Be My Baby (15 page)

“
Beau
?” It came out high-pitched and breathy. Dear God, she hadn’t
known
such sensations existed. Her legs spread of their own volition, and unfamiliar sounds slipped up her throat as his gentle fingers slid up and down and circled tortuously.

Beau eased her legs over his shoulders. God, she was something. So responsive, so surprisingly sexual—he should have known. She might be the poster girl of well-bred restraint, but there had been hints that he’d ignored. He’d chosen to see only the spare elegance with which she was built, the demure reserve with which she groomed herself. Her hair, her mouth, had both drawn him from the beginning, but he’d disregarded them. Now that he had her undressed, he could see other indications of a hedonistic nature—those cushy little projectile nipples, the full lips of her sex.

The latter drew him like a needle to magnetic north. It was so…her. Soft brown hair grew at the top of her mound in a neat little patch of curls, as if knowing an Astor Lowell would never countenance a profligate, untidy display. The lower lips, however, were smooth and plump and extravagantly slick beneath his fingers, and they virtually screamed,
Touch me, taste me, take me
. He couldn’t
believe hordes before him hadn’t, but there was too much modesty in her movements, too much surprise at every new thing he did to her, to believe she was anything but a novice when it came to sex.

The surprising thing was how that excited him on a gut-deep, visceral level. He’d always looked for women who could teach him a thing or two—he’d never wanted someone who might turn dependent on him. But now
he
wanted to be the teacher; he wanted to be the one to drive Juliet beyond her good-girl restraint.

He leaned forward and licked the voluptuous cleft. She smelled like a million bucks, warm and clean and girly—and she tasted even better. He reveled in the incoherent little sounds that purled out of her throat, in the fingers she tangled in his hair, and the frantic little bumps of her hips. He was too damn hot to draw this out for any length of time, and he went in for the kill, moving up to focus his attentions on her clitoris.

Her hips shot up off the bed at the first touch of his tongue. “Beau? Oh! Please.” Her voice was strangled, yearning. “Beauregard,
please
.”

And please her he did. He drove her straight over the edge.

“Oh. My. Gaaaawwwwd.” Her voice went up in pitch with each word. Her thighs clamped around his ears and she held him viced there while she rode out the sensations. The instant her grip on him relaxed, he drew back, substituted his fingers to help her through the aftershocks, and scrambled between her sprawled thighs. Aligning his erection with her opening, he pressed into her.

She was so incredibly tiny, and he managed to get no more than the head of his erection into her before she seemed to close up, leaving him nowhere to go. He smoothed a finger up and down her slippery cleft in the hopes she wouldn’t notice he was forging a brand-new path into her body. “God, Rosebud,” he breathed, “you have done this before, haven’t you?”

“Not like this,” she murmured with sleepy satisfaction, and he froze.

She was a
virgin
? Oh, God, he hadn’t wanted this. It was too much responsibility; it was just asking for trouble. He felt…misused. “What am I, freakin’
Star Trek
?” he demanded, staring in frustration at the point where they barely joined. “I never asked to boldly go where no man’s gone before.”

She laughed, and he found himself raising his gaze to her face, because she didn’t do that very often and she was so damn pretty when she did.

“Then you’ll be happy to know you haven’t,” she said. He must have looked every bit as blank as he felt, for she gave him a little half-smile and said, “Rest easy, Beauregard—others have ‘been’ before you. Not many, but some.” She wiggled her hips, and the tight ring of muscle impeding his progress suddenly relaxed and he began to sink into her. “Oh!” Her eyes lost that bright amusement and grew heavy-lidded with rekindled arousal.

His answering groan contained wholehearted agreement. Oh, in-fucking-deed. He was suddenly deep inside her, and it was furnace-hot, a muscular constriction of liquid heat that threatened to burn
him alive. He pulled back slightly, then thrust forward again. “God.” It hurt to force the words past his suddenly tight vocal cords, but he couldn’t keep quiet. “You…feel…so…damn…good.”

He leaned down to kiss her, and as always, he lost himself in the soft lips beneath his. He flattened his hands against the mattress and contracted his hips, withdrawing almost completely from her, then thrusting deeper. He did it again. Then again, setting up a steady rhythm.

“Beau?” Bracing her feet, Juliet moved her hips in time with his thrusts. He quit kissing her and she stared up at him. He returned her gaze, but she didn’t think he actually saw her, for he wore a look of blind concentration on his face. His hips began to move faster, to probe a little deeper, and she began to feel that coiling tightness she’d experienced earlier. But she couldn’t quite…It wasn’t…quite…“Oh, please,” she whispered and brought her inner thighs a little higher up his sides.

