And now he lay naked with her in bed, all golden skin and steely muscle, his eyes burning with fierce emotion, as he took in the curves of her body. She’d never bared herself in this manner to another soul, and, in this moment, she couldn’t imagine allowing any other man to be this intimate with her.
Only Benedict. She trusted no other man with so much.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. Gracious, the reverence in his tone. “More than I ever imagined.”
He reached out with a finger and circled her nipple. She pressed toward his touch, and he took her in his palm.
“You imagined me?” she whispered.
“Dreamed.”
His lips captured hers in a demanding kiss. He held nothing back now. His kiss flooded her with a dark passion that ran burning through her veins. She gave back in kind, her tongue twining with his, her trembling hands gliding over his shoulders and back.
She accepted the full weight of his body, the heat of his skin, his heavy erection, hard and pulsing against her belly. He would complete her, body and soul.
She moaned into his mouth.
He tore his lips from hers to trace a path down her neck once again. With teeth and soothing tongue, he worshipped each of her breasts in turn, teasing her nipples to tight, aching buds, while deep within, she hummed with need.
His hand slid to the curve of her belly, his fingers flexing, and she tensed. How far would he dare touch her? She jerked her hips against the mattress. How he aroused an ache inside her, a hollowness begging to be filled. He suckled hard at a nipple, and a whimper escaped.
“Please.”
He raised his head, his eyes dark and intense, while one side of his mouth twitched into a half smile. So wicked, that look. So calculating, so full of plans for her. Such promise of pleasure.
“What do you want, Julia?”
She couldn’t possibly express in words where she wanted his touch. Heat blossomed on her cheeks and spread downward. “I … I …”
His hand slipped another inch. “Tell me.”
“I cannot.”
“Yes, you can. Let no secrets lie between us.”
She looked away, and he ducked his head, maintaining eye contact. “There’s nothing forbidden between us.” His fingers crept further until they grazed the curls between her legs. “Nothing at all.”
She pressed her hips upward in a wordless plea, and her thighs slipped open. His hand inched farther, his fingers curling into her slick folds. She turned her face into his chest and let out a low moan.
And then his fingers moved, parting her, slipping inside, exploring. Short bursts of sharp pleasure pulsed through her in rhythm with each stroke. She inhaled his familiar scent of leather and spice and raw masculinity. And still those fingers petted and probed, testing, searching, at last finding the very center of her need.
She arched her back and cried out. Her nails dug into his shoulders as white-hot pleasure streaked through her, wonderful and yet frustrating as, within, this sense of urgency tightened and tightened again.
Her breath tore from her lungs in ragged spurts, and still those fingers teased in relentless rhythm. They drove her onward, higher and higher, until she could barely tolerate any more, and yet her body danced to his tune, her hips rocking with every stroke.
His eyes were on her, and she did not care. The weight of his gaze pressed upon her, while his breathing quickened in pace with hers.
Her head thrashed on the pillows, and still the pleasure built. He dipped his head to draw on a nipple. His tongue circled the peak in time with his fingers. The tempo increased, and her body gathered itself.
“Reach for it, Julia. Let yourself go.”
At his impassioned plea, her entire being convulsed about his fingers in rippling waves of intense pleasure. Another and another and another. The air erupted from her lungs in a high keening.
At last, she collapsed onto the pillows, the occasional renewed jolt still coursing through her.
His touch eased without wholly ceasing. His lips brushed at her hairline. Reaching for him, she traced the contours of his face, his stubble a gentle scrape like sand, until he caught a finger between his teeth.
He pulled her into a searing kiss, wrapped his arms about her, and rolled onto his back. Then he set her above him, his hands smoothing down her spine to curl over her backside.
She tensed in spite of herself at the hardened length of his erection pulsing between them, the invitation clear. “I do not know what to do.”
With a smile, he took her hand in his and laid her palm flat against the hard plane of his chest. “You touch, you kiss, you do whatever your heart wishes. I doubt very much any of it would displease me.”
