His eyes warmed with challenge. “So, you think you know me, do you?”
“Of course I know you,” she said, though the look in his eyes gave her some cause for hesitation.
“Perhaps you do,” he murmured. “I certainly don’t when I am in your company. I do things I would never have dreamt of before.”
“Do you?”
“Oh, yes.” He smiled, slowly and wickedly, and her heart flipped in her chest.
“Such as?” she prodded.
“When I see you, I instantly fantasize about touching you,” he murmured, brushing his fingers along the sensitive curve of her neck. “Here.” Then to her jaw. “And here.” Then he touched his finger to her lips, the low rumble of his voice sliding over her like silk as he said, “And most definitely here.”
She tingled at his touch, was intoxicated by his scent. He left her weak-kneed and trembling.
Without thought, she kissed his finger, watching his eyes darken. Then she was in his arms.
It was merely a light brush, his lips caressing hers. The heat of his breath warming her, teasing her. Driving her mad.
When had he ceased being the most aggravating man she had ever known and become the hero she had always dreamt of? When had he become a friend, a partner?
Oh, when had he become dashing?
Damn him! It was enough she had begun to like him, desire him, to lay awake at night unable to exorcise him from her mind. But then he had to call her brave and strong, tell her he was proud of her. He had to give her the perfect gift.
She caught his bottom lip, sucking it in and catching it between her teeth, and he sucked in a sharp breath, his hands shaking where they held her against him. Good. If she was going to lose her heart, the least he could do was lose his control.
He groaned, crushing her mouth with his.
Yes! she wanted to scream. Instead, she whimpered, unable to form a coherent word, unwilling to pull away in order to do so.
She clung to him, gripping his lapels like a lifeline as he plundered, leaving no corner of her mouth unexplored. His tongue wound with hers mercilessly, taking all he wanted, everything she had, and she surrendered it all.
She could feel his muscles bunching around her. He could crush her in an instant with those arms, but while she knew she had never before been in more danger, it had nothing to do with his arms. It was him. She loved him, his mind, his body, his damn principles, and if this was her last chance to love him, then she would take full advantage.
“Touch me.”
He shook his head, dropping hot kisses along her jaw. His shaky panting warmed her neck, warmed her entire body.
“Touch me, Drake. Please.” She sounded desperate, but she didn’t care. Soon, she would leave this. She would leave him.
Father had said love came but once in a lifetime, and passion was only for the lucky. She had found both with him. And soon, she would leave it all behind her.
“Touch me.”
Her hand delved into his silken, chestnut waves, luxuriating in the feel of them.
He growled, pressing his cheek to hers.
“When I touch you… Sarah, you don’t understand…” He paused, his breathing labored and halting. “I do not take this lightly.”
“Nor do I,” she breathed. He would be her first, and most probably her only love. Her only passion. “Touch me, Drake.”
He moved his hands, a gentle but firm pressure traveling over her hips, her waist, her back. Her robe began to loosen as his fingers worked the fastenings.
Drake was trembling. He could barely manage the tiny bows along Sarah’s waist. Frustration could quickly have him tearing it open, to hell with the bloody ribbons, but he forced himself to have patience. She deserved his patience.
Finally, the robe sagged open, revealing the nightdress fastened with a slender pink ribbon tied in a bow at her chest. His mouth dried at the sight, just as it had the moment he had stepped into the room and seen it.
He slipped the robe off her shoulders, letting it fall with a whisper. Then he pulled the ribbon and pushed the fabric until it joined the robe on the floor, where his jaw would have been had it not been firmly fastened to his skull.
Her hushed gasp barely registered in his ears. She blushed, a soft pink that spread over her entire body. She was beautiful, with curves Venus would be jealous of. Her breasts were plenty to fill his hands, and her taut waist flared into generous hips a man would rather die than let go of.
And she was attempting to cover them.
“Don’t.” He gently moved her hands away and met her gaze, willing her to see the sincerity in his eyes. Willing her to see what he didn’t understand, what he couldn’t control—his need for her. “You don’t have to hide yourself from me. You never have to hide anything from me.”
She blinked at him, but let her hands fall to her sides.
He gathered her up in his arms and carefully set her on the bed. While he undressed, his eyes did not once stray from hers. Those beautiful pools of hazel widened, blazing with fire when he bared his torso, and then even more when he dropped his trousers.
He swelled with male pride at her reaction, and stretched himself beside her. His hands found her curves, her hollows, every soft, silken inch. She cooed under his touch, wordlessly telling him what she wanted.
He eased away to tease, then moved in to plunder when she whimpered for his touch. Good God, how she whimpered for his touch. The thought alone had him undone in an instant. She was truly the most marvelous creation he had ever seen.
He kissed her with reverence from her neck to her breasts, and she writhed beneath his lips when his tongue laved her taut nipples, arching her back and pressing herself into him.
He growled, the sweetness of her overwhelming his senses.
He bracketed her hips with his hands, holding her in place while he worshipped, working her into a passion he felt as surely as he felt her. The air was thick with it.
