To Distraction (24 page)

He’d wondered how she came and went; the answer was the French door to what he guessed was the morning room. It, too, was unlocked; opening it, she led the way inside.

Phoebe wasn’t surprised when he followed her into the darkened room. She never left lights burning; she knew the house more than well enough to find her way to her chamber in the dark.

What did surprise her—what brought her up short before she’d reached the spot where she’d planned to turn, give him her hand, thank him, and bid him good night—was the sharp click of the lock on the French door.

Halting, she started to turn—and discovered he’d followed much closer, much more swiftly and silently than she’d supposed.

He was behind her, close.

She stilled, and he moved closer yet, one large hand sliding about her waist, gently but definitely trapping her against him.

He bent near; she felt his chest at her back, his thighs bracketing hers as he drew her against him. Felt his fingers brush aside the curls at her nape, then his lips touched, brushed. Closing her eyes, she fought to quell a too-revealing shudder and failed.

Then his voice, deep and dark and sinfully dangerous, brushed over her ear, slid across her senses. “This night is not yet ended…for us.”

He hadn’t forgotten; she’d thought he had.

Every nerve in her body came alive, awoke on a rush of anticipation at the promise of long-desired gratification.

She hesitated, not quite believing the moment had come. “Here?”

Even to her ears the question was purely curious.

His lips cruised her nape. “I’m staying at the club—I can’t take you to my bed there. So…”

He paused, and she waited, breath bated, wondering why she felt as if she’d been captured. Why she felt so deeply thrilled.

His hand shifted across her waist, pressing more firmly; his strength flowed around her, indescribably male, primitively real in the dark.

Then he pressed a hot, wet, open-mouthed kiss to her nape, on her spine, then ordered, his voice gravelly and harsh, “Take me upstairs to yours.”

H
e followed close behind her as she led him up the stairs. Not touching her, yet close enough that her nerves constantly leapt, unstintingly aware of him.

As they stepped into the gallery and she turned to the front of the house, he leaned close and murmured, “Where’s Edith’s room?”

“At the back.” A restless sleeper, her aunt had always preferred the quieter room, but these days Edith invariably drank a tisane on retiring, after which she could be counted on not to stir until morning. By then…

They neared the door to her room.

“Your maid?”

“Asleep.” Skinner didn’t wait up for her on the nights she performed a rescue; her maid needed to be awake and about early the next morning in case there were any unexpected details requiring attention.

As she reached her bedchamber door, an acute awareness
that she was alone with a man in the dead of night, that there was no one near, no one who would hear any scream or moan, swept over her. No one to interfere; no one who would save her. She was even more aware, to her tingling fingertips aware as she reached for the door latch, that the man in question was immensely powerful—strong, masterful, used to his own way—used to seizing what he wanted, and that if he so wished, he could do whatever he wished with her. To her.

And he would.

That was his intent as he followed her through the door.

Why she wasn’t frightened was a mystery; instead she felt a lancing thrill of excitement, of eager anticipation.

Yes,
she’d wanted this, wanted him to want her, and get to the point of taking her, but in the back of her mind a question had lingered: Would she balk at the last moment?

Would her old fears, those fears he’d inadvertently prodded to panicky life but which subsequently he’d been canny enough to circumvent, rise up and prevent her from learning what she so desperately wanted to know, from experiencing all she had thought she never would, even now, even with him?

To her immense relief, the answer seemed to be no.

She halted in the middle of the floor and turned to face him.

He’d closed the door; he walked unhurriedly toward her, looking about, taking in the large four-poster bed with its emerald silk draperies tied back with tasseled cords. The ornate headboard sat against the outer wall; the two windows flanking it looked over the street.

The curtains over both windows were tightly drawn, blocking out even the moonlight; the room was lit only by the flickering glow of a small oil lamp on her dressing table. He glanced around; to her surprise, he seemed to be examining
the furniture. Reaching her side, he pointed to the three three-armed candelabras set about the room, adorning the chest of drawers, one of the bedside tables, and the small Pembroke table she had her breakfast on.

“Light those.”

A frisson of expectation slithered down her spine. A bed, he’d wanted, and light…light so he could see her as he took her. She remembered his tone as he’d said that; the promise in his voice echoed in her mind as she gathered the three candelabras, lit one candle from the lamp, then used it to light all the others.

From behind her came shuffling sounds; grasping two of the candelabras, she turned—to discover he’d moved both bedside tables out so one stood midway down each side of the bed, about three feet away from it.

He gestured to the tables. “Place those there.”

