Twice the Temptation (21 page)

 
She leaned up along his chest to kiss him again. They’d been in such a hurry last night that she hadn’t been able to touch him, to experience him. Today she would do as she wanted. And what she wanted. Slipping her fingers from his jawline down to his throat, she pulled out the intricate knots of his cravat and slid it free.

 
Dropping it to the floor, she kissed his bared throat as he’d said he liked. Connoll’s hard muscles shuddered in response, and he drew a shaking breath. Warm damp began between her thighs. Encouraged by his reaction, she pushed his coat down his shoulders, and he shrugged out of it. Then she went to work on his cream-colored waistcoat.

 
“We’re in no hurry, you know,” Connoll commented, sliding one sleeve of her gown and shift down her shoulder.

 
“I’m not hurrying,” she retorted, pulling off his waistcoat and dropping it from her fingers. “I’m curious. And interested.” And aroused, but he could probably tell that by the way her fingers were shaking.

 
“Proceed, then. Just try not to destroy anything; I don’t want to have to explain that to Hodges.”

 
Evangeline pulled his shirt from his trousers to run her palms up his chest. Warm, velvet skin with the steel of muscles beneath. Glorious. Then she realized what he’d said. “Why do you care about explanations?” she asked.

 
His blue-eyed gaze held hers. “I apologize. I was attempting to be amusing,” he said quietly, twining a strand of her hair around his fingers. “We both know that yours is the reputation at risk. But you should know that I have no intention of going anywhere.”

 
“Ah. You mean if this happens to ruin me, you’ll stay by my side and dance with me even when everyone else turns their back and whispers?”

 
He pulled down her other sleeve none too gently, exposing both her breasts. “I mean, Gilly,” he said, running his fingertips feather-light across her nipples, “that I intend to ask for your hand in marriage whether today remains our private secret or whether the diamond somehow inspires a columnist with theLondon Times to put our tale on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow. Is that clear enough?”

 
She gasped at the sensation of his touch. “But you still haven’t asked me, and I still haven’t decided.”

 
Connoll lifted her around the waist and set her down on the edge of his very large bed. “Sex,” he said, yanking
his shirt off over his head, “is not about talking. It’s about feeling.”

 
“Are you telling me to shut up again?”

 
“I’m telling you to try to imagine Redmond doing this.” He knelt at her feet, leaning in to slowly run his tongue across her right breast, circling closer and closer until he took her nipple into his mouth.

 
She gasped again, digging her fingers into his hair and arching against him.Good Lord . Could she imagine Redmond touching her like this? At the moment she couldn’t even conjure the earl’s visage. The only thing in her mind was Connoll, Connoll’s hands, his mouth, his skin against hers. Yes, he was cheating, using unfair tactics to make his point, but for heaven’s sake he was good at it. She moaned, shuddering, as he shifted his attentions to her left breast.

 
“Or that pup, Dapney,” he continued in a muffled growl, pressing her back onto the bed and lifting her hips to slide her gown down her legs and off. Her shoes followed, vanishing somewhere over his shoulder.

 
Evangeline lifted her head to watch as he trailed his mouth from her breasts down her stomach, and then dipped between her legs. She jumped, her muscles clenching.

 
With a low laugh that resonated all the way through her, Connoll briefly met her gaze. “Don’t crush my head, love; you’ll knock loose any sense remaining in my skull.”

 
She nodded, unable to form a response as he went back to licking and nibbling. Dapney? He probably had…oh…no idea what to do. Curling her fingers into the coverlet, she lifted her hips to him. Abruptly she began to spasm, shuddering. Between her knees, Connoll murmured something very naughty-sounding and redoubled his efforts.

 
When she could breathe again she struggled onto her elbows. “Con…Connoll, you still have clothes on,” she managed.

 
He straightened to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. “I was just about to comment on that myself,” he said, and yanked off his boots. When he began unfastening his trousers, she sat up.

 
“Let me,” she offered, twisting her legs beneath her as she faced him.

 
“Very well. If you insist.”

 
She’d hoped the action would give her a moment to recover her breath and her senses, but as she leaned across him, Connoll reached up and began pulling pins from her hair.

 
“I’ll never get it to look right again,” she protested, but he batted her interfering hand away and placed it back on his trousers.

 
“If I can tie a cravat, I’m certain I can pin up your hair,” he replied, kissing her again while her hair began its disheveled cascade down around her bare shoulders.

 
With him running his fingers through it, she felt wanton and wicked. When she opened his trousers and he sprang free, hard and ready, the sensation running through her doubled and trebled. “Lie down,” she said.

 
Somewhat to her surprise, he kicked out of his trousers, then scooted farther up on the bed and did as she asked. She sank down on one elbow next to him and ran her fingers over his chest much as he’d done with her.

 
“Do you like this?” she asked, skimming the light dusting of dark hair that ran across his chest and trailed in a line down to the darker curls below.

