“I don’t. Ever.” He moved a hand from her waist to her wrists, holding them still. But she knew he’d already lost the battle, for he was staring at the open neckline of her garment. “I need to know you’ll think first, before you act.”
It occurred to her that his earlobe was perfectly shaped. She leaned forward and nipped at it.
She sat back. He was still staring, his eyes smoky.
“In a similar situation I would lift that curtain into the opium den—the one I’d never go anywhere near—and I’d cry out ‘Help! Bloody murder!’ I’d scream so loud they’d hear me all the way to Arthur’s Seat.”
Anticipation was bubbling up like molten lava inside of her. The question of how far she could push him before he lost control was tantalizing. Phoebe shifted her weight again until he was nestled even tighter against the knot of pleasure in her most sensitive place. She felt him throb against her.
“Is that . . . is that satisfactory to you?” she asked.
His gaze moved languorously up from her breasts. “Is what satisfactory?”
He was losing track of the conversation. A sense of power welled up in her as she freed her hand and continued undoing the ties until the front of her nightshirt gaped open. When she leaned forward, he could see all the way to her navel and beyond. Goose bumps rose on her skin by the way his gaze moved over her slowly, lingering on the shadows of her breasts, making her feel that he appreciated every dip and curve. Phoebe wondered what wicked things he would do to her once he decided there was no stopping.
“My answer. My response. Is it satisfactory?” she asked again.
He struggled but finally managed to raise his eyes to her face.
“Phoebe,” he murmured. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. We should wait.”
She smiled. “There’s no waiting, Ian. I have every intention of taking advantage of you.”
He chuckled out loud, and she realized this was the first time she’d heard him laugh.
“So I’m asking you to be an agreeable soon-to-be husband and allow me to have my way with you.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Sit back. Allow me to explore your body. And don’t interrupt.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Try.” She untied his cravat, unwinding the starched cloth that still contained the heat of his skin. When his throat was exposed, she touched the long scar that had fascinated her before and traced it with a gentle fingertip.
He could have died from this. And from many of the other wounds he’d suffered in the war. Sarah talked often about her brother’s scarred and broken body when he’d come back to them.
“If you’re nearly finished . . .”
“Not yet. And I don’t wish to be distracted. This is my first time . . . exploring.”
She wanted him to know. She was twenty-seven years old, and she’d never allowed any man to make love to her . . . because no other man was Ian Bell.
“If I do something wrong, I don’t want to be lectured,” she said, trying to make light out of an awkward moment.
She placed her lips against his throat, kissing the scar, tasting the saltiness of his skin with the tip of her tongue.
“You can never do anything wrong.”
“Says the man who was taking my head off a few moment ago.”
His hands moved along her bare legs beneath the nightgown. He teased and ran a finger along the crack of her bottom to her aching sex, making her rock closer to him with excitement.
“We were on a different subject.” He kissed her throat.
Her fingers went to the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, and she unfastened them in rapid succession. She spread the edges of the garments wide, baring a muscular torso streaked with faint lines of battle.
She stared, saddened but grateful that he’d survived and was here now. Flattening her hands against his chest, she gently felt each line and his skin burned beneath her touch.
He watched her from under heavy lids, and Phoebe’s hands moved lower. The texture of his body, rough skin and hard muscle, fascinated her.
“I want to kiss and stroke you everywhere,” she said.
She nudged closer to him. The full hard length of his sex fit perfectly between her legs, and she was impatient to feel him, skin against skin.
“Not before I taste you here.” He ran a thumb inside the neckline of the nightgown, over her nipple and downward toward her aching center. “And here.”
Suddenly breathless, Phoebe grasped the hem of her nightgown, pulled it over head, and tossed it aside. She sat completely naked on him, the pink tips of her breasts contracting into hard pebbles in the cool air.
He raised his mouth, and she pressed her lips against his, slipping her tongue into his hot mouth. Eagerly, she molded her body against his, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him again and again. And he allowed her to take charge, to do as she wished.
Phoebe wriggled against him again, wanting more, her body feeling more and more an urgent craving she could not seem to satisfy.
He had to sense her frustration, for he levered her higher onto his lap until her nipple brushed his jaw. The texture of coarse beard against her sensitive flesh had her aching. His mouth opened over the tender nipple, and he drew it deep into his mouth. She leaned her head back and sighed. The feel of his tongue, the gentle suckling seemed to send waves of pleasure straight to the junction of her thighs. An exquisite tension was building within her, pulsing like the beat of a heart.
His mouth moved from one breast to the other while his hands caressed her back, the soft curves of her backside, the firm flesh of her legs. His fingers slid gently along her sex. Her body arched against his hand as he softly stoked the raging fire within her. She rocked against his touch, gasping at the growing frenzy taking hold of her body. She was caught in an uncontrollable race where she couldn’t see the end, and yet she knew she had to run faster and faster.
“Ian,” she called his name, not knowing what to ask and yet aware that only he could give what she sought.
She gasped when he suddenly stood, lifting her with him and wrapping her legs around his waist.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, knowing full well the answer.
