A Ballroom Temptation

by Kimberly Bell

  “What—”

  This time, he hooked her skirts with his fingers, dragging them up as he progressed. Calves. Knees. Inner thighs. He looked down. Smooth skin and a patch of soft curls—darker in the center where liquid desire was pooling. Adam groaned.

  Jane reached to touch herself—impatient vixen—but Adam beat her to it. He brushed his fingertips against the curls.

  “Ahh.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Adam.” She was practically growling at him.

  He reached around and filled his hands with her backside the way he’d wanted to this morning. He pulled her to the edge of the counter.

  “If you don’t touch me . . .”

  Touching was not what he had in mind. Not when he’d been thinking about tasting her all day long. The smell of her sex had been haunting him all day. Drifting up through his clothes, distracting him, taunting him. Adam knelt down and kissed the inside of her thigh.

  “Adam?” She half shouted it.

  Answering her would take longer than showing her. He pulled again, bringing her off the edge of the counter just enough, and buried his face between her thighs.

  • • •

  His tongue was wicked. Wicked. It was the reason the word had been invented. Jane writhed against his mouth, trying to pay attention to what exactly he was doing. Eventually she had to give up and just feel. Exquisite. Heavenly.

  The feeling built in her so quickly it almost had her before she realized it was happening. Jane gripped the edge of the counter.

  Adam stopped.

  “I’m not afraid,” she insisted.

  “I know.” He stood up.

  “Go back. Keep doing that.”

  Adam grinned. “Later.”

  Later. They were in later. Later was now.

  He held out the silk strip of his cravat, along with his wrists.

  She didn’t understand. “I told you I’m not afraid.”

  “I know. I’m not taking any chances.”

  If tying his wrists would send him and his wicked tongue back down to finish what he started, Jane would tie him up a hundred different ways. She wrapped the silk around his wrists, making a tight knot. “What are we going to do?”

  He tested the knot. It held. “Whatever you’d like.”

  Whatever she . . . “I can touch you?”

  “Whatever you’d like.”

  “Anywhere?” Jane reached for the top button of his trousers. He didn’t stop her. Interesting. She undid the next three buttons without ceremony. Last time, he’d changed his mind. She looked up at him when she pushed the fabric free of his hips, waiting for him to say something. They fell to the floor without objection.

  He was beautiful. So beautiful. Jane ran her hands up his thighs in an imitation of the way he’d teased her. His cock jumped.

  She tilted her head to the side. She dragged a fingernail up the inside of his thigh. It jumped again. “Does that mean you like that or that I’m hurting you?”

  Adam was breathing loudly through his nostrils. “The former.”

  She made a cage of her fingertips and pulled them softly up the length of his manhood.

  His hands shot up, grabbing one of the hooks that hung from the ceiling.

  Testing, she pulled. Stroked. Caressed. Every different type of touch she could think of that might feel nice. He held on to the drying hook like a lifeline. Many times his hips jerked forward, following her hands.

  Jane hooked her foot out and pulled him closer to the counter. To her.

  “Jane.”

  “I want you to touch me.”

  He let go of the drying hook. Jane shook her head.

  “Jane,” he warned.

  “I know. I know we’re not doing . . . that. But couldn’t we just—”

  She shifted, and the tip of his cock rubbed against her center.

  His hips jerked, sliding him up against her slick folds.

  “That. Couldn’t we just do that?”

  Jane flexed her hips forward. He did the same. They slid together—separate, but feeling the same things at the same time.

  Above their heads, Adam’s grip on the drying hook had turned his knuckles white.

  She put her hands on his hips, pulling them closer together. “Do you want to stop?”

  “Never.”

  Wrapping her legs around his waist, she took away all the space between them. Her hands gripped his shoulders as they pushed against each other. Jane pressed her face against his chest.

  The beat of his heart was a stampede. Jane matched it with her movements.

