The Dangerous Lord (14 page)

He now stood scant inches from her, and though she wanted to flee, she refused to let him see how he intimi
dated her. Besides, the dressing table at her back prevented it.

Trying to retain some semblance of a spinsterish air, she retorted, “You
know
what I meant. I meant you kissed me with…with—” Oh, how did one describe the heart-stopping plunge into passion and sheer intensity of a man's kiss without sounding like a milksop schoolgirl? “With great enthusiasm,” she finished lamely.

A half smile touched his lips. “I won't deny that. I'd say we both showed ‘great enthusiasm.' Yet even the most enthusiastic of kisses wouldn't have prompted Sara to evict me from her house.” Without warning, he hooked his arm about her waist, tugging her so close she could see the dark smudge of whiskers along his upper lip. “So tell me, my deceptive Felicity, what did I do to make her think so ill of me? I swear I don't remember anything that would shame me.”

“That's because nothing shames you!” She dug the heels of her palms into his chest and shoved, which proved utterly pointless and merely made her dressing gown gape open. “Let go, Ian, or I shall…shall…” Her heart sank as she remembered why she couldn't scream. “Shall be convinced you're a blackguard and a scoundrel!”

His quick burst of laughter echoed in the room. “You're already convinced of that. Besides, I won't leave until you demonstrate what ‘too far' is. Just so I don't make the same mistake in the future, you understand.”

“In the future?” she squeaked.

“Much as I hope our little skirmishes are over, I know you better than that. So I want to know what's allowed and what's not.” Snagging the edge of the dressing gown with two fingers, he peeled it open, his gaze dipping brazenly to examine her chemise.

Her blood quickened, leapt, rushed through her veins. She should scream that this was definitely not allowed, yet all she could do was fight to drag breath into her lungs.
Then he bent his head to press a kiss where her collarbone lay exposed above her chemise. It was so intimate a caress she strained away, which threw her off-balance so that she fell against the edge of the dressing table, her hands catching at it for support.

He took advantage of her imbalance to catch her wrapper in his fists and push it slowly, sensuously off her shoulders. As it pooled on the dressing table behind her, he wound a lock of her hair around his finger, then kissed it.

“Don't,” she whispered hoarsely. A heady pleasure already raced through her traitorous body. She fought it fiercely. The last time she'd let him kiss her, he'd trampled on her feelings afterward. “You…you…mustn't…”

He dropped the lock of hair, stroking it where it fell across her shoulder. Then he swept her shoulder free of it. “Is this what you meant by ‘too far'?” He edged the sleeve of her chemise over to bare her shoulder. She caught her breath when he lowered his mouth to kiss the exposed skin. His breath was a feathery caress, a teasing promise.

When a soft sigh spiraled out of her, he turned his lips to the base of her throat. “Or this?” He skimmed his mouth along the smooth hollow as if seeking the pulse that jumped in a frenzy beneath his touch, and when he found it he kissed that, too, then followed it up the arch of her neck.

By the time he lifted his head, his eyes smoldered like barely banked embers in the flame that was his face. “No, I'd forgotten. Those are kisses, and ‘too far' is more than a kiss or two, isn't it? ‘Too far' must be enough to make my childhood friend doubt my good character. Now, what could that be?”

With his gaze still fixed on her face, he caught one sleeve of her chemise in his fist and inched it down past her shoulder. Color flooded her cheeks as she grabbed his hand at the wrist to stop him, but then he brought his mouth down on hers and she forgot why he shouldn't be here with her alone…why he shouldn't touch her like this, kiss her like
this…why she didn't trust him…everything.

His kiss was deep and immediately possessive, his tongue entering her mouth before she even realized she'd parted her lips. The table edge dug into her palm where she gripped it in an attempt not to “draw him back” as he'd accused her of before.

But that was only a small victory, for she couldn't keep the rest of her body from responding, from straining against him, from welcoming his mouth as it urgently explored hers…or his hands as they worked the sleeves of her chemise over her shoulders…or his knee pressing in to part her thighs within the muslin prison of her scanty clothing. She even helped him by angling her head back as his lips kissed a path down her throat.

