One Naughty Night2

by Laurel McKee

  She watched Aidan’s face as he took it all in. If he could truly read her secrets with those beautiful eyes, Lily thought, then she might as well have opened her heart for him to look at rather than bring him here. This was her room, her secret place, the shelter of a street girl who had spent much of her childhood illiterate and ignorant and now craved all the wonders books could give her.

  Why would she show it to him at all? But he had once said he wrote plays; perhaps he would understand her need for escape. For new realities.

  “What is this place?” Aidan said quietly.

  Lily leaned her palms on the cool, scarred surface of her desk and took a deep breath. “It’s my office.”

  He pushed himself away from the door and moved to one of the shelves with a quiet, catlike grace. “Sophocles, Plato, Milton, Byron. Shakespeare, of course,” he said, running the tip of his finger over the worn leather bindings. “You have quite an extensive library, Lily.”

  “I must be a bluestocking, then,” she said lightly. But she had to swallow hard against the imagined vision of that caressing touch tracing the curve of her bare back, the swell of her backside. “I could not be an actress, so I read plays instead. That is all.”

  Aidan shook his head. He turned away from the books, his body close to hers in the small space, and he reached out to touch her just as she had imagined. He traced the spiral of one of her loose curls where it lay against her neck, one long, slow caress that made her shiver. “You seem to be a lady of many talents.”

  Lily could hardly breathe. Her skin tingled wherever he touched, a rippling, sparkling ribbon of feeling right into her core. She only wanted him to touch her again, wanted to explore this some more. She braced herself against the bookshelf to hold herself upright and reached up to catch his hand in hers. She held it tightly as she stared up into his eyes and tried to read his thoughts there. But his eyes were still veiled to her as he stared at their joined hands. He slowly twined his fingers with hers.

  “Whatever my talents might be,” she whispered, “I’m sure they’re nothing to yours, Aidan.”

  “Oh, I’m utterly useless. Just ask my family,” he answered roughly. His blue-sky stare slid from their hands to the lacy edge of her bodice, along the pale swell of her breasts. His avid gaze felt like a physical touch, hot and needful.

  Lily couldn’t stop herself. She went up on tiptoe to frame his face in her palms, tracing the sharp line of his cheekbones, the wings of his brows. She gently used her fingertips to urge his eyes to close, and when they did, she kissed him.

  She had never craved a kiss so much. Aidan tasted of champagne and mint, of that deep, masculine darkness that was only him. She traced the tip of her tongue over the softness of his sensual lower lip, craving more. Craving all of him.

  With a groan, his mouth opened under hers, and his arms came hard around her body, lifting her against him. His tongue pressed past her open lips to touch and tangle with hers.

  It wasn’t a soft, tentative kiss, a gentle seeking. Aidan devoured her, his lips and tongue and teeth seeking out every part of her, claiming her, possessing her. And she wanted it, wanted more. It was as if his taste intoxicated her, and something white-hot exploded inside of her. She felt him press her back tightly against the shelf, bracing her there as he lifted her higher against his body.

  Her skirts fell back in a ruffled froth as she wrapped her legs tightly around his lean hips and let herself fall completely into his hungry kiss. She shoved his coat away from his shoulders and dug her nails into his linen-covered back.

  “Lily,” he groaned. His lips tore away from hers, and she cried out in protest, only to moan as his mouth trailed down the arch of her neck, his tongue tasting her skin. He licked and nipped at her, until her head fell back, and her fingers drifted into the waves of his hair to hold him to her. He bit down hard on the sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder.

  “Aidan!” she cried, and her hips arched into him. Through the silk of her underthings and the wool of his trousers, she could feel his iron-hard erection. Wetness slid down her inner thigh, proof of how much she wanted him. How much they wanted each other.

  She spread her legs wider and dug her heels into his taut buttocks. She let herself rock against him, her tight heat sliding over his hardness.

