James woke when he sensed someone reaching for him. He should never have let his assailant get so close. He wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t been deep in a delightfully erotic dream.
He would almost have rather died than give up his dream. He’d had Sarah naked in his bed with no blankets or pillows to obstruct his view—and he had been enjoying the view. He’d let his gaze explore every inch of her—from her hair, her lips, her throat to her lovely small breasts. Her waist. Her thighs. He had an extremely active imagination, but he could not decide the exact shade of the lovely hair nestled between those thighs. Would it be the same reddish hue as the rest of her hair? And would it be as soft? He’d been just about to find out when he’d felt the man reaching for him.
As soon as his hands closed around the intruder’s arms, he knew it was not a man.
It was Sarah. What was she doing in his room? In his bed? He blinked. No, he was not still dreaming. She had on a high-necked white nightgown. She would never be wearing so much clothing if this were his dream.
He turned to light a candle. He could hardly focus long enough to strike the flint.
He had Sarah in his bed with only a nightgown between his skin and hers. Just a few buttons, so conveniently placed under her chin, over her slender throat, and down her lovely breasts. It would take only moments to slip them free. He had many moments—hours—before any of the maids would be up.
Blood rushed from his head to another part of his body.
Sarah had his ring on her finger. She was in his bed. Aunt Gladys and Lady Amanda were asleep, but even if they woke, they would not poke their noses into his chamber. He was safely tucked up in his own bed. With Sarah.
He should have locked his door—but then, of course, Sarah would not have found her way in. Why was she here?
Frankly, he didn’t care why. She was here. Surely his dreams were about to be fulfilled.
He turned—and found her studying him as closely as he had been examining her in his dream. God, it was exquisite torture. His skin burned everywhere her eyes looked. He needed to feel her hands, her lips on him. He was desperate for her touch.
He would beg if he had to.
Somehow James had managed to close the space between them. His face was only inches from hers. He looked…hungry.
“James, stop that.”
“Stop what?”
She could feel his breath on her lips. If she raised her hand, she could touch his chest. His very naked chest. Did he have no shame? Certainly he could find a nightshirt to put on. But then he would have to get out of bed, and she would see every muscled inch of him. Unless she closed her eyes—which, of course, she would.
Maybe.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said. “We need to talk.”
“Are you certain? I can think of much more interesting things for our mouths to do.”
He leaned a little closer, and she leaned back. Any farther back and she would fall onto the floor.
“And anyway, you are the one looking at me, love. Not that I mind, of course. I’d be happy to show you any part of my body you would like to see.” His hand cupped her cheek.
Sarah moistened her lips, and saw James’s gaze drop to her mouth.
It would be so easy to be seduced from her purpose.
It would be so easy to be seduced. Being alone with James in his warm, shadowy bed, surrounded by his scent and heat, was wonderful.
“We need to talk about our future,” she whispered.
“Ahh. I would love to talk about our future, sweetheart.” His fingers moved to play with the buttons on her nightgown. “Why don’t you come under the covers and get comfortable?”
“I don’t think so.” Sarah eyed the blankets. “Do you have breeches on under there?”
He grinned. “Care to look?”
“No, I think I’ll stay right where I am, thank you.”
“You’re not cold?”
“I’m rather warm, actually.”
“Really? Then you shouldn’t be buttoned up to your chin, love.”
He slipped the first button free. Sarah raised her hand to stop him, but somehow she ended up tracing the curve of his muscles and the tendons in his arms. He kissed her fingers as they brushed over his skin. She dropped her hands back to the bed.
Another button slipped free of its hole.
He touched the end of her braid. “I remember your hair from that night at the Green Man. It was red and gold silk.”
Sarah blushed. “It was a mess. I was too tired to braid it.”
“Hmm?” He loosened the plaits and ran his fingers through the strands. “It’s beautiful like this.”
He pushed her hair back from her temples. His hand moved slowly down her cheek to her throat and the next button on her nightgown. She grabbed his wrist. She had to remember he was a rake. A libertine.
Apparently a very successful one. He was certainly making her mindless.
“James, do you make all your women feel this way?”
Another button slipped free. “What way, love?”
“Hot and…restless.”
“That sounds like a fever.” Another button opened.
“But I’ll tell you a secret.” He leaned close and let his lips brush her cheek. “You make me feel hot and restless, too. Maybe we have the same illness.” His lips grazed her mouth and she turned her head instinctively to follow them as they retreated.
“Maybe we can cure each other.” He moved to her neck, to the sensitive place just below her ear. “I think so.” His voice was a trifle unsteady. “I definitely think so.”
“But, James.” Her voice was a trifle unsteady as well. Every time his mouth moved to a new spot, a new jolt of heat shot through her. Still, she had a vague—rapidly growing vaguer—sense that she needed to say something important. She couldn’t let this lovely fire consume her.
“James. Oh!” His lips found the base of her neck. Her breasts ached; the lower half of her body throbbed. Another button slipped free. She wanted to tear the blasted nightgown off. She needed to feel his hands and his mouth everywhere.
