by Gaelen Foley
Then he went farther. The décolleté of her gown was admittedly low, with daring, off-the-shoulder sleeves. He slipped his finger inside her bodice and with a delicate motion, tugged it lower still. The next thing she knew, he had freed her breast and emitted a low, husky sound of male appreciation so acute it seemed almost painful. His well-groomed hand enclosed her breast in a velvet caress. But when he bent his head hungrily, Georgie shuddered and let out a groan as he swirled his tongue across her nipple again and again.
She leaned back, quivering, against pleasantly rough-textured stone, so cool against her burning skin. She petted Ian’s head as he devoured her breast; sometimes she clutched his silky hair, intoxicated with his wanton giving. Dear God, if she had asked Meena a thousand questions, no words could have done these sublime pleasures justice.
Her nipples throbbed; her chest heaved with desire. Both his hands were on her, stroking, caressing her. The metal of the chunky signet ring that he wore on his pinky finger had grown warm with the heat of his touch. As the temperature between them climbed, she would not have been surprised if it was hot enough to brand her with the imprint of his family crest. Her skin felt as if it were on fire; she burned for him. She freed her other breast for him and, transfixed, watched his mouth descend. The darkened-pink tip of her swollen crest rose to graze his lips; she waited, aching, for his kiss. He teased her for a moment, but when he captured the whole of her nipple in his mouth, she groaned aloud, draping her arms around his neck.
The damp, rhythmic pull of his mouth at her breast both satisfied and inflamed her at the same time. He clearly relished it—sheer abandon and enjoyment were written all over his chiseled face. He reveled in her with a hidden decadence that nobody could have suspected of the strait-laced marquess. She was delighted to find him so wonderfully naughty behind all his supposed propriety. She hugged his head to her chest, raking her fingers through his hair.
His lips were still moist when he had his fill of her breasts for now and kissed his way back up her neck, claiming her lips again gently. “You really are, you know,” he murmured between kisses, “ridiculously beautiful.”
She laughed dazedly, only wondering what he’d do next.
“So?” she asked, giving him an impatient poke in the side. She must have hit a ticklish spot, for he winced and let out a laugh.
“So, what?” he retorted.
“So, Ian—” She took his face between her hands and stared at him in sultry anticipation. “What are you going to do to me now?”
Debauchery glinted in his eyes as he turned his face a bit and kissed her palm. “What would you like me to do?”
“I don’t know.” She began blushing. “How could I know? I’ve never done this before.”
Her reminder of this fact seemed to take him off guard. He stared at her for a second; his playful look vanished and he lowered his gaze. “We should stop,” he whispered half-heartedly.
She let out a sound of dismay. “No—please! I don’t care what the rules of honor say. No one has to know.”
“My darling, you are so…deliciously misguided.”
“Kiss me.” She captured his hand and kissed his fingers, closing her eyes. “Ian, I want you.”
She heard his shaky exhalation, then felt his other hand caress her thigh through her skirts.
She dragged her eyes open with a thrill of excitement, eager to be rid of her useless virginity now that she had finally found a man who could be entrusted with the task.
He gazed at her for a moment in stormy tenderness. “I’ll give you what you want,” he whispered. Kissing her once more, slowly, deeply, Ian slipped his hands under her skirts.
She shivered at the smooth expertise with which his palms glided up her naked thighs. With an incoherent murmur in Bengali, she closed her eyes. Then her failing voice dissolved like stars in the morning light as he touched her softly.
She was embarrassingly wet for him. She realized it by the slippery-warm ease with which his two fingers pressed inside her. She could tell by the pebble-hard resistance of her center under his thumb, the pressure he applied. Pleasure flashed like lightning; she sucked in a heady gasp for air.
“I know what you need,” he assured her in a raw whisper by her earlobe; his hot, panting breath stirred the tendrils of her hair by her neck, tickling her.
She groaned his name.
“Is that good, sweeting? More?”
“Yes—please.”
Any further questions would have been much too complex. Her mind was fading into the most primal awareness. They had become the lovers on the temple walls, worshiping each other, seeking their earthly Nirvana in the bliss of blind desire. Time lost all meaning as he stroked and pleasured her, not deflowering her, but showing her with his clever hands what that might be like.
Her yearning gradually turned to desperation. “Oh, Ian, please—” She was not sure what she was asking for, but Ian knew.
He always knew.
He gave.
His kiss was fierce, his touch as rapid and precise as a master silk-weaver’s hands on the loom, turning and turning her senses in a frenzy of delight until her mind dripped with impossible pleasure, and her moans echoed into the dark recesses of the sacred cave.
There was only time to wonder what she’d have to do, what price she’d have to pay, to win the privilege of doing this with him for the rest of her life, when suddenly, the whole world lurched. She clutched his big shoulders with a helpless gasp and went rigid with release, brilliant splendor erupting within her. Shudders racked her body, every nerve-ending exploding in a celebration like the wildest Holi festival she had ever attended, the ancient springtime rites, with colorful clouds of powder paints thrown in the air. Time, the inexorable goddess, paused in her sword dance as though frozen, and all the wanton joy Georgie found in that instant smelled of Ian and tasted of Ian; she finished, gasping, dazzled by this man all over again.