  Adam shouted. Jane dug her nails into his skin. It was happening. The sparking, expanding feeling. She was rising up, out, unstoppable. She heard Adam saying her name like a chant. Every inch of him was rigid with tension.

  He rubbed against her one more time, and she burst into a thousand pieces.

  She knew she cried out. Adam did, too.

  They stayed locked together, senseless from an excess of sensation, breathing like they’d just run a marathon.

  “Jane?”

  “Yes.”

  Adam let out an audible breath. “Just checking. I thought maybe I died.”

  Chapter 19

  After their interlude in the stillroom, Jane skipped charades in favor of going back to her room. With any luck, she would have time for a long, hot soak in a bath before dinner. She wasn’t the only one who skipped the parlor games. As Jane walked down the hall toward her room, she clearly heard a woman sobbing in one of the rooms.

  She could just mind her own business. The condition she was in—mentally and otherwise—wasn’t exactly ideal for visiting. It was very likely the woman wanted to be alone. Or she could be sitting in there, desperately wishing she weren’t alone.

  It could be any one of the ladies at the party. It wasn’t necessarily the lady Jane suspected it was.

  She knocked. The woman didn’t answer, and the sobbing didn’t stop. Cursing under her breath, Jane turned the knob. She’d already taken the first step—why not invade someone’s privacy?

  She was immediately rewarded for her nosiness in the worst way. Drusilla Lyndon was curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed.

  “Drusilla?” Jane stepped close. She put a hand on the other girl’s back.

  Drusilla flinched, leaping off the coverlet. “Jane?”

  “I heard—”

  In another burst of movement, she threw herself at Jane—wrapping her arms around Jane’s stomach and bawling more than before Jane had come in. It was better than the insults and sneers Jane had expected. Although perhaps not. Insults and sneers indicated a fighting spirit—if a cruel one.

  “What happened, Drusilla?”

  “G-G-G-Geoffrey.”

  That barely needed to be said. There weren’t many candidates for true villainy at the party and only one that Drusilla wouldn’t eviscerate with her vicious repartee. “What did he do, Drusilla?”

  “H-H-He hates me. H-H-He said he hopes every morning that h-h-he’ll wake up and I’ll h-h-have died.”

  “Oh, Dru.” They were horrible words, but it was honestly much better than Jane had been fearing. She would love to tell Drusilla he couldn’t possibly mean it, but it would be a lie. “He’s a horrible, spiteful man. You shouldn’t let the things he says hurt you.”

  “We’re going to be m-m-married and he’s h-h-hoping I die.” She burst into a fresh bout of wailing.

  So much for Jane’s bath. She couldn’t just leave the girl to bawl in her room alone. “Would you like to come to my room? We could play cards.”

  “With you and the freak?” Even through tears, Drusilla managed to sound pompous.

  “Miss Davenport is downstairs playing c
harades. Also, she is not a freak. She’s lovely. You could use more friends like Eugenia.”

  A whole new round of sobs started. Jane heard her mumble something about not having any friends as she pressed her face into Jane’s chest.

  “I’m sure you have more friends than you realize. The minute you rejoin the party everyone is going to tell you how much they missed you.” And they would, even if Jane had to tell each of them to do it one by one.

  Drusilla sniffed, lifting her head and wiping away her tears. “Geoffrey told me to stay here. I have to stay here.”

  No, you don’t! Jane wanted to scream at her. But it wouldn’t do any good. She remembered feeling this way. She remembered how important doing what Geoffrey told her had been. “Tomorrow is the hunt. Will you at least come on the hunt with me?”

  “Geoffrey told me I shouldn’t.”

  Geoffrey can go to the devil. “Did he say why?”

  Drusilla’s face started to crumple. “No one would want me there. I’d just be in the way.”

  “Well, I want you there.” Jane smoothed her hair, like Aunt Matty used to do to her. “I’m going to ride, and I’d love for you to ride with me.”

  “You would?” She sniffled. The ease with which Drusilla latched on to the smallest kindness was infuriating. “All right. Tomorrow I’ll come to the hunt.”

