An Indecent Proposition (16 page)

For a moment he stopped, boot in hand, and drank in the pure glory of her naked body, his admiration enhanced by the knowledge she was his for the taking.

He couldn’t shed his clothes fast enough.

There was something about the woodland setting, the way the filtered sunlight touched her satin skin with a golden glow, the musical sound of the birds in the trees. . . . It took arousal to a new level. It
was
primal, elemental, and by the time he managed to get out of his breeches, he found to his surprise his hands were shaking.

That had
never
happened before.

He was going to have to analyze it. Later. After.

“Come lie with me.” Nicholas reclined on the grass, the tactile sensation on his body an interesting contrast to his heated desire. Above the lacy canopy of branches, the sky was a cerulean blue.

“I want to.” The hushed words were said with an underlying surprise as Caroline took a step toward him.

He sure as hell hoped she did, because he was more than ready. When she knelt beside him, he caught her waist and pulled her on top of his hungry body for a hot openmouthed kiss. It was less restrained than the night before, but she didn’t seem to mind, her response not quite as hesitant this time. When she threaded her fingers into his hair, he felt a flicker of triumph through his arousal, and the hardened state of her nipples against his chest spoke volumes of how far she’d come in a very short time.

If he was a judge—and he felt qualified—she was going to be a very passionate bedmate for some lucky man when the week was over.

Of course, then she had her time with Derek. A quiver of dissatisfaction stirred inside him as he pictured his friend holding her luscious body as he did now.

To quell it was an emotional reflex. He was not a jealous man. Or he never had been before, at any rate. Considering their illicit bargain, this seemed like a poor time to acquire the habit.

He rolled over so her hair spilled against the grass in a luxuriant, gleaming mass. His mouth grazed her jaw, and he licked a path along her collarbone and nuzzled the elegant curve of her throat. Caroline arched beneath him, her breathing quickened.

Nicholas stroked her bare hip. “Talk to me.”

Lacy lashes lifted and her mouth parted as a faint frown marred her smooth brow. “Haven’t we been talking?”

“Yes, but let’s change the subject.”

“I could swear, Rothay, you wanted to do something else besides converse, or are you like this all the time?” She shifted suggestively against his rigid cock. “You seem to be.”

If his smile wasn’t wicked, he certainly intended it to be. “Oh, I am going to make love to you eventually—that isn’t in question—but there is a wide variety of ways to do it. I just wonder if you realize how arousing it can be when lovers tell each other how they are feeling and, even more importantly, what they want.”

Auburn curls moved as she shook her head, her eyes luminous as she gazed up at him. “I have no idea what you mean, but I suspect you already guessed that anyway.”

He had. Bed play was as foreign to her as a romantic kiss.

It would be his pleasure to change that.

“I’ll go first.” Propped above her, his weight balanced on one elbow, he moved his mouth to her ear as he stroked one glorious full breast. “I love the way you feel, your skin like silk under my fingers. You have the most beautiful breasts I have ever seen, full and firm but also soft and made for my hands.”

A small shiver went through her as he gently squeezed the pliant weight of mounded flesh and waited, his thumb lazily circling one rosy nipple in slow circles, gratified by her physical response. He’d already learned she was intelligent, if a little shy. With a bit of instruction in the art of flirtation, she could have her pick of any man of the
haut ton
.

There were some blackguards out there and she was not only beautiful but an heiress. He hoped she’d choose wisely.

The notion he cared about what happened to her after their designated week was over startled him. Maybe he was simply trying to redeem his gender in her eyes, for earlier in their conversation he realized her father didn’t sound much better than the deceased Lord Wynn. She hadn’t said it in so many words, but he’d caught the underlying pain in her voice.

Yes, that was it. There was some remnant of chivalry left in him, despite what had happened with Helena.

Now was not the time to think of that horrible blunder.

“Your turn,” he urged, nibbling on her earlobe. “Confide in me.”

“I . . . I—” She faltered and then whispered, “I am beginning to think you are more than just a competent lover, Nicholas, but also a very nice man.”

