Dance of Seduction (22 page)

But the devilish intent in his face sparked her alarm. How would she ever make it through the next song? With a show of rebellion, she thrust her breasts up at him. “Do your worst,” she said mutinously, hoping to rouse his conscience.

It didn’t. Instead, it seemed to rouse something else entirely, for with a reckless and unrepentant smile, he slid her skirts up her thighs.

The rustle of satin sounded a warning knell, and she grabbed his hand in a panic. “Now see here, I thought you wanted to keep tasting my…my…”

“We never specified what I could taste or touch. You said whatever I wanted.”

“I thought—”

“I know what you thought. But lovely as your breasts are, my angel, I have a more intimate spot I wish to explore.” Keeping his heated gaze locked on her face and his hand on her thigh, he listened for the next dance to begin.

Once it did, a triumphant grin crossed his lips. He shook off her hand, then slid his fingers up beneath her cambric petticoat. While she watched with a mixture of outrage and impatience, he delved inside the slit in her drawers to touch the curls between her legs.

Her most private place, mind you! How brazen of him! She didn’t know whether to be appalled or thrilled at his daring. She did know that her heart beat louder than the orchestra’s music in her ears, that his touch provoked her to dream and want and ache.

He knew it, too, judging from his dark smile. “
This
is what I want to caress.” He found a particularly sensitive piece of flesh and thumbed it lightly, making her jerk upright. “I don’t think you’ll have any cause for complaint when I’m done.”

Oh…good…Lord. He was as deft as a thief with a picklock, opening the clasp to her pleasure with one flick of his finger. Only he didn’t stop there…he went on and on and on, working the flesh until she writhed and moaned beneath his hand, wanting more, needing his touches, craving the excitement that he doled out too sparingly.

“Does that please you,
cherie
?” he rasped. “Do you want more?”

“Yes…bother it all, yes.”

Pure satisfaction filled his face as he stroked her more firmly, satisfying her cravings only to raise them higher with the next stroke. Her fingers still lay in his hair, and she flexed them with every caress, wondering if she might die if he stopped.

“Heavens,” she murmured, “that’s…oh, Morgan…yes, like that…”

“God, you’re so warm, so wet for me. My sweet, wanton angel…”

Her eyes had drifted closed, but she could hear his pleasure thrumming in his voice. And she felt it beneath her bottom, for her mews of satisfaction made the bulge in his breeches thicken, until she wondered if he might burst right out of them.

“
Bon Dieu
, but you feel good, inside and out,” he said hoarsely.

Inside?

That’s when she realized that his finger had dipped inside her. Her eyes sprang open. “Morgan!” she cried, grabbing for his wrist. “You can’t…that’s not…”

“Shhh, angel, I won’t hurt you, I promise. It’s just my finger. To please you. Like this.” He thrust deeply inside her, wringing a startled cry from her lips.

Then he bent to kiss her hungrily, taking her mouth with violent stabs of his tongue, like the plundering beast that he was. In some hazy, distant part of her brain, she wondered if this wasn’t against the rules—a kiss and a caress at the same time. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to protest.

Nor did she protest when he trailed his open mouth down her neck to her breasts and began sucking her again, teasing and tormenting her on every front. His hot breath made her skin hum and her heart flutter wildly. Between her legs, she felt tight and eager and needy. “More…” she whispered, arching into his hand. “Oh, Morgan…”

“Have I answered enough questions for you?” he growled against her breast.

“Yes. No. I-I don’t know…” Her mind was completely blank. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what the questions had been all about.

“Either ask them while I touch you or don’t ask at all. Just don’t make me stop.”

“I…can’t…think…”

“Good. Neither can I. Oh,
cherie
, you feel like heaven.” With one swift tug, he bared her other breast, but any feeble protest vanished in the hot, swirling pleasure of his mouth and his hands on her. God forgive her, but she couldn’t stop him, didn’t want to stop him. Only Morgan seemed to rouse that Doggett blood of hers, and now that it was kicking up again, she’d lost any will to fight it.

Especially while his finger…no, two fingers now…drove urgently inside her, exciting her, making her yearn for…oh, she didn’t know what. But all the restless energy he’d provoked in her since she’d met him seemed to bunch into one pulsing need centered beneath his thrusting fingers. It built and built until suddenly it arced inside her, making her cry out and clutch him tightly to her breast.

