A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  Rhys stilled and then slowly turned, a bottle and glass in hand. “That is it.”

  That is it.

  Bitterness made her tongue heavy at that dismissive end to their discussion. “Of course.” She glanced to the gilt bronze and marble mantel clock. “It is late and it wouldn’t do for us to be seen together. Particularly given your mother’s intentions for you,” she forced out.

  Before she took a step, he set aside the burdens in his hands. “Not the evening, Alice. Our arrangement.”

  She puzzled her brow. “We don’t have an arrangement.” Except… “Other than the one where I promised to not be the downtrodden, doleful miss you accused me of—”

  “Not that arrangement,” he cut in.

  “Oh.”

  He grinned, that smile dimpling his left cheek. “Why, I’m going to court you.”

  Her pulse accelerated. “Court me?”

  His smile deepened and he was across the room in five long strides. “It is perfect.”

  “Perfect,” she breathed. Alice knew she sounded like a lackwit parroting back his words, and yet… she sought to muddle through his every pronouncement.

  “There’s Pup Pratt.”

  Alice whipped about, searching for the stodgy person in question.

  “And then there are my mother’s matchmaking plans for me,” he went on. “A pretend courtship would be mutually beneficial.”

  And just like that…

  Of course. He spoke of a false courtship. Nor should she even entertain a true one with him… or anyone for that matter. The last thing she wanted, desired, or needed was a gentleman in her life… and a roguish one at that. So, what accounted for the disappointment that now filled her? Rhys stared expectantly back; smug, entirely too pleased, he had the look of one who’d discovered the true meaning of life.

  Needing distance between him and her tumultuous thoughts, she wandered around the sofa. As she paced the length of the ivory seat, she trailed her fingertips along the scalloped top. “And just how will a faire semblant de faire la cour benefit me?”

  Rhys continued forward and, standing at the opposite end of the sofa, he matched her pacing. “Pup Pratt has every intention of protecting you from my unscrupulous advances.” He held her gaze squarely. “But if my intentions are honorable, a gentleman who adheres to propriety truly cannot make a nuisance of himself.”

  It was a silly plan and yet…

  Alice came to a slow stop.

  She didn’t wish to be bothered anymore with Henry thrusting himself back into her life and looking after her as though she had ever truly mattered to him.

  A warm, strong hand settled on her shoulder. She gasped, glancing up at Rhys.

  How was it possible that a man of his sheer power and size could move with such stealth?

  “And there remains the obvious truth,” Rhys whispered against her ear, delicious shivers tingled down her neck. “My courting you, his seeing us together, will drive him mad with jealousy.”

  Odd, he spoke of her stirring envy in another man. Yet with her back brushing against his chest, their bodies touching with the hint of intimacy, she could not so much as dredge forth a memory of Henry’s face. She could only think of the man beside her, the one whose presence stirred an unfamiliar yearning low in her belly. Alice fought her body’s pull. “What happens when the house party is over?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a too-casual shrug. “Near the end, you can break it off.”

  Her lips twitched. “You want me to throw you over?” When most gentlemen’s pride were too big to endure a public humiliation, it spoke depths to his confidence.

  Rhys waggled his golden eyebrows. “There is a first time for everything.” Those teasing tones startled a laugh from her.

  She swatted at him. “You are incorrigible.”

  “Oh, quite,” he demurred. Rhys tapped the side of his mouth. “Before the end of the house party,” he continued with all seriousness, “you shall realize I’m not the reverent gent you desire. You’ll create the scandal of your choosing.”

  Her amusement faded. “I’ve already made a scandal of myself before, Rhys,” she said quietly. “I have no desire to travel that path again.”

  “You care too much about what the ton thinks,” he murmured, dusting his knuckles over her cheek in a butterfly caress. “Even so, the only guests present are my siblings and their families who’d fight the king himself to protect one another—my roguish self included. And lifelong friends of my mother’s who desire a match between me and their unmarried daughter.” Miss Aria Cunning.

