“No.” He dropped the manuscript pages on her desk and gave her a grin in return. “A romantic rendezvous.”
By four o’clock, Sebastian had conjured at least a dozen different erotic scenarios involving Daisy Merrick. For days, he had been both tormented and inspired by memories of the kiss they shared, but today, he intended to make a new memory and find new inspirations.
She came into the folly out of breath, as if she’d been running, her eyes sparkling with excitement, and her hair already down in a tumble of curls around her shoulders. Sebastian’s throat went dry at the sight of her, for he knew she felt the same anticipation he did, the same hunger, the same need that was in him.
“Were the pages all right?” he asked as she paused just inside the doorway.
“Yes. I thought you did an excellent job. Do you—” she broke off, taking a deep breath. “Do you want to talk about it now?”
“No.” He had no intention of wasting any of the precious time they had now on things they could talk about later. “I have a new rule.”
“Yes,” she answered in a steady voice. “I thought you might.”
“Close the door, Daisy. Best to lock it, too.”
He saw her eyes widen, but she complied, and the heavy wooden door swung shut. The sound ricocheted around the stone walls and the dome overhead. The bolt rattled, her fingers fumbling to shoot it across the latch. She clicked the bolt into place, turned around, and started toward him. “What is the new rule?”
Her voice, he noticed, wasn’t quite so steady now. He shouldn’t do this, he reminded himself as she approached him. No, he added with a glance down the length of her slender body, he really shouldn’t. But he was going to. He just had to remember to keep his head. He brought his gaze back to hers. “You have to kiss me in your underclothes.”
She stopped, still about a dozen feet away from where he stood, shock washing over her face. “I can’t do that!”
“Yes, you can. It’s rule number two.”
She gave a tiny shake of her head as she lifted her hand to her throat. “It’s not decent!” she whispered, fingering the button hidden beneath her blue silk collar ribbon.
“In your underclothes, Daisy.”
Her cheeks were rosy pink. “But it’s daylight!”
He decided now was not a good time to tell her people did all sorts of indecent things in daylight. “Rules are rules.”
Their gazes locked. He knew he was pushing her beyond what her much more innocent mind had been envisioning, but he could not bear to relent. He wanted this too much. He needed it too much.
Under his unwavering gaze, she pulled at her collar ribbon, untying it. She got as far as the first two buttons of her shirtwaist, but then she stopped. “Oh, heavens,” she mumbled and gave it up, looking away with a laugh he suspected stemmed not from humor but from nerves. “I can’t do this.”
“If you don’t want to do it, then you should leave now.” Even as he spoke, he was cursing himself for his sudden bout of chivalry. He counted the silence—one, two, three seconds, but she did not move to go.
“Do you want to do this, Daisy?”
She didn’t look at him. “Yes,” she answered, her voice so low he almost didn’t hear it. She lifted her hands to the third button of her shirtwaist, but her hands began to shake as she tried to unfasten it.
“Let me help you.” With a few quick strides, he was standing in front of her. As she let her hands fall to her sides, he pushed her hair back from her shoulders, then he began slipping her buttons free, one by one. She made a restless movement and closed her eyes, clearly agitated by what he was doing, but she did not stop him. As her shirtwaist opened, revealing the lace, nainsook, and ribbon of her corset cover, desire began overtaking him in a thick, hot wave. By the time his hands reached the belt at her waist, he was so aroused, he could barely breathe.
She was breathing hard enough for both of them, he noticed, quick little huffs between her parted lips, her face turned away, her cheeks suffused with color, her eyes shut tight. He didn’t know if her reaction stemmed from arousal or fear. Probably both, he concluded, but it didn’t stop him. He unfastened her belt and let it drop to the stone floor, then he pulled her shirtwaist free of her waistband and slid the garment from her shoulders.