He rose up on his knees, and when her legs slid down over his hips and her feet skidded on the coverlet, he put a hand on the inside of her knees and spread her thighs, pressing them toward the mattress. Before she could be embarrassed by how fully it exposed her, he drove deep with a swivel of his hips, and a high, surprised squeal escaped her. It felt as if he’d touched something inside her that had never been touched before. Then he was gone. But an instant later he was back, and the rhythmic lunge and retreat of his hips grew faster and faster, and one of his hands slid up the inside of her thigh, and suddenly his thumb was keeping
time in the wet curls between her legs, and he was urging her on with words no man had ever before uttered to her.

Then the iron-hard heat thrusting inside her touched something that blew her apart, and all thought fled. Feminine muscles clenched and released, clenched and released, and it felt so wonderful, and somewhere in the room a woman panted and moaned and chanted, “Ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod,” in a voice that kept getting higher and more desperate. She dug her fingernails into Beau’s back to anchor herself in a world thrown into galvanic upheaval.

Beau watched Juliet’s restraint vanish as she climaxed, felt her orgasm contracting around him like a thermonuclear fist, and a groan started deep in his gut and climbed up through his chest, until it tore out of his throat in a roar of triumph. Shoving himself deep, he came in hot, endless pulsations. Then, drained, gratified, he fell forward, catching himself on his palms and lowering himself gently upon her prone body. Satisfaction pulsed through him, and he buried his face in the fragrant wealth of her hair. Drifting in a spent haze, he felt like the luckiest man on earth.

Right up until the moment he realized he hadn’t given one, single, sonofabitchin’ thought to protection.

C
eleste sat in her wing-backed chair, outwardly placid. She sipped her tea; she nibbled the delicate pastries Lily had brought; she exchanged desultory, even-toned chitchat with Edward. And all the while, she burned with inner fury.

Juliet had hung up on her. The little chit had invited that viper Dupree into
her
home, and then she’d hung up on her! That was simply not done…and she’d pay for it.

To think Celeste had felt badly that little Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-in-Her-Mouth Astor Lowell had received a fright this afternoon. She’d actually gone out of her way to check up on Juliet’s well-being after her mishap, and this was how she was rewarded for her thoughtfulness. Well, fine, then. Perhaps the next time she had Dupree in her sights, she
would
aim for Juliet as well.

That guttersnipe policeman was in Juliet’s room right this very minute—Celeste had heard him plain as day asking if that was she on the line—
and then telling Juliet to hang up the phone. Clearly, Miss Astor Lowell was not the well-bred young woman she pretended to be…but then what could one expect from a Yankee?

Celeste hadn’t been born yesterday—she’d recognized that tone in his voice. God knows she’d heard it often enough in Edward’s before she’d broken him of the habit.

As if he’d somehow heard the echo of his name in her head, Edward suddenly rose to his feet. He gave the faultless creases in his slacks a fastidious shake. “I’m going out for a bit, dear. Don’t wait up.”

No!
The protest screamed in her head and Celeste’s heart climbed up into her throat. “At this hour?” she demanded with imperious disapproval the moment she got her breath back, and hoped against hope that it would be enough to discourage him. Sometimes using just the right tone did. “Where on earth would you need to go at this ungodly hour?” She ignored the voice in her head that whispered,
You know
. She didn’t know. Not really.

Edward smiled his gentle smile. “I thought I’d stop by the club for a while, see if Yves Montague is there. He has a rare mask he’s been wanting to show me. Says it might be just the thing for my collection.”

“Edward, really. It’s late. Wouldn’t tomorrow be a more appropriate time?”

“Most likely, dear. But he mentioned he’d probably be there tonight.” He leaned down and bussed her cheek. “Don’t fuss. I won’t be terribly late.”

Celeste watched him walk out the door and held herself very still for a long while after he’d gone, fearing her inner trembling would manifest itself outwardly if she twitched so much as an eyelash. Finally, when she had herself sufficiently collected, she rose to her feet and began gathering their tea things together, placing them on a tray for Lily to collect later.

She stared blindly at the few crumbs left on the Royal Doulton plate in her hand. This was Juliet’s fault. Her and her damn family-owned hotel chain. She should have left them alone to maintain this place as they were meant to do, as the Hayneses had
been
doing for decades. But no, Juliet had not only usurped their home, she’d invited that cockroach Dupree in…and now the only thing of importance in the entire world—Celeste and Edward’s rightful place in society—was imperiled because of her.

Celeste’s arm moved without conscious volition, and the china plate flew across the room, where it hit the wall and exploded in a multitude of bone, blue, and golden shards. Damn that Yankee bitch. She was ruining everything.