For a moment, she glimpsed a heaven that only he seemed able to give her. Then as the vivid pleasure subsided to a dull throbbing, his fingers stilled inside her.

She fell limply against his shoulder, still gasping. “Oh…good Lord…Morgan, what did you do to me?”

He tore his mouth from her breast to press tender kisses up the arch of her throat. “Gave you pleasure, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to. You were wrong before, you know.”

“A-About what?”

“I wasn’t touching you only to distract you. It might have started out that way, but—” He dusted soft kisses to her
cheek, her ear, her jaw. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this,
ma belle ange
? How often I’ve imagined stripping you down to nothing, laying you down on my bed, and then tasting and fondling every sweet inch of you until you were rapt and eager for me?”

He’d thought of her? Dreamed of her? The way she’d dreamed of him?

Despite all her cautions, a little thrill coursed through her. “I’ve imagined touching you, too,” she admitted as she lifted her hand to stroke his smoothly shaven cheek.

He drew back to stare at her, but there was no smugness in his look, no cockiness now. “Have you really?”

Something about the disbelief in his face, the sheer yearning made her ache to reassure him. “Yes. Especially that day in the street when you—” Her eyes trailed shyly down to his chest. “When you weren’t exactly…um…dressed properly.” She ran her hands over his waistcoat. “And I could see your chest showing through your shirt.”

Swiftly he unbuttoned his waistcoat, then took her hands and pressed them to his chest. She could feel his heart race beneath the fine lawn.

He dragged in a breath. “I’d take every stitch of my clothing off just for the pleasure of having your hands on me, but I don’t know if I’d ever get my cravat tied right again.” He smiled faintly. “Not with you watching me, making me insane.”

She wished he’d stop saying such delicious things. They roused her Doggett blood to even keener heights, tempting her to be naughty. Like now, when she splayed her fingers over his chest, eager for any chance to stroke his muscles, even if it was through a shirt. “Do I really make you insane?”

“
Sacrebleu
, yes.” He shifted her forward on his lap until she was balanced on his knees, then grabbed her hand, flattening it against the bulge in his breeches. “Don’t ever accuse me again
of not desiring you. I can’t sleep for desiring you, and when I finally do nod off it’s to dreams of you touching me like this.”

He rubbed her hand over him, and a hot, predatory look etched his features. “Oh, God, if only you’d be willing to—” He paused. “Tell me, angel, do you know how a man and woman make love?”

Her cheeks flamed. “Yes, of course.”

How could she work in Spitalfields and not know? She’d heard the act described in the coarsest detail, seen it painted on the walls of the brothels where some of her children’s mothers lived, and even happened upon people engaged in it.

But she’d never imagined she might actually want to do it.

“Then you know that as long as this”—he pressed the bulge into her palm—“is beneath your hand, I can’t be putting it inside you, can I?”

She nodded slowly, wondering what he was leading up to.

“As long as it stays in your hand, you remain chaste.”

“So I’ve been told.” She’d gone way beyond blushing to outright mortification. She couldn’t believe they were having this outrageous conversation.

Suddenly his hand left hers to fumble with his breeches buttons. “Don’t be alarmed, Clara. All I want is for you to touch my bare flesh with your sweet fingers.”

The fall of his breeches now gaped open. Grabbing her hand, he slid it inside and beneath his drawers, then closed it around his hot, iron-rigid length. “This is what I’d like you to caress, angel. Only for a bit. The way I caressed you.”

For a moment, she was too stunned to react.

“Does that shock you?” he asked.

What a question. “Certainly not,” she said dryly. “I touch men’s privates all the time. Such behavior is quite the rage among women of my set.”

He managed a smile. “Then touch me, too.”

When she saw the intense longing in his face, she couldn’t bring herself to deny him what he wanted. Besides, she was curious. “Very well, if you insist.” Tentatively, she explored him.

He sucked in a harsh breath, his eyes drifting closed. “If you never let me near you again,” he choked out, “thank you for giving me this.”

“Why would I never let you near me again?”

He gave a wry chuckle. “Because you’re stubborn. Because you hate me.”