He went still in the act of caressing her nipple, arrested and nonplussed.

It was hardly a sexual innuendo or said with a flutter of her lashes and a seductive smile, but Nicholas was unexpectedly touched, not just by the simple statement, but by the sentiment itself. He was reputed to be a lot of things, he knew, but he doubted
nice
counted among them. People didn’t care if he was a decent human being—wealth, looks, and an abundance of superficial charm were usually more than enough. The real man was not the focus of most of the women of his acquaintance.

He found he wasn’t sure what to say and it unsettled him. She’d put him in that position more than once. Finally, he murmured, “Thank you.”

Her sigh brushed his cheek. “That is not the sort of thing you meant, is it? I’m bad at this.”

She was enchanting and unworldly, he thought, lightly brushing a curl from her pale shoulder, poised over her with his hard cock pressed against her thigh. “It was perfect.”

“Are you ever ungracious?” Soft rose lips curved in an almost wistful smile.

He grinned. “I hate it when my horses lose.”

“By all accounts that is rarely.”

“I have an excellent trainer and the top jockeys in England . . . but darling Caroline, as much as I love the subject of racing, can we save the topic for when you aren’t naked in my arms?”

Her soft laugh brushed his cheek. “You are the expert on what is supposed to be done in this sort of situation, not me.”

Naked ladies in his arms, yes, he could modestly claim some expertise. Untried, fearful ladies . . . in that category he was not so skilled, but he was learning. Nicholas nuzzled her neck. “We will do what you want us to do. Nothing more.”

“Kiss me.”

That was certainly no hardship. He claimed her mouth, this time scandalously mimicking what he’d love to do to her body with small thrusts of his tongue. She responded beautifully, her fingers in his hair, her lissome warmth against him beguiling.

“Now touch me.” Her breathless order was given in a gentle exhale across his cheek, a pair of slim arms twining around his neck. “Like last night.”

A lazy summer afternoon, spreading trees, and a lovers’ tryst in the fragrant grass. It was a sybaritic dream and if he was the satyr, the role probably fit. Just the slightest bit depraved, but that experience would only benefit his companion. Nicholas rolled a little, pulling her closer. “Whatever my lady wants.”

His fingers wandered, they found what they sought, and she gave a small, telling shudder.

When she arched just enough her taut breasts pushed against his chest, he thought with amusement of all those discouraged suitors who muttered about her indifferent civility and detached icy dismissal.

Cold the lady was not.

 

Small blissful bursts swept through her body and Caroline couldn’t help but make a low sound, pleasure still at war with a shadow of disbelief at her wanton behavior.

Well, she was nude in the embrace of the deliciously wicked Nicholas Manning. What woman wouldn’t be wanton?

Had she really just asked him to touch her?

Yes, she had.

It was empowering, and even if the reason for them being together in the first place was both frivolous and a potential cauldron of disgrace, at the moment, with his arms around her and his skillful fingers working a captivating spell, she cast a vote it was worth it.

She could feel the hot press of his erection, the long rigid length of it between them as he held and fondled her. Twice before he’d denied himself, and she had the feeling he would do so again if she didn’t initiate the actual consummation.

To her surprise, she wanted it. Not as some test of whether Edward’s accusations were true, endured with gritted teeth and a fear of failure. No, not that way at all. She wanted it because she ached, she felt incomplete, and she knew intuitively that the man who held her so close had the power to heal her.

His touch was magic. What would a more potent part of him be like?

She shifted. It wasn’t really conscious, just a subtle signal of this new yearning.

He understood perfectly. Those questing fingers slipped from between her legs and he murmured in her ear, “Are you sure?”

Since her current state of recklessness seemed not to be in question, she nodded. There she was, in the middle of the day, in some secluded glen without a stitch on, held in the arms of a notorious libertine after agreeing to give her body to two men she really barely knew . . . so, well, yes, why not only take the next step, but enjoy it as much as possible?

“I want you to . . .”