No! She had to say what she had come to say. She wetted her lips and tried again.
“James, about the other women.”
He opened another button. One more and he would reach her breasts. All hope of rational conversation would be gone when that happened. She pushed at him and he raised his head. She looked him in the eye.
“I’ve thought a lot about this, James. I know I can’t change your past. But I’m an American, not an Englishwoman. It would kill me to think you were doing this with other women once we are married. I don’t want to share you.”
One corner of his mouth crooked up. “And I don’t want to be shared.”
“You don’t?” She tried to keep hope from flooding her until she was sure she understood. “So you’ll give up your other women? Give up the brothels?”
“Give up the brothels?” James seemed quite shocked. “And my other women?” He sat back.
Sarah frowned. Had she misinterpreted his words? “I know I’m asking a lot. I know it’s not the English way. But I’ll make it up to you, James, I promise. You just need to show me. I don’t know anything now, but I’m willing to learn. Just show me what you like. I want to please you.”
“That sounds lovely, sweetheart, but you’re not making a great deal of sense. Where did you get the idea that I’ve had hordes of women?”
Sarah studied his face. He looked puzzled, not angry. “Isn’t that why you’re called Monk?”
James frowned and would have spoken, but Sarah rushed ahead.
“Richard told me first, but even your aunt and Lady Amanda know. Lady Charlotte said it was common knowledge that you frequent brothels.” She flushed. “She said you didn’t keep a mistress because you needed variety.”
James stared at her. “Charlotte said I needed variety?”
She nodded.
He looked stunned. He slid down onto his back and covered his
face with his hands. Sarah felt her stomach plummet.
“I can’t share you, James.” She touched his shoulder. He was shaking. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.”
An odd little noise escaped through his fingers. She stared at him suspiciously. “Are you laughing at me?”
“At you, at me, at the whole damn situation,” he gasped. He leaned up on his elbow. “Sarah, it’s true I used to be called Monk by some people. Richard gave me that name back at university. I knew you didn’t like it, but I thought you knew what it meant.”
“It doesn’t mean what Richard said?”
“No. At least it didn’t. I really thought no one used it anymore. No one calls me it to my face.” He grimaced. “I certainly didn’t think Aunt Gladys and Lady Amanda knew the blasted name.”
“And Lady Charlotte. She thought we, um, that is, she thought we had already been in bed together.”
James grinned. “Well, we had.”
Sarah made a face at him. “You know what she thought! And I think she wanted me to tell her all about it.”
James gave a low whistle. “Maybe old Charlotte isn’t as cold as she’s made out to be.”
Sarah grabbed his wrist again. “You leave Charlotte alone. She is quite disgusting.”
“Oh, I will, sweetheart, I will. But it’s a bit of a shock to discover I have a reputation for being quite the devil between the sheets.”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“I have no idea. I, my love, am as virginal as you.”
It was Sarah’s turn to be stunned. “You are?”
James nodded. “My lamented nickname means exactly what it suggests.”
Sarah stared at him. His lips were quirked in a half smile and he looked faintly embarrassed.
“I thought, I mean it seems…Well, from what everybody says—the ton, that is—men climb in and out of bed with any woman who will let them.”
“I grant you, I may be the only virgin duke above the age of fourteen.”
“But how can that be? You certainly seem to know how to, um, you know.”
“Do I? I guess you must inspire me. I certainly feel inspired now, don’t you?” James reached out to cup the side of her breast through her nightgown.
“Um.” She certainly felt hot. If only his hand would move.
James lifted her left hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. He stroked her thundering pulse with his thumb. Candlelight winked over the emerald in the Runyon engagement ring.
“Before I compromise you…” He grinned. “Before I thoroughly compromise you, I need to be certain. You have no more doubts about our marriage, do you?”
The wonderful physical sensations receded slightly as Sarah focused on James’s face. “Why? Why do you want to marry me?”
“Why? Being in my bed isn’t enough? No,” he put his finger on her lips when she would have protested. “It’s not just that. It’s not that the story of the Green Man got out or that I need a wife and heir or even that I lust after your beautiful body, though it’s all of that.” He kissed her wrist again, sucking lightly on her skin. “God, I haven’t been able to sleep for wanting you since that night at the Green Man. But it’s more than that.”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“I need you, Sarah. Somehow you’ve woven yourself into my heart and my soul. I cannot imagine life without you beside me—in my bed, yes, but also at my breakfast table, in my drawing room, on the grounds of Alvord.”
“Really?” Sarah studied his face. What she saw swirling in his amber eyes reassured her.
“Really. Say you’ll marry me, Sarah.” He brushed her lips with his. “Say yes.”
She sighed. All the agonizing, all the reasoning and the rationalizing she had done were like a summer rainstorm—intense, but forgotten once the sun broke through the clouds. It didn’t matter that James was an English duke. He was James and he was vital to her happiness.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
His face lit up. “Then, my love,” he whispered in her ear, “I would dearly love to lose my virginity.” He kissed her. “Of course, you will have to lose yours as well.” Another kiss. “But I shall try to make it up to you.”
