“Nevertheless, it’s better to be safe. And I’m sure Cartwright wouldn’t want in any way to be party to the cause of your decline.”
Cartwright’s gaze turned to him. For a moment, Thomas thought he intended to challenge him—scoff that his argument was beyond ludicrous. After studying him for several seconds, his friend shifted his attention back to Amelia. “Yes, I have heard parlor games are known to cause an illness of sorts, and I certainly wouldn’t want you to fall victim to it.”
In this instance, Cartwright’s barely veiled mockery was acceptable. It was infinitely better than a row, Thomas thought with the full knowledge that what he spouted was nothing shy of grasping at straws. He also knew everyone at the table was aware of it too. Luckily for him, they were too civilized to call him on it.
“Well, since it appears I’m too fragile for a game of cards, I shall take myself off to bed. Suddenly I’m feeling rather fatigued.” Cartwright made a move to rise. Amelia stayed him with a wave of her hand as she stood. “Oh, do remain seated.”
A footman materialized at her elbow to assist her from her chair. Thomas hadn’t intended to send her so early to her bed; hadn’t intended to deprive himself of her company. He sat mute as she smoothed the folds of her velvet skirts, trying to quell the image of those slender hands sliding lovingly over his hard, bare flesh, wrapping around him.
“I shall see you all in the morning.” Her regard flickered to him. “That is, if I have not gone into decline.” A teasing light glinted in the sapphire blue of her eyes, and a smile tipped the corners of her mouth—a smile whose effects Thomas felt from his chest right down to his loins.
After Amelia quit the dining hall, she didn’t walk but floated up the stairs. She hadn’t really wanted to play cards with Lord Alex. She’d only been seeking proof that Thomas didn’t want her to. Who would have guessed—certainly not she—that she was the type of woman who would stoop to engaging in games of jealousy? And who would have guessed upon eliciting the desired response, she’d be left feeling giddy and dizzier than she had when she’d been swooning about the place with a fever.
Leaving the dining table had been a matter of survival, for if she’d stayed, she would have sat there looking as besotted as she felt. He cared enough about her to be jealous of his friend. He cared enough about her to sit at her bedside when she was ill. Thomas, Viscount Armstrong, cared about her, period, and right now that was all that mattered. Tomorrow, she decided with steadfast determination, they would begin their relationship anew.
Amelia was still in a euphoric glow when she heard the unmistakable sound of a cat as she made her way to her chamber. Turning in the direction of the plaintive meow, she saw a blur of fur dash in the direction of the opposite wing.
No animals resided in Stoneridge Hall, of that she was certain. Undoubtedly a stray sneaking in from the cold. The poor dear was probably hungry. Amelia proceeded in search of the cat.
After much coaxing and whispered pleas of, “Here kitty, kitty,” she found the cat huddled beneath a hall table with a heavy base that came half a foot off the floor. And she discovered it wasn’t a cat but a tiny, frightened kitten with camel-colored fur. Soon, Amelia was on her knees, her right hand stretched out to capture the skittish animal, her voice soothing and low. As her fingers made contact with the downy fur, the kitten darted from beneath the table and through the closest open door.
Sighing, Amelia scrambled to her feet. She hesitated at the threshold. Then she heard the kitten’s cry. She would be quick about it. Miss Foxworth and the men were occupied downstairs and none of the servants were about.
Quashing every single one of her misgivings—and she harbored quite a few—Amelia inhaled a deep breath and entered the room. Save for the blaze in the fireplace, the chamber was shrouded in shadows of varying shades of grey. It took several seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The chamber was large. With a fresh wave of trepidation, she realized fate, with its sometimes macabre sense of humor, had deposited her in the master’s suite. Thomas’s bedchamber. If she had any sense at all, she would leave. A quiver of anticipation coursed through her as she ventured farther into the room.
Amelia took in big, dark furniture, including an enormous four-poster bed. She shivered again. There was nothing fussy about it. No softening contours or feminine embellishments, just polished mahogany and a dark green counterpane covering the mattress.
