One Wicked Wish by Anna Campbell

Chapter 17

In the huge ceremonial bed where he’d been born, Halston cuddled a drowsy, naked Stella and gazed down into her face. Despite his current contentment, a twinge of guilt pricked him. All night, he’d used her without mercy. Violet shadows marked the delicate skin beneath her eyes. Her lips were bruised and full after a storm of passionate kisses.

How he’d miss those kisses. He’d never been a man particularly given to kissing, but if he was dying, he’d swear that a kiss from Stella could bring him back to life.

With a choked little murmur, she curled closer. Her arm stretched over his chest and one leg splayed across his. Even in sleep, she tried to get as near to him as she could.

He dropped a kiss on her disheveled head. Her leonine hair snaked around them in glorious disarray. A picture flashed through his mind of his fist making a rope of it, as he thrust into her from behind. The night had been replete with sexual pleasure. Every night with her had proven that the famous libertine hadn’t known the meaning of ecstasy before he took this unlikely mistress.

That damned blackbird and its gang of ruffians had been caterwauling for a good hour. Fragile dawn light crept into the chamber, lending a gold tinge to Stella’s warm olive skin. He’d never again admire a porcelain-white complexion.

How she’d hate succumbing to sleep. If he’d used her all night, she’d been just as desperate to cram a wealth of sensation into their last hours together.

They’d avoided mentioning that if the original arrangement held, this was indeed their final night. Since she’d appeared out of the passage – she hadn’t waited for him to fetch her – they hadn’t talked much at all. Although every touch, every kiss, every fuck had conveyed a universe of meaning.

With Stella, everything carried meaning. If she really intended to finish with him today, how could he retreat to his former shallow existence?

The world was a different place when he held Stella in his arms. Halston was far from ready to end a liaison that provided such unprecedented joy.

But what did Stella want? They hadn’t discussed the future. Since she’d rejected his offer to become his mistress, he’d done his best to ensnare her in such pleasure that she couldn’t face walking away.

Had he succeeded? The devil alone knew. That rakish sophisticate, the Earl of Halston, didn’t have a clue how she’d respond when he offered her carte blanche once again.

Oh, she liked him all right. She wanted him. And by God, her situation with that skinflint bastard Lord Deerforth made Halston want to smash his fist into the pompous boor’s self-satisfied face. An interval of luxury as Halston’s petite amie, with a secure income for the rest of her life, should appeal to her if she had any sense. If he’d offered the same arrangement to any of his previous mistresses, they’d have leaped at the chance like the hungry trout in his three famous lakes leaped to a well-tied fly.

But Stella wasn’t like his previous mistresses. He’d come to realize that she wasn’t like anyone else at all.

Which was why he must convince her that abandoning him was a pudding-headed decision, unworthy of the intelligent woman he knew her to be.

God help him.

A faint frown drew her tawny brows together, and her grip on him tightened. She twisted her head a few inches and placed a kiss over his heart. The heart that beat with endless longing for her.

Her sleep had been troubled. Their parting preyed on her mind, he guessed.

On a raspy sigh, she raised heavy eyelids over misty golden eyes. The joy in her expression when she saw him made him feel like a king.

Then dismay clouded her gaze. “The sun’s come up, Gray. I have to go. I’m surprised the maid hasn’t arrived to fix the fire.”

“I told the staff that everyone wanted to sleep in this morning. The maids will do the fires while my guests have breakfast.”

Stella sagged against him and touched his cheek with a brief tenderness that reverberated through him like a struck gong. “You’re still thinking of my reputation. Thank you.”

He rose against the pillows and drew her up with him. “I’m not thinking of your reputation, my girl. I’m thinking that this way I get another couple of hours with you.”

“Silly me.” Wry humor gleamed in her eyes. She rested her head on his shoulder and spoke with fond irony. “I mistook what a selfish libertine you are.”

That made him kiss her, despite the sad truth that before he met Stella, selfish libertine had been an accurate description of the heartless Earl of Halston.

Her hand trailed down his body to his dick. He muffled a protest against her lips and caught her. Stopping her from touching him made every masculine impulse shriek.

She stiffened and drew away, her expression wary. “It’s our last chance, Gray.”

The plea in her eyes almost overturned his purpose. But he fought back his impulse to sin and stuck to his plan.

Halston studied the face that haunted his dreams and prayed with a fervor he hadn’t mustered since he was a lonely child that he could convince Stella to take a chance on him. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Something that looked like terror flared in her eyes, turned them glassy. “Yes, it does,” she said in a shaky voice.

Stella pushed away and scrambled out of the bed. When she glanced around the room, he realized that she was looking for the gold nightdress.

When she couldn’t find it, she scooped his heavy velvet robe from the floor and put that on. It was so big, it swamped her, but any urge he felt to smile died when she drew herself up to her full height and glared at him.

She’d never looked more like a queen. Or more certain of her own mind. This wasn’t a woman about to fling herself into her lover’s arms and offer herself up to months of illicit bliss.

It seemed the Almighty had ignored the sinner’s prayer. Halston couldn’t blame Him. He’d been a stranger to the Lord for too long to expect any special favors now.

