“You were sad tonight,” he said. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t resist burrowing his nose in her soft curls.
She nodded once in concurrence.
As though drawn by magnetic attraction, he pressed another kiss to her nape, a leisurely, openmouthed nuzzle that filled his soul with her jasmine-scented warmth. “I thought perhaps you were sad because you needed reminding.”
She stiffened slightly before her hands slid over his where they lay clasped across her belly. “Remind me of what?”
“Of how I see you.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her. Moonlight slanted across her face, and the full impact of her transformation struck him a stunning blow.
Everything of “Ned’s” youthful awkwardness had vanished, leaving a poised young woman who filled the gown’s proportions with dramatic grace. Against the rich emerald silk, her skin paled to alabaster, and above the wide scoop neckline her collarbones created a delicate path to the tender hollow at the base of her throat. Within the dainty puffed sleeves, her arms were sleek and softly rounded, and her breasts, though small, were high and full and formed luscious, tempting mounds where they pushed against her bodice.
She rendered him speechless, humbled. He drank her in, feasted on the sight of her, while his heart pounded against his chest wall. She didn’t move, didn’t blink as she gazed up at him, the earnest little crease between her eyebrows making her look as she did when calibrating an instrument or ciphering figures, and reminding him that in any garb she remained essentially the same.
His sweet, brilliant Ivy.
The ache inside him spread until it filled every part of him, bringing with it the knowledge that his plan was founded on an error in judgment. For it proved nothing but that he desired her, cared for her—loved her—in whatever guise she assumed.
“Dear God, to call you beautiful is a wretched understatement.” He swallowed to ease the constriction in his throat. He didn’t want to love her, and he couldn’t bear not to love her.
That funny, studious look deepened the crease between her brows. “At first I didn’t know whether to be angry or afraid. I thought perhaps you were making a statement, telling me that as a woman I should remember my place.”
“No,” he protested, the word guttural and emphatic.
With a twitch of a smile, she pressed her fingertips to his mouth, her touch as tender as a kiss. “I know.” The lovely white column of her throat convulsed. Her dark eyes glistened with tears. “Because I know you, and if you had wished to make a statement, you’d simply have stated it.”
“Then allow me to state this.”
In a single motion he swept her up in his arms, for the first time feeling the accompaniment of trailing skirts to her slight weight. Something about those fussy, feminine layers fired his possessive instincts. He held her close and buried his face in her neck, in the swell of her bosom. Then he lifted his head and found her lips, crushed his own to them, and pressed, deeper and deeper, losing himself to the heat of her mouth.
Cradling her in his arms, he stumbled back into the room, into the flickering light of the fire and the many candles he’d set about the room. He hoped she wouldn’t want him to blow them out. He wanted to see her. He wanted to show her she had nothing to hide from him—never from him.
Beside the bed, he set her feet on the floor but went on holding her, kissing her. The shawl slipped to the floor, and he stroked his hands up and down her arms. Where he expected her skin to be cold from the night air, it burned beneath his fingertips. He grasped a delicate sleeve between his thumb and forefinger and tugged, baring her shoulder and exposing more of her cleavage. Ah, such beautiful cleavage she had, not overly deep, but a soft, shadowed valley that offered a tantalizing prospect for his tongue.
He gazed down at it, then up at her to see a sweet entreaty shining in her eyes. Lowering his mouth to her, he gave that lovely vale the adoring attention it deserved, while he reached around her and untied the bow at the back of her dress. The laces loosened, but he didn’t strip the gown from her shoulders and arms. He wouldn’t undress her yet, for he found the teasing allure of a yawning neckline, a slowly raised hem, and the beribboned edge of a stocking as erotic as the promise of having her naked beneath him.
As he pressed kisses across her bosom, she arched her lovely neck. The moisture in her eyes spilled over, trailing reflected candlelight down her cheeks. “Oh, Simon, I had forgotten what it felt like....”