A flash of fur darting from under the bed to somewhere in the darkest corner of the room caught her eye, yanking her back to her purpose for being there. Before Amelia could move, she heard a faint creak, then saw a splinter of light originate from the area in which the kitten had disappeared. The light lengthened and broadened across the carpeted floor in front of her.
With no time to think and only a second to act, Amelia made a dash to an area in the chamber where she saw no shadowy grey just the blessed oblivion of black. She braced up against the wall beside a towering wardrobe. Her nostrils were immediately assailed by the scent of starch and something else … bergamot.
The kitten emitted a pitiful meow. Amelia barely dared to breathe.
“How on earth did you get in here?”
Thomas. Amelia’s breath left her.
“Lord, aren’t you a tiny little thing. I bet you’re hungry?”
It took her a moment to realize he was speaking to the cat. As much as a human was capable, she plastered herself against the wall.
“Come, let’s get you something to eat. Perhaps Cook has some leftover fish. What do you think?” The kitten purred as if in agreement.
He was leaving. With her fingers splayed against the wall at her back, Amelia waited. She heard muffled footfalls, then the sound of the door opening, and then silence. Blessed silence. She quickly darted a glance around the wardrobe to ensure all was clear. It was.
Amelia had never moved so fast in her entire life, the soles of her suede shoes scarcely touching the floor. Unfortunately, fast wasn’t quite quick enough.
Chapter 21
“Why do you continue to turn up in all the places you shouldn’t?” Thomas stood framed in the doorway, bathed in the iridescent light of the gas wall sconces in the hall, and spoke in a tone of dark amusement.
Shuddering to a stop, Amelia sought safety on the laddered rail of the footboard behind her—she’d only managed to get that far. The wood was solid and smooth under her fingers unlike the erratic beat of her heart. This was not at all the way she’d imagined their new start.
“I-I didn’t see you—I thought you had gon—I mean, the cat—” Amelia ceased speaking. What was the point? She’d heard animals could smell fear. In that case, she was amazed that every animal in the environs of Devon wasn’t growling at her feet.
He chuckled softly, slowly closing the door before turning to advance toward her with measured strides. “Oh, please do continue. I do love it when you stutter.”
Amelia quelled a dismayed groan, edging away from the safety of the footboard, intent on reaching the door, but a glance deemed her exit too far away to risk a mad dash.
Thomas shot a glance at the door and then back to her. He circled to come and stand behind her. “Is that really what you want to do—run?” His voice had a rumbling, sensuous quality. “You know what I believe, Amelia?” he whispered, lowering his head until his mouth feathered the rim of her right ear and his masculine scent infused into every pore of her body in sensual suffocation.
He was taunting her, damn him. “No, I don’t care to know.” But the hitch in her voice belied her words. She gave her head two determined shakes, as if that would sufficiently rid her of the languor that stole through her, softening her, weakening her.
“I believe you’re here awaiting me.” He kept his voice low and soft, his every word misting her ear in a sweet caress.
Amelia’s nipples tightened and pushed against the soft muslin cloth of her dress. “I came because of the cat,” she whispered, ducking her head to escape his warming breath on her face
.
“Then why are you making no real effort to escape?” He turned her around to face him and placed one finger lightly on her parted lips when she attempted to speak. It would be a mistake for them to start like this. “No, don’t utter another word. We both know you’re here for this.”
Without giving her a chance to object, he pinned her arms to her sides while his tongue breeched the boundary of lips and teeth. When his tongue touched hers, Amelia’s knees wobbled. He tasted that rich and decadent; it felt that right. She encouraged him with an impassioned slide of her tongue over his. A shudder rifled through his body sending an answering heat pulsing between her thighs. This kiss had no limit. It blotted every thought from her mind, except the hard male form gathering her ever closer and bending her neck back.
Never had she experienced this kind of passion except in his arms, with his lips on hers. His hand moved to cup her breasts, and the layers of fabric covering her could not mute the kind of pleasure that caused her to whimper and tear her mouth from his, only to desperately seek it out again after she caught her breath and needed him again.
