Leo set his hands on her forearms. His breath heated her cheek. “Be sure, sweetheart, because if we do this, there is no undoing it.”
She nodded. “I will m-m-manage.” There were ways.
“You will do more than that. Here and now, let me make myself clear. If we do this, if there is any intimacy between us, we marry, and as soon as maybe.”
She did not say yes. She would not give him her response until she’d had what she wanted from him. Because she had no intention of marrying him, allowing him to go through the fire with her. She could, single-handedly, ruin his title, his reputation, and his fortune. That would not happen.
But this would.
Slowly, as if giving her a chance to change her mind, he leaned forward and then his lips were on hers.
The welcome pressure opened her to such relief she let him take her weight, while she regained her equilibrium. He held her securely, with no hesitation. He caressed her lips with his, until she was ready to open further to him.
When she did, he slid his tongue inside her mouth, giving her his delicious flavor, all male and, for tonight, all hers. She responded, touching her tongue to his, moving closer, his clothes rustling.
As they kissed he spread his hand over her back between her shoulder blades, supporting her while he set his other hand to work unhooking her gown at the front where the hooks had not torn away. For the most part her gown had held together, but several rips to the skirt and grime from the accident had made the garment useless. Despite that, he unfastened it with care, as if it was the most precious of silk brocades.
Finishing the kiss, he opened his eyes and gazed at her as he slipped the gown off her shoulders and down her arms. She let it go, and it fell with a quiet whoosh to the floor, leaving her in stays and petticoats. She kept her gaze steady and smiled up at him. No doubt he was watching her so carefully to gauge any change in her decision, but he would not find it. This night belonged to her, to them. Nothing outside this room mattered. If her life was to consist of hours instead of years, so be it, but she would allow nothing to spoil it.
“Turn around.”
She obeyed, facing the tarnished mirror while she watched him behind her, unlacing her stays. The sound of tape pulling through eyelets audibly reminded her of the intimate service no man had ever performed for her before. Usually the maid loosened them, and she slipped the stays over her head, but tonight Leo pulled the tapes completely clear until the garment hung loose on her frame. She lowered her arms and let the straps slide down them, sending the stays to join her gown on the floor.
Before she dispensed with her pocket, she delved into it and found her handkerchief, unwrapping the contents. She offered it to him. “Here’s your pearl pin. That was how he enticed me into the coach. He wore it on his lapel and said I could have it back if I allowed him to talk to me. I never imagined he’d drive out of London.”
He took the pin from her, twisting it between his finger and thumb. “I will give you something to replace it. I expected you to wear it, to proclaim your possession of it for all to see, but you never did. You shall have something better.” He tucked it in his coat.
She shook her head, feeling a hairpin come loose and tumble down her back. His gaze followed its journey, and he lifted his free hand, delving into her hair and discovering more pins. They fell in a shower now, her loosened hair falling to below her shoulders. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”
“Really?” The notion enchanted her, thinking of him watching her and her primly pinned-up hair. She rarely used lovelocks or ringlets, but tucked it neatly away in her cap. The cap had gone along with her hat, discarded. With, it seemed, her reputation.
He sifted his fingers through the fallen locks, gently disentangling the dark mass. “So silky,” he murmured. His gaze snagged hers and heated in a second. Cupping the back of her neck, he urged her back for another kiss.
Since Leo had not even removed his coat, and she was in shift and petticoat, Phoebe felt decidedly, gloriously wanton. Without confinement, he could see her. The shadowy outlines of her nipples showed against the fine linen of her shift, and they stood proud. When he drew her close, she pressed against him, seeking to soothe the ache building inside her.
He kissed her as nobody had before, including himself, his intent clear: to prepare her for his possession, to feed her desire. He only left her mouth to kiss across her cheek and tease her earlobe, then her throat.
The tapes of her petticoats came loose under his deft fingers. When he pulled her forward, she willingly stepped out of them.
In a sudden movement, he dropped down onto one knee. After dragging his coat off, Leo bent to her shoes, unfastening the buckles so she could discard them. He ran one hand up her stockinged leg, over the calf, leaving trails of warmth behind him, and found her garter, just above her knee. He pulled that loose, too, then performed the office for the other leg.
No man had ever been that close to Phoebe, and very few women for that matter. She usually saw to dressing herself, unless for a grand occasion, and even then she donned her stockings and undergarments herself before the maid arrived. Now a man knelt at her feet, his head level with her most intimate place. If he breathed deep, he’d be able to smell her arousal.
With a small groan, he dropped his head, pressing his forehead against her stomach. “I can do this,” he muttered. “I can take my time. You are divine, my Phoebe. I want you so badly.” He slid up, then tilted his head so he was meeting her eyes, the mounds of her breasts in his field of vision. “I will not dishonor you. I will…” Pausing, their gazes met and clung, before he got to his feet. His hands went to his throat, unfastening his neckcloth so the long strip of fabric hung either side of his strong throat, the Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed.
He held out his wrists to her. “Here.”
She had to concentrate on unfastening them, buttons on cuffs not being familiar to her. But she slipped the small horn buttons through the holes, releasing him so he could drag the garment over his head. It pulled out of his breeches, but he kept tugging until all the shirt was out and gone.