With or without divine help, Halston wasn’t giving up. He straightened against the headboard and met her glower with an uncompromising stare of his own. “Do you want to leave me?”

Bewilderment descended on her. He supposed that she’d expected to counter the practical arguments he’d already made for why she should become his mistress.

“That’s not fair.”

“Why?”

Her slender throat moved as she swallowed. One hand crept up to clutch the rich red fabric to her collarbone, always a sign of distress. Halston felt the sting of compunction, because he was the person upsetting her. But it wasn’t enough to make him retreat.

This was too important.

He had to make her see that they were meant to stay together. He’d never had a lover to rival her. He never would. The prospect of sending her back to her stultifying existence as Imogen Ridley’s dogsbody made him feel physically ill.

“You know I don’t want to leave you.”

“Well…”

She rushed on in case he took that as a sign of weakening. “But what I want doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered since I came to England. It didn’t matter much before that, if truth be told.”

Temper had him rolling out of the bed and standing over her. “It’s the only thing that should bloody matter. You have one life, Stella. Do you want to sacrifice it to people who don’t give a rat’s arse about you?”

She lifted her chin and flashed him a look that threatened to burn him to ash. “I don’t live for my own pleasure with no care for who I hurt along the way. I’m not the noble Earl of Halston.”

The words struck deep, drew blood. He’d reached for her, but now he pulled back. “You sound as if you despise me.”

Her exquisite face seemed made of ice, even as she shook her head. “I could never despise you, Gray. But you’re free in a way that few other people are.”

His sigh verged toward a groan. He turned away, battling a premonition of impending defeat. He’d always admired her strength, but right now he had a queasy feeling that her strength would help her prevail.

And they’d both pay the price.

“You could be free, too.”

She shook her head. “No, I’d be the woman you pay to sleep with you. You know what that turns me into.”

“The woman I desire above all others.”

Her smile was the saddest thing he’d ever seen. “A woman who is just like all the others.”

“You wouldn’t be.” With an urgent gesture, he reached out to clasp her arm. She was trembling and not far from tears. “You aren’t.”

“I’m not like all the others because I said no.” Her voice was tired in a way he’d never heard it. “Let’s not part on an argument, Gray. These past five days have been so wonderful. The best of my entire life. Don’t spoil them with a fight.”

His heart flipped over as he surveyed her, taking in her bravery and her resolve and, yes, her misery. Because she didn’t want this to be the end any more than he did. That made granting her heartfelt request even more difficult.

“I feel as if we’ve hardly begun.”

Stella must have heard the reluctant concession in his voice, because he felt her tension ease. When she responded, she sounded a fraction less desolate. “Perhaps it’s best for us to finish before I develop the urge to shoot you.”

Her small attempt at a joke prompted a perfunctory smile. Their separation tore him to pieces. He didn’t feel much like laughing. “If you say you’ll stay, I’ll damn well let you shoot me. I’ll even load the bloody pistol.”

Her pretense at control dissolved like sugar dropped into boiling water. “Oh, Gray…” she said on a broken sob and threw herself at him. Their lips met, and his arms closed hard around her shaking body.

A few rough tugs and the extravagant dressing gown crumpled to the floor. When he lifted Stella, she gave a choked cry but didn’t stop kissing him. Frantic hands caught at him, then she cried out again when he dropped her onto the bed. Her long legs sprawled in coltish abandon across the disordered sheets.

When he came down over her, she grabbed him with greedy fervor, parting her thighs and clawing at his buttocks to draw him nearer.

“I’m crushing you,” he managed to say somewhere during the whirlwind of kissing.

“I don’t care,” she growled and bumped her hips up in silent invitation.

During the last five days, he and Stella had been daring and experimental lovers, seeking delight in a hundred different ways. But as Halston slid forward and claimed her for this, the last time, it seemed right that he rose above her and met her dark caramel eyes. With every thrust, those eyes grew darker, then fluttered shut as she plummeted over into her climax.

He didn’t move as she writhed and moaned around him. For a brief interval, pleasure had banished everything from his mind except how perfect they were together. Now as he ground his teeth and tensed every muscle against losing control, it was agony to know that he and Stella would never do this again.

It was bad enough to acknowledge that now. It would be worse when she was no longer here and he had to face up to the true devastation of losing her.

Halston meant to stay just where he was for as long as he could.

Eventually she calmed, staring at him through eyes that sparkled with tears. She’d cried on their first night. Then her tears had left him devastated. Tonight after these resplendent days, the thought of her crying made him feel like someone razored off his skin piece by piece.

“You’ve made me so happy.” Her voice vibrated with emotion. “Thank you, Gray. Thank you for these days. I’ll treasure the memory as long as I live.”

He wanted to protest, to argue that if they were together, she wouldn’t have to remember. But he couldn’t find the heart when he recalled her stricken reaction after he’d asked her again to become his mistress.

“You’ve made me happy, too,” he murmured and kissed her.

It wasn’t a kiss of passion. It was a kiss of farewell. And he tasted goodbye on her lips.

Feeling as if he died in slow increments, he withdrew and lost himself upon the sheets.