“I’ve been a good soon-to-be husband. Now it’s your turn to be a good soon-to-be wife.”
In the next moment, she was flat on her back on his bed, sinking deep into the mattress. He rolled onto his side.
“I love you,” he murmured, one hand trailing downward in a seductive path. When his fingers slipped into the cleft between her thighs, Phoebe raised her hips instinctively, arching her body, giving herself completely to his touch.
As he kissed the hollow of her throat, he teased and played with her slick flesh below, and the pulsing heat in her continued to build and build. Phoebe’s body pressed restlessly against him as his mouth latched on to her distended nipple.
She held her breath as his lips moved slowly down along the softness of her belly. He moved to the edge of the bed and parted her legs. Their eyes locked when he reached under her buttocks and lifted her to his mouth.
Blood roared wildly in Phoebe’s head. When she thought she couldn’t take another moment of this sweet, sensuous torture, he still held her down, tasting, probing, and teasing her until she cried out and clutched at his hair.
Moments later, as she felt him move up next to her on the bed, Phoebe opened her arms to him. “I want all of you.”
“Phoebe.” He kissed her. “We can wait until—”
“No,” she protested. “Your soon-to-be wife demands it.”
She’d waited too long for him. Raising herself onto her knees, she tugged his shirt off of him as he kicked off his boots. Pushing him onto his back, she let her hands travel, exploring his shoulders, his arms, his chest, tracing the scars and muscle as he pushed off his trousers.
Ian groaned when she followed her fingers’ trail with her mouth. She took her time, watchin
g him, waiting for his reaction to the effect of her mouth on his skin. He tried to touch her again, but she pushed his hands away. She was in command of her curiosity, his body, his mind. He belonged to her.
Slowly, she lowered herself in front of him, and as her mouth traced a path down his stomach, he took a deep breath and held it for so long that he finally gasped for breath. His cock was large, wondrous in its thickness and length. This too was hers now. Their gazes met.
“What are you doing to me?” he growled.
“Practicing what I just learned,” she said, taking him in her hand and rubbing the warm crown against her cheek, her throat.
Ian groaned.
The moment she slid her lips over him, taking him into her mouth, he moved with the speed of a panther.
Pulling her up, he rolled her under him, and she felt him pressing himself against the portal of her sex.
Phoebe gasped as entered her, slowly at first, backing out and sliding in again, taking his time as her body grew accustomed to him. Gently, he slid into her again and again until she’d taken him in fully. Then he stopped, his lips on hers, his weight held above her. As they lay still, his arms tightly wrapped around her, she knew what it felt like to be cherished and loved.
When Ian began to move again, Phoebe went with him. Looking up through the haze that clouded her vision, her hands moved over his chest to his face, and she clung desperately to him as they rose together, two birds in flight.
* * *
She embodied love, enticement, beauty, seductiveness.
The gentle summer breeze blew in through the open windows and brushed across their naked forms. Tonight was her first time, and yet they’d made love twice. And if it wasn’t because of exhaustion, they’d be at each other again. Ian felt himself stirring again at the thought and imagined a lifetime of nights like this.
But he first had to find a way to tame the haunting guilt that dogged him over Sarah’s death. Just because he was getting married, just because he was in love, the blame would not simply go away. And the thought of leaving Phoebe alone at night as he chased after his demons shook him to the core.
It was always at night that the restlessness attacked him. Even tonight, while the household slept, he’d been downstairs, unable to shut off his mind. It was the sound of footsteps and the knock at his door on the floor above that drew him up the stairs.
Phoebe. He never imagined what awaited him. He snuggled closer to the warm back that had fit itself to the contours of his abdomen. Her leg lay between his own. His arms encircled her body, his hand resting on her perfect breast.
“I can hear you thinking,” she whispered.
“You can’t hear someone think,” he reminded her, lifting his head and placing a kiss on her shoulder.
“I can,” she challenged him. “And I have been doing some thinking of my own too.”
He rolled Phoebe onto her back. Her hair spilled out across his pillow, a tangle of silky black curls. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, her eyes dreamy. His body stirred again.
“You’re supposed to ask me, ‘What have you been thinking, my loveliness?’”
She did make him laugh. He kissed her lips. “Tell me, what have you been thinking, my loveliness?”
“My article about the Select Committee’s visit from London and other things.”
He could have teased her that it pained him that his lovemaking would make her think of stuffy old Englishmen strutting through Scottish poorhouses, but he wouldn’t do that to her. She was proud of her writing. And he respected what she’d set out to do.
“Tell me.”
“This may be my final article for the newspaper,” she said, glancing up at him.
She never failed to surprise him.
“I’m more of a storyteller than a journalist. I want to use my talents to the best of my ability. Mrs. Edgeworth has been writing novels about the problems plaguing Ireland for decades. I think it’s time someone wrote novels about the struggles of the poor in Scotland. Not broad tales of adventure like Walter Scott, stories with heart about personal struggles to overcome tragedy and injustice.”