Her throat went dry. Leo seemed bigger out of his clothes, an impossibility that he was demonstrating as reality. His broad chest confronted her, sprinkled with dark hair, echoing the color on his head. Dark nipples punctuated the expanse. “Do I continue?” His voice had turned sultry.
Trying to moisten her throat, Phoebe nodded. She couldn’t have spoken right now, but she wanted to see him. All of him.
Leo unfastened the fall at the front of his breeches, then the buckles at the knee. Kicking off his shoes, he dragged all his garments down and off.
Naked, he stood before her. “Now you can see how much I want you.”
She could indeed. His erection stood proud, grazing his stomach, primed and ready for her.
When he held out his arms, she went straight into them with no hesitation. They bound her to him. “Bed,” he murmured and, without warning, bent and picked her up as if she weighed nothing, carrying her to the bed and laying her down on the sheets she’d eyed earlier when she feared what lay ahead for her.
But that was with the unlamented Marcus. Now she would be deeply disappointed if she spent the night alone here. As he helped her out of her last remaining garment, she let her gaze stray to below his waist, where she had not dared look before.
As she stared, a few drops of clear liquid emerged from the tiny opening at the top of his shaft. Greatly daring, she touched it, felt the moisture on her fingers, and licked them off.
He had gone still, watching her. Now he groaned. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, so softly she barely heard him. “You honor me.”
“It’s a bit salty.” She hadn’t been aware she’d said it aloud, but that single taste had made her thirsty for more. He kneeled in the position he’d used to dispose of her shift, where she sat on her calves,
at eye level with that magnificent—cock.
Her brothers had called it that when they thought nobody was listening, and they’d used other names, too. But she liked that one. Pressing her lips to the smooth surface, she marveled at the heat emanating from it.
“Touch it.” He sounded hoarse.
She did, sliding her fingers up from the base, loving the softness of his skin covering the iron-hard muscle beneath. She traced around the rim, the indent where it flared out to the sensitive thin skin at the top. As carefully as a jeweler uncovering a treasure, she touched it.
“Harder.”
Daring, she pressed.
He groaned. “Phoebe, you will be the death of me.”
Discovering she could not encircle the base of his member with one hand, she brought her other hand into play, finding what he liked. He encouraged her, urging her on with soft words and instructions.
“Suck it.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Holding the shaft steady, she opened her mouth and took him in. To have a man under her hands, making him helpless as she took him, gave her a new sense of power, a control she could not have imagined before tonight.
His balls tightened, and his erection stiffened even more, as if it might burst.
He grabbed her under her arms, dragged her away, and held her tightly, slamming his mouth down on hers as his shaft pulsed between them, his release erupting between them.
They stayed like that for a long time, until he pulled his mouth away from hers and gasped, tilting his head back to take greedy gulps of air. His heart pounded against his ribs. She moaned with the intensity of the moment.
He kissed around the rim of her ear before he separated them, cool air blasting down her skin as he guided her to lie on the bed. Her lips swollen with his kisses, her skin wet with his essence, she could do nothing but watch him as he climbed down from the bed and wet a cloth in the bathtub.
Coming back to her, he stroked the cloth over her stomach, cleaning it thoroughly before he rubbed it roughly over himself and tossed it over his shoulder, the small splash informing her it had met its target.
He gazed down at her, scanning her body with the kind of heat that made her skin prickle before climbing back up to straddle her. “You’re so lovely,” he said as he spread his hands over her waist and up to her breasts. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, but it’s probably for the best. I still want you so much, but some sanity has come back to me. Now it’s my turn. Or rather, your turn.” His wicked grin made her tingle right down to her toes.
A caress that spread sparks of arousal followed.
His touch made her feel delicate and precious, not a feeling she was used to. Cupping her breasts, he concentrated his attention there, lowering his head to take one nipple into his mouth, then the other, delivering wet caresses that made her shudder and push up to him, eager for more.
He sucked, then licked, enjoying each pointed peak like a special delicacy. “Pretty pink.” Phoebe loved the soft words as Leo took inventory of her body. He stroked her skin, caressed down to her waist, and farther. Where he paused and gazed up at her.
The flickering candlelight revealed eyes that were nearly all pupil, his concentration intent, and all for her. That gaze roused her, made her want him more than she could have imagined.
“I will keep my promise,” he said. “We will enjoy one another, but I will leave you intact until our wedding night. I will preserve your honor if it kills me.”
“You don’t have to.” In fact she would rather he did not. Tonight would not be complete if he did not make her his in every way possible.
“I do. I will.”
And she would do her best to persuade him otherwise.
But for now, she let him explore, watching and learning. And heating her body to an impossible degree. “Leo.”
“Shh.” He was kissing her stomach, dropping feathery kisses over her skin, working his way down to the part of her she knew could deliver shocking pleasure. Of course she had explored herself, even found the key to her pleasure, but she would never admit that to anyone. But most women did that, didn’t they? Either that or made their maids do it when they were helping them wash. At least she’d overheard one lady in London telling another. That kind of decadence lay beyond her experience, but it appeared she was about to undergo something similar. Something better.
