One Night With A Prince (15 page)

And now his hand was sliding hers inside his drawers to cup the heavy length of him, and her gut was knotting in a welter of fear and excitement actually to be touching it. Him. His flesh. Dear Lord in heaven, she must be mad. Yet her hand moved of its own accord, stroking, caressing—

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“Yes, lass,” he whispered against her lips. “Yes, like that, yes…”

He returned to ravaging her mouth. But gone was the restraint he’d exhibited earlier in the day. He cupped her breast through the chemise, then slid her chemise off one shoulder so he could knead the naked flesh beneath with his warm, broad hand.

But when he squeezed her nipple, sending a shock of pleasure straight to her belly and below, she tore her mouth from his to murmur, “Byrne, please…”

She wasn’t sure if she was begging for him to stop or to go on. Taking her by surprise, he lifted her onto the card table behind them, forcing her to release her grip on his…his thing. The flimsy table wobbled under her weight, and she grabbed for his arms to steady her. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?”

His only answer was to tug her chemise down enough to expose one aching breast to his heavy-lidded gaze. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He bent his head to suck her nipple. Hard. She nearly shot up off the table. “Oh, Lord,” she moaned, even as she clutched his head close for more. He happily obliged her, teasing her nipple with teeth and tongue, making her gasp and sigh and yearn. She’d never felt anything this intense with her husband, never. What sort of wanton was she, that she could only feel it with this blatantly immoral scoundrel?

“Blast you,” she whispered. “You are such a…devious…devil…”

“I do try,” he rasped, sliding his hand inside her chemise to find her other nipple and roll it between his thumb and forefinger in a motion clearly designed to drive her insane. “Do you like that, lass?”

“Yes…oh…yes…” When he removed his wicked hands so he could shove her chemise down to her waist, she caught his hands before he could touch her again. “Wait a minute—I’m not supposed to be naked. Onlyyou are, you…you cheater,” she accused him breathlessly. His eyes glittered like the fiercest of foxes in some dark-forested night. “You won’t be happy until I concede defeat, will you?” He shoved down his drawers and kicked them away. “There—you’ve got your winnings. I’m naked as the day I was born.”

Her gaze shot inexorably to the flesh he’d bared, and her mouth went dry. Lord help her. She’d seen only one man naked in her entire life, and he’d been nothing like Byrne. Philip’s member had been long, sleek, and slender. Easy to manage.

Byrne’s didn’t look easy to manage. It thrust boldly forward like the impudent scoundrel that it was—hard and huge and heavy. And unmanageable. Exactly like its owner. Who was presently inching up her chemise—

“Stop that!” she protested, grabbing for his hands. “You mustn’t—”

He cut her off with a long, needy kiss, the sort of soul-deep kiss she was rapidly growing addicted to. Philip hadn’t been much for kissing…or for silken caresses, either. Lovemaking had been a basic need he satisfied as quickly as possible, often leaving her craving the inexplicable.
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But even as Byrne’s caresses built that same craving inside her, he began satisfying it. He fondled the breasts that craved his touch, fingered the nipples that yearned for his teasing, slid his hand up inside her thigh until his thumb found the pulsing center of all her cravings and…

“Byrne!” she cried as he rubbed her most impudently. She grabbed his hand. “I don’t think you should—”

“Hush, my sweet, you think too much.” He stroked her on that tender spot again, making her squirm on the table shamelessly.

Desperately, she fought to keep her sanity. “No doubt you’ve used…that line before.”

“Hardly.” He slid a finger inside her, and she gasped. “You met my mistresses—did they seem the type to need coaxing to misbehave?”

“No, but—”

“The trouble with you is that you have everything backwards.”

Now he was thumbing her nipple with one hand and thrusting his finger inside her with the other. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t halt the rush of sensations assaulting her. He went on in a husky rasp. “When youshould be using that clever brain of yours, playing whist, you let every emotion sway you. But let a man try to make love to you, and all you do is think.”

He heated her cheeks and brow and temples with a series of kisses designed to do anythingbut make her think. She struggled against the fog stealing over her.

“There you go again,” he murmured. “You’re thinking. I can tell from your frown.”