When he loosened the ties of her chemise, however, she came briefly to her senses, catching the muslin's edge before it could gape open and reveal her bare breasts. “Stop it! What do you think you're doing?”

“Determining my limits,” he said in a husky voice. “How far is ‘too far'?”

“
This
most certainly is!”

“Oh? But you said you didn't lie to Sara about my ‘assault' that night, and I definitely don't remember doing this.” His night black gaze locked on her face, but his hand cupped one muslin-covered breast in a bold caress that made her suck in a breath. “Then again, my memory
is
sometimes faulty. Perhaps I should refresh it.”

“No, you…you…” Her mind went blank when his hand moved on her breast. It was exquisitely shameful and very delicious. “Oh, my word,” said a throaty voice that surely belonged to someone other than her, the voice of a wanton.

“Did I touch you like this that night, Felicity?”

She closed her eyes to keep from witnessing his triumphant expression. He flattened his palm against her breast
and began a rotating motion that made her nipple tighten into an aching kernel.

At her sharp intake of breath, he leaned close, his own breath beating a hot tattoo against her cheek. “Tell me,
querida
. Did I do this?”

The foreign word caught her off guard until she remembered that he was half-Spanish. And she was too embarrassed to ask what it meant.

“Answer me,” he commanded in a harsher tone.

“No,” she blurted out, heedless of her pride. “You know you didn't.”

When she forced her eyes open to face the gloating expression sure to be there, she was shocked to see he wasn't gloating.

Raw need fractured his normally controlled features. “It's a miracle I didn't,” he confessed raggedly. “Because I wanted to. God, how I wanted to.”

His assertion salved her wounded pride. He hadn't been merely manipulating her that night—he
had
felt what she'd felt. And the things he did to her now—the kisses, the caresses—were more than one of his cursed stratagems.

The realization renewed all her repressed longings, and they gusted through her like an errant wind, blowing away any thought of modesty or maidenly restraint. She leaned eagerly into his hand. With a groan of pure male satisfaction, he caressed her in earnest…plucking at her nipple through the muslin, gently pinching it with obvious expertise, finding the other breast and submitting it to the same torturous, glorious fondling.

To her shame, his caresses roused a most deplorable curiosity. How would it feel to have his bare fingers against her skin? Or even his mouth? Scandalous thought!

But one he must have sensed, for he slid his hand inside her chemise to cup her naked breast. The ensuing whirlwind of pleasure made her close her eyes and sigh aloud. Good Lord, it was better than she'd imagined. Skin to skin,
his hand intimate with her flesh. Any lingering objections faded until the only thing remaining was an urgent need to know more, feel more, have him touch her more.

Her breathing grew labored, as if the insolent motion of his hand—no, his
hands
, for both of them were now inside her chemise—worked a magic that siphoned the very breath from her body. She'd never guessed her body possessed such an astonishing capacity for enjoyment or that a man could discover it with unerring ease.

“Ian…” she murmured, not even knowing what she wanted to say.

“Yes.” His voice sounded hoarse and far away. “My God, you feel like heaven in my hands…so good…so sweet…”

He knelt on one knee and drew her chemise down so he could seize her breast with his mouth exactly as she'd imagined. Shocked as much by his uncanny ability to know her body's longings as by what he did, she clasped his head between her hands. He must stop this. She should make him stop this.

Yet she cradled his head closer, breathing in the scent of pipe smoke that clung to his hair. He made a growling noise in the back of his throat and slid his free hand around her thighs, then pulled her forward until she fell onto his bent leg, straddling it as she caught at his shoulders for balance. Her chemise bunched up her calves to accommodate the awkward position and exposed the buttoned bands of her drawers just below her knees. As he settled her more firmly astride his thigh, the slit in her drawers gaped open so that her most deeply private part pressed directly against his leg, with only a whisper of kerseymere separating his skin from hers.

