Page 42 of Wicked Rivals
“No,” she panted. She did not belong to any man—her life was her own.
Ashton’s blue eyes were so like the sky above, but intensified with an inner fire.
“Youaremine. And I care for what’s mine. Ipleasurewhat’s mine.” He relented in his tender seduction only a moment, and she wriggled in frustration, wanting him to keep touching her, yet fighting what accepting it would mean.
“Not yours.” Still she resisted, but his lips curved into an irresistible grin.
“Deny it all you like, but I own you,Lady Melbourne.” He emphasized her title, and she clawed at his back.
“Please…” She needed him to finish what he’d started, but not like this. Not on these terms.
“Say it or I walk away.” His hair fell across his eyes, and the shadow of a faint beard made him more of a rakish pirate than the business-minded gentleman he showed thetonback in London. It was as though she could see back into time a few hundred years and see Ashton’s ancestors raiding the English coast. Tall, blond-headed warriors who took whatever they wished at any cost. It was both frightening and exciting. Her skin heated and her nipples hardened beneath her gown at the thought of him taking her right there in the grass. There would be no one to stop them from getting carried away.
Do I yield or resist?
He pursed his lips and sat back on his heels, pulling her skirts back down.
“But—” She needed him to keep touching her. He couldn’t just stop…
“Until you can answer yes without hesitation, I won’t be rewarding you.” He stood and brushed off the grass from his clothes, then caught her waist and lifted her to her feet. His eyes were fierce with a determination to deny her what she wanted most in that moment. To be back in the grass with him. But no, he was paying her back for when she had left him spent in the opera house from her own gentle ministrations. He’d caught her fairly in a trap she’d walked right into. DamnedSassenach!
“You are no gentleman!” She huffed, her body still humming with need and frustration.
His booming laugh set her teeth on edge. “My dear, I just stopped myself from tupping you right here in a field. I believe that actually proves me a gentleman. If I had no control, your dress would be ruined with grass stains because I would have taken you as hard and as savagely as we both wanted. Butyoustopped me. Remember that. You wouldn’t say what I wished to hear.”
“What you wish to hear I cannot give. To you it’s just a game, but not to me.”
He plucked at the ends of his shirtsleeves, fixing his appearance, and Rosalind hissed beneath her breath like an angry cat.
“I’ve got to work to do. Would you take the horses somewhere close by and tether them?” He turned his back on her, and she had the sense she’d disappointed him, which infuriated her because she didn’t need to please him. She didnotbelong to him.
Still, a little place deep inside her kept asking that simple, dangerous question.
What if?
Chapter Eleven
“You’re serious about this marriage business?” Charles asked as he, Jonathan and Ashton lifted yet another charred beam away from the foundations where the Higgins farmhouse had once been. They set the beam in the back of a large cart. Several other men from the village and surrounding lands were busy assisting in the clearing away of the destroyed houses.
“Yes, I am.” Ashton paused to wipe his sleeve across his brow. It was too damned hot for this sort of work. If anything, he should be supervising the others. It was not fitting for a man of his station to perform manual labor, but he could not sit idly by, not when he was flooded with frustrated sexual energy. If he couldn’t take Rosalind to bed, he needed to use that pent-up passion for something productive.
“Butwhy?” Charles repeated. “I thought you swore off marriage.”
“It’s complicated, Charles. Mother is pushing me to marry for Joanna’s sake, and I am tired of fighting her. If she believes Rosalind and I are courting, it will buy me some time.”
“But pretending to court is different than actually courting her. I thought you said this would be a ruse and nothing more.” Charles was frowning at this point.
“Well, that had been my original desire, but the more I think of it, if I could marry her it would be profitable in more ways than one.”
“Marrying for profit? But is that…” Jonathan let his words die as he too frowned.
“Mercenaryis the word you’re looking for,” Charles added.
Ashton didn’t deny it. It was indeed mercenary in nature, but given how the last day had gone, he’d begun to feel that things could get better, perhaps even pleasurable if they ended up marrying. Of course, she couldn’t learn his real intention was to take this ruse and turn it into reality.
“I need to hold control over Rosalind’s companies until I can learn to what ends Hugo has been using her. Furthermore, if I control her assets, nothing can happen without my knowledge.”
“Yes, but you’ve been doing all that without throwing in this marriage nonsense,” said Charles.
