Lady In Distress (The Langley Sisters Book 3) (24 page)

“Why did you not come when I sent for you, Luke?”

“Because I was busy.”

She looked down at her hands then, and he knew he’d hurt her.
“I-I need to ask you something.” She was pale, her eyes wide in her sweet face as once again she looked up at him.

“What is so important that you would risk your reputation and Will’s wrath to come here, alone at night?”
 

Inhaling deeply, she looked at the fire and then back up at him, and Luke had the premonition that whatever she wanted to say he didn’t think he wanted to hear it.
 

“Do you love another, Luke?

“What? No!” he denied. “How can you ask me that?” Too late, he realized he should have said yes, because if he was going to run then he needed to have a reason, and that would have been the perfect one.

“Do you then love me, Luke Fletcher?” He stumbled back a step at her words.
 

“Why are you asking me that?” His voice was hoarse.

Pulling off her gloves, she then rose from the chair and stepped towards him. Lifting one hand, she cupped his cheek. “Because I realized something today. No one has ever cared for me the way you do, and I have never felt for another as I do you, and because of this I have no wish to wait. I want to marry you.”

“The season?” he said.
 

“I will finish it, if that is your wish, but I will do so knowing that at the end of it we are to marry.”

His foolish heart leapt. “You would give up all that you have here in London for me?”

“In a heartbeat, because none of it matters if you are not with me.”

His body was hard, had been since she had entered his room. Knowing his bed was just a few feet away and he could have her on it in minutes was pushing every sane thought out of his head.

“No, I cannot commit to that yet,” Luke said. He could not ask her now, not with the threat hanging over her. If anything were to happen to her because of him, he would be lost. She and she alone had been his reason for doing what he had, and he’d failed. Until he succeeded he would not ask her to give up everything for him.

“Why, Luke? Do you no longer want me?” Her heart was in her eyes as she spoke, and Luke felt his resistance slip away.

“Not want you! Christ, I ache for you, Isabella. Each night, my dreams are filled with sensual visions of you and I wake wanting you here, in my arms. I can recall every detail of that night in Will’s study. The taste your skin on my lips, your soft cries as I touched you. I have suffered with the knowledge that at night you dance in the arms of another and know there is nothing I can do to change that. You’re in my blood, Bella. I exist just to see you, just to smell your scent. Don’t tell me I don’t want you.”

“Yet you won’t have me yet.”

“I can’t,” he rasped. “There can be no future for us until I do what must be done.”

She touched his face. “And what must be done?”

He could take no more; she was here and he wanted her, his beautiful Bella—his heart, his soul, and the reason for every breath he drew. Lowering his head, he placed a soft kiss on her lips, trying to convey with his touch what he could not with words. Releasing her briefly, he took off her bonnet and coat, then pulled her into his arms to kiss her once more. This one had more heat, more passion, more of everything. He poured all his longing into it, every minute he’d craved for her.
 

Her neck drew him; the scent of this woman tantalized him until he was blind to all but possessing her. Years of wanting her had clouded his thoughts. She was here and he would have her, make her his, if only for tonight.

His fingers trembled as he unbuttoned her dress and pushed it lower, until it fell to the floor.

“Sweet Christ,” he whispered, looking down her body, clad now only in a thin shift. “I’ve imagined you so often, yet nothing can compare with this,” Luke rasped. “You’re so beautiful, Bella.”

He placed a hand gently on her breast, touching her full flesh, caressing the tight peak.

“Luke.” She whispered his name as her lashes lowered.
 

He kissed her again; all reason had gone now, their mouths clinging, tongues twining as Luke took her on a slow, sensual journey. He felt her hands touch his back, caressing him, and her fingers burned through his shirt, then they moved to his front, where they began to undo the buttons on his shirt.

“You’re so warm, Luke.” He felt his body tense as she placed a kiss on his chest.
 

“Ah, Bella, your touch is everything I knew it would be.”

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “If we only have tonight to hold us until we can be together, then let us make memories for the long, lonely nights ahead.”

“Bella—” She placed her fingers over his lips. “No more talking.”

Bella felt him ease her chemise up her thighs, then slowly up her body, and his hands left a trail of fire wherever they traveled. She’d come here to tell him she had made her choice, but he had refused her. Something was wrong in Luke’s life, and it was that which was holding him away from her. But he was not going to tell her what, so for tonight she would not question him further; for tonight, she would simply love him.

“Lift your arms, love.”

She did, reveling in the rasp of his words, the endearments and feelings he said in the unguarded heat of passion.
 

He stood back to look at her and Bella did not hide herself, not even the ugly, twisted scar on her leg. This was who she was.
 

“Dear God, you’re beautiful.”

“Not all of me,” she heard herself saying.

He dropped to his knees beside her leg, and touched the puckered scar with gentle fingers. “All of you,” he said, leaning forward to kiss it.
 

It was heaven; his lips were warm as they moved down her leg, his hand touching her, running up the outside of her legs as his mouth traveled over her.

“Never think this lessens your beauty, my love. This is only a mark of where you have traveled to become the woman before me today.” He rose to cup her face, kissing her eyelids. “I’ve dreamed of kissing you, of swallowing your cries as I make you mine.”

“Yes,” Bella whispered against his lips as she pushed his shirt from his shoulders, her hand running over the chest she had exposed. “I need you so much, Luke.”

“I know, love. It’s no different for me.”