The sight of her this way was intoxicating. The late afternoon sunshine reflected off the aged limestone walls, giving the room a soft, golden glow. In this light, her hair seemed incandescent, each strand a glint of brilliant fire. Her shoulders dotted with freckles, her demure white undergarments, the shape of her small, sweet breasts—all of these beckoned to the lust inside him, deepening it, spreading it through his limbs.
He leaned down, and the warmth of her radiated to him as he breathed in her delicate, flowery scent. And then he moved one inch closer and touched his mouth to the crest of her breast above the narrow edge of lace, and the feel of her bare skin against his mouth brought a pleasure so great that he groaned aloud.
She felt it, too, for her body stirred in response to the touch of his mouth. “Oh, no, oh, no,” she moaned softly, her hands flattening against his shirt as if to push him away, even as she tilted her head back. “We shouldn’t be doing this. I’m sure we shouldn’t!”
He was sure of that, too, but he had no intention of stopping. He’d worked too damned hard to get here to call a halt now. His lips pressed to the rounded swell of her breast, he slid his hand beneath her underclothes, and within the tight confines of her corset, his fingers brushed across her turgid nipple.
That was a touch too much for Daisy’s already strained virginal sensibilities. With a cry, she cupped his chin and grasped his wrist and shoved him away, then she turned as if to flee.
“Don’t go.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “Don’t go, Daisy. I haven’t had my kiss yet.”
“Yes, you have.” She jabbed one finger toward her chest. “You kissed me right there!”
He made a sound of dissent and pressed his lips to her shoulder beside the ruffled edge of her corset cover. “That wasn’t a kiss.”
“It was, it was,” she wailed softly, her fingers closing in agitation around his forearm. “You kissed my…my…” Seeming too flustered to voice specifics, she amended, “You’ve kissed me in my undergarments. Now you have to let me go. Oh, don’t!”
She jerked as he tasted her skin with his tongue. He could feel her embarrassment and her agitation giving way to panic, and he tried in desperation to think how to keep her here and prolong this moment. “That was not a kiss. A kiss is lips to lips.”
“All right then.” She turned in his arms, so abruptly he had no chance to react, and rose up on her toes, touching her mouth to his. It was over before he could even appreciate it had happened at all, and then, she was ducking under his arm and bending to snatch up her shirtwaist and belt from the floor. “Now we’re done.”
“No, we’re not.” Once again, he hauled her back. “Even if that was a kiss—and it was so quick, I can’t really be sure—it was with you down to only half your underclothes. I think the skirt has to come off for it to count.”
He reached for the button of her skirt, and she suddenly stopped struggling. Her slim body went still, her back against his chest, her body rigid in his arms. “C’mon, Daisy,” he coaxed, nuzzling her ear. “You wanted this, too. Remember?”
She did not relax, and though it took everything he had, Sebastian forced himself to give her the choice. He loosened his embrace enough that she could step out of his arms.
She didn’t. She remained where she was, though he could feel her quivering in his light hold. Slowly, ever so slowly, he bent down, turned his head, and kissed the side of her neck. The tendons there were as taut as harp strings against his mouth, but she did not break free.
Deciding not to push his luck, he gave up on the notion of taking off her skirt. Instead, he gently tightened his arm around her, easing her body closer to his own, until her buttocks we
re pressed against his thighs and the undersides of her breasts brushed his forearm.
Sebastian closed his eyes, breathing in the radiant heat and fragrance of her. Her hair tickled his cheek as he kissed her ear. He felt the quivers that ran through her in response, and when he flicked his tongue against her earlobe, they intensified, until she was shivering in his arms.
He turned his hand to cup her breast, and made a sound of appreciation at the round, perfect shape of it against his palm. Any attempt to get her out of her corset would probably cause her to bolt, so Sebastian forced himself to be content with caressing her breast through her underclothes.
Gently, still kissing her neck and caressing her breast, he turned their bodies to the nearest wall. Then, one arm cupping her breast, he used his free hand to begin gathering up her skirt and petticoat, working to get his hand beneath them.
She made a faint sound and stirred. “This isn’t in the rules.”
