Perilous Risk (15 page)

From long experience, he waited until he sensed her reach the very precipice of pleasure. He could hear her convulsively catching her breath.

He took his mouth from her.

She gasped then gave a long, low moan. Pure frustration echoed in the sound.

He remained there crouched, ignoring the ache in his legs, ignoring the painful throbbing in his cock. He watched the play of confusion and pained desire cross her face.

He couldn’t deny he felt a bit of satisfaction. She had twice left him, alone and needy. Both times, she had taken comfort from Jonathan Lloyd.

Stephen had had no one.

Yes, there had been many lovers for him since then.

But he had no one.

“Stephen?” she asked, her voice soft, pleading.

“When we stop our journey in the morning, I am going to strip you bare, lay you upon the bed and examine every inch of you.” He flicked her nub with his thumb.

“Oh, oh!” she cried, moving her hips to and fro.

“I am going kiss—” he leant forward and flicked his tongue quickly against her swollen, erect nub “—and lick every part of you.”

She moaned and arched her pelvis.

“And you are going to come for me like you have never come for anyone else in your life.”

“Oh, Stephen…” She dug her fingers into his scalp.

He took her by the wrists, pulled her hands off him and held them firmly. “But until then, you are going to burn for me as I burned for you when left Eastwood Place, when you went to America with
him
.”

He couldn’t keep the emotion out of his voice. He couldn’t separate out the need to seduce her, to keep her in thrall and his very real and personal need to make her suffer with desire as he had suffered. To engrave a need for him as indelibly upon her heart as she had so effortlessly and unintentionally engraved a need for her upon his.

“Wha—” Her voice trailed off and her mouth stayed open. She stared at him, still confused, beyond needy.

Steeling himself against the unbearable ache in his loins, he jerked her skirts into place.

Another woman might have taken offence. But for Rebecca his denial only increased her sense of arousal.

She wanted this from him. She wanted more.

Deny me, make me plead, beg
…
only don’t deny me too long.

She bit her lip to hold the words back.

He reached behind her and began unfastening her gown. He moved quickly, deftly. Soon, he tugged the garment down her shoulders, trapping her arms at her sides. But he didn’t free her. Instead, he pulled her stays and chemise down.

Cool air touched her breasts. Her nipples drew into tight peaks.

Moments passed and yet he was so still, so quiet. His face betrayed not a whit of emotion.

Sudden insecurity swelled in her chest. Did he think her too small? Her lungs began to ache and she quickly released the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding.

“God.” His voice was reverent. “You have such pretty little breasts. Even more lovely than I ever imagined.” With a fingertip, he drew a line between them. “And I have imagined them quite often.”

She kept her eyes downcast. Kept quiet. But anticipation was sparking all along her nerves. Pounding in her blood. She was afire.

His sudden inhalation echoed in the chamber, so loud that she jerked her gaze back to his. With parted lips, she took several panting breaths whilst he held her gaze. He glanced down at her breasts again then released his breath, a sound that was a cross between a hiss and a deep whistle.

She startled.

“Christ, oh Christ—” His voice sounded pained.

She raised her brows. “What?”

He shook his head slowly. Then he touched her hair, pulling the pins, deftly, quickly, without tugging too hard. Her curls sprang free, falling about her shoulders. With several hasty motions, he arranged them to suit some fancy she could only guess at.

He gave a low sound, something between a growl and groan. “That’s how I have pictured you. Your eyes dark with desire, your nipples so erect and brightly pink and your hair mussed.”

He traced along the outline her left breast. “Your nipples are so perfectly pink, so tempting. I cannot wait to take them into my mouth.”

Need to feel his mouth upon them made her shudder and she watched as he traced the outline of her other breast. His hands were large with long fingers. Utterly masculine and beautiful.

“I am going to kiss and suckle them—” he licked her earlobe— “until you beg and plead with me to never stop.”

A rush of pure arousal flamed through her blood and she had to force down a moan. She watched as he slowly moved his fingertip from the centre of her breastbone towards her nipple. Gooseflesh dotted her chest. As his moving digit came closer, the bright pink peak tightened. She tried to remain passive but her back arched of its own accord.

He brushed her nipple.

Pleasure sparked within her. She jumped and cried out.

He took his hand away and licked his fingertips. Then he ran his wet fingers over the erect point. He was circling, circling, circling.

She writhed with both the pleasure and need building within her.

He bent. He put that beautiful, well shaped mouth on her nipple.

Wetness flooded from her core. She struggled to move her arms, to grasp his shoulders, but her arms remained pinned fast.

The lush fullness of his lips brushed against her, again and again.

She went weak, her legs completely boneless. Waves and waves of need crashed through her. She trembled and moaned.

He opened and took the stiff nub into his mouth and drew on it. Tugged at it. Flicked it with his tongue.

Sparks of fire exploded within her as he continued making love to her with his mouth.

Oh, that wondrous mouth! He was only using it on her breasts yet he was working magic on her.

He nipped her straining peak. Delight rocked her. She threw her head back, closed her eyes and sobbed.

No one had ever made her feel like this.

How could she have ever forgotten him?

He lifted his head then moved off of her and reached to the chair back and retrieved her pelisse. He held it open. “Sit up, my love.”

Despite the desire darkening his eyes, he spoke in a crisp, businesslike tone.

