School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do (19 page)

Like those he lavished on her now, his hand kneading her breast as his mouth plundered hers with a hunger that answered her own. Heavens, the strangest parts of her body were tightening, tensing, yearning for his mouth, his fingers…

Then he unfastened her pelisse robe and dragged it off.

“Simon!” she cried as her serviceable wool gown puddled at her feet.

“Naked flesh, remember?” He circled behind her to unlace her corset.

“But if anyone comes in—”

“Don’t fret, sweetheart.” With heated, open-mouthed kisses, he teased her sensitive ear, her flaming cheek, the pulse beating furiously in her neck. “The door’s locked.”

She swayed back against him, struggling to regain her sanity. “What about the servants? They have keys.

”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t use them without permission. The footman is fetching my doctor. When he knocks to inform us of the man’s arrival, I will go into the hall, and that is where your family will find me when they return.”

“W-won’t the doctor…say something to…someone?”

“I pay him well for his discretion.” He peeled off her corset, then dropped it. “I will pay the servants to keep quiet, too, if I must.”

It sounded eminently sensible…far too sensible for how he made her feel. His hand now cupped her breast to tease and fondle and drive her out of her mind. And his other hand…oh, sweet heaven…what was he doing?

He rubbed her between the legs as he had in the forest, but this time it was much more intimate, much more…erotic. Since she never wore drawers, only the thin linen of her chemise lay between his fingers and the most hidden part of her flesh.

“You’re so wet and hot, sweetheart,” he said in a guttural voice. “Do you know what that does to me?”

He knew about the dampness, the heat? Of course he did. No matter what he’d claimed about his celibacy, he’d probably had plenty of women in his life. Or he wouldn’t know how to do this so…very…

oh, heaven help her. What was he touching that made her feel—

A moan escaped her lips. Wildly she arched into his hands, craving more. He kissed a fiery path down her neck, and she turned her head to meet his lips.

When she spotted herself in the mirror, with his masterful hands all over her and his mouth ravishing her neck, the picture they made together excited her further…until she realized how anyone else would react to see it. “Simon, if the servants…do…unlock the door—”

“They’ll find you lying in fashionable deshabille in your bed, awaiting the doctor.” Taking her by surprise, he lifted her in his arms. “Because that is precisely where you will be.”

With a gasp, she flung her arms about his neck. There was some flaw in his logic, but she couldn’t puzzle it out when his gaze was raking her body with such exhilarating intent. In her chemise, she could hardly be called naked, but it was less than she’d ever worn in a man’s presence. And Simon seemed to see right through it as he stretched her out on her bed, for he hovered over her, his eyes darkening to that deep cerulean blue that always sent an errant thrill along her spine. When he untied her chemise with a flick of one finger, then dragged the neck down to expose her breasts, her face flamed, but her shameless, flagrantly rebellious nipples tautened into points beneath his penetrating glance.

“Do you know how often I have imagined you like this?” he rasped as he slid onto the bed beside her. “

How many stifling Calcutta nights I endured by conjuring up pictures of you naked beneath me? Wondering if your breasts were as full as they’d seemed?” He fondled them, teased them. “Wondering if your nipples would be pouty little cherries or rich dark damsons that puckered sweetly when I touched them?” He bent toward her breasts. “Or tasted them, like this…”

His tongue slicked over her nipple, and she choked back a groan. His words seduced her as thoroughly as his devilish caresses. Just the sight of his golden head at her breast shot a tremor through her. This bargain had been a mistake. Much more of this, and she’d beg him to take her, if only to ease the yearnings in her breasts and belly. Not to mention the place between her legs that he was now unveiling, tugging her chemise up inch by inch. He even stroked her there, his finger tormenting the spot that ached for his—

Good heavens, she couldn’t let him do this, or she would be lost. She wouldn’t put it past Simon to ruin her if she were fool enough in the throes of her heedless desire to say she wanted him to. But she’d already agreed to let him touch and taste her, and if she didn’t hold to it, he would ruin everything she’d worked for.