This time, it was Bella who reached for him. Pulling his head lower she kissed him with everything she had inside her, let him feel her love.

He took control, his tongue stroking hers, his hand tormenting her body. He traced the curve of her buttocks, the plains of her back and Bella wanted more, needed more. She arched closer, needing to feel all of him. Her fingers touched his breeches and he picked her up and placed her on the edge of the bed. Bella sat on her knees, watching as he pulled off his boots and then the rest of his clothes. His feet were long and pale and his legs strong, with long, corded muscles lining his thighs. He was aroused, and although she had never seen a man in this condition, she was not afraid. He was aroused because he wanted her.
 

“I would never hurt you, Isabella.”

He walked towards her as her eyes looked at him, savoring every inch of his beautiful body.

“You’re prefect.”

His laugh was strained. “Far from that.”
“To me, you’re perfect,” Bella said, lifting one hand to touch the long length of his arousal. His teeth snapped together as she ran her finger over it, stroking the hot flesh.

“I have thought of you touching me again, love, dreamed of your hands on my body,” he rasped.

But not enough to tell me what is wrong.

Bella pushed the thought aside and instead explored him, tracing the muscles in his thighs, and back up to his flat, taut stomach. He captured her wrists and pushed them to her sides.

“I have no restraint with you, Bella. How could I when I have wanted you for so many years? Let me love you as I have always longed to.”

She nodded and he kissed her softly, passionately. His hand cupped her breasts, stroking and then rolling her nipples in his fingers, and Bella cried out as he lowered his head to replace his hands with his mouth. Fierce desire swamped her; liquid pooled between her thighs as the hunger inside her grew with each lick and touch.
 

Easing her back on the bed, he covered her with his body, and Bella thought she knew now why woman dared to be called loose. Having Luke on top of her, his big warm body covering hers, was heaven. He kissed her as his hands traveled over her skin, touching, teasing, until he parted her thighs and settled between them. His hand caressed her there, stroking the damp folds. Bella arched off the bed as he pushed his fingers inside her, stroking her, as the most wonderful sensations began to build. She reached for him as he moved down to place his lips on the curls above her thighs, and then he moved lower and she could think no more as the delicious feelings inside her began to escalate. She called to him as the tension built inside her; then his body was on top of her again and she felt the pressure of his arousal pushing against her.

“I have always protected you, Isabella, never caused you pain, and yet now, just this once I must do so.”
 

“I know you would never hurt me, Luke. Please, just make me yours.”

He pushed inside her, stretched her until he breeched her innocence. The pain was sharp and fierce and then it eased. She cupped his face, making him look into her eyes.

“I love you.”

He didn’t answer her as Bella had known he wouldn’t, couldn’t allow himself to, kissing her instead as he began to move, slowly at first and then faster. She felt the delicious tension once again build inside her with each thrust, until she cried out as sensation after sensation caught and held her. Above her, Luke’s body stiffened and then he, too, found his release.

“Bella, did I hurt you?” He rolled to the side, his breathing harsh, and Bella immediately missed his weight.

“No,” she replied. Turning to her side, she looked at him, the sweep of his lashes on his cheeks, the chest that rose and fell as he breathed. The most beautiful man she had ever known.
 

“Will you tell me what is wrong, Luke?”

“I cannot.”

“And this is what keeps us apart?”
“I-I may have to go away, Bella. Leave London.”

His body had tensed as he spoke.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, but it may be for some time.”

“I will wait.”

“I cannot ask that of you.”

She turned to face him. “What are you saying?”

“Something has happened, and I cannot be with you or the family for a while, until it is sorted out.”

“I will never love another, nor marry another if I cannot have you.”
 

The devastation on his face made her hold him tight. She stroked his hair until she felt his body begin to relax.

“Sleep now, my love, and know I have you.” This time, it was she who protected him, and she who held him when he needed it. Slowly, she felt his body go soft and, finally, his breathing became deep and even as he slipped into slumber.
 

Bella rose a while later and took a last look at him. Blowing him a kiss, she then left and walked out of his house knowing that she had to do something for him, but to do that she would have to enlist the help of the one man who cared for him almost as much as she.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Luke woke with a start. Sitting upright, he looked to the empty space beside him, and then to the window. The sun was high, telling him he had been asleep for some time. His body chilled as he realized that Bella had left him to find her own way home. Dear Christ, had she found a hackney? Or had she found danger?

Pulling his breeches on, he reached for his shirt and then ran down the stairs. Wrenching open the front door he found Will on his front step.
 

“I want to talk to you about Bella.”

“Is she—?”

“Healthy, as of thirty minutes ago when she left my office.”

Relief nearly dropped Luke to his knees. “What about her?”
 

“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

Stepping to one side, he followed Will into his parlor that had no furniture, so the men were forced to stand.

“She came to my office this morning early, to tell me that it was you she loved and only you she would marry.”

Luke couldn’t stop the feeling of relief that swept through him. He could not have her; his life was a mess, but knowing she still wanted him made him sag against the wall.
 

“She said she believes you are in some kind of trouble and that you are contemplating leaving London because of it.”

“No, that is not the case,” Luke lied. He did not want Will involved in this, whatever it was. He would be in danger also, and then there was Livvy and Henry. No, he could not allow harm to come to any of them.

“Then she lied to me?” Will stood still, hands clasped in front of him, legs braced. He was angry; Luke had known him long enough to see the signs.