She gaped at him. “What?”

“Come now, do it.”

A little stiff from lying on the hard table, she arose slowly. His expression impassive, he took the top of her gown and pulled it down her arms, down her body.

Cold air assaulted her. Her nipples grew painfully rigid. “Stephen!”

“Shh.” He placed two fingers over her mouth. The scent of herself, of sex and arousal, filled her senses. Desire stabbed through her. She couldn't resist pressing against him, rubbing her aching sex against the thigh he pressed against her.

Then he took her by the shoulders and gently pushed her away. “Enough.”

He looked so stern now. He towered over her. An immovable, implacable force.

She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging her shoulders and feeling very small.

Very naked.

“I don’t understand what you want.” Her voice was pleading, girlish.

“I want you to be silent and obey me.”

“Obey you?”

“Yes.”

“But what do you want from me?”

Flames flared to life in his dark eyes. “I want what you gave him.”

The sudden emotion in his voice made her gasp and take a step back.

“I want your obedience. Your loyalty. Your complete trust.”

Feeling dizzy, mentally disorientated, she shook her head slowly. “No, no… It is not that easy.”

“It must have been very easy with him. You took up with him so quickly and you stayed with him for so long.”

The accusation in his voice made her chest tighten. It was harder and harder to draw a full breath.

“He has nothing to do with us. Nothing.” She shook her head more vigorously. “Why must you torment me with him?”

“He kept you from me.”

In the silence following, his words seemed to fall hard upon her. She began to shiver with sudden awareness of the chill in the chamber.

His expression softened and he reached for her pelisse then placed it, not over her shoulders, but draped over her front. In the next moment, he swept her into his arms and began walking.

Walking to the door!

“Stephen?!” she cried, clinging to his shoulders as he quickened his pace and her body jolted in his arms.

“It’s time for us to leave.”

Inside the closed carriage, Stephen leant over Rebecca and grasped the pelisse then stripped it away from her.

She raised her pale blue eyes to his, half-frightened, half-aroused.

“Shh,” he warned.

Her eyes grew wider than ever and her lower lip trembled. Her breasts shook slightly.

He swallowed back a groan.

Oh God, those petite breasts with their bright pink tips.

Such delicate feminine beauty.

Like the sweetest, ripest apricots.

His for the taking at last. He ran his hand over her breasts, pausing to savour the sensation of her tight peaks against his palm.

She shuddered. And bit her lip. Her stifled moan sent an answering surge of pained desire into his balls.

I came back to England, just for you.

He might have told her. Pride prevented him. Yes, his pride had kept him from approaching her all these months. His stiff-necked, vain pride. But when he had watched Seymour House and he had seen Rebecca’s flight and known that she was in danger, he could hold back no longer.

Yet his pride remained. And he was deriving a great deal of satisfaction from witnessing her submission, her growing need.

He placed the wrap over her shoulders. ”Leave that just as I have it.”

He returned to his seat. “I shall enjoy the view during our journey.”

“Don’t you want to do more than merely look?” Her voice was small, girlish. Artlessly seductive.

The whole way from the private chamber to the carriage, Rebecca had clung to Stephen, likely afraid that if she let go, her pelisse would fall and reveal her nakedness to every man in the inn’s main chamber and the courtyard outside.

And that whole way, he had sensed the heat and need building within her. Heat and need that was becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

His cock was rigid as an iron pike spear. The pressure in his balls had reached a level that was like to drive a man insane. He forced his expression to remain cool. “I have told you already, Rebecca. I want you to burn for me as I have burned for you.”

“You could really be that cruel?”

“I am enjoying it. Immensely.” His voice nearly faltered on the last word, for talking openly about her arousal sent a shaft of hunger through his loins that made him wince inside. He grit his teeth against the next surge of pained yearning as he leaked and leaked. His drawers were damn nigh sodden.

Another pang of craving made him shift and spread his legs a little wider.

Her gaze fell from his face to his crotch.

Damn.

Her attention made the pressure all the worst. He could feel the blood pounding into his rod. God, he would surely burst.

She slipped from the seat and crawled to him on her knees.

He caught his breath.

As she approached, his heart pounded in his ears with deafening volume.

Oh Christ, give me the strength to resist.

She put her cheek against his thigh. The mussed strands of her gently curling hair shone like glittering threads of gold and pale copper in the amber lamplight. Two spots of high colour shone in her cheeks, rich as roses. She glanced up through her lashes. There was an unspoken question in her crystalline blue gaze.

A question that momentarily froze him.

She slid her hand up his thigh, slowly, ever so slowly.

Every muscle in his belly and thighs went taut whilst he watched her hand, so small and starkly pale against the dark velveteen of his trousers. She touched his erection.

Fire sparked through his cock. Pained pleasure that forced him to release his breath in a groan.

His erection strained against his fall and despite the tight confines of the cloth, she gave him a bold, satisfying squeeze. A surge of seed leaked from the head of his cock. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth.

Steady old boy. Just hold steady.

He grasped both her wrists. “Enough.”

“Oh, please, Stephen.”

He tightened his grip on her hands. “Come, Rebecca, sit beside me.”

“Let me,” she pleaded.

“No.”

She glanced up though her lashes and her look seared him. Another surge of fluid leaked from his throbbing, aching erection.