He smiled against her ear, and when he spoke she could hear it in his voice. “You’ll never get it out of me.”
Slipping her fingers free of his, she slid them beneath the tie belted at his waist, finding muscles that trembled at her touch, and then—hot skin, curiously shaped, and as she cautiously traced the length of it with her fingertips and grasped him in her palm, he buried a rough sound in the curve of her shoulder.
“Serena,” he gasped, and she thought she felt his thighs flex of their own volition, his hips canting into the clasp of her hand. “Given name,” he gritted out.
A strange, effervescent sense of satisfaction filled her. She, who had never tempted a gentleman to any kind of indiscretion; she, who had spent her life overlooked and unwanted—she could make this man, this powerful, arrogant, formidable man tremble.
His hand tightened on the nape of her neck; with his chin he nudged the sleeve of her nightgown off of her shoulder and strung a line of kisses along the skin he revealed.
Serena wanted to sink into the sensation, but fought to keep her eyes open, to keep her mind focused. “Your surname?” she prompted, mildly surprised by the throaty sound of her voice.
His rusty laugh grazed her skin. “That you’ll have to earn,” he said. His free hand closed around hers once again, through the velvet of his robe, and it was so odd to feel the heat of his flesh in the clasp of her hand, to feel the rub of velvet against the back of it, the pressure of his fingers over her own.
Her breath hitched in her throat as he tightened his hand over hers, prompting her to hold him tightly in her fist, to stroke her hand along the length of him. She jerked when she felt him pulse in her grip, and as her thumb smoothed over the broad tip, a drop of moisture welled there. How very odd. She smoothed it away, slicking over his flesh like oil, and he shuddered almost violently.
“What am I doing?” he muttered, as if to himself. “I told you—I promised—” With no small amount of effort, he peeled his hand away from her own. “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You’re not my mistress, Serena.” His breath stuttered in his chest. “What happened to that knife? I thought you were going to keep it on you.”
“I’m afraid my nightgown hasn’t got any pockets.” Without the guidance of his hand, she eased her hand down once again, a tight, slow stroke over his satiny skin. “It’s in my nightstand.” When his breath hissed through his teeth and his fingers kneaded her nape, she realized that for the first time she held all the power.
“Now,” he managed, “would be an excellent time to produce it.”
Affecting a blasé, sophisticated tone, she said, “Perhaps I will, if you displease me.”
His laughter trickled through her, a deep rumble that sounded like a purr, as if she were possessed of some great wit. “Then I suppose I shall have to please you.”
It sounded like a curious mix of threat and promise, like something a spider might have said to a fly caught fast in its web, and she wondered for a moment if she hadn’t gotten in far over her head—but as he bent her over his arm, easing her to her back atop the rumpled counterpane, she realized that she didn’t care.
For one, she was going to please herself. She was going to let someone else please her. And she was not going to concern herself with whether it was right or proper. She was simply going to let herself take pleasure in something. In someone.
He did not immediately follow her down, and she wished that the fire wasn’t already in its death throes—she would have liked to see more than just his silhouette as he shed his robe and let it fall to the floor. She would have liked to see what she’d only felt beneath it, even if it made her wicked. Probably he didn’t know that gentlemen weren’t supposed to remove anything but the essentials, but she certainly wouldn’t correct him.
At last he turned toward her, and his hands skimmed her legs, feeling for the hem of her nightgown, but when he peeled it up above her waist toward her breasts, she gave a little squeak and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Don’t go shy on me now,” he teased. “You were doing so well.”
Not that well. “Couldn’t—” Her voice came out dry and scratchy, and she wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue and tried again. “Couldn’t I keep my nightgown on?”
He went silent for a moment, and one of his hands released the hem of her nightgown to palm her hip through it. In the dim light, she saw his chest rise and fall with a swift breath. “Why?” he inquired at last. “Are you afraid?”
“No!” she hastened to say. “That is—not really.” But her arms tightened over her chest. “It’s only that…well, I have—had—some married friends, and they say that it’s all done beneath the covers and their husbands simply lift up their nightgowns and go about their business, and—are you laughing at me?”
“No, of course not,” he said, but she knew it was a lie because she could see the silhouette of his shoulders, shaking with mirth. At least he released the hem of her nightgown entirely and crawled over her, dropping a kiss on her shoulder, his breath puffing out on one last muffled chuckle. “Do enlighten me,” he said into her throat, “what else did they say?”
“Well,” she hedged, finding it difficult to think—to speak—when she was buried beneath him. He was heavier than she’d expected, but it was a pleasant sort of weight. The kind that felt protective, secure. “They say that it’s not truly all that bad.”
“Good lord.” He murmured the words into the sensitive skin beneath her ear, then nibbled on her earlobe. His knee edged between both of hers, and she regretted only that she could not feel his skin on hers through the barrier of her nightgown. “What else?”
The motion of his leg sliding between hers threatened to drive rational thought from her mind. Now that the threat of being disrobed had passed she uncurled her arms and squeezed them out from beneath him, sliding her hands across the smooth planes of his back. “Sometimes it’s even pleasant,” she offered. “When they’re quick about it.”
