Suzi Love (14 page)

“Open your bodice for me, sweetheart.”

Mesmerised by the growling tone of his voice, Becca complied. With eager fingers, she slipped her already unbuttoned bodice over her shoulders and loosened the tie of her lawn undergarment. Once again, her breasts were presented to his eyes as a ripe feast on a dinner plate, yet she felt no embarrassment, no shame. In her deepest thoughts, in her old dreams for an ideal future, she had imagined this moment countless times.

His tongue flicked across to wet her dry lips, once, twice, before his mouth descended to settle over one nipple and give a strong tug. She arched up, hands threading tightly through his dark locks, clasping him hard to fix him where she needed him most. He reached down to raise her skirts and his fingers unerringly found a sweet spot between her thighs.

“Oh, my goodness. That feels so, so good,” she murmured when he pressed down and then released.

He repeated the movement several times, up and down, until she lost all sense of anything except where the finger went and what it touched. Just as she believed she could stand no more of his teasing, he changed the rhythm.

The new circling motion of his index finger around the most intimate, the most tender part of her body made her blood rise and sing. She felt hot and wet and the ache increased with relentless intensity. When his finger swirled the bud swelling in her cleft, the pressure escalated so quickly inside her that she thought she’d burst.

She jerked, her moans and groans growing louder and longer as her body demanded more. The escalating sensations pulsing through her body were astounding and energising.

He whispered in her ear, “Oh, my sweet, you’re so incredible when you do that. Yes, reach for it, my love. Take what you want. Take it all.”

His finger continued to alternatively push inside or twirl the sensitive outside until with a dazzling burst of power, she screamed and bucked. Over and over. She rose repeatedly off the settee to thrust against his taut body, riding out the spasms that wracked her then left her collapsed backwards over his arm. From her toes to her head, she continued to twitch and tingle whilst he feverishly licked every exposed part of her upper body. He held her like that until the tremors subsided and she groaned out the downward spiral of her pleasure.

His finger remained snug inside her and he continued to lathe tiny licks over her ear until she finally stopped, completely spent. When she returned to consciousness, Cayle was perched on the edge of the settee regarding her tenderly and her clothing had been righted. She blinked lazily and fixed her dazzled gaze on his face.

He groaned and looked away. “For God’s sake, Becca, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” she asked, still floating in a state of dazed happiness.

“Like I just rode in on a white charger to save a damsel in distress.”

She smiled, a wise female smile. Because she now knew what all the fuss was about. Knew why some of her married friends had that same far away private look upon their countenances when they spoke of attentive husbands. Of course, having aided many not so fortunate women, she understood that bliss was not always obtained with a man.

It took the right man, Madame Faberge would say. A man who knew how to please his lover, putting his own needs second to the needs of a woman. Cayle stared at her with reverence, his hand caressing the side of her body. Yet, at the same time, he looked ready to jump up and run.

“I’m no hero.”

She reached up to trail her fingers down his cheek. “To me, you’re everything heroic. You may deny it, but your continuing loyalty to your brothers, even to Julia, all speak of a noble nature.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’ve done things. Things that prevent you casting me as a hero riding to your rescue.”

Keeping her face purposefully blank to appease his rising alarm, she said, “You didn’t rescue me, Cayle, but you did show me why women risk everything to conduct love affairs.”

Sitting upright, she kissed his warm lips and hugged his tense body once before swinging her legs to the side. She placed a hand on his thigh to steady herself to stand, already regretting that their moments of intimacy had passed.

“Thank you for showing me.”

Cayle looked at her with open-mouthed bafflement. While she stood and smoothed the creases from her skirt. While she fiddled with her bodice. He stared. Frozen in his seat. And silent. His demeanour slipped this evening from angry protector over her confrontation of Lindley, to an aroused man, and then to a bewildered lover. He seemed confused as to what to do with her next. It was up to her to direct the next step in their relationship.

With an emphatic nod of her head, she announced, “In order to educate my sisters completely, I am compelled to conduct many more experiments on this incredible phenomenon.”