She did. While she returned to fetch the last candelabra, he strode to the Pembroke table.

Her heart was galloping when she raised the candles. Turning, she saw that he’d placed the small rectangular drop-leaf table parallel to the end of the bed.

She approached, the table between them.

He nodded to its polished surface. “Put that there.”

She did, careful not to spill any wax.

As she straightened, he reached over the table and caught her hand. Drew her around the table to him as he turned and surveyed the bed, awash in the golden glow cast by the nine candles. “Perfect.”

Releasing her hand, he slid his arm about her waist, gathered her to him as he looked down and caught her eyes.

Caught her chin on the edge of his other hand and tipped her face up. Let his gaze linger on her features, then again met her eyes. “Now…to my next requirement.”

Her, naked, with not a stitch to hide behind.

The words slid through her mind as he bent his head. Her lids fell.

His lips covered hers, supped, sipped, then his thumb pressed on her chin; he opened her mouth and swept in.

And simply took—as he wished, as she wanted.

He demanded and she gave, he commanded and she yielded—gladly, willingly, eagerly. It was a game, one she’d learned, one he’d taught her—one she was desperately keen to play. One that gave her all she needed, and promised even more.

Then he drew back and looked down. “Take off your bodice.”

Without a blink she set her fingers to the tiny buttons closing the long-sleeved bodice, separate from the skirt, very ready to shed the already-too-tight garment; her breasts had firmed even though he’d yet to caress them, already hot and aching for his touch. While she worked her way down the long row of buttons, he filled his hands with her bottom and molded her against him, shifting against her in a flagrantly suggestive way, cradling the hard length of his erection against her soft belly.

Then her bodice was open; she swiftly shrugged it off—but with a gasp stopped halfway, her arms still entangled, her head arching back as he lifted her against him, boldly licked one furled nipple through her chemise, then having dampened the material, swirled his tongue around the aching peak, closed his mouth around it, and suckled. Hard.

She shrieked—managed to swallow the worst of the sound, but then he transferred his attention to her other breast, and she moaned.

He stripped the bodice from her arms, let it fall. Immeasurably grateful, she raised her arms, sank her hands into his hair, and clutched him to her as with lips and tongue he feasted—and gave her her fill.

Until she burned.

His hands had continued to knead her bottom, sending waves of sensation surging deep within her. Building, growing, a burgeoning need.

Then his grip eased and he let her slide down until her feet touched the floor.

He raised his head, and she realized his breathing was ragged—nearly as ragged as hers. “Your skirt and petticoats—take them off.”

As much a growled plea as an order; her fingers were at her waist, flicking the ties undone, before she’d thought.

Instinctively she understood.
Her, naked,
was something he wanted her to give him—to gift to him. In return for the pleasure she knew awaited her in his arms, it was a gift she was more than willing to bestow.

Her skirts and petticoats hit the floor, and his hands were on her. His lips claimed hers again, and this time it was different—this time he wasn’t anywhere near as in control; this time he tasted dangerous.

Wonderfully, powerfully alive—wholly male, wholly driven. By desire, for her, for her body, to take it, claim it, possess it. To make her, and it, his.

All his. Every inch, every nerve. Every leaping pulse.

Every gasp, every moan he wrung from her.

She clasped his face between her hands and kissed him back. As wanton as he was flagrant, as abandoned as he was masterful.

As giving as he was demanding.

As yielding as he wished.

As she wanted.

For oh, she wanted this—the fire, the passion, the heady desire, the uninhibited whirling of her senses.

The heat, the flames that licked, then roared, the molten fire in her veins.

And he was with her this time, not an observer of her pleasure but a wholly engaged participant—and she rejoiced. Exulted in the hard grip of his hands as he held her, the unslaked lust that edged every caress, the desire that burned and turned his body to hot iron, unforgiving and searing, the hunger—urgent and needful—that drove every ravenous kiss, every greedy, grasping touch.

It was she who abruptly caught her breath, broke the kiss and pushed back from him—so she could grasp the hem of her chemise and strip it off over her head.

His hands closed about her and he hauled her against him before the silk left her fingers. She gasped at the contact of bare skin to clothes, then his lips came down on hers and he drank her cry as his fingers squeezed tight about one furled nipple.

She arched in his arms, the movement shifting her sensitized skin against his clothing, abrading thousands of nerve endings alive and flickering beneath her flushed skin. His hand left her breast and possessively roamed, over her waist, her belly, to her curls. He speared his fingers through them, then pressed one hard leg between her thighs, forcing them apart; his fingers slid between, found the flesh he sought already slick and swollen. He cupped her, and thrust first one, then two fingers deep.

