Authors: Mary Balogh
Slightly Sinful (11 page)
She drew back her head after several minutes and looked down at him with heavy-lidded, questioning eyes. When he drew her head down to his again, he kissed her more gently, ravishing her mouth with slow thoroughness.
He was the one who set her away from him at last, though he did so with the deepest reluctance.
"I am sorry," he said. "This is probably not very thrilling for you, is it, when you had expected a free night. And I cannot even pay your fee, whether it is sixpence or a hundred pounds. Besides, I like you and would not take advantage of your good nature."
He saw what might have been bewilderment in her eyes and then something else. She dipped her head down to rest on his shoulder, and he allowed her to come down on top of his chest again. Her hair teased his cheek and his nose.
He was going to suffer for this foolishness, he thought. He had owed her better than this. He would be fortunate if their friendship-and there was a sort of friendship between them-survived this night's doings. But even before he could suffer tomorrow's regrets there was this evening's discomfort to deal with. He was hard with need for her.
He had no way of knowing how long he had been without a woman, but it felt altogether too long. Not that just any woman would do, he suspected. Deuce take it, but he had allowed himself to become too infatuated with Rachel York. He had had nothing better to do with his time and energies, he supposed.
"I was not thinking about any fee," she said. "And you were not taking advantage of me."
"It must have been the other way around, then," he said chuckling softly, trying to make light of the situation. "You were taking advantage of me."
"Because you are weak from your injuries?" She lifted her head, supported herself with her hands on his chest again, and looked down at him with troubled eyes. "Did I do that? I did not mean it. I will go away immediately."
Damnation, he thought, he had hurt her. He ought not to have made mention of her profession. Clearly she was not plying it here. She knew he had nothing with which to pay her.
He grasped her by the arms when she would have got up.
"Rachel," he said, "don't go. Please don't go. I just wanted to know that I was not offending you-but I seem to have done it anyway. Forgive me?"
She nodded and he set one hand behind her head and drew her downward to kiss her again.
"Stay with me?" he asked against her lips.
He heard her swallow.
"Yes," she said.
"Does that door lock?" he asked her.
"Yes."
"Lock it, then," he said. "Let's be sure of privacy."
"Yes," she said again, and got to her feet to cross to the door.
She stood with her back to the room for a few moments after he heard the click of the lock. He was going to make love to her, he thought, and not feel guilty about it. She had just said she had not thought of a fee, meaning that she genuinely wanted to be with him. Very well, then. If she wanted him as he wanted her, they would enjoy themselves together and part amicably as soon as he was fit enough to leave. They would leave each other with pleasant memories.
But as she turned back toward him and he saw the color warm in her cheeks, it seemed to him that she looked like the innocent she sometimes pretended to be, and he felt ever so slightly sinful for wanting her so badly.
CHAPTER VII
I T WAS ONLY AS SHE STOOD AT THE DOOR AND turned the key that she realized fully what she had just done and what she was about to do.
He had warned her that he was going to kiss her, but she had not stopped him. She had not wanted to. Now he had asked her to stay and she had said yes even though she had been in no doubt of his meaning.
He was going to bed her.
And she had said yes.
Was she mad? Was she utterly, out-of-her-mind insane? She scarcely knew him. Indeed, she did not even know his real name. Soon he would be gone from her life, gone forever despite his promise to find her one day so that he could repay some of the debt he felt he owed her.
He believed her to be a whore. He thought this was nothing more to her than a pleasant little fling on the side with no money involved.
It was not too late. Even now she could tell him no, unlock the door, and flee up to her attic room.
But she was twenty-two years old and her life and been so barren of excitement, sensual or otherwise. The men she had had a chance to meet, including certain gentlemen who had frequented Lady Flatley's and had thought she was easy pickings just because she was a sort of servant, had always given her the shudders. And when she had chosen very deliberately with her head and agreed to marry Mr. Crawley because she had thought he was very different from all the others, she had found him to be a coldhearted villain.
She wanted to do this. She longed for it-with him, with Jonathan Smith. There were no illusions, no promises involved. There was no future. Just tonight. She could not bear to unlock the door and go away. If she did, she was sure, she would congratulate herself for the rest of her life on her good sense and pretend that she did not regret that she had not found the courage to do what she wanted to do.
She was terribly attracted to him.
It took only a few seconds for these thoughts to tumble through her mind. Then she drew a slow breath and turned back into the room. Perhaps she would regret this tomorrow, but she would think of that when tomorrow came.
The trouble was, she thought as she looked at him and saw naked desire in his darkly handsome face, that she did not know how to go about this. If she had not left the bed, she would not have thought about her ignorance, but here she was stranded at the other side of the room, not knowing what to do next.
She smiled at him.
"You will have to help me out of my dress and stays," she told him.
She went to sit on the side of the bed again, her back to him, and tipped her head forward.
He did not say anything, but she felt his fingers work at her buttons and pins and laces. She held her dress to her bosom as both it and her stays opened along the back and she felt the cool evening air against her bare flesh. He eased her dress off her shoulders, and she shivered as his hands caressed her back.
She stood up then and released her hold on her dress. It slithered down her body, taking her stays with it, and she stepped free of them. All that remained was her skimpy shift, which the stays had molded to her body, and her stockings. She sat down on the bed again and rolled them down and off her feet. At the same time she was aware that he was pulling off his nightshirt and tossing it onto the floor on top of her dress.
