The Recruit Read online

  She stared at the man who’d invaded her chamber—who’d invaded her sanity. Sir Kenneth Sutherland stood—lazed, actually—with his back against the door and his arms crossed against his chest, watching her. The relaxed pose didn’t fool her. She could feel the danger emanating from him.

  Dread sank to the bottom of her stomach like a stone.

  “What are you doing here? Get out!” She hoped she didn’t sound as scared as she felt.

  He smiled, glancing toward the trunks. “Running away from me again, Mary?” His gaze slid down her ready-for-bed-clad form, and she hastily clenched the edges of her robe tighter even though she knew he could not see anything. He let his arms fall to his sides and made a tisking sound. “For someone who purports not to care or have a thought about what happened, you seem to be very anxious to get away from me.”

  He took a few steps closer to her. Why had she never noticed how small the room was? And who had lit the fire so high? The temperature seemed to have gone up twenty degrees. But the blast of heat wasn’t coming from the brazier. The pounding in her heart told her exactly who was the source of the heat.

  “I have to ask myself why,” he said idly. He took another step, and she almost yelped like a frightened pup. He smiled as if he’d sensed it. A big, lazy, knowing smile that set alarm bells ringing up and down her spine. “You know what I think? I think you’re scared about how I make you feel. I think you’re scared not because it meant nothing to you but because it meant a lot. I think that if you didn’t care as much as you say you don’t care, you would be sitting down for the evening meal right now, not hiding up in your room.” He held her gaze. “I think you want me.”

  Mary gasped with outrage. He was arrogant, overbearing, and so cocksure of himself. It didn’t make it any better that he was also right. Not that she would ever let him know that. “I’m not hiding, I’m packing. Not that it’s any business of yours, but I am not leaving to avoid you. There is a pressing estate matter to which I must attend.”

  He laughed. “Very pressing, I’m sure.” She looked up, terrified to realize how close he was standing to her. No more than a foot separated them. “Is that why your pulse is fluttering, your cheeks are flushed, and your heart is beating so hard I can hear it?”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. That wasn’t possible, was it? But he only smiled, her reaction giving her away.

  She started to retreat, backing away from the chair she’d been gripping like a lifeline. Only then did she remember the baby cap. She sucked in her breath. It lay in the middle of the chair with her glasses like a beacon. All he had to do was look down. If he hadn’t heard her heart pounding before, he surely heard it now. She prayed …

  Too late. “What are you doing?”

  He reached for it, but she snatched it and the glasses from him before he could pick it up. “Careful! You’ll break the glasses.” Praying her cheeks weren’t as hot as they felt, she added, “It’s a piece of embroidery I’m working on.” She tucked it in the basket she used before he could look at it closer.

  His eyes narrowed at her odd behavior, and for a minute she feared he might reach in after it. “For whom?”

  She said the first thing that popped into her head. “I sell them at the market in Newcastle.”

  He arched a brow, and she felt her defenses prick. “It is a perfectly acceptable way of earning money. How else should I have provided for myself when my husband was executed and my dower lands confiscated?”

  He gave her a long appraising look. “I wasn’t judging you. I’m merely surprised, that’s all.”

  Having avoided disaster, she just wanted him to leave.

  “Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why does it matter to you what I do, when you have so many other women to choose from? Was your tumble in the stables this afternoon not enough for you?”

  He showed no shame at what she’d seen. Nor did he deny it. Had she really hoped he would?

  Instead, he merely arched a dark brow wickedly—good God, even his brow was sensual! Was there any part of him that was not? “Jealous, little one?”

  “No!”

  But her protest was too strong and too quick. He closed the gap between them in one stride. She tried to step back, but all she could feel was the hard press of stone. He’d backed her against the wall, and there was nowhere for her to go.

  “You don’t care?” he challenged, his eyes locking on hers.

  Everything inside her was racing. Her heart, her pulse, her blood. “I don’t.”

  He leaned down, his face inches from hers. Their bodies weren’t touching, but she could feel the heat, feel the weight of him pressing down on her.

  Mary couldn’t breathe, conscious of the soft swell of her stomach between them. Despite the fact that the bump was still barely noticeable—fortunately, the weight she’d gained had been distributed fairly evenly so far—she was so certain that he would somehow sense it. That he would know the moment he touched her. Every inch of his body was so engrained on her memory, she assumed he would notice the changes.

  But he didn’t. His hand slid around her waist, and he pulled her up against him. Even though he had the use of only one arm, she would have been hard pressed to escape if she’d tried.

  “Then prove it. Kiss me.” His lips hovered just above hers. “Kiss me, Mary,” he groaned, right before his mouth fell on hers.

  Her heart slammed into her chest at the contact. She dissolved into the heat. Melting against the hard granite of his body and the warm, velvety softness of his lips.

  She descended—nay, plummeted—into a vortex of pleasure. Hot, mindless pleasure that pulled her into a molten whirlpool of madness. The fierceness of the passion that exploded between them claimed them both. She kissed him back. Clutching. Her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his arms as she fought to get even closer.

  She moaned as his tongue licked into her mouth, as he bent her to him and plundered the deepest reaches of her soul, leaving no part of her unclaimed. Untasted.

  Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Blood pounded in her ears. She was hot and weak and needy, her body clenching and quivering in anticipation.

  He groaned, a deep guttural sound that made her heart flip, and dug his fingers through her hair to grip the back of her head, shifting the angle to kiss her even deeper.

  She could feel the hardness of his manhood pressing against her insistently. He started to circle his hips to hers, and she made a sound of pure pleasure at the sweet friction. Heat clenched between her legs. She could feel her body softening, weakening, opening for him.

  The memories of passion were visceral and immediate. She wanted him inside her, right here, right now. She wanted him to lift her skirt, press her up against the wall, and surge deep inside. She wanted to feel him moving, thrusting, slamming harder and harder. She wanted to feel the sweet crest of passion, feel her body spasming around him. And she wanted to hear him cry out. To see him stiffen. To see his face tense with the force of his passion.

  And he wanted it, too. His hand was on her hips, her bottom, sliding up over her stomach to cup her breasts, her—

  Stomach. Her mind caught up a fraction of a second too late to stop him.

  He stilled.

  For one long heartbeat nothing happened. She waited. In a moment of desperate self-delusion, she wondered if perhaps he hadn’t noticed.

  But the calm was only a harbinger of the strength of the storm to come. When he lifted his gaze and his eyes fell on hers, the wrath was upon her.

  Fifteen

  At first when Kenneth’s hand slid over the slight roundness, it didn’t penetrate. He was so half out of his mind with lust that he couldn’t completely process what he was feeling.

  She was so soft and sweet. She felt so good in his arms. The urgent little sounds she was making were driving him wild. All he could think about was getting inside her. He wanted to possess her. Claim her. Force her to acknowledge the strange connection between them.

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