Gareth opened the door before the carriage had even come to a stop, flipping down the steps and handing her out. They gave their things to a waiting footman and walked in silence to the foot of the stairs. She was about to ask him if he cared for tea when he turned to her.
“Thank you for a pleasurable evening, Mrs. Lombard.”
Before she’d even opened her mouth, he strode down the hall in the direction of the library.
Even for Gareth Lockheart, this was strange behavior.
Serena continued to contemplate his odd actions as she undressed herself and changed into her nightgown and dressing gown.
She was still mulling it sometime later when she heard someone talking in the hall. When she peeked out the door, she saw the backs of Gareth and his valet just turning the corner.
She closed the door and looked at the clock: it was after one. Country entertainments ended early and they’d left the King’s Head before midnight. She’d been pacing and dithering for almost an hour. Already she knew she would not sleep.
She should go to him, ask him directly what was wrong. He was the sort of man who appreciated directness, she’d noticed that almost immediately.
Serena groaned. Respectable women did not approach men in their chambers at one o’clock in the morning. Respectable women did not approach men in their chambers at any time of the day or night. Respectable women did not strip naked in front of men in the middle of the day, either.
She flung herself into the wingback chair beside the fire and took her sketchbook out of her all-but-empty satchel. She’d put the other items—the miniature, wedding lines, and money—in the reticule she’d carried tonight, keeping those few things with her, as always. But there’d been no room for a sketchbook. She had dozens of sketchbooks, but this one—with the sketches of Gareth—had now become an item of value. She flicked through the book until she found her favorite. He’d been looking at Oliver, who was on the shore. His face wore a smile she’d never seen before and she’d known they were trading taunts about manliness or lack-thereof.
She carefully tore the page from the book and folded it, tucking it in with the marriage lines. There, now she would not have to worry about losing all trace of him should she and Oliver need to run.
***
Gareth beat the leather bag with a savagery that popped one of the seams loose and sent sand flying across the padded floor. He seized the bag with both hands and stilled it, resting his head on his forearms while he caught his breath.
His mind seemed to have arranged itself into two distinct camps. On the one side was reason and calm and mathematics—he was still annoyed to have been stopped before he and Poundsworth could finish their counter-proof. On the other, was that woman. She had taken possession of a full half of his concentration. Perhaps even more than fifty percent?
Gareth shook his head at the pointless thought.
He told himself he’d done the right thing—the gentlemanly thing—when he’d left her standing alone in the hall. He had to confess that when he’d woken this morning he’d not entirely abandoned his plans to ravish her and then callously leave her. But sometime during the evening, without him even being aware of it, he’d come to realize such petty, childish revenge was beneath him. It was beneath anyone—or at least it should be.
So instead of ravishing her, he’d taken his bruised sensibilities to the library and made preparations for his departure in the morning. Yet here he was, at two o’clock in the morning, beating this infernal bag.
He’d sent Chalmers to bed after the man had driven him half-mad with questions about where they were going and for how long and so forth.
“You are going to London and will await me there, Chalmers.” The last thing Gareth needed was more spectators to Dec’s bad behavior. Not that his dour valet hadn’t seen most of it before. Still, Gareth decided he wanted to take the journey alone. He’d dressed himself for years without a valet, he could do so again.
Once he’d sent Chalmers packing, he’d stripped to his drawers and begun to exorcise whatever possessed him. He should have wrapped his hands, he realized, looking down at his grazed, swollen knuckles. He heard a sound behind him and sighed.
“Chalmers, I was—” he stopped. It wasn’t Chalmers, but the woman who stood in the doorway.
She swallowed so hard he could hear it all the way across the room.
“I’m sorry. I knocked. I thought your valet was in here. I heard you both talking as you passed my room. I thought maybe nobody heard me because of all the activity. I didn’t—” she broke off as he strode toward her, her eyes sweeping his naked chest and dropping lower, to where his body had begun rejoicing at her unexpected arrival.
He stopped a foot away from her, not bothering to put on his robe or conceal his sweaty body or growing erection. If she insisted on invading his privacy, she could deal with the consequences.
“What can I help you with, Mrs. Lombard?”
She licked her lips in a way that made his cock throb, her eyes making the journey from his hips to his face with tortoise-like speed.
Again, she swallowed, her chest rising and falling in little jerks. “Your bag is beside the door. Are you leaving?” Her voice sounded strained and it pleased him to know he could at least discountenance her with his body.
“In the morning.”
“But you said you’d stay until we’d begun filling the lake?”
“I changed my mind.”
She nodded slowly, her expression oddly . . . stricken.
A ball of anger rose from his stomach and momentarily choked him. She was an impressive actress; she should not be playing with stone and dirt but treading the boards. How dare she act as if she cared what he did or where he went? Did it mean nothing to her to take her lover to her own bed one night and go to Gareth’s bed the next?
He took a step closer, for once shedding his obsessive fastidiousness and not caring that he was sweaty and no doubt smelled like a barnyard animal. “You still have not told me what I can do for you, Mrs. Lombard.”