“To be completely feminine?”
“Yes. To be a woman.” Her arms tightened around his neck. She pressed her forehead to his cheek and whispered, “Or perhaps I never knew. Never understood. Not like this.”
Her words overflowed with emotion, with longing and sadness, and enough regret to make him wonder how so beautiful and vital a woman could ever have felt less than wanted, how she could not have known what it was to be coveted by every man around her. Surely they had all been fools, or blind.
“There is more I must show you,” he said.
Slowly raising her skirts, he grazed her knee with the backs of his fingers and skimmed the inside of her thigh, enjoying the resultant quiver of her flesh. Traveling higher along her leg, he felt her heat drawing him on. When he reached the silky curls between her thighs, he gave a stroke with a single fingertip. As slight as his touch was, Ivy shuddered.
Ah, yes, this is what he would have her know, the subtle joys to be shared between a man and woman, the trust, the releasing of inhibitions, and the surrender to mutual arousal. All along he’d been pretending both to her and to himself that he could control his desires, his heart. But the truth was, from the moment he’d recognized Ivy the woman, he’d been lost. Wholly, irretrievably lost to her beauty, her intelligence, and the purity of what he’d taken from her—her innocence.
So great a gift she had given him. For tonight, then, he would stop pretending his attraction to her stemmed from mere lust and an inability to keep his hands off her splendid body. Tonight he would show her how much she deserved, whether from him or any man. Returning his mouth to her lips, he ravished them thoroughly. As Ivy writhed in his arms, he explored the folds of her sex, already moist with desire.
Their lips fell apart as her head tipped back on a moan. Her leg slid up around his waist, opening her further, and he slid a finger inside. Her muscles, so tight and sensitive, squeezed him, an embrace of consent and pleasure. Ivy’s whimpers driving him on, he eased in deeper. The tightening of her hands on his shoulders signaled her heightening arousal.
Slowly he withdrew, and she whimpered a weak protest. He returned inside her quickly enough, adding a second finger to widen her. At her cry, a sense of both power and satisfaction sped his pulse. He increased his ministrations, until her sex convulsed around him and her back arched and her lovely mouth opened on a cry of ecstasy.
He eased out of her then and moved to swing her into his arms. She half leaned on him, and with a trembling hand on his chest she stopped him. Her breasts heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. Her fingers fisted on his shirtfront. “I made you a promise earlier today.”
Through the roar of his rushing blood, he tried to remember what promise had been given hours, what seemed eons, ago. They had gone to Windgate Priory to question Alistair . . . and along the way in the coach, Simon had stroked her to climax even as he had just done now. . . .
God, yes, he remembered. His recollection must have shown in his eyes and in the fiery flush of his skin, for as she searched his features, a smile dawned on her bowed lips.
She released his shirt and smoothed her hand down his body to the junction of his breeches. “It is a promise I intend to keep.”
Without ceremony Ivy pushed Simon down onto the edge of the bed. Leaning over to kiss him, she reached for the buttons of his breeches.
His hand came down on hers. “You don’t have to.”
“Oh, but I promised.”
“A promise made in passion doesn’t count.”
> “Do you believe that passion robs a person of sincerity?” She shook her head. “I believe quite the opposite, that stripped of manners and pretense we say precisely what we mean. And do precisely as we most wish.”
Several times now he had shown her pleasure, and only once had he taken his own. Even then, her inexperience had forced her to play the passive role as he brought them both to fulfillment. Not this time. Perhaps it was the borrowed silk dress, for even as her breeches and waistcoat had emboldened her as a scholar and a human being, the gown imbued her with a new and thrilling power.
Tonight, the scholar gave way to the seductress.
Leaning over him again, she allowed her breasts to spill over the edge of her loosened bodice as she kissed him. Then with a wicked smile she pulled away, running her hands ever so slowly from his shoulders down his torso and to his thighs as she knelt before him.