He sat there with his eyes closed and his breeches open, showing more vulnerability than she’d ever seen in a man, and her heart melted.

“I don’t hate you. If I hated you, why would I do this…this scandalous thing?”

He opened his eyes. Though glazed with need, they showed every portion of his uncertainty. “You ought to hate me.”

“I know. I’ve tried, but I just can’t.” She dropped her gaze, embarrassed. “I-I think I’m doing this wrong. Show me how to give you the same pleasure you gave me.”

“You’re not doing it wrong, but if you really want to please me…”

He showed her how to caress him, with long, tight pulls that made him groan every bit as much as she’d groaned when he stroked inside her. Arousing him gave her a heady sense of power. It was so forbidden, so very beyond what was acceptable for a woman of her station that it spiked her own excitement to new heights.

And piqued her curiosity. “Doesn’t it hurt? I mean, to have me grab you like this?”

With a weak laugh, he leaned forward to nip at her ear. “It drives me absolutely mad. Which is why we must…stop soon. Before I embarrass myself.”

“You? Embarrassed?” she teased. “Never!”

“You’d be surprised…oh, angel, that’s too much…damn, you have to stop.”

Delighted to have this little bit of feminine control, she whispered, “Are you sure?” as she gave him a long, firm tug.

“Yes,” he growled, forcing her hand out of his breeches. For a moment, he sat there, breathing hard, as if trying to get his bearings. Then he cast her a regretful smile. “This isn’t the place or the time, I’m afraid.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I tried to tell you that before.”

“Aren’t you glad I didn’t listen?”

He drew up her bodice, but then kissed her again, hot and deep.

They sat kissing a while longer, both loath to leave their private little sanctuary.

Then the ornate clock atop the mantle chimed, and she bolted upright. “Good Lord, look at the time! Aunt Verity will be frantic with worry, wondering where I am!” Sliding off his lap, she fumbled to restore her clothing.

He watched her with a hooded gaze as he stood to refasten his breeches buttons, then went to work on his waistcoat. “Clara, we should talk.”

She cast him an uncertain glance. “Yes, we should. You didn’t answer all my questions.”

“I didn’t mean about that.”

“Oh.” She dropped her head to concentrate on her clothing. Now that he wasn’t holding her, she felt much more self-conscious. And not quite sure that she
wanted
to talk. She didn’t want to spoil what had been a wonderful interlude. One that she shouldn’t let happen again.

So instead she focused on something else. “I still want my questions answered about you and Ravenswood and the shop.”

“None of that has anything to do with you, so stay out of it.”

She lifted her gaze to his. “I can’t. Something is going on, and I want to know what it is.” When he only glowered at her, she swished her hips and smiled teasingly. “If you’ll answer more questions later, I might even let you touch my bottom.”

Frustrated desire and the tiniest bit of humor flickered in his face. “Don’t tempt me. As it is, you’d best be grateful we’re in a somewhat public place,
ma belle ange
. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have stopped with touching and kissing.”

There went that silly quivering in her belly again. “Rather sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I recognize when a woman is ripe for seduction, yes.”

When his gaze trailed knowingly over her wrinkled bodice and rumpled skirts, her mouth went dry. He was right, curse him. Deep in some naughty part of her, she’d wanted him to seduce her. She still did.

The realization stunned her. She hadn’t known how badly she’d craved such intimacy with a man until she’d found it with the wrong one.

Or was he the wrong one? She began to wonder. How many unscrupulous scoundrels would have given her pleasure without taking their own? And restrained themselves from taking advantage when they had a woman perfectly willing to let them?

For that matter, how many fences would have given a lady’s footman lessons in how to guard her? Or taken in a pickpocket, then not availed themselves of his talents? If Samuel was to be believed, that was exactly what Morgan had done.

She began to think that Samuel
could
be believed. Until now, she’d had no trouble considering Morgan’s strange actions as maneuvers calculated to further his criminal aims. But not after tonight. Not after he’d shown such astonishingly unexpected consideration for her virtue. That was why she must have her answers.

She tore her gaze from his and headed for the door. “I must go. But after the ball, I’ll expect a full accounting from you, even if I must camp outside your shop to get it.”