He maneuvered them to the sofa, and she came to life as she always did with him. One thing she’d learned all on her own about Devon Carlisle, Earl of Bracebridge, was that however ingrained his disregard for her, he held back nothing in their intimacy. She did not doubt for a moment that he would have been more circumspect with some other woman as his wife. Not with her, though. She was his match.
When they were like this, she could be herself. There was safety in their mutual lust. He never saw her, not truly, and so he would never know that she had given him her soul. She threaded her fingers through his hair, so thick and soft. She loved those dark curls, just as she loved his lust and the rawness of their physical joining. She pulled back, not far, and pressed a palm to the center of his chest. “Dare we here?”
He pulled up one side of her skirts, and his fingers slid around her thigh, just above her knee. “Yes,” he said in a low, silky voice of desire. “Dare all. So say I.”
She adjusted herself to give access to his wandering hands. “Dinner is at half past seven. Someone might come looking for us.”
“If they do, they’ll delay the meal.” He held her closer, smiling in that wicked way of his. Her heart flew away with the butterflies that inhabited her stomach. “Allow me to convince you.”
He pushed her shoulder until she lay on her back, and she had the rare pleasure of watching his expression as he slowly pushed up her skirts, past her calves, past her knees. His gaze fixed on her legs, following the slide of his fingers on her, toying, for a moment, with her garter, then upward, over her knee, then along the inside of her thigh.
“So beautiful,” he said. “So bloody beautiful. You can’t help yourself.”
Every word was an unintended condemnation. If all that mattered was her appearance, what future had they? One day, inevitably, her youth would fade. She would grow old, and no one would ever know she’d been considered a beauty. What use would she be then? Of what value?
She squeezed her eyes closed. That day was not now. Today, he found her beautiful, and if that was what pleased him about her, then she must take her pleasure now. She stretched, arched her back, and absorbed the cascade of need through her. One day, he too would be old and grey, but whenever she imagined her future, she was always in love with him.
His fingers reached her sex, and she bit her lower lip until she couldn’t hold back another moan. He stroked along her, pressing and sliding, caressing that area that never failed to fetch her. “Like so?” he asked, low and wicked.
“Yes.” She released herself into her body, surrendered to the ruin of his kisses. Nothing mattered right now but this.
He pressed his lips to the side of her thigh, just above her knee. His mouth was hot and damp, and she fell deeper into the storm of him touching her. “I wish you were naked,” he said in a gruff voice. “Spread out for me to worship.”
Her eyes popped open and another shiver shot through her at the sight of his dark, dark eyes. He was looking at her body. Looking with lust and longing. “Lock the door, then,” she said, perfectly willing.
In a flash, he was on his feet and then back to her with the door locked. That impish, sensual grin killed her every time she saw it. She lay on the sofa, one leg dangling off. His mouth curved, such a ruinous grin that she was lost all over again. He would shatter her heart into pieces, and with that smile, she did not care in the least what happened to her later.
He sat and, with a grunt, pulled her over him so that she straddled his thighs. While she lifted her skirts out of the way, he unfastened his trousers, and then she sank down on him, and there was nothing in this world like him sliding inside her. She trembled, half coming just from this.
“Yes?” he said, full of pride and lust, but with an edge of something else there that she did not understand. Truly, though, when it came to this, what was there to understand but the pursuit of pleasure? “Have I pleased you?”
“Yes. Yes, my God, Bracebridge, you cannot imagine how pleased I feel just now.”
“Might you make the attempt?”
She met his thrust upward. When they were intimate, she could say words denied to her any other time. “I adore your cock, but I also wish you were naked and that I could touch and kiss every inch of you. Now, stop.” She rocked her hips into his. “Enough talking, and more of this.”
He had his hands under her skirts and around her bottom, setting a rhythm for them. “I’d rather we were naked on a mattress so you could touch and kiss me everywhere.”
“I thought you meant to undress me now.”
“There’s not room. “He leaned forward to kiss her, and by the time he drew back, she was nearly mad with lust for him. “You fit here, I do not.”
She shifted her hips, taking him deeper. “But, my lord, you are wrong. You fit perfectly.”
He pressed the back of his head against the sofa and laughed. “You never in your life said a truer thing.” He grabbed her hips and held her still. “Let’s finish this upstairs where we can both be conveniently naked. I’ll fit you just as well there as here, but we’ll have more room to explore.”
“Make me spend now, Bracebridge.”
“Yes, my lady.” He sounded oddly tender, but that could only be her imagination. “Whatever your heart desires is yours.”
Not long afterward, he made his clothes minimally decent, then took her hand and they fled upstairs, laughing. For whatever reason, he proceeded to his room rather than hers. No matter, there was a bed there, too.
He closed his door with a crack and shot the bolt home. “I don’t need you, Keller!”
She heard a discreet cough and then Bracebridge spun her around so she ended up facing the wall. He unhooked the first fastening of her dress, then the next and the next. “I like this color on you.”
Emily looked down, for she momentarily had no idea what she was wearing. “I like this gown better when it’s off.”
