Daisy frowned. “I thought you were friends with Lucien.”
“No one is truly friends with a GIM. Their very immortality is based on theft, which does not endear them to many.” But Ian did not want to discuss Lucien or their deal. No matter the necessity, or the facts, Conall was his baby brother. The thought of killing him crushed Ian’s heart. No, all he wanted to discuss this very moment was Daisy. And him.
“He beguiled you, you realize.”
Daisy stiffened against her seat. “Into wanting the food?” With undue intensity, she studied the view outside of the moving coach. “I figured as much. I’ve never been so moved by a common grape.”
He wanted to laugh at the way she so neatly sidestepped him. “That evasion was prettily done, my dear.”
She sniffed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Feeling fiendish, he nudged her skirts with the tip of his booted toe. Her red- and-cream-striped visiting dress, with all its flounces and bows, put to mind wrapping paper, an irresistible present that his fingers itched to unwrap. “Did it not affect you, the way he touched the ethereal Mary Chase?”
She edged away, her plump lips flat with annoyance. “Of course it did. How can one not be affected by such a disgraceful display?”
“Mmm.” He rested the offending foot over his knee. “So those blushes were out of disgust, were they?”
She glared at the passing traffic.
A certain sense of glee lightened his chest. “See, I rather thought you found it arousing.”
She did not bite but kept a bland face turned toward the window. “You would.”
“Huh. Perhaps there was another reason you squirmed within your seat. I would blame it on luncheon, but as we’ve had none…”
She shot him a repressive look. “Now it is you who is being disgusting.”
He laughed for the sheer joy of doing so. This was what he wanted from life, not death or clan machinations. Just her. Just them. “Daisy-girl, you are a terrible liar, did you know?”
“Ass,” she muttered under her breath.
Planting his feet on the coach floor, Ian rested his elbows upon his knees, bringing himself into tempting proximity of her lush figure. He allowed himself one breath of her natural fragrance and felt it swim through his veins. “Are you saying you have no interest in that sort of activity?” Oh, but he was a bastard.
The bored look remained. “Voyeurism seems a rather unbalanced exchange.”
“Were it not solely voyeuristic in nature?” He ran his tongue along the outside of his teeth and was gratified to see her twitch. Unbidden, images of the night before flashed through his mind, of her mouth opening for him and the feel of her abundant curves filling his hands as he pressed against her. By God, she’d bitten him. And he’d loved it. His fingers clenched. “Were it perhaps one man with one woman? You, I mean, with one man.”
“Northrup.” It was a strangled sound, a plea for silence.
But the devil in him had taken rein of his common sense. “Did you take a peek?”
She startled, but he could tell by the look on her face that she knew precisely what he was about. “What? No.” Her eyes cut to his and then darted away, high color painting her cheeks red. “You were unconscious. It would have been rude in the extreme to take advantage.”
“How disappointing.” His smile grew. Ah, to tease her. He got more enjoyment from doing so than entertaining a bed full of women. Suddenly, it was not enough to face her. Ian moved to the space beside her, taking note of the way she tensed.
“And if I hadn’t been?” His heart beat too quickly, the blood pumping through his veins too hot. “Had I been awake,” he whispered in her ear, “what then?”
Her cheeks plumped on a repressed grin. “In minute detail.”
Heat washed under his clothes, and he pressed his shoulder more intimately against hers, knowing it would agitate her just as it agitated him. “And then what?” His voice had gone rough and thick, not his own.
Daisy kept her eyes on the window. “From what I saw of your torso, I think…” Little pearl teeth caught on her pouting bottom lip. “I think I should like to dip you in melted butter and lick it off.”
A shocked laugh burst from his lips. His c**k pushed tight against his trousers. He adjusted himself and took a deep breath to keep from hauling her onto his lap then and there. “I’m asking cook for butter when we arrive home.”
A chuckle escaped before she pressed her mouth tight, but her eyes twinkled as she maintained her vigil of the road. “No, you are not. Even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. I won’t succumb.”
