Yet he had never done a thing against her.
“I know that,” she repeated, her voice softer, soothing. She took a step forward—two, three. “Speak your diatribes and have them out. I will not deny you the chance of voicing your irritation when I was the one who caused it.”
He raked a hand through his hair and said as if to himself, “I’ll likely have to fight again to bring it back.”
“You’re not that man any longer. I couldn’t look at you the same if you were.”
“And how do you look at me?”
Her cheeks heated and she couldn’t answer directly. “I’m sure that this little act of subterfuge won’t end up being all that terrible.”
A single brow arched in doubt.
“You’ll see,” she assured him, skirting around the chiffonier to stand in front of him.
“Are you finished with war, then?” he asked on an exhausted breath, holding out his hand in offering. A peace treaty.
Slowly, she nodded and slipped her fingers into the warmth of his palm. Then, rising up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his.
Shocked by her own actions, she instantly withdrew.
But Reed tugged her back in a sweet collision of bodies—breasts, stomachs, hips, and thighs. Unmistakable pleasure escaped her on a gasp, her hands splaying over his black-satin waistcoat.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to kiss you again.” His raw gaze swept over her features. “Not unless you asked me to. Not unless you finally admitted that we are more than enemies.”
She opened her mouth to apologize for her trick. He didn’t give her a chance.
His hand slid to her nape. “But right now, I don’t give a damn about that. After the day I’ve had, I need to forget about everything else. And all I want is a long, slow taste of your lips.”
Ainsley’s pulse leapt in hard, excited beats. She lifted her face.
Still his actions were cautious, his movements slow and careful. It took forever before he eased his mouth over hers. Then, feeling the warm pressure, she nearly sagged with relief. She’d needed this, too. She’d been craving this—him—for days.
Yielding in that same instant, she slipped her hands over his shoulders, her fingertips weaving through his dark silky strands. Reed growled, a low gruff sound of approval. It seemed to unleash a new part of him.
This kiss turned reckless, demanding. A searching frenzy of hot, panting breaths and lips sliding edge to edge. Tongues tangled in open-mouthed tastes to satisfy the gnawing hunger that had plagued them for days . . . weeks . . . months . . . or even longer. Dimly, Ainsley wondered if every encounter, if every argument, had been leading them here. As if this close-quarter conflict with Reed was what she’d wanted all along.
Only he seemed to know that part of her had been asleep. Only his searing kisses could awaken this strange, wondrously unfamiliar passion lurking inside her. And she was fully alert now, fitting her body against his.
Her breasts ached. A tight coiling settled deep inside her midriff. She rubbed against the solid contours of his body, needing to understand how he was put together and why he felt so blessedly good. It was like having her very own resource of learning—a living, breathing, circulating library.
He pulled her closer, his hand sliding down her spine to the dip in her lower back and further down, gripping the curve of her bottom. She should be shocked by the intimate gesture. But she was too immersed in this new field of study. She wanted to know everything. As if he sensed this, he lifted her higher, rocking his hips against hers, drawing out her helpless mewl of pleasure.
But then a sudden, startling awareness caused her to go very still.
She knew what this part of him was.
All at once, he was too close. Too big. He was every bit the prizefighter she knew he’d once been.
Pulling back, he kissed the corner of her mouth, breathing hard. His eyes were glazed with passion and hunger, but there was also gentle understanding. “Ainsley, I’m not going to hurt you.”
He lowered her to her feet. His embrace was still firm enough to be comforting, but light enough to allow her to escape.
It surprised her that she didn’t attempt to move away. Standing between his widespread legs, she couldn’t reconcile her need to be held by him with the opposing impulse to run away to her bedchamber and bolt the door.
Reed lifted his hand to her cheek, his gaze following the tender stroke of his fingertips. His expression was marked with the same fascination he always had when they touched, telling her without words that he was marveling at how soft she was. “And I’m certainly not going to take you, here, in this study. Not even if you begged me to.”
Ainsley stared up at him in wonder, at the warm drowsy look in his mismatched eyes, and came to the most startling awareness. She trusted Reed Sterling. Implicitly.
She never thought she would be able to feel that way about a man in her entire life. And this realization was even more alarming than the idea of losing her heart to him.
At the thought, that organ lurched upward, weightless, and she swallowed to keep it where it belonged.
“Beg you, indeed.” She tried to issue a haughty sniff, to put a barrier back between them.
But Reed was having none of that. His head bent lower and he grazed his lips along the edge of her jaw, nibbling the underside.
“Oh, highness, don’t tempt me to prove you wrong.”
A jolt of pure, inexcusable pleasure raced through her. Yet when he pressed kisses down her neck and reached the tender place that Nigel had once bruised, she stiffened again, her throat constricting. Even though the wound had healed long ago, the memory lingered.
She sensed a change in Reed, too, in the way he held his breath, his hands skimming up and down her back until she gradually relaxed. And then he kissed her throat.
His lips followed a horizontal line at the very base, soothing her, dissolving away all the bad memories and replacing them with new ones.
The heated urgency that brought them together a moment ago now transformed into a slow unfolding. Something even more potent than desire.