Nothing had prepared Thomas for the sheer wildness of their embrace. She was on fire for him, and he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, of her tongue, of her breasts, of everything she had to offer. Plastering her against the length of him, his erection stabbed at her belly with hard insistence as his hips imitated a sexual dance older than time.
Amelia responded with a slow, helpless roll of her hips, threatening to send him over the precipice of sanity. With a harsh groan and his breathing already laboring as if he had just run a mile, he tore his mouth from hers and swung her effortlessly up into his arms. He strode to the bedside, deposited her onto the mattress, and wasted no time in joining her. Under his deft fingers, he removed the dress from her body with the ease of a man who had more than a passing knowledge of women’s garments. Each scrap of silk and muslin he removed revealed breathtaking creamy flesh. Legs, long, slender, and exquisitely formed, snagged his breath, but it was the sight of the dark triangular patch of hair at the apex of her thighs that threatened to rob him of all reason and control.
His cock reared up and fought to split the seams of the front placket of his trousers. So intense was the sensation snaking through him, Thomas had to grit his teeth to contain a groan. He could think of nothing beyond driving himself into her, burying himself as deep as he could.
He managed to remove his hands from her quivering form long enough to divest himself of his clothes. Several shirt buttons popped in his haste, as Amelia lay sprawled on her back watching him with a decidedly bemused look on her face. He paused, momentarily transfixed at the sight she made, her lips parted and her eyes darkened to navy orbs. The glide of her tongue along the edge of her kiss-plumped lips jolted him from his daze and back into action.
He tossed his shirt to the floor, and came briefly to his feet to kick off the black wool trousers. His drawers came next, shoved over his hips with impatient hands. Amelia gave a sharp inhalation at the sight of his arousal springing out, so swollen and hard as to be painful. Debilitating him in a pleasurable kind of pain.
Amelia couldn’t take her eyes off his erection, long, thick, and heavily veined. Panic welled up inside of her. He could not possibly think he could put that in her. Dear Lord, there was no way it would fit. Her gaze flew to his taut visage. She instinctively tried to shield her nakedness from his devouring stare, one hand flying to try to span both breasts, while the other covered her privates.
“No, don’t hide from me,” he soothed, gently prying her hands from her body to secure them above her head while wedging a place for himself between her thighs. The heat of his erection settled heavily on the tender skin above the fleece of hair covering her sex, the contact inflaming her senses, sending her back into the intoxicating arms of passion.
He lowered his head and began tracing soft kisses from her shoulder to the swell of her breast. His mouth tracked up to a ruched nipple. Amelia clamped down hard on her lower lip. He swiped the taut bud with his tongue until her back bowed, forcing both the nipple and surrounding aureole into his mouth. With a muffled groan, he ended the torment and began to suckle. Amelia let out a whimper, her breath rhythmic pants. Jerking her hands from his grip, she plowed her fingers through strands of golden hair to imprison him against her breast.
For endless minutes, he urged her squirming body to a heightened state of arousal. Amelia had never known such pleasure existed. Thomas now took her on a journey of hitherto untapped sensations, which had her keening and gasping beneath him. Widening her legs, she arched her back and writhed as she tried to trap his hard flesh where she needed it most—inside her.
“Easy, Princess, easy.” Despite his soothing words, his voice came out strained, as if he was holding onto his control by the slimmest of margins. “I will give you what you want.”
If she had been in her right mind, she would have been appalled at his words. Appalled at her wanton exhibition. But she was mindless. Nothing mattered but the fire he had started that now raged hot between her thighs.
With one final flick at her pink bud, he sent shards of sensual pleasure from her nipple straight to the heart of her. Thomas continued his trek downward, dotting her quivering belly with languid kisses. A puff of air rushed uncontrolled from her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered closed, her hands still clutching the back of his head.
He reached the downy tuff of hair between her thighs, and scooted down, widening them in the process, giving him the most intimate view anyone had ever had of her. His tongue came out and touched his upper lip.
