Secret Desires of a Gentleman

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  She could have pointed out that this was a most improper thing for a gentleman to be doing, but his body was radiating heat like a furnace, and it felt so good, it didn’t seem worthwhile to needle him about his lack of manners. She settled herself more comfortably on his lap.

  Keeping one arm wrapped around her shoulders, he slipped the other out from beneath his cloak and reached up to tap the roof with his knuckles, and the carriage jerked into motion. He flattened his other hand against her spine and began to massage her back. “Getting warmer?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated, not wanting him to stop. “A little.”

  Instead of rubbing more vigorously, he slowed his movements, his palm moving in a circle over her shoulder blades.

  She rested her cheek in the dent of his shoulder with a sigh, wiggling her toes on the fur pillow beneath her feet, savoring the warmth. “Phillip?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  His hand stilled. “I don’t think that is an appropriate topic for conversation.” He resumed massaging her back, and added, “Particularly not at a moment like this.”

  She caught her breath. “Why not at a moment like this?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

  “I think talking about the weather would be better,” he said, a hint of irony in his voice. “Safer.”

  “Safer?” She lifted her head at that choice of word, and turned to grin at him over one shoulder, trying to be flippant. “What’s wrong, Phillip? Don’t you trust me?”

  “I don’t—” He stopped and cleared his throat. He tilted his chin down and met her gaze in the dim light. “I don’t trust myself.”

  “I do,” she whispered, and before she even realized what she was doing, she turned in his arms and pressed her lips to his.

  “Then you’re a fool,” he muttered against her mouth. His hands gripped her arms as if to push her away, but then, with a groan, he pulled her hard against him.

  The cloak fell away from her shoulders as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body closer to his. Her mouth opened in willing acceptance of his kiss, and her breasts brushed his chest.

  The kiss was full, his tongue in her mouth, caressing hers with carnal strokes, sliding deeper, then pulling back, compelling her to do the same. Warmth began flooding through her body, waves of luscious warmth that seemed to penetrate her very bones.

  He pulled back, breaking the kiss, and she had time for one gasp for air, then he was kissing her again, slow, soft, drugging kisses that seemed to go on and on. He explored her mouth, probing deep, tasting then gently suckling her lower lip. The warmth in her grew stronger, hotter, seeming to pool in certain places—her breasts, her lower abdomen. She moaned against his mouth.

  He broke the kiss again, and dimly, she became aware of his body easing out from beneath hers. Afraid he was stopping, she curled her fingers around the silk facings of his evening jacket to keep him there, an instinctive move, for she hardly knew what she was doing. All she knew was that she did not want these blissful sensations to end. Kneeling on the floor, he hovered above her. He was breathing hard, but he did not move.

  She opened her eyes. His face above hers bore a harsh expression, almost as if he were in pain; a frown creased his forehead, drawing his dark brows together, and his glittering gaze pinned her to the seat. “Maria.”

  It was a hoarse whisper. It was a question. It might have been a plea. Whatever it was, she had no time to respond before his body came over hers, the weight of his much larger frame driving the air from her lungs.

  He pressed kisses to her face, and she felt his knuckles brush beneath her chin as he began to unbutton her shirtwaist. Shocked, she went still beneath him, her breath coming in little pants as he lifted himself above her and worked his way down the row of buttons. She didn’t know what to do, for a situation this intimate had never come her way. But then he pulled her shirtwaist apart and pressed his lips to the side of her throat, and she gave an involuntary gasp of surprise at the sheer delight of it. Another sort of kiss she’d never had, creating sensations she’d never felt.

  When he slid his hand inside her shirtwaist and his fingertips touched her bare skin, she jerked in sharp reaction, for just that light caress sent shards of tingling sensation through her body. When he spread his palm over her breast, shaping it through the layers of her clothing, she arched upward into his hand. “Phillip,” she moaned, “Phillip, oh, yes, oh, please, yes.”

  She was pleading for more. More of what, though, she did not know. She could not even guess.

