by Lara Archer
For a moment, she thought she had it, but Sebastian’s eyes disconcerted her—that strange, pale blue, somehow molten now, their heat only brighter for the amusement glinting in them. And her effort dissolved in a blush.
“That’s not working,” he said, his grin broadening. “Not even a little bit.”
“Hmph,” she said. “I suspect you were never easily cowed, even as a schoolboy.”
“Never.” And suddenly his fingers were in her hair again, at the back of her skull, pulling her down for a kiss.
She’d kissed him once before, on that first mad day they’d met, when he’d mocked the idea she could pass for a courtesan. Although that kiss had been calculated as a chess move, the touch of his mouth had sent a shock through her brain.
This kiss did that and more. Far more.
His mouth was hot on hers, and greedy, his tongue stroking over her lower lip, seeking entrance. She felt that heat, that need, unfurl through her, like a drugging fume.
Now she understood why poets said kisses were headier than wine.
The air grew heavier, swirling about them like a current, and even with her eyes closed, it seemed the color of the light in the coach around them had deepened to shades of purple and dusky rose. Impossible sensations—flowing color, thick heat.
The effect went deep inside her body, drawing in parts of her she’d never been quite aware existed. Everything in her was going liquid, merging with the current that swept between them, and somehow, terrifyingly, blissfully, merging something of the essence of her with the essence of him.
Oh, dangerous. This was dangerous.
And she wanted more.
Their tongues tangled. He groaned, and she felt it vibrate through her belly. Need exploded through her, need to press against him more fully, need to have the burning ache at her core satisfied. And he seemed to sense it—one of his hands still tangled in her hair, but the other found its way under her skirts, his fingers hot as brands against the sides of her legs as they slid their way upward.
His mouth broke from the kiss, pressed against her ear. “Can I touch you here?” he asked hoarsely, panting, his breath warm on her cheek. “Can I touch you more?” The urgency of his hand roaming over her hip made the question seem like hardly a question at all, but at least he was asking.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.”
And that seemed to be all the encouragement he needed.
His touch through the silk had been erotic, but his hand on her bare skin, sliding over the top of her leg toward her inner thigh was almost overwhelming. Her blood pounded, her heart was swelling, thundering. It didn’t seem possible that it could be contained within her chest. And the wild feeling where his fingers caressed her, that seemed just as impossible to contain. Soon, she would scream. Soon she would burst wide open.
Fisting her hands in his hair, she poured all the energy in her into kissing him fiercely, almost bruisingly, and he groaned.
His fingers beneath her skirts found their way to where she was throbbing and cupped her there. His thumb flicked back and forth against the most sensitive spot, and she was very glad she was already on her knees, because had she been standing, she’d have collapsed onto the ground. As it was, she fell forward against him, gasping, making mewling sounds against his lips.
In response, his tongue matched the rhythm of his hand, darting in and out, round and round, the flicking of his thumb driving her mad, his fingers gathering the slick moisture from between her legs and using that to . . . oh, intensify the sensations tenfold.
She shuddered, feverish, losing control of her fingers, which clutched feebly at his curls.
Amazingly, he chuckled. “You like that?” he asked, his voice low and as hot as the pleasure he sent shooting through her. “You like the way that feels?”
“Yes, blast you!” she said, her breath ragged.
“Blast me?” His thumb flicked, his fingertips slid between her slick folds. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No!”
Again he laughed. “I didn’t think so.”
“Oh, God—why do you talk so much?” She dragged in a breath. “How can you talk so much?”
“You’re not touching me the way I’m touching you,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I’m nowhere near so far gone as you are.”
She pulled back for a moment, tried to make her eyes focus enough to read his expression. “Do you want me to?” She fought to catch her breath. “Touch you?”
“God, yes,” he said fervently. “But . . . no.”
“No?”
“I’m trying to maintain my self-control.” He smiled, and slid one finger partway inside her, making her gasp. “And I’m trying to make sure you lose yours.”
Oh, he was doing a very good job of that. His thumb was moving over her in whirls now, driving her higher and higher, making her moan, and at the same time a second finger joined the first in parting her folds. Her nerve endings blazed, and her thighs began to tremble.
A thought drifted through her mind, that she ought to be embarrassed by this, by what she was allowing him to do to her, so shamelessly. But, remarkably, she wasn’t. He could touch her all he wanted, tease her all he wanted, laugh if he wanted, this felt right. Natural. Inevitable.
She squeezed shut her eyes, let her head fall back.
“I’m being incredibly noble, don’t you think?” he murmured, his maddening fingers sliding in and out. “Aren’t you impressed with my selflessness? Pleasuring you and expecting nothing in return?”
Damnable man. She felt such a strange combination of things, the desire to strike him with the back of her hand, and the desire to reach down and touch him after all, despite what he said about needing to keep control.
And he deserves as much, she thought, and whether that was an impulse of revenge, or an impulse to be good to him, she wasn’t entirely sure.
It really didn’t matter. Before he could render her completely incapable of conscious action, she worked her own hand down between them and ran her palm over the bulge at the front of his trousers. Immediately, he made a most gratifying moan. His hips thrust upwards, seemingly of their own accord, and when she opened her eyes, he was biting hard at his lower lip.