She had to crane her head back to meet his eyes.
“Are you angry with me?”
The question stopped him like a stone wall. Before he could think of an answer, she touched him, her hand on his chest as light as a soft breeze.
Gareth’s control snapped and he crushed her mouth with a ferocity that left the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. His blood, her blood, both, he didn’t know or care. Her fingers plunged into his hair and she yanked him down, meeting his violently ravaging tongue with her own.
She pushed her hips against his and his mind went blank as they ground against each other like rutting beasts. Vaguely, he heard the tearing of fabric and realized it was her dressing gown. He pulled away from her throat, which he’d sucked hard enough to mark—and looked down at her. It was her hand that had torn the fastenings off her dressing gown while trying to open it. Gareth took the fragile nightgown she wore beneath it with both hands and tore it open with a long, soft hiss.
She shrugged and clawed at the garments until both fluttered to the floor. When she would have pulled off his drawers, he stopped her, taking both wrists in his hand and lifting them above her head.
“What?” she demanded, her eyes, so drowsy with passion only an instant earlier, widened in shock as he held her in a cruel grip. Gareth paused to admire the musculature in her arms, which was that of a woman who worked with her hands, connected to the lush, ripe body of a woman made for pleasure.
“Stop struggling,” he ordered.
She stopped, her lips parted, her breathing shallow and ragged.
He drew her hands higher without any resistance, stretching her until she stood on her toes. He drank in her taut, vulnerable form, the high position of her arms raising her breasts until the stiff peaks pointed up. He walked her back the short distance to the door.
“I am going to release you, Mrs. Lombard. You may either take my dress
ing gown and wrap it around yourself and return to your room, or you may grasp the door frame with your hands and do exactly what I tell you. Those are your choices.”
He let go of her hands, expecting them to drop. Instead, they remained where they were, clasped together.
He watched her throat move, as if it was a struggle to find the words and push them all the way out.
“I want to stay.”
Gareth’s jaws clenched and his body hardened as unbearable anticipation thundered through him. His brain shrieked at him to take her, plunge into her, quench the fierce need he had for her. But he took himself as firmly in hand as he’d just held her.
“Take the doorframe with your hands.”
She did so, and he nodded. “Keep your position.” His hand went to the tape of his tented drawers, her eyes following. He released the string and pushed down the fine lawn, stepping out of the cloth and then picking the garment off the floor. He took his time folding it before placing it on a chair, a leisurely activity that was only to test his control over her, since Chalmers would merely stuff them in a laundry bag when he found them.
He approached her but did not let their bodies touch. Her eyes were riveted to his erection, which pulsed and slickened under her stare. He moved close enough that the sensitive crown rested against the skin of her midriff. A satisfying noise came from deep in her throat and she shivered and closed her eyes, her head tipping back.
“Look at me.”
She swallowed convulsively but opened her eyes.
He flexed his hips, the action lightly rubbing his cock against her soft belly. Gareth thrilled at the sight of her pounding pulse and hard nipples—signs of desire for him she could not feign. She might be using him, but at least she wanted this—his body, and what it could do to her—as badly as he did.
“I want to bury myself deep inside you.” He ground his length against her, making her gasp while he whispered in her ear, “But I think you know that, don’t you?” He stepped away, until their bodies were no longer touching and raised his hands, palm out, barely grazing the erect tips of her breasts, caressing them with light, circular motions.
She jerked and bucked against him, her back arching, the impressive muscles of her arms like the taut strings of a bow as she clutched the wooden door frame above her head and strained toward him.
Gareth would have liked to bind her wrists and then tie her arms to restrain her, but he did not have the patience for such games tonight, nor did he have Venetia’s impressive array of equipment. He decided he liked this even better: making her voluntarily provide her own bondage. He stroked her sides with feather touches, her body shaking, her eyes hot and wanting, the pulse at the base of her neck racing.
He took his time, avoiding her small, pebbled nipples and tracing the sensual curve of a hip, the soft, velvet swell of her stomach, and the quivering flesh of her thighs. A small, angry, growl came from deep inside her body.
Gareth could have told her the teasing was worse for him. His body hurt with desire but she was a banquet and he had only this one chance to savor every part of her.
He flicked her breast with his tongue, making her jump. And then the other, and back to the first, alternating and sucking now, pulling and nipping her tender flesh. She writhed beneath him, chasing his mouth with her body when he moved away.
He stopped as abruptly as he’d started. “Arms above your head, Mrs. Lombard.”
Gareth memorized her look of stunned disbelief and stored it carefully in his mind, like a greedy squirrel storing nuts for the lean times to come.
Her hands slid back up the frame.
“Higher,” he said, when she stopped, nodding when her elbows were straight. “Good. Keep them there.” He dropped to his haunches, the sudden motion again causing her to jump. When he looked up, he saw her head had come away from the wall, her hands had sagged.
This time he had only to raise his eyebrows and her arms straightened. But her eyes stayed fixed on him.
