Forbidden (Scandalous Sirens) (15 page)

What was Rufus planning?

Chapter Nine

The library was almost silent.

Elisa sat at the correspondence desk, struggling over a note of acceptance for Caroline. She hadn’t accepted an invitation in years and the formal phrasing did not come to her as easily as the words of regret and refusal to which she had grown accustomed.

Beside her, the fireplace crackled cheerily. She had asked it to be laid and lit for the evening had grown sharply chill—a reminder of the coming winter. Over the pop and crackle of the fire, Rufus’ discordant snores sounded. He was sitting in the wing chair facing the fire, so Elisa could only see his profile, with the bulbous nose and the loose skin beneath his chin sagging as his mouth hung open.

They were alone. At dinner, Vaughn had produced a superior bottle of port he’d had imported at great cost from the Continent and newly arrived today—along with his correspondence, Elisa reminded herself. He had opened the bottle on the spot and insisted Rufus sample it. Rufus had indeed sampled it thoroughly. In fact, Elisa rather suspected he’d drunk most of the bottle, while Vaughn had merely sipped at his glassful.

Now Rufus sprawled in the wingchair, completely soused and mindless of the unmusical notes he was playing. Vaughn had gone about his own business.

Elisa returned her attention to the note, frowning over it. What was Rufus planning with this ball? He had forced her to accept for a reason and despite endless speculation, she could find no suggestion of an answer.

She should ask Vaughn. He had a head for such intrigues.

Her frown deepened, as she recalled their last meeting. He had behaved unforgivably. To suggest her loyalty was bought with a pretty gown…

Suddenly, Elisa crumpled up the sheet of paper and threw it in the fire. Damn.
 
Yet another mistake! Her hand did not want to write the words and it showed in her unsteady penmanship.

Hands with long hot fingers touched her bare forearms, making her jump. It was Vaughn, leaning over her, his arms laying over hers. She could feel the heat of his body against her shoulders.

“Forgive me,” he breathed into her ear. “I was a cad today.”

“Vaughn, you startled me,” she began. At the sound of her voice, Rufus stirred, his snores breaking rhythm. His lips smacked together.

“Shhhh…” Vaughn breathed again. “You’ll wake him.”

She licked her lips. “Vaughn, take your hands from me,” she said, her voice low.

Rufus stirred again, snuffling and for a horrible moment she thought his eyes opened. But he settled back again.

Elisa’s heart was racing. Of course, she could turn and breathe her words into Vaughn’s ear as he did with her, but she was not willing to encourage such intimacy.

She tried to pull her arms out from beneath Vaughn’s hot hands, but dislodging them made them fall across her breasts. His hands molded themselves around her and she drew in her breath sharply.

His mouth, hot and soft, kissed the nape of her neck and she could hear his own hurried breath. He was laying a trail of moist kisses down the side of her throat onto her shoulders, bared by the evening gown. His hands lifted away from her breasts to her shoulders and the edges of the gown slid to the ends of her shoulders.

“No chemise, no corset…I believe you are teasing me, Elisa.”

She let the pen fall from her nerveless fingers, ceasing her attempt to write. Her eyes closed in delight as his hands pushed her sleeves down her arms. He did not bare her altogether as he had last time, but the gown sagged about her. She watched as Vaughn’s hand slipped beneath the edges of the gown and captured her breasts. Her eyes closed. His thumbs rubbed the already taut nipples and the jolt of excitement that coursed through her made her groan aloud.

Alarmed, she scrambled to her feet. She could not allow this! In the same room as her fiancé, for goodness sake.
 
It was depraved. She was a whore for enjoying it.

“Vaughn, stop!” she told him, trying to turn to face him.

Rufus stopped snoring with a startled snort. He sat up a little, turning his head, questing. “What?” he asked, his voice slurred.

Elisa froze. If he turned his head much further, he would see his son and future wife standing together, his son’s hands holding his fiancée’s bare breasts.

She swallowed, fear looming large in her chest, squeezing her heart.

Rufus’ head slowly sank back onto his chest and his deep breathing told her he had returned to sleep.

“You mustn’t speak,” Vaughn whispered in her ear. “Not at all.”

She began to tremble.

He removed his hands and she felt him step away from her. From the corner of her eyes, she saw her chair being moved away from the desk.

He returned to her, pressing his long warm body against her. His hands were at the fastenings of her dress and she felt the gown loosen even more, the sleeves sinking further down her arms.

Vaughn pushed them almost to her elbows. Her heart was scudding along frantically, driven by enormous fear…and excitement. She almost moaned aloud, for the danger was adding its own spice to what Vaughn was doing to her.

His hands caught at her breasts, toying with them, kneading the nipples, stroking them with long sweeping caresses until she was afire with the need for more.

His mouth bathed her ear with kisses, the tongue probing with a shocking, delightful thrust inside. His teeth bit gently at the lobe.

Elisa was almost panting and she desperately clamped her jaws together lest a sound emerge that would alert Rufus. She was unable to protest, to tell Vaughn he must stop, but even the notion was melting away like snow under sun. His knowing assault was devastating.

He put her hands on the desk, silently coaxing her to prop herself on the desk top as his support was removed. She obeyed, her arms trembling.

His hands dropped to her ankle, bare above the ties of her slippers. With a slow sweeping movement, his hands smoothed their way along her calves, her thighs, her hips, gathering up the dress and petticoats as they climbed, baring her completely.

Her trembling intensified. She could feel cool air about her cleft, fanned by his movements.

His hands on her hips moved restlessly. He was but inches from her moist, throbbing sex. His fingers had stroked her there just that afternoon and she ached for them to return to that place. Her hips thrust in anticipation and she heard Vaughn’s deep, almost silent groan in response.

