“Damn it, Georgie!” A blistering oath ripped from him. He needed to find Pearce and get that letter, then make him pay.
He made as if to stand, but she caught his wrist. “I don’t think he’d use it, Marcus. Not once we are wed. What would be the point?” She gazed up at him with fear in her eyes. “That’s if you still want me.”
He stared at her. “You sacrificed your reputation. For me.”
“I loved you, you see,” she said softly. “I always have.”
The shock of that revelation, coming hard on the heels of her disclosures about Pearce, froze him in place.
Hoarsely, he said, “Georgie, I—”
She surged up to press her mouth to his. Something broke inside him, and then he was kissing her fiercely, wildly, dragging his lips across her cheek to her earlobe, to her throat. His emotions seemed to expand until they were too large for his soul to contain.
When she fell back against the pillows, she brought him with her, and he knew that he’d do whatever it took to keep her, to protect her, to love her until the day he died.
That kiss was incendiary, lascivious, thoroughly consuming, everything he’d dreamed. He shed his robe and flung it away, moved over her, desperate now to be inside her, to show her, to discover for himself all that the act of making love could be.
Georgie writhed beneath him, her slender fingers sliding over his shoulders, plunging through his short hair, kneading his nape. Her breathy pants, her senseless murmurs spurred him on.
“God, Georgie, you’re more than beautiful,” he said, working at the thin pink ribbon that tied the neck of her night rail. “So much more.”
She gasped as the ribbon came loose and he slid her night rail off her shoulders, yanked it down to reveal her breasts.
He lost his mind then, for he was but a man and her breasts were the stuff of fantasies. He set out on a voyage of discovery, first with his hands, his fingertips, gentle touching, caresses, little plucks at the rosy loveliness of her nipples.
As he watched, her eyes closed, her lips parted; she was thoroughly focused on sensation.
He gave in to his desires and used his mouth on her. She was exquisitely sensitive; her body twisted helplessly when he suckled her, so he did it some more, making her buck her hips with the force of her pleasure.
Slow down.…
Giving her breasts one last, loving caress, he moved down her body, kissed the roundness of her belly, the crease at the top of each thigh.
He slid his lips over her, reveling in the texture of that soft, smooth skin, warm and perfect as new cream. His fingertips investigated her long, slender legs, the sweet rounds of her knees, her inner thigh. A soft, welcoming moan told him she was ready for more intimate investigation.
He stroked upward, into the wet folds of her sex.
She was lush and hot there, and he kept his fingers moving as he slid up her body to kiss her lips again. He wanted to be close to her, close enough to swallow her reactions, to look into those amazing azure eyes when she came.
He touched her lightly at first, then dipped his finger into her juices and circled her clitoris with a firmer touch until she whimpered, undulating against him. She moaned; then her hand clamped like a vise around his wrist. Her eyes shot open and she convulsed beneath his hand. He smothered her cry with his mouth.
He didn’t let her rest or come back to herself after that. Instead, he positioned himself, guiding his swollen cock to the moist heat of her entrance.
She stared wordlessly up at him, and the vulnerability in her eyes would have told him she was a virgin even if her body and her untutored responses had not.
He pressed inside a little way, feeling her tightness, knew with an odd mixture of tenderness and elation that he was her first and only lover.
He only wished he could wipe his own past clean. This act was too important to share with anyone who didn’t matter.
He touched her cheek in a gentle caress, but a powerful urge had taken hold of him now and it was all he could offer by way of reassurance. The need for her pounded in his blood, screamed in his head. He drove slowly forward, heard her soft choke of pain.
Realized it was better to get that part over quickly, lunged, and drove home.
The feel of her was everything, all at once. Best for her if he finished quickly, but he’d waited so bloody long for this, the selfish part of him wanted to be inside her for as long as humanly possible.
Which, it turned out, was not going to be very long at all.
After a few careful thrusts, she seemed to pick up the rhythm, lifting her hips to move against him, a stream of talk flowing from her like a light summer breeze. Her enthusiastic participation wound the torture a notch higher.
“Yes, oh, yes,” she said. Her hands ran down his back. She scored him lightly with her nails, sending cascades of sensation through his body.
But the light, almost tentative caress of his buttock, the murmur of appreciation that came from deep in her throat, did for him entirely.
With a harsh cry, he exploded into her.
* * *
Georgie bit her lip and slid a glance at Beckenham. He lay on his back beside her, chest heaving with the aftermath of a truly earth-shattering experience.
Her mind had shut down somewhere along the way. She’d been a bundle of need and feeling. The way he’d touched her … She felt a pang of pleasure low in her belly at the mere thought.
But the sensation of him inside her … Ah, that had been extraordinary, despite the momentary pain. She couldn’t wait for him to do it again.
Georgie had surrendered to the inevitability that they would repeat this experience. The sooner, the better, in her view. She smiled as Beckenham trailed his knuckles softly down her arm. On a sigh, she turned into his kiss.
A scratch on the door yanked her from the sensual pleasure of Beckenham’s caresses. She froze. “What was that?”
“Hmm?” Lazily, Beckenham lifted his head from her breast.
“There’s someone at the door!”