His breath rasped as she unfastened the top buttons at either side of his trouser flap. Pulling his shirttails free, she ran her fingertips across his stomach, enjoying the sudden flinch of his muscles and experiencing a tightening of her own inner muscles deep, deep in her womb as she followed the light trail of hair that plunged downward from his navel.
Her heart pattering, she undid the remaining buttons, at first keeping one hand over the woolen fabric where he grew and hardened against her palm. The strength of that most essentially male part of him filled her with awe. His member pulsed against her hand and lightly she pressed back, then more firmly.
He ran a hand through her hair, freeing it from the combs that now thudded onto the carpet. “Oh, God, Ivy.”
His head was thrown back, his neck knotted, his features contorted as if with pain. She lowered the flap and his shaft sprang forward, thick and engorged, to point at her in a command for attention. She gasped at the sight, then peered back up at Simon’s face. He watched her from beneath heavy lids, his mouth hard as if with pain. Without breaking eye contact, she kissed the taut skin just above the bold black hair that framed his penis. His blue eyes blazed. He made a guttural noise, and his hand tightened in her hair.
“You will have to help me,” she whispered. “You must let me know if I am doing it correctly.”
“Blazing hell, Ivy ...” His voice was ragged, but filled with an intensity that heightened her courage. She touched the base of his shaft, her fingertips grazing the velvety warm skin of his scrotum. His lips peeled back to bare his teeth. “You . . . are doing it correctly.”
She put her lips on him then, and a violent shudder ran his length. Feeling empowered, she closed her mouth around him.
“Ah . . . yes, like that.”
Using lips and tongue she moved down his length, then back toward the tip, and paused.
“God, yes.”
An instinct she never knew she possessed prompted her to tease him with flicking strokes of her tongue. She added the gentle scrape of her teeth. Simon let out a rumble, while the pressure of his hand at the back of her head guided her motions.
“Like a peppermint stick,” he said on a rush of breath.
She paused, at first not understanding what he meant. Then it dawned on her, that he wanted not just the sensation of her lips and tongue but the sensation of sucking inwardly—as one did with a stick of candy. In the back of her mind she knew that later she would laugh at the irony of such an image, that something as innocent as sucking candy could be so sensual.
Now she didn’t laugh, for as she gripped the base of his member and used her mouth to bring him higher and higher toward the explosive crest, an aching need grew inside her, a selfish and overwhelming desire to ride that crest with him, to share in the glittering moment of climax, and to cling tight to him during the languid fall back to earth. She yearned to have him inside her, his power and strength filling her. She needed him so much, so very much.
As the thought concluded, he released his hold on her, and with both hands grasped her shoulders and tugged to raise her up. Could he have read her mind, or had he felt her hesitation? She felt suddenly torn, furiously longing to join her body with his while at the same wanting to pleasure him as he had done for her.
But a glance at him revealed an emotion imprinted like a brand across his features, the feverish, blazing image of the same sensations running riot within her.
Her heart lurched. Was she mistaken? In the next instant he’d blinked the sentiment away, but in that brief lowering of his guard, she thought she perceived a love as deep as that which she harbored for him.
He gave another insistent tug. “Ivy, come here.”
The temptation proved too much to resist, and not yielding to it proved too much to bear. As she rose, he gathered her onto his lap and drew her legs to either side of his waist. His hands dove beneath her hems. He caught hold of her hips and lifted her, then set her down upon his length.
She found herself ready—oh, more than ready for him—and he slid into her until she sheathed him fully. She shut her eyes to the sheer, exultant satisfaction of it, her last vision that of his determined, enraptured features, a desire fierce and plain to see, and mirroring everything she felt herself.
With his powerful hands he began to move her, each stroke up and down his length a loving caress against her soul. Completion brought tears to her eyes, cries from her lips that she muffled against his shoulder, and a shocking certainty that pierced her heart.