She watched his face as she traced a pattern through the scattering of hair across his chest. Amid its crisp texture, her fingertip trailed along a ridge of flesh. Her heart seized. The faint line of white angled across his torso toward his belly.
“When did you receive this?”
He shrugged. “Small skirmish in Belgium.”
“But your letters. You never …” The occasional messages she’d received during his time with the army had been full of anecdotes about his men and his superiors.
“I saw no point in worrying anybody. The cut was not deep, and I recovered.”
“Still, I should like to have known.” What if his wound had been grave? She might have lost him and never realized. “This is rather more serious than your colonel who threatened his horse with half rations for misbehavior.”
He smiled. “You remembered that?”
She remembered every last one of his letters, she realized with a start. “Of course.”
“All that is past. Let’s not think on it now.”
Her palm still rested on his chest. He pressed his hand over it, a prompt to recall her to the present. She skimmed along his skin and flesh beneath firmed. His eyes fluttered closed, his breathing hitched, and she smiled to herself.
Leaning down, she pressed her lips to his throat. His fingers tangled in her hair and then traced the length of her spine. Her tongue darted out to taste the salt of his skin. He moaned and trembled beneath her. Emboldened, she explored, learning where to touch to elicit a shiver, a tightening of his fingers, a groan of pleasure.
She flicked her tongue across the flat disk of his nipple, and he bucked beneath her, his breath coming now in harsh pants. His hands slid the length of her thighs, down and then up again, until they pressed her open.
“Forgive me, love. I cannot wait any longer.” He grasped her hips and raised them, his fingers biting into her flesh in his urgency. He positioned himself at her entrance and flexed his hips. Tender flesh stretched as he began to fill her.
“Easy, now.” His voice was strained, anything but easy. Cords stood out in his neck in his effort to hold back.
He withdrew and pressed forward again. This time, something tore within her, and she let out a yelp.
“Oh God, if it hurts you, I’ll stop.”
It sounded like stopping would hurt him. She gritted her teeth, braced her hands on his shoulders and drove her hips down.
“Julia!” Her name was half admonition, half supplication.
“You said I could not do anything to displease you,” she panted.
His hands tightened their grip. “Not displeased, but I’d have spared you.”
She tilted her hips experimentally. The bright pain of the initial thrust had dulled to an ache.
He let out a strangled cry. “Good God, don’t move.”
She stiffened. “Am I hurting you?”
The tremor of his laughter radiated through her body from their joining. She shivered as the need within reawakened and surpassed her discomfort.
“God, no.” He closed his eyes and inhaled, the movement pushing him deeper. “You are so tight and hot and wet around me. It’s paradise, complete and utter paradise.”
And his tone, so deep, so passionate, so compelling. It sucked her into him, into his
world where she could believe in him and his love and that he’d never harm her. With him, she did not need to guard her heart.
A shudder passed through him that she felt deep within. He raised himself on his elbows to brush her lips with his, once, twice, and with every tiny motion, her tension eased. He’d told her not to move, but, God, how she wanted to. He pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat, and she whimpered.
“I would give you more time to adjust,” he said, voice rough, “but I can hold back no longer.”
He lay back and gripped her hips, holding her steady, and withdrew, inch by torturous inch. She sagged against him, torn between the twin sensations of the easing of ravaged flesh and the emptiness at his loss.
He held her gaze, his blue eyes nearly black with need, boring into her, captivating and compelling. And then he thrust, a sharp jerk of his hips that filled her completely and struck at a point deep inside that sent liquid flame through her.
Her eyes closed, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders, holding on for dear life. Again and again, he surged into her, building ecstasy within while she panted above him.
Still he pressed on, and pleasure rose in her, racing toward another peak. It rushed in on her again, like before, only more intense because he raced alongside her.
He released her hips, and she fell on him, driving with him, while he pulled her forward to draw at a nipple.
The pleasure redoubled. She threw her head back. Soon. She’d reach that soaring apex soon. Yes and yes and yes.