  “Damn,” he swore, his lips brushing her skin, his hot breath making her shiver. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  With each word, he kissed her again, forging a hot trail along the column of her throat. At the same time, he shifted his hand, sliding his fingertips beneath her underclothes to the tip of her breast.

  Sharp sensation speared her. It was too much, and she cried out, her hips jerking beneath him, making her suddenly aware of a particular sort of hardness where his body was pressed to hers. Even through the layers of their clothing, its shape was unmistakable, and awareness washed over her. She felt sure she must be blushing from her head to her toes.

  She’d grown up in the country, she’d gone to a French boarding school, she’d been cornered by a lecherous footman a time or two. She knew—from visits to the farm as a child, from whispered consultations with other girls after trips to the museums, from learning to put up her knee at the appropriate moment—what that hardness in a man’s body meant. She also knew what it could lead to.

  Wildly, she tried to grasp at sanity. “Phillip,” she gasped. “I’ve never…I’m not that sort…” She grasped his wrist.

  His hand stilled. His breath was quick and harsh against her ear. “You’ve never lain with a man at all, have you?”

  “Of course I haven’t!” Her fingers tightened around his wrist, and she told herself to push his hand away, tell him to stop. She didn’t move. “I’m not a woman of easy virtue,” she whispered, even as she told herself it didn’t matter what he thought of her.

  “Of course not,” he muttered and kissed her ear. “Why should anything about you ever be easy, Maria Martingale?”

  He started to withdraw his hand, but for no reason at all, her fingers tightened to prevent it. He lifted his head, his expression harsh. “What do you want?” he whispered. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back, but even as she spoke, her hand opened, her palm spread over the back of his hand, pressing him to her breast.

  He groaned and buried his face against the side of her neck, as his fingers brushed back and forth across her nipple within the tight confines of her corset. She cried out again, her hips writhing against his in a way that was beyond her will.

  He muttered an oath and pulled his hand free. “Tell me to stop,” he ordered, his palm sliding down her hip and along her thigh. He lifted his body from hers long enough to yank up her skirt. “For God’s sake, tell me to stop, Maria, before it’s too late.”

  She didn’t say a word, and when he shifted his weight to one side, she cried out in protest, afraid he was stopping. But then he slid his hand up her leg and spread his palm over her stomach and eased it downward, pushing between her thighs.

  “Maria,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “For the love of God…”

  He slipped his fingers inside the opening of her drawers. And then he touched her in her most intimate place, and she cried out at the sharp, piercing pleasure of it.

  He began to caress her with the tip of one finger in light circles that seemed like torture. She moaned in protest of this exquisite teasing, and pressed her hips up toward his hand.

  “Maria, you are so soft, the softest thing I’ve ever felt,” he murmured against her ear. “I knew you would be. I’ve always known.”

  Those words stunned her, but before she could even begin to assimilate their implications, he deepened the caress, sliding h
is finger up and down between the folds of her feminine opening. Shocked and overwhelmed by these physical feelings she’d never even known existed, she buried her face against his neck, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and held onto him as tight as she could, for he was the only solid thing in the maelstrom. Each tiny slide of his finger brought another throb of sensation. She wanted more, and then still more, but the more she got, the more she wanted. Her body jerked helplessly against his hand again and again, yet, still it was not enough.

  “Yes,” he coaxed against her ear. “Yes, yes, you’re coming, sweetheart. You’re coming for me now.”

  She didn’t know what he meant, but she could hear the tiny cries issuing from her own throat, primitive animal sounds of need and desperation. And then pleasure broke over her in waves. He covered her mouth with his and took her sobbing cries into his mouth, as his fingers continued to caress her in quick, sure movements that sent lingering shards of pleasure through her, until she finally collapsed, panting, against the seat.

  He kissed her one more time and pulled his hand from beneath her skirt. She stared up at him in wonder, unable to think, a blissful sort of haze settling over her. She felt him shift his weight on top of her. His knuckles brushed her stomach, and she realized dimly that he was unfastening the buttons of his trousers.