Long as the woman lays there and lets the man do what he wants, he’ll never know the difference. Yes! That’s what she must do—lie here and let him do as he pleased. Not allow her shameless feelings to tempt her into doing things back, like stroking his hair or thrusting her hips against him as she was doing this very moment—

She forced herself to ease back onto the bed. Just let him ‘do his business.’ Then it will be over and your virtue will be intact.

He shifted to suck her other breast, and she had to fight to keep from clutching his head to her chest. Instead she grabbed great handfuls of the bed covers and squeezed. Think of something other than his curst mouth. Think of Newgate. She fixed her gaze on the bed canopy of white muslin above her. White. Yes, think of the white-wood carver project. What you will do with the money.

Had Simon and Mrs. Harris met again? She would have to ask him later. Perhaps—

“What are you doing?” Simon snapped.

She jerked her gaze from the canopy to where he hovered over her, scowling. A guilty flush heated her cheeks. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. Seconds ago you were aroused, and now…” His gaze shifted meaningfully to where she clutched the bed covers for dear life. “You’re resisting me.”

“Perhaps I’m not as passionate as you thought.” She forced a cool smile to her lips. “Or perhaps I merely don’t find this as engrossing as you do.”

Anger blazed in his face. “And perhaps you’re trying to put a swift end to our bargain the only way you know how.”

A pox on the man and his uncanny ability to read her mind. “That’s a rather arrogant way to look at it. You’re assuming that I—”

“I am assuming nothing. I know you—you would rather die than allow me to win. So you are circumventing our agreement.”

With deliberate insolence, he bent to run his tongue in a circle around her nipple, and a delicious shiver coursed down her.

Desperately, she fought back. “You said you wanted to touch and taste me; you said nothing about my responding. Or doing the same things to you.”

“Ah, but I am arrogant enough to want it all. So go ahead—resist me. Lie back and think of England and keep your hands to yourself.” He seized her nipple in his teeth, arousing it with a sensual sweep of his tongue. Then he released it to flash her a darkly wicked smile. “But that will only make me more determined to have you writhing beneath me in the end, touching me and tasting me and begging me to give you pleasure.”

Ooh, what conceit! How dared he? “Save your blustering speeches for Parliament, Your Grace. This is one fight you won’t win with them.”

The minute the taunt left her mouth, she regretted it. Now he wouldn’t rest until he’d conquered her utterly.

“Then it’s a good thing I don’t intend to use speeches,” he said in a harsh rasp. And the battle was on.

She’d scarcely drawn another breath when he caught the hem of her chemise and jerked it up her body to bunch above her breasts. Now she lay fully exposed to him, from her chest to the garters tied just below her knees.

Simon scoured her naked body with a devouring glance. Then like Wellington at Waterloo, he swooped down upon her with merciless cunning, scorching her bared breasts and nipples with kisses, laving them with hot rasps of his tongue even as his hand delved fearlessly between her legs. Only this time he didn’t stop with rubbing her, oh no. He slid his devilish finger inside her slick passage in a motion as bold as it was shocking. She was still gasping at the audacity of that invasion when he began stroking her, in and out, up and down, first with one and then with two questing fingers. Oh, heaven save her from his clever hand, which seemed to know just how to arouse her. She swallowed the cry that rose in her throat and squeezed the covers into knots in her effort not to squirm. She closed her eyes, but that only made her more aware of his mouth, now searing a path of open-mouthed kisses to her belly, his tongue darting into her navel for a fleeting caress before it trailed farther down to—

Her eyes shot open. “Simon, what are you—”

“I can taste you wherever I want, remember?” he lifted his head to growl. His fingers withdrew from inside her, but only so he could part her tangled curls and bare her tender parts to his covetous gaze. As she held her breath, half in alarm, half in tantalized wonder, he covered her down there with his mouth.

Heavens! What on earth…what was he…ooh, that was not fair.

Now his tongue drove inside her, tempting her but not giving enough. If Simon had governed India anywhere as competently as he governed her body, no wonder everyone lauded his actions. His tongue flicked her eager, throbbing petals and she heard herself moan as if in a dream, felt her hips arch up to meet his mouth. But she could no more stop it than she could stop the images flooding her brain…of Simon carrying her, worrying over her, conquering her as his tongue darted deeper and deeper.

