by Mia Marlowe
“You might have warned me.”
“I thought allowing you to discover the small details on your own would be more interesting.”
She drew the shirt back up and removed the silver studs at his wrists. Then she circled him, sliding the shirt off his back and down the other arm before it joined his waistcoat on the floor. The glide of the fabric, the brush of her fingertips, the kiss of air on his bared skin made desire lance through him. This time her attempt to remove his shirt was much less awkward but no less endearing. Even though she was a novice in matters sensual, her efforts to seduce brought him to tingling need.
He’d been rock hard for a while, but now his erection throbbed, straining against the superfine trousers.
She stared at him in frank appraisal, a smile playing about her lips.
“Well?” he asked when she didn’t seem disposed to move forward.
“Well, what? You told me to tarry to see the sights.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. Why’d he have to be so blasted clever? He should have told her the right way to undress a man was to tear his clothes off like a wild woman, buttons be damned.
“Hold still now,” she said as she reached out to smooth her palms over his shoulders and down his arms. “You told me to touch, you know.”
“So I did,” he murmured, his voice a throaty growl.
When her fingertips dipped lower, his ballocks drew up in a snug mound. Unfortunately, she didn’t venture below the waist of his trousers. But his navel peeped above the superfine pants, and she teased the small hairs whorled around it mercilessly.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
“I made you open yours,” he countered.
“My night. My rules,” she said. “Or are you trying to tell me this isn’t at all the done thing and I’m hopeless at undressing a man so I may as well give up?”
“You are anything but hopeless.” The way his cock bulged in his trousers would damn him for a liar if he tried to say anything else. He closed his eyes.
And felt the wonder of her mouth pressed squarely on the center of his chest in a soft kiss.
“You told me to taste,” she whispered.
She nuzzled him with her lips and drew her soft cheeks across his chest.
“You smell wonderful, Rhys.”
Her tongue circled his nipples, and when she strafed one with her teeth, an involuntary groan escaped his lips.
“Liked that, did you?” she asked.
“Lord, yes.”
“Good. I’ve been thinking about it and I think I’d like it too. I mean, if you did that to me.”
His eyes flew open and he reached for her.
She straight-armed him. “No, you warned me to be cautious, and the cautious virgin would make certain only one of us is naked at a time.”
“Neither of us is naked,” he pointed out.
“Something I intend to remedy.”
“Not just yet,” he said, mildly surprised at the words coming from his own mouth. He’d never stopped a woman from undressing him before, but it wasn’t his favorite thing. He usually preferred to be in control of a sensual encounter. Amazingly enough, he more than enjoyed letting Olivia take the reins for a change, but he had to gentle them from her hands for a bit.
He’d been on the receiving end of her caresses, and he couldn’t bear not returning the favor. He wanted to astound her. He wanted to give to her without thought of return.
“Let me,” he said as he reached to tug the bow that held her nightrail neckline closed. “For only a moment. Then you can return to tormenting me.”
Her brows scrunched together. “Is it really torment?”
“Only the best kind,” he said with a smile as he slid her wrapper off and spread the neckline of her nightrail until it balanced on the tips of her shoulders. Her breasts were bared, but technically she was still clothed, since she was still wearing the thin muslin.
“You’re so beautiful, Olivia. I hope I’ve convinced you of that by now,” he said, “but looking isn’t enough. I want to touch.” He fondled her breasts, marveling at the perfect fit of the small orbs in his palms. “And taste.”
He bent his head and kissed her nipple. Then he took it into his mouth and sucked.
She gasped and clutched his head to hold it there. She was so sweet between his lips, he was loath to stop, but he couldn’t neglect the other taut berry. He moved to the other breast, and this time after a bit of suckling, he bit down on her softly.
“Oh!”
“Gets your attention, doesn’t it?”
She made another indeterminate sound that might have been “quite” or “right.” Either way, it seemed to mean “I won’t let you stop without a fight.” He’d given her a jolt of pleasure. It made him feel like a god.
Then he straightened and held her close so her bare skin was flush against his. She was like warm satin, all smooth and soft.
“Skin needs to be touched,” he whispered. “It cries out for the warmth of another. Do you hear it?”
She nodded; then she put a hand to his chest and pushed away gently. “You’re trying to distract me. Moreover, you’re back to directing this lesson and I intend it to be an exploration at my leisure.”
“I stand corrected.” He took a slight step back. “What do you want to do now?”
“I want to touch you, Rhys.” She tipped her head back so she could look up at him. “Everywhere. Will you let me?”
He swallowed hard. This would require all his concentration if he wasn’t going to spill his seed on her like a green boy. “I’ll let you do whatever you like.”
He ground his teeth together while she turned her attention to the last button that held his trousers up.
“No, that won’t work.”
“Why not?” She looked stricken. “What am I doing wrong now?”
“Nothing. You’re doing everything right.” If it was any more right, he’d have a fountain in his pants. “It’s just that if you mean to drop my trousers, may I suggest you allow me to remove my boots first?”
“Oh, it’s like the cufflinks,” she said. “Very well.”