Before she was even conscious of moving, her head tilted back to allow him better access. His lips grazed over her flesh without hurry, building the intensity between them.
A pulse settled low and heavy in her body. She clutched the hard mounds of his shoulders, her fingertips biting through the wool as he laved the vulnerable niche. Was it possible to die from pleasure?
He paused at the edge of her fichu and breathed in deeply. “You cannot know what this scrap of fabric does to me or how it controls my thoughts. Such wicked things, these fichus.”
“Take it off,” she rasped, the hoarse plea in her voice foreign to her own ears. She felt the curve of his lips against her skin.
“Not yet, highness.”
He kept this barrier, but his mouth nudged between the silken gathers to kiss the vulnerable skin beneath. She felt the delicious scrape of his whiskers, the warm press of his lips, the nudge of his nose as he drew in her scent. His hands slid up her ribs, forming a new cage around her, fitting just beneath the heavy swells of her breasts, his thumbs teasing her with slow sweeps against the underside of her flesh. The heat of him penetrated layers of muslin and cambric as if she wore nothing at all.
Her nipples grew taut, aching. She couldn’t bear it. She wanted to strip off her clothes and free them. Rub balm into them. Anything.
A frustrated sound tore from her throat. “Please.”
Reed’s hand drifted up over the mounds, inch by inch. Finally, he cupped her. Shamelessly, she pushed her aching flesh into his palms, wanton and begging. Dear heavens, begging! And she didn’t care either. She wanted him there—yes, there—where his thumbs were passing over the crests in wicked sweeps, his callused flesh catching on the muslin.
Lost in high-strung pleasure, she drove her fingers through his hair and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing him with fervor, her tongue tasting the seam of his lips, the spice
and heat of his breath. She felt so unreserved with him—practically unhinged—but it didn’t matter. He understood her better than anyone ever had.
He lifted her against him again, their bodies perfectly aligned, his hips pitching forward to give hers purchase. She clung to him on a gasp, welcoming him into the throbbing niche, tilting, sliding intimately.
Angling her head, he kissed into her open mouth, nudging her tongue with his, as if taunting her to retaliate. And when she did, a guttural groan vibrated in his throat. He kissed her deeper, harder. The silken slide of his tongue in the dewy heat of her mouth matched his slow, mesmerizing pelvic undulations.
Every pulse point hummed. The low insistent coiling grew more intense with every rock. She felt restless. Tingly. It was too overwhelming.
She broke the kiss, pressing her cheek against his, panting.
“A little more, highness,” he urged, grazing his mouth over hers.
Clinging to him, she closed her eyes, hips hitching reflexively. “Something’s happening to me.”
“Let down your guard,” he whispered, his low drawl curling through her, making her tremble.
Ainsley’s mouth turned back to his, seeking and frantic. Desperate, fractured sounds rose from her throat. She needed something more, but she didn’t know what it was. So she took his lower lip between her teeth and suckled it, then licked into his mouth, feeding on him. And he bore it all, holding her wriggling body securely.
Reed gripped her bottom, steadying her in one place, never ceasing his methodical motions. Her entire focus centered there—yes, there, right there.
“That’s it, highness. Hold on to me. I’ll take care of you . . .”
All at once a cry surged from her lips, raw and foreign. Her body jerked, lurching in rough spasms like ice breaking apart after a long winter. Scalding pleasure washed through her in lush, pulsing waves that went on and on and on.
She sagged against him, his hold fierce, almost crushing. But she loved it. Anything less wouldn’t have been enough.
Gasping for breath against his neck, she wished he didn’t have a cravat in the way. “Hold me,” she rasped, needing to be closer still. “Tighter.”
When he did, her body clenched sweetly in response, drawing out a series of smaller tremors.
For a long moment, she wasn’t even sure what happened. Then gradually awareness crept in. She recalled spying certain texts on the subject of pleasure paroxysms—or le petite mort, as the French called it—only she hadn’t known what it was.
At least, not until now.
And if the smug curve of his mouth and the devilish glint in his eyes were any indications, he knew, too.
Ainsley’s cheeks flushed. A wave of embarrassment hit her, full force, and she covered her face with her hands. “Don’t look at me like that. This is all your fault.”
He chuckled. “I would readily take the blame, but you were very much a part of it. Very much, indeed.”
“Cad. If you hadn’t invaded my dreams with your wicked promises, this never would have happened,” she said without venom, confessing it into his shirtfront.
“It could be worse.”
“I don’t see how. I’m mortified. Though I couldn’t seem to help myself. Everything just felt so . . . and you were so . . .” Wondrously hard, she thought. “I didn’t want it to end. Part of me still doesn’t.”
Abruptly, he set her apart, the position forcing her to stand on wobbly legs. She kept hold of him. And with her gaze already lowered, there was no disguising the hard, heavy angle filling the fall front of his trousers.
Unexplainably, she was more intrigued by the shape of him than afraid. Splaying her hand over his waistcoat, she drifted lower.
“Highness,” he warned softly, taking her hand in his and lifting it to kiss her palm. “Don’t make it impossible to keep my promise not to take you here in the library.”
Thrilled, but abashed, she pressed her lips together and looked up at him through her lashes. “I did not mean to tempt you. I was simply . . . curious.”
