“Did you forget where you put it?” a masculine voice asked, causing her to gasp and whirl around to face the bed.
There he lay, stretched out at his ease with one long leg crossed over the other, his arms pulled back behind his head. He had taken off his dinner jacket, which was tossed over the footboard.
She laid a hand over her thumping heart. “Good Lord! What is the matter with you, scaring me like that? And how did you get up here so fast?”
“I know every secret passageway in this house like the back of my hand.”
“There are secret passageways?”
He pointed at a life-size portrait of an ancestor on the wall. It was slightly ajar. “I came in through there.”
She studied it curiously, then hurried to shut the bedchamber door before someone walked by and discovered him laid out like a pleasure god on her bed. “Keep your voice down,” she said. “And you promised to wait an hour.”
“I was bored.”
“You were randy, more like it, wanting to see what’s in that diary.”
She shut the door and faced him. He leaned up on an elbow. “You have me pegged. But let me hear you say ‘randy’ again.”
His teasing tone sent a tremor of excitement through her. Oh, she was doomed.
“Randy. Now please get off my bed.”
He sighed with resignation, then swung his legs to the floor, but continued to sit with his hands curled around the edge of the mattress. “Do you know that you are the most exciting woman I have met in a very long time?”
“More exciting than Lady Letitia?” she boldly asked.
His eyes darkened with desire. “Far more.”
It was exactly what she wanted to hear, but now was not the time to be bringing up another woman.
“I asked you nicely to get up,” she reminded him, determined to at least try and behave respectably, even though she’d already chopped and burned and utterly annihilated that bridge behind her.
He smirked, then stood up and spread his hands wide. “There. How’s that?”
“Better. Now go over there.” She pointed to the fireplace on the opposite side of the room.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Frankly, no.”
He chuckled and sauntered to the hearth, while she went to the armoire.
“It’s damp in here,” he said. “Allow me to light a fire for you.”
“Thank you.”
She knelt and reached into the lining of her valise for the old diary, then rose to her feet and turned to watch him lay out the kindling and strike a match. He was crouching down, his shoulders broad, his torso narrow, his buttocks muscular beneath his formal black trousers, stretched taut.
Holding the diary at her side, she suddenly understood why Lydie had needed to write about her lover and her passions on each glorious page of her diary. She hadn’t wanted to forget what it felt like.
Rebecca was tempted to start a diary of her own. Surely, with this man as her subject, it would be a masterpiece. For her eyes only, of course.
He picked up the poker and shifted the logs around, drawing out the flames, sending sparks snapping and floating up into the black chimney, then he straightened and wiped his hands together. He turned to face her, gesturing toward the book she held at her side. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“May I look at it?”
Her heart began to pound as she held it out. For some reason when they had agreed to this earlier, she had imagined he would take the diary back to his own room and read it in private—for it was, needless to say, a very private kind of book. But she now understood that he intended to read it here.
He moved across the thick oval carpet and took it from her, keeping his gaze locked on hers the entire time until he turned and moved away, back toward the fireplace where the light was better.
He opened the book and read the first page.
Rebecca remained where she was, speechless and paralyzed, as if she were sharing her own diary with someone, for no one else had ever read this treasure she had kept hidden away since the day she’d found it.
Devon stood in front of the fire for a few minutes, then he slowly lowered himself into the wing chair and continued to read.
Eventually Rebecca moved to the bed and sat down. The only noises in the room were the sparks snapping in the fireplace, the mantel clock ticking, and the sound of pages turning.
She removed her earrings and necklace and set them on the bedside table, then sat quietly, trying to stay calm while she watched Devon read.
A short time later, he closed the book and looked at her. “This is indeed compelling reading, Rebecca. I think I should stop.”
“Does it make you feel guilty, because it’s someone else’s private thoughts?” she asked. “I certainly felt that way at first.”
“It’s not that.” He rose to his feet and came to stand before her. “May I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“When you read this book, do you fantasize about doing all the things Lydie does?”
Heaven help her, she wanted him to know. She’d always wanted him to know. “Yes.”
“Do you ever fantasize about it with me?”
“Always with you.”
His blue eyes warmed, then he held out the book. “Read something to me.”
She slowly took it from him. “I’m not sure I can.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think I could bring myself to say aloud some of the words Lydie uses.”
His voice was quiet. “You said some colorful things in the gallery, remember?”
“Yes, but that was when I was…” She hesitated.
“Aroused?”
A passionate fluttering began low in her belly. “Yes.”
A log dropped in the grate, and she looked toward it, feeling strangely mesmerized by the dancing flames.
“Why don’t you turn to your favorite entry,” he said.
Seated on the edge of the bed, she looked up at him. I should not let this go further, she thought. I should ask him to leave. But despite her fears of spoiling everything, she could do nothing but surrender to his will because she wanted him. She wanted this.
