A Lady's Guide to Rakes (17 page)

Her head was spinning furiously now, and Meredith knew, if she did not seek out her bed soon, she would be too dizzy and disoriented to make it to her chamber at all.

“Do forgive me, Lord Lansing. I don’t know what has come over me. I am so tired, I find I must retire for the evening.”

She glanced up at her aunts, who were watching her almost expectantly.

“I shall assist you, dear.” Aunt Viola helped Meredith from her chair. La, her legs felt weighted, though her head seemed to float somewhere near the vaulted ceiling.

As her aunt led her through the parlor door, Meredith glanced back at Alexander, who was patting his cheeks and laughing.

“Can’t feel them.” He looked up at Letitia. “Go ahead, give them a good hard smack. I vow, it’s the oddest thing, but I won’t feel a thing.”

Then.she saw her aunts’ expressions change from concerned frowns to pleased grins.

Heavens above. What had they done?

———

Slam!

Meredith awoke from a very deep sleep to see a large dark shape break from the shadows of the door. Her heart began to pound. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no sound. None at all.

Then she realized why. Of course. She was dreaming. And it was one of
those
dreams. The sort where if she crawled out of bed, she’d just find herself wallowing slowly through space as if she were drowning in a hogshead of molasses.

She was still groggy as she slid up against the headboard to await the arrival of whatever it was stalking closer. She pulled the coverlet over her head, then lowered it just enough to peer over.

The shape grew larger as it drew up beside her bedstead.

Just a dream. Just a ridiculous dream,
she chanted inside her head, even as her breath came faster and faster.

The coverlet moved. It was being pulled back.

Something heavy pressed down on the mattress beside her.

Oh God, the
thing
was in the bed with her. The blood pumping through her inner ears drowned out all other sound. Her legs shook madly.

Just a dream! Just a dream!

A hand, a man’s hand, touched her face gently. She stilled at once.

Wait. She knew that touch. Knew that slightly musky, manly French scent.

Her heart slowed and her legs quivered beneath the covers as she realized who’d joined her in bed… in her dream.

“Darling?”
came a low, heady voice.

Alexander.

A rake will take advantage of confusion, then act.

After a few attempts at speaking, which resembled a dormouse’s squeak far more than words, Meredith found her voice. “You’ve got the wrong bed. You must go!”

She tried to give him a good hard shove, but the cordial still flowed sleepily through her body and, instead, she fell against his side.

“Oh botheration.” Meredith tried to push up, but she was just too exhausted. So she lay there, poking his ribs with her fingertip, hoping he’d do the gentlemanly thing and leave.

“I do apologize if you find my company shocking, Meredith; nevertheless, I am not leaving this bed tonight.”

“You must! What if my aunts find you here? Viola is just across the passage, and Letitia is in the very next chamber. I will be ruined.”
Again,
she added silently. “Your chamber is just on the other side of that wall. I will help you to the balcony door. You can enter from the outside.”

“Meredith, if you wish to leave, you may, but I barely made it here. I have no motive for remaining in this bed with you other than my legs are like pudding and I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

His arm came down around her as he pried off one boot, then the other, using his heel and toe for leverage. “Damned cordial. Never felt anything like it. Must have been off…” His voice grew languid. “P-poisoned us both, I reckon.”

“More likely my aunt slipped something into it.” Her eyes were growing heavy again. “Into your father’s glass too. He fell asleep almost right away, didn’t he?”

When there was no reply, Meredith quieted and listened in the darkness. Alexander’s breath was slow and she could feel his chest rising and falling in the gentle rhythm of sleep.

As he slept, the slow drugging heave of his chest, coupled with the intoxicating warmth of his body, made it impossible for Meredith to keep her lids open.

So, she decided to rest her eyes for just a moment. Then she would get up. Yes, that’s what she’d do.

———

Her dreams were not frightening this time. This time they were bliss.

She was lying on the hillside at Brumley Court, staring up at the white fluffy clouds when suddenly she detected the slightest smell of French musk. She turned her head to see Alexander standing over her, blocking out the sun. She smiled at him, but instead of doing his utmost to provoke her, he slipped his hand beneath her loose locks and dragged her mouth to his.