“Be curious all you like after we are married.”
“About that. I must insist that we do not rush too—”
He kissed her quickly, soundly. “Argue with me about this next time.”
Reed didn’t give her a chance to say any more. He left her standing there, alone in the library, her thoughts helplessly drawn to the idea of arguing her point with him. Listing the reasons that they shouldn’t rush into anything. But he, scoundrel that he was, would likely convince her otherwise.
She was already looking forward to it.
Chapter 21
“Leave shame to her. If she does wrong, she ought to feel it.”
Jane Austen, Emma
Reed stepped out onto the pavement in front of Sterling’s the following afternoon, prepared to cross the street and argue with his favorite enemy.
Of course, he had no dispute to settle with Ainsley today. He rarely ever did. He’d always let matters between them take their natural course, just as they had last night.
He grinned, his blood stirring as he recalled her soft cry and sweet shuddering body. She was so close to being his, to truly accepting that they would be married regardless of circumstance, that it was almost impossible to stay patient.
Distracted, he didn’t hear someone hailing him until his view of the townhouse was blocked by a thoroughbred. Looking up past the gray stallion, to the rider in buff breeches and a green coat, Reed wished he hadn’t bothered to stop.
Lord Savage tipped his hat over his blond head, a smirk cutting through angular features. “Just the man I came to see.”
“I haven’t got time for more of your pointless challenges.”
“Too busy playing Mr. Matchmaker to have a chat with an old friend?”
The moniker grated on Reed’s nerves. “We were never friends—a fact I distinctly remember since our days at university.”
Savage swung a Hessian behind him and descended to the pavement, standing toe to toe with him, one hand on the reins. “See, that’s the thing of it all. If it hadn’t been for me and the others, then you wouldn’t have become the man you are today.”
“Favors surpassed only by a hangman offering a shorter rope,” Reed gritted. “And I’ve already repaid you by giving in to the fight you wanted.”
The only reason he’d fought Savage at all had been because, in school, his insults had been tame compared to the others. He didn’t remark on Reed’s parentage, but kept to foolish everyday things like mocking a response he’d given during an exam or jesting that his arms were too long for his body. Almost good-natured ribbing, really. They might have been friends of a sort if not for all the times they’d bloodied each other’s noses.
The marquess hiked his pompous cleft chin. “That’s not the way I remember it. Our prizefight never ended.”
“You were staggering around, mumbling to yourself. All I had to do was push you down to the mat and you stayed there for the full count.”
“There it is! At last, you admit that you didn’t finish the fight.”
Reed glanced around to the gawkers who’d formed around them. “You weren’t yourself.”
“So you took pity on me?” Leaning in, Savage’s voice dropped low with warning, green eyes flaring. “You made me look weak, and that is something a man cannot forgive. I demand satisfaction.”
“You’ll go to your grave never having it. Those days are over.”
There was too much at stake for Reed to consider boxing as an option to save Sterling’s. Ainsley had made herself perfectly clear last night.
He intended to leave Savage there on the pavement before they drew any more of a crowd, but the marquess dared to take hold of his arm.
“I shouldn’t be too hasty to dismiss me this time. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but I have a new venture and it’s taking the ton by storm.”
Reed shrugged free. “I know all about it.”
“Of course you do. Your urchin spies are
everywhere,” he said, matter of fact, then arched a brow. “I’ve taken in a foundling myself, you know. A certain Mr. Mitchum.”
“If I were you, I’d send that one back to the gutter where he belongs. Nothing good can come of keeping him.”
Savage shrugged. “I’m not certain that’s entirely true. Mitchum claims to have been acquainted with your Miss Bourne. I don’t know the particulars yet, for he’s a sly sort who knows how to reveal just enough to hold a listener’s interest, but I’ll find out soon enough. It won’t take much. He is an overblown peacock, after all, with ideals full of grandeur and empty pockets. But he’s a good fighter. Perhaps you’d even like to have a go at him in the ring.”
“Not even if you paid me,” Reed said, fists clenched. He fought to keep his expression neutral, but with the mention of Mitchum it was nearly impossible.
The marquess eyed him shrewdly. “Hmm . . . I have a sense that, if you had it your way, you’d fight him even if I didn’t pay you. Just think of the crowd you could gather. From what I’ve heard, you could certainly use it. So then what’s stopping you? Could it be that Miss Bourne disapproves of your fighting, even at the detriment of Sterling’s?”
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be—a corset fitting with your tailor, perhaps?”
“You haven’t lost your sense of humor, old friend. But you might have lost your edge.” Savage laughed as he mounted his horse. “Love makes men so pathetic! I ought to know. Just be sure that the woman you love doesn’t slip a sleeping draught into your drink before our fight.”
“We aren’t going to fight.”
Savage flashed a grin. “The exhibition I’m holding tonight will guarantee far more gentlemen at my house than your hell. Therefore, I have a feeling you’ll change your mind soon enough . . . Mr. Matchmaker.”
Reed glowered at the retreating horse’s arse, his heavy thoughts turning. Just what was Savage planning?
The Rogue to Ruin EPB Page 22