you have shared nothing of yourself, either, Max. Nothing. I have had to learn the truth about the man I . . . I care for from his grandmother!”
Suddenly, Max’s eyes sparked with icy black fire. “Oh! I can only imagine the romanticized rubbish she’s fed you!” he growled. “But I am not the person Nonna Sofia has led you to believe, Catherine. If I ever was, I’m not now. Pay no heed to the tittle-tattle of a meddling old woman.”
Despite his sharp words, though, she could see the reluctant acknowledgment in his eyes. Catherine drew a deep, steadying breath. “You are you, Max,” she said simply. “Inside, you are the man I care for. The façade you show the world is no business of mine. Be whomever you please for them, but never try to fool me.”
Finally, his expression softened, as if he were considering something.
“Pax, Maximilian,” she encouraged, offering him her hand.
He took it and, to her shock, lightly pressed his lips to it. “Sit down, then,” he answered, drawing her closer. “I need your help with those.” He jerked his head toward the notebooks.
Lightly lifting her brows, Catherine settled herself on the edge of the bed, flipped opened the first, then hesitated. “But these look like old case notes, Max. And half of it’s in Italian.”
“Yes, Nate dug them out for me. But he can’t read, and my eyes won’t focus,” he grumbled. “Can you make out the one labeled Mary O’Gavin? It’s near the front.”
It took her a moment. “Ah,” she said finally. “Here it is. Oh, dear! A—a murder?”
He nodded sharply. “An old one,” he said curtly. “Just skim until you see a note about a ship. In the top margin of a left-hand page. English, I think. The Queen of . . . something. And a docking date. Find me that date.”
“Ah, the Queen of Kashmir!” she said softly. “December third—”
“The year?” he demanded impatiently.
“—eighteen twenty-four,” she snapped.
Max collapsed back into his pillows, the tension suddenly draining from his body. “I thought so,” he murmured, almost to himself. He reached out to take the book away. “I’m sorry, Catherine. My head aches like the devil, but it’s a poor excuse for my temper.”
Catherine hovered over him. “I see that you are relieved,” she quietly responded. “That date—may I ask what it means?”
She watched Max’s face grow warm. “It’s the date your brother returned from India,” he quietly admitted. “Almost a full year after Lady Sands began selling off her jewelry.”
Catherine’s brows drew into a puzzled frown. “But I do not understand.”
“Whoever stole the Sands Sapphire knew it was the only authentic jewel remaining in her collection,” Max confessed. “It was not a random theft. And so it could not have been your brother.”
Catherine gaped at him. Half of her burned to know why he’d been tracking Bentley’s return from India, but the other half was afraid to know. Max let his gaze drop to the coverlet. “Something about your brother had been nagging at me for weeks,” he quietly admitted. “It seems to have taken a blow to the head to make me recall it.”
She managed a wry smile. “I shall remember that next time you’re being stubborn.”
Max exhaled, a sound of deep relief, and returned his gaze to hers. “It would seem I owe him—and you—an apology.”
A little nervously, Catherine began to neaten the pleats of her skirts. “Accepted,” she said swiftly. “And so I have my truce. But I am still offering my services.”
“A truce, then,” he said gruffly, flicking an inscrutable glance up at her. “But no services, Catherine. I’m just not up to it.”
Catherine’s eyes flew open wide. “Wretch!” she screeched, bouncing off the bed as if it had burst into flame. “Arrogant dog! You inveigle your way into my bed, then have the audacity to assume—”
“Inveigle?” Max interjected, rising up from the pillows again. “I seem to recall having been invited.”
“—and then, after all this, you can so easily assume I still want you?”
With surprising strength for a man so badly beaten, Max lashed out, capturing her wrist, dragging her halfway across him until they were nearly nose to nose. His voice was harsh, but his eyes were laughing, his expression deeply relieved. “Oh, you want me,” he growled. “You want me, Catherine, or you wouldn’t be here. A woman doesn’t play hard to get by crawling over a man’s fence—”
“Why, how dare you!” she interjected, trying to jerk from his grasp.
Max looked at her chidingly. “Catherine, you’ve grass stains on your delightful derriere.”
“What a detective you are!” She felt her face flush with heat. “And it was peonies, not grass. But all I’ve offered you, sir, is my help. I wish to sort through Julia’s letters and journals. I thought you could scarce refuse after . . . well, after you’d accused my own brother.”
Max let his eyes drift over her face, down her throat, lower. “I’ve been through it all,” he murmured, his voice more like gravel than usual. “There’s nothing there.”
Concussed or not, Catherine could see desire beginning to simmer in his gaze. “Then you won’t mind my hanging about to look at them,” she whispered. “I could just sit quietly on the other side of your bed. After all, you aren’t using it.”
His eyes grew hungry, his grip more certain. “Am I not?” he answered. “What a fool I am.”
It sounded like another invitation. Impulsively, Catherine kicked off her slippers, hiked up her skirts, and, careful of his ribs, crawled fully onto the mattress to straddle him. She stared down into his face, and her breath caught hard in her throat when she felt the length of his arousal, already growing hard beneath the sheet. “I thought you were incapacitated,” she said softly.
