Page 30 of The Agent and the Outlaw
“That wasnotdeceit,” he whispered. I shut my eyes, thrown utterly off balance by the impact of what had just happened. “Charlotte, look at me.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes, fully intending to laugh off the awkwardness I started to feel, but found myself unable. My sharp retorts and witticisms died in my throat. I didn’t want an uncomfortable silence or an indifferent conclusion to this strange encounter. I just wanted more of him. I reached up and set my lips to his again, half-expecting to meet some kind of resistance, but he yielded to me immediately. I threaded my fingers through his hair and sucked at his tongue, dizzy with lust. He dragged his lips from mine and licked the droplets of rainwater on my neck, then nuzzled his way back up to my ear.
“Oh, Antoine,” I breathed.
“Dieu, Comtesse,”he growled, tugging at my earlobe with his teeth. “I want you so badly I cannot think straight, but we should not continue. We cannot if we don’t trust each other.”
“Who says we cannot? Trust has nothing to do with sex.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, his desire warring with his frustration. “You truly want me to continue?”
In response, I wrapped one leg around his waist and reached down to slide my hand along the impressive, hard length of him. He choked out a sound halfway between a cry and a moan, then yanked my hands away from his delicious body and pinned them down at my sides.
For a moment, my heart sank, interpreting the gesture as rejection.He should reject you, Charlotte. He is everything that is honorable and straightforward, and you are more artifice than flesh.
Afraid at what I might see reflected in his gaze, I tilted my face up to his, expecting to hear the censure I so often heard from my former husband. No such words came. Instead, he grinned wickedly, flashing a dimpled smile that made my knees wobble. Taking one hand and lifting my sodden skirts, he reached beneath the hem of my chemise and stroked cool fingers up my inner thighs.
“Your skin is like silk,” he murmured. “Finer than anything a man like me should be allowed to touch.”
He slid two fingers through the seam of my sex, pressing one fingertip against the bud of pleasure and prompting me to utter a stream of obscenities that made his breath quicken.
“From the first moment I saw you, Comtesse, I knew you would be this maddening. So passionate,” he teased at my ear, rubbing firm circles with his fingertip and sliding his second finger inside me.
“Putain de merde, oui, l’amour.If you stop now, I will kill you!”
I grasped wildly for his breeches, but he stayed my hand and brought his lips to mine for a searing kiss.
“Not yet,” he panted. “I’ve been wagering with myself that seeing you in ecstasy will be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I plan to settle that bet first.”
I whimpered something unintelligible—even to my own ears—and ground my hips against his hand.
“Now do you understand? My desire for you, Comtesse, is the most honest thing that has existed between us since we met days ago.”
Faster and harder his skilled fingers worked until my bliss closed in around me and I began to see stars. His other hand came up to caress my breast through the drenched fabric of my dress. He sucked at my earlobe and pinched my nipple almost to the point of pain, sending me screaming over the edge. When my climax broke, Antoine held me through it, letting me ride the waves of pleasure in his arms. When I sighed in satisfaction, he dropped my skirts, swept another kiss across my lips and licked his fingertips.
“Perfection,” he said with a smile.
I stared at him in wonder. Whowasthis man? He’d gone from gruff murderer to grumpy soldier to devastating rake in the time that I’d known him—a scant matter of days.A man to keep you on your toes, Charlotte.If I wasn’t careful, I could fall for him, and that would most certainly complicate the life I’d worked very hard to craft for myself in the wake of Philippe’s destruction. Suddenly self-conscious, I closed my eyes.
“Antoine, I’m sorry, I—”
A twig snapped behind our grove of trees and we both froze.
“Well, well, well, thatwasentertaining,” came an accented voice from the darkness.
The darkness.What fools we’d been! In our sexual frustration, we’d completely abandoned good sense and had delayed too long. Night had fallen, and from the thick Prussian consonants emanating from the blackness beyond, thebêteshad found us.
Merde.
Antoine realized it, too, and stepped in front of me protectively.The idiot.Two of us could fight better than one.
From all around us, the five soldiers came forward slowly. They had our routes of escape blocked. Tartuffe whinnied as one of thebêtesseized his reins and grinned predatorily, showing off an impressive set of fangs.
“We have no quarrel with you,petite.It’s the gentleman we’re after,” said one of the Parisians.
“Speak for yourself,” grumbled the other Prussian. I recognized him as the one that I’d shot in the stomach. He kept his hand on the pistol at his side and narrowed his gaze at me.
My mind worked. On foot, we wouldn’t stand a chance. If we could get to Tartuffe, we might be able to get away, but I wasn’t certain how likely that would be. They had us surrounded and it was five on two. If I had more than the one pistol, I might be able to manage it, but between Antoine and I, a fight seemed doomed from the start. Perhaps I could negotiate.