“Ah. Just in time to surprise us in flagrante and force you to make an honest man of me.”
“Don’t joke about it,” she whispered, pushing ineffectually at his massive shoulders. The man really was a great lump of rock. “Get up, get up! Where’s my wrap?”
She scrabbled around in the bedclothes, batting away his straying hands.
“I locked the door,” he murmured, gripping her hips, pulling her back into him. Into her ear, he breathed, “Remain silent and wait for them to leave.”
“But—”
Effortlessly, he pushed her down on the bed and picked up where he’d left off. He continued working his leisurely way down her body, murmuring approval as he went.
Georgie gave an inward groan of half frustration, half delight.
Beckenham, relaxed and playful, was an intensely seductive man. She shivered as he blew gently on the skin he’d been licking.
He glanced up at her with a wicked gleam in his eye, a look she’d never seen there before. Then he moved down, and down further, trailing kisses as he went.
She stifled a yelp when his mouth found her sex. “Ah! Oh, dear Heaven!”
He lifted his head. “Uh-uh, not so loud, Miss Black. There’s someone at the door, remember?”
“I think they’ve gone away.” She consigned whoever it was to Hades and lay back, sinking into sinful, heated bliss.
“Miss Black.” A frantic whisper carried through the door, reaching Georgie’s ears. “Miss Black, you must come quickly!”
“It’s a lady. How extraordinary,” Beckenham murmured against her thigh.
Georgie shot out of bed so fast, she stubbed her toe and swore, making Beckenham’s shoulders shake with suppressed laughter. With a darkling glance at him, she hurriedly drew on her dressing gown and buttoned it.
Clearly, the act of love made Beckenham light-headed. His harsh features lit in a grin of pure enjoyment. He sat there, gloriously naked, without a shred
of modesty.
“Lie down!” she reached over and shoved at his chest, which was even harder than it looked. Obligingly, he fell back onto the mattress. “Stay!” she ordered in a hiss.
She yanked the covers over him, so that they covered his face. A muffled voice sounded from the covers, “This is not very dignified, you know.”
“Hush!”
Finishing buttoning the robe, she hurried to the door, trying not to look as if she’d just been thoroughly ravished. He’d kissed her there! No, she couldn’t think about that now.
She unlocked the door and opened it.
Lady Charlotte Cross stood outside.
“Lady Charlotte!” exclaimed Georgie, darting a quick glance up and down the empty corridor. “What on earth are you doing up at this hour?”
“Oh, thank Heavens, Miss Black.” The girl grabbed Georgie’s hands and tugged. “Quickly! Oh, you must come quickly. I don’t know what to do!”
Chapter Seventeen
Upon hearing the situation, Georgie sent the girl back to her room, refusing her offer of assistance.
“I shall manage,” she assured her. “You will risk your reputation as well if you come with me, and given you’re the only levelheaded one among the lot of them, that would be a pity.”
She held up her hand when the girl would have argued further. “Leave it to me,” she ordered. Then she practically slammed her bedchamber door in the girl’s face.
“I don’t know what you’re smiling at,” she flashed at Beckenham as she whirled on him.
He had emerged from the covers, looking tousled and manly and delicious, which irrationally made her even more out of temper with him.
His grin widened. “You.” He clasped his hands behind his head, showing an impressive collection of muscles beneath the smooth skin. “I’m smiling at you, Georgie.”
Momentarily, she lost her train of thought. Her mouth actually watered, and the remembered feeling of those strong arms holding her tightly, of them bracing his weight as he drove into her, made her blood heat.
Snap out of it, you fool! There was Violet to think of.
She hurried to the clothes press to find something to wear.
“What was all that about?” Beckenham sounded supremely disinterested.
She glanced up, to see him stretch lazily, more muscles flexing and shifting on that impressive expanse of chest. Good God, was the man determined to destroy her concentration?
She was so unbearably tempted to consign the young misses of this ill-assorted party to their fates. To climb back into that big, broad bed and have that big, broad man all to herself.
But where would Violet be if she did that?
“No, no, no. I will not be tempted,” she muttered to herself.
She hunted around, then picked up Beckenham’s dressing gown and hurled it at him. “Get dressed,” she said. “You’re coming with me.”
* * *
Amazing the way making love to a woman could lead to all sorts of interesting discoveries. Beckenham had known Georgie for years, but he’d never have guessed she’d be so volubly passionate in bed. She talked constantly, a stream of expressive nothings that poured into his ear.
He didn’t even know what she’d said. He was constitutionally incapable of listening to talk when he was that far gone. But remembering the way she’d said it made him hard again, just to think of the husky tone of her voice.
And she had a streak of prudishness. He’d never have guessed that about her, either.
All lush sensuality during their lovemaking, now she chided him like a spinster aunt. And he’d taken great delight in teasing her. Another discovery, that he could provoke her quite as easily as she’d always provoked him.
He hadn’t felt so damned relaxed and happy in … Ever, he thought now.
For once, acting on impulse had worked in his favor. The glow of pure masculine satisfaction in taking her, claiming possession over her body, was one he could not seem to shake.
