Ashlyn Macnamara (19 page)

Wishes? She’d expressed no wishes.

His mouth covered hers, hard and demanding, before she had a chance to reply. His tongue invaded her mouth and forced her to hold back the questions that clambered into her throat. In another moment, she forgot them, as he hauled her up against his chest. He set her mind awhirl until she could only respond to the darkness of his kiss. She clutched at him, ran her hands across his broad shoulders and down his back, pulled him into her.

Yes, yes, and yes. She longed for him to be part of her, to fill her and erase the past and let her believe in a brighter future.

Brighter future? That was carrying matters a bit far.

With a groan, he pulled away, his breath coming in warm puffs across her cheeks. “Don’t think.” He ran a finger along her jaw, tracing a line to her throat and pressing on her racing pulse. “Feel. Trust. The last thing I want is to harm you.”

But he would, when he left. He’d do both—leave and hurt her in the process. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, and his embrace tightened about her, a blanket of warmth and protection.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, a mere shadow of
a kiss, barely there. Again came the gentle pressure, a fluttering, over and over in a line down her face. The corner of her eye, the jut of her cheekbone, the lobe of her ear. She lowered her lids and settled into the tenderness, the simple affection behind the gesture.

So long she’d lived alone.

So long without such comfort from another adult. A child’s enthusiastic hugs and grubby kisses weren’t enough. Only an adult could envelop her so fully, could surround her with the sense of well-being. She let it infuse her.

She’d take what affection he was willing to give. Take it and return a measure of her own. Her body craved the security the way her lungs craved air.

Fingertips trembling, she stroked the side of his face, to press the gentle rasp of his beard against her skin, to revel in his nearness. Warm, wet heat skated along her neck as he branded her with his tongue.

Her fingers slipped into his hair. Like warm silk, the strands slid against her palms. He pressed closer, nuzzled and then moved on. Her collarbone, the notch at the base of her throat. The upper swells of her breasts.

Her nipples tightened in invitation, and she arched back in a wordless plea for more. She ached for him to fill his hands with her flesh, to bare her to his gaze, to suckle.

His deft fingers moved to the tiny buttons at her shoulders that held up her bodice. Then they tugged at the ties beneath. Her loosened stays fell aside easily along with the straps of her chemise. Cool air rushed over exposed skin, and her nipples puckered to buds, begging for his attention, his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

He pulled in a sharp breath. She opened her eyes to find him staring, eyes dark and hard as granite, but never cool. No, his gaze burned into her. Deep in her midsection, an answering spark burst into flame.

He raised his hands, and she inhaled, waiting for his touch, yearning for it. Needing it. But his fingers curled about her waist strong and steady on either side. Before she could question, he stood, raising her at the same time, crowding her, forcing her back. The firm edge of the table nudged at her bottom. He lifted and pushed until she sat, until her face hovered level with his, but his gaze was fixed on her throat.

Once more, he stepped closer. His slim hips angled between her knees and pushed them apart. His hands slipped to either side of her thighs, his arms a brace for his body and a cage to hold her in place.

Not that she intended to move from the spot. Not when the bulge at the front of his trousers pressed against her most intimate flesh, searing her through layers of fabric. Not when he dipped his head to draw a straining nipple into his mouth.

She cried out, a high note tinged with desperation. How did this man ignite such a fire in her? She didn’t quite recall it being this way—all her reactions intensified. An aching knot of need tightened deep in her belly with every hot swipe of his tongue.

He edged forward and pushed her back against the unyielding wood. God, he’d laid her out on her own kitchen table. Next to the mismatched teacups, their hollows stained red. Beneath her, the scattered pack of cards and crumbs of their meal. Completely wanton. She no longer cared. All she wanted was more. More pleasure. More of him.

Until he filled her.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, pressed him closer. Arched her back, her head digging heedlessly into the oak’s bite. For a moment, he pulled away, and the heat of his breath blazed across her swollen flesh, harsh and rapid. His eyes, darkened to black, branded her with the intensity of his gaze.