  The carriage lurched to a stop.

  Phillip’s hand stilled, and he lifted his head. “Hell,” he muttered. “Damn it all to hell.” He shoved away from her and flung himself into the opposite seat. Still swearing under his breath, he began to button his trousers.

  Maria sat up, yanking down her skirts and gulping in great breaths of air, as she tried to get her bearings and understand what he had done to her. She’d never felt anything like it. She’d never even imagined anything like it. Phillip knew what it was, though. He’d known just what to do, how to use his mouth, his hands, his words to evoke those exciting, carnal responses inside of her.

  Maria stared at him, amazed that Phillip, so proper, so civilized, could make her feel so shameless, so wanton, and yet so luscious and beautiful.

  He lifted his head. He looked at her for a moment, his face unreadable. “You’d best button your shirtwaist,” he advised in a low, tight voice. “In situations such as this, it’s customary for the man to do it, but I…” He drew a deep breath and looked away. “I cannot.”

  There was etiquette for situations such as this?

  It seemed so ludicrous, she almost laughed, but looking at his rigid profile, she caught herself just in time. Phillip, she feared, would not share her amusement.

  Maria fastened the buttons of her shirtwaist, and when she looked up, he was watching her, but the moment their gazes met, he once again looked away.

  Once she was dressed, she gave a little cough, and he pulled back the curtain at the window and reached for his cloak. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Put this on. It’s still pouring.”

  She complied, and he tapped the window glass. The carriage door opened, and a footman rolled out the steps. Head lowered against the rain, she stepped down and ran for her door, fumbling beneath the big, heavy folds of his cloak to reach the latchkey in her skirt pocket as she descended the steps to her kitchen. She unlocked the door and opened it, glancing over her shoulder, but she found that Phillip had not followed her.

  She leaned back in the doorway and rose on her toes just in time to see him running up the steps to his own front door. As he paused on the stoop, he glanced sideways to find her watching him.

  Their eyes met for a moment, but then he turned away, entering his own house without a word.

  That, she thought as she went inside and locked her door behind her, was probably for the best. After all, after that extraordinary experience, what was there to say?

  Chapter 12

  There is no sauce like hunger.

  Cervantes

  For the third night in a row, he could not sleep. How could any man sleep with unrequited lust surging through his body and the sounds of a woman’s passion ringing in his ears?

  Phillip lay in bed, Maria’s soft cries of arousal and release echoing through his mind. Over and over, he relived every moment of that short, tortuous carriage ride. He recalled her silken skin warming to his touch, he imagined the soft, wet taste of her mouth and the slick heat of arousal between her thighs, he felt the deep, purely male, satisfaction at her climax. And even though those memories tormented him beyond bearing, compelling him to bring about his own release, he found no relief, for the following night, the sounds of her pleasure would come harkening back to torment him yet again.

  Never had he touched a respectable woman in such intimate ways. Always, he had conducted his affairs in the proper way, with paid mistresses and the occasional courtesan. But now, as he cast a fleeting look back over the other liaisons he’d had in his life, he realized something he never had before. Every woman he’d ever bedded had been a blonde with hazel eyes. Substitutes, he realized now, much to his chagrin. All of them had been substitutes for her.

  And he thought he’d forgotten her? During the past twelve years, days, weeks, even months had gone by when she had not crossed his mind, but he hadn’t forgotten her at all. This need for her, this hunger, had simply been sleeping within him, waiting to be reawakened.

  No doubt about it, he thought with disgust, he was insane.

  He could still hear her impassioned pleas, and he groaned. Reaching for a second pillow, he slammed it over his ear and rolled onto his side. Stupid to think he could forget her, stupider still to think he could live next door and resist her, stupidest of all to think a few luscious tastes of her would ever be enough to free him from her spell. Impossible, for he had been her captive in one way or another since he was nine and she was seven, and she’d smiled at him over the top of an apple.