Reveling in his power he leaned forward and tongued the golden down that dusted the gentle swell of her belly. She gave a sharp gasp, which he ignored, his tongue circling the shallow depression of her navel before dipping into her.
“Oh.”
Gareth smiled against her velvety skin, probing the sensitive dimple while his hands slid from her hips to her ankles, tracing the delicious shape of her legs. Up, and then back down. Up and down. Until he circled each of her delicate ankles with his hands and gently pulled.
Her feet slid apart without resistance and he lowered into a more comfortable crouch. This time, when he stroked up her legs, he stopped at the apex of her thighs. Her hips trembled beneath his hands as his thumbs moved toward her mound. Gareth wrenched his gaze away long enough to make sure she was still obeying. Her eyes held a mixture of raw desire and curiosity that told him she’d never had a man’s mouth on this part of her body before.
That knowledge sent a bolt of lust straight to his cock and he parted her lips and took her tight little bud into his mouth.
***
Serena bit her lower lip hard to keep the animals sounds from slipping out, but it didn’t work. It was all she could do to keep herself upright. The rest of her faculties had decamped, casualties of the transcendent pleasure emanating from between her legs.
The view of him alone had been enough to send her body hurtling toward release: broad, sculpted shoulders, powerful hands moving up and down her thighs, biceps rippling with leashed power as he worked her toward madness.
She wanted to see his face in the worst way, but his brown tousled locks hid what his wicked mouth and tongue were doing.
She’d believed his hands on her body yesterday—was it only yesterday?—had been the most erotic sensation possible. She’d been wrong.
He nudged her thighs wider and she opened for him eagerly. Some distant part of her mind said she’d feel ashamed later. But for now. . .
His mouth was hot and clever and it felt like he had half a dozen tongues. Her climax came fast and hard, surprising a cry out of her as her hips bucked beneath his lips. She was still shuddering from the aftershocks when he surged to his feet and lifted her off hers all in one powerful motion. Her legs went around his waist as his hands slid beneath her bottom. His lips were red and slick, his eyes as black as coal.
“You can release the door frame now.”
Triumph and amusement echoed in his words but she didn’t care. She’d do whatever he asked of her to feel that way again.
“Touch me.”
She fell on his mouth like a starving person, consuming him as he’d just done her, tasting herself on his tongue. He lifted her higher while they kissed, until she felt his hot, insistent crown nudging against her sex.
He leaned away from her, just far enough that she could see between their bodies. His stomach, lean, ridged, and sweaty, hers flushed, soft, and trembling.
He lifted her higher, until she could see his erection. “Guide me inside you.”
Serena reached for him, reveling in his harsh hiss of breath and the feel of him against the sensitive skin of her palm. She stroked him, spreading the moisture from his small slit all over his silky hardness before placing him against the entrance to her body.
A low sound of pleasure rumbled up from deep inside him and he began to lower her onto his shaft, inch by rock hard inch, not stopping until he was fully sheathed.
She tilted her hips, taking him a tiny bit deeper; the action making him groan.
The sound of this composed man coming apart was almost as pleasurable as the feeling of his thick length filling her body.
Almost.
Serena kissed his jaw, chin, cheek, neck—anything she could reach—while he began to move. He pulled out slowly and then savagely slammed back in.
They both grunted with pleasure.
“Gareth,” she whispered in his ear. “Yes.”
He spread his feet shoulder length a
part to stabilize himself while he worked her, penetrating her deeply with each brutal thrust. The power he was expending caused him to breathe like a bellows, his muscles flexing and stretching and as hard as iron beneath his slick skin. The sight of his exertion was almost as arousing as what he was doing to her.
Almost.
Even now—when he’d already brought her to climax—he managed to rub that exquisite part of her body every time he pumped into her, driving her over the edge before him.
The pleasure consumed her, and she was only vaguely aware that he’d began to breathe more harshly—his muscles less coordinated with every thrust. She forced her heavy lids open, desperate to watch him come undone.
His eyes were closed, his jaws clamped tight and his nostrils flared with each snap of his powerful hips. He began to shake—to lose that last scrap of control—and with a hoarse yell, he drove himself deep and emptied himself inside her.
Serena clung to him, listening to the pounding of his heart against her chest, reveling in the feeling of his strong arms around her; she never wanted to let him go.
***
Gareth left his body for a moment, the shudders that wracked him gradually diminishing until all that was left was a heavy lethargy and sense of contentment.
But there would be no falling asleep in this position.
He hefted her a bit higher before straightening his legs with a groan and carrying her into the next room, where he gently laid her down on his bed.
She smiled up at him, made a soft sound of contentment, and then curled up and proceeded to fall asleep. Gareth shook his head in amazement and pulled the blankets over her body. By the time she was covered, her eyes were closed and she was already breathing in a deep, regular rhythm.
Gareth left her sleeping and padded naked to the bathing chamber that was off his dressing room. Like all the suites in the house there was a fireplace that heated a tank of water above it. The tank was concealed by a wooden panel, on which some enterprising soul had painted a pastoral scene. He turned the valve that sent hot water gushing to the tub.
A Figure of Love Page 21