He slid the gown from her shoulders, baring her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her nipples were taut, revealing her arousal, as did the increasingly rapid rise and fall of her chest as her breaths quickened, shortened. He'd barely touched her, and she was already responding. The pleasurable coil in his gut tightened.

"Justin, please..." She pressed her hands against his thighs. "But you're going to insist, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes. I really must insist. Tell me, kitten. Tell me all that you feel...all that you yearn for."

"This is my punishment for avoiding you. Very well. But I don't know how to describe what it's like for me. I...I yearned for this feeling I'm feeling now. There's...there's this almost pleasant thickness that begins just at the base of my throat, and it seems somehow connected to...other parts of my body."

He nuzzled the side of her neck, his blood running hot. "Yes...go on...."

"There's this... A strange sort of antic.i.p.ation of your touch, as if I'm somehow already feeling your mouth against me, your tongue stroking me, your fingers pinching me lightly as you rub at me, again and again, making me grit my teeth and beg you for more, beg you to feed this hunger that robs me of my breath and- Yes. Yes, like that. Oh, Justin..."

He lowered her all the way back onto the soft cushions, suckling at her budding nipple, playing her with his hands and tongue, glorying in her unashamed moans of pleasure as she cupped her own b.r.e.a.s.t.s for him, raised them to his mouth as if offering him the gift of her, a gift he greedily took.

He kissed her heated flesh, easing her gown down, pressing a kiss against her flat stomach as she lifted her hips, helping him free her of her garments.

He'd dreamed of this, lain awake thinking about this, nearly lost his mind envisioning this moment. She'd been a virgin, she wouldn't have understood such undiluted intimacy. She might not understand now, but she was fearless, he knew that. And she trusted him.

He probed her navel with his tongue, stroked her flat lower belly with his thumbs, was driven on by the way, once again, she instinctively raised her hips to him, her body telling him that it was ready for what he would do next...even if her mind still wondered.

He eased her suddenly taut thighs apart and sought her out with both hands, to find her wet and slick and swollen with desire. He knew what to do, how to stroke her, how to reach her, and when her thighs fell open bonelessly, he knew he'd moved her past the point of any lingering modesty. When he finally brought his mouth to her, she reacted with a low moan of pleasure, not shock or dismay.

Like spreading the petals of a delicate, exotic flower, he fully explored her, finding the white-hot center of her and then sealing his lips against her, stroking that center of her pleasure with his tongue before sucking it into his mouth, feeling her small explosions as they rippled through her body and his.

She was still for long moments, pressing against him, blatantly prolonging her enjoyment, before she seemed to come alive with a fury that surprised him. She reached down for him, pulling at him, her fingers curling into his back as she urged him upward.

He was powerless to resist.

Now he was the boneless one, somehow turned onto his back as she knelt beside him, tearing at his b.u.t.tons, whimpering softly as she divested him of his clothing, and then pulling him back across her body as she collapsed once more onto the cushions.

There was a fierce desperation in the kisses she pressed on his face, his throat, his chest, in the way her fingernails dug into the bare flesh of his back, the way she moved her body beneath his. She needed him. She'd been pleasured, but not fulfilled. She needed him for that. She needed to feel whole, and she couldn't do that until their two halves were joined.

She didn't say the words, but her actions told him all he needed to know, all he'd never hoped to experience. His woman. Wanting him, only him. Needing him...as he needed her, only her.

Her sigh when he sank into her nearly unmanned him, and he felt tears stinging at the backs of his eyes. She took him into her, held him tightly, brought her legs up and over his back in order to take more of him, all of him. She gave herself even as she invited him to take what he needed.

And all he needed, all he'd ever needed, all he would ever need, was her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

ALINA LAY WITH HER HEAD on Justin's gently rising and falling bare chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. Beneath the coverlet he'd pulled across them earlier, her hand rested at his waist, her left leg drawn across his as she melded against him, into him, imprinting him with her body, branding him as hers.

She loved when he touched her, reveled in the sensations he so easily aroused in her, exulted in his loss of control as he plunged deep inside her, briefly taking them both out of the world and into a fleeting realm of delight surely no two other humans had ever known.

But this was somehow even better. Lying here with him as he slept. The thickness at the very bottom of her throat, the fullness in her chest, were not the stirrings of pa.s.sion, of need. This was an ache of love, filling her up with an emotion that encompa.s.sed every feeling she'd ever had, and then doubled it.

She would protect him, comfort him, hold him when he was ill or in pain. Her arms would cradle his children, the milk from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s would give them sustenance. He was hers, always hers, and she would die for him, live for him, be nothing without him.