“If I don’t…keep my wits about me…you’ll destroy me.”

He gave a low chuckle. “Such drama. Does this feel like destruction?”

He drove another finger deep inside her, making her rise up on the table with a cry of alarm…of delight…of pleasure. Blast him.

“You can think later,” he added. “Right now, just feel and enjoy.”

But if she gave herself to him in this, she would give herself in other…more dangerous…Oh, Lord, what was he doing to her?

She gripped his shoulders as he battered her defenses on every front, giving her another of his too-enticing kisses while he caressed her inside and out, her breast…her nipple…the soft, throbbing flesh between her legs. She’d felt a vaguely unsatisfying ache down there before, but Byrne’s caresses sharpened it to a piercing need that grew and swelled and consumed her below, carrying her forward in a rush until she was arching into his hand and gripping his shoulders and reaching for something…

She tore her mouth from his as the craving grew insatiable. “Oh, Byrne…please…oh yes…”

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“Is this what you want?” he whispered, his motions growing fiercer, his breath thick and heavy against her cheek. “Is it, lass?”

“I want…I need…” It hit her suddenly, a flood of exquisite sensations she’d never known. “Byrne, yes!”

she cried out, as they swamped her senses. “Byrne…oh, my word…Byrne…”

“I’m here.” His hand slowed to a sensuous caress, gentling her, soothing her as she shook from the waves of pleasure rocking her body.

And when it was over, and the excitement faded to a sweet contentment, he nuzzled her cheek, and said again, “I’m here, my sweet.”

For a moment, all Christabel could do was breathe and wonder and try to figure out how he—

“You’re thinking again,” he whispered, then laved her ear with his tongue.

“I’m not…I…what on earth was that? What happened?”

Moving his hand from between her legs, he drew back to stare at her. “You don’t know?”

“Should I?”

His lips tightened into a thin line. “Haversham should have shown you, yes. But I’m not exactly surprised that he didn’t.”

His condemning tone stung. She leaped to defend her late husband. “You can’t expect him to have been as wicked as you. He was a respectable man—”

“Who was too selfish to pleasure his wife.” His eyes bored into her, unsettling her. “Unless you found what we just did unpleasant, don’t excuse him for denying it to you.”

She colored. “Perhaps he didn’t…know how—”

“Then he should have learned.” His hands caressed her thighs. “Trust me, that’s the very least that a man…a lover…ahusband should do for his wife. Though plenty of them don’t.”

“I see,” she said inanely. And she did. So very much.This was why married women clamored to play the role of his mistress. They wanted this heady, addictive pleasure that their husbands wouldn’t or couldn’t give them.

He bent to kiss her cheek, then her jaw, then her throat. “Now I see why you balked at sharing my bed. Because you didn’t know what you were missing.”

“That wasn’t why,” she whispered without thinking.

“Then what was the reason?” He tongued the pulse in her neck that still beat so wildly. Because if I share your bed, I’ll lose myself.

She couldn’t say that; it would give him an advantage.

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Still kissing her neck and her hair, he moved in closer, the tip of his erect shaft brushing between her legs. Panic seized her. Oh, Lord, she’d already given him an advantage. He’d pleasured her, but he hadn’t gained his own pleasure. And now he would expect to gain it in her bed. Unless—

Almost desperately, she reached between them to close her hand about his hot, rigid flesh. He groaned. “Damn, that feels good.”

Tentatively, she worked her hand up and down his shaft, rewarded by another heartfelt groan. She’d caught Philip doing this once, watched secretly as he stroked himself to release. If he could do it to himself, then surely she—

“That’s enough,” Byrne growled, catching her hand to stay it. “I want to come inside you.”

“But I want to touch you as you touched me.” Frantically, she searched for an argument that would convince him. “Philip never let me touch him like this,” she whispered. Though it was true, it shamed her to reveal it. Still, if the choice was to let Byrne take her here, in her own parlor, like one of his wanton mistresses—

“Please,” she continued, “let me touch you.”

After a second, his hand fell away from hers. “If you want.” He thrust into her hand. “We do have all night.”

“I thought you had to be at the club.”