She didn’t even realize she’d grabbed his head, fisting her hands in his hair, until he demanded hoarsely, “

Do you want me?”

The sound of his voice startled her into dropping her gaze to his face. Although she expected to see gloating there, instead his eyes glittered with a raw desire so electric, it sent a current through her. And so powerful that she could no longer deny it. She nodded.

“Say it, Louisa,” he ordered. “Say ‘I want you, Simon.’”

“I want you…Simon,” she said even as she thrust her hips up, vainly trying to meet his mouth. Eyes gleaming with a dark satisfaction, he returned to his sinful caresses. Soon he had her quivering and writhing, begging until her voice was hoarse from her cries, until she thought she would die if she didn’t reach that summit his mouth seemed to offer…

When the lightning struck at last, pulsing energy through her from her curling toes to her tossing head and wringing a scream from her throat, she clutched him to her and held on without shame or sorrow, without even caring that she’d lost the battle. For it felt like she’d won. Simon felt like she had won, too. He had tempted her into letting him pleasure her, but she still had not touched him, and he craved her hands on him.

With one last glance at the sweet delicacy he had just fed on, he slid up her body. “Touch me, sweetheart, please…” he growled, hardly conscious of the words, “Touch me, too…I beg you—”

“Where? How?” Unexpectedly eager to comply, she started kissing his shoulders. The delicate kisses drove him mad.

He yanked his shirttails free, tore at the buttons of his trousers and drawers, then grabbed her hand and urged it inside. His heavy cock was so eager for her that it jerked at the first touch of her fingers. With a gasp, she let go, and he moaned.

“It’s all right.” He closed her hand around him. Thank God she let him, because he might die otherwise. “

It’s supposed to move.” He showed her how to caress him. “Stroke it. Firmly.” When she did, a heartfelt groan escaped his lips. “Yes, like that. My God, you have no idea…how good that feels.”

“I have some idea,” she teased with a sultry smile, then tugged hard, wresting a cry of pleasure from his throat.

“I knew that you are really…Cleopatra…not Joan of Arc.” He thrust into her tight little fist. “Seducing men into surrender.”

“Seducing?” She feathered a kiss along his throat. “You begged me, remember?”

He barely remembered his name just now, but he did remember begging. And her begging him. “Admit it, sweetheart, you surrendered first.”

“You imagined that,” she said with a silky smile, her strokes growing harder and faster. God, she was born for passion.

“The devil I did. I made you beg.” He bent to brush her mouth with his. “And I’ll do it again, too.”

Then as he headed inexorably toward release, he kissed her mouth, fondled her satiny breasts, until she was once again wriggling and squirming beneath him.

Somewhere in the recesses of his brain he heard a knock, but it had barely registered when another sound followed, of a key turning in a lock.

He didn’t even have time to leave her before Draker’s voice thundered through his fevered mind. “Damn you, Foxmoor, get the hell off my sister!”

Simon groaned. He had not wanted it to happen like this, for her to be seen like this. Fighting his burning urge for release, he rolled off her and onto his feet on the floor, dragging the cover over her. With his back to Draker, he fastened his trousers. Staring down at her flushed, shocked face, he murmured, “I am sorry, sweetheart. Forgive me.”

Before he turned, he heard other voices behind him, his sister’s for one, saying, “Marcus, how is she?”

Then a painful pause. “Oh, dear Lord.”

That was all it took to fully banish his erection. Cursing, he faced them, taking in the horrified expressions of not only Regina, but at least three other members of the London Ladies Society, all of whom crowded around the entrance to the room. Then his gaze swept to Draker, and Simon sucked in a breath. He had vastly misjudged what his brother-in-law’s reaction would be. He would not suffer a beating at Draker’s hands, after all.

Draker was simply going to kill him.

Chapter Fifteen

Dear Cousin,

Will you be surprised to learn that the duke and my friend Louisa are shortly to be married? I was present when they announced their betrothal. But do not believe everything you hear about it—Foxmoor was not found naked in her bedchamber. Though he might as well have been, for she very nearly was. Your shameless gossip of a friend,

Charlotte

C hoose your seconds, Foxmoor,” Marcus said in a deadly voice that sent a chill through Louisa.