He was relieved and happy for her. Even though he’d been ready to support her writing for the Edinburgh Review, Ian knew each topic she chose would present new challenges, new dangers, and new enemies who’d be going after her.
“I think you’ll be brilliant,” he said. “But are you still going to write this last column?”
“I am.” She turned and faced him, propping herself on one elbow. “But I want to change the focus of it. From the evidence I have, the City Parish directed the poorhouses to do wrong, but why blame the charity institutions when they reject those instructions? Blame must be placed where it belongs.”
He waited for her to say more.
“With your help, I’d like to do a commendatory article about the Orphan Hospital and all they’re doing for the children of this city. I’ll include information about how the other institutions are providing valuable services, as well, but the main thread of the column will be how the work in Bailie Fife’s Close continues to go on without interruption, regardless of the pressures of the parish committee. And the message I’ll convey is that we Scots need no interference from outsiders in taking care of our own.”
“And what if the other institutions in the city did not act as the Orphan Hospital chose to do?”
“If they didn’t, a positive representation of Bailie Fife’s Close will encourage them, or shame them, to do what they should be doing.”
Since they were talking business, Ian decided to tell her what he’d done already. “I’ve already sent the letters I spoke to you about earlier to the administrators and directors of the other institutions in the city. And when we get to Edinburgh, I’ll make sure to follow up with them. Perhaps you’ll have a number of places you can reference in your article.”
“You did that already?” she asked, wide-eyed. “And will continue to pursue the matter with them?”
“Of course. And I think your new approach is positive and constructive. In fact, it’s brilliant.”
She smiled, pushed him onto his back, and slid on top of him.
“Excellent,” she purred and nuzzled his throat.
Chapter 18
Mrs. Bell agreed to accompany them back to Edinburgh, bringing Mrs. Young with her. The morning of their departure, Dr. Thornton decided to ride in with them as well. It was clear that Alice was the main cause of his enthusiasm about joining the company on their journey to the city.
Nonetheless, the trip went off without her or the doctor verbally or physically assaulting each other, and she and Millie were deposited safely at the Pennington’s Heriot Row town house.
Upon their arrival, Phoebe was delighted to learn her parents were due in the city in a day or two. Since giving up traveling to London to sit in Parliament, Lord and Lady Aytoun enjoyed coming to Edinburgh for part of every July to attend the annual races at Musselburgh, the theatre, and a few social engagements. With Mrs. Bell in town, Phoebe was relieved Ian could speak with them here rather than go to Baronsford. A consultation had been immediately arranged with the specialist Thornton knew.
Phoebe felt it would be best if their news could be kept private until everyone was together, and she’d sworn Millie to secrecy. She wanted the engagement to come fresh to her parents and not as a foregone decision. She’d also tucked her ring away for now, until the formal announcement could be made.
Once Lord and Lady Ayton arrived, a dinner was arranged that included Ian and his mother and a handful of other guests. If her parents were surprised by having the Bells attend, they said nothing to Phoebe about it.
The evening of the gathering, Millicent Pennington could not have been more genuinely and evidently pleased to visit with Mrs. Bell. The two chatted away amiably in the salon before dinner, and Phoebe kept a polite distance from her intended, who was constantly sending teasing looks at her from across the room.
During the
dinner itself, she felt her nerves beginning to fray but managed to carry on a reasonably coherent conversation with a family friend who was seated next to her. After retiring with the other ladies to the drawing room, Phoebe caught her mother giving her worried looks as she realized she was pacing back and forth between the pianoforte and the windows like a caged tiger.
As the men filed in and rejoined the ladies, Phoebe felt the blood drain out of her body entirely. Ian and her father were not with them, and she heard someone tell her mother the two men had disappeared into the library a quarter of an hour earlier.
Minutes ticked away like hours, and Phoebe’s agitation grew. Staring at the mantle clock would not make the hands move quicker, no matter how hard she tried.
What was taking so long, she anguished. The request for the earl’s permission should have been brief. The answer even more brief.
Her father wouldn’t refuse him. He couldn’t.
Ian was the perfect matrimonial candidate for any young woman. What he lacked in title, he made up for with his military record, his civic service as Deputy Lieutenant of Fife, his substantial holdings in Fife and in Edinburgh, and the fortune his father had made in America.
Damnation. If there was a more ideal man, she’d never encountered him.
Phoebe stopped pacing, realizing a number of guests standing nearby were looking at her. She smiled weakly, praying she hadn’t said any of that out loud.
Still the hands on that clock would not move, and Phoebe was beginning to wonder if the blasted thing was broken.
Two of the women approached her and asked Phoebe if she was familiar with the new novel Persuasion, and whether she’d known it was the work of a woman. She tried twice but couldn’t focus enough to make an intelligible answer. Another lady approached and asked her to play a piece on the pianoforte. Phoebe went immediately to Millie and whispered, “Please. I beg you. Save me from them.”
Gracious as always, the younger sister nodded and sat at the instrument. A moment later, the sounds of music filled the room, and Phoebe slipped out the door.
“What’s the matter with you?” her mother called out, catching up to her in the hallway outside of the drawing room.
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