His fingers slipped open the last of the buttons.
“You look slightly flushed, sweetheart. I’m certain you will be more comfortable without this annoying nightgown.”
She didn’t know if she would be more comfortable or not. Comfort wasn’t the issue. Survival was. If she didn’t feel his skin on hers soon, she would go up in flames.
He slid her nightgown slowly up her leg. From her ankle to her calf, his palm moved over her skin, stopping just above her knee.
Sarah squirmed. She desperately wanted his fingers to move an inch or two higher. Her hands fluttered over his shoulders. She whimpered.
“Please.”
“Please? Love, anything for you when you ask so nicely.”
His hand moved, his thumb brushing the spot that so burned for him as it slid up her thigh to her hip. Then both hands grabbed her nightgown and pulled it over her head. It went sailing off into the shadows.
“God, Sarah. You are so beautiful.” He just looked at her, his gaze traveling from her breasts to her belly to her thighs. She moved to cover herself, but his fingers brushed hers away. He sighed, his broad hand warm and heavy on the patch of springy curls she had tried to hide.
“Red,” he breathed. “Just like your other hair.”
He scooped her up and deposited her under the covers, pressing her up against the length of his naked body. Flames licked over her skin. He turned her on her back and gently stroked her breasts, lightly touched her nipples.
She arched into his hands. A wildness surged through her, stripping away all shyness. She needed him. She ran her hands over his hair, his back, even his muscled buttocks. She panted, sobbed. His touches were soft, too soft, teasing.
“Shhh, sweetheart. Easy.” He was panting, too. He gave a breathless laugh. “I think we won’t try to go slowly this time, hmm?”
Sarah shook her head. She barely heard him. The hunger was consuming her. There was a gaping emptiness in her that she needed him to fill.
“Please,” she whimpered again.
One of his long fingers touched her gently in the wet, dark aching place between her legs and she exploded. She gasped and clung to him. Wave after wave of sensation racked her, sweeping away the fire, cleansing her, leaving her body limp and at peace. She looked up at him.
“Now it’s my turn, sweetheart.” With the madness washed out of her, she heard the tension in his voice.
He rose above her and she opened her legs to welcome him. She ran her hands over his shoulders and back. All his muscles were tense, just as hers had been.
Something warm and firm touched her where James’s finger had been before and then it was bearing into her. Her body stretched. She wasn’t sure it could stretch so wide, but she held still because she knew it was James coming to her.
“This may hurt,” he gasped. He eased farther into her, filling her. “God, Sarah.” His voice was only a hoarse whisper. “You are sweet. So sweet.”
Sweat made his back slippery. She slid her hands down his spine and tilted her hips. His breath caught and he surged into her. She felt a burning deep inside where he was. His hips moved under her hands, once, twice, and stilled. A warmth pulsed into her; then his body relaxed and lay heavy on hers. She held him close as she felt his heart slow and steady.
She could barely breathe for the weight of him. She couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened, but she felt a deep contentment. She didn’t want him to move. When he did, the air was cold against her sweat-slicked skin. He gathered her up and held her close. She laid her head against his chest.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.” His breath stirred her hair.
“It was nothing.” She laid her palm flat against his chest.
“It was your maidenhead breaking. It won’t hurt like that again.” He tangled his
fingers in her hair. “I’m getting a special license today. I want us married as soon as possible.”
Sarah felt herself blushing. What would James’s family think about such a hurried wedding?
“Do we need to be married so quickly?”
“Yes.” James ran his hand up and down her spine. She stretched into his body. “There are at least three reasons for the rush, sweetheart. First, I don’t plan to sleep alone again, and Aunt Gladys may object to my moving you into my room without the blessing of clergy. I am not going to sneak down my own corridors.”
Sarah stirred. “I should be sneaking down those corridors, James, back to my own room. What time is it?”
James pulled her more securely against his side. “You are not going anywhere.”
“But what will the servants say? Harrison or one of the maids will be in soon.”
“The servants will be overjoyed to find you in my bed, Sarah. They don’t want Richard to be duke. Before you came into my life, Harrison regularly threatened to look elsewhere for employment if I didn’t do my duty and secure the succession.”
“Well, I should at least put on my nightgown.”
“You’re fine the way you are. I don’t expect you’ll have much use for a night rig in the future.”
“James!”
“The second reason for the hurry,” he said, ignoring her outburst, “is actually more important. Remember when you wondered at the Green Man if you might be with child?”
Sarah buried her face in his side. “I didn’t perfectly understand the matter.”
James chuckled. He put his hand on Sarah’s flat stomach. “Well, it is certainly possible that you’re pregnant now.”
“Really?” Sarah didn’t feel any different. She put her hand down next to James’s. He linked their fingers.
“Really.”
“After only one time?”
“Yes. It doesn’t usually happen the first time, but it can. Richard knows that, too—as I’m sure he knows that I don’t intend to limit myself to just one time. And that is the third reason we need to marry quickly—I don’t know what Richard will do. If something happens to me, I want you taken care of. If you should be pregnant, I want our child recognized as mine.”
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