  No, with Lord and Lady Lovell’s aspirations for their Diamond of a daughter, they’d certainly not breathe a complaint against Rhys, not when there was still a chance of their daughter marrying him. Her stomach muscles contracted.

  Rhys moved his mouth closer. He was so close that, as he spoke, his lips touched the shell of her ear over and over; tiny, too-fleeting kisses. “You want to say yes.”

  Delicious thrills of awareness raced through her. Alice’s head tipped sideways as she reflexively opened herself to him. “I want…” you. I want you…

  His long lashes swept down. “What do you want?” he enticed, like the Devil himself with that forbidden fruit cradled between his fingers.

  Somewhere along the way, they’d ceased speaking about games of pretend and reality had stepped in. “I want you…” Those three words came garbled, heavy with her need for this man.

  “Yes, Alice. Tell me what you want?” he breathed against her mouth.

  “To c-court me,” she blurted out the safer thought. Did that throaty whisper belong to her? The wanton, sultry tones, unfamiliar to her own ears, brought Rhys’ lashes down all the more, concealing those grey irises. But not before she caught the glitter of desire there.

  Desire for me. He desires me.

  Since she’d been jilted, Alice had believed herself undesirable; a woman easily thrown over, and hardly one to rouse a man to true passion.

  And there was something so very heady in this newly discovered woman’s power.

  Rhys’ hot, piercing gaze lingered on her lips. Then, cupping her nape, he covered her mouth with his, kissing her as she’d always dreamed, kindling a desire she’d believed she could not feel.

  There was nothing hesitant or searching in this kiss. He slanted hard lips over hers again and again, laying claim to her mouth with a primitive possession that weakened her knees.

  Melting into him, Alice gripped Rhys lawn shirt hard; the heat of him penetrating that fabric and burning her fingers. A growl of masculine approval rumbled from his chest. Sliding his arms around her, he filled his palms with her buttocks. She moaned as he drew her between the “V” of his legs. The hard length of his sex prodded her through the thin barrier of her night shift.

  Rhys swept his tongue inside her mouth; hot, tasting of brandy and cheroots.

  Hungry for him, wanting this moment to stretch on forever, Alice met each bold thrust and parry of his tongue. Heat exploded in her belly, spiraling quickly through her like molten lava. Her hips began to move and, unlike with Henry, there was no shame in this moment, in her response, in her simply feeling. There was only a primal hungering to know every last mystery of Rhys’ embrace.

  He drew back and a soft, shameless cry burst from her at the sudden loss.

  But he only shifted his attentions elsewhere. Touching his lips to the corner of her mouth, he trailed them lower to her jawline. Then finding the delicate shell of her ear, he took that flesh between his teeth and gently suckled.

  “Rhys,” she moaned, his name both a prayer and a plea.

  Tangling her fingers in his loose curls, she luxuriated in the satiny softness of those strands. He was a fallen angel, cast from the gates of paradise, and now master tormenter to mere mortals.

  “So beautiful,” he breathed, dragging his hot mouth down her neck. He lightly nipped and suckled at the place where her heart wildly pulsed. She dimly registered him working his hands bet
ween them, loosening the ties of her wrapper.

  The cooler air was a sough upon her heated skin. He freed her breasts, cupping the mounds in his palms, drawing them together. The sensitized tips pebbled from the cold, from the anticipation.

  And then he took one of those tips between his lips, suckling her.

  Alice’s cry reached to the rafters; the desperate, aching sound of unfulfilled desires echoing in her ears. Of their own volition, her legs fell open in a wanton invitation.

  He switched his attentions to the other, neglected peak.

  Her legs gave out and he caught her under her knees. Effortlessly carrying her to the ivory sofa, he lay her upon the velvet squabs and followed her down. Resting his weight on his elbows he continued worshiping the swollen nipple. Flicking his tongue over the pebbled bud, circling it, before taking it in his mouth, once more.

  Rhys dragged her skirts up, slowly until her legs lay naked. Reaching between them, he palmed the soft thatch of curls shielding her womanhood.