Still fully clothed, he loomed over her, hair in spiky disarray. Power lurked beneath that precisely tailored topcoat, beneath that rich waistcoat with its gleaming buttons, beneath the fine linen of his shirt. Power and rippling muscle. She’d felt it through the barrier of his garments. Her fingers itched to learn his texture, to experience the leap of his pulse beneath his skin, to trace their way down fire-gilded flesh and corded sinew, to learn, to know until the pair of them ceased to exist as man and woman alone.

Until they moved as one at passion’s decree.

She reached for the band of silk that bound his neck, to finish loosening the first ties that separated them.

He grasped her wrist, pressing it over her head. “No, Isabelle.” A grin stretched one side of his mouth, or perhaps it was more a grimace of pain. “I’ve sworn to leave you without fear of another child. But I’m only made of flesh and blood.”

“I would know the flesh.” Her voice was nearly unrecognizable. It floated over them both, low and sultry, as if she were indeed the temptress, the experienced one.

He closed his eyes, and a shudder passed through him. She felt the tremor at every point where their bodies touched—her wrist, her belly, the junction of her thighs, wedged apart and pressed against the solid length of his arousal. Something pulsed between them—her or him, she couldn’t tell.

“Not tonight. I’ve given my word and, by God, I intend to keep it. How else am I to prove you might trust me?”

Lord, he was going on about trust when it was the last thing on her mind now. She ought to heed him, ought not to take another chance, but her body was making its own demands. She recalled the sensation from last
time, only with him, it was somehow magnified. Insistent. Urgent. Implacable.

She might once again be disappointed in the actual joining, but she had to know, had to experience, just once with him. She tilted her hips. The hard length of his erection pressed into her just
there
, just at that sweet, sweet spot. Her breath released on a sigh.

“I won’t deny you, love. I know just what you want.” Leaning forward, he feathered a kiss across her lips. “I know just what you need.”

She peered at him from beneath half-closed lids. Nothing about his voice had changed, but he couldn’t have given in so quickly. Not after all his insistence on trust. “How?”

He laughed, a low, sensual rumble that originated deep in his chest and vibrated through her. “You poor, innocent creature. I might have known the ape who ruined you didn’t go about the matter properly.”

“I believe he managed well enough.”

“For him, perhaps, but not for you. Don’t think about him anymore. Let me show you how it ought to be.”

Ought to be. Such promise in those words.
He
had made promises of pleasure, as well. Naturally he had—promises he hadn’t kept. George was different somehow. She saw it in his eyes, the reverence, the determination. She felt it in the way his touch focused on her, worshiped her. It rang through the conviction in his voice when he spoke the vow.

How could she refuse? How could any woman, even laid out before him on a rough table like a banquet, a half-finished bottle of wine next to her head. Already he was devouring her with his eyes. She wanted to be consumed.

Yes
. She swallowed to relieve her parched throat, but the word wouldn’t come. Weakly, she nodded her assent.

Heat flared in his gaze and sent an answering spear of flame straight to her midsection. Intimate muscles clenched, and without thinking, she tightened her thighs about his flanks.

With a growl—there was no other word to describe the feral noise in his throat—he straightened. Seizing an ankle, he placed the sole of her foot on the edge of the table. His fingertips trailed fire up her calf. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. Cool air teased the bare skin above her stockings as he raised her skirts.

He positioned her other foot, leaving her splayed, exposed, vulnerable, but as he looked his fill, an odd sense of power surged through her. He held her in thrall as she waited for him to fulfill the promise of his words, his gaze, his touch, but the expression of sheer worship on his face—the line of his mouth, the rigidity of his jaw, the pure intent in his eyes—revealed the truth.

This was all for her alone.

Not just any woman, no matter how skilled, but her, Isabelle, impoverished and ruined in the eyes of society, perhaps, but not in this man’s. No, to him, she was precious, worthy, deserving.

A shudder passed through her, a reminder of the unforgiving plank on which she lay, and she lowered her lids to shut him out. A nameless emotion fluttered near the surface of his expression, a depth she wasn’t yet ready to face, for it was dangerous. She couldn’t afford to fall in love with a man who would, in the end, leave her and return to the society that had spurned her.

