by Lara Archer
The flesh throbbed now at the joining of her legs.
How easy it would be to let it happen, to let him touch her like that again—and perhaps not stop him this time. Her breasts seemed to strain against the tightness of her bodice, and she caught herself biting at her lip.
“You’re curious,” he said, his voice deepening still more. “That’s obvious. Why don’t you come find out exactly what I’m offering?”
His extended his hand just a few more inches closer. Now he did seize her wrist, and it was as if a tongue of flame lashed her. He pulled, not hard enough to force her, but enough to break through the last bit of her resistance. Her insides quavered, but she let that gentle tug pull her to her feet, make her step towards him, her knees unsteady.
“Excellent,” he said, grinning. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“What wasn’t?”
“Giving in.”
Her spine stiffened again. “Who says I’ve given in?”
He chuckled again. “I suppose that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Clearly, you enjoy a challenge. So let’s up the stakes.”
“How?”
His fingers released her wrist, and his hands went to the sides of her skirts. He took the fabric in both fists and began to lift it towards her knees. “Straddle me.”
“What?”
“Sit atop me, with your legs on either side of mine. The way a man rides a horse.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”
“Or a man either. I’m well aware of that. Don’t worry; I won’t take this any farther than you want tonight. But if I’m going to teach you more about pleasure, I’ll need access.”
Access? Her mouth went dry, and a hot-cold shaft of panic went through her.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Unless you don’t think you’re up for the challenge.”
“But you said you were a mass of bruises,” she said desperately. “I—I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Bruises are of no consequence. I assure you, I find you soothingly soft.”
She licked fitfully at her lips. “Do you?”
“Oh, yes, very soft. Very soft indeed.” His voice seemed strangely abstracted as he repeated the word, and his gaze left hers for a moment, as though drawn off into some profound philosophical conundrum. Then he heaved a sharp breath, and looked her in the eye again. “Come now, show me how brave you can be.”
She stood stock-still for a long moment, her mind racing. She really did need to get over her awful stiffness around men—she’d nearly given the game away tonight, several different times. And that sort of mistake could get them both killed.
Sebastian promised not to take this farther than she was ready for, and oddly enough she trusted him to keep his word. His damnable self-control was dependable for that, at least.
Brave, yes. She could be brave. Heedlessly, thoughtlessly brave.
As if in a dream, she climbed atop him as he lifted her skirts out of her way. The seat of the coach was well padded, but not deep, so her knees had to slide apart rather wider than she wished before the backs of her thighs settled over the iron-hard tops of his. As her skirts dropped back down around her hips and legs, the emerald silk was full enough to cover most of her bared flesh, but with her legs spread so far, and no barrier but the fabric of his breeches between her and him, she still felt dangerously exposed.
And excited.
What would he do to her now?
Kiss her? Touch her breasts? Put his hands beneath her skirts? Just because it was a lesson didn’t mean it couldn’t be enjoyable.
She became acutely aware of her pulse, pounding everywhere through her flesh. The surface of her skin rippled with sensitivity, so much so that she feared when he did touch her, she’d scream.
“Put your hands on my shoulders,” he said, and she did as she was told, registering the strength and breadth of him, of his body so very different from hers. There was comfort in this proof of his solidity, of his vitality, after all the anxiety of watching Lord Henry chase after him with a blade.
Sebastian was safe. And, against all reason, all sense, he made her feel safe, too.
The heat of his body, the subtle, musky scent of him, deepened by his exertions during the fight, seemed to charge the air around her. The world contracted suddenly to the small space they shared, its boundaries defined by the outlines of their bodies and that envelope of warmth.
As it turned out, he did none of the things she’d expected him to do first.
Instead, his palms cupped her buttocks through the silk of her skirts and drew her down more firmly into his lap, pressing that most sensitive place between her legs against the fall of his breeches.
A sharp, delicious jolt went through her—he was hard there, too, and swelling harder and larger with the contact.
He made a growling sound. “I told you my blood was up.”
Oh, Lord. Her own blood seemed to be thundering in her ears, and running a mad, looping course through the rest of her body, filling her with a hot, sweet, blooming feeling. He’d touched her in that spot once before, with his hands, through the silk of the plum gown, and it had nearly undone her. This was somehow even more intense, with her legs fully spread, and that part of him rising up so insistently against her.
For a moment, a streak of fear shot through her, and she nearly sprang off of his lap.
But she swallowed hard, steeled herself. Brave, remember?
Other instincts were pulling at her, too, not just her fear. There was a deep, physical draw, an urge to get closer to his body. She chose to follow that. Drawing a quick breath for courage, she gripped his shoulders, and rocked her hips downward, pressing harder against him, increasing the pleasure.
Sebastian let out a harsh, shuddering sigh.
The muscles of his thighs tensed as though he wanted to thrust against her, but he made no effort yet to do so. Instead, his palms skimmed up her sides, from her hips to her waist to outside of her breasts, and then up the curve of her neck to her jawline, all so light and quick she barely had time to register the sensations. Her body tingled everywhere at once. Her head whirled as though she were perched high atop a tower, perilously far from safe ground.
