Never a Gentleman (13 page)

He tilted his head, and Grace thought he looked faintly satanic. His gray eyes seemed to catch the light and incandesce. His
face, not handsome, but virile with its broad forehead and strong chin, seemed drawn in bold slashes. His body, so beautifully
proportioned, so blessedly taller than hers, exuded power. Her knees were weakening and he hadn’t even touched her.

“You are a surprise, Grace,” he said, reaching out to run a finger down the length of her arm and setting off showers of chills.
“I didn’t think you’d be this cool about things.”

She shivered. She could feel heat radiating off him. Please, she almost begged out loud.
Please.

And then, just as she’d hoped, he caught his hands in the hem of her gown and began to lift it. For a second she panicked.
Wasn’t he supposed to snuff the lights? Weren’t they supposed to be in bed? How could she hide when she was standing in the
middle of the floor?

She kept silent. One protest and he’d be out the door. And she simply couldn’t bear that.

“You have small feet,” he murmured, and sounded surprised.

“For my size, yes,” she answered, paralyzed at the sensation of air swirling up beneath the lifting negligee. Praying that
the shadows would mask the shriveling of her bad leg.

Diccan didn’t seem to hear her. “I think I’m going to enjoy having a tall partner.”

And then he looked down, and everything changed. He froze, his hands still caught in the shimmery material, just above her
pelvis. She was holding her breath. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut. She could feel how wet she was, and it frightened
her. Not as much as his sudden laugh.

Her eyes flew open to see a cynical smile on his face. He was staring right at the juncture of her legs, as if he could see
the betraying moisture that wet her curls. He was shaking his head.

“Christ, am I a fool,” he muttered, his voice harsh. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this the other morning. I might have at
least had
some
enjoyment out of that little fiasco.”

She curled her hands to keep from yanking her nightdress away and covering herself. “Pardon?”

He was paying no attention. Closing his eyes, he shook his head, which seemed to overset his balance, because he
wove a bit. “And here I thought you had been the victim,” he said, sounding disgusted. “Well, that’ll teach me.”

Grace was totally lost. “What do you mean?”

His laugh grew harsh. “Good trick, Grace. How in the devil did you manage to hold on to your nickname?” He looked up at her,
his eyes suddenly hard. “Notorious virgin indeed. Notorious, all right. But exactly how long has it been since you’ve been
a virgin?”

As he spoke, he was backing her inexorably toward the bed. Grace opened her mouth to protest, but her mind refused to function.
What was he talking about?

“How did you know?” he asked. “Did Kate tell you? No. I never told her. Not exactly the kind of thing you tell your favorite
cousin. One of your military friends, then. How convenient.”

“I don’t…”

Without warning, he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her up onto the mattress. She sprawled back, stunned into immobility.

“Diccan?”

“I’ll have to thank him, whoever he is. And, of course, I thank you for going to the trouble. I was so afraid I couldn’t do
this. But now that you’ve been so obliging as to accommodate my favorite little fetish
,
I might as well enjoy it.” He was sliding his hands up her legs. “Where’d you learn it? A nautch girl? Somebody in a port
town? Tell them thank you.”

Grace tried to scoot away from him, her heart now speeding. “Diccan, I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do, my dear,” he said, and wrapped iron hands around her legs. “But it’s all right. I never waste a red thatch,
especially since you went to all the trouble to dye it.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he didn’t notice. Dragging her to the very edge of the bed, he bent over her. Over the
juncture of her legs. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. He was putting his face right up against her wet, red curls,
and she would swear he inhaled.
Inhaled
as if sampling perfume, and his face was only inches from…

Oh, sweet Jesus.

Desperately she tried to clamp her legs closed. What was he
doing
? It was all happening so fast. Her brain was screaming, but her body, her hungry body, went pliant.

“Open for me,” he growled, “there’s a good girl. Let me see the prize that lovely flame hides.”

She felt his hands wrap around her knees, and she sobbed. She saw him smile down at her, at the nest of hair between her legs,
and she finally, finally blushed. She was crimson with it. Hot and cold and crawling with shame. With outrage. With anticipation.