He turned toward her, suddenly irritated. “You are evading this. Why? We are both unattached and healthy. And we want each other,” he said. “Quite desperately.”
Daisy drew in a sharp breath through her pert nose, but she faced him, her blue eyes steady and filled with the same desire that burned inside of him. “Yes, we do.”
Gods, but her admission heated his blood.
“Then let us enjoy each other.”
“Is that what we are doing?” She said it so earnestly that he almost smiled, save she also appeared distressed at the very idea. “Enjoying each other? Is that what this is?”
No. It wasn’t what this was. Suddenly his chest felt too tight, and his jaw clamped shut.
Blonde curls trembled as she shook her head. “You can’t even answer.”
“Of course I can.” He rubbed his chest irritably before glaring at her. “I want you. Now. Here. Is that clear enough?”
Heart thundering in his ears, he watched her in the ensuing silence. Her lovely face fell as if she’d expected withdrawal instead of a confession. “Yes.” She averted her eyes, their brilliant blue depths going murky. “It isn’t a good idea, Northrup.”
The coach slammed over a rut and his teeth rattled. He ground them together. It was that easy for her, was it? And what of him? If he thought too closely on all that he risked, he surely would turn tail and run. And yet he was here, willing to try.
“This is bullshite,” he got out at last.
Her head snapped up in surprise, her eyes going wide. “Pardon me?”
Such outrage. Oh, but he saw the hurt there too. The fear. His fist clenched on his thigh. “It isn’t in your nature to turn from pleasure, yet you are.”
“What do you know of my nature?”
“I know it is exactly like mine, made to enjoy sensation. You weren’t afraid before. And now you are. Why? Tell me what has changed.”
She gave a little laugh. “I don’t have to tell you a thing.”
“No,” he admitted, calming. “No, you don’t.” Gently, like he would approach a frightened wolf, his hand settled over her smaller one to show her he could lead her from any danger. “But you can.”
She stared down at it for a moment.
“This isn’t about Miranda, is it?” His fingers tightened over hers. “For I told you—”
“No, that isn’t it.”
Ian ran a hand over his face in an effort not to shout. “Then tell me what it is.”
“You wouldn’t be a nameless tup in some alley!”
She inhaled sharply and looked away, hot color rising over her cheeks. A golden curl bounced over her ear, and he caught it with his fingertip. The tendril coiled around his finger as if a living thing. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. “It would mean something with you.” The bronze fan of her lashes swept down. “You would become a complication I wouldn’t know how to manage, Ian.”
Everything inside him tensed. His finger, still embraced by her curl, clenched and the strand slipped free. Part of him didn’t want to speak. Part of him wanted to leap from the coach and run away. Were he honest with himself, it was the greater part of him. And yet he could not stop his mouth from slowly forming the words that the stronger, deeper part of him wanted to say. “I’m willing to risk complications to be with you.”
A pained sound tore from her lips. “I don’t know how to do this.” Her mouth pinched as though tasting something bitter. For a moment, he feared she wouldn’t speak, but then she took a deep, choppy breath. “Not when my heart is engaged.”
“Daisy…”
She didn’t appear to hear him.
“Bloody Craigmore,” she ground out, viciousness twisting her features. “I know his words were lies, cruelty designed to torment.” Her hands opened and clenched as she spoke. “And yet I still find myself believing them.”
He threaded his fingers with hers, keeping his hold light no matter how much he wanted to turn and punch a hole through the coach window. “I’d rip his throat out were he still alive.”
Daisy blinked back a tear. “It wouldn’t have changed a thing. His words have infected me, made me believe that my lust is a sin and my pleasure a man’s downfall.”
“Is this why you never took a lover?”
Her eyes snapped to his.
“All signs point to a woman unaccustomed to proper male attention, love.” His thumb found the pulse point at her wrist and caressed the silken spot. “Which is a true shame, as you are ripe for pleasure.”