“Sweetheart,” Sebastian breathed, so soft and low she seemed to fall down into the sound of it. She wanted his mouth against hers.
He didn’t kiss her, though, just kept up that light, quick stroking, his fingers teasing her, tracing her, following the line of her jaw to her chin, then sweeping down again, brushing her throat, the line of her pulse, the ridge of her collarbones, and finally the upper curve of her breast.
“Oh, yes, so soft,” he whispered. “Here, for instance.”
Breathing became more complicated. Her very lungs seemed to be trembling, and her heart as well, and what came from her mouth as his fingertips slipped beneath the neckline of her gown was a wild, rasping sound.
The coach was swaying and shuddering beneath them, bouncing her lightly against his lap, seeming to urge them both on. Impulses she didn’t know how to name coursed through her body: she wanted his touch, and feared it. She wanted him to take his hands from her, and wanted him to tear the gown from her shoulders, all at the same time.
His fingers dipped lower, brushing one hard-peaked nipple, and she cried out like he’d burnt her.
“Easy,” he said, as he might to a skittish mare. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course not,” she said automatically, though perhaps it wasn’t anywhere near as true as it should have been.
He took no offense, in any case. “That’s probably wise,” he said, shrugging. “But there’s no hurry here. We’re just getting to know each other now. All right?”
She nodded tremulously.
“Good.” Taking his hands from her bodice, he reached upwards instead to pull the tortoiseshell combs form her hair. As his fingers loosened her curls and let them spill around her shoulders, he made a low grumbling sound in his throat.
“Pity Jenny had to cut the rest. It was so lovely falling down around your hips. I’d have relished spreading it across a pillow.”
She fought not to groan at the sensation of his fingers brushing her scalp. Surely he could feel how hard she was shaking against him. “We aren’t even in a bed.”
His eyebrows raised. “Not now.”
“Not ever, though,” she said hastily. “This is just . . . one time. I haven’t agreed to anything more.”
He blew out a hard breath. “No, you haven’t, have you? Pity to that as well.” His gaze raked over her, and his pupils seemed to grow blacker and wider. “This mission may just be the death of me, even if our enemies never reach us.”
His words scarcely registered—her brain was distracted by his fingers slipping downwards again, this time reaching around to the back of her dress, where her bodice fastened.
“I’ll just have to make the most of the time I have, then,” he murmured.
Her heart pounded as his fingers tugged at the closure. “What are you doing now?”
“Opening your dress,” he said calmly. “I’ve been wanting to get a better look at you. It wouldn’t do for you to have birthmarks or other distinguishing features I’m not aware of. You never know when we might get called out on a lie.”
Oh. Her breasts throbbed, and heat and moisture were pooling between her thighs. He was going to bare her breasts. He was going to look at her. She was terrified, and she wanted him to look.
Not just look, but touch and taste, and consume her whole. This was madness.
But then a wash of cold went over her again, and she reached behind her to stop his hands. “Tell me something first, Sebastian.”
“What””
“Did you ever . . . Did you ever do this with—” A hard knot formed suddenly in her throat, blocking the name she meant to say. She swallowed and used the other name instead, the one her sister had invented. “With Salomé?”
His fingers stilled. “That concerns you?”
“That concerns me.”
For a moment, the pained look that crossed his face made her think he was about to say words that would make her push his hands away forever. But then his gaze met hers squarely, and the pain cleared. “No,” he said. “Never. It was never like this between us.”
The relief she felt at those words took her by surprise. But doubt still nagged at her. She wasn’t sure why this mattered so much to her, but just now it did, and desperately. “Not at all?”
“Not in the slightest. She’d have done me considerable damage if I tried.” He must have seen her expression fall a little in response to that, because he hastened to add, “And I never wished to try.”
“No?” Her heart was pumping strangely, her stomach clenching. “You didn’t desire her?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, truly, I never did.”
“But she and I are identical.”
He gave a quick, hoarse laugh. “No. No, sweetheart, you most certainly are not identical.”
That alarmed her in a completely different way. “But . . . I look exactly like her. You told me so yourself. Mawbry and Helm and Jenny all said so. For this mission to succeed, I must look exactly like her.”
“Calm yourself, love,” he said, running a soothing hand down her cheek. “You do look like her. In the eyes of other people, you’re quite indistinguishable. But I knew her. Better than anyone else did. And spending the time I’ve spent with you for the past few days . . . well, there are differences to my mind. Very distinct differences.”
“What differences?”
“Impossible to express. But trust me when I say . . . ” He wrapped his hands about her hips again and drew her tight against him, against his still hard-swollen flesh. “That this was not the reaction I had to Sal.”
“Oh.”
“And this,” he said, pressing the softest of kisses to her lips, “is not something I ever wished to do with her.”
“Oh.”