Nails digging into his biceps, she hung on as he worked his fingers within her, then withdrew and returned, again and again, pushing her on, harder, faster, more ruthlessly than before.

She couldn’t catch her breath, physical or sensual, couldn’t stand against the fiery tide he called up and sent raging through her.

He pressed deep and she shattered, came apart in his arms, her cry muffled by his lips.

For long giddy moments all she knew was sensation, and
the reassuring strength that held her, surrounded her, lifted her….

He laid her on her sheets, the covers discarded, trailing over the end of the bed, her head on her pillows, her hair tumbling down to spread like dark red flames around her head. Her limbs he arranged in a feminine sprawl, one more revealing than she would have chosen, her arms out from her sides, leaving her breasts exposed, legs flat to the sheets but with one knee bent to the side…she blushed when she realized that he was looking at her, examining her as he stood at the end of the bed, toeing off his shoes, stripping off his clothes.

The candles bathed her in golden light, but it was his gaze that kept her warm.

That heated her through, and gave her the courage to lie there, wantonly asprawl, and let him look his fill.

The urgency investing his every movement filled her with a sense of awe—that she, her body, his desire for her, his need to possess it—could affect him, the highly controlled, usually so contained, ruthless and powerful gentleman to such an extent.

To the point that his hands shook as he lowered them to the buttons at his waist.

Lifting her gaze over his ridged abdomen, over the sculpted planes of his chest, lightly laced with crinkly black hair, over the breadth of his heavily muscled shoulders and upper arms, the strong tendons in his throat, she reached his face—and saw…a ruthless intensity that should have sent her fleeing.

That should have shaken her to the core, frightened her, pricked her old fears to new heights…yet didn’t.

His gaze was on her body, wholly absorbed, wholly focused and intent.

The sight of his face, of the stark, unforgiving intent to
possess that was etched so clearly in the patrician planes, struck her like a blow to the chest—to her heart.

His trousers hit the floor; he stood naked before her.

She didn’t let her gaze drift down. Instead, when his gaze rose and collided with hers, all fire and passion and need, she raised her arms, opened them to him—offered her body and herself to him.

His eyes narrowed for a second, drinking in her surrender yet knowing it wasn’t. That it was more, something other, something else.

Something he was powerless to resist.

He knelt on the bed, crawled, a large prowling beast, the short distance to her. With one hand, he rearranged her legs, spreading them apart; he came up between, one arm bracing alongside her shoulder taking his weight as he fitted his hips between her widespread thighs.

As he reached between them and set the broad head of his erection to her entrance. He nudged a fraction in, then removed his hand, planting that palm on the other side of her. Caging her. Holding himself above her as he slowly thrust into her.

Watching her.

As he eased inside her and her body stretched, adjusted—as her lungs tightened, her eyes widened…

He swooped, bent his head and captured her lips—and heat exploded within her all over again.

He knew exactly how to call forth her fire, how to make her writhe and burn beneath him. How to make her yearn, and gasp, and want. To make her arch and demand—

He thrust deep—one powerful flex of his spine and he impaled her.

Pain struck like lightning, searing her. Her muscles clenched; she remained arched, head back, eyes closed,
gasping, her fingers locked on his upper arms. Her body all his, offered and now taken, claimed irrefutably….

The pain faded.

He drew back from the kiss, just far enough to be able to focus on her eyes. His breath harsh and sawing bathed her lips as she forced her lids up and met his gaze.

Greener, darker, burning.

“Are you all right?”

His tone was steady, even, but the words were so gravelly she took a moment to make them out.

Took another moment to consider her answer. To register the feel of him, hot and hard buried so deeply within her, so foreign, so indisputably male, so strangely welcome. To register the weight of him holding her down, his hips pinning hers to the bed.

To realize she was safe and…that pleasure beckoned.

She met his gaze, licked her lips, then looked at his. “Yes.”

It was the last word she uttered for some considerable time.

He’d said he would teach her and he did; he taught her more than she’d imagined there was to learn about the pleasure she could find in a man’s arms.

In his arms.

Her mind made the correction instinctively; she didn’t question its rightness. Instead she devoted herself, her mind, her senses, her body to his lessons.

To the heat and the slick dampness of their joining, to the play of their bodies one against the other, to the tantalizing brush of skin against skin—hers silken soft, his harder and hair-dusted, more abrasive over flesh that was also harder, heavier—his body impressed itself on hers in myriad sensual ways.