Castles Ever After 02 Say Yes to the Marquess (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

H
oly God, that bed.

Rafe marveled at it. Four soaring, carved wooden posts. A canopy of emerald velvet. And pillows. Of course, there’d be pillows.

Row after row of them, in every shade of green.

They took up half the bed, all neatly ordered by size and shape. They made Rafe want to muss them. Send them tumbling to the floor, one thrust at a time.

He set Clio down at once.

“This is not how it was supposed to go,” he said. “We’ll order more gowns. Ones that fit properly. I’ll see to it myself.”

“That won’t be necessary.” She turned her back to him and lifted her hair from her neck. “Just let me out of this one.”

“You . . .” Rafe tugged at his neckcloth and cleared his throat. “You want me to remove your gown.”

Not just any gown, but a
wedding
gown. With that bed nearby.

“Undo the buttons, that’s all. I can’t breathe in it. I’ve learned to survive without a lot of things—cake, weddings, the respect of my peers—but I haven’t yet learned how to live without air.”

He hesitated, staring at the milky softness of her exposed nape and the row of tiny, silk-covered buttons that couldn’t possibly look any more innocent—and would cheerfully lead him straight into hell.

She braced herself against the bedpost with her free hand. “Please, Rafe. I’m starting to feel faint.”

With a silent curse, he reached for the top button. What choice did he have? He couldn’t allow her to suffocate. And as for him, he’d made his name on profligacy and bare-knuckle violence. He was already damned.

He struggled to grasp the tiny button between his thumb and forefinger without bracing his knuckles against her bare neck.

“Can you manage it?”

“I can manage it.” He gritted his teeth and willed his trembling fingers to be still. “It’s just that I broke this hand once, a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You needn’t be sorry. Just be patient.”

She laughed a little, making him lose his grip again. “That’s the story of my life.”

At last, the first button slipped through its hole. His thumb slid beneath the fabric, brushing across the soft skin of her back.

There. Now they were under way. One button down, and . . .

He cast a glance downward.

. . . what seemed like several thousand to go. Good Lord. Did dressmakers earn wages by the button these days?

He focused his attention and concentrated on the task.

A few buttons more, and he was exposing her corset. Really, he was well acquainted with women’s undergarments. How many laced corsets had he seen in his life? Dozens, surely. Perhaps scores.

None had affected him like this one.

The band of linen and whalebone was cinched so tightly around the thin, white lawn of her shift. The fragrance of violets was everywhere. Not overwhelming. Violets weren’t the kind of flower to overwhelm. Their scent teased him. Cosseted his senses. Made him feel warm and safe.

And this wasn’t safe at all.

If she were any other woman in the world, he could have had her half-naked by now.

But if she were any other woman in the world, he wouldn’t have ached for it half so much.

He’d always had a taste for the forbidden. He’d always had a liking for her. Add in the thrill of innocent white lace against the delicate blush of her skin? His heart was thumping in his chest. Blood was rushing everywhere it shouldn’t.

With every button he loosed, his depravity grew. He wanted to spread his hands, smooth his palms over the small of her back. Lay claim to her. Press his lips to the hollow at the base of her neck. Hook his finger beneath those knotted laces and pull her tight against his swelling cock.

Damn
it, Rafe.

He grabbed the edges and ripped the last few buttons free.

“There. Finished.” And not a moment too soon.

“My corset, too,” she begged.

Oh, God.

He stood back a pace, examined the knot, and found the end of the laces. When he caught the grommet between his finger and thumb, he felt like he held the loose thread of his sanity. One tug, and he’d be completely unraveled.

He pulled it anyway. He’d come too far to do anything else.

“Breathe,” he told her.

She obeyed, and her sharp intake of breath made him wild. Suddenly, this wasn’t just a thousand buttons and the most enticing corset he’d ever unlaced. It was the soft heat of her lips under his. The sweetness of her kiss. Her fingers in his hair. The rain spinning a cocoon around them. Laughter and warmth.