Cayle gaped at Becca in stunned disbelief, unable to form a coherent reply to her outlandish statement and horrified by Becca’s suddenly brisk, scientific manner. He’d made the decisions, called the shots, told her it was a once only moment of intimacy. Of madness.

Becca becoming clingy was the last thing he wanted but this matter of fact approach to what they’d just shared, exasperated him. And for the life of him, he couldn’t pinpoint why it aggrieved him so much.

He stood on shaky legs to confront her. “Let me understand, I just gave you your first female pleasure — ”

“No!” She shook her head. “Not my first, Cayle. You forgot the stables four years ago.”

He nodded his head in agreement. “Your second … ”

He considered for a moment. “No, your third orgasm. A very enjoyable and profound release if I may say in all modesty, yet you intend treating it as the commencement of a scientific experiment?”

“Oh, yes. I must now collect more extensive data before I make a scientific decision.”

“Collect data. Where? With whom?”

The questions exploded from him before he had time to think. He glanced away, trying to haul back his raging emotions. Control was everything.

“Not that it’s important to me, of course.”

“No, of course not,” Becca agreed amicably. “You, as a man with considerable experience in these matters, matters of the bedroom, or drawing room, as the case maybe, as is the case in this instance, our being in a drawing room just now when it happened, have made it as clear as crystal that while our paths must cross, in order for us to resolve the immediate situation with the gentlemen involved in the consortium — ”

“Good grief! Stop that infernal babbling. Get to your point. If there is one. Although, by the devious, convoluted and completely incomprehensible way your mind works when approaching a problem, I doubt there is one. A point, I mean. Not a mind. Damn! Now I’m babbling. Your idiosyncrasies are catching.”

He growled deep in his throat several times and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He wanted to put his hands around her pretty little neck and throttle her. He wanted to throw her on the settee and finish what they’d started. Finish it in a way that ensured she would be fully his and wouldn’t contemplate allowing another man to touch her that way. He wanted … everything.

“What just happened,” she said, in the sort of pompous voice she used to deliver a scientific treatise, “in no way entitles either one of us to interfere, or even question, how the other conducts their private life.”

His arousal sagged, and shrank, although he doubted it would ever completely desert him while Becca was near. Or even, in the same city. Now, the only thought he had when looking at her was how to escape this situation with a shred of pride intact.

“I have no interest in knowing how,” he snapped, “or when, or with whom you do … well, anything.”

“Oh, good.”

“Not now, nor in the future.”

“Then you will feel no affront when I don’t share my methods of research or my conclusions with you.”

“I have no wish to know,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“You may remain oblivious because I will exercise the uttermost discretion.”

“You, discreet! That’s like saying the British monarchy has been a model of decorum.”

“The gentlemen I have in mind are known for their diplomacy.”

“Gentlemen!” Incredulity turned to fury. “You mean more … more than one.”

“A truly trustworthy study is required to be conducted over as broad a continuum as possible. And as these men are all very experienced at conducting illicit affairs, they therefore must be very knowledgeable about pleasing a woman.”

Once again, she’d rendered him speechless. Earlier, the determined look on her face had been his undoing. A man didn’t often get begged by a woman to touch her in such an intimate fashion. Or, to do even more. And idiot that he was, he’d refused.

Or at least, he’d attempted to refuse. Endeavoured to turn and leave. But, she seemed so alive, so vibrant, so uniquely Becca that he couldn’t force his feet to the door.

Currently however, she wore a forced air of innocence that he knew was at odds with her true character and which was an unnatural expression for her elfin face. Her virtuous look worried him even more than her absurd announcements. With a comforting pat on his arm, his nemesis turned and scurried away. At the door, she flicked him a little half wave over her shoulder and then strode out without another glance.

• • •

Or, without explaining which gentlemen were going to be experimented upon. The mere thought of any other man but him touching her as he had just done, left him angry and shaking. Glaring at her retreating back, he was unable to believe she’d left him standing, without so much as a decent good bye. He yelled in the direction of the empty doorway. “Rebecca Jamison. Come back here and finish that discussion.”