  “Good. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And you’ll eat breakfast with me and Eugenia—but you cannot call her names.”

  Drusilla nodded. “All right.”

  • • •

  Adam was awful company during dinner. He was still seated too far away from Sebastian to make any attempt at conversation, so he spent most of his meal lost in thoughts of Jane. Jane’s hands on him. Jane’s cries as they moved together. The scratches from Jane’s nails that stung with each shift of his shirt. He lifted his wineglass to his mouth, instigating another wince and another reminder of exactly how he’d acquired it.

  “Are you all right?” Miss Davenport asked.

  “I’m fine.” And a complete degenerate. They’d barely been apart an hour and already he wanted her again.

  Dinner ended and the ladies left the dining room so the gentlemen could drink port and smoke cigars. When Sebastian made no effort to leave with them, Adam reluctantly abandoned the impulse to follow Jane in favor of trying to make some headway repairing things with his brother. Maybe surrounded by other people Adam wouldn’t feel so compelled to physically shake some sense into the boy.

  “Nice work on the scavenger hunt today,” Brandon said, blowing out a smoke ring. “I didn’t think anyone would get past the first clue.”

  “I certainly didn’t—why do you think I decided to play billiards,” Lord Quincy admitted.

  Adam couldn’t take the credit. “I was as hopeless as anyone else. I owe my success to my partner.”

  “How fascinating,” Pembroke purred. “There’s a use for strange little Miss Davenport after all.”

  Let it go. He’s a waste of space. Just let it go.

  Quincy stared into his port. “Ginny’s not so bad.”

  “Honestly.” Pembroke sneered. “How you put up with her, I’ll never—”

  “How was the picnic basket?” Adam interrupted. “Any good?”

  “Capital. Thank you. The wine was top-notch.”

  “It ought to be,” Brandon chimed in. “I chose it from the cellar myself.”

  Pembroke dove back in. “And you’re always generous with other people’s money, aren’t you, Lord Brandon?”

  Brandon just smiled. “Of course, Mr. Pembroke. It’s so much more enjoyable than being generous with one’s own.”

  Pembroke didn’t appreciate being reminded he was one of the few people at the table without a title. “I think you’d have to have experience with having any to know that.”

  Sebastian tried to ease the tension by changing the subject. “The hunt tomorrow should be good fun.”

  “It should,” Adam agreed. “Jane can’t wait. I doubt she’ll sleep a wink.”

  “She’s not really going to participate, is she?” Pembroke scoffed. “God. I hope there’s a doctor on hand.”

  “Does Miss Bailey not ride well?” Quincy asked.

  “She does well enough in the park, but with dogs barking and guns firing? Jane’s lovely, but she doesn’t have the steadiest nerves.”

  Adam’s hand tightened into a fist. Brandon noticed and slowly shook his head.

  “Something to say, Wesley?” Pembroke’s smirk would have inspired even the gentlest man to violence.

  “Only that I haven’t noticed a problem with her nerves. Miss Lyndon does seem to have developed a case, though.” Adam stared him directly in the eye when he said, “Perhaps women just find your company unsettling.”

  Brandon smiled into his port. “Off-putting, even.”

  The end of Pembroke’s cigar crumbled under the pressure of his grip.

  For a moment no one said anything, and Adam thought that would be the end of it. But Pembroke just wasn’t willing to quit.

  “So Wesley, how’s Lady Clairborne these days?”

  “Geoff,” Quincy said in a warning tone.

  “I’m just curious. She must be dreadfully lonely with him here. And with Lord Brandon already hired out for the week—”

  It ended up being his brother that lunged for Pembroke. Adam had heard about all he was willing to listen to, but Sebastian was on the same side of the table. He tackled Pembroke out of his chair, sending both their glasses flying as he did his level best to strangle the bastard. Brandon pulled him off before Sebastian could do something that would see him hanged.