At the dull scrape of wood on wood, she opened her eyes. He had pulled up the bench. Even now he was taking a seat before her.

“What?”

“Hush.” The order was no more than an outrush of hot breath against her inner thigh as he settled himself—directly before her … cunny.

The word echoed through her memory. She oughtn’t know such a term. The way
he
had used it all those years ago, had been enough to indicate how very improper it was. More than that, it was ugly and dirty, just the way she had felt once he’d finished with her and left her to readjust her skirts as best she could, to wipe away his seed and her blood with her chemise, to find her way back to the ball, ashamed of what she’d just done, fearful the entire company would know her immediately for a trollop. How could she hope to hide it when she reeked of his essence?

No, no, she wouldn’t think of that night. Not now. Not with George. Not when …

A mere rustle of fabric was all the warning she got before the hot swipe of his tongue pulsed against her most intimate self. Pleasure, sharp and white hot, coursed through her. She arched her back, and her head pressed into the tabletop. A low moan floated from the back of her throat.

Oh, God, what madness was this that he should dare to lick her most secret places? Surely this was wanton, forbidden, sinful. No proper lady would allow such ministrations, but she was hardly a proper lady anymore.

He grasped her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh, and pulled her closer. The next caress brushed, long and languorous, from her opening up to the top of her cleft, to that spot that ached and throbbed for his attention. He circled it lazily, and the pressure inside her increased. Her breath escaped on a hiss.

He paused a moment, pressed his lips to her inner thighs, and his whiskers rasped against her quivering flesh. She bit her lip and tensed in anticipation of the next stroke, a stroke that didn’t come. Instead, a rush like a hot breeze bathed her nether region.

She inhaled, held the gulp of air, and waited. His hand slid from her waist, glided along her thigh, pressed
against the back of it and up the inner edge to brush against her curls, so close, but too light.

She gurgled a protest and bucked her hips.

He rewarded her with the scrape of his teeth against her inner thigh. “If we’re to do this properly, I shall require some guidance.”

She tilted her head and raised herself on her elbows. Lord, the sight of him seated thus, between her legs, face flushed, eyes burning, shoulders hitching in shallow pants. How utterly decadent that he should place himself as if at a feast.

“Guidance? I’ve never done such a thing.”

He grinned, a devilish quirk of his mouth. “I know. But you might tell me what you like.” He arched a single brow. “Am I to surmise you’re enjoying none of this?”

He dipped his head for another taste. That wicked, wicked tongue of his circled once more, just
there
. Oh, how could he know her body better than she did herself? She lay back and let herself feel. How did he know where to kiss and where to touch so that the pleasure drove her utterly mad with need?

“It’s strange,” she panted. “I never expected …”

“Not so strange. It’s not so different from a kiss.”

A kiss, certainly, but she’d never dreamed he’d set his lips to her private self. The thought sent heat rushing southward, heat and blood, a sense of vulnerability and devastation that also uplifted.

“It may be strange,” he practically hummed the words against her flesh. The vibrations twisted into her, drove her higher. “But is it good?”

Good. Such a pale descriptor for what he aroused in her. This wasn’t good; it was paradise—or it would be soon. With his tongue alone, he was driving her toward some unknown destination, driving her to a stark need to arrive. Soon, soon. “Don’t stop.”

He slid a finger inside. She cried out as her inner muscles
clenched about him. He moved within her in time with the relentless circling of his tongue, sending streaks of fire through her limbs. The pleasure tore her breath from her lungs in ragged bursts.

“Touch yourself,” he urged.

The words barely penetrated the haze of passion that enveloped her. “What?”

He reached for her hand, cupped her palm about her own breast. It swelled into her grasp, the nipple straining against her fingers.

“Yes, God, yes,” he muttered before he pressed his lips to her once more, pulling in air at the same time, pulling
her
into his mouth. Her. Lord, yes, her. She’d known he might penetrate her, but it had never once entered her mind that he might take part of her into himself.