It ought to be, in his opinion. But he knew what he was doing was far beyond the scope of any agreements or rules they had made. Nonetheless, he was driven to press on, driven by a force she did not yet understand. She soon would, he knew. Before they left this room, he wanted her to long for more, just as he did. “I’ll stop in time,” he promised, drawing her skirts higher. “Trust me.”
That, he thought with a wry hint of humor, had to be the most clichéd, overused phrase mankind had ever used on womankind, but his body was on fire, his wits were slipping, and a trite, overused cliché was the best he could manage just now.
He dipped at the knees, pressing his groin to her buttocks, and when she moved against him in response, the pleasure of it was so great, it threatened to knock him off his feet and break the promise he’d just made.
Lust was roaring through his body. He was rock hard and aching, and he wanted to pull her down to the floor, take her here and now, just this way, with both of them on their knees, but he couldn’t. He’d just told her to trust him, for God’s sake. Besides, he hadn’t brought any of the usual protections. And she was an innocent, hardly the sort to be ravished from behind on a stone floor. He had to be satisfied with pleasuring her.
Kissing her all along the curve of her neck and shoulder, he worked to get his hand underneath her skirts. He lifted them, jamming layers of blue wool and white muslin between their bodies, then he slid his hand beneath her buttocks, eased it slowly between her thighs, and cupped her mound through her damp knickers.
She cried out, her body jerking sharply with the sensation. She leaned forward as if to escape, but there was nowhere to go, and her hands splayed against the wall. She turned her head, pressing her flushed cheek to the stone, and moaned a few unintelligible words.
It sounded like his name and something about the daylight, but he had no intention of stopping for that sort of nonsense, not now, not when her body was moving in response to his touch. She was close, so close, to the bliss. Nothing would make him stop until he’d given her that.
He rocked his hand back and forth, using the friction of her damp knickers to arouse her further, take her higher. She was panting now, soft pants of desire and distress.
He could hear his own voice in response, a whisper harsh with the strain of keeping his own desire in check. “It’s all right,” he said, trying to both arouse and reassure her. “It’s all right, petal. This is what you’re supposed to feel. Just let it happen.”
Even as he spoke, he felt her hips pumping faster, moving against his hand in awkward, frantic little jerks as she strove toward what she didn’t even know was coming. Watching her, he suddenly wished he could turn her around, for her face was only in profile to him, her flushed cheek pressed to the smooth, cool limestone, but he couldn’t stop to change their position now without ruining the moment entirely. He contented himself with the sight of her flushed cheek and all its pretty freckles and the riot of red curls that fell behind her ear, and even though he could only see the pleasure in half her face, when she finally came, it was still the sweetest thing he had ever seen in his life.
She collapsed against the wall, panting, but he waited for the last convulsive waves of her climax to stop before he withdrew his hand. He lowered her skirts, smoothing them back into place, striving not to think about the painful, aching need in his own body. He turned her around so that he could see her entire face, and when she opened her eyes to look at him, there was such wonder in her expression that Sebastian’s chest went tight, and he felt a jolt of pleasure as intense as any sexual climax he’d ever experienced.
He tucked a loose tendril of her hair behind her ear and forced himself to let her go. “Now that,” he said as he stepped back, “was the sort of kissing I had in mind.”
That was not kissing. Daisy didn’t know what had just happened to her, but she knew even the passionate kiss they’d shared in the maze, as wonderful as it had been, could not compare to this.
She stared up at Sebastian, stunned by the whirlwind of sensations she had just experienced. She still tingled even though he was no longer touching her. The sounds that had issued from her own throat still echoed in her ears, though the room was silent.
Sebastian turned away to retrieve the clothing he’d removed from her body earlier. A lifetime ago, it seemed. When he brought her things to her, she felt in no hurry to don them. Her earlier shyness was utterly gone. After what had happened, it didn’t seem to matter much that she was standing half dressed before him in a light-filled room.