She turned and looked down at him. He looked very broad shouldered and well muscled and masculine despite the fact that he had been an invalid for almost two weeks. He was gazing back at her with dark, intense eyes. She was terribly afraid suddenly of the barely leashed passion that seemed to sizzle between them, but of course it was far too late now to change her mind.
Besides, there was a fascination, an overwhelming attraction all mixed in with the fear.
"Let your hair down," he told her. But before she could lift her arms, he caught at her hands. "No, let me take it down."
Geraldine had dressed it for her since she had had time to spare before the evening's revelries and had come into Rachel's attic room for a chat and possessed herself of Rachel's brush without a by-your-leave. She had produced a work of art, which had pleased Rachel, as she had wanted to look pretty for the evening's visit to Jonathan's room.
He took his time about drawing out pins and unraveling braids. She dipped her head down so that their faces were close all the time he worked, and her freed hair fell about them like a curtain. A few times he interrupted his efforts by drawing her closer and kissing her softly-on her eyelids, on her nose, on her lips. Her breasts felt tight and almost sore. There was a heavy pulsing low in her abdomen and down between her thighs that she recognized as the physical effects of desire.
All this felt terribly sinful, she thought. It was also unbearably erotic. If he did not finish with her hair soon she would surely burn up with heat.
"I am afraid," he said at last, combing his fingers through her loose hair and drawing her head downward once again so that his lips were touching hers, "that my leg wound makes me less mobile than I would wish to be at this moment. You are going to have to come on top of me and do most of the work. Stand up for a moment."
When she did so he turned back the covers so that she could join him on the bed. Her knees almost betrayed her then. She almost forgot to breathe. She set one knee on the bed, and he grasped the hem of her shift with both hands. She lifted her arms as he peeled it off and sent it to join their other garments on the floor.
She was startlingly aware of the candle burning on the table beside the bed.
He was gazing at her with narrowed gaze and pursed lips.
"In fairness to other women," he said, "there ought to be some imperfection in your person. But, if there is, I fail to see it. Come."
She was twenty-two years old. She was not entirely ignorant of what happened. But he would surely expect experience and skill. She had told him once, though, that she was the one who catered to the taste for demure innocence.
"You must instruct me," she told him. "I am new to this, remember?"
He laughed softly. "Come astride me," he said, "and I will give you a lesson in love-though I daresay I will end up as more pupil than teacher."
She blessed his bandaged thigh at that moment. Having to move across him and settle herself above him in such a way that she did not jolt him or inadvertently touch the wound somehow alleviated the awkwardness and intense embarrassment she might otherwise have felt at being above him. She could feel his body heat beneath her spread thighs.
A weakness that was almost painful spiraled up inside her until even her throat ached. She set her hands on his shoulders and leaned over him, her eyes on his.
He took over at that point, cupping one hand behind her head and kissing her openmouthed again, his tongue plundering her mouth so that she was soon consumed by needs her body had never before dreamed of.
He touched every inch of her over the next several minutes-with his hands, his palms, his fingers, his fingertips, his thumbs, his lips, his tongue, his teeth. He touched her in ways she had not known there were ways. He suckled her breasts, moistened her nipples with his tongue, nipped them lightly with his teeth until they were hardened and almost unbearably sensitive. He set one hand flat over her throbbing private place, almost startling her into madness, and then probed the folds, exploring, caressing, teasing, scratching lightly-and sliding one finger and then two slowly up inside her. She was wet there, she realized, as muscles she had not known she possessed clenched hard about him.
She was not idle while he gave her an education in foreplay. Her hands roamed over him too, marveling at the solid maleness of him and by very instinct knowing where to pause and caress. After he had suckled her breasts she lowered her head and licked one of his male nipples, startling a gasp and an exclamation from him. She raised her head and smiled into his eyes.
"Does that feel good?"
"Witch!" he said.
She moved her mouth to the other one.
"If you do not mount me soon," he said at last, "I am going to disgrace myself."
But he did not wait for her to take the initiative. He set his hands on her hips and brought her down until she could feel him hard against her entrance, which was pulsing and aching with raw need. And then he pressed down firmly on her hips and she felt herself being penetrated and stretched until there was increasing discomfort, a sharp pain, and then no more as he came deeper than she could ever have imagined.
For a few moments her mind could not grasp at any coherent thought. There was only the pure physical shock of lost innocence. Her teeth clamped onto her lower lip at the same moment as she heard his muffled exclamation.
"Deuce take it . . ."
For several moments neither of them moved. And then he did things to her that numbed her with shock again. He half lifted her off him and pumped swift and deep in and out of her, over and over again until he drew her down hard and held her there while she felt a hot rush in her depths and knew that it must be over.
There was a curious feeling of disappointment. It was all over so soon after the slow building of pleasure that had gone before it. The actual act had seemed almost anticlimactic.
But she would not regret it tomorrow. She would not. She had wanted it and she had had it, and it was her fault if she had found the last part of it less than earth-shattering. It had still been lovely to exercise her womanhood freely and to lie with a man for whom she had been feeling a growing attraction for the last two weeks.
She lowered her forehead to his shoulder while she brought her breathing under control. She hoped she had not disappointed him dreadfully.
"It is going to be quite intriguing," he said after a minute or two of stillness and silence, his voice sounding startlingly normal, "to hear your explanation for this, Miss York. Pardon me if I am too exhausted to hear it just at the moment."