He huffed again, and his stubble rasped her shoulder. “Is that what you think it’s going to be like, then?” he asked. His hand settled between her breasts, and his thumb drifted over her nipple, which provoked a little prickle of raw sensation that zipped straight through her. For a moment she had thought it had been an accident, but then he did it again, and again, and her legs moved restlessly against his as he lazily stroked her.
“I have complete faith in you,” she managed to gasp. “I think—I think there might be something wrong with me. Perhaps ladies aren’t meant to enjoy it, but—” But she did—that odd, shivery heat that stole through her limbs was glorious, and even if the rest of it was over with quickly, she would enjoy what had come before.
“Of course they are,” he said. “There’s nothing at all wrong with you. But when we’re done, Serena, you’ll damned well pity those friends of yours.” Another gusty chuckle singed her throat. “Pleasant when they’re quick about it,” he said, in tones of gentle mockery, and she didn’t understand what was so amusing about it.
“The nightgown is coming off,” he declared at last. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t care to conform to your set’s ridiculous rules. Especially when the result sounds more like something to be endured rather than to be enjoyed.”
There was a certain perverse logic in it, and she reasoned that he really could not see any better than she could, given the low light, and so she heaved a sigh and capitulated. “If it must.”
“It must.” His hand slid away from her breast, wrenched her nightgown up, and she was forced to pry her hands from his back and let him pull the fabric over her head. It went sailing over the side of the bed, a wisp of silk floating through the air, and before she could cover her breasts with her hands, he gave her his weight again, letting her feel his skin against her own.
Her hands fluttered ineffectually before settling on his broad shoulders, and she felt the breath leave her lungs on a surprised exhale. His hair-roughened leg continued its slow gl
ide between her own; she could feel that male part of him pressed against her belly. He seemed to be in no particular hurry, braced as he was on one elbow, hovering over her. His warm hand slid up and down her bare arm, and his thumb stroked the side of her breast at each pass. His lips brushed her ear, her cheek, her chin, and her fingers flexed on his shoulders as that strange sensation deep in her belly grew and spread.
“Sh-shouldn’t you get on with it?” she asked, and then started as his knee trespassed higher than it had before, nudging that vulnerable place between her legs.
“Get on with what?” he inquired, and she could hear the amusement trickling through his voice. His thumb stroked her nipple again and she bit her lower lip against the sound that had wanted to emerge from her throat. An indecent sound. A sound no lady should make, she was sure.
“The—the act,” she said, because she certainly would not be repeating any of the lewd words she’d embroidered onto that pillowcase, which had been tossed to the floor and forgotten.
Another low sound of levity. “The act,” he repeated with a snicker. “Eventually,” he allowed. “When you’re comfortable.”
That was not going to happen. Not with his knee prodding her most private place until she could do nothing but squirm in a futile attempt to escape the maddening pressure. She fought to fill her lungs enough to say, “I don’t think I am ever going to be comfortable. I’m too—too uncomfortable.”
“Are you?” His voice was light, his tone interested. The pressure of his leg between hers redoubled, and she knew she was writhing but could not stifle the odd urge to move. “Where?” His hand left her arm and cupped her breast. “Here?”
Oh, God. Nothing should feel so wonderful as those fingers gently shaping her flesh. But she shook her head and dug her nails into his shoulders and gritted out, “You need to—oh, lord—move your leg.”
“Ah,” he said, and she gave a small sigh of relief as his knee slid away. And then her breath backed up in her chest as his fingers released her breast and glanced over her belly on their way lower, stroking through the curls at the apex of her thighs to find the discomfiting dampness between them. “Here, then.”
Reflexively she tried to nip her legs together, but his knee was still in the way. “Grey,” she said, but it came out a plaintive little sound. “I don’t think—” But the words died in her throat as his fingers stroked her, and her hips hitched of their own accord.
“I do.” It was a velvet purr, full of satisfaction. She felt him shift, realized that at some point she had closed her eyes and cast her head back onto her pillow, and struggled to open them again, to lift her head.
His tongue curled around her nipple. She heard herself make one of those indecent sounds—a whine, or a whimper—and her head fell back again. His hair, softer than she could have imagined, teased her breasts in a silky sweep even as he drew her into his mouth and sucked. Somehow, her hands tangled in his hair, holding him to her breast.
Those mortifying sounds kept coming, though she clenched her teeth against them. Her thighs tensed, taut and trembling, and he murmured, “Shh. Don’t fret. You’re nearly there.”
Where? His fingers eased their frustrating strokes, and she very nearly relaxed—until at last one stroke went deeper than the others, breaching the entrance to her body, driving inside her with slow plunges. Her mind struggled to accept the reality of the invasion that her body seemed eager to admit. With every deep glide, his thumb rubbed a place that sent fire spiraling through her veins.
The tension gathered; she fisted his hair in her hands and felt her back arch. Like a tightly coiled spring, something inside her wanted to leap free, and she shuddered with the effort to keep it leashed.
“It’s all right,” Grey crooned against her breast. “Just let go.”
