After the Scandal

by Elizabeth Essex

His words were a torrid whisper, falling like warm rain upon her face, washing away the last traces of fear and anger and clawing desperate need that lingered within her.

  She wanted the feeling to last forever.

  But she couldn’t be in his arms and not kiss him. So she moved slowly—as if time were being pulled into taffy, stretching and stretching, until she was on her tip-toes to reach his lush, curved lips.

  But the promise in his gaze was so sweet it was worth the wait, and when at last the first butterfly brush of her lips fluttered against his, she closed her eyes on a sigh of sweet relief.

  His lips were taut and yielding, and moving only very slightly beneath hers. Waiting for her. Waiting for her to do as she wished.

  So she took her time.

  She kissed him slowly, pressing her lips onto his gently, and then not so gently. Exploring the plush firmness of his mouth. And when his lips fell open on a raggedy breath, she took the taut plushness between her own and tasted him just a little.

  He tasted of brandy coffee and cinnamon and rain. And hunger.

  This was Tanner kissing her, in all his raw earthiness, not the cool, cerebral Duke of Fenmore. This was Tanner trying so hard not to do too much, press too hard, or kiss too much.

  But his need—his need drew her closer.

  This was Tanner, who had no pride but hunger. Hunger for her. His hunger for her love.

  His hands were clenched in fists by his sides. But it wasn’t that he didn’t want to touch her—it was that he didn’t want to frighten or overwhelm her.

  But without laying a hand on her, he took possession of her mouth with such thoroughness it knocked the breath from her.

  It was a kiss and more.

  It was a claiming. It has hot and wet and hungry and everything, everything that he was, and everything that he had so obviously held back when they had kissed before.

  And she knew she was done for. He was the only one for her.

  If she lived to be a hundred and ninety, there would never be another person in the world who could come close to filling the Tanner shaped shadow on her heart.

  And because he would not touch her, she touched him. She let her hands slide up the smooth contours of his sleekly muscled arms, feeling the strength and pliancy of his flesh and bone.

  She caressed the warm skin of his neck. She looped her hands around his neck and at last—at last—as if he had been waiting for some sign, some signal from her, his arms cinched around the small of her back, and pulled her flush against the warm wall of his chest.

  “Yes,” he said unnecessarily. “You are in charge.”

  She did not feel as if she were in charge—she felt at the mercy of the intoxicating pleasure that filled her up from the inside. But she understood she would set their pace. She would decide what was right.

  “I can stop any time you like,” he said at the corner of her mouth. And he pulled back from her, he stopped kissing her, just to prove it.

  “No,” she said immediately. “No, please.”

  Kissing him, being in his arms felt good and right and natural. And she wanted more than kissing. She wanted to be his, and make him hers irrevocably. She wanted to exercise the ghost of Rosing.

  “I want him gone. I want to replace every thought of him with something better. With a man so far his superior—”

  He stopped her with the press of his lips to hers, and she tightened her hands around his neck, leaving him in no doubt that this was what she wanted.

  This was what she needed.

  The warm scent of cedar oil, from the chest where he kept the clothes, rose and mingled with the warmth of their bodies finally touching. The chill was banished by the bonfire of his attention.

  She pulled herself closer, turning her head, angling to get closer to him in every way possible.

  And then he picked her up and he was walking with her, moving backward until he came up hard against the edge of the bed a few feet away.

  The force of their need, and the weight their bodies carried them down until he was flat on his back. He settled into the soft cotton mattress with a sigh of glad relief, and the tempo of their kissing changed, to one of ease and slow delight.

  His hands traveled in an unhurried meander, up her back to her nape, taking their time, learning the feel and way of her. Savoring her like ripe summer fruit.

  And she was savoring him as well, learning the brandy bright taste of him. Exploring the shape and size of him. She was laid all along the length of him, from his chest all the way down the long length of his thighs, and even with her mouth next to his, her feet just barely passed his knees.

  He hitched himself sideways along the length of the bed, and carried her with him, so that his boots were twining around her skirts.

  But all thoughts of feet and boots and if she ought not let her sturdy half-boots on the counterpane were lost when his hand came up to cradle her jaw, and turn her head to an angle more to his liking, and hers.

  And the kiss went on and on and on—tongue and teeth and lips and love and everything, everything she had ever thought she could want from him was there, at her mouth.

  His fingers were spearing through her hair, scattering pins to clatter across the counterpane—scattering her thoughts and inhibitions until there was nothing but feeling, and need and hunger.

  He kissed her mouth and her lips and her chin and her cheeks, and she felt beautiful and cherished.

  She kissed his perfectly shaped lips, and along the long line of his jaw and down the length of his aristocratic nose, and felt powerful and curious.

  He smelled of soap and bay rum and cedar and spice.

  She drew her hands along the high plains of his cheekbones delighting in the smooth feel of skin over the slight rasp of his close shaved whiskers.

  Her hand was at the neck of his shirt, laying waste to his impeccable cravat, pulling apart his button so she could trace the long line of his collarbone with the tips of her fingers.