Amelia realized his intent and immediately tried to push his head away. Her face flamed with embarrassment. “No, no, you can’t. You shouldn’t—”
The first probe of his tongue on the swollen folds of her sex nearly sent her senses spinning. Shock and embarrassment quickly gave way to the most delicious, unbearable pleasure that shot through her like a lightning bolt. Her hands fell to her sides as he took full reign, using his mouth to master her body.
Long and languid strokes of his tongue continued unabated on her slick, wet flesh. Amelia couldn’t think, she could only feel. Being loved in this fashion was lurid and shameful … and exquisite. While he feasted on her, her hips tilted forward to offer him more. The sensation of a band being pulled tighter and tighter gripped her, refusing to release her. Her body spiraled upward, searching for something else. Then he parted her pink flesh and flicked the little nub at the hood of her sex and Amelia let out a high, keening cry as she heaved beneath him, nearly dislodging his mouth. But he held on, his tongue wringing a cry from her that ended in a long lusty moan. A paroxysm of pleasure overtook her, and she could do nothing but succumb blissfully, helplessly.
Spent in the aftermath of her first orgasm, Amelia was insensate to her surroundings, everything, until she felt the thrust of his manhood at her entrance. Then he was plunging into her. She winced and gasped at the burn of his possession. It had come so unexpectedly. She hadn’t had time to prepare herself for the stinging pain, nor the tightness of the fit.
If Thomas hadn’t been so caught up in the sweet, unbearably tight clasp of her body, he would have halted—or at least paused—when he met the resistance of her maidenhood, before tearing through it like a marauding bull. But with Amelia, he had no such restraint. And even when his mind fully grasped that he had just taken her virginity, he could not stop the advance and retreat of his hips as he plowed into her. All he could do was try to make it as good for her as he could.
He sought her lips and caught her anguished sob in his mouth as his tongue mimicked the mating of their bodies. She had initially gone stiff with the pain of his penetration, but under his avid ministrations, her body began to relax. Soon Thomas was tearing his lips from hers, ducking his head, and encompassing her nipple in his mouth to suckle strongly. Amelia let out a hoarse moan, allowing her legs to encircle his hips, drawing him deeper into her.
Thomas quickened his
pace, now slamming into her with such ferocity he had no doubt he’d leave her sore. The knowledge, however, did not stop him. And to his disbelief, he felt her stiffen and claw at his shoulders as she reached her peak once again. With that, his body convulsed and shattered in a release so staggering in its intensity, he let out a guttural cry that exclaimed his unadulterated satisfaction.
It took a while for him to recover from what had just been the most mind-blowing climax of his life—thus far. Only then did he realize he was resting heavily on Amelia’s delicate frame, his mouth nuzzling her breast.
Not a man who liked to cuddle as so many women craved after sexual intercourse, Thomas was disconcerted to discover he didn’t immediately want to bolt from the bed. Yes, it was his bed, but he had no desire to hustle Amelia back to her chamber. This, of course, was downright terrifying.
Good Lord, what have I done?
Amelia lay stiff beneath Thomas as he remained buried inside her. Lord, there hadn’t even been talk of the future, no promise of marriage, just the most exquisite pleasure her body had ever known. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Slowly, he slid from atop her, his chest hairs abrading her nipples, his sweat-dampened abdomen sliding over hers in a sensuous dance. Once again, Amelia could feel herself drowning into the misty haze of passion—lurid, decadent passion.
“A virgin.”
His tone said it all, hushed and incredulous. But it jerked her back to the harsh edges of reality. Not anymore she wasn’t.
Soon mortification replaced the vestiges of ardor. Amelia couldn’t bear to look at him, much less respond. She heard, rather than saw, him get out of the bed, taking all of his heat with him. She caught the edge of the counterpane and draped it over herself.
Thomas came into view as he padded toward the dresser. Amelia knew she should avert her gaze, but the sight of his buttocks, flesh and muscle sculpted to magnificence, captivated her. He opened the top drawer and yanked out a small piece of toweling and with it, several envelopes fluttered to the carpet.
A Taste of Desire Page 21