  “Please,” she begged, not knowing what she pleaded for. All she was had been reduced to a bundle of nerves incapable of anything but feeling: a desire that was both excruciating and exquisite.

  Please.

  It was a single word that had fallen from the lips of all Rhys’ previous lovers.

  Only this breathy, pleading, one-syllable utterance was different and for very many reasons.

  Sweat beaded on Rhys brow, and a single bead rolled a path down his cheek and fell like a lone teardrop upon her breast.

  Alice’s long, golden lashes swept up. “Rhys?” she whispered, the uncertainty underlining his name wrenched at him.

  He clenched his eyes tight.

  Wishing he could be the wicked scoundrel the world took him for.

  For if that were the case, he would toss aside Alice’s white linen nightgown, a scrap of fabric that exuded innocence from its cut to its color, and lay between her shapely thighs. But not only was she the sister of his business partner… she was also an innocent. “I cannot… forgive me…” he said, his incoherent apology hoarsened by unfulfilled desire.

  Alice’s stricken eyes met his. Her body went taut under his and she angled her face away. “I see.”

  He’d hurt her.

  Leave it that way. It was far safer, wiser to let her believe whatever unintended slight he’d delivered.

  His chest rose and fell in harsh spurts. Rhys cursed himself to hell. Cupping her cheek, he brought her gaze back to his. “Since the moment I came upon you in The Copse, I wanted to take you in my arms.” Her mouth parted and he brushed his thumb along the slightly fuller flesh of her lower lip. “I wanted to know the taste of you and the feel of you. So do not ever think for one moment that my stopping has anything to do with you.” It had everything to do with him clinging to the last shred of honor he had left in his miserable blackguard body.

  “Is it because I’m Daniel’s sister?”

  He grunted. The other man would be well within his rights to call Rhys out at dawn and put a ball through his heart. “There is that.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “I assure you, my rakish brother is hardly the one to pass judgment on my actions.”

  Of course, Alice, the spirited minx, would never be contented with even that. Rhys dragged both palms over his face. For the truth remained, it didn’t matter how many women Montfort had tupped to earn his reputation, a young lady was altogether different. He let his arms fall. “Because I don’t dally with innocents.” Except, even as that admission left him, there was an inherent wrongness to it. Having Alice in his arms hadn’t felt like a mere empty meeting of two lovers. There had been an explosion of feeling and desire that consumed him still. He made to stand, but Alice shot a hand up, gripping his shoulder.

  “But what if I want you to?” Her whisper was temptation itself and Rhys had an appreciation for the battle Adam had waged before his great fall from grace.

  He closed his eyes, fighting for resolve.

  As if sensing his weakening, her satiny soft palm glided down his cheek in a caress that forced his gaze back to hers. “Rhys, I’m ruined.”

  “You weren’t discovered in a compromising position, Alice,” he said gently, needing her to see the difference. Rather, she’d been jilted and by a pompous arse who’d never deserved her. What a bloody injustice that she should find her reputation in tatters for Pratt’s crimes. Averting his eyes, he swung his legs over the side of the sofa. Planting his feet on the floor, Rhys dropped his elbows on his knees.

  The soft rustle of Alice’s modest lawn nightshift and the faint creak of the sofa spring indicated she’d moved.

  She touched his shoulder. “I shared but one kiss with my betrothed.” Red hot hatred for Pratt coursed through Rhys’ veins as Alice painted an image that was all too real of that bastard with his mouth on Alice’s, the way Rhys’ had been moments ago. “I was the one to initiate it,” she confessed; the shame tingeing that admission knifed at him.

  “He was a fool,” he clipped out. If Rhys had been betrothed to Alice, he would have reveled in the right and pleasure of taking her in his arms so that, come their wedding night, there would have been no secrets between them.

  A wistful smile curved her lips. “I do not disagree with you there. But that is not why I told you…” Her cheeks pinkened. “About Henry.”

  God, how he abhorred the effortless way Pratt’s name fell from her lips.

