Twice a Rake (25 page)

~From the journal of Lady Quinton

Oh, dear good Lord. Aurora was experiencing the most delightful dream, one she never wanted to wake from. Strong, hot hands slid over her naked body, stroking her to a fever. Then a tongue, wet and insistent, laved at her tender nipples. The scratchy stubble abraded her skin all over.

Quin. It had to be Quin. She’d know his hands anywhere, at least when they were driving her to the brink of madness like that.

She wanted to touch him, too, to see him. But when she tried to lower her arms, they wouldn’t budge from their position stretched high over her head. And her eyes couldn’t see, even though they were open. Aurora whimpered in frustration.

“Hush now, love,” Quin whispered into her ear. His breath tickled like butterfly wings against her cheek. Which was all very lovely, but she desperately wanted to touch him, to do for him what he was doing for her.

“I want to”

A finger pushed against her lips, forcing her to stop speaking. “I know what you want. Trust me to give it to you.” Quin’s voice seemed magnified, rougher and huskier than usual. His voice alone was enough to have her squirming for release under normal circumstances, but this was a highly irregular situation to say the least.

Perhaps it was all so very different because it was a dream. A dream rather like the story she had been writing just before she dozed off. But still a dream.

His mouth came down upon one of her breasts and she jumped up from the bed in shock. Then something snaked across her mid-section, and she felt everything come alive. Could she possibly feel like this if she were dreaming—like a thousand tiny dancers were waltzing across her stomach, the trails of their feet sending her insides to quivering like an un-poked egg yolk on a passing plate?

But he couldn’t possibly be doing these things to her. Not really. Could he?

Her scream when his thumb found the nub of her sex shattered any illusions she held about being asleep. She was very much awake, and Quin was very much performing delightful and wonderful things to her person—all while keeping her blindfolded and tied to the bedposts.

Then he ceased touching her anywhere. She felt empty and cold without his caress. Aurora desperately wanted to see, to know where his attentions would fall next.

But the not knowing only intensified her response when he did touch her again—this time with a tongue to the inside of her thigh, tracing a slow, arabesque path upward, closer, infinitely closer to her center.

Oh, dear good Lord! “You can’t. You can’t do that.” She tried to close her legs together, to stop him from doing what surely must be depraved and sinful, even if it occurred between a husband and wife. Blast, why had he tied her arms? She had to stop him. She couldn’t allow him to do that.

But his strong hands pushed her thighs apart and his tongue continued its torturous path to what must surely be hell. When his tongue flicked against that part of her where his thumb had rubbed only moments before, it proved to be her undoing. Her hips rose up in that way they always did when he was sheathed inside her, driving ever closer to him, forcing even more of the lewd act.

She was wanton. Wild. Desperate for more.

So more he gave, until she collapsed in a heap of limbs upon the bed.

Sated.

~ * ~

Quin liked to watch Aurora sleep after their lovemaking. She looked so glorious, so peaceful. So unencumbered by the guilt he always carried around with him. After they had acted out her fantasy, she had rolled to her side and tucked her derrière up against him without even waiting for him to remove the ties from her wrists or eyes, practically mewling like a well-fed kitten before she was unconscious again. Even now, with the afternoon sun setting the room ablaze like a fire, her skin shimmered with the remnants of their combined efforts.

For once in his life, Quin wished he had some skill with a brush. He’d love to capture her like this, so he could forever look on her just in this moment. He couldn’t break the spell. So he lay there, watching her, dreading the moment she would move and life would go on.

Which, of course, she did and it did. Perfection could never last. His life had ever been a testament to that fact.

Aurora stretched her limbs and rolled to face him with slumberous deliberation. She smiled, a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that only comes after sex.

And she gasped. “Gracious. Quin, what happened to you?” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch, rather similar to the one his mother would use when he and Jonas trekked muck and mire into her house of an afternoon. Before he could issue any denials of wrongdoing or otherwise explain himself, Aurora bolted upright in bed, pulling him along with her, and proceeded to poke and prod at his exceedingly sore eye and lip.

Bloody impertinent chit. “Stop that,” he warned, pulling away.

His wife failed to listen. She pressed a finger against the precise point of impact over his eye repeatedly, ignoring the fact that he visibly winced in pain each time she did so. “This is not good. You need to put a beefsteak over this. I’ll ring for it at once.”

Quin grabbed her arm to stop her. “You will not.” He took a breath to calm himself. He did not need to lash out against his wife. Not now. When she tugged against him though, he nearly lost control.

Count to ten. Breathe.

“Might I remind you, Aurora, you are in my bedchamber?” Quin asked. She looked up at him with incomprehension in her eyes. “And you are unclothed?” he continued, with greater emphasis. Finally, her eyes widened as realization dawned.

Good. He wasn’t quite breathless in anticipation over searching for a new valet after he was forced to kill his present one for the act of walking in upon his wife in the nude. Particularly not when such a thing would be her fault.

