50 Ways to Ruin a Rake (20 page)

“What should I do?” she asked. “Show me.”

He opened his eyes. Her expression was earnest, and her breasts were swinging near his left hand. So with one hand, he filled his palm with her breast. With his other, he took her fingers and wrapped them around his girth.

Oh God. Everything about it was wonderful. Her tiny hand in his as he showed her what to do. And all the while, her full, soft breast there for his enjoyment.

He began to thrust in her palm. He didn't stop it, though he tried to go slow. He wanted this moment to last forever. He let his own hand fall away from around hers, hoping that the release in pressure would make it last longer. But she had learned quickly. She squeezed him just right and even picked up the pace.

Or maybe he was the one thrusting like a beast. Hard and fast. A quake had begun at the base of his spine, clawing upward no matter how much he tried to slow its progress.

And then he felt her lean down right next to his ear and whisper something. Three words that had more than his body exploding.

“I love you.”

Rakes are afraid of feelings. Never admit to having any.

Mellie watched as Trevor's eyes widened in surprise. She heard his breath catch, and then the pleasure hit him. The biologist in her was fascinated by the ripple of his flat belly, the thrust of his hips, and his powerful ejaculation. The woman in her wondered at his panicked expression when she'd told him she loved him. Was he horrified by the thought? Or was she misreading an expression that might be a simple grimace brought on by his release?

She started to pull away, but he gripped her wrist, holding her close. His body was still quivering. His eyes locked on hers, but he clearly didn't have the breath to speak. So she waited, and she watched, mentally cataloging every minute movement of his body. She told herself it was for her scientific studies. After all, she'd never seen a man ejaculate before. This was an important piece of her education. But a tiny part of her realized that she was running away from the shock of her impetuous revelation. She'd only just now realized her feelings. She hadn't intended to tell him about them tonight. Perhaps not ever. And yet somehow, the words had just tumbled out.

And now… Now he was catching his breath and drawing her hand up to his mouth to press a long kiss to her knuckles. It was nice, surely, but what did it mean? She wanted to ask, but her mouth was frozen shut.

“Mellie,” he breathed. “God, you're amazing.”

Well, that was good, she supposed. But he didn't say more. Instead, he rooted one-handed into his undone pants and pulled out a handkerchief. He cleaned himself up with quick, efficient strokes all while keeping a tight grip on her with his other hand. She tried to judge his expression, but his eyes were on his task, and his face gave nothing away.

Then he was done. He pushed up to a seated position and tucked himself away. She made to get off the bed, but he still wouldn't release her. And the longer it took for him to speak, the more her emotions seemed to whither inside her. They became tinier and colder until she thought her entire chest would freeze.

“Mellie, have you ever experienced orgasm with anyone else? Alone even?”

“You know I haven't,” she said, her voice tight. How could he ask that when she'd just told him she loved him?

He nodded as if she'd confirmed exactly what he'd suspected. “Biology carries emotions with it as well. And an orgasm brings intense emotions. When I was a teen, I fell in love with a whore my father had given me for my seventeenth birthday.”

She blinked. “Your father gave you a whore?”

“I suppose she was more like a mistress. I had her for a month, and she taught me everything, even things I'm not sure I wanted to know. She pleased me in every way possible. Not just in the bedroom, but we talked about everything. She really listened to me, and that was such a rare thing in my life.” He shrugged. “She even pretended to a fascination with beetles.”

“So you loved her.”

“I was seventeen. Of course I loved her. With every fiber of my soul. I was going to marry her. Even bought a ring.”

She glanced down at the cricket ring on her finger and tried not to think about a teenaged Trevor giving something that special to a whore. “What happened?” she asked, dreading to hear the answer.

“My month was over. I went to the house where she lived and found my father there instead. He was furious with me.”

“You told him your intentions?”

“Didn't have to. She'd told him herself. Said that she'd run off with me if he didn't pay her to leave me alone.”

Oh dear.

“Five thousand pounds.”

A fortune.

“She left for the Continent that very day.”

Mellie realized that Trevor would never have let her go. Not sent away by his father without a word to him. He was too determined and methodical in his passions. It was part of what made him a good scientist. “You must have followed her.”