  He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, thinking of the summer she’d come home from France, when the innocent affection and friendship of childhood had transmuted into this carnal desire.

  He closed his eyes, feeling a hint of despair as he felt that desire for her overtaking his body yet again. How many times had he done this very thing as a youth? How many times had he lain in bed, filled with this hunger for her? How many times had he imagined hot, sweet moments like those in the carriage? Dozens. Hell, probably hundreds. Now he had more than sheer imagination. He’d had a taste of reality, and it was not enough.

  He imagined her in her bed. He thought of the balcony they shared, the French doors into her rooms. He could tap on the door. If she let him in…oh, God, if she let him in…

  Perhaps then, this need would be sated at last. This torment would cease. This madness would stop.

  I’m not a woman of easy virtue.

  Why couldn’t she be? Damn it all to hell, why couldn’t she be? How much simpler everything would be if she were an unchaste woman.

  But she was not unchaste.

  Phillip tried to grasp at his honor. He could not violate an innocent woman. It went against everything he believed about the conduct of a gentleman. But at this moment, grasping at his honor was like grasping at handfuls of air. If he could have her, he thought, if he could only have her, surely this terrible need would pass.

  Her pleas of arousal echoed through his mind again.

  Phillip, Phillip, oh, yes, oh, please, yes…

  This was intolerable. Three nights of hell was enough. Phillip flung back the sheets with a curse and got out of bed. He lit a lamp, and one glance at the clock on the mantel had him reaching for the bell pull to summon his valet. He knew what he had to do, and since it was now four o’clock in the morning, this was the perfect time to do it.

  Maria knew she was in serious trouble. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t work, she couldn’t even seem to do the most mundane task without losing her concentration. Three days had passed since those magical moments with Phillip in his carriage, and every time she recalled them, she felt a euphoric happiness. When she lay in bed a
t night trying to sleep, she couldn’t help remembering the feel of his hands caressing her. When she was in her office staring at the columns of figures in her bankbook, she could only think of the passionate intensity in his eyes. When she was in her kitchen in the early morning hours, she caught herself listening for his step on the stairs, hoping he would come to her, hoping he would touch her again. And every time these thoughts went through her mind, she felt more muddled and dazed than before.

  For the fifth time in as many minutes, Maria realized she was daydreaming, and she forced her wayward thoughts back to the bowl of pastry cream before her. It was a good thing it was so early in the morning, she thought as she reached for the bottle of orange liqueur on the worktable. There was no one to see her blush.

  She drizzled the orange flavoring into the bowl, trying to keep her thoughts on the new recipe she was inventing, but that was impossible, for there were far more delicious things to think about.

  She stopped stirring pastry cream and leaned against her worktable. She hadn’t even known such physical sensations were possible. But Phillip had known.

  She closed her eyes and felt that hot, shameful excitement she’d felt in the carriage rising up again as she remembered the sureness and skill with which he had drawn those exquisite sensations out of her. He’d known just what to do and just how it would make her feel. Never had she dreamed that Phillip was so…so…erotic.

  The sound of her kitchen door opening jerked Maria out of these delightful contemplations like a splash of cold water. She opened her eyes to find the very man who’d been invading her imagination for three days standing in the doorway.

  “Miss Martingale,” he said, taking off his hat with a bow. When he stepped inside the kitchen and closed the door behind him, Maria’s mind flashed back to the illicit words of passion he’d whispered to her, and she felt color flooding her face.

  She ducked her head as she dipped a curtsy, silently cursing her fair complexion, knowing her hot cheeks would give away just what she’d been thinking about. Desperate to attain a measure of self-possession, she turned her back and opened the oven door, pretending to check on something cooking within, hoping he would attribute the color in her cheeks to the heat of the stove. She heard his boot heels tapping on the linoleum floor as he crossed the kitchen toward her, but she could not bring herself to turn around. She closed the oven door and rattled a few of the empty pots on the stove, then, feeling she was in sufficient command of herself, she turned around.