“Agreed.” He pressed his mouth to the back of her neck, and she braced her palms on the wall. “When you wear this shade of blue, I can see your eyes from across the room.” His fingers moved down her back. “Hooks. Too many hooks. But there is a reward at the end.”
“Tapes and laces, too.”
“This gown, which I liked excessively only moments ago, has too many hooks.”
“My apologies, my lord.”
His fingers were as agile as the rest of him, and he was nothing if not determined. “There will be a reward for us both at the end. That’s all that sustains me during the toil of stripping you down. Oh, bugger it.” He pushed her dress to her waist. Somehow, he’d managed to unfasten enough of the tapes and hooks to accomplish that. Bracebridge dispatched the rest of the fastenings, and her petticoats and frock pooled at her feet.
She stared at the fabric and breathed in the scent of him, absorbed the nearness of him so that when this ended she would have memories of a time when he had not wished she were Anne. Deft hands. Strong. Such soft lips when he pressed them to her exposed skin. Before long he’d stripped her to her chemise.
“Don’t move,” he said when she backed away.
She remained facing the wall. If she were to stretch out a hand, her fingers might just brush the plaster. His quarters here were not as dark and ponderous as much of the rest of the house. This was fresher paint than elsewhere in the house. More like Corth Abbey. Thank God. At least here he wouldn’t be thinking of how he’d disappointed his father.
Bracebridge put his hands on her shoulders and slid them downward, then to the sides of her hips, then up to cup her breasts, and she groaned because with the way he touched her, almost reverently, she could imagine he wanted her as intensely as she wanted him. That he wanted not just a woman like her, but her.
She let her head fall back and groaned as he continued stroking her. Every inch of her, along her arms, fingers lightly dancing, both hands down either side of her spine, fitting into the dip of her lower back.
“So soft.” His fingers curved around her hi
ps to her belly. “Luscious.” His voice was rough. The real Bracebridge, not the cold and distant man he was when they weren’t in bed. Raw with need and with no reason to be polite. “I could fuck you a dozen times a day, and you’d still take my breath away.”
She was a sea of want, and his fingers discovered that. His other hand found her breast and, my God, she would never have guessed those two things would steal away her wits. Yes. Yes. This was Bracebridge touching her, kissing her shoulder, his fingers sliding inside her. She would melt from want of him.
He left off touching her to pull the pins from her hair, finding them deftly and dropping several to land wherever they might. She tipped her head forward to balance the weight of her hair as it shifted and came free. He took a step closer, his front to her back, and threaded fingers through her hair.
“Like gold,” he whispered, but though she reacted to that soft whisper, all she could think was that she had once overheard him say no woman’s hair compared to Anne’s. She squeezed her eyes closed and pushed aside the memory.
“Soft, so soft.” He drew the mass of her hair to one side and pressed his mouth to the side of her shoulder. She turned her head toward him, and he slid his mouth along her jaw then captured her mouth, and she melted into that meeting of their mouths.
There were times she felt she’d betrayed all her sisters just from having loved him for so long. She’d always felt guilty for not wanting to marry the Duke of Cynssyr. Even before they’d left for London, she hadn’t wanted the duke, only the safety she and her sisters would have if she married him. She felt guiltier yet for thinking, if only for an instant, that, with Anne married, Bracebridge might at last notice her. He hadn’t. At least not in any way that mattered.
His fingers flexed against her lower back. “Turn around. I want to look at you.”
She turned. The tips of his fingers slid along her shoulders, and she sighed with the desire of this moment and her anticipation of the next. Better that she keep her eyes closed. Better for them both.
“Emily,” he whispered, drawing his hands down her sides. “Emily, you slay me. I did not know a woman could consume me this way. You are perfect. I adore your body, your hair, your skin, the shape of you, the taste of you. The way you feel when I am inside you.”
All that, but not her. He did not adore her.
He kissed her shoulder. “You take my breath, and then you make me laugh.” He kissed her other shoulder. “I do love a saucy wench.”
She turned and tipped her head to his and shivered from his hands touching her. She had never thought him unhandsome. Never. She’d heard women say they found him too brutal to be called attractive, but more than one woman had declared him monstrous with a sly smile that belied the overt meaning. Several older women recalled his father and lamented the loss of such a proper, handsome man of principle, all the while shaking their heads in dismay at the current holder of the title.
She’d listened so hard and intently to any conversation involving him. As a boy and a young man, Devon Carlisle had been wild. Wicked. A disappointment to his family for refusing a commission. But at Bartley Green, he’d been so unbearably sweet and attentive to Anne, and how could she not love him for that?
“Come here.” He gripped her hand and headed for his bed, and when they stood beside it, he pulled her into his arms again. “Shall I make you come again? Better yet, make me laugh.”
“Oh, now that I just, I shan’t be able to.”
“You shall, Em.” He spun them in a circle. “It’s part of you. You’re quick-witted.”
“Heavens, Bracebridge, you’ll make me dizzy with this nude waltzing.”
He picked her up and got them both onto his bed. “Nude waltzing.”
“It’s the very next rage. If you think tickets for Almack’s are difficult to get now, wait until they approve nude waltzing.”
Between gulps of laughter that seemed miraculous to her, he said, “That might get me in the door.”