I can make you lose your control, too, Lord Gargoyle. You don’t wield all the power here.
He blew out a hard, pained breath, and brushed her hand away. “No more of that, sweetheart,” he said regretfully. “Or I won’t manage to be noble much longer.” The words came short, and it pleased her that his speech wasn’t as easy as it was before. “I’m trying to get you to trust me, and it wouldn’t do to have me frighten you.”
“I’m not frightened.”
He gave her a smirk. “You might be. You haven’t seen what I have to offer, yet.”
If she weren’t so distracted by the stroking of his hand, she’d have rolled her eyes at his egotism. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“For good reason, I promise you.”
Damnable, damnable man. Oh, but the magic of his caresses . . .
“Do you know what I want to do with you?” he said. “I want to be inside you. I want to drive up into you, to feel your hot, wet sheath clutch all around me.”
At his words, fever soared through her, even as his hand beneath her skirts kept stroking, stroking, turning everything inside her to simmering liquid.
She’d nearly forgotten the other hand that was still curved behind her head, dallying in her curls, but he used it now to stroke her cheek as he gazed deep into her eyes. And now it was his eyes that riveted her most—the blazing intensity in them was shocking.
“Look at me,” he said. His eyes were hypnotic, stroking her as surely as the hand between her thighs. A current of molten red seemed to burn straight down the middle of her body, threatening to reduce her to ash.
His expression had been teasing before, but it wasn’t now. As she gazed back at him, she saw something far different from his usual arrogance, his usual arch
capriciousness. It was as if all surface layers had been stripped suddenly away, and she was looking into some deeper-buried part of him, into a strange and unfamiliar openness. And all she could feel was a powerful sense that she knew him, that she was part of him, and he was fast becoming part of her.
He was stroking her harder now, stroking and stroking, his long fingers pressing deeper and deeper, stretching her, building a hard, hot, tight pressure through her belly, making her want to curl in tight against him, making her want to shut her eyes and give herself over to pure sensation.
“Keep your eyes on me,” he said, whispering fiercely. “Let me see your face.”
She wanted to say something, wanted to say his name, but words would no longer come. She could barely draw enough air to keep her head from spinning. Her lungs rasped with the effort. She fought to keep her eyes on his.
And still he kept talking, his voice as much a caress as his fingers. “Wouldn’t you like to feel me there, sweetheart? Inside? Filling you? Taking you?”
The idea burst like a firework inside her brain. “Yes,” she managed to say, the only word her mind could form. “Yes, yes, yes.”
But he made no effort to loosen his breeches. Only his fingers moved inside her, faster, harder, bringing her closer and closer to madness. “Do you understand the effort it’s taking to refrain?” he said, and something in his voice told her he made the revelation as much for his own sake as for hers. “This is not like me, not at all like me, to have a willing woman on my lap and not take what’s being offered.”
What exactly did he mean by that?
And why should it matter to her?
Oh, but somehow it did.
He was talking still, murmuring more words, passionate words, but she could barely make out their significance through the dizziness that sent her mind whirling. She could no longer discern the individual movements of his fingers—it was all one great velvet stroke, one hot caress, and her whole body moved with it, rocked with it, rose with it, faster and faster, higher and higher and higher. She was going to faint soon, or die maybe, with her heart hammering so violently, her whole body trembling. She was hurtling forward somehow, running straight for the edge of a cliff.
“Good girl, Rachel,” Sebastian was saying, she could make out that much, but his eyes were sweeping her in, swallowing up everything in the world and her along with it. “God, look at you. Come for me, sweetheart. Come for me now.”
And heat rose through her, that molten red current taking her under, and then she was falling, and coming apart, heat ripping through her, colors exploding through her flesh, and she heard a cry—her voice, maybe, or Sebastian’s, or both of them at once?
And she was pulsing and shuddering, and eddies of impossible sweetness swept through her, beating through the tips of breasts, through her belly, and behind her eyes. Her hands and feet were clenching, grasping at the shocking joy of it. Pleasure, vast, rippling pleasure was flowing everywhere.
For long moments, she wasn’t sure where she was, if she was.
Her own breathing was outside her, above her, beyond her. She seemed to float in some impossible, soft brightness.
And only gradually did she realize she was actually still within the walls of the coach, and Sebastian was there with her, beneath her, warm and solid, as she clung to his neck, her forehead pressed against his cheek.
He didn’t tease her now, just held her firm in his arms, his hands stroking her back gently, as if helping her absorb the intensity of the waves sweeping through her. His breathing sounded as labored as hers did. And for long moments, they just breathed together. As peaceful as they’d ever been in one another’s company, all the prickly barriers between them smoothed away.
It was extraordinary, really. Close to blissful. A comfort with another person’s presence she hadn’t felt in . . . well, maybe ever.
As her heartbeat finally slowed, though, and her head stopped spinning, good sense began to creep back in. Yes, glorious tendrils of pleasure still unfurled themselves through her limbs. She couldn’t deny that. And something in her wanted to stay right where she was, curled against Sebastian, heartbeat to heartbeat, forever and ever and ever. But bliss wasn’t supposed to be the goal of this mission.