He sat in one of the wing chairs and tugged at his Hessians.
Why was he talking so blasted much? He was here at Barrowdell for one purpose—to steal the maidenhead of the young woman before him. Why did he keep throwing up roadblocks between them? This whole business of lessons and wagers was a bunch of rot. He ought to swive her and be done with it.
That hard lump in his chest throbbed afresh.
The tight-fitting boots resisted his efforts for several more moments, but he finally toed them off.
“Goodness. That looked difficult,” Olivia said. “Perhaps you ought to give your Mr. Clyde a raise in pay.”
“No more complicated than your stays, I wager.”
“That’s a bet I’d win,” she said with a smile. “Not that I’m inclined to enter into any more wagers with you.”
He stood. “Why not? Paying off your last gambling debt to me has taken a very interesting turn.”
“True,” she said, sauntering over and renewing her efforts on his trouser button.
The nearness of her fingers fairly drove him wild. He worked cannon firing solutions in his head each time her hand grazed over his cock through the superfine. He mentally traced the route to Dover on the map he carried in his mind. When he made the mistake of casting a lingering gaze at the sweet hollow between her breasts, he was reduced to reciting the alphabet backward…in Latin. Anything to keep the pressure from clenching his balls and building in his shaft.
After what seemed like forever, she finally worked the button free and let the front flap drop.
“Oh, my,” was all she said.
***
It was all she could say.
Once when Olivia was a child, she and her sister Calliope had stumbled across some of the stable boys swimming naked in the pond. Their shriveled little male parts were hardly worth a giggle.
Rhys’s was neither shriveled nor little. It rose like a grand tower, tipped slightly toward her.
Knowing where it was designed to go, she felt a bit of trepidation at the size and girth of him. Even so, that secret part of her throbbed at the sight.
A curiously pleasant throb.
She tugged at his trousers and they dropped to the floor. He stood still as a statue of Adonis.
“Um, aren’t you going to step out of your trousers?”
“I could, but that would mean your role as leisurely explorer would be at an end. You wanted to be in control, remember.”
“Very well.” She crouched down before him, achingly aware of the nearness of his male parts. She forced herself to concentrate on removing his pants from around his ankles. “Lift your right foot. Now the left.”
She eased his trousers out from under his feet and then stood up.
“Aren’t you forgetting the stockings?” he asked.
“A strategic forgetfulness,” she countered. “So long as you leave your stockings on, you’re not actually nude. Should anyone ask, I would be able to say with perfect truthfulness that I have not seen Lord Rhys Warrington naked.”
“Flawlessly logical,” he said with a smile. “If you’d been born a man, you’d have made a brilliant barrister. But do you really expect anyone to ask you such a question?”
“Well, no,” she said.
“It helps you to tell yourself that I’m not completely naked, doesn’t it?”
How could he know her that well?
“That’s an exceedingly sharp blade you’re slicing your conscience with.” He cocked his head at her. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”
“Well, now that you mention it, perhaps not,” she admitted. “After all, I’ve seen any number of nude statues at the British museum.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, in the exhibit of classical Greek art.”
“I’m surprised your mother allowed you to go.”
“To be honest, she thought I was attending a lecture on Grecian pottery,” Olivia said with a grin. “What my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt me.”
“As I recall, there were more female nudes than males in that exhibit,” Rhys said.
“Yes, drat it.” And to make matters worse, more often than not, the male genitalia were hidden by strategically draped stolas or a well-placed fig leaf. Only one memorably unadorned male figure left nothing to the imagination—the statue of Dionysus.
The inebriated god was frozen in marble in the act of relieving his bladder. The Ladies’ Society for the Advancement of Public Decency had staged a protest outside the museum over it. Olivia wasn’t sure which offended them most—the god’s publicly drunken state, his blatant nakedness, or the vulgar pose in which he was captured. But since the Society’s objections only increased attendance at the exhibit, they stopped picketing immediately.
Still she’d thought the statue instructive. However, after seeing Rhys Warrington in the altogether, she had to conclude that the god’s attributes came up woefully…short.
“At the risk of inflating your already ample ego, seeing you in the nude is rather like viewing art,” she said. “You’re quite wonderfully made.”
He smiled at her. A perfectly wicked smile. “While flattering, there’s only one thing wrong with that analogy.” He took her hand and guided it to his shaft. “I’m not made of stone.”
Chapter 18
He was certainly hard as stone, but stone encased in warm male flesh. She wasn’t sure which part of him fascinated her most—his hard shaft or the soft testicles beneath it.
She ran her fingertips over his length and then palmed his balls while she continued to stroke him. He moved toward her caresses, arching into her.
When she glanced up at Rhys’s face, his eyes were closed and he was biting his bottom lip.
“Am I hurting you?”
His eyes popped open. “No, but if I stand still any longer, I’ll burst.”
“We can’t have that. By all means, don’t stand still.”
He wrapped his arms around her and bent to kiss her, leaving enough space between them for her to continue to fondle him. He groaned into her mouth.
