“There is but one relationship which I have ever thought to ‘countenance’ between the two of us, my dear Sophia,” he assured her gruffly.
Sophia drew her breath in sharply, wondering if she might have done something in these past ten years to reveal she was not as immune to Dante’s handsome virility, to those kisses he had once pressed upon her, as she might have wished to be.
She gave a firm shake of her head. “The very idea of the two of us being in any sort of relationship is—”
“Ridiculous? Preposterous?” Dante finished with a softness that no longer sounded sensual but dangerous. A danger which was also reflected in those hard and glittering green eyes, and the thin, uncompromising line of his mouth. “Feel, Sophia, feel how ridiculous I find that claim!” His hand moved from her waist down to her bottom as he pulled her tightly against his thighs.
Close enough that Sophia could do no other than be completely aware of the hardness of Dante’s long shaft as it pulsed hotly—even demandingly—against the rapidly increasing heat between her own thighs!
She was a woman, she hoped, known for being both calm and controlled in the midst of any crisis, but she felt her face paling as she now found herself in a situation which left her feeling totally out of her depth. Her eleven years of marriage to Simon Rowlands, a man so much older than her, and who had been more like a father and friend to her than a passionate lover, had in no way prepared her for this blatant and physical assault upon her sensibilities.
An assault which she had hungered for since this man had kissed her all those years ago…?
That realisation was so unacceptable to her that Sophia attempted to pull away, only to have that attempt thwarted by Dante as he merely drew her closer still. Her eyes flashed a deep and angry green as she glared up at him, frustrated. “It is totally unacceptable that you should dare to behave in such an overly familiar fashion towards any lady!”
Dante regarded her through narrowed lids, wondering what it was about this woman in particular, that so held his interest. No other woman even came close to holding his attention for any longer than it took to bed her and leave her. And yet Dante knew it had been so from the moment he first looked upon Sophia’s beauty all those long years ago.
Her hair was the colour of a midnight sky, a deep blue-black in the glow of the many candles lighting the ballroom, pulled up and secured upon her crown in a cascade of loose curls this evening, her deep green eyes surrounded by thick and sooty lashes, her complexion as pale and delicate as fine bone china, her nose exactly the length it should be for her heart-shaped face, and the fullness of her lips a deep and rosy red above a small and determined chin. As for the fineness of her form…!
Ten years ago Sophia had still been a girl on the brink of womanhood, and slender as a reed, but that slenderness was now filled out to a full voluptuousness, her breasts a creamy swell above the low neckline of her green silk gown as they pressed against him, her waist and thighs curvaceous against the tautness of his body; even her feet were beautiful, tiny and slender, and encased in matching green silk slippers which peeped beneath her gown as the two of them danced.
“That is a pity, dear Sophia.” Once again Dante spoke softly. “Because I have every intention, before too much time has passed, of being so overly familiar with you that you will not know where you end and I begin!”
Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed before speaking in a trembling voice. “You go too far, Dante…!”
“At last…” He breathed his satisfaction upon finally hearing his name upon her luscious lips. Now if only they could find a bed upon which he might lay her down and—
“At last nothing, Sherbourne!” Sophia finally managed to gather
her rapidly dwindling wits enough to reproach him, her gaze becoming coldly disdainful as she ignored the scorching heat that had engulfed her own body, to instead look haughtily down the length of her nose at him. “The mere possibility of the two of us ever becoming intimately involved in the way you describe is ludicrous! Not only am I aunt-by-marriage to one of your peers, but I am also four years your senior. Either one of those things renders any sort of…association between the two of us, as being totally beyond—”
“Try telling that to my cock!” Dante put in forcefully.
Sophia felt the flush of heat in her cheeks at his deliberate crudeness. “I have no intention of ever addressing any part of your anatomy, in any terms!”
“I assure you, I had it more in mind for you to undress certain parts of my anatomy, dearest Sophia!”
Sophia knew exactly what Dante wanted from her. And it could not be. It must not be! Even if, as it had always done, her heart now beat loudly and rapidly in her chest just at thoughts of intimacy between herself and Dante…
Her mouth tightened. “You were not invited here this evening, Sherbourne, and as such I would appreciate it if you remove yourself from my home before I return.”
Dante’s lids narrowed to glittering green slits. “And, where precisely, do you intend on going?”
“As hostess, it is time—indeed, past time!” She frowned. “That I check on the comfort of my guests.” She pulled out of his arms before turning abruptly on one slippered heel to leave the dance floor and walk in the direction of the doorway leading out into the spacious hallway where refreshments were being served, nodding and smiling warm acknowledgement of several of her guests as she went.