She wrapped her legs around him, clutching him to her, and he squeezed her thigh, holding it captive against his hip.
She moaned, lifting her hips as her core sought him out. He felt her wet heat on his belly, his muscles involuntarily tightening in response. He growled again, grinding his hot length against her thigh as the pressure inside him built to unfathomable heights.
Blindly, he sought the juncture between her thighs, wet heat engulfing his fingers. They trembled as he massaged the tight, little nub of flesh. God, she was beautiful as she writhed beneath him, mewling and panting, threatening death should he stop whatever it was he was doing.
He grinned wickedly, taking one taut nipple into his mouth and grazing it with his teeth. She gasped and sighed, so she must have liked it, but hell if he knew what he was doing. He simply touched her, loved her, every heavenly inch. If his entire life culminated into this one act, loving Sarah, he would consider every trial, every pain, every loss worth suffering. He would gladly suffer it all again just so he could live this moment.
She cried out, thrusting herself into his hand. The throaty, desperate sound wrapped around him as she delved her hands into his hair, testing his control to the extreme.
He felt the tremors pulse through her body, heard her soft sigh once they had subsided. She was trembling, her entire body humming with energy.
He shifted, his throbbing cock pressing against her entrance. Then, in an instant, it was as though his mind was ablaze with one desire, one purpose, one fiery, all-consuming passion. He lost himself inside her, thrusting into liquid fire.
She was tight, impossibly tight. Sensations exploded within him of overwhelming desire, need, and a million others he could never hope to identify.
She stiffened, and he nearly burst with the effort to hold himself back, not wanting to hurt her, unsure if he had, but then she was pushing herself up into him.
He began moving again, and she met his thrusts. They were powerful, ground shaking, and he couldn’t help thinking they might very well be life changing
.
It didn’t matter how large or hard he was, or how soft and inviting she was beneath him, he needed more, so much more. She must have felt it, too, because she lifted her hips to take him deeper.
He slammed into her, and she cried out, his name a benediction on her lips. His heart felt as though it might explode.
That was when he realized it wasn’t her body he was trying to become lost in. It was her. Her being, her spirit, her soul. He wanted her wrapped around him, around his heart.
“Sarah,” he rasped shakily. Bending down, he kissed the perfectly soft skin over her heart. “God, Sarah, I need you. I have needed you for so long. Forever.”
“Yes, forever,” she panted. “Oh, Drake.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him. And he was lost.
His tongue wound with hers as he moved inside her, feeling for the first time a heaviness lift off his shoulders.
On one final, powerful thrust, a growl vibrated from within him, thick with an emotion he couldn’t name.
The world ended. Right then. The entire universe was gone, changed, recreated. The room around them reeled and faded. All he could see, touch, hear… All there was left was her.
His arms shook on either side of her where they supported his suddenly immeasurable weight. He closed his eyes, focusing on stabilizing his labored breathing and slowing his heart before it failed him. A long moment passed before he forced them back open.
She was smiling a small, secretive smile, and the warmth in her eyes nearly felled him.
He smiled back crookedly, mischievously.
He felt different. Lighter. Freer. He felt as though he had come home at last.
He lowered himself beside her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her marvelous mouth, her cheeks, her perfectly pert nose. Then he pulled the comforter over them and closed his eyes, a ridiculously smug grin on his face.
He deserved to feel smug. He had made love to a woman, the perfect woman, and he had done it well. The entire episode, while emotionally unsettling, was the most satisfying thing he had ever done.
“Virgin.”
The grin vanished, and his eyes popped back open. How could she have known?
“It must be obvious now, but I thought I should say something.”
“Fustian nonsense,” he muttered. “It isn’t as though one could know these things for sure.”
She turned in his arms to face him with a lifted brow. “You didn’t notice?” She shook her head. “The servants certainly will in the morning. I shall mourn these sheets, you know. They are so luxuriously soft.”
He frowned at her, understanding slowly dawning. “Oh, God. You meant you.”
She blinked, and then her face mirrored his. “You mean this was…? I was your first?”
He clenched his jaw until it ached from the pressure. He couldn’t lie to her, not when she was willing to admit the same.
He nodded, but he wasn’t happy about it. “It isn’t that I couldn’t. I could have bedded a lovely woman any time I wanted. It’s just that there were more pressing matters. The Office kept me quite busy.”
He had rarely been subjected to male pride, or the prickling thereof, and he couldn’t understand why it had been rearing its ugly head lately. It was all damned uncomfortable.
Her mouth twitched. “So I have heard.”
He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You haven’t the slightest idea what it has been like.”
She folded her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them. “Tell me.”
He cocked a brow at her and shifted to tuck his hand behind his head. “Do you know what I have done for the first five years at the Home Office?”
She shook her head.
“Completed and filed reports. And do you know how they repaid me?”
Again, she shook her head.
“With a confounded promotion,” he answered, a ghost of his usual frustration bubbling up in his chest. “And so, all I have done for the last six years since this promotion is complete and file infernal reports. Except now I have to also answer to a council and all their infuriating questions I don’t have the answers to, because my agents could not be bothered with them.”
