Page 67 of A Lady's Heart Deceived
“Just kiss me. Let me do the rest,” he replied.
When their lips met once more, it was in a tender, unhurried kiss. But Maggie’s heart was still beating fast in her chest. She was holding onto her self-control by the merest of threads.
Piers’s hands slid slowly up Maggie’s inner thighs; from her knees all the way to the dark curls of hair at the entrance to her sex. He paused for a moment, and whispered, “So beautiful.”
“Please,” she breathed, rising up on her knees and spreading her legs wider. Her hands rested on his shoulders.
Piers nodded. “For you? Always.” He gently parted her soft folds, then slowly slid a finger deep into her slick, wet heat.
Maggie whimpered. “Oh, Piers.”
As he stroked her, his thumb traced exquisite circles around her sensitive bud. Piers could read her body so well. Shifting his angle and depth of penetration, he drove Maggie’s need for release to an ever more frantic pace. He slipped a second finger into her sex, and she clung to him. It was better than anything she could ever have imagined. Every caress had her panting for breath. Wanting more.
He thrust in deeper, faster, and she shattered on a sob, reaching her climax in a moment of unbridled ecstasy. “Piers.”
He caressed her through the aftermath, slowly bringing her down. But when she reached for him, intending to open the placket of his trousers, he placed a firm hand on her wrist. “No.”
“I am ready. Make me yours. Take freely what I want to give. Piers, I love you.”
Her skirts were tugged back down, and he lifted her off his lap.
“Piers?” she pleaded, confused.
“Maggie. Don’t ask it of me. I can’t.”
Can’t or won’t—it all meant the same. He didn’t want her. Memories of that night with Robert flashed through her mind. The searing pain of rejection.
Another man whom she had lost her heart to; another who didn’t feel the same way that she did. Piers’s declaration of love was empty of meaning. His words were hollow.
“I’m sorry. I thought we meant more to one another. It’s clear that I was mistaken. Next time you offer up words of love to a woman, I would suggest perhaps you should hold your tongue.” Maggie got to her feet; bitter tears of disappointment stung her eyes. Why she kept falling for men who were only content to toy with her, she couldn’t fathom. Piers was yet another in a disappointing list of males who’d said that they cared for her, but in truth, didn’t.
She hurriedly straightened her skirts, then reached for her coat. It was soaked through; putting it on would serve no purpose. But she wasn't concerned about the coat. All she wanted to do was flee. Her moment of ecstasy was gone, replaced with heartbreak and humiliation.
Piers came and stood behind her. Taking Maggie gently by the shoulders, he turned her to face him. He lay a large warm hand over hers. “Maggie, please don’t take this the wrong way. I care deeply for you. It’s just that my life is complicated. Ruining you would be the worst thing I could do. It’s too much of a risk.”
She shook her head. “I have never thought that love-making between two consenting adults was ruining anything. I’m sorry you view it that way. I just don’t understand why you brought me all the way to Denford Park if you weren’t serious about us. Or was this just another trifling encounter, which you males seem to excel at?”
She tugged the coat free of the hook and headed for the door.
“It’s still raining. You will get drenched,” he replied.
The bolt slid back with a clang. Maggie ignored the rain as she dashed out into the tempest. She just had to get away.
Chapter Forty-Two
The knock came at her bedroom door just after first light. A half-asleep Maggie opened it to find Piers standing in the hallway. He looked like she felt. The bags and dark circles under his eyes were evidence of him also not having got much sleep.
“Get dressed. We need to talk,” he said.
After leaving the barn last night, she had stumbled through the darkness and driving rain back to the main house. Piers had followed, but she had ignored his pleas for her to stop.
“I don’t know if there is anything left to say after yesterday. I’m planning to speak to your mother this morning and ask for her to arrange a carriage to take me to my cousin David’s estate at Sharnbrook. I shall make my own way back to London; you needn’t bother with me after today.”
His splayed hand slapped loudly on the door panel, stopping her from closing it. “Please, Maggie. Let’s not do this. We have to talk. I owe you an explanation. It isn’t fair for me to keep you in the dark any longer.”
As much as she wanted to tell him to go to the devil, she also knew there was no point in being stubborn and refusing his offer. He was offering to give her some answers. It was what she had wanted all along.
“Give me a minute to find some warm clothes,” she said.