Truly, she was in awe of him. He pulled back and looked at her with eyes that glowed in the cave’s twilight, dark tenderness etched across his face. She reached for him with a strange threat of tears in her eyes, as though her heart chakra, which her guru had told her about many years ago, had just burst open like a dam in the monsoon, unable to hold back all the wonder that she felt.
She threw her arms around the Marquess of Griffith and kissed his cheek lingeringly. She would have thanked him but she couldn’t even speak, so deep was her relief.
After a moment, he pried her back gently and let her lean against the stone wall behind her. He gave her a wistful smile, taking in her look of satisfaction.
“Well,” he said after a moment, making a still-heavy-breathing attempt at levity. “That was worth traveling halfway around the world for.”
Georgie laughed, an idle, breathless sound. She rallied her strength to lift her hand, and gave his cheek a doting caress. “You really are good at that sort of thing, aren’t you?”
“A gentleman never brags,” he said softly, then flashed a devilish grin.
She laughed at him. “You are too much.”
“Me?” he murmured innocently as he lifted his right hand that had pleasured her so deeply and, giving her a satyric look, licked the taste of her off his middle finger.
Georgie stared at him, wide-eyed.
“I think I’m beginning to figure you out,” she declared abruptly.
“Damn,” he drawled with a wicked smile.
At that moment, they heard the distant sound of Derek calling his name. Ian mouthed an epithet. They both tensed, her attempt to embrace him again curtailed.
“Ah, this is the part where I get murdered by your brothers,” Ian said sardonically.
“My brothers aren’t going to murder you.”
“They could, and I think they’d enjoy it.”
“Oh, stop.”
“Griffith!” Derek’s voice echoed down from the top of the temple stairs. When Georgie looked at Ian in question, he was readying himself to go forth again
from the cavern.
Obviously, there was no point in trying to re-create his valet’s artful cravat, so he shoved the white neck cloth into his pocket, then reached down and, still frustrated, no doubt, adjusted his swollen member through his trousers.
Georgie also hurried to right her clothes.
When they both had taken a moment to collect themselves, Ian glanced at her with eyes full of flame and stoic resolve, fighting an inward battle to suppress his desire. Oh, dear, Georgie thought in belated understanding. It seemed she had left the poor man in quite a state.
But fortunately, Ian had already proved a master of self-discipline. Restored at least outwardly to his usual cool control, he took her hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a discreet kiss to her knuckles. “Ready?”
Georgie nodded and took a deep breath.
Side by side, they went in answer to her brother’s call. She wondered if Derek might have spotted their shoes abandoned near the threshold of the holy place, but when she and Ian arrived at the top of the steps he was no longer there. They saw that he had gone back out into the plaza, still trying to locate Ian.
When Georgie and their mission leader came walking out from the prayer cave’s veranda, both of her brothers were near the tiger cage, heading back to the palace.
“Gentlemen!” Ian called after them, sounding as civilized as ever.
What a fascinating enigma he was, Georgie thought, witnessing the marked transformation from the sensual private man to the brisk, no-nonsense public one.
Her brothers turned around.
The moment Gabriel and Derek spotted them together, the brothers exchanged a glance that Georgie feared spelled trouble, at least for her. Then they began marching toward them. It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but her brothers did not look happy.
“Is it true?” Derek demanded. He sounded incensed.
“Gracious,” Georgie murmured, wondering if her brothers could have somehow discovered that mere moments ago, the two of them had been clenched in each other’s arms.
But that was impossible.
“No worries,” Ian murmured to her in a soothing tone. “I’ll handle this.” He raised his voice to reply to Derek’s question: “Is what true, Major?”
“Did that little strutting bantam cock insult our sister while our backs were turned?”
“Ah.”
“We just heard about Prince Shahu’s remark about Georgie,” Gabriel reported. “Is it true?”
“Er, no harm done,” she spoke up hastily. “Th-that’s what Lord Griffith and I were just discussing.”
Ian shot her a look that sufficed to repeat his assertion that he would handle this.
“What happened?” Gabriel demanded.
“Youthful impetuosity, the best that I can reckon. Add to that a bit of French Champagne. His Highness tried to provoke a reaction by making rude remarks.”
“What did he say?” they demanded nearly in unison.
“Only that he’d work on his father for us if we tossed her into the deal.”
Georgie laughed nervously as Ian nodded in her direction, both of them making a joke of it. It was never a good idea, after all, to get her brothers angry. Men who crossed the expert duelists tended to meet a swift and bloody end.
“So, what did you tell him?” Derek demanded, folding his arms across his chest.
Ian flashed a roguish smile in answer. “I simply told the little bastard that she’s mine.”
“Ha!” Derek’s short bark of laughter rang out across the plaza.
Thank God, Ian’s answer did not appear to have offended them.
“I wager that shut him up,” Derek said.
“Indeed, it did.”
“What are you doing out here, Georgie? We thought you had gone back to the harem.”