“That’s better. Thank you.” She turned to face him, arms crossed over the bodice of her loosened gown. “Until this week, I hadn’t tasted cake in years. It’s so curious, isn’t it? How if you’re denied something again and again, eventually you start telling yourself you didn’t want it in the first place.”

He swept a lock of hair from her neck. “I think I might be familiar with that.”

“When Piers was coming back from Antigua, my mother starved me for months in advance of his return. I was allowed nothing but watercress soup and beef tea, she was so determined to cinch in my waist. In the end, the malnourishment made me ill. I was so weak, I couldn’t lift a pen, much less stand through a wedding ceremony. We had to postpone everything again.”

The rage was enough to choke him. “She was wrong. Wrong to deny you. Wrong to make you feel anything less than perfect.”

“But I’m not perfect. Not for this. If Piers thought I was perfect at seventeen, he would have married me then. The same with nineteen, and twenty-one, and twenty-three. The last time he saw me was almost two years ago, when he was here for that brief sojourn before leaving for Vienna. We could have exchanged our vows that very week, and I could have gone with him to the Continent. But he didn’t want me there. I would have embarrassed him, perhaps.”

“You would
not
have embarrassed him.” Goddamn. Any man who would feel anything less than proud to have this woman at his side was a man Rafe wanted to pound into mince. Brother or no.

“My mother always said the same thing. I was a good girl. But for a marchioness, that wasn’t good enough.”

Rafe was beginning to understand why she’d been resisting him all this week. Time and again, she’d been saying she just wanted “good enough,” and time and again he’d told her to want better.

“Clio, you are . . .”
Sensual, alluring, voluptuous.
“Beautiful.”

Somehow he had to make her believe this. If his sordid past and plainspoken nature would ever come in useful, this was the time.

“Believe me,” he said. “There are a great many men who
prefer
women with something to them.”

“Are you saying Piers is one of those men?”

“There’s a solid chance of it. I’m his brother, and I’m one of those men.”

God, the feel of her under him in the dining room yesterday. He could still sense her lushness embossed on his body. Every curve.

“Then that means there’s no chance at all,” she said. “You and Piers are nothing alike.”

“You’re right,” he said. “My brother and I are different in many ways. In almost every way. He’s a diplomat. I’m a fighter. He’s driven by duty. I’m a rebel. He spent eight years neglecting to tell you just how goddamn attractive you are.” He walked to the door, shut it, and turned the key. “I’m not going to wait another minute.”

At the click of the lock, a shiver raced down Clio’s spine. She crossed her arms over the bodice of her unbuttoned gown and hugged herself tight.

“I’m not going to touch you,” Rafe said. “I’m just going to talk.”

She shivered again. Did he mean that as some sort of comfort? His voice was the most dangerous thing about him.

“Unlike my brother, I don’t have any difficulty saying what needs to be said. No matter how rude or impolitic.” He paced back and forth in front of the door. “Listen to me. You . . . you didn’t have brothers. You don’t know the adolescent male mind. We can’t get enough of female bodies. Breasts, hips, legs. Hell, even a glimpse of ankle will get our blood pumping. We spy on the maids when they’re bathing, we trade lewd sketches . . .”

“Why are we speaking of this?”

“Because every man has one woman who was his first proper fantasy. The first he thought about, day and night. The first he woke from dreams of, hard and aching.” He met her gaze. “You were that woman for me.”

“I . . .” Clio was breathless. “I was?”

“You were.” He stepped toward her. “Hell, you still are. I’ve wanted you since I was a randy youth. This body made me wild. Every lush, round, maddeningly erotic curve. There are a thousand carnal things I’ve dreamed about doing to, with, on, or inside you.”

Clio didn’t know how to reply to that. So, naturally, she came out with the most pedantic, silly reply possible. “A thousand? That’s a rather incredible number.”

“An exaggeration, perhaps. But not by much. Do you want to hear a list?

She nodded. If it saved her from speaking, she would love nothing more.

“Let’s see.” His gaze roamed her body. “I can start with your breasts. They take up the first fifty places on the list alone. One, fondling. Two, nuzzling. Then kissing, licking, sucking in that order. Five, biting gently. Six, biting harder. Seven, pressing your breasts together, holding them tight around my thrusting cock.”

