A Spring Deception (Seasons Book 2) (17 page)

This was something entirely different.

He dropped to his knees on the dusty floor, and she gasped. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer verbally, but leaned in for another kiss. He’d kissed her before, but this time felt different. There was more purpose to it, more demand. Like he had been resisting before but now he couldn’t anymore.

And neither could she. When he said he wanted to pleasure her, she found it was all she wanted. She wouldn’t resist. She couldn’t.

He continued to kiss her even as his fingers glided along her collarbone, gently teasing the sensitive flesh there. His hands glided lower, lower, until he reached the neckline of her gown.

Only then did he pull back. “I won’t ruin you,” he whispered. “Will you trust me?”

She blinked. Ruin had been the last thing on her mind. If he was ultimately going to marry her, ruination didn’t matter. But she nodded. “Yes, I trust you, Aiden.”

His eyes fluttered shut with that statement, almost as if it pained him. But then he let the flat of his palm crest over her breast and gently began to massage.

She arched immediately. No one had ever touched her like this before. Oh, she’d felt an ache in her breasts, a tingling in her nipples, but this was different.
This
was heavenly.

She let her head loll back and surrendered to the sensation as he massaged then flicked her nipple through the thin fabric of her ball gown.

“I wish I could undress you,” he growled as he leaned in to kiss her collarbone, “and take my time. But we’ll be missed soon, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t savor this more.”

His hand dropped lower as he spoke, over her stomach, her hip, and eventually he began to bunch her gown up her legs. She tensed as her calves were revealed, then her knees.

She pressed a hand to his chest. “Aiden?”

He lifted his gaze to hers. “I’ll stop if that’s what you want, Celia. I know I
should
stop, that what I want to do is wrong. But I want you so much. I want to make you quake with pleasure. I want to give you that and more.”

She could hardly breathe as his words sank into her skin and her blood and her soul. She didn’t understand what he was asking to do, but the idea of it made her legs tremble. Was she willing to refuse him out of fear? Or would she be brave?

In the end, need and curiosity won out. She shifted slightly, sliding toward him so he could lift her skirt even higher. He smiled up at her as he revealed her thighs.

Leaving the skirt bunched around her hips, he pressed each hand on her knees and gently pushed, splaying her open. She leaned back against the bench to balance herself. Heat flooded her cheeks as he stared at her. She was wearing drawers, but there wasn’t much protecting her most secret and womanly parts now.

He grazed her thighs with his fingertips as he moved to the slit in her drawers. She tensed as he parted it, revealing her to him at last.

“What are you going to do?” she panted, staring at his face as he stared at her body.

He glanced up at her. “I’m going to make you come,” he said. “With my mouth.”

Her brow wrinkled. Her knowledge on this subject was limited at best. “Come?” she murmured. “What is that?”

He chuckled as he leaned in, his dark blond head moving between her legs. “You’ll see.”

He touched her first, tracing her outer lips with the tips of his fingers. His touch was warm and both soothing and arousing. The tension in her was coiled, ready to explode. She felt like she was fighting in a war, trying to control a situation that was wildly out of her command now.

As if he sensed that, he slowed his movements and looked up again. “Relax, Celia. Just feel this. It’s gift. I promise I won’t take more than you are able to give.”

She drew in a long breath, closed her eyes and somehow did as he asked. She relaxed, muscle by muscle, limb by limb. As she did so, he began to stoke her, petting her sex, smoothing her flesh. It was a rhythmic action, and she found herself tensing and relaxing along with him.

And just as she became accustomed to that act, he gently parted her outer lips and revealed her to him entirely. Her eyes flew open and she stared down at him. He was watching that place between her thighs intently, his eyes glittering in the dim light.

He touched her again, but this time it was even more intimate. He stroked the entire length of her entrance, and she cried out as sensation mobbed her. His touch tingled, it throbbed, it made her lift toward him.

He stroked again, this time with more pressure. He held her down with the opposite hand, steadying her as he stroked and stroked with his fingers. And when she was gasping for breath, gripping at the bench with her fingernails, making wordless sounds of wonder and pleasure, he touched her differently.

His thumb pressed at the top of her sex, grinding at some hidden area that jolted electric pleasure through her. She lifted hard against his steadying hand and cried out softly. What was this sensation? This pleasure unlike any she’d ever known. It was…intoxicating.

He bent his head and she felt his breath over the sensitive flesh. She watched in shock as his mouth covered her. Liquid heat flowed between them as he stroked his tongue over her gently, tasting her, teasing her. She lifted to meet the stroke, gasping for air as she gripped the edge of the bench with both hands.

He flicked his tongue quicker now, replacing his thumb on that magical place, and she moaned as the pleasure doubled, tripled, grew out of control. It was like he was pushing her toward the edge with every kiss, but she wasn’t afraid. She wanted the edge. She wanted to fall and fall and fall forever.

He sucked her, and her vision blurred as her body began to quiver. Her hips jolted out of control and wave after wave of untempered pleasure worked through her. She screamed his name, she thrashed her head, she struggled for purchase as he dragged her through the massive release of the pressure he’d built with his hands and his mouth.

Finally, just when it seemed like she might die from pleasure, her body slowed, the twitching ceased and he lifted his head to look at her.

