"But for one night, and one night only, nothing, nothing I have ever felt or experienced has prepared me for you. I need you to save me, Isolde. Save me from myself."
She struggled to sit up again and shook her head. "You're not making any sense. Do you not understand? I'm impoverished. I have nothing to offer you. In fact I've brought you nothing but trouble now that Howell is out baying for your blood. How can I ever hope to save you?"
Randall kissed her hard to silence her questions and her fears. There was too much to explain, too much unsettled. He was not sure he trusted her enough to tell her the whole truth. He wasn't sure he could trust the tumultuous emotions inside which he could hardly even begin to put into words. But he knew what he wanted and needed right now, and that was Isolde's lovely presence, and magnificent body.
Fortunately, he didn't need the right words for that. His kiss altered subtly, becoming once again the bone-melting sensual glide which set her senses afire.
Isolde dragged her lips away. "We can't, Randall. Not again. Not when-"
He soothed her hair back from her face, planting warm open-mouthed kisses on her eyelids and cheeks. "We can do as we like. You're here with me now. You're mine now, dearest. I don't want to waste a second of this first night together with difficult explanations, recriminations and anger. Not when there's so much more to share. And some things which can't be revealed right now. I haven't got things clear in my mind, not since you first touched me. But I'm clear about wanting you desperately."
She shook her head, pushing at his rock-hard shoulders in a futile attempt to distance herself from his questing body. But she moved to the middle of the bed once more rather than climbing out of it.
"This is still part of the fantasy, isn't it? The willing virgin, the first night together as lovers. Married people, even. But you can't base such a huge decision on the basis of nothing but your rampant lusts. Outside that door is reality. Consequences. My fiance, who will gladly kill you. My family, who will be shocked and demand all sorts of explanations. Not to mention the past enmity between-"
"Nothing will have to be explained," he murmured against her throat. "If you trust me, I'll make all of this right."
Isolde shook her head impatiently. "Everything has to be explained! I scarcely even know you, Randall!"
He moved his hands over her flesh in the dark so compellingly she gasped and found her legs spreading, her hips arching all of their own accord.
He restrained a laugh of triumph as she melted under his touch. "I think you know me very well. I'm certainly enjoying learning all about you. The way you were with my mother, so kind and patient. The way you are with me, direct and forthright. What you just did to me on the settee, your hesitancy but eagerness to please me, even when by rights you should actually have bashed me in the cullions for what I did to you tonight. Your achingly lovely body-"
"It's not enough," Isolde said desperately, feeling cornered in the bed, yet making no move away from him.
Randall was not keeping her there by compulsion. His hands on her breast and the roseate whorl between her thighs were almost maddeningly gentle. Somehow she simply could not get up to leave.
She could already feel herself flooding with yet more moisture, and that rushing sensation which spread out from her centre to inundate all her limbs was already perilously close.
"This kind of joy doesn't come along every day, Isolde. Believe me. I've spent a lifetime searching for it. It can be all yours too, darling. All night, every night, if you'll only say yes."
His mouth curved over hers, sapping any further resistance she might have attempted, any coherent arguments to get him to try to see reason and not even consider them ever seeing each other again after the morrow.
Her limbs turned to rivers of mercury as the molten desire coursed through her. Once again, he was bending her to his absolute will.
She flowed over him in turn, white hot and scorching through his veins. She reached for Randall's potent force, eager again for that which filled her with such delight, bold enough to grasp him firmly and stroke him with urgent intent.
Their caresses mimicked each other's as they lay back upon the pillows and he kept in tempo with her hands. He stroked her inner thighs, allowing his own legs to spread, trusting her to not hurt him.
Once again she revelled in the soft flesh, a startling contrast to the huge hardness jutting into the tender curve of her hip and belly, fiercely possessive in its need.
Its power and beauty filled her with longing, and all thoughts of holding herself from him fled. His entire body was made for admiration and worship, she thought as she reverently touched his face, neck and chest as well, loving the feel of his warm flesh, rippling muscles.
He began to trail kisses down the slender column of her throat. "I adore it when you touch me like that," he rasped as she continued to fondle the impressive globes.
"I'm not hurting you? I know it's a delicate place for a man."
"You could never hurt me, dearest Isolde, except by leaving me."
She kissed him tenderly, so movingly that it took all of his willpower not to roll her on her back and pound into her until they saw the heavens open once more. Let her see her power, fulfill her own needs, he decided.
Randall didn't want Isolde to despise him forever as the man who had taken her virginity in the course of a bet. He wanted her to love him forever as the only man who could complete her life, make her whole as she seemed to have done to him, nay his entire family since she had arrived.