Max released her wrist and set his big hands on her thighs, sliding his hands slowly up the silk of her stockings, inching up her skirts as he went. “And I thought,” he whispered, his voice rich as sin, “you didn’t want me.”
Catherine struggled to remember her purpose. “But I have to see Julia’s letters,” she insisted. “Max, may I?”
But his eyes were already growing warm, opaque. “Take them,” he rasped, letting his thumbs massage the tender, naked skin above her garters. “But later, Catherine. Later.”
It sounded like a promise to her. And Catherine almost didn’t care. A deep sense of relief had swept over her. Oh, God. She had not known how desperately she needed him. How terrified she’d been of losing him. Perhaps he did not quite trust her—or, more precisely, was afraid to trust anyone. But, instinctively, she understood him.
For her part, she had come here half indignant. And then the sight of him, nearly lifeless on this bed they had so briefly shared, his beautiful olive skin drawn, almost pale—oh, how that had terrified her. She loved him. So much. And his reaction last night, the explosion of passion and anguish, the tortured expression on his face—oh, it told her that what Max felt for her ran deeper than simple masculine lust.
In a strange, unsettling way, Catherine felt as if she’d finally seized hold of life, and she wasn’t about to let go. For a long, sweet moment, she stared down at him. His sheet had shifted when he’d grabbed her wrist, exposing a sculpted wall of chest muscle. He was magnificent, yes, but that wasn’t why she wanted him. And suddenly, Catherine knew that this wasn’t going to be just an affaire for the season. Not if she could help it. But could she? She let her gaze drift over his face, which was mottled with bruises and heavily shadowed with a day’s growth of black bristle. He looked rough, thoroughly disreputable, and just a little frightening—but enticing, nonetheless.
“Max,” she asked tentatively, “are you quite naked beneath the sheet?”
“Yes.” His voice was dusky, rich with desire.
Wordlessly, she unwrapped the lace fichu around her shoulders and let it slither onto the floor. He made a soft choking sound in the back of his throat, and his hands came up to shape her face, her neck, then skim lightly over her shoulders. Strong, cool fingers seized the fabric of her bodice. “You really shouldn’t have come here,” he said, his words a silken whisper. “Should never have crawled into my bed again. I’m not even sure I can give you the welcome you deserve, but my God, Catherine, I have to see you.”
Catherine stared down into his glittering black gaze and nodded, not entirely certain just what she was agreeing to. “Yes.”
Roughly, he jerked the bodice down, and Catherine heard a stitch rip. The full swell of her bosom was laid nearly bare. “Beautiful,” he said, slowly drawing the fabric down so that it dragged a little roughly over her hardening nipples. He watched her breasts, his eyes hungry.
Catherine felt wanton, decadent. And when his hand shoved up the froth of her petticoats, slid higher, seeking the slit in her drawers, she felt something inside her give way. “Ah, Max . . .”
Max felt the trembling need shudder through them both the moment he touched her. Forcing himself to be gentle, he held himself in check, easing one finger back and forth through the nest of curls. Deeply, Catherine blushed. The warm circle of gold around her irises seemed to glow with a new radiance as her eyes began to heat, then melt. She made a small sound—eager, uncertain—and pressed against his hand. Max caressed her more intimately, heard her breath ratchet sharply upward, and found himself wondering what kind of lover her husband had been. A poor one, judging from the innocence of her reactions. Most Englishmen, so far as he could determine, either did not know how or did not bother to properly pleasure a woman in bed.
And perhaps he shouldn’t be pleasuring this one. Sweet heaven, he knew he should not. But Max couldn’t stop. She rocked against his erection wantonly, acting on pure, feminine instinct, and his physical pain was forgotten. He slid one finger deeper, seeking and finding the tender bud of her desire. She gasped at the intimacy and tried to wiggle away.
“No!” he growled, clutching at her thigh, forcing her down. “No, tesoro mio, don’t be afraid to let me watch.”
He touched her again, and she shivered, arching backward, riding down on his hand. Hunger surged through him on a deep, rumbling growl. He wanted her. Burned for her. He stroked her deeply, tenderly. Again and again. Wet, silky warmth rewarded his touch, invited him. He watched himself caress her, work her, until he could hear her little gasps of pleasure. Until her wetness covered his fingers and slicked his palm. After long moments, he heard her moan deeply and flicked his gaze up, judging the moment.
Her tongue darted out to touch one corner of her mouth, and her eyes glazed over with desire. “Come for me, carissima,” he crooned. “Sei molto bella. So beautiful in your passion. Let me help you. Find the edge.”
“I can’t—not—not like this,” she rasped, staring down at him as if he were something just a little foreign and frightening. And perhaps he was both. But she wanted him. He stroked her more certainly, and Catherine whimpered, her eyes wide and dark.
With his other hand, he caressed her breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers until she cried out. “Catherine, cara, don’t be frightened,” he soothed, still stroking her clitoris with the ball of his thumb. “Come for me, bella. I want to watch you. I want to see you.”