Dante wasn’t fooled by this excuse—for excuse it most certainly was—for he knew that Sophia, his beautiful and haughty Sophia, was indeed running away. Oh, not from him, but from the heat he had undoubtedly felt rising in her body as he held her tightly against him as the two of them danced and talked so intimately together.
Sophia may deny it all she pleased, but these past few moments of holding her in his arms, had only served to show Dante that she was not as immune to him or the hard evidence of his desire as she pretended—or wished!—to be.
That being so, Dante wasted no time in following Sophia from the ballroom.…
Chapter Three
“I—What do you think you are doing?” Sophia, having just congratulated herself on bringing an end to that disastrous encounter with Dante, had barely had a chance to draw a satisfied breath when she felt herself firmly grasped by the top of her arm and halted in her tracks. Turning with an indignant gasp at being manhandled in this way, she now found it was Dante who had followed her from the ballroom, his expression grimly determined as he pulled her along beside him in the direction of the library. “What are you about, Sherbourne—”
“What I am about is at the end of my patience, Sophia. And if you call me Sherbourne in that disparaging tone one more time, then I fear I will be forced to kiss you here and now in front of anyone and everyone who cares to look!” His teeth were gritted, a nerve pulsing in the rigidity of his tightly clenched and arrogant jaw.
As his assertion probably included every person now gathered in the cavernous hallway, where the drinks were being served, Sophia felt it prudent—and with a care for Dante’s precariousness of mood!—to refrain from inciting him further. “I believe you have caused enough of a scene by dragging me off in this impolite manner!” she hissed pointedly instead.
He gave a groan. “Would you prefer that I give in to the need I have to throw you to the floor here and now, before raising your skirts and devouring you between your thighs with my lips and tongue—”
“Dante…!” Sophia gasp
ed breathlessly, too shocked—too heatedly aroused by the eroticism of the images his words provoked!—to offer any more than that halfhearted protest.
His eyes glittered. “Yes—my name is Dante,” he assured her warmly. “And before this evening is over it is my dearest wish for you to say my name again…in ecstasy,” he pleaded throatily as he threw open the door to the library before pushing her unceremoniously inside and closing the door firmly behind them, with only the rasp of their joint breathing to now break the expectant silence in the surrounding darkness.
Sophia was completely aware that she had totally, utterly, lost control of this situation, that it was Dante who was now in charge of what did—or did not—happen next.…
For years now, ten years to be exact, Sophia had attempted to treat Dante with a mature and measured disregard, as she refused to so much as acknowledge that he had once dared to kiss her, or the desire that more often than not burned in the depths of his bright green eyes whenever the two of them chanced to meet.
Not only because she was another man’s wife, but because she was also aware, always, of that past scandal, which had resulted in her father’s exclusion from Society. Of how it had only been the marriage proposal of Simon Rowlands, the Duke of Clayborne, twelve years ago, which had saved her from that same exclusion. Of how much the vicious cats of Society would love it if they had once guessed that Sophia had become secretly—scandalously!—attracted to Lord Dante Carfax, Earl of Sherbourne after he had dared to kiss her so passionately all those years ago.
As a respectable widow, Sophia was still determined to resist the desire which assailed her whenever Dante was anywhere near. “You—”
“Will you not cease fighting me even now, Sophia?” Dante asked huskily as he pressed his body the length of hers and nudged her gently back against the book-lined wall, and only too aware of the dangerous edge to his own control. The complete loss of which, he knew, might succeed in causing Sophia to shout his name in a manner he would prefer she did not! “I heard you say but a short time ago that it was your intention to take a lover before the Season is over—”
She looked slightly dazed. “I believe it was Genevieve, the Duchess of Wollerton, whom you heard say that—”
“—and if you think, even for one moment,” Dante continued softly, “that I will countenance that lover as being any other man but myself, then you are the one who is addle-brained.”
Sophia was so very aware of his pulsing arousal as it fitted into the warm well between her thighs.…
Her eyes had now adjusted to the moonlight shining in through the two picture windows across the room, Dante’s face thrown into shadow by that half light as she looked up at the sharp, stark angles of his face. He looked so unlike his arrogant and lazily charming self at that moment, in fact, that Sophia was barely able to repress the shiver that now ran the length of her spine.
And, if she were truthful, she was unsure as to whether that shiver was caused by fear of the warmth in his glittering gaze, or the arousal that now coursed through her own veins, causing her breasts to feel hot and heavy, and a rush of dampness between the thighs Dante had moments ago told her he wished to devour!
Shocked as she undoubtedly was by hearing Dante speak of such intimacy, Sophia’s breath also hitched in her throat at the mere idea of having those firm and yet sensuous lips pressed intimately against that most private part of her body, of having his tongue rasp across her sensitive folds—
She gave a halfhearted shake of her head. “I do not believe it is my sanity which is currently in doubt— “
“And my own fled long ago where you are concerned, my dear Sophia,” Dante assured ruefully. “Ten years ago, to be exact.”