Her body was charged with euphoria, and yet filled with an odd lethargy. Part of her wanted nothing but to slide her arms around his neck and kiss him and linger here as long as possible, but Sebastian did not seem to share her desire to tarry. He assisted her into her shirtwaist and started to button the garment for her, but then he stopped and drew a deep breath. “I think you’d better do this part yourself,” he said, his hands sliding away. “I don’t think I can manage it just now.”
He didn’t explain further, but his voice was hoarse, strained. As he turned away, she happened to glance down, and when she noticed the hard bulge against his trousers, realization suddenly penetrated her dazed senses. “Are you all right?”
A caustic chuckle echoed through the room. “Not at the moment, no,” he told her over his shoulder as he walked away. “But I’ll survive.”
Silence fell between them as Daisy finished dressing, and it wasn’t until she walked to where he had paused by the door that either of them spoke.
“You should go back first,” he said. “And in case my aunt or anyone else happens to encounter you along the way, you’re just out for an afternoon stroll in the grounds. Try to act as if nothing’s happened.”
Daisy feared that was going to be impossible. After the extraordinary events of this afternoon, she feared she would never be the same again.
Chapter 16
Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
William Blake
The following morning, she found out he was gone. Unexpected business in London, Lady Mathilda told her at breakfast, but Daisy suspected it had more to do with what had happened the day before than any business he might need to transact in town.
Lady Mathilda was watching her as she imparted the news of her nephew’s departure, and Daisy felt impelled to follow Sebastian’s advice. She worked to maintain an indifferent expression, but she was no good at this sort of thing, and Lady Mathilda saw through her at once.
“It’s disappointing, I daresay,” the elderly woman said, “but you needn’t look like a puppy that wasn’t taken for a walk, my dear.”
Daisy took a sip of her morning tea and hastily invented an excuse for the disappointment Mathilda had seen on her face. “I had wanted his lordship to read some of my new chapters, and give me his opinion,” she said, striving for a brisk, businesslike tone. “I fear I shall have to carry on alone and hope I’m taking my story in the proper direction.”
Mathilda let it go at that, but Daisy f
elt the older woman’s shrewd blue gaze watching her through the remainder of the meal, and she suspected her explanation had been about as believable as Jules Verne’s stories of rocket ships to the moon. Beneath such scrutiny, memories of the previous afternoon insisted upon running through her mind, making her feel as if she had an enormous scarlet A on her chest. She escaped the breakfast table as quickly as possible and closeted herself in the library, determined to set aside such wayward distractions and work.
But again, despite her best intentions, work proved impossible. Memories of the things Sebastian had done to her kept flashing through her mind. The feel of his hard body pressing hers to the wall, of his low voice murmuring in her ear, of the extraordinary way he had touched her, continued to plague her.
She leaned back in her chair with a sigh. Her hands fell away from her typewriter and she looked across the two desks to the empty chair opposite her. For weeks, they had been in here together every day, and it seemed so strange to not see him seated across from her, to not hear the rapid click-clack of his typewriting machine. He had taken his Crandall with him, and that ought to have consoled her, for at least he intended to work while he was away. But Daisy stared at his empty chair, and she did not feel consoled. In truth, she felt utterly bereft.
London in August was about as exciting as a Latin lecture. Parliament had long since adjourned, the season was over, and everyone remotely interesting was either at Torquay, Nice, or someone’s country house. Sebastian, who had come to town hoping for distraction, remembered only after his arrival just how boring his homeland’s largest city could be at this time of year.
It wasn’t as if he’d done much in the way of thinking prior to his departure from Avermore. That afternoon with Daisy in the folly had haunted him throughout the night, leaving him unable to sleep. He’d lain in bed, torturing himself with memories of the erotic episode and imagining any number of variations on that particular theme. Desperate, knowing her to be lying in a bed only a few doors from his own, he’d gone down to the library and attempted to work. But that, too, had failed, for even with two floors between them, he was still too close to temptation.
With Seduction in Mind Page 20