She opened the book and flipped through the pages near the start, and began to read aloud.
“Dear Diary,
“Today was my birthday, and Jess gave me a beautiful white stone he had found on a beach when he was a boy. He told me he’d been keeping it all these years just for me, even though we met only six months ago. I will never, ever part with it, Diary. Not as long as I live.
“But that is not all that happened today, for I was very, very wicked, and if Mother and Father knew what I had done, they would surely send me away.
“Tonight, after they went to bed, I locked my door, put the lamp in my window, and waited for Jess to climb inside. We could not speak a word to each other for fear of being caught, but we did not need words, such is the depth of our bond to one another.”
Rebecca stopped reading and glanced up at Devon, who was listening attentively. She cleared her throat to continue.
“I never felt such wild desire and passionate yearnings in my body. My blood raced with need as I looked down at his enormous erection. How I longed to touch it and feel the silky heat in my hand. I sat down on the bed, and he sat beside me.”
Rebecca stopped reading again when Devon slowly sat down beside her.
“Continue,” he said.
Feeling the heat of his muscular thigh touching hers on the bed, she fought her own dizzying desires and swallowed nervously.
“He kissed the side of my neck while he eased me onto my back.”
Devon leaned closer and pressed his open mouth to her neck, just below the line of her jaw. His warm, wet tongue sent gooseflesh tingling down her body, as he suckled downward to the juncture at her shoulder.
She went weak all over, and was powerless to resist the lure of erotic sensation as he laid her
down on the soft mattress. She knew she should not be giving in so easily. This was not how she’d intended to win his heart, but she could not stop herself. She could not.
“Keep reading,” he whispered between kisses as he tasted the base of her throat. Rebecca barely managed to hold the book open in front of her.
“He unbuttoned the top of my nightdress and kissed and fondled my breasts, taking my firm, sensitive nipples into his mouth and sucking greedily upon them, until I was filled with such hunger, it was all I could do to keep from crying out.”
Devon had already begun to unbutton her gown, and quivering as she was with desire, she could not continue to hold the book. She let it fall to the bed and reached up to touch his face. He kissed her mouth, thrusting his tongue inside, then pushed her bodice open and probed with his tongue into her cleavage at the top of her corset. It was all too much. She wanted him so desperately. She could not stop.
“Sit up,” he whispered. “I need to take this off you.” He began to ease her bodice off her shoulders.
She did not argue, for she was floating in the exotic realm of her sexual fantasies, even when she knew she should be thinking about more practical matters—like whether or not this was wise when she wanted a marriage proposal from him.
But she had wanted this for so long, and it wasn’t as if she had just met him this week. He had been living in her heart for four lonely years. She was eager and aching with desire. She could not let go of this.
Soon she was nude from the waist up, feeling no modesty as she lowered herself onto the bed again and inched up onto the pillows.
With dark, mischievous seduction in his eyes, he crawled over her on all fours, then he tasted a nipple, teasing it with his tongue and squeezing it gently between his teeth. He began nuzzling her breasts with his lips and cheeks, tickling her with his hair, dropping wet kisses down the center of her trembling belly until she gasped with delight.
“What happens next?” he asked.
She didn’t have to open the diary because she had every word of that entry memorized. “He removes her gown completely, then takes off all his clothes and mounts her, his body slick with sweat in the summer heat while her heart is racing with excitement and fear, for she’d never felt his shaft between her legs before. She’d only held it in her hands.”
By the time she’d finished describing it, Devon was already unfastening her skirt buttons and untying the tapes of her white split drawers. She raised her hips while he pulled them down and tossed everything to the floor.
She was completely naked now. Her body melted in the excruciating pleasure of all her wild, erotic fantasies coming true.
He slid off the bed and stood to remove all his clothes, too, and when he was nude in the warm, golden light of the fire, Rebecca let her gaze float down to his enormous manhood, standing straight out, thick and long and shocking to her virginal eyes.
She was captivated.
He watched her with some amusement, then smiled knowingly, as if he recognized her fascination. It was a sexual grin, relaxed and full of cool confidence. “You might want to hold it in your hand first, if you want to know what Lydie knows.”
“I do.”
He came to lie beside her again, stretching out on his back, naked and magnificent like a great work of art. It seemed he was laying himself out for her benefit, to allow her time to satisfy her curiosity and explore the secrets of a man’s body. He presented himself to her without modesty.
More than eager to begin her exploration and discovery, she sat up on her knees beside him and wrapped her hand around his erection, which was so much hotter than she’d ever imagined it would be.
She stroked and massaged him in the firelight, then slid her hand lower between his legs to toy with the rest of his tremendous, masculine anatomy, the way Lydie had described doing on so many incredible occasions.
“Please lie on top of me now,” she whispered, brushing her lips lightly over his. “Mount me, like Jess does to Lydie in the book.”
