Sweat broke out on his brow and still they danced. He swept a wide circle about her, their dance becoming of courtship of advance and retreat until at last she was in his arms, her own about his neck as he bent her backward to the crowd, her breasts rising and falling in her breathlessness. He’d made his intentions known and she’d answered affirmatively. All that remained now was to claim in her truth.
“Come with me,” He whispered huskily. He jumped down from the table and swung her down lightly, keeping a strong grip on her hand as they moved through the energized crowd. They made their way toward John Rhodes, who gestured to a discreet door off the hall.
The corridor was lined with rooms. Jamie tried the knob on the door nearest them and the door swung open, revealing a comfortable room within. They were alone at last.
He strode to her, all hot male, and took her in a fierce embrace. It started with a kiss, but it wouldn’t end there this time. He murmured against her neck. “Let me reveal you inch by glorious inch, my angel.”
He would start with her hair and work his way down. It would be an exquisite torture for them both. She was eager for him and him for her. But he knew the trick to ultimate satisfaction lay not in the speed of consummation, the fires satisfied in a single blaze, but in a slow kindling inferno that hovered and grew in its intensity. He wanted to savor this act, to savor her. She was worth savoring; her beauty, her joie de vivre, all of her was worth savoring.
Jamie reached for her pale halo of hair. Loose and soft, beneath his hands, those tresses had been in peril of falling all night. Two pins later, they finally did, cascading in a glorious golden cataract down her back, falling in soft curling waves about her face. Dear Lord, a man would die for a woman like this. Jamie felt his erection harden, his arousal come to full force, and he’d only begun.
He cradled her face gently between his hands and kissed her mouth, kissed her throat, reveling in the arch of her body as it pressed into him, communicating its pleasure. His hands shoved the puffed sleeves of her gown from her shoulders, letting the dress find its way down the slender length of her to lie at her feet.
The dim light illuminated her in erotic shadow, the fullness of her breasts outlined in tantalizing detail beneath the linen of her shift. Jamie took the hem of the short garment and lifted it, up and over her breasts, over her tangling tresses until she was entirely bare before him and he could worship at the temple of his goddess.
He ran his hand in a reverent caress over her breasts, delighting in the little gasps of pleasure it elicited. His mouth followed, his tongue sweeping tiny circles around her nipple. He was on his knees before her, a true supplicant, his hands firmly splayed at her waist, bracketing the very cradle of her, his mouth at her breast and his body clamoring now for the final completion. Passion and need warred within him. He placed a final kiss on her navel, blowing softly against her skin, and rose, dancing her backward to the bed in a fluid motion.
She went willingly; the indigo of her eyes had turned the deep blue of midnight in her desire. She grasped the waistband of his trousers. “Unless I’m terribly mistaken, you’re still a bit overdressed for this.”
Jamie’s breath hitched, his hands resting over hers. There were other ways to find completion. He’d planned to invoke them. “If you’re sure? We can find pleasure in other ways.”
“I’m sure,” Daphne said softly, her hand stroking him through his trousers, reminding him he was in no position to argue.
Chapter Seven
“It’s my turn now.” Daphne reached for his cravat and yanked, pulling the snowy cloth free. Her hands worked the cuff links of his shirt, stopping only long enough to let him pull the garment over his head. He was breathtaking in the dim light of the room, the single lamp’s light playing across the hard planes of his torso, showcasing the musculature of a man who kept himself in shape.
Tonight was about breaking the rules and she would break every last one of them with this incredible man disrobing in front of her. She would have this one night, and she would know for the rest of her life what was truly possible.
* * *
Tentatively, she reached out a hand to trace the muscled map of him. “I did not know a man could look thus,” she whispered. She held his gaze, mesmerized by the molten heat of his eyes. They smoldered for her. Her hands rested on the waistband of his trousers. He covered them with his own, urging her on in her explorations. “A man likes to be touched everywhere, Daphne. You need not hesitate to do as you please.”