And she—did. She smothered her strangled cry with one fist and clutched his hair with the other, and squeezed her eyes shut as wild colors burst behind her closed lids. It felt like dying—it felt like being reborn, as if, for a few moments, she had ceased to be anything but heat and light. For a space of seconds, she had touched eternity.
If any of her friends—former friends—had felt anything close to it, she was certain they would not have spoken in such dismissive terms. How could anyone discount anything so magnificent?
The little ripples of pleasure continued unabated, and when she came back to herself, Grey had moved, settling himself between her thighs. She felt him pressed up against her, laving that part of himself in the copious wetness he’d coaxed from her body. One of his hands slid beneath her, angling her hips as he wanted them.
He braced himself on one elbow, levering over her, and she shivered as each glide of his hips provoked another little tingle of sensation from her overly sensitized flesh.
“Now?” she whispered, but the instinctive flutter of anxiety fled as his lips touched the corner of her mouth. That incandescent feeling was building inside her again, a slow ascent into the stars.
“Mm,” he murmured against her lips. “Hold on to me.”
Yes. That was what she needed—an anchor to the earth. She slid her arms around him, then draped one of her legs around his for good measure. He made an approving sound deep in his throat, and blanketed her lips with his as he pressed forward. Her hands scrabbled along his back, seeking purchase, and she dug her nails into his flesh, gasping at the strange sensation.
It wasn’t quite painful, but the uncomfortable feeling of fullness, of her body stretching to accommodate his, overwhelmed her. This was what her former friends had been referencing, she decided—but she could bear it. It might not be pleasant, it might not be enjoyable, but it was bearable.
“Almost,” he murmured, as if he could sense her distress. “Almost.”
Almost? Almost was too much. But before she could tell him so, the hand beneath her bottom tilted her hips and gave her a little tug, and then he slipped forward that last crucial distance. His tortured groan drowned out her whimper.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his voice a ragged murmur. “I must have. You’re so small.” His lips bussed her forehead, her cheeks.
“A little,” she whispered. But even that pain was fading, soothed by the rain of kisses that felt like praise. There was only a dull discomfort between her thighs, a sense of being too full.
“I’m sorry.” His hand slid up her side in a soothing stroke, then lifted to brush her hair from her face and wipe away a stray tear before it could slide toward her temple. “It won’t last. I promise.”
Serena attempted a brave demeanor, but she suspected her smile had fallen flat, coming out rather like a grimace. “It’s…it’s not so awful. And it will be over quickly. Right?” That last bit had come out like a plea for reassurance, tight and tinny. Desperate. The pressure of him inside her grew and she shifted uncomfortably in an effort to ease it.
He sucked in a fierce breath and shuddered, and she felt it—everywhere. His head dropped beside hers and he muffled a groan against her shoulder. His muscles bunched and flexed, and he made a tiny, helpless movement, as if it had been entirely against his will, something he had tried to resist. Just a small rock of his hips, and it didn’t…hurt, precisely. She worried her lower lip and tried to decide how she felt about it.
“I know you won’t believe this at the moment, but slower would be better for you,” he said against her ear, sending a shiver slipping down her spine. She felt his fingers stroke her throat, slide down between her breasts, over her belly and caught her breath as they caressed her just above where they were joined, and she was surprised by the bloom of pleasure that threatened to overwhelm the ache.
“But you’re hurting,” he crooned. “So I’ll make it quick for you. If…”
Her nails needled his shoulders, kneading like a kitten. She had the strangest urge to move, and that ache was no longer as pronounced as it had been. It was not comfortable, but she thought she’d…grown accustomed to it. Just a little. “If?” she prompted, breathlessly.
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“If you promise to let me show you the merits of slow some other time.” Still his fingers stroked her, and that sparkling glow that she had lost when he’d impaled her had returned, but it was different now—an entirely new sensation, now that his body was lodged within hers.
To keep his fingers on her, she would have agreed to anything. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.” And he gave a shallow thrust inside her and the feeling was so strange, so welcome that she tightened her legs around his waist and whimpered, “Oh, Grey.”
“There,” he said, and his voice was guttural and rough, and there was nothing that could have prepared her for the sensation of him moving over her, in her. She could have cried when his hand left her to slide beneath her hips, and then nearly wept with relief when she realized it didn’t matter any longer—he’d changed the angle so that every careful plunge stroked her the same way his fingers had.
She didn’t know what she was meant to do, was certain she was far clumsier than he was, but even that ceased to signify within a few seconds. That unbearable tension was building inside her once more, and this time she didn’t even try to contain it. She clutched at him with all of her might and let it crash over her and cried out his name against his throat.
And a moment later he slipped his civilized leash and his hand contracted on her hip with bruising pressure and he lunged and held himself deeply inside of her and shuddered and muffled his own inelegant sounds into the pillow beside her head.
Serena took stock of herself as the rapid beat of her heart gradually slowed once again to a normal rhythm. She couldn’t imagine anything less proper or ladylike. Her fingers slipped in the fine sheen of sweat that coated Grey’s back; her legs were still draped haphazardly around his waist. She was going to have a rat’s nest of tangles to brush from her hair in the morning.
And still, she’d never experienced anything more incredible in her life.
Chapter Twenty
The Scandal of the Season Page 18