  “Damn it all, you are killing me,” he growled, and Lily laughed at the deep, hoarse sound of his voice. At least she was not alone in this madness.

  She closed her eyes tightly as his mouth trailed over the soft curve of her breast. He nudged the edge of her bodice out of his way until he could circle the tip of his tongue between her cleavage, on the bare, soft skin just above her corset. Her nipples tightened, and she wanted to feel his tongue on them, the heat of his mouth as he drew them in deep.

  “Aidan, please,” she whispered.

  He held her between his body and the bookshelf, and one of his long, elegant hands slid down over her ribs and her corseted waist, grasping her skirts to pull them up even higher.

  “What do you want, Lily?” he demanded, his mouth on her breast. “Do you want me to touch you? Kiss you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He pulled hard on the silk of her bodice and the boned linen of her corset until her breast was bare. He bent his head to press hot, openmouthed kisses to the pale skin, soft and slow, circling teasingly toward her aching, erect nipple, then easing away until she tugged hard at his hair and cursed at him.

  Aidan laughed roughly. “Such an unladylike mouth,” he said, and took her nipple between his teeth to suckle it hard. In the same instant, his hand slid up between her legs, and his palm pressed against her through the damp silk of her drawers.

  Lily cried out in a harsh voice she didn’t even recognize as her own. She had never felt this way before, drowning in so much pleasure she couldn’t remember anything but this moment.

  “So hot and wet,” he said, and he sounded as if he were in pain, as if he would snap at any instant. “Damn it, Lily, I want to put my mouth between your legs and see if you taste as sweet as you feel. I want to drive myself so deep into you, feel you tighten around me, pull me closer and closer until I don’t know where I end and you begin. What kind of spell do you have over me?”

  Lily frantically shook her head. He was the one who had cast a spell over her. All she could see were those images in her mind: Aidan kneeling between her legs as he licked her, Aidan plunging into her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her head arched back, her eyes closed in pleasure as he drove into her again and again.

  Aidan sprawled facedown across her bed as she stood over him with a riding crop…

  That last image, so vivid and explicit in her mind, was like a burst of cold water over her burning lust. Her eyes flew open, and her hands tightened convulsively in his hair.

  No! She was not like her mother. She wouldn’t be, couldn’t be.

  Yet here she was in her office, her body open around Aidan Huntington as he drove her mad with his kisses, his words. She was under some spell. He had unleashed something deep inside of her she had fought for years to forget. She couldn’t let it free now. Couldn’t let it destroy her again.

  Aidan seemed to sense something was wrong. His hand slid to her knee, and he looked up at her. His eyes burned in the shadows. It made her shiver, and she closed her eyes tightly against the sight.

  “Lily, what’s wrong?” he said. “Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry I forgot…”

  She shook her head. She kept her eyes shut as he slowly lowered her to her feet, and her skirts tumbled back into place. He hadn’t hurt her—he had given her more pleasure in a physical act than she had ever thought possible, but she was shaking as if she stood in a winter storm. She turned away and pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.

  “I’ve been gone from the club too long,” she said.

  “Of course. Let me escort you back downstairs.”

  Lily smoothed her hair back into its pins and tugged her bodice over her shoulder
s. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window glass and saw to her surprise that she looked almost like she had before. If no one looked too closely at her overly bright eyes and swollen mouth.

  She touched the spot on her neck where he had caught her with his teeth and hoped fervently there was no mark. Her brothers would know at once what had happened, and she didn’t want a quarrel on top of everything else. Her emotions were in enough of a swirling turmoil.

  She drew in a deep breath and slowly turned to see Aidan still standing half in the shadows. His hair was tousled over his brow, and he was retying his cravat as he watched her. He frowned as if he was as strangely affected by what had happened between them as she was.

  Lily almost laughed at the thought. This sort of thing probably happened to Aidan every day. Probably he only wondered why she had stopped him before he gave her all of what she so clearly wanted.