And then he opened his mouth and placed it right against her. Pleasure speared her. She bucked almost off the bed. The cool
wash of his breath stroked that exquisitely sensitive flesh and sent lightning shearing through her. His tongue unleashed
unimagined needs. She grabbed fistfuls of linen and fought the urge to cry out. Dear God, what was he doing? He was sipping
at her, licking her, nibbling… ah,
oh
! His teeth, scraping against that most sensitive bud, tormenting her. Touching her only there. Only there and on her knees,
her body still draped in midnight, her hair spread across the bed.

She closed her eyes, unable to watch. Her heart stumbled, and her lungs seized. She should move. She should kick him. Run.
Scream.

Oh, she’d scream. She was terrified she would wail like
a banshee. He was chuckling against her, humming. She could feel the sleek line of his cheek against her thigh and thought
he must have shaved. She felt the unbearably sweet pressure of his lips, urging on the pleasure that swelled in her; hot pleasure.
Sharp pleasure. Sensations she had never felt before, never even imagined.

“And you’re already wet,” he said, almost conversationally, and laid a finger against the petal he had just been licking.

She jerked away again. It was too much. “Stop, please…
please
…”

He must not have heard her. He slid his finger into her, deep into her, and pulled it out. In again, out. She felt her body
bow to it, speaking its own language of want. She felt his finger return, and then, his mouth. She felt lightning sweep through
her, fire, maelstrom, and it terrified her all over again. And still she couldn’t move away.

All the sensations that careened through her began to center. Her eyes opened to see his tousled black hair just above the
flare of her red nether hair. She thought it the most unbearably erotic thing she’d ever seen. Until he stroked down with
his finger and up with his tongue.

His tongue. Sweet Jesus, his tongue. It was an instrument of torture; dipping, lapping, circling, compelling her flesh to
swell, her body to glow, to burn, to begin to disintegrate.

“Oh, yes, my little doxy, come apart for me,” he murmured against her. “Scream.”

He kept murmuring endearments, salacious suggestions, harsh orders. “Don’t play about,” he ordered, his breath unbearably
delicious against her wet flesh, “I don’t have the patience. You’re about to be fucked and fucked good, and you know you can’t
wait.”

She couldn’t. That was what was so humiliating. She wanted him to do all those things he said. She wanted him to do them
now
. She wanted her body to cooperate. She just didn’t know how. She was panting, whimpering, tossing her head, as if she could
somehow locate whatever it was she sought. What she desperately wanted. The lightning collected, slithering up her legs, down
her arms, through her chest. It centered and it swirled, and beyond her, Diccan’s voice became indistinct. Her body, her willing,
wanting body, stilled, as if pausing for a battle to come.

And suddenly, from one heartbeat to the next, she disintegrated into light. Into sound and color and music. She could hear
Diccan laughing, and knew it was because she screamed. Screamed because she couldn’t contain it, not something this huge,
something this violent. Her body convulsed around his hands. Her heart hammered against her ribs, her eyes filled with tears
of amazement. And then, before she could collect herself, he drove that huge, hard cock into her. And she screamed again.

He went abruptly still. Grace, fighting the sudden, searing pain, looked up to see an look of utter shock on Diccan’s face.
He looked appalled, and suddenly Grace wanted to curl up into a small ball and disappear. He pulled out of her as if she’d
just betrayed him.

“Goddamn it!” He yelled. “You’re a virgin!”

H
e felt like the biggest idiot alive. He felt like a ravisher. He felt…

He felt like a fool standing there with his cock still rock-hard and Grace looking confused and hurt and as debauched as a
whore. He had hurt her. But how the hell was he supposed to know she was a virgin? Nobody who knew how to dye a thatch like
that could be an innocent. Not that color, the color of sin and seduction. His favorite color of fire and lust. Red. No, not
red. Flame. Sunburst. Sex.

Yes, that was it. Sex red. And he’d fallen for it.

“You’re a
virgin
,” he repeated, as if that would help cement the fact in his still-reeling brain.