“They’ll send for me…if they need me,” he choked out. “With luck, they won’t.”

Then he surprised her by lowering his mouth to suck her breast. It was like tossing kindling into smoldering embers—her blood raced hot again, and that insatiable flesh between her legs began to throb. Oh, no, no, she mustn’t let him arouse…her…again….

Praying she was doing it right, she increased the rhythm of her strokes. His response was heartening. With a choked gasp, he tore his mouth from her breast and began pumping his hips against her hand. She couldn’t believe how fiercely firm he was, yet how silky soft his skin, like liquid velvet encasing steel.

“God…oh, God…yes, lass, yes…” he growled.

For the first time in her life, she understood what he must be feeling. And to think thatshe was the one giving this pleasure to him was intoxicating. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely inept at pleasing a man. She stroked him harder. “Is that what you want?” Drunk with her own exhilarating power, she consciously echoed his earlier words. “Is it, Byrne?”

With a heartfelt curse, he threw his head back, the muscles in his neck stretched taut. “You know…that it is…you bloody, teasing…minx.” Reaching behind her, he snatched up the pair of drawers she’d tossed onto the table earlier and wrapped it about her hand and his aroused flesh.

“Damn…damn…damn!” he cried out seconds later as his seed, warm and thick like buttermilk, flooded her linen-bound hand.

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As she witnessed the blood flush fill his face and heard his breath come raggedly from his throat, a strange awe stole over her. So even the fiercely controlled Byrne was human. Perhaps he was not so very controlled after all. Perhaps he was even capable of real feeling—

No, how could she even think it? Yes, he enjoyed lovemaking fully—what else could she expect of a man like him? But he would never go beyond that, a fact that he’d made clear in every act, every word. He wasn’t the sort of man to care for a woman beyond the bedchamber. His head lowered, and his eyes slid open. “Well, well,” he managed to gasp as his breathing slowed.

“For a woman who never before experienced pleasure with a man, you are…quite talented at giving it.”

Trying not to let the frank approval warm her, she dropped her gaze from his. “Am I?”

He wiped her hand clean on her drawers, then tossed them aside. “Oh, yes.” Bending to press his lips to her cheek, he murmured, “Time to move to your bedchamber, my sweet, where we can be more comfortable.”

A groan escaped her. He was not going to take this well, was he? “I…I would rather not,” she evaded.

“I’m tired, and you have to be at the club—”

“I don’t, I told you.” He nibbled her ear as he laid his hands on her waist. “And if you’re tired, we’ll sleep a while.” A teasing note entered his voice. “Making love is even better in the morning.”

“No, I can’t.” She drew back from him, her head lowered. She couldn’t look at him. “I…I just can’t.”

His fingers curled into her waist. “You can’t?” he said disbelievingly. “You mean, you won’t.”

She nodded.

Seizing her chin, he lifted her head until her gaze met his, now icy gray as a winter storm. “You never intended for us to share a bed tonight, did you? That’s why you jerked my mutton.”

“I…What?”

“You’re a cock-chafer,” he hissed. “You excite a man, then throw him out of your bed without giving him relief.”

“That’s not true!” she protested. “Idid give you relief!”

A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Yes, I suppose you did. In a fashion. But it wasn’t the kind of relief I wanted.”

She sighed. “Byrne, you have to understand—”

“No, I don’t. What are you so bloody afraid of, Christabel? That you might enjoy yourself? That you might discover you’re secretly as wicked as the rest of us whom you hold in such contempt?”

She dared not tell him that she couldn’t trust herself with him if she took him into her bed. But she could tell him some of the truth. If he could understand.

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“I’m not like your other women, you know,” she whispered. “I’m not willing to take a man in parts. I can’t share your bed one day and blithely look the other way the next as you share another woman’s bed. It isn’t in my nature.” Drawing her chemise up to cover her breasts, she slid her arms through the sleeves. “And it isn’t inyour nature to be faithful to a woman, is it?”

He was silent a moment, his eyes boring into hers. And even when he spoke, his answer wasn’t an answer. “So you want marriage then.” He spat the word as if it were loathsome. She shook her head no. “I will never again place my future in the hands of some man who will end up—”