Sated and panting for breath, she sagged into the heat of his body and surrendered to the truth. Her smug assertion today that they could find pleasure through their bodies without intercourse was like a farmer claiming he could grow crops without the sun and rain. She had believed she could command these wild, wayward desires, but in truth they commanded her. Despite her fervent longing for independence, she was no free spirit, unfettered by the demands of another human being. Her mutinous love for this man controlled her, mind, body, and soul.
“Oh, Simon, I was wrong,” she whispered. She pressed her open mouth to the curve of his neck, tasting the mingled saltiness of his perspiration and her own tears. “What I said today in the coach about controlling our passion . . . I was wrong. So very, very wrong.”
His chest still heaving from exertion and the throes of the climax they had shared, he tightened his arms around her and kissed her brow. “Yes, dear heart. I know.”
Chapter 19
Not long after, Simon returned to his chamber and went through the motions of retiring alone. But some ten minutes after his valet left him, he donned his robe and cracked his door open. The gallery stretched empty and silent on either side of him. He slipped out and closed the door behind him.
Ivy’s door remained unlocked, as he had left it. He let himself in and stole across the room to her bed. The fire had burned down, the coals in the grate giving off a russet glow, just enough to light his way. Ivy lay on her side, her gentlemen’s nightshirt tied to her chin, the gown and feminine trappings having been returned to Gwendolyn’s room.
A second shadow on her pillow attracted his notice. Leaning close, he made out the shape of a little rag doll with button eyes and a tangle of yarn for hair. Ivy’s hand lay wrapped around the body, her chin tucked on the doll’s stuffed head.
His heart squeezed at the notion of Ivy seeking comfort from what amounted to a heap of discarded sewing scraps. That small, inconsequential doll bore witness to how young and inexperienced she still was, how alone she must feel. It spoke of how he had failed in providing whatever emotional succor she required.
She didn’t move as he lifted the bedclothes and slid in beside her. He snuggled close, fitting his hips against her sweet rear and draping an arm around both her and her doll. She didn’t stir, but he sensed that she was awake. He wasn’t surprised when she breathed a long sigh and peered at him over her shoulder.
“Simon ...” Her voice held a tentative caution.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “We’ll only go to sleep now. And in the morning, I’ll be gone before you wake.”
Her doubts visibly warred with a clear desire to let him stay. They were not supposed to have made love, although all along Simon had perceived the impossibility of adhering to such a vow.
Without another word she tucked her chin against the doll’s head and closed her eyes. Her hair still held a faint trace of jasmine. He breathed in the scent and drifted off to sleep, his last thought an acknowledgment that where Ivy was concerned, his heart had fully betrayed him.
True to his word, Simon left her bed as the first splash of dawn stained the horizon. When next he saw her, downstairs at breakfast in the morning room, all trace of Ivy the woman had vanished, at least to those who looked no further than their expectations. In breeches, a striped waistcoat, and a warm tweed coat, she had become entirely Ned again. In turn, Simon was once more Lord Harrow, and something about that pretense, along with the formality that accompanied it, erected a disheartening barrier between them.
It was as if they could no longer laugh together, or touch in even the most innocent manner, much less steal the occasional kiss. Eye contact became strained, as if each peered across the deferential distance between master and assistant. Once, before they began their day’s work in the laboratory, he tried talking to her about these changes, but she remained evasive.
“It is best this way, at least for now,” she said, and went about her duties.
Best, he silently agreed, because they each had their separate tasks to complete. Ivy must fulfill her obligation to the queen. Simon must see to his rebellious sister, as well as continue his scientific endeavors. Keeping their distance was best, too, because not doing so led them round and round the same inevitable circle. They had been wrong, both of them, in ever thinking they could hold their passions tightly reined. If last night had proved anything, it was that together, they too easily lost sight of their goals, and not even the strictest reasoning seemed capable of neutralizing the volatile attraction between them.
Outrageously Yours Page 25