The Rogue and the Rival (44 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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She wasn’t perfect. But neither was he.
And Angela thought of her old prayer that she recited every night before bed when she lived in the abbey. Her prayer was for a second chance at love with a good man whom she could love and who would love her back. And, now that she thought of it, she hadn’t recited that prayer since Phillip had arrived.
Perhaps God had answered her after all.
There was a knock at the door.
To hell with the past, she thought, when she had a chance at heaven, here on earth. Love was enough.
She opened the door.
“Promise me that you will be here in the morning,” Angela said, after Phillip entered her chamber and shut and locked the door behind him.
She stood tall before him. In the candlelight, her hair, like spun gold, was unbound and falling over her shoulders. He pushed one lock aside, allowing his hand to skim across the soft skin of her cheek. With one fingertip, he traced along the curve of her neck, the curve of her shoulder, the swell of her breast. And he noticed that her hands were anxiously grasping the silken folds of her skirt. She was nervous. He took her hand in his.
He was the lucky one. The one who would get to kiss away her fears, the man who would erase her pain and give her pleasure instead.
“Promise me, please,” she whispered. It was a plea. She thought she was asking too much. But she might as well have asked him to breathe, for to promise her that would be the easiest promise to fulfill.
“I promise, Angela, that I will wake up with you for all the mornings of all the days of our lives.”
And then he sank down to one knee and looked up into her eyes. As far as grand gestures went, this one might not even count. There was no poetry or pageantry, no public to witness the promise. There was nothing, nothing at all, but the plain, honest truth. And on bended knee, with a ring in hand, there was no mistaking his intentions and his promise.
“Will you marry me, Angela?”
“I already said I would. But . . .” Angela pulled him up to stand again. “I am not an innocent. You have to know that you will not be my first. But I can promise you that you will be the last man. And I do love you. So if you will still have me—”
Phillip pressed a fingertip to her lips.
“Angela, I already know. And I still love you. I can’t imagine not loving you. And I hope that I am the last man for you, just as you are going to be the last woman I ever make love to. But what matters more is that you are happy. Oh, don’t cry. Say yes and let me love you tonight and forever.”
“Yes,” she said in a voice that was sure, certain, and steady. Phillip slipped the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. He gave her a second to admire it, with a smile as dazzling as the diamonds.
With his ring on her finger, the truth spoken, and hope in her heart, Angela knew she was ready. Though she had done this once before, she was still a little nervous. Like her second first kiss, this would be her second first time. Did she remember what to do? Had she even known before? Did any of that even matter? It would be different this time, she was sure. She knew that he could pleasure her, and that she could do the same for him.
And they were in love.
And they had waited long enough.
She pressed her mouth to his. And if she had any lingering doubts, Phillip kissed them away. With his hands, he pushed her hair out of the way and cupped her cheeks. He held her, as if drinking her in. She parted her lips, and he did the same. The kiss deepened.
Now that this moment was finally here, it became impossible to wait any longer. The months of longing, of loving, and of losing were finally over.
She began to push his jacket off of his shoulders. With his mouth never leaving hers, he shrugged and pulled it off, while she grasped and tugged buttons free.
His coat fell silently to the floor, followed quickly by his shirt. She pressed her palms against his chest. His skin was hot to the touch, and she could feel his heart pounding. She caressed the muscular contours and ridges of his abdomen and felt the soft, slight covering of hair. But it felt different than she remembered, different than before.
She opened her eyes and took a step back so that she might see with her eyes what she had felt with her hands. Oh, yes, he was stronger now. The sun darkened his skin. It was impossible not to imagine him shirtless and working outdoors in the sun, with a breeze cooling his heated skin.
Yes, he had changed. He was different than before. Stronger and bigger, but still hers. The hair on his chest narrowed into a line, leading to below the waistband of his breeches. His arousal was obvious. She didn’t bother to even try to look away.
And she couldn’t help but smile, knowing that his desire was for her. She could remember the way he felt in her hand, incredibly hard and strong, yet the skin there was silky soft and hot. She didn’t care anymore that she wasn’t supposed to know what his erection looked like and felt like. She knew, and she was glad of it, for once, because she didn’t have to fear the unknown. She could simply enjoy.
He groaned, and she raised her gaze to his face. His eyes were dark. His jaw was set in a firm, hard line.
“And they say that I can ruin a woman with my eyes. But your eyes . . . looking at me like that . . .”
“Look at me,” she whispered.
Phillip reached out, placing his hand at the back of her neck, sliding it down her back and up again. With both of his hands he quickly and easily took care of the buttons on her gown. She shrugged it off. He pulled her chemise over her head. And the lacings on her corset were removed with practiced ease.
And she was glad of that. He had done this before; he knew what he was doing. That meant there were not extra agonizing seconds of fumbling. She could be free of her coverings and restraints sooner. And then she stood before him, clad in nothing but her stockings with a pile of clothing at her feet.
Angela watched him as he stared at her. His eyes focused on her breasts first, and her nipples hardened from a look alone. His eyes darkened, and looked lower, to the gentle roundness of her stomach, and lower still to the thatch of hair between her legs. He bit his lower lip.
His desire for her was so clear, so undeniable, that she suddenly felt very bold. She turned around to walk toward the bed, after first casting a glance at him over her shoulder.
She sat down on the bed.
He stood before her.
She raised her hands to the band of his breeches, and began to slowly and carefully push the buttons through the holes. It was little more than a second later that he stood naked before her. Angela reached out to touch his arousal. His hand enclosed around hers.
A wicked thought occurred to her. Phillip sucked in his breath as she pressed a gentle kiss to its tip. She parted her lips around his erection, and his hand tightened on hers, and he moaned.
“Not. Yet.” Phillip groaned. She stopped and looked questioningly at him. She had thought he liked it. He urged her to lie back on the bed, and he covered her with his body.
“You first,” he whispered in her ear, as he stroked lightly between her parted legs. “And when it’s my turn, I want to be inside you.”
“Mmm,” she murmured, for it was all she could manage. How had she ever managed to live so long without his touch?
He shifted above her and began to feather kisses in a slow, teasing trail from the hollow of her throat down to her breasts. His mouth closed around one pink center, sucking the peak and eliciting a gasp from her, and then another, as he pressed light kisses in a line from one breast to the other. All the while, his fingers kept stroking her in a steady rhythm of increasing pressure.
Phillip’s attentions moved lower still. He pressed his open mouth on the curve of one hip, and then the other, and all the bare skin in between. Back and forth and up and down, there wasn’t an inch of her skin that he didn’t lavish his kiss and his touch upon. Sometimes she laughed when he came across a ticklish spot, but more often she sighed with pleasure. Angela ran her fingers through his hair, holding him to her, even though he showed no intentions of pulling away.
And then his mouth moved lower still, and he stroked the bud of her sex with his tongue now instead, leaving his hands free to caress the delicate skin of her inner thighs. She began to writhe under his loving touch. Her movements and her moans were involuntary. She knew she could not silence or restrain herself if she tried.
But she didn’t try to.
She knew she was on the verge of that explosive pleasure he had given her before. As if it were only yesterday, she remembered the heat that spread through her like wildfire, burning hotter, and brighter, and completely unstoppable. She remembered this tingling feeling that started from his mouth and that magical place that he kissed thoroughly.
And then her entire mind and every inch of her body was possessed by a wave of pleasure so explosive, so wonderfully overwhelming that everything in the world vanished except her and him and this amazing feeling.
She hoped that no one else heard her cry out his name as she climaxed. And then she didn’t care if the whole world heard her.
And before the pleasure faded completely, she was treated to the marvelous feeling of Phillip lowering his weight upon her. Angela also felt his rock-hard erection pressing urgently between her legs.
“Angela . . .” he whispered, looking into her eyes.
“Yes,” she whispered back.
Phillip entered her slowly, inch by hot, hard inch.
He never once took his eyes away from hers.
He was gentle, slow, and restrained, as if it was her first time. But the truth was so much better: it was their first time together.
She pressed her fingertips into his back and raked them slowly down that long expanse of hot, muscled skin. With both hands splayed on his buttocks, she urged him to enter her completely. Because she was beginning to feel almost whole and almost at one with him. She wanted the feeling to be complete.
And when he was totally sheathed within her, he laced his fingers with hers and pressed his mouth to hers for a deep, hungry kiss. His hips began to thrust, slowly at first. He moved inside of her, and she moved with him. And then a little bit harder, and a little bit faster.
She felt desperate for more yet so utterly complete at the same time. He gasped out his love for her, and she opened her mouth to say the same, but her second climax caught her by surprise, and she could only cry out his name.
Angela felt his final thrusts, rougher than all the others, and beyond his control as she brought him to release. His mouth pressed firmly against her shoulder, and she felt him groan in pleasure and completion.
“I didn’t know it could be like that,” she whispered a while later after she caught her breath.
“I didn’t know, either,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to him. He kissed her again. And again. They made love many times that night, only closing their eyes at the first light of dawn.
 