He nipped her throat, sending a shiver down her spine. “Yes. Say it.”

“I want you.”

“We have a lot in common, then, Lady Wynn, besides what we discovered earlier. I want you also.”

This was where the nightmare would resurface. As he moved so he loomed above her, his knees pushing her thighs apart, she waited for the dread to hit her. The nudge of his hard length between her legs should have sent a jolt of revulsion and resignation through her, but she found instead an amazing anticipation building.

“Yes,” she whispered, staring into his dark eyes. “Yes, please.”

“Like I would refuse.” Nicholas didn’t smile, but instead he held her gaze as he pushed just enough so the swollen tip of his cock entered her.

And then more.

So much more. Deep, impossibly deep. All of him.

She was stretched, possessed, taken. His lean hips rested against her inner thighs, his arms were braced by her shoulders, and his mouth grazed hers in a slight gesture of reassurance. It was like nothing she ever imagined and most certainly not similar to what she’d experienced before.

Gentle fingers touched her face and he didn’t move, his skin holding the flush of arousal, his dark eyes intense. “Caroline?”

She knew what he was asking. “I’m fine,” she whispered, unable to keep the note of exultant happiness from her voice. “Better than fine.”

“I’ll go slow.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” She touched her foot to the muscled back of his calf and rubbed suggestively. “I’m not fragile.”

“If you—”

“Nicholas,” she interrupted breathlessly, her nails lightly biting into his upper arms.

The message was apparently clear, for he slid backward in a tantalizing glide, only to thrust forward again in such a way that sensation prickled through what felt like every nerve ending in her body.

How the same act could be painful and degrading with one man and nothing short of rapturous with another was a revelation. Nicholas touched her with such soft persuasion, encouraging her to reciprocate his passion instead of using her as a vessel in which to quickly sate his lust.

Her fingers flexed on his hard shoulders, his size and strength not intimidating but instead as intoxicating as the plunging friction of his sex into hers.

It felt incredibly good and she let out another small moan.

Silky dark hair brushed his neck as he moved in that erotic rhythm and his face held a peculiar intensity. “Come with me, Caroline.”

The way he said her name with such husky intonation as he moved in erotic rhythm within her heightened the sensual pleasure. The heat of anticipation singed her skin, brushed by the warm afternoon breeze. “Nicholas,” she answered on a pant, lifting her pelvis, wanting him impossibly deep.

It was all impossible. Impossible to want something as much as she yearned for the exquisite burst of rapture, impossible to believe she was there on a riverbank on a sunny afternoon, nude and abandoned with her lover, impossible to experience such tumultuous joy.

He reached between them and caressed her and suddenly her world burst into flame. She screamed, an unrestrained sound, and was answered by his tall body going rigid in the cradle of her thighs, the force of his ejaculation filling her. They held there in the shattering moment until it ebbed and then he rolled to his side, keeping her close.

Replete in the aftermath, comfortable and quiet, she rested her head on his damp chest and wondered in wayward contemplation how many women he’d lured into paradise with his consummate skill.

Many. It was not just rumor, for he hadn’t really denied it.

The fluid practiced lovemaking wasn’t real, she reminded herself, listening to the strong beat of his heart. Because he was who he was—one of London’s most profligate rogues—confident enough to risk a public bet on his bedroom talents, he made her feel wanted and desired in his arms.

It was deliberate and not personal and she needed to remember that, lest she be lured into a false sense of his intentions.

Not only was she just another easy tumble; she had brazenly asked for it.

“This was one of my more inspired ideas.” He interrupted her thoughts with one of his disarming smiles, his dark eyes shadowed by half-closed lids. Filtered sunlight gilded the contours of his well-muscled body. Those high aristocratic cheekbones gave slight shadows to his cheeks. “We should take a ride every afternoon while we’re here.”

“Do you do this sort of thing often?” Caroline found enough strength to lift her head and watch his expression. The sweet scent of crushed grass rose around them, mingled with the even earthier fragrance of sexual intercourse.