She sighed. “I wanted to. God knows I did. Only”—she swallowed visibly—“I thought it would make it worse. For me to have a taste of pleasure and still be trapped.” A bitter laugh filled the coach. “Stupid. So utterly stupid that I let him win.”
She said it more to herself, but he drew her near. “Entirely,” he agreed softly before bending down to nuzzle her neck and inhale the sweet scent of her, like sunshine and life and happiness. It felt so good to hold her again, as though one day had been a lifetime. “I say we conduct a thorough investigation in the matter of your pleasure.” His lips trailed over the fragrant skin under her jaw, and she shivered. “Consider me your willing victim.”
This time, when she laughed, it was light, relenting. “Pest.”
“Mmm.” Not leaving the delicious spot on her neck, he reached out and pulled the shade closed. “The worst of the lot.”
Her head lolled back on a sigh. “I wasn’t supposed to like you, Northrup.”
“Ian,” he reminded her. His tongue touched her earlobe, drawing out another thready sigh. “And you were supposed to be a bloody pain in my arse.”
Slowly he kissed his way down her slender neck. The plump swells of her bosom trembled with each light kiss. He unhooked the first clasp of her bodice, and she went still.
“Ian?”
“Hmm?”
“You aren’t honestly trying to seduce me in a carriage, are you?” She sounded mildly amused and highly incredulous.
“Why not?” His voice was muffled against her breast, the deep valley there a delight of curves and dips. Delicately, he ran the tip of his tongue along the line of her cle**age, and she made a little noise of surprise that had him as hard as iron in an instant. He eased down to kneel in front of her on the carriage floor, and then pressed in closer, kissing her butter-soft lips, her firm little chin, the side of her warm neck.
Daisy squirmed against him. Trying to get away, or trying to get closer, he couldn’t be sure. He decided to find out. He nuzzled her neck and slipped the second hook free. “It’s quiet.” He kissed her left breast. “Private.” Her right breast next. “Then there are the convenient bumps and sways.”
“It seems so obvious.” Despite the protest, her hand drifted down to slide into his hair.
He laughed, his breath hot against her skin. “I shall keep that in mind for next time, lest my creativity be permanently called into question. Keep that up.”
Obligingly, her fingers stroked his hair, sending shivers of pleasure down his back. The next hook came free, and his knuckles grazed the underswell of her corseted br**sts.
“All the times my mother warned me about being alone with men in carriages, I would think”—she lifted her shoulders a touch, nudging herself into the kiss he placed on her collarbone—“how prosaic. What true rake would dare?”
Ian lifted his head and caught her gaze with his. “Daisy-girl?”
The arc of her brow lifted.
“Hush.”
Her bodice slid apart in a hiss of satin, and he almost groaned. Her corset matched the color of her eyes. A demicup design that lifted her br**sts high. The shadow of her ni**les taunted him beneath the thin linen of her combinations. His thumb found the first ingenious little latch release on the corset front, and he almost wept. God bless French lingerie designers.
Ian held her gaze, watching the way she panted lightly, her lips parted and her color high. He knew that she craved going down darker roads. His voice was not his own. It belonged to a beast with a raging cockstand. “I’m going to lick and suck your sweet tits, Daisy-Meg, until we’re both dying from the pleasure of it.”
Her lips rounded to a shocked O, a flush spreading from her cheeks down to the impressive swells of her br**sts. He didn’t miss the way her pupils dilated with desire and excitement. It fueled his.
“Because you deserve pleasure, lass.” He flipped open a snap, the inhuman strength in his fingers making it easy. “You deserve to be well and thoroughly loved.”
With each distinct click of her corset snaps releasing, her breath ratcheted and he fought not to fall on her like a man starved. Slowly, the corset parted, revealing its hidden prize. The tightness in his gut turned to near pain.
Her panting had grown hard and agitated as she waited, her blue eyes watchful. With a flick of his wrist, he set her corset free. She exhaled in a shuddering breath as though she too had been freed. Liquid heat flowed down his spine. Keeping his eyes on hers, he let one claw out and hooked his finger over the edge of her combinations.