Someone would see them, she was sure, and Meredith broke from the kiss to look around. But there was bo one at all. No white tents dotting the rolling green hills. No pink shell boats floating on the sun-stroked lake. They were alone.
Completely
alone.

A glow of excitement flooded her senses, and courage… or maybe it was recklessness… surged through her in rapid pulses. Without a thought to propriety, Meredith pulled Alexander to the grass, then rolled him atop her and slid her fingers through his hair as she kissed him.

As her mouth moved against his, all the emotions, all the longing she’d suppressed since the day they met, came flooding unbidden to the surface.

This was a dream, after all, a lusty fantasy in which she was in total control. Here there was no right or wrong. No Society to impose rules of conduct. Only passion. Only need.

Alexander eagerly met her kiss with a desire so fierce and wicked that she shuddered. As she accepted his tongue deeply inside her mouth, her body trembled with excitement and she knew without a doubt that she would soon welcome his hard body into hers… completely.

And somehow, she was aware that he knew this too. For he took her mouth skillfully with a single-minded drive.

She felt a tugging then at the neck of her silk shift. And for the briefest of moments, it occurred to her that she seemed to be wearing nothing else. The thought was fleeting, and hardly worth her notice. Then, in the very next moment, she felt a burst of cool air as her breasts were exposed. Just as quickly, Alexander’s mouth came down upon one nipple, calling forth a ragged gasp from her lips. His hand cupped the roundness of her other breast, and suddenly a rash of molten fire erupted within her.

His mouth traced a moist line from peak to peak, taking each nipple into his mouth in turn. Each time, he teased her gently with his teeth, before closing his lips and swirling his tongue around her nipple, making her shiver with pleasure.

This wasn’t like the last time, her first time, when her former betrothed, to celebrate their engagement, had coaxed her into giving herself to him. There was no fear, no apprehension, no pain.

Only desire. Only the wish for more.

Her hips bucked against him. God, how she wanted this man.

———

Alexander lifted his mouth from Meredith’s body and cradled her face in his hands. His head was spinning, and for the life of him, he could not understand how he came to be lying atop her. Sweet, soft Meredith. Strangely, he really didn’t seem to care.

All he knew was he wanted this woman, but he had to see her eyes. Had to know that she wanted him as much as he needed her.

Her smooth hands travelled down his sides and he felt his lawn shirt being pulled free of his breeches. Then her fingertips were on his skin, touching, tantalizing him as they ran in small yet widening circles across his back.

“Take it off,” she whispered huskily. “I need to feel your skin against mine.”

His arms were heavy, but he pushed up from her and whisked the shirt from his body. He nudged her legs apart and moved his own between them, bracing his weight on his arms as he stared down at her beseechingly.

In the darkness, he could barely make out her mass of red hair fanned out across the white linen pillow. Still, in a silver wand of early-morning gray light, he could see her eyes.

A pleased sigh broke from his mouth.

He had his answer.

———

Meredith rested her palms on his collarbones, then eased them slowly downward, through the wiry curls and over the defined mounds of his broad chest.

Though his face was cloaked in shadow as he remained poised above her, balancing his weight on hands braced on either side of her shoulders, she knew he watched her.

Turning her gaze to his, she ran her fingers over his ribs, across his hard stomach, then to the two buttons on either side of his front-fall.

Instinctively he sucked in his breath as she pressed each brass button through its hole and lowered the fall. She brought her hands together and felt for the closure that separated him from her. She touched the row of buttons and felt the bulge of him straining the button stitching and the fabric as well. He wanted her, clearly, as much as she wanted him.

The tightness of his breeches made it difficult as she twisted and forced each button to release.

He groaned as the last of the restraints gave way, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around him. She drew her hand from the nest of hair at the base of him to the plum-shaped tip, making him gasp at the sensation of it. His skin was smooth and his shaft pulsed erotically in her hand, his obvious desire driving heat to pool between her own legs.