They were the last to arrive at breakfast that morning.
“Well, is there a need for a special license?” Lady Palmerston asked, ever so bluntly.
“No,” Phillip said, enjoying their shocked and murderous reactions. “No one will believe that
I
am married, unless they witness the ceremony. So we will be having a very big, proper wedding.”
“As soon as the banns are read,” Angela added.
“That leaves us three weeks,” Lady Palmerston said briskly. “We’d best return to London today so that we can start planning.”
“There is one last visit we have to make first,” Angela said.
“Oh, right. I still have to apologize to one other woman,” Phillip grumbled.
“A note will suffice for her. You are not to be in her company.”
“Don’t tell me you still don’t trust me,” Phillip said, wounded.
“It’s
her
I don’t trust,” Angela replied, and they smiled at each other.
“Who are we to call on then?” Lady Palmerston asked.
“My family,” Angela said, beaming, “I’d like to invite them to the wedding in person.”
 
After spending the night in the woods near the stately home of the Earl and Countess of Diamond, Lucas finally saw Angela emerge late the following morning. He saddled his horse as they packed the carriage. He was starving, exhausted, and desperate.
But he didn’t think twice about following them.
All day he rode a discreet distance behind them. As dusk started to fall, Lucas noticed the surroundings were becoming familiar. He felt himself break out into a cold sweat.
This cannot be,
he told himself.
You are imagining things. You are out of your mind with thirst, hunger, and fatigue
.
He was not feeling well. But he could not deny what he saw. Angela was returning home, and on the way, they passed the dueling field where her father had fallen. He wished once again that he had been the one to fall that day. But this time, his wish was intensified by the guilt and remorse of seven years.

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