“That sounds stressful.”
“It is. I have practically lived in my office because of it.”
“You weren’t when you found me.”
He laughed. “That is right, my dear. After eleven years without a holiday, I finally take a few weeks off, and what happens? You! You hoisted yourself on me. You, who are sought after by every magistrate in England. You, who I would have had an agent already on his way here to find had I but realized what a troublesome thing you are. You, who are confoundedly beautiful when you smile in that way. Stop it this instant.”
“You poor man,” she murmured, not even trying to hide that infernal smile. “So that’s why you have never seen a naked woman before.”
“I have!” he asserted stiffly. Then he recognized the teasing light in her eyes and dropped his head back onto his hand on the pillow. “You are making fun of me.”
“I imagine them filing into your office while you write reports,” she said with a naughty smile.
He grinned back wolfishly, trailing his hand over her back to her lush derrière. “Why could I not find a proper English girl as wicked as you?”
She sucked in a breath when he squeezed. “Because then she wouldn’t be a proper English girl.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“And you will never find one stuffed in a filing cabinet.” She laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
He pulled her up until his mouth could crush hers, nipping and sucking her lips until she parted them. Then he swept in, conquering every corner of her sweet mouth.
God help him; he was already hard for her, his manhood hot and throbbing, straining to thoroughly possess and worship.
He lifted her over him, settling her down until he was completely sheathed by her warmth. Then he bucked, and she cried out, digging her nails into his chest.
“Don’t stop,” she panted, her eyes warning him, if he did, she might just kill him.
He kissed her and then gave her what she wanted until she could no longer keep her seat. Then he rolled them over and gave it to her again. By the time they were done, they were both breathless and sweating, drifting to sleep in a tangle of limbs, too exhausted to consider what they had done. What he had done.
He had fallen in love with her.
Chapter 19
When Drake awoke a couple hours later, the candle was still lit with plenty of life left, and it was still storming.
Sarah stirred in his arms, and he brushed a few strands of hair from her face. She smiled up at him sleepily, and he reluctantly eased himself from her and up from the bed.
He hadn’t known much about intimacy before tonight. What he had known was from many a lurid tale spoken in clubs and drawing rooms over port. The rest he had concluded from books on anatomy and animal husbandry. It had been from books he learned that a woman might need a bit of cleaning up after her first time.
He found a cloth by the washbasin, dipped it in the water, wrung it out, and brought it back to Sarah.
“Would you like for me to help, or would you rather tend to this yourself?” He knelt on the side of the mattress, smiling knowingly. “I can be gentle.”
“I know you can.” She grabbed the cloth from his hands laughingly. “I can handle myself, Drake.”
Drake. How wonderful his name was on her lips.
A knock sounded at the door. “My lord?”
“What is it?” Drake asked, not bothering to cover up and open the door. The servant could speak through it. Drake wasn’t ready for Sarah to be clothed just yet, and she was staring up at his nakedness with something like wonder in her eyes. It was mesmerizing.
“A window has been broken in the kitchens. We think someone may have broken in.”
Drake silently cursed, resisting the panic
immediately building in his chest.
Winters was acting tonight, then. The inconsiderate blackguard could have waited for the storm to pass and Gordon’s men to arrive, and allowed Drake his wedding night.
“Tell Lord Pembridge I shall join him in the library in ten minutes,” he said as he began gathering his clothes.
Sarah was already off the bed and wearing her chemise. “Is it Winters?”
“The storm might have done it. The wind could have broken a branch, and it could have fallen against the window.”
Her delicate brows knit disbelievingly.
“It is most likely our villain, yes,” he allowed, fastening his trousers and pulling on his shirt and waistcoat. “Stay here. Lock the door.”
She grabbed a dress from the wardrobe. “Not on your life, Drake.”
“Sarah, it isn’t safe.”
“You can’t keep me in this room, and you know it,” she said, wriggling into the dress. “So you can just forget it.”
He sighed, then moved behind her to help with the fastenings. “Very well, but you must follow orders. He’s going after you. There are secret passageways everywhere. In the chapel, it’s in plain sight.” He swallowed past the fear coating his throat. “Damn me for doing this. If he hurts you… You must do exactly as I say. I mean it, Sarah.”
“Of course, of course. I promise.”
“I take promises very seriously.” He finished with the dress, then turned her around to face him. “This one could mean your life. Do not break it.”
“Aye, aye, captain.” She smiled, an adventurous glint in her eyes, not unlike the one Pembridge used to get when a mission was afoot.
A crash sounded in the hall, and he rushed out, seeing an armed ragamuffin charging from the shadows.
With barely enough time to react, he reached out and clamped the wrist holding the knife the second it was within reach. His other arm wrapped around the wriggling boy.
“Drake!” Sarah cried.
“It’s just a lad, but it means Winters is here,” he said, squeezing his hand and forcing the boy to drop the knife. “Do you remember how to get to the chapel?”
Changing the Earl's Mind (The Lords of Whitehall Book 3) Page 24