The tempo of their passion had changed from shooting flames to something subtler, something slower but no less intense, like the blue flames closer to a fire’s center where the heat burned hottest. Daphne reached for him through his trousers, cupping the length of him, savoring the hardness beneath the fabric.
He groaned his approval against her throat. Then he stepped back, the low timbre of his voice exciting and dangerous
* * *
Jamie pushed his trousers downward, exhibiting slim hips,wws his proud strength framed between muscled thighs. He stood before her unashamed of his arousal, his nakedness, letting her look her fill. “I’m starting to understand the reference to the menat.” To her ears, she sounded entirely wanton.
“But only just starting to.” Jamie growled huskily, coming to the bed and rising up over her, primal in his possession. Her legs parted to take him instinctively, reveling in the feel of his erection, hard and powerful, against her leg. He had prepared her well for this. His every touch had built an exquisite fire and it was time to let it burn.
He was kissing her mouth, telling her she was beautiful. Her body was a riot of rich sensations beneath him, arching against him, urging him toward completion. He found her entrance and claimed it in a fluid, gliding stroke that took him deep inside.
They were joined. She was filled with him, her body stretching to take the whole of him. He began to move in her, a rocking cadence she matched with the lift of her hips to his. The fire between them raged, the tempo of his thrusts increased, she pulled him to her with her arms about his neck, her legs twined about his back and still she wanted him closer. Outside her body someone was crying with pleasure, it might be her. She didn’t know. She only knew that this was too much, the sensations too intense. She needed relief, a relief that grew closer with every thrust. If they could go harder, faster, they would reach it. This was it. She gave a final cry, lifting hard against Jamie as her body shattered. She felt him surge into her once more and then he was gone with a guttural cry of his own.
Jamie collapsed beside her, breathing hard, his skin sheened with a fine sweat. Her gentleman lover. She was well aware of the effort he’d exerted at the end, the sacrifice he’d made for her sake; the gentleman’s finish. She turned on her side to face him, raising a hand to trace the noble line of his jaw. “I never knew what sated was until now,” she said softly. It was true. This was complete and absolute satiation. Her body was replete, her mind was content. She had all she needed in this moment. There was no reason to move from it. They would need to leave in a little while, but not yet. She wanted to savor this man who’d shown her courtesy and pleasure, life and adventure, a while a longer.
* * *
She was beautiful in postcoital repose, her hand gentle on his cheek. His passionate angel had been a responsive and bold lover. The presence of such commodities surprised him given the fact she’d not been a virgin. He was even more honored by what they’d shared than if he’d been the first.
It all made sense now, Jamie thought, watching her in the darkness. The knife, the courage to face the footpads in Piccadilly, the furtiveness he’d seen on her face on the veranda and the disappointment that she’d escaped one man only to encounter another one.
There’d been an unwanted man in her life before, a man who’d selfishly taken what she’d not been willing to give. She’d decided there would not be another. Jamie did not need to embarrass her with asking. He knew this tale well enough, knew the kind of man who figur
ed in such tales.
Protectiveness fired deep in his soul. He wanted to protect her from a family that would barter her for wealth, from a society that would squelch her fire, from other men who’d covet her bold sensuality. In short, he wanted her for himself even as he knew how irrational such a conclusion was based on an acquaintance of hours. Yet he knew her. Each action she’d taken had revealed her to him little piece by little piece.
“You’re thinking too hard.” Daphne smoothed her hand over his brow, rubbing away the creases. “Did your mother ever tell you if you frown too much your face will stay that way? It’s true, you know. There’s this lady in my village, Mrs. Thrumbottom, and her face is in a perpetual frown even when she laughs, which isn’t very often. But still, I don’t think I’ve seen her smile in twenty-two years.”
