Lady Rosabella's Ruse (14 page)

She leaned closer, making her desires known. Her mouth brushed his lips. Her tongue licked where her lips had touched.

He caught her nape and pressed his mouth to hers. She turned into him, little sounds of approval coming from deep in her throat, her hands caressing his shoulders and arms.

She tasted sweet. Like honey or sugar and something far more exotic.

He breathed deep, inhaling her perfume. Jasmine.

Why was he questioning this? They were both adults, free to make their own decisions. And he’d been looking for this from the moment he had seen her. He would woo her, seduce her and show her a few things her curate husband wouldn’t have known.

He deepened the kiss. Slowly she sank back against the cushions, her body soft and warm beneath him, her hands wandering his bare back in an erotically delicate, yet feverish, exploration.

He experienced a moment of shock as he realised just how much he wanted this woman. Not just carnally, which went without saying, but on some spiritual level, as if closeness with her could somehow beat back the darkness in his life.

A sigh of pleasure as his hand encompassed her breast through her gown drove the annoyingly awkward thought from his mind. His fingers tingled at the wild flutter of her heart beneath the soft flesh, and the rapid rise and fall of her chest with each breath. The desire to please shocked him, but since he wanted her, then he would ensure she wanted him with equal fervour. He would ply all his years of experience to drive this woman mad with longing until she begged for completion.

Slowly, gently, he lifted his lips from hers, lingering only to taste her lips lightly, then brought himself up on his elbows, one each side of her head. He gazed down into her lovely face gilded by firelight.
Beautiful
did not begin to describe the finely moulded bones beneath the warm-toned skin. There was haughtiness in the high cheekbones and the straight nose. Passion in the full lips reddened and pouting from his kisses. Untapped passion.

Her large dark eyes gazed back at him, heavy lidded and smoky. Lust clawed at his belly at the banked fires he saw in her steady even gaze.

He had the feeling that when those embers burst into flame, they would consume him.

He drew a deep unsteady breath and cradled her face in his hands. ‘You are lovely,’ he whispered.

She smiled her sultry smile and her even white teeth contrasted with the red of her lips. He rubbed his thumb across the fullness of her lower lip. She licked it.

His body clenched with pleasure.

With fingers that shook with the desire gripping his body, he traced the line of cheekbone and jaw. He brushed the back of his hand across the soft hollow of her cheek, pulled her hair free of its pins and speared his fingers in the luxurious black wings of hair at her temples. Soft and thick tresses haloed her face. The face of a temptress.

His body hardened to rock.

He shook his head at her. ‘Who are you?’

Her eyes widened. Her lovely throat moved as she swallowed. ‘Just a woman,’ she said, her throaty voice rough.

‘An unexpected gift,’ he said and bent to plunder her mouth with his tongue.

The soft noise of pleasure from her throat urged him on. He slanted his head for better access to the hot recess of her mouth, and trailed one hand down her length, caressing the deep indent of her waist and the soft swell of her hip. Lovely womanly curves filled his palm and painted a picture of her beautiful body in his mind. He stroked her tongue and she tasted his with an eager enthusiasm that almost unmanned him.

He took a deep steadying breath and bunched the fabric of her skirts, drawing them up to her hips. She gave a little gasp of surprise.

He lifted his head and glanced down at her, questioning.

In that moment, he could have sworn she looked nervous, yet when she smiled and grabbed his shoulders, he decided it was a trick of the light. That her gasp was pleasure, not surprise.

He palmed the long slender thigh, kneading and stroking in turn, slowly pressing his knee between hers.

She shifted beneath him, parting her thighs, welcoming him into the cradle of her hips. Accommodating him as if he belonged there. It felt so damned good. He nuzzled at her neck, blew in her ear, heard her whimpers of ecstasy within every bone and nerve in his body.

The urge to press into her heat plunged him into hot unthinking darkness. Only by force of will did he retain the strength to take it slowly, because he had another driving need: to ensure her climax. Anything less would be unacceptable.

He pressed kisses to the swells of her bosom above her gown, licking at the valley between them.

Her hips undulated against his shaft, sending blood, hot and thick, coursing through him. He pulled at the ribbon at the top of her bodice, untied the bow and pulled the bodice down, revealing the top of a practical linen shift and her stays. He traced the edge of the shift with a fingertip, dipping beneath the fabric to brush a tightly budded nipple.

She drew in a hiss of breath

‘You like that?’ he murmured.

She nodded, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as if she found it too hard to speak.

‘You will like it better, if we remove your gown.’

A look of doubt crossed her face.

He wanted to curse. Had the curate-husband never pleasured her naked? No wonder she seemed almost innocent in her responses. The man had probably never bothered to do more than bring himself release without seeing to hers. Well, she wouldn’t be the only widow he’d introduced to sensual delight.

‘I promise you will be more than satisfied,’ he whispered wickedly in her ear. She shivered.

He smiled.

Rosa had learned some things about the physical relations between a man and a woman since becoming Lady Keswick’s companion. The married ladies in the company had been forthright in their discussions of bedsport among themselves. And in their acknowledgement of enjoyment.

If the thrills invading every part of her body were part of the experience, then she now knew whereof they spoke. Garth’s kisses on her lips were wonderful, but now as he kissed the rise of her breast with his hot mouth, the heat in her blood and the pulses of sweet longing inside her resulted in the most delicious sensations deep inside her body.

She could hardly think while her body felt as if it was on fire. A fire only he could quench.

It wasn’t wrong, this delight of the flesh. Her parents had clearly enjoyed their physical intimacy from the way they’d touched when thinking they were unobserved, and they had always shared a bed. But they’d been married.

They’d loved each other.