Aurora tugged the counterpane to cover herself from his gaze, as she always did when they weren’t in the midst of their lovemaking. He hated that she was still so shy, so reserved with him. She’d been anything but reserved when she called out his name—Niles, again—when he’d brought her to climax not so terribly long before. She only used his given name when she climaxed.

“Will you please put a beefsteak over it, Quin?” she asked after several moments passed in silence, each of them staring at the bedding between them. “It looks awfully painful.”

Pain—physical pain—would never hurt him. Not really. Not after his Father had beaten him to the point of not caring anymore. But if it would make Aurora feel better…“Yes,” Quin said. “After you’ve dressed.”

She reached a tentative hand across to caress it, soft as gossamer against his rough exterior. What a perfect contradiction they were together. He almost flinched from the tenderness in her touch.

“Will you tell me?” she asked, her voice almost verging on timidity, for once. “What happened?”

There was more to her question than the surface implied. It hung heavy in the air between them, dangling for something to latch onto. But he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell anyone. Not even Jonas knew the full truth of Quin’s growing years, only bits and pieces.

“Boxing,” Quin said. “I was boxing at Gentleman Jackson’s. Nothing to worry about. Just a friendly sparring match.”

Aurora’s eyes welled with tears. She knew there was more. But blessedly, she pushed them back and changed the subject. “Why did you…you know?” she asked, shrugging and pointing to the limp cravat hanging from the bedpost that had held her wrists captive. The blush that washed over her cheeks had his cock hardening again.

He smiled then, a practiced smile he usually reserved for paramours of the night. Then again, she was now his permanent paramour of the night. “Did you like it?”

Her blush intensified and she looked away.

Quin caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “You did like it. Very much, from all indications,” he said with a satisfied laugh. “What did you like the most?”

Aurora slapped at his hand, frowning when that earned no response. “I asked a question first.”

“I’ll answer when you answer.”

He could answer her now. But he loved the look on her face when he frustrated her. It aimed for matronly-disdain, but fell much closer to displeased-but-brazen-governess.

She huffed in response, her breath sending a stray tendril of her dark waves flying over her shoulder. “Fine. I liked” Aurora stopped and gave him an ardent frown. “If you breathe one word of this to another human soul in the whole of your lifetime, Quin, so help me God I’ll rip every hair from your chest one at a time in painstaking fashion until you cry out for mercy. Is that clear?”

He did his best to maintain a straight face. “Abundantly so, love.”

She nodded. “Good. Then the part I liked the best was that I felt everything more acutely than normal. Since I couldn’t see, my other senses seemed to be enhanced. I never knew what to expect, so I couldn’t anticipate what you would do next.”

With his left hand, Quin drew lazy patterns over the counterpane between them, working his way inch by inch to where it covered her body. “I see,” he said, his fingers following the ornate patterns of the fabric as it twisted over her thighs. Her eyes followed his every move. “So would that be something you’d like to repeat in future?”

“Not fair,” Aurora retorted. “I answered your question. You have to answer mine.”

“Touché.” He followed the pattern up, up, up to where it fell over her breasts, which rose and fell heavily with each breath.

“Why did you do that?”

“I could say because I wanted to, and it would be the truth. But it isn’t the whole truth.” And on this, at least, he could provide her with that. The same couldn’t be said of very many things in his life. “The truth is I did it because you wanted it. Because you wrote it in your journal. I read it over your shoulder and decided to act on it.”

“But I didn’t—I mean” Aurora searched for words as he dipped his fingers below the counterpane to tease her ruched nipples. Her breath hitched.

“I took some creative freedoms,” Quin said. “I added a few of my own special touches.” He leaned in and captured Aurora’s mouth for a searing kiss that left him breathless, as well. Even after he ended it, he held onto her hair, breathing in the scent of her. Fresh, spicy. “No one is to ever see your journal but me. Is that clear?”

Aurora nodded. “Why do we only talk in bed?” she asked. “Why can’t we have a conversation with our clothes on?”

Because it was the only time he let his guard down. But he couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t let her in that much. Quin placed some distance between them. “Why don’t we go out tonight?” he asked. “They’re performing
The Taming of the Shrew
at Covent Garden.” Hopefully she wouldn’t press the matter. He didn’t want to tell her more than he already had.

She sighed but then smiled up at him. “Really? We can go out? I should like that very much, indeed.”

“That’s settled, then. Off you go. Get dressed.” At least she was distracted for the moment. Perhaps he could manage to surprise her further. Quin pulled on a pair of trousers and rang for his valet. He needed to send an invitation.

~ * ~

The Taming of the Shrew
, indeed. Was Quin trying to make a point? Perhaps she ought not to press him so much. But really, she was only trying to have a civil conversation with the man. He couldn’t very well fault her for that, could he?

Likely, Aurora was overreacting. After all, he couldn’t well have commissioned the performers to prepare that particular play for that particular evening, certainly not without notice. It was just a coincidence. It had to be. Didn’t it?