Revealing that pretty pink sex just as she had the night before. He reached out to trace her lips with his index finger, and she shuddered and lifted toward him.
He shook his head at her silent demand. “First, your stockings.”
Her eyes were wild as she stared at him. Watching as he rolled the flimsy silk away and then gently removed her slippers. He tossed first one then the other over his shoulder, and she was naked. Completely naked, splayed out on the settee before him like an offering.
He wanted to do so many things to this woman. Lock them both into this chamber, heedless of every other guest, and spend a week exploring every inch of her. Take her in every way, learn what made her gasp. Teach her even more. Let her learn his body.
A week? He wanted a month. A year. A decade. But he had tonight. And that would be enough. It had to be.
“Before you ask,” she gasped, lifting herself toward him. “Yes. The answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
He smiled at her desperation. The need that laced every word from her lips. He had no intention of denying her. “If the answer changes to no, say the word,” he whispered.
She murmured some incoherent noise and he laughed as he pushed up on his knees and cupped her breasts. He had so wanted her naked last night, so he could touch and tease and pleasure. Now he had her that way. And in his chamber, where no one would interrupt. No one was waiting for them, watching for their return in the ballroom. This was all there was.
He massaged her breasts, squeezing them, letting his thumbs graze her nipples as he watched her reaction. She bit her lower lip, muffling a moan, and her head tilted back. He smiled, marking the sensitivity to his mind as he lowered his mouth to one nipple. He licked her, letting the flat of his tongue smooth over the peak gently.
“Yes!” she cried out, fisting her hands against the settee cushion.
He licked again, this time harder as he continued to squeeze and pluck the opposite breast. She was lifting her hips now, grinding her lower body against his still-clothed one as he began to suck. Harder and harder, letting her nipple slide free with a pop every now and again.
She was shaking beneath him. He felt her wetness, knew it would leave a mark against his trousers as she sought release by rubbing against him like a cat. It was torture, of course. Because it would be so easy to loosen the front fall of his trousers and slide home into her. Let her grind against him from the inside and give them both a sweet release.
He had promised, though. Despite his reputation, he kept his promises.
He licked the nipple he had been neglecting, and now she writhed, her body lifting against him as she keened in pleasure at his teasing.
“Please, please,” she whispered.
He nodded, putting his hands back on her breasts to replace his mouth. Massaging as he licked a trailed down her body and nudged her legs wider with his shoulders.
Her slick sex was just before him now, and he let his hands come down so he could press his thumb there, parting the folds, finding her center, feeling her wet heat against his skin. He could drown in her.
He wanted to do so.
Instead, he spread her lips, revealing his prize. He couldn’t help it—he had to taste. He leaned in and glided his tongue across her, reveling in the sweet flavor of her as it burst on his tongue. Her desire, her need, it was a feast. He was a starving man. Only one thing would set them both free.
And yet he wanted more. He wanted to remind her how good a man could feel inside of her. Not with his cock. God help him, he wouldn’t do that.
But there was something else. He pressed a finger to her entrance as he leaned in for a second lick. She gasped as he gently breached her, her body rippling around him, tight and hot. He watched as he pushed his finger into her, thrusting, probing, reveling in the hot grip of her.
And knowing that if her husband had refused her pleasure, punished her for seeking it, she had probably never been touched the way he was about to touch her. He slid a second finger inside of her and gently curled them both, finding the rough little section inside her body that could bring her as much pleasure as her clitoris could.
Her eyes flew open wide as she stared at him in a combination of surprise and panic.
“What is…” she gasped.
He stilled his fingers. “Too much?”
She shook her head. “More.”
He smiled. God, it had been a long time since he’d played with a lady who felt so innocent and so wicked all at once. It was an intoxicating combination.
He leaned in to press a kiss to her thigh, licking her, watching her, curling his fingers all at once. She began to grip him with her sheath, rocking her hips in time to his movements. Her eyes squeezed shut, her legs began to shake, her body grew hotter, wetter, tighter around him. And then she let out a keening, desperate cry and her body began to ripple around his fingers. He leaned in and sucked her clitoris and she jolted harder, her back curving and her fists gripping against the settee as she came.
Katherine flopped back, her body limp and sated, as the crisis faded. She looked down at Robert through a hooded gaze and found him smiling up at her. Gentle, but also filled with pride. Because that was him. A dichotomy of cocksure arrogance and tender generosity. She had no idea which was real. Or could they both be? And where did his wager about her fit with it all? Or their past exchanges?
He withdrew his fingers from her body and kept his gaze on her as he licked them clean. She shuddered with desire at that action.
He leaned up, caging her in with his hands as he looked into her eyes. She could see his desire there. Feel it in the hard cock that was now pressed into her thigh. The cock she very much wanted inside of her, no matter what hesitations she had about him.
And now he would ask her. He would try to seduce her into changing her mind about their arrangement. He’d told her he would, after all.