She’d told him she loved him. Had always loved him. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Damn, how stupid he’d been not to see it, not to know how he’d felt about her. They’d wasted so much time.
He ignored her demands that he hurry, taking the opportunity to watch her dress. Or more accurately, to see as much of her naked body as he could before she covered it.
First, the stockings. One shapely leg raised on the stool of her dressing table, her hands competently rolling the stocking up over her pretty knee, tying it in place with a garter. Then, the other.
He decided he liked to see her put her hands on herself. There was something sensual about her movements, despite her haste, as if she, too, enjoyed the feel of her skin beneath her fingertips.
Then he decided that he liked watching himself touch her even more.
“Let me help you,” he said, finally sliding out of bed.
She glanced up at him, her eyes widening as they took in the full length of him. His cock seemed to have reawakened, but poor beleaguered devil, he’d have to wait. Even Beckenham knew it would be a crime to take her again so soon after the last time. She must be sore.
Still, there was no law against putting his hands on her, was there?
She tied the second garter. “I don’t need the kind of help you mean to give me.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Shall I ring for your maid, then?”
“Very funny!” She snatched up her shift.
He caught her arm and drew her toward him. “Indulge me,” he said.
Skimming the back of his hand over her shoulder, he pushed the satin dressing gown aside and bent to kiss her clavicle. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he murmured.
She sighed, tipped her head back. “Have you?”
“But of course.” Using both hands now, he slid the dressing gown from her shoulders, bent to kiss the plump mound of her breast.
She shuddered, swayed. Then she pushed at him. “No, Beckenham. Violet is in trouble. I must go to her. You have to come, too.”
“She is not hurt?” He hadn’t thought of that until now. The notion sobered him.
“No, no. She is merely … She needs me. Us. It will be best if I explain on the way there.”
He stopped interfering with her dressing after that, and soon she was ready and pinning up her hair.
“Where?” he asked her.
“The grotto, I believe.”
Startled, he said, “The grotto? At this hour?”
“Never mind that now. We must hurry!”
* * *
Beckenham rowed them to the grotto with swift, powerful strokes of the oars. Guiltily, Georgie enjoyed the show. She’d never been so acutely aware of any man’s physique before.
It came from the experience of what that body could do to her, she realized. She’d lost more than her virginity in that bed. She’d lost herself in him.
But she’d gained so much more.
Intimacy. A closeness so deep and compelling that it was beyond word or thought to describe. An addictive feeling. One that would be excruciating to forgo.
Difficult to keep her mind on track, to plan how she was going to get Violet and her friends out of this mess with no one the wiser.
She wanted the world to go away and leave her with Marcus, so she might enjoy him to the full.
Some presentiment told her they were not over the worst yet, however. He’d taken her confession about Pearce and the letter far better than she’d expected. After his initial fury, he’d acted as if he meant to do nothing about it, simply let it go.
That wasn’t like Beckenham. Her compulsion to make a clean breast of matters had been selfish, she realized now. There would be a reckoning between the two men. Only this time, Beckenham would be shrewd enough to tell her nothing of his plans.
Apprehension blossomed inside her.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, as if sensing an alteration in her mood.
She prevaricated. “I am a fallen woman,”
she said solemnly. “And I find that I do not care in the least.”
“Enjoy your fallen status for tonight. We’ll announce our engagement tomorrow,” he said.
She wanted to demand that he not confront Pearce, but she did not wish to ruin his contentment so soon. She’d rarely seen Beckenham so at ease. Never, in fact, had he been carefree enough to tease and make fun. He’d always borne the weight of the world on his shoulders, ever since he accepted his grandfather’s tainted legacy and doggedly set about making things right.
Thankfully, they arrived at the little island before her thoughts could grow too morose. Beckenham helped her out of the boat and pulled her to him for a swift, hot kiss before he handed her the lantern and let her precede him up the stairs to the grotto.
* * *
A burst of feminine giggles told Beckenham Georgie’s information must be correct. Incredibly, the young ladies of the party were inside that grotto at just after two o’clock in the morning. They had, if he were any judge, imbibed an excessive quantity of liquor.
He hung back. “Best if you go first, I think,” he said to Georgie. “Make sure they’re decent.”
“Dear Heavens,” she said. “Do you think they might … Oh, never mind. Wait here.”
He heard another burst of giggles, then Georgie’s voice demanding in the most censorious of accents what they meant by their scandalous behavior.
“If anyone finds out about this escapade, you’ll be ruined, the lot of you.”
The situation was, of course, reprehensible and shocking, but some note in Georgie’s voice tickled his sense of humor. Was it—could it be maternal moral outrage he heard? Georgie Black, reading a homily on appropriate behavior.
He heard her call his name and hesitated. “Are they decent?”
“They are fully clothed, if that’s what you mean,” said Georgie witheringly. “As for decent…”
He saw what she meant. Draped, sprawled, and lounging like bucks in a brothel on a quantity of imported rugs and cushions, the ladies of his house party had certainly imbibed more of his best brandy than was good for them.
“They must have filched it from your library,” said Georgie, clearly mortified. “I do beg your pardon.”
The Greatest Lover Ever Page 21