“Well,” she said, throwing her arms around his shoulders. “It shall get you in somewhere.”
“Saucy wench.”
She let the moment take her away from possibilities that would only likely end in heartache. He would never love her the way she needed him to.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At the edge of Cavendish Square, lights glowed in the rooms Emily had transformed to bright and elegant. He wanted to go inside. He wanted to be in rooms that were light and colorful and filled with touches of beauty and whimsy. He liked a dash of living green on the tables, in corners or niches. He wanted to sit before the fires with his feet by the new screens. Never mind Two Fives. Never mind nights spent in the green room of opera houses or theaters. No more staring out the window of his club at the parade of women passing by.
When he came in, Frieda dashed down the stairs, wiggling with joy. While Pond waited to take his things, he petted her and scratched her ears and only just managed to avoid having his face licked. The dog followed him to his room, happy to be in his company. He’d dined at Two Fives, but it was early for London. Not even eight yet.
“I’ll change my clothes,” he told Keller.
Keller, having learned that Frieda calmed down when she was made much of, was enthusiastically stroking her. “You are going out, milord?”
“No. One of my new waistcoats, though. The green and gold one.” Gopal’s tailor did superior work. Emily had complimented Bracebridge when he’d worn the first of the three he’d ordered. He was coming to prefer colorful waistcoats and was considering purchasing more.
“Very good, milord.”
“See if you can do something about my hair.” He rubbed his chin. “A shave, too.” Forty minutes later, he walked into the parlor where he’d been told Emily was and found her asleep on the sofa by the fire, needlework abandoned on her lap. A book was tucked spine down into the space between her leg and the side of the sofa. Socrates was purring on her lap. She did not stir when he approached.
He stood before her, transfixed by the heartbreaking arrangement of her features. His chest tightened for no reason that he wanted to understand. At every turn since she’d first come to London with her sisters, she had challenged him, refused to stand down. Amused him. Annoyed him. Aroused him. And now, her presence here made him eager to come home, happy to see her smile, beyond avid to hold her in his arms.
She stirred, passed a hand over her face, then slowly opened her eyes and blinked several times. She squinted in his direction. Still, he had no name for the tightness in his chest. Why not? Why did he not know what this feeling was?
“Is that you, Bracebridge?”
“Yes.” He pushed away the tightness. She was a creature of ethereal beauty. Naturally, he enjoyed looking at her. Naturally, he reacted to her beauty. Every man in London was lovesick over her.
She sat straighter and rested a hand on Socrates’s back. The kitten stretched and settled back to its nap. “I fell asleep.”
“Indeed, you did.”
She let out a breath. “My apologies. I don’t know when I’ve ever been so tired.”
“Are you well?”
“Perfectly fine.” She busied herself with putting away her needlework. She was wearing an ashy blue that made her eyes particularly piercing. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me today. I feel as if I’ve not slept in a month.” She smoothed her hair and took a long, slow breath that she let out when she looked at the clock. “Nearly nine! I’d not meant to sleep that long.” With a sheepish smile in his direction, she added, “Or at all.”
“I am glad to find you home.”
“Where else would I be?” Her sewing was stowed away now. She brushed a curl of golden hair from her face. “I took Frieda for several walks in the square today.”
“I’m sure she was thrilled by the outings.”
“She was.” She shot him an inscrutable look. He did not want to feel this crushing guilt and upset that she had yet to confide in him. “That’s a handsome wai
stcoat. Is it new?”
“Yes, do you like it?”
“I do.”
“Perhaps you ought to go out. Visit your sisters. I’m sure they’d love to see you.”
“I had rather not. Not just now.” She fussed with the lace at her sleeve. “In any event, I had no plans today or tonight. Quite by design. I’d prefer to spend the night reading. It’s what I intended, rather than falling asleep.”
“You?” He immediately understood the enormous error of that reply. “But you enjoy parties.” Lord, he’d dug the hole deeper with that reply, hadn’t he? “No, no. I’ve got that wrong. That is, don’t you enjoy parties? It always seemed to me that you do.”
“Not especially,” she said with a shrug. “I do once I’ve arrived, but I never want to go.”
“Never? But . . . How can this be? You’ve always enjoyed yourself at gatherings.”
“It’s expected of me.” She burst out laughing, and he could not help smiling back. “You look as though I’ve just told you I want to keep a live bear in the house. I like parties when it’s friends, and I don’t mind larger parties. It’s just that I find them tiring.” She patted the sofa, quite far from her. He sat closer than she’d indicated. “I prefer small parties with people I know. Sadly, in London one is expected to invite whatever number of guests will exceed the available space.”
“True,” he said, settling himself beside her. He reached over to scratch Socrates’s chin. “We’ll stay in tonight, then.”
“Don’t on my account.”
“I don’t mind a quiet evening.” He pointed at the book at her side. “Is that Waverley?”
“Oh, no. That’s finished twice over now.” She looked at the volume. “I’ve been reading Rob Roy.”
“Shall I read to you?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Would you?”
“Yes.” Should he be chagrined or pleased by her surprised delight?
She handed over the book. “Chapter five, but I don’t mind if you’d rather start from the beginning.”
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