“Not anymore,” she said with unbelievable calm, not moving from where she lay on his bed, her hair spread out across the pillows,
that obscene excuse for a gown hastily tugged back down.

It was another reason he’d thought her experienced. She’d sashayed into his room in a scrap of silk that would have made Minette
blush, and then challenged him like
the most experienced of courtesans, not once pulling away. Oh, she’d said
stop
, but then she’d said
please… please.
She’d been wet for him. She’d been wet before he’d ever touched her, and she’d climaxed. She’d climaxed so loudly they should
have heard her in the kitchens four floors below. Virgins never climaxed.

Frustrated and furious, he scrubbed at his face, as if that would help dissipate the rest of the brandy that blurred his thoughts.
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t even look at her. Seeing that he was still fully aroused, he yanked his robe closed and knotted the
belt.

“But not satisfied,” she said, this time sounding faintly upset. “Won’t you come back?”

He stared at her. “No gentleman…”

But he couldn’t finish the thought. It was too disturbing to think that he’d just treated Grace like a two-penny whore. He
might be worldly, but he had standards. And one of those standards was that one didn’t initiate a chaste woman this way. For
God’s sake, he hadn’t even kissed her. He’d just…

“I’m sorry,” he said again, backing away.

Slowly she sat up. “Why?”

He scowled. “If you don’t know, then you’ve spent too much time with the military.”

She shrugged. “Undoubtedly. But I’m still confused. Shouldn’t we… um, finish?”

“No. We’re finished.
You’re
finished.”

She looked down at the obvious tenting on his banyan. “Please, Diccan. Don’t turn this into a melodrama. We knew this was
going to be… uncomfortable. But if we don’t at least try for normalcy, we’re already doomed.”

She was right. He rubbed his face again. He took a
breath. Of course, all he had to do was stand here a bit longer, and he’d wilt like high collars on a hot day. But he had
the odd suspicion that such a result would only shame her more. So he nodded. She laid back down. He climbed up onto the bed.
Lifting her nightgown up just far enough that he could get a peek of fiery red, he parted her legs and settled himself between
them. Then, eyes closed, he laid his elbows on either side of her head and went about finishing the task.

He hated himself, but once he slipped back into her, he couldn’t seem to stop. He pumped into her tight, hot sheath until
he climaxed, and the force of it stunned him. He found himself straining into her, deep, deeper, until he threw his head back
and shouted. And when he finally fell onto her, his face against her neck, he realized that she wasn’t completely shapeless
after all.

It was too late for that, though. He was spent, and he was ashamed, and damn it, he was resentful as hell. Why couldn’t she
have been that wanton she’d seemed? Now he’d never be able to do all those wonderfully perverse things he’d been promising
himself as he had dined on her.

Shamefully, he found himself blushing. Diccan Hilliard, the Perfection, had just acted like a randy second termer with a woman
who deserved better. But what could she expect after she’d dyed her thatch the color of sin? He rolled off her and lay looking
at the ceiling. “Where
did
you learn the trick of dyeing your… maiden-hair?” he asked. “India?”

She paused, but he didn’t look over at her. “Yes,” she finally said. “India.”

He nodded. “You might want to stop. You see what happens.”

That just earned him silence, which crowded him. Accused him. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He nodded. He didn’t know what to do now. He’d never had a virgin. He wasn’t sure what reassurances she might need. What care
or comfort. It didn’t help that he’d had five days to think about this and hadn’t come up with anything. “I’ll, uh, go downstairs
for a bit, shall I?”

He could hear the slither of her hair against linen as she turned her head. “Is that how it’s done?”

For a moment he could do no more than close his eyes. “I imagine so.”

Then, without waiting for her reaction, he climbed out of bed and into his pants. He didn’t once look back at his wife, who
still lay in the center of his four-poster while he dressed. He did take a moment to wet a cloth in the still-warm water in
his ewer.

He wished he knew what she was thinking. But when he turned to hand her the cloth, she appeared as she always did, calm and
collected and curiously invisible. How could this be the same woman who had writhed under his touch only moments before?

“This won’t happen again,” he promised, not sure why.