Shocking though the idea was considering how long and hard he had denied himself any such thoughts, he wanted to share his entire life, every particle of his being, with this incredibly bright and radiant woman. No matter what anyone said, Isolde was his now, and he had no intention of letting her go....
If he had to seduce her into marrying him by keeping her mindless with desire, well, so be it. He would certainly be up to the challenge, but have her he would.
Chapter Ten
When Isolde awoke on the morrow, the sun was high in the sky, and Randall was sleeping like the dead next to her. She studied his exquisite face and body in repose for a moment, and smiled. He was the most spectacular man she had ever met, could ever possibly ever know. She longed to kiss him back awake again, but that would be the height of folly. She needed to leave, to get out of the townhouse now before things grew any worse than they already were.
Which were considerably awful. She had been caught in flagrante delicto by her former fiance. He would no doubt encumber her family estate with a breach of promise suit unless he could be circumvented.
Howell had admitted himself he was angling for wealthy heiress Fanny Clarence. She could slap him with a suit herself if her father's lawyer would take the case upon contingency. But none of that mattered in the face of the threatened duel. She couldn't bear it if anything happened to Randall because of her.
She crept out of the bed and darted into the bathroom with her pile of clothes. She used the facilities hastily and thenn once again combed her fingers through her unruly auburn hair and bundled it up onto the back of her neck.
She one of her chemise straps had snapped, but it would have to do. She yanked on her stockings and fastened the side opening of her demure black gown once more.
She was about to put on her drawers, but she was so torridly damp, her flesh still so distended with passion, she did not dare. Even the simple swaying of the coach would be a heated enough reminder of all she had shared with Randall without anything brushing against her sensitized mound.
She shoved on her shoes, and tiptoeing out of the bathroom, rammed her knickers into her valise, picked it up, and slipped out of Randall's chamber. Then she looked right and left, and began to hurry down the mirror-lined corridor.
She'd go back to the coaching inn, get the first coach back down to Surrey, and then she would be safe. Well, nearly safe. Her family were supposed to be heading to their new home in Somerset the first thing tomorrow m
orning. What she was to do for a position, she had no idea, but something would turn up, she was sure of it. The main thing was to get as far away from Chauncey and Randall as possible.
Once she was gone from their lives, Howell and Randall would forget all about her, she assumed with breathtaking naivete, unaware of the impact she had had on both, the one for vindictive, the other for amatory reasons.
She crept down the corridor, and caught the eye of two maids bustling about their business. They looked at her with undisguised curiosity and enormous envy. She clutched her throat, ducked her head and moved on silently, trying not to run in breakneck flight.
She reached the bottom of the stairs without meeting anyone else, but was faced with several closed doors flanking either side of the impressive gilt-decorated hall. Which was the chamber she had been in the previous evening?
At the second door she tried, she met with success, but gave a little scream as a tall presence loomed in the doorway behind her. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw it was only the butler.
"Oh, it's you, er-"
"Hopkins, Miss."
"Yes of course, Hopkins. You just gave me a start, that's all."
"I'm sorry, Miss," he said kindly, with no hint of judgment in his manner.
"Thank you for all your kindness last evening, Hopkins," she said, flicking her outer garment around her shoulders, and clapping on her bonnet without even bothering to tie it securely under her chin. She lifted her reticule from the small table, crammed her gloves into it, and took up her valise once more.
"Surely you're not leaving?" the butler said in alarm, all attempts at impassivity at an end.
"Of course. I've made a dreadful mistake and wounded the Earl as a result. Put him in an untenable and dangerous position. I never meant to hurt him. I must leave for his own sake."
"And what of your needs and welfare? If you will forgive my saying so, Miss Drake, he has ruined you, as the common parlance goes. It will be the talk of the Town," the butler dared to say quietly.
She blinked, but shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I am not without friends who will understand, sympathise. I cannot have him fight a duel, run the risk of being killed, because of my foolishness."
Hopkins took a deep breath, and then plunged. "If you leave, you will not be safe. That man Howell I know of old. He will treat you most barbarously if you leave the Earl's protection."
"I must go," Isolde insisted. "The Earl no doubt despises me and-"
Hopkins tried again almost desperately now. "You helped his mother last night. Helped her when no one else could. Even if he did despise you, which I very much doubt, he needs you. We ALL need you."
She stared at him for a moment in utter confusion, then shook her head. "I'm sorry. It's very kind of you to try to make me feel better about what happened. However, the last thing the Earl needs is to have his name linked with the scandal of fighting a duel over me. He could be killed.