  “Clairborne, I’ll have your head for this,” Pembroke was shouting.

  Lord Quincy had stepped in to block him from going after Sebastian while he was detained. “You were talking about his mother, Geoff. If you didn’t think that was going to happen—”

  “Mind your business, Theo.” Pembroke shoved him. “In fact, why don’t you go mind the freak’s business. That seems to be all you want to do lately anyway.”

  Quincy decked him clean.

  Pembroke crumpled into a heap without a sound.

  “She’s not a freak,” Quincy told him. “And I’m tired of you saying it.”

  “I’m not sure he can hear you right now, Lord Quincy.” Brandon let Sebastian go now that the danger had shifted.

  “Well, then someone repeat it for me when he wakes up.” Quincy downed his port in a gulp. “I’m going to join the ladies.”

  Brandon snuffed out his cigar. “I figured someone was going to hit him, but I would not have had my money on Quincy.”

  “He’s kind of an ass, isn’t he?” Sebastian asked.

  “At the least.”

  His brother sighed. “Adam, I—”

  “Don’t, Sebastian. I’m an ass, too, just a different kind. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “I’m sorry I thought the worst of you.”

  “I hope you two are finished,” Brandon interrupted. “Because I’m not sorry for anything and I’m starting to feel left out.”

  The three of them finished their drinks and went to join the rest of the party in the drawing room.

  • • •

  “He didn’t!” Jane gasped.

  Adam nodded against her hair. They were stretched out naked on his bed. Her delicious backside was tucked against his groin, and he was stroking his fingers down the smooth skin of her arm. “He did. Right in the teeth. We were all pretty surprised.”

  “No one more so than Geoff, I bet. I don’t think he’s ever been hit before.”

  “It shows.”

  Jane laughed.

  He ran his hands down her forearm. Over her wrists. Tangled his fingers into hers.

 
She went stiff.

  Adam untangled them and pulled his hands away. “What is it about that?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. There was something guarded in her voice.

  “It’s always hands. If I don’t touch you—if I keep my hands to myself—you’re fine.” He heard what he’d just said, and suddenly it clicked into place. “Did he touch you, Jane? Did he hurt you?”

  Pembroke was a cruel bastard—Adam knew that. But he’d thought it was just words. Just the kind of vicious wound-poking from the dining room tonight. It hadn’t occurred to Adam that he would actually hurt someone as sweet as Jane.

  “Of course not, I just—” She was lying.

  Adam sat up, rolling her so he could see her face. “Tell me the truth.”

  “No.”

  “No, he didn’t hurt you or no, you won’t tell me the truth?”

  Jane kept her lips pressed into a rigid line.

  “Son of a bitch.” Adam got off the bed and started pulling on his trousers.

  “Adam.”

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Adam.”

  He should have done it ages ago. The minute he’d found out Pembroke was responsible for Jane’s weird episodes. He knew he’d done something to Jane, but he’d been so naive. Not anymore. Pembroke was a rabid dog, and apparently no one else had the sense to see he needed to be put down.

  Jane jumped up, standing between him and the door. “Adam!”

  “Get out of the way, Jane.”

  “No!”

  She couldn’t be serious.

  “You, of all people, should understand why I need to do this.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “I can’t just let him get away with what he’s done to you. You’re—”

  “I’m what, Adam? I’m not your wife. I’m not your sister, mother, fiancée. I’m not yours. It’s not your responsibility to avenge me.”

  She was wrong. She was his. She’d been his since the moment he’d followed her out into the maze—he’d just taken his time admitting it. And if it needed to be official for him to put a bullet in Pembroke, so be it. “Marry me. Marry me, and it will be.”

  • • •

  Well, that was romantic. Marry me, so I can go commit murder. How was a girl to resist the chance to be widowed before she’d even managed to unpack her trousseau? The worst part was, under any other circumstances, she would have jumped at the offer. Despite all her talk of change and freedom . . . if he had asked in earnest, she wouldn’t have hesitated.