However, the only Jamison to appear was Laura, grinning. “I thought family members were the only ones Becca abandoned in the middle of discussions.”

“Your sister is the most infuriating, most frustrating — ”

“Annoying. Devious. Confusing.”

“All of those and more. Does she never stop to think before she hurtles into rash acts?”

After pretending to ponder the question, Laura replied with glee, “No, not often. Becca often doesn’t think the same way as others. Her energy is poured into arranging stratagems to make life easier. But she becomes so engrossed in her schemes and experiments that she forgets the hazards of everyday life. She sees it as her duty to help everyone, gentry or commoner so she unwittingly steps into danger. And that’s why we all help make her life run smoother. So she can continue her journeys of discovery unhampered.”

“Yet, she thinks she’s guarding all of you. Her family.”

“I know. We allow her to think that. In return, she does an extraordinary job of managing the important things. It’s the little things she forgets, like wearing a bonnet to protect her complexion. Or changing out of wet shoes before she becomes chilled. Plus, there is her terrifying tendency to trust the wrong men.”

He flinched. “Does that include me?”

“Perhaps. If the shoe fits. You were part of the reason she has vowed never to marry.”

“While you advocate that before committing herself to any man, Becca employs the famous Lady Laura Jamison’s theory of sampling the wares before she buys.”

“Better that than be lumbered with some fop who doesn’t know his left hand from his right. Who will never please a woman in bed.” She smirked at him, making Cayle squirm under her knowing regard. “But we all know that you know exactly how to please a woman, do we not?”

Afraid to consider just how she knew these things, he was searching for a change of subject when the answer suddenly occurred to him. “Bloody hell, I forgot. You listen at doors.” He felt weak kneed at the implications of that, horrified at the thought. “You were listening? Just now?”

Laura smiled a knowing smile and agreed, “Perhaps. Probably. Oh well, all right, of course I listened. I need to research lovemaking using specimens who are no threat to my reputation.”

Cayle threw back his head and groaned. “Damn all Jamison sisters and their research to hell.” Looking at Laura with calculation, he asked, “Will you inform Becca that you listened?”

“Of course. We discuss everything. Every detail, no matter how big, or how small.” Her gaze wandered over his tight breeches and nodded. “I can see this will be a particularly lengthy discussion.”

As her meaning sunk in, Cayle involuntarily glanced downwards to where a remnant of his earlier arousal lingered. He felt as embarrassed as an untried youth. With an even more agonised groan, he hastened to the door, muttering a curt goodnight over his shoulder.

“I will return in the morning to escort you on your morning ride.”

• • •

Rushing out the door to the pavement, Cayle heaved in gulping breaths of cold air but still it wasn’t enough to dampen the rush of emotions. Nor was it enough to quell the lustful ardour that had swamped him at the feel, the sounds and the smell of Becca in full-blown orgasm.

The womanly scent of her arousal tugged at him still, a siren’s pull. His ears still rang with her screams of completion. He feared bringing his palms to his face because he knew the scent of her lingered upon hands that had invaded her innermost secret places. He wanted to suck the musky flavour of her juices from his fingers but he forced himself to remain in control of his urges. There was no time in his life for weakness, no time for the temptation of a virginal seductress.

Becca had no idea how close he had come to ravaging her on the soft carpet, or the firm settee, or bent over the hard desk. Still, he’d conquered emotional turmoil before and remained untouched and he would again. If only the lure had not come wrapped as one female package topped with a fiery red ribbon.

Even a saint couldn’t endure such torture as being able to look at Becca and not touch, not taste her, and not devour. Despite Becca’s accusations, he was not cut out for sainthood.

Hell, he was doomed.

For the next week, the Duke of Sherwyn and his brothers donned elegant attire to pay calls with the ladies and escort them to the most fashionable events. To Cayle’s amazement, the wild girls he’d played with at the Jamison’s country house had emerged as London’s most stunning women. What made it worse was that, to Cayle’s eyes, Becca’s vibrant beauty was by far the most enticing.