"Howell will tell everyone I was nothing more than a trollop. Your master would be made the laughingstock of the Ton even if he did survive. If he killed Howell he would have the law after him. I must go. I know we were only with each other for one night, but I care too much about your master to bring down fire upon his head."
"I'm not the kind of man who avoids trouble, my dear," came Randall's deep voice from behind Hopkins.
He had found her missing from the bed, and was still tying the sash of the silk robe he had flung on as he had fled in pursuit, praying he would not be too late to stop her leaving.
She gasped and cursed her luck, and tried to skirt past both men to get out the door.
"Hopkins, tea and breakfast if you please. I'm hungry as a hunter."
The butler left quickly, the relief in his expression unmistakable. Why on earth had he been so insistent that she should stay....
And now it was too late. Randall's hand reached out to capture one wrist gently before she could follow the butler. She felt cornered, trapped, her body already betraying her at his mesmerising touch.
"We need to talk. Or rather, I need to say some things to you, Isolde, and you need to listen."
"Please, I must go. I can't ruin your life any more than I have already," she protested, trying to tug away.
He let go of her arm at once, but his broad body was already herding her in the direction he wished to take her.
"Ruined it?" He shook his head. "I have the feeling you're going to be the making of me."
Striding along in his silk dressing gown, rumpled from their lovemaking, he was the most handsome and breathtaking sight she had ever seen. He ushered her back into the snug parlor she had met him in the night before, and closed the door.
Their gazes locked, and her valise and reticule dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. He reached up to caress the sweep of her jaw, before untying her cloak, and whisking it from her shoulders. Her bonnet soon followed.
"Come sit, sweetheart," he urged huskily.
She moved toward the sofa. With a shake of his head he selected a large armless chair and sat in it himself, pulling her along gently by the hands. As she drew closer, he shoved her legs apart with his knees, and tugged her skirts up to her waist.
"Nay, Randall, you can't seduce me into staying--"
"Can't I?" he said with a throaty chuckle. "Let's just see about that."
"Randall, really, the servants-"
"Usually knock."
"But Chauncey is already baying for your blood!"
"Let him. You're mine."
"I'm my own person," she protested, shoving lightly against his chest."
"Nay, darling, at this moment, you're all mine."
"Randall, this is madness," she panted, but certainly his insanity was contagious, for her bones felt as though they were about to melt.
"So lovely," he breathed. "Come to me, love. Let me come inside you. Come with me to paradise again."
He moved to kiss her, and in an instant she was perched on his lap, his silk velvet robe fanning out, her dress parted, his mouth on one rosy nipple. She caressed the head of his manhood, hot and hard, straining for completion within her once more.
"My, oh my."
"He's missed you. I missed you."
"I missed you too," she admitted.
She kissed him, and he spread her on his lap, her legs up around his waist. When he could not get enough friction by sitting upright in the chair, he took hold of her waist and leaned her backwards onto his thighs. She felt the blood rush to her head as she clung on to his shoulders, and she flamed even hotter when he scooped her hips closer and thrust harder.
She reached out nerveless fingers to stroke his face. He sucked one finger into his mouth and teased it with his tongue.
"Please, let me up, Randall, Kiss me tenderly?" she pleaded.
"Gladly, dearest. Whatever you want, if only you'll please stay with me."
Randall held her close to his chest, resting her head on his shoulder and kissing her with a thoroughness which mirrored the ravishing experience exploding between her thighs. He caressed her shoulder, unfastening her gown and trailing it down to her elbows.
Then he was kissing her neck and breasts with languid, sucking motions which he could be certain were going to leave obvious marks all over her for a couple of days. Marks of his possession, for he had determined she was his now, and he was never going to let her go.
She surged over him, her feminine sweetness never still, until she wrung from him the ultimate in pleasure and they groaned out their release for half of London to hear.
He was holding her in his lap and kissing her ravenously, already hardening again within her at the sound of her mewls of pleasure when he heard a loud knocking at the outer door.
A moment later, they heard Hopkins begin to protest that Randall was not at home.
He looked at Isolde, who was well and truly glazed over by passion.
"Darling, there's someone at the door-"
"Tell Chauncey to go to hel
l," she muttered, before moving her legs off the chair to take the full length of him deep within her.
Randall tried to lift her off his lap just in case his manservant did come in, but the sight of her face arrested him. Never had he seen anyone so lovely. Her rosy swollen lips, her bare shoulders, her breasts quivering for more attention, her long legs peeping out from under her gown, her fiery red hair, here was a woman made for love. Divine, gorgeous.
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