She writhed beneath his touch. Tendrils of hair had begun to tumble from her neat arrangement, and, with her skirts hiked up, her generous, perfect breasts jutting over the top of her stays, she somehow looked the very picture of both innocence and decadence.
“Ah, ah!” she said breathlessly.
“Yes, like that,” Max coaxed. “Like that, amore mio. Does my touch pleasure you? Yes, yes, let me see how much.”
God, how he loved to watch her. And so he kept touching her, crooning to her in a stream of half-Italian, uncertain himself of the words, lost in the rich brown pools of her eyes. And then, suddenly, her eyelids dropped shut, and Catherine’s head tipped back, her mouth parting in a sweet, silent cry. Her release shuddered through her as her thighs clasped his. She rode down on his hand once more, and Max plunged two fingers deep inside her, reveling in the feel of her tight, dripping sheath as it clutched at him.
“Aha, ah!” she cried, falling half forward, her hands set on either side of his neck. “Oh. Oh, Max.”
Max felt a moment of triumph, and fast on its heels came a surge of raging desire. He drew in Catherine’s scent, the warmth of her hair, her skin, the delicate musk of her arousal, and lust exploded, licking at him with small, hot flames. “Ah, cara mia,” he breathed. “If it kills me, I must have you.”
Bracing her weight on her hands, Catherine pushed up, her expression both sated and chiding. “Max, you cannot move,” she murmured, sliding back onto her knees as her smile shifted to something slightly wicked. “In fact, you are more or less my prisoner, are you not?”
And then, with a tantalizing lethargy, her fingers slid down his torso and slipped beneath the sheet which was now snarled about his waist. Quite deliberately, she drew it down, inch by inch, allowing cool air to breeze across the hair which dusted Max’s stomach. He’d grown agonizingly hot watching Catherine shudder against his hand, and when she dragged the linen over his sensitive, swollen head, he gasped with pleasure. Another swift tug, and the length of his cock rose up from the tangled sheets, hard and insistent.
She made a little sound in the back of her throat, and swiftly, his hand shot out to snare her wrist. “On top of me,” he begged, wrenching her toward him. “Now, bella, if you have an ounce of mercy!”
To Max’s shock, she jerked away. “But what if I’m still just a little annoyed with you, Max?” she whispered, sliding her hands slowly up his taut thighs, then smoothing them over his stomach until his flesh shivered. “Why, I am not at all sure I ought to show you any mercy.”
With a soft oath, Max let his head fall back into the pillows. He jerked it up again when her fingers slid lower, one into the thatch of black hair which surrounded his jutting cock, the other between his legs. “Christ, Catherine! What do you mean to do to me?”
“Torture you?” she whispered, curling her right hand around the base of his shaft. “Will it work?”
Will it work? A foolish question when a shudder ran through his body at her every touch. But Catherine, it seemed, was not done with him. Her palm felt cool as she cupped the weight of his sac in her left hand. And then, very tentatively, she slid the other hand up his shaft, and down again.
Max sucked in air through his teeth. “Ah, cara, have mercy!”
Catherine loosened her grip. “You do not like—”
His hand lashed out again, holding hers tight to the base of his cock. “Yes!” he hissed, squeezing shut his eyes. “Yes. Oh, God, don’t stop, please.”
For a moment, he held her in his grip, the corded tendons of his wrist and arm taut and trembling. And then Catherine’s hand began to ease up and down with a perfect rhythm. Max exhaled sharply and let his fingers slide slowly away. Her heated gaze burned him. Her every stroke was pleasure of the purest sort, like nothing he’d felt before, and Max, lost in the rhythm of her touch, let his eyes drop shut. Suddenly, something soft and seductively feather-light brushed his sensitive head.
“Aah!” Max jerked, his eyes flying wide open to see the tip of her pink tongue flick out to touch him.
“Max, lie still!” Catherine knelt over him, her lush, full mouth curled into a wicked smile. “Let me pleasure you as you have pleasured me. Would you enjoy it? Will you teach me?”
Max felt his eyes roll back in his head. Not twelve hours earlier, he’d feared he might die. Now he was sure of it. “Anything, love,” he managed to croak. “Just touch—God, yes, that—in any way you please.”
Steadying her balance, Catherine leaned forward, tentatively stroking him with her tongue as her hand held him fast. Max sucked in his breath again as she licked his length from the tip to the base. “Shall I take you into my mouth?” Her tone was soft and uncertain.
Was she serious? Max had to force himself not to beg. “If you wish, love,” he said softly. “Only if you wish.”
“Oh, I do wish,” she whispered.
Watching her lips hover over the crimson head of his cock, Max thought of his erotic, frustrating dreams, none of which could compare to the reality of Catherine. And then, with her hand tight at his base, her lips touched him again, opened, and slowly devoured him, inch by heated inch. Max drove his fingers into her hair as a groan of pure pleasure tore through him. His thighs and legs trembled. Primitive lust coursed through his blood, rushed to his brain. His cock swelled harder, if such a thing was possible, and it was all he could do not to thrust upward with his hips and force himself deep into her throat.