“God help me.” He grated the words, low and harsh.
At the same time, the tempo increased, each surge of his hips harder, deeper, bolder than the last until he bucked off the bed. With a final thrust, he let loose a strangled cry and collapsed into the pillows.
His arms tightened about her, pulling her forward with him into a mindless kiss, while he slipped free of her body. Her pulse still thrummed with the rush of her blood, but at the tightening of his arms about her, she relaxed into his embrace, rested her head on his chest and listened to the vital thump of his heart as it slowed. Peace filled her and surrounded her.
She rubbed her cheek against warm flesh. He could not seem to stop touching her—the arch of her eyebrow, the lobes of her ears, the tendon in her neck—each brush of his fingers a reverence.
She snuggled closer. “You never did tell me your most cherished memory.”
“It no longer signifies.” His fingers curled against her scalp. “Nothing trumps this moment. I know you do not want to hear of it, but I love you. I always have. Even at the age of fourteen when I had nothing better to do than escape my tutor and run horses that were too wild for me.”
She raised her head. “You loved me then?”
He held her gaze and nodded. “That may have been the day I first realized.”
An upsurge of emotion swelled within her until it reached her eyes and pricked at their backs. How she wanted to return the sentiment and mean it. “Oh, Benedict—”
A clatter echoed through the still air outside. A shout rang out, and then another. The pounding of fists rattled the door to the cottage. It opened with a crash. Footsteps thudded across the floor of the main room.
Benedict pushed himself up onto his elbows. “What the deuce?”
He yanked the sheets over them as the door to the bedroom burst open. Red-faced, disheveled, cravat askew as he never appeared in public, Clivesden stood on the threshold.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HEEDLESS OF his nakedness, Benedict shot to his feet. “How dare you? What the devil are you doing here?”
Clivesden’s eyes widened as he took in the scene. Then he lunged at Benedict. “I might ask you the same thing,” he roared, before throwing a jab.
Benedict ducked the flying fist and slammed Clivesden into the wall. Before Clivesden could recover his breath, Benedict jammed home an uppercut that smashed the idiot’s head into the plaster.
Ignoring the pain in his knuckles, Benedict pulled back his arm for another blow.
“Benedict! Stop!”
At Julia’s scream, he hesitated but only for a second as he recalled all of the reasons he was here—the wager, Julia’s lost reputation, Amherst’s oft-bloodied nose and blackened eyes. No, he couldn’t stop. Not now. Again and again his fist smashed into Clivesden’s overly pretty, if unshaven, face.
A pair of strong arms halted his next blow and pulled him away. “Stop, man.” Upperton’s voice sliced through the roar of blood and anger in Benedict’s head. “Don’t kill him. You don’t need that on your conscience.”
“Where the hell did you come from?” Benedict unclenched his fist and shook out his hand. His knuckles ached from repeated collisions with Clivesden’s face, just enough payment for his inaction as a schoolboy in the face of Amherst’s bullies. “For that matter, where the hell did he come from?”
He waved at Clivesden. The bastard slumped against the wall, eyes half-lidded and glassy. Blood poured from his nose, which now sat at an odd angle. The bone and cartilage had yielded to Benedict’s blows with a satisfying crunch.
“It seems to me you asked me to come,” Upperton said grimly. “I can’t say much for the reception.”
Too late, Benedict recalled he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Neither, for that matter, was Julia. God, what a spectacle. But a quick glimpse of her showed she’d managed to retrieve her chemise from the tangle of sheets. One hand clutched at the coverlet she’d wrapped about her shoulders. The other twisted in the fabric of his banyan—she must have pulled it from the clothespress while he was pummeling away at Clivesden.
“Here.” Round-eyed and red-cheeked, she tossed the deep red brocade at him.
With a nod, he covered himself before turning back to Upperton. “You still haven’t told me how the devil he found us.”
“They must have followed me. I’m sorry, mate. I thought I’d been careful.”