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” he said. “I don’t usually get quite so… uncontrolled.”

  Lily shook her head. “There is nothing for you to be sorry for, Aidan. We kissed. That’s all.”

  Kissed—and so much more. She had wanted so much more, wanted him inside of her, thrusting deep until she could feel him in her very core. But that would be so foolish. She opened the door and slid out into the corridor. Aidan followed behind her, close to her but not saying anything. As they made their way down the hall, the noise of the party grew louder and louder, the lights brighter. On the landing outside the salon, she turned to him with a smile she hoped looked cool and calm, not as shaky and unreal as she felt.

  “I should probably go in alone,” she said.

  Aidan slowly nodded, that frown flickering over his face again. “When can I see you again?”

  It was the same question he asked her when they left the cafe, and again it was not what she expected. He wanted to see her again? Him, the handsome son of a rich duke? It was astonishing.

  But did she want to see him again? She feared she did, far more than was good for her. She knew she should push him away now, once and for all, but she simply found it impossible. “Write to me soon,” she said. Later, in the light of day, faced with a letter instead of his warm, living, all-too-attractive presence, she would be able to think rationally.

  She started to turn away, but he caught her hand and raised it to his lips for a quick kiss, his mouth hot through her glove. “You won’t escape me that easily, Lily,” he whispered. Then he let her go, and she dashed into the salon.

  “Mrs. Nichols!” a breathless footman cried. “There is something in the ballroom that requires your attention right away….”

  Lily spent the rest of the night seeing to one small crisis after another as their patrons got drunker and rowdier, and between rescues, she avoided her brothers and tried to forget what she had done with Aidan.

  But his voice kept whispering in her mind, deep, rough, and alluring: “You won’t escape me…”

  Chapter Five

  Aidan slowly tapped the end of his pencil against the warped edge of the coffeehouse table. He frowned down at the scribbled lines in his notebook and crossed out a few words before scratching in others.

  He was vaguely aware of the room around him, the murmur of low voices, the smell of rich coffee and the tang of pipe smoke, the serving girl’s interested glances at his corner table, and the fact that Freddy Bassington was late for their meeting. But he was far away from it. He was deep in the action of the scene he was writing, the words and images rushing into his mind, tumbling over each other. It had been this way ever since he saw Lily St. Claire at the Devil’s Fancy. The inspiration was right there at his fingertips, because of her.

  Lily. Aidan closed his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Had it really been a week since their encounter? It felt like a year. At night, he could close his eyes and see her face, so pale in the moonlight, her lips parted as she gasped his name. He could feel her soft skin under his hands, taste her nipple in his mouth, so sweet. Her legs tight around his hips as she arched into him. He could feel the wet heat of her even through their clothes, and hot lust urged him to tear the cloth away and thrust into her.

  He had gone to his favorite brothel one night, looking for release, for something to make him forget Lily. Mrs. Bronson ran a luxurious house with the most beautiful and skilled of girls, and she always seemed to have what he wanted. But even the blond, buxom Swenson twins could not distract him. He didn’t need their ample charms. He needed Lily’s dark slenderness, her mysteriousness, her wariness that drove him to want to uncover all of her secrets.

  So, like a callow schoolboy, he went home and came into his own hand while he imagined it was Lily’s mouth.

  Aidan laughed at himself and threw his pencil to the table. He was acting like a fool, a boy with his first infatuation. He knew she was attracted to him; he could see it in her eyes and feel it in her kiss. He should go to her, give her no chance to think, make her his and get her out of his mind.

  Yet something held him back. He remembered the flash of fear when she turned away from him that night, the delicate wariness that made him think of an exotic bird, fluttering away from a predator that swooped down from the sky. She would run from him if he wasn’t careful. He had to play the game just right, to chase and chase hard when he wasn’t accustomed to pursuing. One minute, Lily seemed confident and sophisticated, and the next frightened.

  So he had sent flowers, violets like her perfume, and brief notes. He was a patient man when the reward was great enough. He could take the time to make his plans.