Her hips, seemingly of their own accord, thrust upward, toward him. Her mind focused on one single thought… to feel him inside her.

There was no question in his mind. Her need was clear. She panted softly beneath him, all modesty abandoned.

All at once, the shift that separated him from her essence incensed him. He leaned far back on his heels and clawed the silken swath and dragged it down over her hips and her pale thighs, then off her, tossing it to the floor.

He knelt between her legs once more and looked down at her. The cool morning light illuminated her face now. Her breathing was hard and she reached out a pleading hand to him.

“Alex,” she breathed. “Come to me.”

Her words seemed to revive his senses. “Darling, we should not—”

“Shh. Let us not think. We are alone.
Please.
“ She reached out her hand and touched him again, guiding him forward toward her moist center.

He felt the beast, the rake inside him, stir and rouse. And Alex knew that in a moment more, there would be no chance of turning back.

“Come to me,” she whispered seductively as she caressed him.

As her hand slid over him, Alexander was lost in sensation, helpless to do aught but what she asked.

———

She gazed at Alexander through the ripples of her dream as his hand moved up her thigh and touched her between her legs, just there. His fingers moved in tight circles, making her body quiver under his skilled command.

She bit her lip and pressed wantonly down upon his hand, wanting to feel the fullness of him inside her. Wanting more, needing more. “Alex,
please!
“

He moved over her then and she felt his large hands grip her hips and position himself before her. In the thin light, she saw him close his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, his intent was clear.

Squeezing her eyes closed, Meredith sucked in a breath, waiting for the inevitable pain to come as he thrust firmly into her. But there was none. She blinked in surprise.

He paused for a moment, a queer expression glimmering in his eyes as he seemed to watch her. Then he began to move inside her, slowly at first; then his thrusts became harder, faster.

Meredith threw her head back and arched her back, her breasts jutting upward. Twisting her hips in a circular motion to meet each of his powerful thrusts, she tried to claim something that felt just out of reach.

Alexander slipped a hand between them and touched the nub between her thighs as he drove into her. Meredith gasped and her hands flew to his waist.

She pulled him toward her, wanting to feel his weight atop her, but he resisted. Instead, he urged her legs around his waist as he slid deep within her, again and again, as his finger touched her, teased her most intimate of places, tightening her, driving her closer and closer to madness. She was writhing now, her body begging Alexander to release her from this blissful torment.

Alexander pulled his hand from her and slipped it beneath her buttocks, pushing her hips to him. He pressed impossibly deep inside her—once, twice—and at the third time, she felt her muscles contract and hold him.

Warmth flooded her body and she cried out, shuddering with the sensation.

Alexander tensed then and Meredith felt his body explode within her.

As his chest came down over her, Meredith clung to his damp body as her head and body reeled.

———

“God save us all! Miss Meredith, what have you done?”

Meredith woke with a start. Annie, her abigail, stood at the edge of the bedstead with her hands clapped to her mobcap in horror.

“Lord have mercy. We’ve got to get him out of here afore your aunts wake.” The abigail whirled around briefly to turn the key in the bedchamber door’s lock. “This was not supposed to happen. Oh, this is a mess, this is!”

“Annie, calm down. What are you talking about?”

“I would guess she’s talking about… me,” came Alexander’s voice from behind her.

Meredith tried to roll over. Instead, she hit an immovable object. It was then that she noticed a man’s muscled arm draped over her bare waist, his hand resting atop hers.

She blinked with astonishment as she realized, not only was she completely naked, but an equally naked man was pressed as closely against her as two spoons in a silver chest.

“Um… Alexander!” Meredith sputtered. She shoved his arm from her and yanked the coverlet to her chin. “What in the blazes are you doing in my bed?”

Movement caught her gaze, and Meredith looked up to see Annie hurrying toward the wardrobe in the far corner of the chamber. The abigail, for once choosing to do the proper thing, focused her eyes and attention inside the cabinet and kept to the task (or pretended to) of selecting a frock for her mistress.