Well, she wouldn’t get away with it. Not if Celeste had anything to say about it, by God—and she was a Butler; it was her God-given
right
to have something to say about it. Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, she stalked with ramrod posture to the old-fashioned bellpull in the corner. Giving it a tug, she eyed the shards of ancient china on the floor with distaste.

Lily needed to get in here and clean up this mess.

Beau stared down at Juliet. He couldn’t believe she’d just fallen asleep like that. She’d gotten hers and then—bam!—she’d gone out like a light. Just like a damn guy. He’d bet if he could find one of her precious etiquette books and looked up Postcoital Deportment, this wouldn’t be what they advised.

Of course, she’d had a rough day. He slid down on his side, his head propped up in one hand, and reached out to finger an errant wave of hair away from her face. Damn, she looked like she’d gone ten rounds with an electric sander. He should have shaved.

He snorted, and the sound was loud in the warm, dark silence of the room. What the hell was he—the Mr. Manners poster boy? Like the worst thing either of them had to worry about was a few whisker burns. Most of the damage had been sustained when he’d thrown her to the ground this afternoon, anyway—and a bumped chin and a few bruises beat hell out of a bullet through her head.

The just-been-thoroughly-fucked look would fade. The consequences of his actions, on the other hand, could grow into something requiring a college fund. He couldn’t believe he’d been so damn hot to get inside her, he hadn’t even thought to put on a condom.

He’d never failed to protect a partner before—never. His father had hammered the necessity of safe, responsible sex into his head when he was a teenager, and of course later, when he was an adult with more obligations than he knew what to do
with, he’d been very, very careful to be prepared. Always. Hell, the Boy Scouts of America had nothing on him. Seeing three girls through their hormone-packed, emotion-screaming teenage years, there’d been no way in hell he’d been willing to sow the seeds for another generation of Duprees.

So what had he done now? Maybe planted a mini Dupree in Juliet Astor Lowell, of all people. Jesus. He’d had no business sleeping with her at all, but he’d done it anyhow. He hadn’t been able to help himself, dammit. And, God, it had been good.

Too good. He stared down at her kiss-swollen mouth, wild tangle of hair, and the soft skin of her throat and shoulders, and felt claws of panic scratching at his gut.

He had plans for the next couple of years, and they didn’t include her. There was a host of women out there with his name written all over them, and
damned
if he was tying himself down to one big-eyed, long-necked Yankee princess, no matter how sweet she was in bed. If he was smart, in fact, he’d haul his sorry butt out of bed and hightail it back across the hall. Put a little professionalism back in their relationship. He pushed up against the mattress, ready to do just that, and then Juliet murmured in her sleep and rolled toward him. Her hand blindly felt across the mattress until it found his arm, then his chest, and she scooted nearer. A second later she’d curled up at his side with one of her knees drawn up perilously close to his pride and joy, and her nose pressed to his chest. Her
breath fluttered warm against his nipple with each exhalation.

Well…shit. He eased onto his back and she immediately nestled closer, snaking an arm across his chest, her thigh across his legs, and squirming until her head found the hollow between his shoulder and chest. Then a sigh escaped her, and she went boneless and heavy, a warm, trusting weight pinning him in place.

Beau tucked his chin into his neck to look down at her. Okay, so he couldn’t just dump her on her butt and go now—shaking her loose so he could slide on out the door wasn’t great protocol. Besides, she’d had a hard day, and there was no sense rousting her from what looked to be the first solid sleep she’d had in days, if those shadows under her eyes were anything to go by. His fingers, which he’d kept carefully interlaced beneath his head, unlinked, and he reached down to cautiously skim his hands over her shoulders, along the arm across his chest. He finally settled with one hand on her hip and the other wrapped around her shoulder, and turned slightly to prop his chin on the top of her head. So, he’d stay tonight—he really didn’t have a helluva lot of choice in the matter.

Come first thing in the morning, though, he was putting this relationship back on a professional footing where it belonged.

Juliet was surrounded by heat, and a far-off, rhythmic beat tha-thumped comfortingly beneath her ear. Yawning, she opened her eyes.

At first, all was darkness, and it wasn’t until after
she’d spent several heartbeats straining to see that she realized the oppressive shadows were formed by her own hair. Sweeping it out of her face, she blinked against the bright wash of moonlight that poured through the jalousie and striped the bed with illumination.

Her new view was of a soft fan of black hair and a nickel-sized nipple leached of color in the moonlight. The memory of last night returned in a rush, and she realized she was in bed with Beau.