His fingers slipped into her and she bucked again, violently, and clamped her teeth against the cry that threatened to rip from her. Her up-thrusting breast was caught by his other hand. She could hear his breath in her ear, ragged, harsh with excitement as it had been this afternoon, and rejoiced in the ability she had to bring him to such a point.

His questing hands were withdrawn and she almost whimpered at the deprivation, but he was pushing at her shoulders, bending her over the desk.

His hands ran over her hips and buttocks. She felt his mouth taste the flesh over the back of her hip, then move on to her buttocks, licking, sucking and once, a gentle nip of the flesh. Endlessly fizzy waves of pleasure were circling through her, building the tension in her, making her throb and ache for fulfillment. Her whole body trembled.

His hands found that throbbing pearl of her sex and stroked it and she quivered with each knowing stroke.

She heard the whisper of cloth, the sound of releasing buttons, then the brush of a blunt, questing probe against her. Alarm threaded through her suddenly unbearable excitement. Surely, he did not intend to take her here? Now?

She could not protest if he did and her body ached for him, in truth. As his hands caught at her hips, she closed her eyes, helpless to do anything but accept him into her, coherent thought scattered and beyond her.

But his hands on her hips were turning her, lifting her up and turning her to face him. She went willingly and found herself lying on the desk, her feet barely touching the ground.

As he gripped her thigh, lifting her leg aside to make room for him, she looked at him.

This was not the Vaughn she knew. There was nothing of the knowing, experienced seducer in his eyes. They were the wild eyes of a man pushed beyond endurance. The lids were half-closed, drugged with sensuality. His full lips were parted to allow his panting breath to emerge. And his hands trembled against her skin.

He stepped between her thighs and she could feel his rigid shaft against her, hot, thick and throbbing.

He could be inside her in one simple thrust, yet he did not. Did he do it to torture them both?

He leaned over her and his mouth took her breast, suckling, as his hand caressed the swollen flesh around the nipple he tortured. His hair brushed across her face and chest and Elisa let her head fall back off the edge of the desk in exquisite agony.

Her surrender was complete, she knew. But he did not take it. He was toying with her, teasing her, driving her to a wild abandon she had never felt before. His lips and teeth and tongue were goading her. And his hand slipped into her hot, throbbing cleft and stroked and caressed the nub.

She could not help it—her legs wound around his waist and pulled him to her. The invitation was explicit. She saw him close his eyes and expel a harsh breath. He became still. Then he threw a glance at Rufus. It was hot and brimming with emotions she could not name.

His hand fell away from her breast and formed a tight, convulsive fist, which he pummeled gently against the desktop. Then he straightened, pulling away from her. His trembling hands gripped her thighs and encouraged her to release him. He refastened his clothing with unsteady movements, his chest rising and falling rapidly, as she watched with a growing sense of disappointment. Even though she had not wanted him to take her here and now, he had been so close to that first delightful thrust inside her that she ached from the lack of it.

He leaned over her one last time and lifted her to her feet. She stood, shaking, as he refastened her dress. He lowered his head to whisper to her. “Soon, Elisa. Soon. But I would have us find our own moment—not steal it from someone else.”

And he straightened and nodded towards Rufus. Then, he lifted his hand, brushed a curl from her face and smiled a little. It was an attempt to show that devil-may-care attitude was in control, but she knew it was a lie. The tremor that still lingered in his fingers told her it was a mask he wore to assure her.

He left her the same way he had found her. In silence.

Elisa pulled her chair back to the desk with arms that had no strength and lowered herself into it, to stare at the scattered paper.

She had no wits left with which to write a dry formal acceptance letter.

She looked over at Rufus, soundly asleep, then buried her face in her hands. She had completely given herself to Vaughn and had been rejected.

She could still save herself. It wasn’t too late. Not yet.

But, oh, it had been so very, very close.

* * * * *

Outside the library, Vaughn propped himself up against the wall, letting his body recover and the trembling subside. He ran a hand through his hair and was sourly amused to realize it still shook as badly as it did moments before, when she had lain open to him, willing, driving him beyond sense.

He tried to grasp what had taken place in there.

What was happening to him? He had intended only to kiss her, to keep her on her toes, to let her know he desired her. Instead it had escalated to a point where he had nearly lost all control.

No, the truth was, he
had
lost control. He had bent her over the desk and nearly…very nearly taken her right there and then. He had been driven beyond sense, to a point where all he could focus on was the desperate need to have her. Now. This moment.

Somehow he had clawed himself back from that abyss. And that was the strange part. He wanted her when he was in full control, not when he was this mad creature driven by sense alone.

So he had turned her to face him and still could not let her go. He had been compelled to pleasure her, to watch her body tighten and thrill to his touch and her limbs and eyes melt in response. Her sweet, sweet flesh had driven him on.

His gaze fell to the watercolor of Kirkaldy hanging on the wall, the one his mother had painted. What of Kirkaldy? While the needs of flesh had tormented him, he had not spared a thought for his inheritance. When had Kirkaldy slipped from his mind? When had he lost sight of his reason for being here?

He had to hold it together.

But how could he when even now his body was tight and pulsing with the need to have her? She was in there, behind the wall he leaned against and the door was three steps away.

He could walk back in there and she would be his.

He had to have her.

He held his arm out, palm flat against the wall, reaching towards the door, feeling his control slip a little more.

Dear god, but she was casting a spell over him he’d never felt the like of before.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. Women he’d known aplenty. Their ways were no longer mysterious, but Elisa…