There was pa.s.sion for his body, and she'd gloried in it. But this was a pa.s.sion for him, for Justin, the man. The way he smiled at her with his eyes as well as his mouth, a smile that seemed reserved only for her. The way he teased her, even how their wills clashed. His affection for Brutus, and his amused tolerance of Wigglesworth's antics. The loyalty he inspired in his true friends. The way he walked, as if the world belonged to him, the way he took her hand in his as if that was the most natural thing in the world to do.

The way he cared, when he did everything to show that he did not.

Alina drew in a breath, let it out in a shuddering sigh. What was she going to do with him?

"Kitten?"

She smiled against his chest. "You know, Justin, it's a good thing they weren't puppies in that barn. I've learned to tolerate kitten, but pup would have been quite unacceptable."

His low chuckle pleased her. As did the way he put his arm around her and pulled her close against him. "I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. You don't know what it took for me not to join you in that hay and cover you with kisses. But then I remembered what I had to tell you."

"Do we have to talk about any of that now? Life was still so uncomplicated that day, before you told me about my uncle, the Inhaber and your ridiculous notions."

He pushed himself up against the cushions, drawing her along with him. "I beg your pardon? I never have ridiculous notions."

She rolled her eyes; clearly even the best of intentions couldn't last, for she longed to box his ears. "Yes, you do. And since most of them come from some ridiculous notion of protecting me from you, I believe I have the right to say whether or not they are ridiculous."

He wrapped a coil of her hair around his finger before letting it drop onto his chest. "I believed I was protecting you from my unworthy self. The past had just come rushing up into my face, along with all its attendant demons, and I thought the past was all that was left of me. Not enough to build a future on, and not fair of me to impose on you, either. You looked at me with such innocence and trust, as if I were some fairy-tale knight in his polished armor. I wasn't, kitten. I'm not. Your Inhaber knew it."

Alina pulled the coverlet along with her as she sat up, facing him in the moonlight. She couldn't really see his face clearly, but she knew he was wearing that maddening mask of indifference he tried on with everyone, fooling most of them she was sure, but not her. Never her.

"What does the Inhaber have to do with your demons, as you call them? Are you telling me you know him? You've met him? What does he know?"

"No, we've never met. But what happened couldn't have been coincidence. He's heard of me, somehow, about my time in Bohemia."

She was rapidly running out of patience with him now. "Justin, if the Inhaber knows something about you that upset you so much that you refused to honor our betrothal because of it, I have the right to know what that something is, and if you continue to be so cryptic, I will probably hit you."

He was silent for long moments, during which Alina wondered if he was going to continue to be so stubborn and how she'd ever find a way to get through the walls he'd kept about him, obviously for years.

"Let me begin at the beginning, when I was not much older than you are now, kitten," he said at last, and she nearly cried out in relief. Nothing he might tell her could possibly be worse than not knowing. "Please don't think of anything I'm going to say as putting forth excuses. There are no excuses."

"Will you hold my hand while you tell me?" she asked quietly, putting out her hand to him. She was already crying silent tears when he took that hand in his and squeezed it softly.

And then he told her.

He'd been wild in his youth, wonderfully well-named. Blessed with an ancient t.i.tle, nearly bottomless wealth, a pleasing countenance and several varied talents that meant that most anything he attempted came easily to him-perhaps too easily. You don't value what you don't earn.

He'd excelled at school, kept up an easy friendship with most everyone he met, and when he came to London he came to conquer it. And did. He could outfence, outshoot, outfight and outride anyone, including his teachers. He didn't seem capable of losing at cards, or with women. His was a charmed life, a gift from the G.o.ds, and he enjoyed it to the top of his bent...and then beyond. Until the pleasures began to pall, the achievements coming too easily.

So he married, as this seemed the next logical thing to do. He chose a young woman who was nearly equally popular within the ton, a beautiful woman who would look good on his arm. Together, they would continue to effortlessly swim through life, hosting b.a.l.l.s and perhaps the occasional musical or literary evening, but otherwise go their own way.

But she'd been indiscreet. Not once, but several times, leading to that misty morning and the reflexive shot that ended Robbie Farber's life and changed Justin's forever.

Within days he was in Brussels, then Vienna, and from there into oblivion. Until, months later, sunk in drink and despair at his lost life, he was approached by a man bearing a letter from his widowed mother. There was a way, she'd written, a path not easily traveled, but he wasn't without talents that could be valuable to the Crown during this terrible time. If he did as he was told, made himself valuable to the war effort, there would be a pardon at the end of his service.

He'd resisted, argued that he'd rather fight in the army as the lowliest field soldier, but in the end he'd agreed. With every other door closed to him, he had no choice but to go through the only one left open.