“You cannot seriously expect me to believe those boyhood kisses meant anything to you—”
“My intentions towards you then, as now, have only ever had, or ever will have one conclusion, my dear Sophia.” His voice had lowered. “Now, will you please allow me to taste you again—before I lose what little wits you have left me with these past years!”
Sophia knew that she should refuse him, that she should give him another set-down, even colder than those of the past ten years. And yet, all these years of denying her own desire for this man meant that coldness was the last thing she was feeling at this moment.…
She drew in a deep breath, only to have Dante instantly take advantage of the slight parting of her lips as his own mouth descended to lay siege to hers.
Dante groaned low in his throat at the first feel of Sophia’s soft and pouting lips against his, before he began to hungrily taste that delicious bounty, lips every bit as sumptuous and sensuous as he remembered, and causing the last of his control to slip the reins.
Her fingers clutched at the broadness of Dante’s shoulders as he raised one of his hands to arch her throat as he deepened the kiss, his tongue breaching that parted barrier so that he might taste the delectable nectar within. Again. And again. And—oh God!—again…
Dante now surged even harder within his breeches as his hips began to press in slow rhythm against the heat he felt between Sophia’s thighs.
It was not enough!
Dante would never have enough where Sophia was concerned, the need to consume her, to possess her, now bubbling and rising inside him with the same irrepressible need of a volcano about to let loose its hot and burning lava.
He dragged his lips from hers, his breathing harsh and discordant in the silence as he looked down into the heat of her gaze, continuing to hold it as he slowly drew the skirt of her gown up the long silky length of her stocking-covered legs.
“Dante…?”
“I do not like it that you are wearing drawers, Sophia.” Dante frowned darkly as his fingers encountered that silky barrier to his more intimate caresses.
She gasped. “Of course I am wearing drawers—”
“Leave them off next time,” he pressed gruffly. “For me.”
“Next time…?”
“Oh there will most assuredly be a next time, Sophia,” he promised. “I fully intend our seduction to be a long and pleasurable experience for us both.”
“Our seduction…?” her voice quivered with uncertainty.
Dane chuckled softly. “Can you not feel how just being with you like this seduces me?”
Sophia could certainly feel the warmth of his arousal pressed against her. “Dante…?” she gasped in alarm at the heated pleasure that warmed between her thighs as his fingers slipped through the opening in her drawers and touched her bare flesh. “Dante, you must stop this now!”
“Must I?” He sounded regretful as his lips nuzzled against the sensitive column of her throat.
“You must!” She gasped at the burn of pleasure created by those caressing fingers.
Dante heard the emotional plea in Sophia’s voice, bringing him to an awareness that, lost in the pleasure of finally holding her in his arms, his long held desire for this woman was causing him to go too fast for her, and that in doing so he may have frightened her off completely.
Something, if he wished to keep his own sanity, he had no intention of ever allowing to happen…
He had waited for this particular woman for ten long years, nine of them when she was married to another man, and this past year of her official time of mourning that husband. To force the issue now, when he was so close to attaining all that he had so long desired, was not only rash on his part, but may possibly put an end to any hopes of ever making
Sophia completely his.…
Chapter Four
For all that Sophia had appeared to listen to Genevieve’s suggestion earlier to take a lover, or several, before the Season had ended, it had never been Sophia’s intention to actually do so.
And nothing in Sophia’s so far sheltered existence, had prepared her for how she should behave after Dante had touched her so intimately.
“Dante…?” She looked up to the man in front of her for aid in alleviating that awkwardness.
Dante paused long enough to close his eyes and breathe Sophia’s scent deep inside him before reluctantly looking at her, the semi-darkness in the room enabling him to recognise the flush upon her cheeks as being one of embarrassment rather than the passion he wished for. Just as he noted the way in which her gaze avoided meeting his own. Indeed, those deep green eyes were filled with tears even as she hastily smoothed her gown down into some semblance of its previous order…
She averted her gaze from his, the moonlight instantly revealing those tears glistening on the darkness of her long lashes. “I—This is beyond awkward, Sherbourne.” She moistened her lips. “I-I have no idea what to even say to you!”
Dante breathed an inward sigh upon hearing her address him so formally. “Then perhaps you should say nothing for now, my dear Sophia,” he suggested softly.
She gave him a brief glance before her gaze once again fell from meeting his, that blush deepening in her cheeks. “I—This intimacy between us cannot possibly be allowed to happen again—”
“It will most certainly happen again, Sophia,” Dante assured her softly.
“No—”
“Again.” He nodded. “And again. And yet again.”
Some Like It Scandalous Page 2