“Honestly, darling,” he said as he rose to the task, “the things that come out of your delicious mouth…”
She lay down with her head on the feathery pillows. He rolled over onto her, massive and heavy, pressing her into the soft mattress. She spread her legs wide and felt the intimate tip of his penis against her hot, waiting core. Sizzling tension filled the air.
“Lydie’s heart begins to race even faster,” she said. “She is terrified, but at the same time overcome by her passions.”
Rebecca ran her hands through Devon’s thick, black hair and shivered with pleasure as he blew gently into her ear. “But her young lover does not take her virginity that night. He does not exert pressure, nor does he push or thrust into the depths of her body.”
Devon went still, then lifted his head. “He doesn’t?”
“No,” she replied. “He simply lies on top of her with the silky tip of his erection poised against her maidenhead, holding her and looking into her eyes with love and affection.”
“For how long?” he asked, sounding rather baffled.
“Until he rolls off her and she rests her head on his shoulder.”
He rose up on one elbow. “Are you sure that’s what it says?”
“Yes. Do you want me to read it to you?”
She could see his chest heaving, as if he were out of breath. “When does he take her virginity?”
“Weeks later, after he vows to make her his wife.”
“Weeks, you say.”
She nodded.
He held his weight on both elbows, propped over her. His hot stomach pulsed upon hers. He said nothing. He merely looked off to the side.
“But you want to make love to me now,” she said in a low, sensual voice, for she was not a fool. She understood what was happening. He had expected more.
He met her gaze. She wiggled her bottom, rubbing gently against the tip of his erection…
He spoke in a raspy growl. “It’s killing me not to. My hips have a mind of their own. They want to push.”
“Then push,” she said, appreciating the consequences of such a remark, knowing she could be ruining everything—herself included—for he had made no promises.
But she wanted what she wanted. She wanted sex—with him—and she wanted it now. She wanted to belong to this man and no other, no matter the consequences.
He did not move. “If I do that, Rebecca—if I take you now—you will belong to me. No other man will ever have you or even look at you the way I look at you. Do you understand?”
Had he been reading her mind? It was exactly what she wanted. Exactly.
“I want no other man,” she told him. “I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”
It was the truth, every single word, and right now, she didn’t care if he married her or not. She didn’t care about what she was running from, only that she was here in his arms. Nothing mattered but the blinding, searing passion in her heart, and the love—was it really love?—in the deepest realms of her soul.
He was breathing hard. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her chest.
Never taking his eyes off hers, he slowly began to exert pressure, but it seemed she would not let him inside. He was too big. She could not possibly accommodate him, even though she wanted to. Lord, how she wanted to.
“Relax and push against me,” he said, “with the muscles inside you.”
She tried to concentrate on the workings of her body while his strength and power over her made her want him all the more. He was a hero, a warrior. He could do anything, and she wanted to give him everything she was as a woman.
She closed her eyes and did as he suggested, pushing until he began to stretch and fill her. It hurt for a moment, and she sucked in a breath. Then a new kind of joy swept through her. The pain gradually diminished. He began driving in and out of her, growling with pleasure just as she’d always imagined he would.
He sank his fingers into the cheeks of her behind, lifting her so
he could compel himself deeper, and she began to grind her hips around, wanting more and more of his triumphant, male form.
He bore down on her again, his body slick with sweat, the rippling sensations of pleasure playing lustily into her depths. The sensations were feverish and intoxicating. Her emotions were spinning and whirling. It was everything she’d imagined it would be.
He whispered close, and she shivered at the touch of his soft lips upon her sensitive lobe, the feel of his hot, humid breath in her ear. “I’m going to come inside you, then you will belong to me. No turning back.”
“Yes.”
He drove in hard and fast, shuddered and groaned, then she felt the hot liquid surge of his climax pour into her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, wanting to tell him she loved him, but she bit back the words because they seemed foolish, even to her. They barely knew each other. She was in love with the romantic fantasy she’d been nurturing all these years.
But it was real now…
Wasn’t it?
He rested on top of her for a time, then rolled onto his back.
“Did I mention you are a very exciting woman?” he said.
“Yes.” She stared up at the ceiling—amazed, bewildered, and terrified. She had just been made love to. By her hero, Devon Sinclair. Her body would never be the same. Nor would her heart, her mind, her life.
He sighed heavily. “I am spent.” He lay quietly for a while, then he turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “Are you all right?”
It was all she could do to manage a nod.
“It always hurts the first time,” he said.
“You didn’t hurt me. It was wonderful. I am fine.”
But was she?
He turned his gaze to the ceiling again. “How long do you think I’ve been here?”
She tried to guess, but time seemed immeasurable. “An hour perhaps?”
“Will your aunt come to check on you?”
“No,” she replied. “But even if she did, the door is locked and she always knocks.”
In My Wildest Fantasies Page 11