Jamie laughed. “Maybe it’s her name. If I was Mrs. Thrumbottom, I’d frown too.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. This was cozy, intimate. Talking softly in the darkness put all his other encounters to shame. Usually by now, he’d be out the door and off to his club. But with Daphne, he wanted nothing more than to lie beside her in this dark room and talk until he could take her again. Already his body was rousing, something he must put a stop to as much he’d prefer the contrary. It would be disastrous if they fell asleep. Not even Riordan’s creative abilities would be able to cover for that lapse.
With an enormous amount of willpower, Jamie rolled out of bed with a groan. The room was chilly after the warmth of Daphne’s body.
Daphne moaned in disappointment. “What are you doing? Come back to bed, Jamie.” He could hear the drowsiness in her voice. His concern had not been misplaced.
He groped for the pocket watch he carried in his waistcoat and held it up to the lamp. “It’s half past one.” Even awake, the hours of their night were slipping away. She was his for only two hours more. Jamie gathered up his clothes and began to dress, aware that Daphne had propped herself up on an elbow to watch.
“It’s hard to believe supper is just finishing at the ball. Do you think they had oysters?”
“Shh, don’t think on it,” Jamie scolded. “That’s a world away, a lifetime away from us.” He paused. Was she having regrets? Had the impetuosity of their adventure suddenly settled on her? “Do you want to go back?”
She shook her head. “No, never. Why would I want glittering ballrooms and endless dance partners when all I could want is in this one room?” She was serious and her declaration moved him deeply. Jamie could not recall the last time a woman had seen him solely as a man and not the viscount, the earl’s heir. Maybe that was why there’d been so many of them. He’d been looking for the right one, the one who would see him as a man first, an earl second.
Of course, he had to remind himself, he’d manufactured this response from her with his condition about last names. She didn’t know enough to see him otherwise, he’d seen to it.
“Stop right there,” came Daphne’s soft command. Jamie halted in the middle of tucking his shirt into his waistband. “I want to remember you just the way you are now.”
“In dishabille?”
“Most definitely.” She smiled. “This is what painters should paint in their portraits. Half-dressed, your hair mussed, your face content.” Jamie choked back a laugh envisioning such an image in place of the stodgy formal portrait of him with Folkestone Hall in the background hanging in the estate’s portrait gallery.
“Content? Wasn’t I content before?” How could she know such a thing about him? She hadn’t known him at all before tonight and yet she’d guessed at the one thing that had tormented him since his return to town.
“You weren’t content on the veranda. You were full of bristling energy, frustrated with it even though you were trying to hide it. I thought, ‘There’s someone who feels the way I do—trapped, alone and feeling selfish for complaining about their lot in life because it’s much more than many people get.’”
“Is that why you came with me?” Jamie shrugged into his coat and began picking up her discarded garments.
“In part, but mostly I came because of your smile.”
Jamie dropped the pile of clothes on the bed and sat down on the bed’s edge. “I’m glad you came.” It was too early for goodbyes. He wouldn’t start saying farewell to her just yet. “Let’s get you dressed.”
* * *
Jamie made the most decadent of ladies’ maids, a fact driven home by his rather erotic rolling of her stockings. The white silk came up high on her thighs, Jamie’s hands stroking the sensitive inner part of her legs ever so slightly, his thumbs skimming the tender flesh of her nether regions. A delicious tremor shot through her.
“You’re doing that on purpose.” Daphne murmured.
“You like it.” Jamie’s thumb pressed upon her in a most carnal caress. There was no doubt of it. His every touch could reduce her to bonelessness. “There is another pleasure I could show you if you’d allow me.”
He’d asked. As if there was any question of not allowing it. But she appreciated the gesture nonetheless. “Lie back, Daphne, and open to me.” Jamie knelt between her legs, a posture not all that different than the one he’d already assumed to help with her stockings, but stockings were quickly forgotten in the wake of the gentling breath he blew against her, the breath a reminder that she was already damp in expectation. His mouth found the core of her, a well-hidden pearl within the shell of womanhood.
His tongue flicked over the tiny pearl, coaxing her toward pleasure with each wicked pass and she claimed it, letting the thrill, the elation wash over her.