He smiled, licking his lips as he smoothed her drawers shut, lowered her skirt. When she was fixed, he leaned up and kissed her. She tasted a sweet and earthy flavor on his lips. Her flavor.

“
That
was making you come,” he whispered as he drew back.

She nodded shakily. “I-I see.”

“I should be sorry I did something so bold,” he continued as he got to his feet and dusted himself off. “But I’m not. I hope you feel the same.”

She stared up at him. She could see the outline of his erection through his trousers—she knew he wanted to take her. She found she wanted that too. Oh, the release, coming, as he put it, had been wonderful, of course. But she felt
incomplete
somehow. As if she’d missed something.

“I do,” she choked out.

He reached down, offering his hand. She was shaking as she took it. He drew her in, kissing her once more. He held her there, his arms around her, for what felt like an eternity. He looked into her eyes, seeking…she wasn’t certain what. Then he released her.

“Come, we should return to the house. We’ll be missed soon if we weren’t already.”

She nodded and let him lead her from the dark, secret outbuilding and back toward the brightly lit ballroom. Only as they neared the others, she wished she could hold back. Stay with him and only him.

She wished she could find a way to never let this night end.

Celia sat in Gray’s carriage, watching as her brother-in-law helped Rosalinde into her place. He leaned into the door and smiled. “I see Stenfax getting ready to depart. Let me speak to him a moment, will you?”

Rosalinde nodded and Gray backed away, leaving the sisters alone.

“The ball went well, I think,” Rosalinde said, turning her attention back to Celia.

Celia blinked and forced herself to smile. The last hour of the ball she’d been fighting distraction as she thought of all the pleasures she’d shared with Aiden outside.

“Y-yes,” she stammered. “It was a…a fine evening, indeed.”

Rosalinde wrinkled her brow. “I received several congratulations on your being courted by the Duke of Clairemont, so it seems news of that development is traveling fast.”

Celia nodded. “Yes, it seems so.”

“I was sorry he left early,” Rosalinde continued. “An ache in his head, he told Gray.”

Celia pressed her lips together. She had no response to that. Aiden had slipped away without even a goodbye very soon after they returned. It was troubling.

“Where did you go?”

Celia swallowed hard at the question. “Go?” she repeated.

Rosalinde nodded. “You went outside at some point and I didn’t see you for what felt like a while. Where did you go?”

“I was…” She trailed off as she tried to force calm. “I went to get air and bumped into first Stenfax, then Aiden.”

Rosalinde’s eyes went slightly wider. “There is an interesting combination. The former fiancé and the potential future one. They got along?”

“As well as can be expected. I explained to Aiden that there was nothing between Stenfax and I. Afterward we…we took a walk in the garden together.”

Rosalinde, who had been examining a loose thread on her gown, now jerked her head up. She stared at Celia. “A walk in the garden,” she repeated, accentuating each word.

Panic blasted through Celia as she straightened. “Yes.”

Rosalinde bit her lip. “Celia—” she began.

But before she could finish her sentence, Gray climbed into the carriage and took his place next to her, grabbing her hand as the footman closed the door and they began to move.

Celia had never been so happy to see Gray as she was in that moment. He smiled at the two women, and as he and Rosalinde began to talk, Celia settled back against the carriage seat.

Her mind wandered once more to those moments when Aiden had pleasured her so thoroughly. She’d heard the basics of what to expect when a man made love to her, but she’d never understood any of it until now.

Now that she’d experienced that thrilling sensation of buildup and release, she knew why women would risk it all for a night with a man. Why Rosalinde had surrendered to Gray even when they were enemies all those months ago.

She understood it all. But she had no idea what to do next. Something held Aiden back from fully committing to her, and that hurt her. But in many ways, it seemed her future was at last secure. Aiden wanted her, he was courting her, they would be together in the end. She would work hard to overcome those walls between them, and hopefully one day he would fall in love with her as she had fallen in love with him.

And with that more secure future, she did have one decision in mind to make. One thing she
could
do.

She glanced at Rosalinde. Her sister was staring at her, even as she talked to Gray. Rosalinde wouldn’t approve.

But that wasn’t going to stop Celia.

Celia hadn’t been in her grandfather’s home since the previous October, and yet when she stepped into the parlor to await his entrance the place felt exactly the same. Cold. Unwelcoming.

Exactly like the man who owned it.

She would never forget the surprise and near horror on his butler’s face when he opened the door to find her there. When he learned she was unchaperoned, it was even worse.

“Are you
certain
you want me to see if he’s in, Miss Fitzgilbert?” the older man asked.

She hesitated. The last time she’d seen her grandfather, he had been bent over Rosalinde, trying to choke the life out of her because she was attempting to break up Celia’s engagement. Only Gray’s swift and violent intervention had saved the day.

Celia would have no such guard today. And it was only the fact that she had what she believed Mr. Fitzgilbert might see as good news that she believed he would not strike out just the same way at her.

“Thank you, Cranston, but yes. Please do see if he’ll receive me.”

The butler nodded and stepped out, leaving her alone to ponder the prudence of her actions. She didn’t have long, however, for within moments her grandfather entered the chamber.