His fingers slid between the lips guarding her innermost secrets. “So wet. Open for me, Phoebe. Let me in.” His use of her name was more intimate than any endearment he could have used. He was with her, nobody else, and he knew it, acknowledging it while he touched his tongue to the tiny knot of skin at the front. He moaned. “Your taste is exactly what I imagined.”
Phoebe licked her lips to moisten them. “You imagined this?”
He lifted his head, met her gaze. “Oh yes. Didn’t you?”
“Yes, but my imagination is not this vivid.”
With a chuckle he went back to his self-imposed task, the vibrations from his words adding to the thrills coursing up her body, claiming her.
Slowly he increased his pressure on that part of her and brought his fingers into play, dancing them down to her opening, then back, caressing and stroking her up. The sensations grew, and she gave up marking their passage, giving in to the powerful ripples invading her.
He built the storm inside her, pushing her with fingers and tongue, exploring every inch of her.
Almost every inch. But he didn’t breach her opening. Instead, he stroked around the entrance with one finger, caressing, making the sensitive skin so responsive that Phoebe gave a cry of helplessness.
An impulse made her arch her back, push her body into him. Try to persuade him to take that final step. She wanted her virginity gone, so she could enjoy this man to the fullest extent. For tonight he was hers, and she belonged to him. And she would never forget.
When he hummed against her skin, she could take no more.
The sensations building in her body rose, joined together into one peak. Phoebe shrieked his name, her body convulsing, and only his restraining hand on her stomach prevented her tearing herself away from him. He tortured her to another, unrelenting in the intensity of her response until she went mindless, a soft explosion, senses tumbling, driving her to another place.
Phoebe had no idea if she had fainted or just temporarily floated in the air, but she found herself in Leo’s arms, cradled next to his powerful body. Reaching down, he snagged the edge of the sheet and pulled it over them. Cocooned, she snuggled closer before realization hit her. “We didn’t—you didn’t…”
“No.” The sound of his voice had a physical reality, too, rumbling through her, a delicious reminder of what he’d done to her. “That will not happen yet. Not tonight, sweet Phoebe. Although most of this house knows that I pleasured you.”
She gave a small shriek and buried her forehead against his shoulder. “Oh God help me, I can never come back here.”
“I don’t see why not.” He sounded amused, damn his eyes. “Everyone except your benighted abductor thinks we’re husband and wife, and he is long gone.”
“He is?” Lifting her hand, she cupped his cheek, made him look at her. But he only turned his head and kissed her palm.
“He is. If he tattles, we will gainsay him. I had planned that we would marry at the end of next month, but circumstances being what they are, I will bring that forward to the day after tomorrow.”
“What?” Now she was fully awake. Pulling herself up, she sat on the mattress and drew the sheet with her.
He gave her a lazy smile and lifted himself to join her, slipping his arms around her waist. “Ah yes, that bath. The water in the cans will still be hot. We can salvage it.”
“No!” She gave a small shriek as he climbed off the bed and scooped her up, disentangling the sheet to leave it on the bed. “Married?”
> Ignoring her protests, he deposited her in the cool water and bent to pick up a can. “Scoot forward, sweetheart.”
Automatically, she did as he bade her. Hot water splashed in, until she let out a sigh of contentment.
“Now lie back and raise your knees.”
When she did so, he emptied the contents of the second can at the other end.
Bliss. Except she could not let him gloss over what he had said. But with her muscles warming and releasing any tension they had left, Phoebe found concentrating difficult.
He spoke, a soft river of words, not allowing her a chance to interrupt. Leaning his arms on the side of the bath, his skin a darker contrast to the white towels the maid had draped over the metal surface, he smiled. She had never seen Leo smile like that before, with wholehearted pleasure, not a trace of cynicism or sarcasm.
“A shame this thing isn’t bigger, then I could join you. Inns always have such tiny baths.” Picking up a cloth from the chair nearby, he dipped it in the water and picked up the cake of ivory soap, running it over the wet surface. While he spoke he washed her, so thoroughly he brought a blush to her cheeks. “I will brook no argument, Phoebe. I may not have taken your virginity, but I have taken your innocence. We are bound together now, more by what we have just done than what happened elsewhere today. We will marry, sooner rather than later.”
“We can’t.” Why couldn’t he see reason? “I am ruined.”
“You will be if I take you back to London without a ring on your finger. You belong to this parish, do you not? Then we will travel to your home, and we will marry there. I have a special license in my coat pocket. We may marry in the church tomorrow, if the incumbent minister has the time. Believe me, sweetheart, he’ll have the time. Then, after a night at your residence, we will return to London and the felicitations of our family.”
“There is no need, truly. I never meant to trap you…”
Dropping the cloth, he grasped her hand and threaded his fingers between hers. “If I had not wanted to be trapped, I wouldn’t have allowed it. Phoebe, I know our betrothal began with a pretense, but it will end in reality. I spoke to your father yesterday, before I heard you had been abducted.”
The Girl with the Pearl Pin Page 22