He pulled his head back from her, his expression almost sleepy now, his gaze unfocused. “So, if you have no further objections, I’d very much like to proceed with what we were doing before.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to ignore the odd swell of joy that seemed to be rising through her. “Yes, please do.”
His eyes found their focus again, their familiar charming sharpness, and he grinned. “I live to please.” His hands slid back to the closure of her bodice, to the stiff little panel sewn in to the fabric just beneath her shoulder blades. “These gowns of Sal’s are so cleverly engineered,” he said. “They lift the breasts enticingly when closed, even with no stays beneath, and yet are made to open easily to an ardent gentleman’s fingers. Thank goodness.”
Her heart pounded dangerously hard, surely hard enough to burst the fastenings if Sebastian weren’t quick enough. But he was quick, very quick, his breathing roughening as he tugged the loosened sleeves down from her shoulders.
“Lift your arms out,” he commanded, and the moment she complied, he tugged the whole bodice down, baring her to the waist. Her freed breasts tingled, her nipples hardened instantly to peaks.
“Damnation,” he swore, taking in the sight of her. “Look at you. You are perfect.”
She had to fight the impulse to cover herself, and gripped his upper arms to keep her hands from moving across her chest. The sensitive place between her legs still pressed the front of him, and she could have sworn she felt the hard bulge there pulse against her—or maybe that was her own flesh pulsing.
The cool air around her should have left her chilled, but she felt warm everywhere, on the verge of bursting into flame.
Suddenly, Sebastian’s hands didn’t seem quite as steady as before. He stroked his palms up her ribcage and molded them around her breasts, squeezing lightly. His thumbs and forefingers pressed in towards her nipples, almost pinching, and sending shocks of pleasure down her arms and down into her belly.
His hands were large and strong, large enough so that the sides of them pressed against her ribcage, and one soft nudge from them was all it took to make her rise up higher on her knees. Just high enough to bring her breasts in line with his mouth.
“This,” he said, brushing his lips to one breast, “is one of the ways a man can give pleasure to a woman. It is only one of ways, but . . . ” He drew her nipple into his mouth now, catching it lightly with his teeth before releasing it again, and she moaned. “It is one of the most mutually delightful.”
“Sebastian,” she cried as he suckled again, more fervently this time, alternating that with laving of his tongue. Just when she thought the sensations were almost unbearable, he shifted his head and did the same things to her other breast. Waves of pleasure seemed to be shooting through her everywhere, flashing behind her eyes, between her legs, in the pit of her belly, through to the tips of her fingers and toes.
She couldn’t help herself; her fingers buried themselves in the tawny waves of his hair, pulling his head harder against her.
His arms went around her hips again, his strong forearms holding her up, but his hands were busy stroking and kneading the flesh of her buttocks through the silk of her skirts. Her brain couldn’t make sense of all the feelings—the heat and wet and tugging of his mouth, the slipperiness of the silk across her skin, the rising, delirious scent of him, the hardness of his chest against her belly. Her back was arching, she was panting desperately as though the air in the coach had grown almost too heavy to breathe.
“So responsive,” he gasped against her breast. “You were never meant to be a prim little governess. You were made for a man to touch.”
Made for a man to touch? Oh, yes, if the touches were like these, she didn’t know how she’d lived so long without them. It was almost too much, what he was doing, and it wasn’t enough.
“Sebastian, please,” she began, but she didn’t know what she wanted to ask for. Something . . . something more.
His palms slid down over her thighs now, and his kisses
trailed upwards as he buried his face in the curve of her throat. “So lovely.”
She couldn’t seem to get close enough to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her chest tight to his. Her skin was so sensitized, she could feel the difference in texture between the velvet of his coat collar and the velvet cushions of the coach seat. One seemed to cool her, the other to burn. An ache was building inside her that was almost like the pressure of weeping, and just as desperate.
At last, at last, he was pushing her skirts aside, and she squeezed shut her eyes in sweet anticipation of his touch directly against her flesh.
“Damnation,” he rasped. “How did Lord Greeley manage to keep his hands off you?”
That name was like a dash of cold water in her face. She pulled back. “Lord Greeley? Good heavens—don’t mention him. And for the record, he didn’t keep his hands off me.”
Sebastian’s fingers gripped her hard around her thighs. “I’ll kill the bastard.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, suddenly laughing, the last thing she would have thought possible with her body half aflame. “He only tried a few times, and each time I gave him my best governess glare. He always backed off like a frightened schoolboy.”
“Ah, well, that makes sense,” Sebastian said, his arms drawing her tighter against him again, and laughing, too. “You’re certainly a steely little creature when you need to be. All right, then, show me this forbidding glare of yours. Let’s see if it cools my ardor.”
She bit at her lip. It was difficult to focus with all the sensations still rippling through her body, muddled now with the urge to laugh. She tried to imagine Lord Greeley and his awful pudgy hands pawing at her backside through her old wool dresses, tried to conjure that very real outrage and disgust she’d felt and funnel it into a sharp, forbidding look.