  Alice came up on her knees beside him. “After his betrayal, after,” she grimaced. “The Scandal, my reputation was destroyed, and do you know, Rhys? I didn’t care,” she whispered. “It didn’t matter to me that I’d never marry. I loved and lost in the most humiliating way.” Humiliating. Not devastating. Not heartbreaking. Did Alice realize that key distinction? “I came to accept that love and desire were rare gifts for some and I was not to be one who knew either.” Alice drew in a slow breath. “I won’t marry.”

  He scraped a hand through his hair. “Your brother would rightfully skewer me at dawn.”

  “I’m a woman,” she said simply. “Why should I be without choice?”

  “Because it is the way of Society.” His protest came weak to his own ears.

  Alice smiled wryly. “And you’ve always done what Society expects?” No, from his work as a self-made man to the woman he’d once offered marriage to, he’d reveled in flouting those conventions.

  “This is different,” he said reluctantly. “This isn’t about my reputation.” Or the Earl of Montfort’s. It was about Alice’s. “You’ve been hurt before and have given up on the idea of love and marriage. But that does not mean, in time, you will not desire those very things.” An image flickered to his mind’s eye of some nameless, faceless gentleman laying her down, parting her thighs, and giving Alice the pleasure Rhys longed to. A growl started low in his belly.

  “Don’t presume to tell me what I want,” she said matter-of-factly. “Or decide my future. If we make love…” Oh, God. He faltered, as those four words painted erotic images that would tempt and torture him long after this moment. “That is my choice. Just as you’ve chosen to live a bachelor’s existence, I would live now, not for Society or propriety but for myself.” Alice grasped his hand and drew it to her chest. He swallowed hard as she laid his left palm against her breast. His palm cupped the swell, reflexively.

  “Alice,” he implored, in one last, desperate bid to do what was right.

  “I want to feel, Rhys,” she breathed. “Make me feel again.”

  And with those four words, the battle was lost. He would not take her virtue, but he would give her the night of pleasure she sought.

  Rhys tangled his fingers in her silken tresses and brought her mouth to meet his.

  Alice kissed with the same beautiful abandon she went through every aspect of life: fierce, unapologetic, bold. She parted her lips and their tongues met in a passionate dance. All the while, he worked his hands over her as he’d ached to these past days; exploring the curve of her flared
hips, her buttocks.

  She pressed herself against him; her breasts crushed against the wall of his chest. Through their thin linen garments, the heat from their bodies melded. Lifting her skirts once more, he bared her before him.

  He touched his gaze on muscled legs that spoke of a woman who rode.

  Guiding her back down, he palmed the soft thatch of curls between her thighs.

  “Rhys,” she hissed, her hips shooting up.

  His shaft swelled, straining against his trousers, as the aching need to take that which she offered wrought havoc on his honorable intentions. “You are so wet for me,” he rasped, slipping a finger inside her wet channel.

  Alice whimpered and he thrust another finger inside her.

  The glow cast by the fire bathed her face in a soft light, playing off the moisture that dampened her brow. Then, he began to stroke her. In and out. In and out. That primitive echo of lovemaking that fueled his desire.

  Her speech dissolved into incoherent, gasping pleas.

  With his other hand, he freed her breasts from her night shift and refocused on the perfect, pink crests. Lowering his head, he took one tip deep in his mouth at the same time he quickened his fingers in her sodden center.

  Her body stiffened, the tension spilling from her slender frame; all the muscles of her heart-shaped face were taut, and then a scream tore from her. He swiftly covered her mouth, taking that beautiful shout of release as she bucked her hips into him.

  And then she collapsed, her breath coming hard and fast.

  His body throbbing from the ache of unfulfilled desires, Rhys dropped his head against her chest.

  Of all the times for him to become… honorable. He tamped down an agonized groan.

  “That was wondrous,” Alice murmured, her breath fanned his cheek.

  He lifted his head from her breast, studying her.

  Her eyes closed, a contented smile on her lips, she had the look of the cat who’d gotten into the cream. Male satisfaction filled him.

  The loud creak of a floorboard slashed across their stolen interlude.

  Surging to his feet, he glanced to the door.