He was lying on his back, and she was on her side. They were intertwined, one of her legs between his and her arm thrown across his stomach, while his arms loosely encircled her, one hand lax on her hip, the other tangled in her hair.

She lay without moving, trying to sort through the multitude of sensations that coursed through her. She felt…good. Sort of boneless and satisfied. She also felt off balance—slightly mortified about her behavior last night, and yet powerful as a sex goddess. Before Beau had shown her otherwise, she’d never truly believed that pleasure on such a magnificent scale existed outside fiction.

There was a part of her, however, that felt just the teeniest bit inadequate about her participation in last night’s events. She would love to deny it, but the truth was that Beau had done all the work. She’d mostly just hung on and moaned a lot.

Still…

It wasn’t as if he’d appeared bothered by her lack of skill. He’d seemed, in fact, to enjoy himself immensely. But everything had moved so damn fast, and she hadn’t really had a chance to explore the
situation before it had slipped its bit and taken off on her like a runaway horse. She hadn’t had a chance to explore him.

Most of the bedding had been kicked to the floor by their activity. Only the sheet remained, and it draped low across her waist, which put it slightly higher on Beau. Pleating its soft fabric between her fingers, she casually inched it toward her, exposing his long-boned foot, his hairy calf. Then, suddenly, the sheet was all hers, and moonlight limned him in silver.

“Oh.” He was…
exquisite
didn’t seem quite right—it wasn’t a masculine enough word, and he was a study in masculinity. As curiosity stole her wits, her gaze moved lower, barely touching on the hard planes of his stomach and thighs before it zeroed in on his penis. She slithered down his side a bit to get a closer look.

She hadn’t been exposed to very many of these, and had never had the freedom to actually study one up close this way. She scooted closer still, and Beau made a sleepy sound of protest as his hand slid away from her hair. She looked up at him, but he still slept soundly, and she returned her attention to his sex.

It was long and dark. Lying against his thigh in its present state, it looked a lot more harmless than it had felt last night. She slid her hand down his hard stomach. She combed her fingertips through the dense tangle of hair that surrounded his penis, ran her fingers along the inside of his thighs, rubbed the crease where they joined his torso. Her thumb inadvertently brushed the heavy sac of a
testicle, and several times she came close to touching the penis itself, but shied away at the last minute. Then, beneath her fascinated gaze, it began to grow tumescent. It straightened away from his thigh in pulses, lifting until it pointed with military erectness up his abdomen. She looked up at his face again. Was he playing possum on her? No, he truly appeared to be asleep.

Her hand rubbed a circle on his stomach. Biting her lip, she reached up one questing finger. She traced the blunt, mushroom-shaped head of his penis down to the smooth ridge that delineated it from the shaft, and then ran her finger down to the thicket of hair at the base of his belly. His thighs sprawled restlessly, and she moved around to kneel between them, bending forward to look closely at this wonder.

Perhaps it was the warmth of her breath that caused it to bob upright. She wrapped her hand around its shaft with the intention of tucking it back down, but then didn’t. Instead, she lightly squeezed. It felt incredibly soft-skinned on the surface, yet so rigid underneath. She moved her hand up, and then down. Beau made a sound and she raised her eyes to look up at him. He was staring down at her with sleepy eyes. The surprise of seeing him awake caused her hand to spasm involuntarily.

“Ah, God, Juliet.” His voice was low and hoarse, his eyes incredibly hot. He stared at her mouth, which until that moment she hadn’t realized was quite so close to his genitalia. “Kiss it,” he growled.

“What?”

His hips moved a bit. “Please.”

So she pursed her lips and kissed the tip, and he made a sound deep in his throat as if she were killing him. She liked that sound a lot and kissed his penis again, this time a little less primly. His hands came down and gathered all her hair to the side so he could watch her. She blushed, but opened her lips a little bit and sort of sipped the smooth-skinned head into her mouth.

His thighs went rigid, his heels dug into the bed, and he arched up off the mattress. It pushed him deeper into the heat of her mouth, and she wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft and tried synchronizing the various movements. Her technique seemed terribly inexpert to her, but he looked as if he’d died and gone to heaven, which gave her an incredible feeling of power. Oh, my. She liked this.

She wasn’t the only one. Beau felt as if he’d awakened in the midst of his favorite wet dream. It was like being offered a slice of paradise right here on earth, and he loved everything about it—the sight, the feel, the look in those big gray eyes before she quickly lowered them. A corner of his mouth jerked up in amusement. He’d seen the knowledge of her dominion over him gleaming there, and that demure drop of her lashes didn’t fool him one bit.

His breath grew choppy and his hips began to instigate their own fierce rhythm, and he tugged a little frantically on her hair in his hands.