  And then, she had the strangest, strongest urge to kiss him there, at the hollow of his throat. And so she did.

  His skin felt cool after the heat of his mouth, but she could feel his pulse beating strong and sure under the warm cover of his skin, and he made a sound of such pure animal pleasure and encouragement that she found her lips curving into a smile.

  And she found herself wanting to do it again, to make him sigh with her kiss, and explore the architecture of her body with his lips and tongue and teeth.

  He turned his head to the side, as if to grant her permission, or issue her an invitation to explore the long, long slide of his neck under the edge of the shirt. To nip and worry at the spot where the sinuous tendon met the broad plane of his shoulder. To lave the the sensitive spot on the top of his shoulder.

  The sound she engendered from him was a surprised, rumble of a laugh that vibrated and tumbled through her, emboldening her, urging her on, until she had kissed her way up the side of his neck, and had taken the soft vulnerable skin of his earlobe between her teeth.

  She bit down gently at first.

  “Claire,” he said, and his voice was strained and happy and wondrous.

  And then she bit him not so gently.

  The sound that burrowed out of his chest was a low growl of satisfaction, that accompanied first his coat, and then his waistcoat to the floor.

  And the next thing she knew, he had rolled her in his arms until she was below him, and the force and weight and strength of him bore into her.

  “No.” The word flew out of her mouth before she could stop it, or wish it back.

  Embarrassment and confusion singed her skin, but Tanner was true to his word—he stopped.

  He didn’t ask what was wrong. He didn’t need to. He was the kind of person who saw and listened and watched with different eyes.

  He was the kind of person who understood.

  Before she could say another word, he had reversed their positions once more, but this time he sat up, with his back leani
ng against the pillows at the head of the bed. And with his hands at her waist, he guided her up until she sat upon his lap, with her legs to either side of his.

  But he kissed her so sweetly, and held her so lightly that she was too beguiled by his attention to think about the awkward exposure of her position.

  And seated thus, her hands were free to roam and play over his body, and delve beneath the open neck of his shirt. To trace the rather miraculous musculature of his shoulders and upper chest.

  He was a lean man, long in the bone, and knit together in graceful sinuous lines, flowing from one supple muscle to the next, and she wanted to see him as well as feel the sleek skin beneath her hands.

  She slid her hands under his shirt to drag her fingers up over the strong lines of his ribs, and as if he had been waiting for her signal, Tanner reached down, and in one fluid motion, shucked the linen over his head.

  There he was, bare from the waist, his skin as golden and glowing as a navvy who worked in the summer sun digging ditches all day. This strange duke of hers was beautiful in his wild, barely tamed way.

  And he was wild in other ways too. He urged her to lean into him. To let the weight of her torso settle upon him, and let the soft muslin fabric of her gown brush against the bare expanse of his skin.

  “Yes,” he praised her when she did. “Ah, yes.”

  And the delicious frisson of her body against his filled her with a sort of giddy, mad delight that urged her closer still. That urged her to lean in close, and rub herself against him as she kissed him.

  He urged her, too. His hands fanned open against the top of her back, encouraging her forward, holding her weight so she could she could play with the unruly, tousled curls that fell across his forehead. So she could kiss his temples, where his pulse beat against his skin, and all along the wicked slide of his cheekbones.

  His mouth was wandering down the side of her neck, sending little spasms of pleasure shooting like wayward stars under her skin.

  She threw her head back, anxious to make him continue, wanting the bursts of bliss to continue to rain down within her.

  And it did. Her skin was on fire with a hundred points of fire and light, like sparks flowing from a firework.

  Everywhere he touched, everywhere he kissed across the top of her bodice, her skin flared into impossible awareness. Each spot was more sensitive than the next. More sensitive, more full of exquisite sensation than she had ever imagined, and she had imagined quite a lot.

  She was, after all, nearly twenty years of age, and she had kissed, and been kissed, by more than two fellows in her day.

  She had thought herself quite sophisticated—sophisticated enough to go walking with the likes of Lord Peter Rosing in the dark.

  She was in the dark now, but this was nothing like that. This was nothing like anything she had ever experienced before.

  This was her Tanner whose care and attention and love could not be denied. Would not be denied.

  Not by her.

  Not now. Not ever.

  His mouth roamed lower across the slight swell of her breasts, and she all but held her breath.

  Beneath her layers and layers of clothing, behind gowns, and stays and chemise, her nipples contracted in anticipation, tightening into exquisite peaks of sensation against the fabric of her chemise.

  Her body was bending toward him, toward the glorious pressure of his clever mouth of its own volition.

  Her hands speared their way into his hair, and she was holding him there, silently urging him to please, please end the lazy torture and—

  His lips—his clever, clever, supple lips—found her nipple through the fabric of her gown, and closed down around it, and she felt such blissful heat blossom out of her chest that she thought she might faint from the pleasure.

  But she did not faint. She gasped in a useful lungful of sweet air, and let the pleasure cascade all the way through her, from the very edge of her skin, all the way down to the empty center of her belly.

  She let the pleasure fill her up, like a cup filling to its brim, and then over the brim, soaking her in the wonder that was his intimate kiss.