The French welcomed him, the banished and disgraced Englishman with the ready wit, the deep pockets, the pleasing countenance. Oh, yes, when they conquered the English he would be delighted to take them on a tour of London. He taught the ladies bawdy songs, played and drank deep with the gentlemen. Money, his own, ran through his hands and into theirs, and they liked him all the better.

And then, in the cold gray of dawn, he would lay in wait on a hilltop and put a rifle shot squarely between the eyes of a French field marshal as he stepped outside his tent to relieve his bladder.

Better a single shot than dozens of volleys in a battle that would no longer be necessary. It wasn't honorable, and the Crown would have denied responsibility. But it was effective.

For the first three years, he kept count of his kills. He added Brutus and somehow acquired Wigglesworth, or perhaps it was Wigglesworth who'd acquired him. He was always on the move, always playing a part, a role.

And the war dragged on.

And his mother died.

And he became more reckless, less caring. Until he realized he no longer felt much of anything about anyone, most especially himself. He no longer kept count of his kills.

Until Trebon.

Alina knew Trebon, had even once, as a child, visited the small Bohemian city with her father.

Justin's hand tightened on hers, so that her fingers hurt with the pressure, but she ignored the pain, unwilling to stop him now when, obviously, he was so close to telling her the worst of what he saw as his eternal d.a.m.nation.

He'd been sent there to eliminate a traitor, a merchant who had been forwarding dangerous information to the French. More than that, Justin hadn't asked. This was, after all, only another job of work, as he'd begun to think of his activities, another stepping-stone that would lead back to England.

He'd spent a few days in the ancient city, acting the tourist while, as usual, tossing his money and his smiles and his wit about w.i.l.l.y-nilly, introducing himself through forged letters of recommendation. He'd met with the widowed merchant, dined with the man, even been introduced as that amusing Britisher to the man's youngest child, the fourteen-year-old Erich, spending one pleasant afternoon teaching the boy how to shoot.

Erich had been polite, if not proficient, and in the end he'd shyly produced some poetry he'd written and read it to Justin, telling him that his papa disapproved, and that he was a sad disappointment to the man, unlike his brothers, who were already off fighting the evil Bonaparte.

Knowing he'd tarried too long, become too involved, but seeing something in young Erich's eyes that he knew he'd not seen in his own for too many years, Justin returned to the manor house that same night, intent on completing his latest job of work. Theodor Janosi had to die. His traitorous actions were costing too many lives; he had even put his own soldier sons in danger by diverting supplies from his factory to the French. He had to be stopped, and it was Justin's job to stop him.

Justin fell silent for so long that Alina believed he would refuse to tell her the rest. And it would be terrible, what he would say, she knew that in her heart.

"Erich, Justin?" she asked him softly. "What happened to him?"

"He...he died. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d must have sensed my presence and pulled Erich from the shadows, where I hadn't seen him standing, placing him in front of him as a shield just as the knife left my hand. His own son."

Alina bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood.

"I killed Janosi with my bare hands, Alina," Justin told her quietly. "I was nothing more than a wild animal. I beat him until every bone in both my hands seemed broken. I continued to beat him long after he was dead, until I simply couldn't hit him anymore. Brutus helped me bury Erich beneath the tree where he'd read me his poetry that afternoon. I...I, um, told them that I was finished, done, and six months later they finally took me at my word. I was sent to Vienna to help with the negotiations when Bonaparte at last admitted defeat, and remained there until long after his escape and recapture. Until I was finally offered the pardon that had cost young Erich his life. You know the rest."

Alina used the coverlet to wipe at her streaming eyes. "It wasn't your fault, Justin."

"No," he said with that maddening flippancy she'd learned he used to protect himself. "It was Janosi's fault. No, wait. It was my mother's fault. No, Bonaparte's. How about your uncle the earl? If he hadn't turned early, I would have never met Erich, would I, and the boy would still be alive and writing his poetry. It's my fault, Alina. Put the blame where it belongs, and it belongs with me. I thought I could forget, put the past in the past, tell myself I'd done enough penance, that I deserved the life I'd once had and so stupidly thrown away. When the pardon arrived, even with all the strings Prinny attached to it, I took a chance and came home."

"Only to have one of those strings show up in the form of the niece of the man you'd killed in the duel that had started it all. Oh, Justin, how cruel that was for you."

Now she understood why he'd been so incensed with the Prince Regent, and why he'd gifted her with his belongings while telling her he would not marry her. He had been performing some sort of penance.