* * *
Afterward, she let Jamie help her with her dress and shoes, let him strap the knife on her leg while her thoughts wandered freely in her mind. Never had she imagined such decadence existed, that her body was capable of finding such pleasure. Neither did she fool herself that such pleasure could be had at any time or with anyone.
They took a last look around the room for anything they may have forgotten. Ridiculous tears started in her eyes at the prospect of leaving. It was a shabby room, although it had been clean. By the light of day the shabbiness would be more pronounced. She was glad she wouldn’t be there to see it. It was absolutely silly to cry over a cheap room designed to be used for cheap pleasures. But it was the place she’d been with Jamie. It was the place where she’d proven to herself pleasure was possible in the arms of a man. Maybe Jamie was right. Maybe nothing was impossible.
Jamie rubbed an errant tear away with his thumb. “Don’t be sad, Daphne. The adventure isn’t over.”
Chapter Eight
The supper room was deserted. It was just after two and the place was in the process of closing. Waiters cleared tables, a few of them nodding as she and Jamie passed through. John Rhodes’s staff had seen to the phaeton and horses. They’d been watered and fed in the interim and were now hitched, ready to go. Jamie tried to pay the sleepy groom, but the man turned away the money.
“Mr. Rhodes says I’m not to take a shilling from you. There’s a blanket on the seat,” the groom pointed out, “and a swordstick you can borrow, courtesy of Mr. Rhodes. He noticed you didn’t come in with any. He says you and the lady can come back anytime. You’re good for business.”
“We’re good for business,” Daphne repeated, tucking her hand through Jamie’s arm as the phaeton pulled out onto the street. “I wonder how much money a song-and-supper girl makes?”
“If you’re popular you can make enough to live on as long as your standards aren’t too high, and you can always count on one free meal.”
“Let’s do it,” Daphne said firmly. “Let’s run away and be supper-room entertainers. We’ll eat oysters and dance on tables every night.” And when its closing time, we’ll go home to our one-room flat and make love until the sun comes up not caring a whit for all the trappings of Mayfair we’ve left behind. She left the last part unspoken. Jamie didn’t strike her as a man who would eschew responsibility permanently. Sooner or later the guilt wou
ld eat at him and he’d want to go back. Tonight was about running away; it was about a chance to break the rules, a chance to be free one last time. They both had responsibilities waiting for them. She knew it just as well as he did.
The Strand was nearly empty this time of night. A few people still tottered home from pubs, but no one was interested in troubling them. Daphne unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. The night was only a little bit cold, but the thin material of her gown wasn’t enough. Overhead, the sky was surprisingly clear, the coal-smoke haze of London had dissolved enough to let a few stars peep through.
Jamie noticed her looking at them. “If it were daytime we could take the train to Greenwich and go to the observatory.” The Euston Station train was a marvel, cutting down the hour-long carriage drive to Greenwich to a mere ten minutes on the new rail.
She laughed. “If it were daytime, the stars wouldn’t be out. I think they should run a night train, then again it might encourage star-crossed lovers to run away from Mayfair balls more often.”
Jamie shot her a wry grin. “Is that what you think we are? Star-crossed lovers?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Well, what do you think happens after tonight? After we go back to the ball? We’ve already sworn not to see each other again.”
“No, we haven’t. We just decided not to use full names,” Jamie protested.
“But we both know the reason for that. We won’t be able to find one another. You said yourself it would be better this way.”
“So what do you think happens? Do we have an ‘unmasking’ of sorts? At the end of the night I tell you who I really am and you tell me. Maybe we make a pact to meet once a year at the Coal Hole.”
Jamie shrugged his dissatisfaction. She could feel the movement of the gesture where her head rested against him. “Ugh, those ideas are positively horrid. I don’t want to cheapen this night with anything like that. Besides, I already know who you are in all the ways that matter. A name can’t change that.”
How to Live Indecently Page 4
