Page 41 of Her Wicked Highwayman
Tyburn leaned forward, his gaze piercing, and his pistol swayed slightly as he gestured at her.
“Remove yer dress.”
“What? No?—”
“Ye stole all that I had and left me while I was still sleeping, yet now ye will not offer me even this bit of recompense? Ye wound me, little fire drake. And yes, ye also seem to forget who is holding the pistol. Strip, lass.Now.” The deep command in his voice did something to her and she no longer could resist him. With trembling hands, she opened the hidden panel in the front of her gown to unfasten the laces and let the garment drop to the floor. She wrapped her arms around herself, though she still wore her underpinnings.
Tyburn let out a hiss of breath and adjusted his position in the chair. She noticed the bulge in his trousers and rememberedhow large and thick his cock had been. Heat seared across her as though she’d suddenly stepped into bright sunlight.
“Now the rest.” His voice was almost smooth as he motioned with the pistol for her to continue.
With a flare of rage and desire in equal measure, she kicked off her petticoats and slippers, then removed her stockings and finally her stays.
“And the chemise, lass. I would have ye bare for my hungry gaze.” His voice had lost some of its smoothness and was now rough, as though his control was fraying at the edges. Good. She wanted to torture him as long as she could as some small form of revenge.
She pulled the strings that gathered at her breasts and then let the chemise gape open at her neck before shimmying out of it. The night air drifted across her bare skin like a ghostly caress, yet it barely cooled her heated flesh, nor did it tame the fire in her belly. Tyburn studied her like a man desperate for water who’d come across a cold river in the Highlands.
“Come here.” He pointed to a place just in front of him. She walked toward him, her body bare. He unfastened the necklace on his wrist and held it out to her.
“Put this on. I want ye to wear that and nothing else when I take ye.”
Her thighs clamped together as his words painted a wild, erotic picture in her mind. Tyburn poised above her, still clothed, while she lay prostrate beneath him, a sensual sacrifice to the God of the underworld with only her mother’s necklace at her throat for protection from the god’s wrathful lust.
Tyburn looked upon her a long moment, his gaze like a tangible caress. He spread his legs a little and patted his thigh with his free hand.
“Sit here.”
Diana would’ve bristled at the command, for she was no trained spaniel, but she ached to touch him. With no small amount of embarrassment, she eased down onto his lap. The soft black leather beneath her thighs was smooth and warm and somehow highly erotic. His body was hard in a way that made her delightfully dizzy, knowing that he could direct all that strength toward pleasuring her and taking his own pleasure from her. She held back a moan as she began to throb with forbidden desire.
He caught her waist, and she heard the pistol drop to the carpeted floor as he cupped the back of her neck. With a desperate growl, he pulled her down to meet him. His lips were angry as he captured her mouth. She gasped in surprise at the taste of his sensual rage, but when his tongue slipped between her startled lips, he softened his erotic assault. She kissed him back, hungry for whatever she could have of him. She dug her fingers into his hair. When Diana touched the black ribbons that kept his domino on, he jerked away.
“No, lass,no,” he said firmly, though he was a bit breathless.
“But—”
“’Tis for yer safety. Ye canna be forced to tell what ye’ve seen if ye’ve never seen me.”
“Is that the true reason?” she asked. His hair was thick and silky to her touch, and she trembled with a desire to see it bathed in sunlight. It would surely glow like a halo. “Are you scarred?”
“Scarred? Aye, but the scars are within. I have a fierce angelic beauty that would make ye weep to see me.”
She snorted—it was clear he was teasing her. “So you are as common as I am in looks, then.” She didn’t care if he was scarred or plain-looking. The mystery of his looks mattered little to her. What she cared about was what he said, what he did, and how his kisses made her feel like she could breathe again.
His hand at the nape of her neck moved to slide into her loose hair, and she wondered if he was possessed by the same desperate need to touch her, to make fresh memories of what moments they could steal in the sanctuary of twilight.
“Ye are the farthest thing from common, lass. Never have I seen such beauty as when I look upon ye.”
Diana wanted to call him out for false flattery, but his tone was honest, and he held a hint of reverence for her that set her to trembling anew.
“I’m not a beauty. I don’t compare to other ladies.”
“Lass,” he groaned in exasperation and amusement. “If only ye could see yerself the way I do, ye’d never doubt yerself. Yeshine.” He breathed in. “Like a distant star, so far out of a mortal’s reach. I wonder what it must be like to glow forever in the dark, to burn on endlessly, giving a poor wretch like me the light to find my way home.”
His words held an intensity that made her heart expand, filling it with such warmth that it actuallyhurt. She’d never imagined anyone would see her that way. What he saw of her was a version of herself that was not weary, had not been beaten down and crushed by life. His words gave her strength. He gave her what she needed most, but she dared not put a name to it. He’d come here tonight for her, he’d tracked her down, and yes, he’d carried a pistol and asked about the money, but all of that was but a side mission for him. That much was clear by the desperate longing in his lips and eyes. If she was perhaps truly a star, she felt like she was shining bright enough to lighten the darkest of nights.
“Kiss me, oh star, before I lose my way in the dark,” he whispered.
She leaned in, giving her mouth to him, letting him teach her all the ways a kiss could spin new dreams on shafts of starlight. After what felt like stardust-coated centuries, their lips parted,and he rested his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes, her fingers clenching and unclenching in the folds of his shirtsleeves as she steadied herself. The entire earth had shifted beneath her. Nothing would ever be the same now that she knew this man’s kiss.