Not that love was a necessary component to passion. A married woman was entitled to take her pleasure where she willed as long as she was discreet, according to the women visiting Lady Keswick. Indeed, it seemed almost a point of pride with them.

A single woman would be ruined by such behaviour. Shunned.

Her heart gave a little squeeze for what would never be. Marriage. Family. Love. But very few people found love. Perhaps her sisters wouldn’t reject her when they learned she had done this for their sake, to give them the chance of love, or at least a chance for a happy marriage.

He raised his head from tormenting her breast to look into her face. She keenly felt the loss of his mouth on her sensitised flesh.

He smoothed the hair back from her temples. ‘Are you all right?’

Had he somehow sensed her roiling thoughts? Her inner fears?

He had a beautiful face. Sinister, yes. Even his smile was dark and dangerous, and the angles of his face were so hard they might have been cut with a blade. And yet he could be gentle, too, and fun. She smiled at him. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Only fine?’ he growled, the smile on the lips belying the roughness in his voice. ‘Then I am not at my best tonight.’

A chuckle rose in her throat; daring took hold of her tongue. ‘Then you must try harder.’

His shoulders shook a little, and then he laughed deep in his chest. The rumble set up a pleasant vibration along her skin. ‘Then we must be rid of this gown, my dear sweet Rose.’

Oh, how neatly he turned things to his advantage. A charming rogue. A practised seducer. A rake.

Which was all to her advantage, for no honourable man would let her use her body to buy her way out of her misfortune. Not if he knew her true identity.

Don’t think of that now. The truth would not help her. She must manage with what she had.

She reached up and ran her hands across the breadth of his shoulders, smoothed the gilded flesh of arms sculpted as fine as any statue and sensually warm to the touch. She laughed. ‘Then you need to rise, sir.’

‘I, you saucy wench, am already well risen.’ He tickled her chin, pressed a kiss to her mouth and stood up.

The sheet dropped to the floor. And there he was, outlined by the glow from the fire in all his male glory.

Open-mouthed, she stared at his large male part jutting up from the dark curls at his loins.

She knew what it was, and where it was supposed to go, but she had never expected it to be quite so substantial, or so stiff. Now the terms ‘riding the pike’ and ‘mounting the pole’ that the women had used as they discussed their adventures made more sense. The only male parts she had seen on statues were, though fascinating to her maidenly eyes, tiny wormlike appendages. They were nothing like this.

Nervously, her gaze shot up to his face. His expression was smug. ‘Do I please you, sweet Rose?’

She swallowed. ‘Yes.’ Oh, dear, that sounded just a little more tentative than she had intended.

He tilted his head on one side and then silently reached out a hand. ‘Come, let us have you out of that gown.’ He easily pulled her to her feet and spun her around.

One hand came around her waist and pulled her back against him. She could feel his member hard against her buttocks. The heat of his body permeated through her gown. His other hand swept her hair from her neck and his lips nuzzled at her nape. She arched her back at the pleasurable sensation.

‘So sensual,’ he mumbled against her skin. ‘I want to eat you all up.’

The words and the lick of his tongue across her nape sent shivers rampaging across her skin. Lovely shivers that penetrated her bones and reached deep inside her core.

He drew her closer, rocking against her, with a soft groan. His hand left her hair and slid down to squeeze and knead her bottom, and the hand at her waist moved up to cup her breast in a hot caress, as the rocking of his hips continued. ‘So soft,’ he murmured.

It felt lovely, but it was only a prelude to what was to come. And she must not remain passive or he would soon find her dull, as the friendly Mrs De Lacy had remarked during one of their discussions. Lady Smythe had turned a bright red, but had nodded as if she agreed.

She reached up and back to run her fingers through his hair. The movement brought her buttocks in closer contact to his groin and her breasts higher. His hand brushed back and forth across their peaks, making them tingle and ache.

He nipped her nape and stepped back. ‘Witch. You’ll have me finished before we start.’

His fingers attacked the fastenings of her gown while she mulled on his words.

Had he not liked her touching him? He hadn’t sounded annoyed, but simply rueful, perhaps amused. She frowned. Was she doing something wrong?

The tugging at her back ceased. His large warm hands slipped over her shoulders and down her arms, pushing the sleeves free of her hands, sliding the fabric over her hips, until with nothing to keep it in place it fell to her feet with a whisper.

She let go her breath in a little huff. Her heart banged against her ribs in warning. She clenched her hands against the urge to run.

‘Easy,’ he breathed, kissing each of her shoulder blades in turn. His hands ran down her arms and clasped her hands, teasing her fingers open, while his mouth kissed the top of her shoulder. Fingers interlaced with his, she relaxed back against his broad warm chest.

‘You’ve nothing to fear,’ he murmured in softly. ‘Only the best of little deaths, I promise.’

Her panic subsided, gentled by his touch and the dark seduction of his voice. She took a deep breath and leaned into him, feeling his strength all down her back. A man like him had the power to protect the weak, or break them. She did not trust him to use his power well, but did she fear him? Not at this moment. For at this moment, she had something he wanted.

She gently freed her fingers and moved her hands backwards, explored the naked flesh of his flanks, so narrow and firm, and the rough-haired muscle of his thighs. More lean strength beneath warm skin.

His hips jerked against her bottom. He muttered something that sounded like a curse, then, ‘Too many clothes.’

He gently pushed her forwards. ‘Let me at these laces, girl,’ he said softly. ‘I would have you skin to skin.’

Her stomach clenched at the sensual whisper and the image it provoked.

His hands made short work of the ties of her stays. They, too, fell to the floor. Slowly, almost reverently, he drew her chemise up her body. She lifted her arms and he pulled it over her head and off. He spun her around to face him, his gaze raking her body, taking in her breasts and waist and the triangle of glossy black curls between her thighs, before travelling back to her face.