“They?” cried Julia. “Who else is with you?”
Upperton flicked a glance in the direction of her corner, but he was careful not to look full on. Just as well. Even if she had covered herself, Benedict didn’t want to beat another man for ogling his intended.
“Your father came along with Clivesden. I convinced him he’d rather wait outside, but I’ve no idea of his patience.”
Benedict ignored Julia’s squeak. Clivesden was stirring. With a shake of his blond head, he raised his fingers to probe at a rapidly rising knot on his jaw. When the tips came away red, his brows lowered, and his gaze focused on Benedict, narrow and malevolent.
Clivesden heaved himself to his feet, and Benedict lurched forward, fists balled, ready to wade in once again. Arms outstretched, Upperton stepped between them.
“You can call off your lapdog,” Clivesden spat. Blood now stained the once pristine whiteness of his cravat. “I’ve no intention of settling this matter now.”
“You always were afraid to face a man’s fists, weren’t you?” Benedict grated. “It was easier for you to prey on the weaker.”
“I’d call you out for that, only I’d rather not have the gossips twist the story and have us facing each other over a trollop.”
The absolute scoundrel. Benedict lunged, only to meet with the implacable barrier of Upperton’s shoulder.
“Trollop?” Julia let out a screech of outrage. “Between you and my father, you would have turned me into one!”
Benedict had no chance to react to this pronouncement. Beyond Upperton’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Clivesden’s battered face. The cad might have worn a smirk, only the swelling twisted the expression into a leer. But then his bloodied mouth rounded into shock.
Out of nowhere, another pair of fists seized him by the lapels and bore him backward into the wall. “What did you just call my daughter?”
“Papa!”
Somehow St. Claire had squeezed himself into the crowded bedchamber.
“I called her what she is.” A sneer managed to etch itself across Clivesden
’s ravaged face, as arrogant as he’d ever been at school while taunting the weak. “A trollop. A whore.”
St. Claire’s belly heaved, his face and pate blotched with red. “Mind your language in front of a lady.”
Clivesden straightened and shook off the older man’s grip. “I see no ladies present. Only a common trollop. She could improve herself by servicing men in alleyways.”
No. He hadn’t. The bastard simply hadn’t. Pulse pounding in his ears, Benedict thrust himself at Clivesden, but once more, Upperton held him back.
“I swear to God, I’ll kill him,” Benedict growled. “Here and now.”
Upperton tightened his grip. “That’s my concern.”
A bead of sweat trickled behind the arm of St. Claire’s spectacles. “My daughter was perfectly right to run from you, if this is the contempt you show her.”
“I’ll see you in Fleet Prison.”
“I’ll do you one better.” St. Claire threw his shoulders back, and pinched each finger of his left glove. He yanked the bit of leather free and swatted Clivesden’s face. “For the insult to my daughter, I’ll see you at a dawn appointment.”
Clivesden glared at him for a moment, before a maddening semblance of a smile twisted his bloodied features. “And who would stand with you as a second? One of your creditors?”
“I will.” Benedict thrust Upperton’s arms aside. “If Mr. St. Claire cannot fulfill his role, it would give me the greatest pleasure to blast you to hell.”
A gleam came into Clivesden’s eye. “My second will be in touch. Pistols, I presume.”
“Naturally,” replied St. Claire.
Clivesden nodded, but he kept his gaze fixed on Benedict. If pure hatred might be encapsulated into a single glance, Clivesden had succeeded. After a moment or two, he swept from the cottage.
“Papa!” Julia’s cry broke in on Benedict’s string of mental curses.
Benedict turned. Her cheeks blazed with heat, more than might be explained by their recent activities, although he caught the telltale wash of pink on her shoulders and neck. The flush of a well-satisfied woman.
Except she was glaring at her father while biting her lip at the same time, the expression an odd mixture of irritation and embarrassment. Hardly the picture of a woman basking in the afterglow.
A Most Scandalous Proposal Page 22