She blinked at him. “Really?”

“You said it yourself. Men are disgusting.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t call that disgusting. Just . . . surprising.”

In fact the mere picture of it—if she could trust her imagination to picture it properly—was drawing her nipples to tight points and making her warm between her thighs.

“And I’m not even to ten yet,” he said. “I’m just getting started. There are things on that list even
I
can’t say aloud.”

He took a step back and began to circle her in slow paces.

“Bloody hell. There’ve been times I didn’t know how to look at you. Because you were such a good girl, and in my mind, I’d made you do such wicked, wicked things. I have wanted you ever since I can remember wanting.”

“Even with all the women you’ve had.”

“Even with all the women I’ve had.”

She clutched the loosened gown tight to her chest. She couldn’t believe any of this.

“But you said it was because of Piers. You wanted me because you were envious of him, and it wasn’t really anything to do with me.”

“Oh, yes.” He returned to stand before her. “That’s what I told myself. I told myself a lot of things. I told myself that it just so happened you were my sort.” He swept a hungry look down her body. “I was only attracted to you because I’m always attracted to fair-haired, blue-eyed, lushly curved women. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?

“It would make perfect sense.”

His gaze snapped up to hers. “It was a lie.”

“So . . . you’re . . .
not
attracted to fair-haired, blue-eyed, lushly curved women?”

“Oh, I am,” he said. “I am. And it’s because they remind me of you.”

Heavens.

Her knees . . . They weren’t working anymore. They might not exist anymore.

She reeled backward, and her back met the bedpost.

“Your body”—he closed the distance between them—“is my every raw, lusting, carnal dream. I’ve spent years wondering what you look like under all that.”

“Well . . .” She uncrossed her arms, and the lace gown slipped to the floor. “Wonder no longer.”

She wasn’t quite naked. Even with her gown and corset in a heap at her feet, she still wore her chemise and petticoats. But the delicate, tissue-thin fabric left little to the imagination.

Rafe didn’t say anything. He simply stared at her.

She grasped the ribbon bow at the neckline of her chemise and pulled it loose.

He didn’t so much as blink.

Clio’s pulse raced. She hadn’t come this far just to back down. If he left her here, exposed and rejected, her pride would never survive it.

In a moment of pure madness, she stretched her arms overhead, gripping the bedpost with both hands. The pose bowed her spine and pushed her breasts to what she hoped was an enticing angle.

He showed no signs of being enticed.

Oh, Lord. Perhaps all those confessions of his had merely been lies to soothe her feelings. She’d been a fool to believe he found her irresistible. Here he was, standing within arm’s reach, enjoying a view of her half-naked body . . .

Resisting.

Her bravery faded, and her gaze dropped to the floor. She started to let her hands drop, too. She needed to cover herself, find somewhere to hide from this humiliation. Perhaps the closet, or a nice crack in the floor.

“Don’t.”

With one big hand he caught both of her wrists. He pressed them back in place and held them there, effectively shackling her to the bedpost.

“Don’t move.”

Well. Now this was more like it.

The sudden heat and forceful nature of the contact, his unabashed stare, the vulnerability of her posture . . . it all made her writhe with excitement.

It wasn’t just knowing that Rafe found her body attractive.

It was that she found her body rather attractive, too.

“Look at you,” he breathed.

She did. She gazed down at herself, admiring the flushed pink of her skin beneath the thin white shift. The sunlight streaming through the windows was warm, and kind to her fair complexion, painting her with a rosy glow. Her peaked nipples strained and chafed against the fabric. Her gently rounded belly and hips made no excuses for themselves.

This was her body. She had learned to take pleasure in it, even if no man had ever done the same. It was curved and generous and womanly and strong, and it was formed to do more than decorate a drawing room, or transfer wealth from one gentleman to another.

She was made to tempt, labor, inspire, create, sustain.

Despite the way Rafe held her bound in his grasp, a sense of power moved through her. For once, she could revel in her femininity and feel it as something other than a disadvantage to be overcome. A quality to be respected, worshipped. Even feared.