  His voice came to her from far away. “May I?”

  Whatever it was he asked, she was glad of it.

  “Yes,” she said, though her voice was nothing but pieces of air. “Yes, please. Please.”

  His hands went to the laces of her gown, quick and nimble, loosening the ties, and pulling the seams of her gown apart.

  The bodice sagged loose, and she was pulling it away, pulling her arms free of the tiny cap sleeves, so she could wrap her arms around his neck, and hold her breasts tight against him, because when she moved, even just the tiniest amount, the glorious, ravenous pleasure surged anew.

  But his hands were at her shoulders, urging her away, pushing down the straps of her stays, brushing down the short sleeves of her chemise. His lips were whispering over the upper curves of her breasts.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  So when his fingers plucked at the laces of her stays, she did not object.

  She encouraged. “Yes, please. There. Help me get them off. Get them off so I can—”

  And then the laces were loose, and she could push them down, and free herself.

  His hands—his warm, callused, clever hands—and fingers were already there, cupping her breasts. Taking her tightly puckered nipples between his forefinger and thumb, and rolling them gently against the cotton fabric.

  And then his mouth was on her, sucking at her nipples through the thin lawn of her chemise, wetting the fabric until it cooled and drew her sensitized nipples into ever tighter, more sensitive peaks.

  Everything was pleasure. Everything was brilliant, brilliant delight. And bliss. And need.

  And then his clever, clever fingers were pushing the chemise down to her waist, and she was bared to him, arching back over the strength of one arm.

  Offering herself to him, like a book open upon his table.

  Chapter 23

  Claire gasped—a small but thoroughly satisfying sound of encouragement and benediction.

  Tanner could hear her agitated breathing meld with his own, and all but feel the pleasure and excitement coursing through her veins. He could feel the delicate, rising heat of her body as she instinctively pressed closer to him.

  His world narrowed to her, and her alone.

  Her breasts were beautiful, and white, her skin gleaming pale and silvered in the moonlight shivering through the tress, washing across the bed for a long second—long enough for the image to etch itself indelibly into his brain—her nipples were the same warm, delicious pink as her lips, and her skin held the heady fragrance of white gardenia, and deep green summer.

  He would give her what she wanted—what she didn’t even know she was asking him for, with her breathy sighs and plush, inquisitive mouth.

  With her soft insistence.

  “Tanner,” she said, with just the right amount of question in her voice that made him want to answer her with his mouth on hers, and his hands saying, yes, yes, whatever you want.

  Telling enticing secrets against her skin.

  Because they had secrets, his fingers. They worked at the behest of his clever, analytical mind, and he knew how to watch, and what to think, and when to act. If he knew nothing else, he knew each and every signpost along to road to her eventual surrender.

  He laid his hand gently along the side of her neck, testing the race of her pulse, gauging the level of her excitement. Was it enough? Was it enough to overcome both her scruples and any lingering fear?

  He leaned away from her, just a fraction, just enough so his body couldn’t press upon her, or hem her in. So if she wanted the sweet friction of the contact of her body against his, she would have to move closer. Or not.

  It was her choice—her need to be in control, even if she did not yet know it.

  He knew it. He understood her. And he would act accordingly. For both of their benefit.

  Be
cause the truth was, that however attentive he was trying to be in watching and gauging her reactions, he could not really think—he was suffering from the same unaccustomed heating of his skin as she. The same unruly rush of his pulse. The same mad thumping of his heart.

  All she had to do was sigh, or smile, or lean the weight of her head into his hand, and he was smitten, over and over again—a wave rebounding upon his shore, more strongly each time.

  The result was total unpredictability—he was becoming dangerously out of control. And the total ungovernableness of his physical attraction to her frightened him in a way that knives and guns and threats of hanging never had. Never could.

  But she didn’t seem frightened—she seemed curious and warm and interested in his mouth in a way that was inexplicable, except that he was just as inexplicably interested in hers. In the way her lips seemed to fit rather exactly against his. In the way everything she did was exactly designed to set his physical body on fire, and muddle his brain.

  He felt buffle-headed. And extraordinarily alive. And determined to get it right.

  For her.

  For both of them.

  He knew well enough how to send a girl over the edge—he had done it often enough to manage it well, and send a female careering breathily toward her crisis, tumbling gladly toward her oblivion, so he might find his own—so he might lose himself for those few, fleeting, heady moments when his body triumphed over his brain.

  He wanted that oblivion, he wanted to work toward it immediately.

  But she was taking her time, meandering from his lips to his ear lobes and back, and he was having trouble concentrating on what he knew he ought to be doing.

  He ought to be finding her secret places, the hidden swaths of sensitive skin. He ought to be touching her there, at the very edge of her nipple, making her skin heat, and her knees knock and her heart beat too fast beneath her lily-white breast.

  But it was his skin that felt new. His knees knocking together beneath him. His heart that beat a wild tattoo within his chest.

  Because she was mastering the space between them. Pressing closer when he leaned back. Taking hold of him when he would not lay his hands upon her.