 
“Yes.”

 
When she ran her lips over the small buds of his nipples, he jumped. Before she could inquire about what that reaction meant, he reached up to cup her breasts.

 
“Is this because of the diamond, do you think?” Evangeline curved herself along his chest for another of his deep, slow, delicious kisses. “Us being here?”

 
“No. I like your idea that it knows what’s good or ill, whether we realize it yet or not. If it’s magical, which I’m nearly ready to wager it is, then perhaps it caused our carriages to collide. It didn’t make me kiss you. I did that on my own. And I have to say, it’s one of the most ingenious things I’ve ever done.”

 
With that he pulled her arm to turn her flat onto her back again, then moved over her. Slowly he pushed his hips forward, burying himself inside her. This time there was no pain. Instead, the incredible, indescribable sensation of being filled, of having him be a part of her, ran like fire through her.

 
“Connoll,” she breathed, moaning as he thrust into her.

 
“Gilly,” he returned softly. “My Gilly. No one else ever gets to be here with you like this. Promise me.”

 
Demands. The first thing she watched for. But in this moment, she didn’t care. She didn’t want anyone else, ever. “I promise.”

 
Connoll gazed critically at the soft tangle of honey-blonde locks, then readjusted one of the pins. “Well, I’m rather astonished at my skill as a hairdresser,” he said, holding up a mirror so Gilly could see the back of her head. “What do you think?”

 
She tilted her head, then nodded. “If you fail as a nobleman, I see a definite future for you as a lady’s maid.”

 
“My thanks, I think.”

 
As Connoll shrugged back into his coat, he kept his gaze on the young lady seated at his dressing table. He liked seeing her there, liked seeing her in his home. It felt comfortable and exciting all at the same time, and for him that combination was a rare and surprisingly pleasing one.

 
“You’re staring at me,” she said, bending down to pull on her shoes.

 
“Marry me.”

 
Gilly blinked. “You—that—that wasn’t very romantic.”

 
Grinning, he knelt in front of her, helping her on with her second shoe. For a chit who’d been contemplating marriage with either a near corpse or a monkey, she certainly had odd requirements now. “I’ll send you a hundred roses if you wish it.” He placed his hands on her knees to look up at her. “Marry me.”

 
“I…haven’t been acquainted with you long enough to know of your poorer qualities,” she said slowly, frowning.

 
Connoll ignored the prick to his pride. Time enough to lick his wounds later. “And my poorer qualities worry you?”

 
She bit her lips. “Yes. I—you may think me silly, but I know all of Lord Redmond’s. That’s how I decided to allow him to pursue me—all of them were either controllable, alterable, or dismissible.”

 
“Ah. And so were Dapney’s, I presume?”

 
“Yes.”

 
He stood, drawing her to her feet with him. “We have known one another for a relatively short time,” he agreed. “I won’t bring up the fact that Romeo and
Juliet married within three days of meeting, because I hardly consider them to be beacons of long-lasting love.”

 
Her lips twitched. “I would agree with that.”

 
“I am happy to court you, Evangeline,” he said, leaning down to kiss her soft, sweet mouth again. He should have been sated after three hours in bed with her, but he still couldn’t help wanting to touch her. “But I happen to know that someone else is going to propose to you in just under an hour. And I know which match your mother would prefer. I don’t want to lose you because of her sentiments.”

 
She cupped both sides of his face in her hands, gazing up into his eyes with her bright hazel ones. His heart simply stopped. God, he could stand this way forever, just looking at her. As he’d told her, he wasn’t a virgin and hadn’t been one for some time, but he’d never met a woman who affected him as she did. And he knew deep down that he never would again.

 
“Give me a week,” she finally said, releasing him to collect her reticule, “to convince my mother that we will suit. She’ll see reason.”

 
He had his doubts about that. And if after a week Lady Munroe still refused to give her blessing, he wasn’t certain what Gilly would do. But asking for a week more wasn’t so much, when a week ago she probably wouldn’t have been able to imagine even having this conversation. “A week,” he agreed.

 
She turned and grabbed his hair, pulling his face down for a deep, hard kiss. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice shaking a little.

 
Yes, he could wait a week if it would give her some peace of mind. If he pressed for a definite answer,
threatened her with ruination or the specter of pregnancy, she would probably acquiesce—and she would hate him and consider that everything her mother had ever told her about men was true.

 
Of course, the deeply male part of him didn’t want to play any games or waste time placating any suspicious mothers. Gilly belonged to him already, and that was why he hadn’t taken any precautions to avoid a pregnancy even though he could have and should have. Possession. Her image, her voice, her spirit, had begun burrowing their way into his heart, and he liked her there. He meant for her to stay. Now all he needed to do was convince her to do so, and to find his way intoher heart. He had more than a suspicion that he was already halfway there.

 
“How are you going to take me home with the phaeton wrecked?” she asked as they reached the foyer at the bottom of the stairs.