So she tensed, trying to find the strength to refuse. Or to surrender. She didn’t know which would be her response at this point.
He nuzzled her neck, nipping her skin gently. His kisses feathered up her jawline, across her cheek, and then his mouth found hers. She tasted herself on his mouth and sighed as she cupped the back of his head with one hand.
To her surprise, he pulled away at last, then shoved back from her and got to his feet.
“Let me help you dress,” he said.
She blinked at the hand he extended. Was he not going to try to seduce her? Not going to take her at all?
What did that mean? That he didn’t want her? That she had disappointed him somehow? Bored him?
“You look like you’re upset,” he said, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. He held her there, her naked body pressed to his half-clothed one. “Want to discuss something?”
“You don’t want me?”
He blinked, then cupped her backside and rotated her hips against his hard cock. Both of them shivered together. He kissed her and backed away.
“I definitely want you,” he said as he bent to grab her chemise.
She tugged it over her head and took the gown he offered to do the same. “But you aren’t trying to, er…”
He laughed. “For a lady who told me in no uncertain terms that she would never open her body to me, you are quite passionately trying to convince me to make the attempt.”
She smoothed her gown and went to work on her buttons. At least the action allowed her to glance away from him as she said, “I suppose I was only expecting you to press your case more. Make demands.”
He shook his head. “I told you a dozen times tonight, you can always say no and I’ll respect it. But if we do this again, I do not think I’ll be able to resist asking you very sweetly if I could show you that a man’s body joining with yours can be as pleasurable as his mouth or his fingers.”
She swallowed hard as she pictured just that. She wanted to see him, to touch him as intimately as she had been touched, to feel his weight over he
r as he slid home into her body. To look into his eyes as he lost control.
She shivered. “If that’s what you want, then why haven’t you asked for more?”
“Because no matter what happens next,” he said as she took her stockings and stepped barefoot into her slippers, “I want you to know that you are owed nothing less than pleasure, Katherine. And if anyone ever suggests otherwise, then he is a fool who is not fit to shine your boots, let alone touch you.”
She stared at him, shocked by his words, shocked more by the tingle of tears those words created in her eyes. What he was describing was a gift. One given without thought of what he’d get in return.
And as he led her to his door and pressed one last kiss to her lips, the power of that gift made her knees tremble. She stepped into the hallway and looked back at him. “G-Goodnight,” she whispered.
“Goodnight,” he said, and then he shut the door, leaving her to ponder not just the passion he had shared with her, but the meaning of it all.
Chapter Fourteen
Robert stepped from the house and squinted at the morning sun. God’s teeth, but one had to be mad to regularly get up this early. Normally he didn’t. But today he’d been awake at dawn, restless and troubled about what he and Katherine had shared.
It hadn’t been the plan. The plan was to give her pleasure, to be certain, but then to seduce. To convince her to give herself to him completely. That was how he’d win his wager. Only he hadn’t recalled that little detail until she was long gone and he was alone with a rock-hard cock that needed tending to.
He pushed out his breath in a huffy sigh and started across the garden. He needed to clear his head. It was too full of memories of Katherine’s soft confessions about her awful marriage. Full of real empathy for what she’d been through.
He didn’t want empathy for her. That was not how he operated.
He turned a corner into the maze of the garden and came to a full stop. Of course she was there. She would be. That was fate, it seemed, to find her standing there, autumn leaves fluttering in the air around her.
She fit there, amidst the reds and oranges and yellows. They were colors of fire and she was fire. Even her gown matched, for it was a sunny yellow with a fall of stitched butterflies along the skirt. She clutched a shawl around her shoulders, a rich red color.
She hadn’t noticed him yet. She was too busy examining a pretty bush with bright red berries that was filled with chirping birds. He had time to turn tail. To escape her and all the very odd things being around her made him feel.
Only he didn’t. He stood there, dumbfounded, locked into place as he tracked her like a fox might track a rabbit in the woods. Only he didn’t feel like the predator. Around her, he was as much prey as she was.
Another odd feeling for a man who had never been in anything less than full control.
She froze in her examination of the bush, and then she turned. She caught her breath at the sight of him a few feet away. Her expression was unguarded and, since she wore no hat, unimpeded. She lit up, and for a brief fraction of a moment, it was clear she was happy to see him. Worse, he felt the same joy in his own chest. Felt himself smile without hesitation.
Then she caught herself and the walls came crashing down once more. That was his impetus to move and he came toward her, a sailor lured by a siren. At this rate he would be lost.
“Good morning, Katherine,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “Good morning, Your Grace.”
He arched a brow at her formality. Normally she called him Roseford, if she called him anything at all. But somehow he’d expected a little more freedom since they’d shared so many intimacies. He found himself longing for her to say his name. His given name, not the one that was related to his title or his family or his position in life.