He nodded, and she now saw how his lips were tight, and his gaze had canted away from her. Was he ashamed? He'd been a boy. She used her free hand and gently touched his face. Eventually, he looked back at her. “What happened when you found her?”

He swallowed. “She was with her true love. A footman in my father's household. They were taking my father's money and starting a new life somewhere else. And with five thousand pounds, they could live quite nicely. For a time.”

She heard the bitterness in his tone. She didn't truly understand finances. Not like her uncle did. She knew that five thousand pounds was a good beginning, but not enough for a lifetime. Not without proper management. Which meant that eventually the money would have run out.

“Oh Trevor, did she come back?”

He squeezed her hand, and she was startled to see how severe his expression had become.

“You don't have to tell me,” she began, but he shook his head.

“I truly haven't thought about this in years. It shouldn't pain me at all.”

But it did. How could it not? “She was your first love. Of course it still pains you.”

He looked up, his expression rueful. “First love? Goodness, no. Well, yes in that it was so intense, and I had been so sure. But Mellie, I'm a man who falls in and out of love relatively easily. By the time I'd met Francesca, I'd already loved half a dozen girls at school.”

“Did you propose to them?”

“I certainly thought about it.”

So he made a habit of this, then. Proposing to girls and not carrying through. In and out of love, and none of it real. Her hand went slack in his, but he continued to grip her as he finished his sad tale.

“Frannie came back a year later. She begged forgiveness, spouting a sad tale of woe.”

“You didn't believe her.” It wasn't a question. She could see in his face that he knew the woman had been lying.

“Honestly, I'm not sure. She certainly regretted life with a footman who couldn't support her as well as life as a courtesan. But it didn't matter.”

“Because you didn't love her?”

He looked her dead in the eye. “Because my affections had moved on. Because I'd learned by then that my heart is a fickle, uncertain thing. And by the time she came back, I couldn't fully understand what I'd seen in her in the first place.”

She narrowed her eyes, watching the tiny shifts in his body. A month ago, she wouldn't have seen it. Truthfully, she wasn't entirely certain now. But the tightness of his shoulders, the studied casualness of his gestures—all of it indicated a lie. When Trevor was in the depths of science, his body was focused and economical. He moved exactly as he needed to and no more. When he was with her in dalliance or even dancing, there was a simplicity to his body. His gestures were fluid, but still with a coordinated purpose. It was only when he lied that his body seemed to disconnect. His torso tightened, but his hands fidgeted. His mouth and jaw moved when he spoke, but his head was statue still.

“You still love her,” she guessed.

His eyes widened in horror. “God no!”

Well, that was certainly emphatic. “But something about her appeals to you. Something makes her betrayal still hurt.” She touched him. Their fingers were still entwined, but this time she touched his chin and forced her to look directly at him. “Don't lie to me, Trevor. I couldn't bear it.”

His eyes softened, and she saw a flash of regret even as his words came out firm and painfully clear. “The truth is that there is a strong correlation between the body and the emotions. Surely as a scientist you understand that.”

“That's not love,” she said, though in her heart she wondered. And damn him, he knew just how to make her completely uncertain.

“Are you sure? I was sure when I was seventeen. And before that when I was sixteen. And before that—”

“I'm not a child.”

“But you are young in this.”

He was right. She knew he was, but inside, everything felt like it was calcifying to chalk. She felt white and hollow and so very brittle. “You loved her,” she whispered. But the truth was, she wondered. And she might as easily have said, I loved you, but now, I'm not so sure.

“I
remember
her,” he said clearly. And then his voice roughened as he released her and reached for his shirt. “As you will remember me.”

Her gaze shot to his, but she only caught the side of his face as he began to dress. He wasn't leaving her now? He wasn't abandoning her—

“We have a plan, Mellie,” he continued. “We shouldn't abandon it because of…of…”

Love? Biology? What?

He turned to look at her. “Of feelings that will pass.”

She shook her head trying to deny everything that he said, but she couldn't. It was too well reasoned. “What if they don't pass?”

“They will.” He took a deep breath. “You need to touch yourself, Mellie. You need to feel these things when I am not around. You'll see that it's just as intense when it has nothing to do with me.”