Until she'd seduced him, in her selfishness, her curiosity, her determination that she could change his mind about their marriage. But he'd still refused to burden her with his supposedly terrible self, until after the Inhaber had- "Justin? You still didn't tell me about the Inhaber. You said he knew. Do you mean he knew about...Erich?"

He brought her hand to his lips, kissed it. "The morning I sent you off from Ashurst Hall, it was so that I could follow the Inhaber's man and dispose of our...problem in the way I know best."

She listened as he told her how that terrible man had exited the inn carrying the two little girls, using them as shields so that he could safely reach his coach. Justin had been waiting, his finger caressing the trigger of his rifle, only to see that stomach-clenching sight, only to relive the moment Theodor Janosi had pulled young Erich into the path of the knife.

"He's an evil man," she said, wrapping her arms around Justin's neck. "A coward. But I'm glad you didn't kill him. I spoke with Tanner earlier today, and he swears to me there is a way out for us, Justin, if you'll only agree. We can appease your Prince Regent. We can find a way around your...zeal with the men who attacked my coach. But only if you let the Inhaber live. There has to be a way to let him live, so that...so that we can live."

"There is," he told her, dropping a kiss on her nose and then actually smiling. Perhaps he was pretending again, or perhaps he felt lighter somewhere in his soul now that he'd told her about Erich. "I never told you what I wrote to him in that letter I sent to him via his henchman."

She sat back on her heels, trying to make out his features in the darkness. "No, you didn't. What did you write in that letter?"

"That, at a time and place of his choice, and for the mere pittance of ten thousand pounds, I'd hand you over to him."

Alina tried to speak. She opened and closed her mouth several times, but no words would come.

"He replied via a friend of mine in Sandhurst, agreeing to the terms, if I produced Luka, as well. Do you happen to know why he's interested in your secretary?"

"You...you weren't really going to hand me over to the man. I know you wouldn't do that, that it's all a trick. But it would be encouraging to me if you were to say the words."

"Come here," he told her, reaching for her.

She allowed him to pull her against his chest, but then she carefully took a pinch of his chest hair and gave it a sharp tug, so that he cried out in mock pain. "You have a most terrible, devious mind, Justin Wilde. The Inhaber believes he will have all three of us served up to him on a platter, doesn't he? While you have, in turn, learned where he will be, and even when. But now you won't kill him, because then there is no hope of you marrying me now that I am so thoroughly and happily compromised, and then not being hanged the next day. And I very much wish to marry you, so that you can compromise me every night for the rest of our very long and uneventful lives."

"That is what tonight is about, isn't it? I've surrendered. Completely, utterly and quite happily." He kissed her hair, her brow. "You're forgetting only one thing, kitten. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d still needs you dead in order for him to have the only claim to that d.a.m.ned land."

"But we settled that, didn't we? The Romany don't want the land, so I don't have to worry about depriving them of it, and if I write a letter to the king, giving up all claim to the land, then it is over. Oh."

"Yes, kitten, oh. You can't give up land that isn't indisputably yours to give. I believe you're the one who pointed that out to me."

"Yes, somebody pointed that out to me, I think. Perhaps the Inhaber has some idea how we could arrange matters?"

"Other than eliminating you and tossing the disputed claim into the lap of your aunt?"

"Who would renounce any claim immediately, for a price. Why can she do what I can't? I'm certain Luka told us that's what she'd do. He also told me that I couldn't give up the land, remember? He said that, didn't he? We really do need to speak with Luka, now that the horrible Inhaber is going to be allowed to grow fat and old."

"Yes, I think we do, kitten. I've never quite understood this business about the land. I'll admit that."

"You were too busy killing people and ruining me," Alina told him, trying not to smile. "It's understandable. Yes, tomorrow we need to speak with Luka." She slid her hand lower on his belly. "Tomorrow."

"The land. I should have concentrated more on the land, Alina. All I really heard was that your life was in danger. Your king needs the Inhaber dead. I was chosen to marry you because the Inhaber wants you dead, and I was the most likely man to successfully a.s.sa.s.sinate him while protecting my betrothed wife, keeping your king's hands clean. Then I realized that Robbie Farber had been dug up and thrown into the mix, and went charging hotfoot after that idiot Prinny, burning bridges everywhere I went. I should have thought more about the land...."

He remained distracted, but she was determined.

She slid her hand lower, finding and capturing him. He was silk against her skin, his own skin so smooth and pliant as she closed her hand and began gently pulling on him, then pressing down, the silk now sheathing a growing hardness.

She tugged lightly again, moving his soft skin up, down. Again. He seemed to grow beneath her fingers.

Did that feel good to him? He wasn't talking to himself anymore, so she thought she was safe in a.s.suming that it did.