“Is that where we are?” he asked softly. “After the last two nights, am I still Your Grace when we’re alone?”
She blushed and dropped her gaze away from his. “Robert,” she whispered.
The sound almost didn’t carry on the breeze. yet it hit him like a rifle blast to the chest, nearly knocking him back. He shut his eyes briefly, reveling in the way his name sounded coming from her lips. Wanting to hear it more, in all kinds of scenarios. He wanted her to say it warmly, gently, he wanted her to use it when she was angry with him, through tears. When she was shaking with pleasure.
“Robert?” she repeated, this time as a question.
He jerked back to reality and smiled at her. “Katherine. Shall we walk together, since we are clearly the earliest risers of our little group?”
He expected her to hesitate, just as she had every other time he’d asked her a question like this. But this time, she didn’t. She didn’t even look irritated as she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Lead the way,” she said.
He somehow forced himself to do so, guiding them farther into the garden, past the maze of hedges, onto the long expanse of grass that would eventually lead to the woods and beyond.
They were quiet at first. Robert had never liked the quiet overly much. With strangers, at least, he tended to fill the silence with chatter. He was good at entertaining with his wit, as exhausting as that could sometimes be.
But as they walked, he didn’t feel that pull to talk that he often did. Being quiet with Katherine was actually…comforting in some way.
“You know, you do not to seem to be the kind of man who is early to rise,” she said after they’d walked for a while.
He found himself laughing and shot her a look. “Depends upon what I am rising for.”
She shook her head, and to his surprise, she disengaged her arm from his and turned to face him. “You are amusing, as you know. But you deflect with flirtation and sex so easily.”
He shrugged. “It is the best way.”
She held his stare for what felt like a very long moment, and then she sighed softly. “Roseford, I poured my heart out to you last night. I told you things I have never repeated to another soul on this earth, despite my misgivings about you. Can you not tell me anything real about yourself?”
He gaped at her quiet, calm question, and her statement that what she’d told him about her husband was a secret she had kept inside all this time. That meant something. He knew it did.
“You are so direct,” he said.
She smiled a little, and this time it was she who flirted. “You like it, I think.”
Her teasing, so gently placed in the midst of her serious query, did its job. He softened toward her, even if he didn’t wish to. What harm could there be in talking to her a little? He’d already accidentally done so when they spoke about his strained relationship with his friends. She hadn’t held that over his head.
His sleeping schedule was certainly not so fraught as the other topic.
“I admit there are many mornings I’ve spent snoring in my bed far too late. A late night can be hard to overcome, and I’ve had many of those.”
She tilted her head. “Like last night.”
He nodded. “Yes. But it was worth any exhaustion I might experience today. Would you agree?”
Her cheeks brightened again, but she was smiling as she dropped her gaze. “I would, yes.”
He took her arm again and they began to walk a second time. “I would not say I woke early today, though. In fact, I couldn’t sleep much last night after you left.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
She jerked her gaze to him in surprise. He couldn’t blame her. Making such a confession was a surprise to him, as well. She brought out such honesty in him.
“You couldn’t?” she asked, breathless. “I’m surprised to hear that. I didn’t think I would matter much to you.”
“No?” He stopped again.
She faced him slowly. “Please don’t play a game with me. I know you’ve had a great many women. You’ll forget me before tomorrow. Just as you have in t
he past.”
He wrinkled his brow at the odd turn of phrase. “You are so certain?”
“Yes.” She said it softly, but firmly. There was no doubt she meant it not as a flirtation or a challenge, but as a statement of what she believed was fact.
And it would have been a fact not so long ago. Now it felt…different. She felt different.
He shook his head. “I have always sought pleasure, that is true. At the expense of all else, some would say.”
“Why?”
He blinked at her. She was staring at him evenly, her gaze clear and wide. “Why?” he repeated in surprise. He had not expected the question. Almost couldn’t fathom giving her the answer.
She cocked her head. “I have no illusions about men of power. Your friends all seemed to have their dalliances before they settled down into what appear to be very happy marriages. But you have said it yourself—you are not like them. You’ve made seduction into an art form.”
“Compliments, compliments,” he drawled, teasing in order to press a wall down harder between them.
She seemed to recognize the trick, for she didn’t respond, but just stared at him. Waiting for his answer. His explanation that was so much more complicated than she knew. Than he had ever said to anyone, even his friends.
There were some secrets no one knew.
He cleared his throat. He intended to say something flippant. Something meaningless. But that wasn’t what fell from his lips when he spoke.
“It has always been a way to do exactly as you said earlier. It’s a way to keep people out.”
Her lips parted in surprise. He felt the same emotion. He hadn’t meant to share that with her. He hadn’t even allowed himself to think about it much over the years.
“Robert…” she breathed at last.
He shrugged, shifting beneath her regard and the fact that she now knew something so personal. “You wanted honesty, didn’t you? There it is.”
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