Shock kept her motionless for a moment. This was a most decadent position. But when she squirmed in a vain attempt to sit more decorously, she found only more decadence. The intimate pressure was delicious. Indeed,
whenever she squirmed away, the juncture between her thighs began to throb with an unseemly ache that only eased when she pressed herself against his thigh again.

She'd felt this ache before, late at night when she was half-asleep and dreaming of her sultan. The only thing that satisfied it, she was ashamed to admit, was pressure. She'd resorted to it once or twice, secretly, guiltily. And now she resorted to it again, rocking against his leg.

“That's it,” he murmured against her breast. “Ride me,
querida
. Yes…yes…”

Though she didn't entirely understand what he meant, she needed no more encouragement to rub her most private place along his thigh. She clutched his head close again, leaning into him, straining to press more of her breast into his boldly sucking mouth. Thick strands of his hair spilled over her hands. The inky threads tickled her splayed fingers, sprouting up between them like wild rushes.

He made her feel wild—this rampant yearning between her legs, the delight of satisfying it by undulating on his thigh. His mouth was almost savage at her breast now, rousing such sinful responses in her that he had to be the devil.

She rocked forward on his thigh, a purring sound erupting from her when every shift of position sent glorious sensations through her lower limbs. He tore his mouth from her flesh, only to seize the other breast with equal fervor. His hand took over on the first breast, caressing the engorged, damp nipple while his mouth and tongue pleasured the plump curves of the other breast.

She was drowning, pleasure lapping over her in waves, the tobacco scent and the hard feel of him rising around her like floodwaters, threatening to engulf her, dissolve her.

A fierce urge to know more of him assailed her. She tugged restlessly at his lapels, and he shrugged his coat off, tossing it heedlessly to the floor as he returned to laving her breast with his tongue. She molded his muscles through
his shirt, relishing the way they flexed beneath her fingers. He ran his large hand up her calf, then her knee and inside the leg of her drawers until the curve of her bare hip filled his fingers, his wondrous, caressing fingers…

Abruptly he stiffened and dragged his mouth from her breast, though his hand still cupped one naked buttock.

“Ian?” she questioned in disappointment.

“Shh,” he cautioned, his head cocked as if he were listening.

Then she heard it, too, sounds of female conversation and meandering footsteps in the hall. She froze, her throat burning with raw emotion. Surely he hadn't planned for them to be caught again. And in a much more compromising position. Oh, Lord, if he'd done all this purposely to shame her—

He jerked his hand out of her drawers, his eyes an inky black as he met her gaze. The concern in them reassured her that he hadn't planned this. He gripped her upper arms. “It's Sara and Emily. Are you expecting them?”

She shook her head wordlessly, and he dug his fingers into her skin, every muscle of his face taut as he glanced back to the door.

The nursery lay across the hall from her room, and she wondered if that were their destination. The footsteps stopped outside her doorway, but the voices quickly lowered. They thought she was asleep. Little did they know.

Only when she heard the door across the hall opening and closing could she breathe again.

Ian's grip on her slackened. “Felicity.” Though he merely whispered the word, it seemed to echo in the silence of her bedchamber.

“Yes?”

“
This
is ‘too far.'”

She squelched her mad impulse to laugh. “I do believe you're right, my lord.” She should get off his knee, thrust
him away, take her fingers out of his hair. But she couldn't do any of those things.

He bent his head to tug at her nipple with his teeth, eliciting a gasp from her. Wanting him to do it again, she clasped him close. Her body wanted more from him, though she didn't know what. If he would only kiss her, suck her breast again, lay his hand upon her hip…His mouth did close urgently over her breast, sucking and teasing it until her yearning turned to an ache that was almost real pain.

But when she groaned and swayed against him, he went still. Laying his cheek against the nipple he'd just been devouring, he pressed a kiss to the inside curve of the opposite breast. “Make me stop this,” he demanded, his tone harsh and guttural, his words an earnest plea.

It took a moment for his meaning to penetrate her dazed state. “Why?”

There was a long pause. He propped his forehead against her chest and after a second, she saw his head shaking. When he lifted his face, she realized he was laughing—mirthlessly, silently laughing.