“I did. But I—I had to see Lord Griffith again—”
“Is that right?” Gabriel inquired, folding his arms slowly across his chest just like Derek had done. One eyebrow raised, he looked from Ian to Georgie and back again.
She faltered, but Ian rescued her once more. He was awfully good at that.
“Your sister brought me some rather worrisome information concerning Queen Sujana. You’d better get back before you’re missed,” he added, turning to her. “I’ll fill them in.”
“Very well. I’ll see you all—tomorrow.” She smiled at her brothers and allowed herself one last, hungry, but she hoped not-too-obvious glance at Ian, which he returned.
His stare tracked her as she walked back into the palace. She could feel it on her, all the way across the square.
Ian watched her go back into the palace, taking covert pleasure in her bouncy little walk, though he still was not quite sure what sort of adventure she had dragged him into this time.
Well, “dragged” was not, perhaps, an honest word.
All he knew was when that hot-blooded ingenue had moaned in his ear that she wanted him, he had been utterly powerless to refuse. Perhaps it was true that what he’d done with her just now was devoid of honor; but considering he had refrained from filling her with his cock as she had asked him to, he rather thought his restraint had verged on the heroic. And besides, if she was so eager for carnal experience, wasn’t it so much better that she should experiment with someone who would make it safe for her, who could be trusted not to hurt her or to ruin her reputation with juvenile bragging?
For his part, Ian could not recall ever having been with such a responsive and passionate female; this was a woman who threw herself whole-heartedly into her pleasures. It was glorious to behold. And perhaps it was vanity on his part, but he found it incredibly gratifying to know that although countless men wanted her, she had offered herself to him.
Ah, Georgiana Knight. Somehow he should have known she’d lure him into misbehaving with her. She had snared him with his rampant curiosity about her, this alluring siren who could have been his wife if generations of talk about an alliance between their families were to be heeded.
Ian, however, had no intention of heeding those dictums. He had only wanted a taste; they both had wanted it. Badly. He knew now it had been on both their minds from the very day they’d met. He might be well versed in the art of self-denial, but she was having none of it, and devil take her, she was too damned hard to resist. He might be a gentleman, but God knew he wasn’t a saint.
One day soon, when he left India and returned to England, he would look back on this as naught but a private and very pleasant memory. Sweet Georgiana in the prayer cave.
When he saw she had made it safely back into the palace, Ian told her brothers of the concerns Georgiana had raised about Prince Shahu telling the maharani everything that happened in their audiences with King Johar, and the sharper worry of Queen Sujana, in turn, informing Baji Rao. They decided to go back inside and try to investigate this possibility.
As they walked toward the palace, Derek casually asked what had happened to his cravat.
“Too bloody hot. I can’t get used to this climate. How can you stand it in battle?”
“You just do,” he said with a cheery shrug, but Gabriel eyed Ian with some degree of wariness.
He knows, Ian thought. Or at least suspected. Damn. He looked away, hoping his face betrayed no outward sign of his guilt. Sorry old boy, couldn’t help myself.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, if you don’t mind, Griff,” Derek continued.
“What is it?”
“Earlier today in the Hall of Arms, I noticed you declined to join the demonstration.” The major elbowed him in ribbing good humor. “Doubt your skills?”
“Actually, no,” Ian said smoothly. He glanced at Gabriel, then at Derek again, with a cynical smile. “No point in announcing it, though. If anyone attacks me, they’ll soon discover the truth.”
“Smart man,” Derek agreed with a hearty smile.
“Too smart,” Gabriel murmured as Ian walked on ahead.
The brothers lingered a few paces behind.
“I think he just gave us a warning,” Gabriel said.
“What, not to call him out?”
The elder Knight nodded.
The younger glanced in Ian’s direction, then grinned at his brother. “He’s bluffing.”
“Is he?”
Derek shrugged. “At least he’s on our side.”
Gabriel gave him a hard look. “They were together.”
“I know.” Derek sighed. “Well, she could do worse. He is a marquess.”
“He’s not looking for a wife!”
“How do you know?”
Gabriel shrugged and huffed in protective displeasure.
“Don’t worry,” Derek told him. “Lord Virtue is not the sort of cad to seduce our sister under our noses.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” Gabriel said pointedly.
“Well, you do have a point there,” Derek conceded, well aware of their sister’s wild nature. But he shrugged it off. “What are we supposed to do? Georgie’s a grown woman. She’s always going on about her freedom, and as much as it drives us mad, we have to try to respect that.”
“Yes, but—” Gabriel’s words broke off, and then he merely scowled.
“Gabriel, we’ve been over this so many times. She’s not a little girl anymore. You sound like Father. I know we all appreciate having her at home to look after us, but sooner or later, we’ve got to let her have her own life. It’s past time she married, and if she’s got a serious interest in Griff, I’m sure as hell not going to stand in the way. He might be exactly what she needs. He’s clever enough to handle her and all her tricks—and I daresay she can handle him.”
Still scowling, Gabriel dropped his gaze and shook his head after a moment. “I just don’t want him carrying her off all the way to England, where we’ll never see her again,” he admitted with a glum look. “It might as well be to the bloody moon.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself?”