A thrill of feminine power coursed through her. She’d made him groan with need. She’d reduced him to bare lust. Her heart sang in wicked triumph as she continued to explore him.
His hands roamed over her as well, down her back, cupping her buttocks, lifting her against him in long languid strokes. She ached so deeply a groan escaped her lips before she could stop it.
Oh dear. Lust is contagious.
No, this was more than lust. There was such tenderness in his touch, such heart-stopping sweetness in his kisses, even the neediest of them. He cared enough to be concerned for her safety. Surely he cared for her in others ways as well.
She’d already admitted she liked Rhys. It was more than many marriage partners could say.
Certainly more than she could say for the Duke of Clarence. His reputation with women was such that she couldn’t even console herself with fanciful imaginings of the royal duke’s valiant and pure male soul. Any other man who’d sired ten bastards on two different mistresses and tried to force them on Polite Society would be met with only direct cuts. Without his royal standing, the duke was merely an aging libertine.
Of course, what was Rhys but a young libertine?
Nevertheless, she liked him. He was charming and clever and brave and…wounded. Her heart ached afresh for his pain over Lieutenant Duffy. There was a depth to Rhys Warrington most would overlook.
He wanted it overlooked, she realized. How much of his playing the rake was only to disguise his well-hidden pain?
Then Rhys deepened their kiss, and all coherent thought fled from her mind. She draped her arms around his neck as he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the waiting bed. Somewhere between the fireplace and the bedpost, her nightrail hitched up past her knees.
She didn’t mind. She might not even have noticed if he hadn’t run a hand over her leg from ankle to mid-thigh. She didn’t stop kissing and touching him as he laid her down on the feather tick with care.
She didn’t protest when he joined her there, settling with most of the weight of his upper body propped on his elbows while he kissed her to oblivion.
It was a little like heaven to feel the sheltering warmth of him. The thin muslin of her nightrail almost didn’t exist. It was open to her waist so his chest covered hers, skin on skin. She’d never imagined a sensation so delicious.
His heart pounded against her breastbone. His breath filled her lungs. His scent, his taste, he crowded her whole world. If anyone had told her there was nothing else but this man, this moment, she’d have believed them.
Her thighs parted and his hips settled between them. That needy drumbeat between her legs was becoming habitual whenever he was near. Now it crescendoed into an entire percussion section. A low boom deep inside her, with pleasure sparking across her skin every place their bodies touched, her shin to his thigh, her thigh to his hips.
During the kissing and caressing, her nightrail hem somehow became entangled around her waist. She could feel him—all of him—rocking in a slow knock, now against her bare belly, now in the crease of her thigh. She gasped when the tip of him pressed against her opening. She turned her head to break off their kiss.
“Trust me, Olivia,” he whispered. “Will you?”
She shouldn’t. The man had a reputation. He freely admitted it. But she made the mistake of looking into his eyes.
She saw wanting there. Along with the desire to give. And there in the glinting depths of his dark eyes, wasn’t that…hope?
He needed her to trust him. It was as Babette had said. All souls wanted to be accepted. Trusted. Loved. Even though he didn’t voice it, his eyes said, “Please.”
And she said yes.
***
That lump in his chest swelled and made it hard to breathe for a moment. Then Rhys kissed he
r once more, softly this time, holding back the surge of passion that threatened to break in him. Surely her lips would be bruised if he didn’t bridle himself.
Then he moved his body off her and lay beside her.
Best to remove temptation for now.
It had been all he could do not to slip into her when the tip of his cock brushed her opening. One quick thrust and his job at Barrowdell would be irrevocably done.
Instead, he kissed his way down her neck, while his hand moved over her belly and into her soft folds. If he was going to take from her, the least he could do was give.
And he intended to give until she begged him to shred her maidenhead. If she implored him to ruin her, perhaps his conscience would stop flailing him over it.
She was so wet. Each silky layer of her was swollen and slick. The sweet perfume of her arousal went to his head. He nuzzled her breast while his fingers played a lover’s game on her mound.
She writhed under him as he teased around her most sensitive spot without giving her relief. She made the most alluring little noises of distress. He so wanted to give her ease, but he needed her to plead for it. He had no other recourse but to draw out her journey into bliss to unbearable lengths.
When he moved his hand away, she nearly sobbed.
“Hush, love,” he murmured. “’Twill be all right. You’ll see.”
Then he kissed his way down her body, lingering at her belly button, before nuzzling the curls between her legs. When he slipped his tongue between her folds, she gave a shuddering breath and arched herself into his mouth.
Rhys cupped her heart-shaped bum and feasted on her.
***
Love. He called me “love.” Olivia’s heart pounded while she fisted the linens. Surely no man would do to a woman what Rhys was doing to her unless he loved her.
Joy rippled through her, radiating outward from the center of the universe between her thighs. The ache was sharp-edged now, the line between pain and pleasure blurred. A tear squeezed from her closed eyes and trickled into her ear, but she couldn’t have borne for him to stop. If he did, she’d scream loud enough to wake the entire household.