His eyes were steady when he spoke, but his hands were jerky and disconnected as he buttoned his shirt. He stood awkwardly beside the bed even as his words came out with scientific precision.

“Will you do that, Mellie? Will you…explore by yourself?”

The very idea repulsed her. Do these things without him? She couldn't. And yet she still found herself nodding. If he wanted it, then she would try. She had to find out if it was true. Would she feel the same things when alone?

“We need to get you home, Mellie. Soon. But if you want to…” His voice broke, and he had to clear his throat before he continued. “If you want to explore on your own, I can step into the other room and wait—”

“No!” she gasped when she realized his meaning. Did he truly want her to do it
now
? With him on the other side of the wall?

“It's a simple biological process, Mellie.”

So he kept saying. But if she were to do as she'd promised, she would do it somewhere else. In secret. Sometime when she didn't feel so utterly wretched. So she reached for her corset. She thought her chemise or gown might be destroyed. There had to be some outward reflection of the way she felt. But everything appeared fine. Crushed, perhaps, but nothing that couldn't easily be set to rights.

“I'll just be a moment,” she whispered.

He sketched a quick bow. “I'll find us a hackney. There's a lady's cloak in the hallway that you should use.”

“Whose is it?”

His cheeks flushed slightly, and he shrugged. “This is a bachelor household, Mellie. It's there for general use.”

For ladies who wanted to leave anonymously. Of course.

Meanwhile, he pulled on his coat. “I'll just be a moment.”

And then he was gone.

* * *

Trevor was shaking as he hailed a hackney. The depth of his perfidy was overwhelming him. To suggest, even by implication, that what he shared with Mellie was nothing more than sheer biology was like calling the Bodleian Library nothing more than a place where some scholars kept a few books. The scale was completely wrong, and the feeling was totally absent. Every moment with Mellie blazed in his mind as a nearly reverent time. What they had shared tonight was as holy to him as the library was to the Oxford dons who maintained it. And he had just pretended that she was no more to him than a fuck with a good whore.

He was nearly sick from his own lies. But what made it so much worse was the knowledge that he hadn't lied to her. He had spent a decade learning the joys of physical release. He knew how special Mellie was. But she was an innocent before their time together. Of course she would whisper that she loved him. Of course the feelings were beyond intense. Such was the nature of first times.

But he couldn't lie and suggest that what she felt was real. What she felt was sexual for the first time in her life. And that was so easily confused with love.

So he had done the honorable thing. He had explained as clearly as possible what was happening, and he had left her alone rather than ravish her, as he desperately wanted to do. And now, he would take her home.

He found a hackney quickly enough. It was the time of night for sordid liaisons to end and light skirts to be sent home. That anyone might class Mellie as that kind of woman made him ill. That he was the one who had done this to her made it even worse.

So he was grim-faced when he went back upstairs. He said nothing as he settled the cloak about her head and shoulders. And he was as courtly as he could possibly manage as he helped her into the carriage and slipped into the dark beside her.

She said nothing and try as he might, he couldn't find a way to break the silence. Every conversational gambit he thought of sounded stupid or insulting. So he remained silent. He didn't even touch her, though God knew he wanted to. But he didn't want to offer her more of an insult, so he stayed away. And in his head, he flayed himself alive for being a bastard.

Twenty minutes later, he discovered that he needn't have castigated himself so hard since Eleanor was more than happy to do it for him.

She'd been waiting up, even sending Seelye to bed so that she could open the door herself when he and Mellie knocked. She pulled open the door, gestured them inside, and quietly shut it behind them. Then she turned on him like a distempered rabbit.

“Did you violate her? Don't you dare think of lying to me, Trevor. Did you touch her? How could you do this? Damn it, everything played out exactly as it ought. A little faster than we planned, but perhaps, that's for the best. It all falls wrong if you touched her. All of it destroyed, Trevor, and I will never forgive you for it.”

He had no answer, no way to mitigate the righteous fury in her eyes. So he stood there mute in his misery. It was Mellie—generous, sweet,
innocent
Mellie—who came to his rescue.

“Nothing has happened, Eleanor. Trevor was simply upset, and we walked. I'm used to living in the country, you know. It's the easiest way to talk—on a long, quiet walk.”