  If only he could get his manhood to be patient too. It wanted Lily, and it wanted her now.

  Aidan smiled ruefully and closed his notebook. He just had to pour his urges into his writing right now. The new play was going well, especially now he had his inspiration for the heroine.

  The bell over the door rang as someone stepped into the coffeehouse. Aidan glanced up and saw it was Freddy at last. He slipped the notebook into his coat pocket and waved his friend over.

  The impression he had had the last time he ran into Freddy—that his friend was in some kind of turmoil—was even stronger now. Freddy Bassington was the most lighthearted of Aidan’s friends, the kindest and most generous if not the most intelligent. Freddy always laughingly proclaimed himself to be “thick as a plank.”

  But today his red hair stood on end, and his freckles were dark on chalk-white skin. He needed a shave, and his cravat was tied crookedly.

  “Blimey, Freddy,” Aidan said, pushing a chair back for his friend. “You look as if you need something stronger than coffee.”

  Freddy shook his head and dropped heavily into his seat. “My head hurts enough already.”

  Aidan gestured to the serving girl for more coffee. As she brought it over, he leaned his forearms on the table and studied Freddy in concern. “What is happening, Freddy? I know you said you don’t need money, but if you do…”

  Freddy gulped down the strong brew and shook his head. “I don’t. At least not yet. Not until I know what she’ll do.”

  She. “Ah.” Aidan sat back in his chair and almost laughed. Of course it was a woman who had Freddy tied up in knots. It always was. Wasn’t he going crazy himself, all because of Lily St. Claire? “And who is she, then? A friend of your sister who refused your proposal? An opera dancer who sent back your gifts?”

  “Nothing like that.” Freddy finished his coffee and took a deep breath. He seemed a little steadier and gave Aidan a sheepish smile. “She’s not a society debutante or a whore. I… well, I thought I was in love with her.”

  “Thought you were?”

  “She… well, damn it all, she’s not like any other woman I’ve ever met.” Freddy shook his head again. “I misread things with her. I’m always doing that.”

  Aidan knew the feeling well. His attempts to read Lily were obviously going nowhere. Maybe hearing someone else’s romantic woes would make him feel better. “Where did you meet her?”

  “I went t
o a dinner at the Majestic Theater a few months ago, when you were in the West Indies.”

  “The Majestic? You met her there?” Aidan sat up straight. The Majestic was the St. Claires’ theater.

  “I sat next to her. Mrs. Lily Nichols. She smiled at me, talked to me like I wasn’t thick or dull. And she had such pretty dark eyes. I thought…”

  He had thought she was different. Special. Aidan knew what Freddy had thought and felt when he looked at Lily St. Claire, because Aidan felt it himself. He wanted to be the one to discover her secrets, to delve behind the mystery. But he wasn’t the only one.

  “You wrote her letters?” Aidan asked tightly.

  Freddy groaned and buried his face in his hands. “With poems and everything. I thought I could convince her to feel the same way I did, to see how much I cared for her. But she turned me away.”

  Aidan could envision it. Lily’s dark eyes hardening, her face like marble as she pushed away what she didn’t want to see. Her heart closed. “Did she laugh at you?” he asked, though he couldn’t picture Lily laughing at anyone at all.

  Freddy shook his head. “She tried to be kind, I think. She told me she intended never to marry again. But she kept my letters, and I don’t know what she intends to do with them. You remember what happened to Arthur Collins, don’t you?”

  Aidan nodded brusquely. Arthur Collins was another old school friend of theirs, who was nearly ruined when his mistress took him to court in a breach of promise suit. She had used his letters begging her to marry him as evidence, even though those letters were obviously written when he was completely foxed. “Never say Mrs. Nichols is taking you to court.”

  “I don’t know what she intends to do! She hasn’t said anything. I’m just afraid of what my mother would say if she ever found out how foolish I’ve been.”