For pity’s sake, Sebastian Talbot didn’t even particularly like her.
Or she him, for that matter.
Neither of them was sentimental in the slightest, and neither had any business seeking comfort, seeking companionship. They had a job to do.
Damn it all, Sebastian had known what he was saying: it was dangerous, very dangerous, to lose control. Need like that was overwhelming, and its satisfaction intoxicating. It was powerful enough to pull her out of herself, pull her apart.
And that was something she absolutely could not afford right now.
Certainly not with this man. This damnable, difficult, extraordinary man.
Tears prickled behind her eyes, and she pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth to try to quell them. She didn’t know how she was going to manage it, but she was going to have to be more on guard against him than ever.
Chapter Five
Sebastian was increasingly sure he was losing his mind.
Aside from a little blushing the next morning when she first sat down to breakfast, Rachel seemed to have taken the encounter in the coach in stride. She hadn’t said a word to him about it, and hadn’t shown the least sign that it had softened her feelings for him. As far as he could tell, she regarded what happened between them as a sort of successful scientific experiment, and him of as little interest as a discarded flask on a laboratory workbench.
Not at all the sort of reaction women usually had to his lovemaking.
He was supposed to be the heartless one, damn it. The jaded rake, the cavalier rogue.
And here he was, scarcely able to take his eyes off of her as she leaned against the balustrade above the ballroom at the Countess of Leeds’ soirée, watching the glamorous crowd circulate below, far more interested in the orchestra than in him.
The soirée was somewhat disreputable—Salomé Mirabeau could not have attended otherwise—but still she wore one of Sal’s more modest dresses, a watered blue silk with a white sash and sheer cap sleeves, and he found himself thinking foolish thoughts about how prettily she filled it out, and how well the color set off the alabaster of her skin.
Worse still, he kept feeling the temptation to ask her to dance.
What on earth was wrong with him?
This was the price of being noble. Damn it all, he should have done what his body wanted in the coach and taken his full pleasure of her. Then maybe he’d be thinking straight right now.
He wasn’t here to admire Miss Covington’s lovely backside. He was here to keep an eye on Lord Henry Walters, who was attending his second social event in as many days.
And surely up to no good.
Sebastian and Rachel had done a brief circuit of the ballroom when they first arrived, diligently spreading the news that Salomé had accepted Sebastian’s protection. The duc du Bourge had been left absolutement desolé, skulking at the edges of the dancing ever since, sharing his devastation with other hopefuls.
Now Rachel and Sebastian stood on a little balcony, out of sight of the crowds, waiting for Lord Henry Walters to do something more interesting than converse with minor members of the House of Commons and dance graciously with a string of young matrons.
Perhaps Lord Henry never did anything more objectionable than that. But Sebastian would bet his eyeteeth the man was up to his elbows in something unsavory, and instinct said that once they caught scent of the trail, it would lead them in the direction of the French. And Victoire de Laurent.
Damn and blast Lord Henry. Hurry up and do something, old man.
Tomorrow at dawn Rachel and Sebastian would embark for Spain, and between now and then, Sebastian really needed something to focus on besides the fantasy of lifting those blue skirts and getting his hands on her lovely ar
se again.
Almost as if she knew what he was thinking, Rachel suddenly jerked upright, taking her elbows off the balustrade. “It can’t be!” she gasped.
“What can’t be?” he asked.
She pointed to the main room below them. “Down there.”
A new gentleman was moving towards Lord Henry through the mill of revelers, his back currently towards the balcony. Not someone Sebastian immediately recognized—a youngish man, judging from his slim back and cap of pale gold curls. A negligible figure, despite his expensive coat. But Rachel’s shoulders stiffened fractionally with every step the gentleman took.
When the young man stopped and bowed before Lord Henry, turning just enough to expose the edge of his profile, Rachel flinched.
“Him,” she said, spine taut as piano wire. “Do—do you recognize him?”
“Who? Young Narcissus there?”
He considered. The flood of gossip that poured from Lady Barham included the description of a fair-haired newcomer to the ton, the recent heir to some title or other—Fairfax, maybe? No—“Lord Fairholme, I believe it is. Do you recognize him?”
She hesitated. “Lord Fairholme?” Disappointment hollowed her voice. “No. He just . . . reminded me of someone. But my friend was no peer. He was poor as a church mouse. Poorer. Church mice loaned him crumbs from sheer pity.”
A dull pulse of warning throbbed behind his ear. “What friend is that?”
“Mr. Rapson. My tutor.”
Just then, Fairholme turned halfway round to greet some new lady who’d approached, and his profile became plainly visible. A bit older than he’d seemed from the back, perhaps a year or two beyond thirty. Refined, almost pretty, but with sharp intelligence in his expression.
Rachel gripped Sebastian by the nearest elbow. “It is him!” Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brightened. “It’s Mr. Rapson! Impossible, but it is!” She pivoted, heading for the stairs that led to the ballroom below.
Sebastian grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her to a halt.
“That man?” he said softly, his nerves thrumming. “That man there, talking to Lord Henry. That man was your tutor?”