Only after he dragged his mouth from hers to kiss a path down her neck did she summon the will to chide, “What do you think you’re doing?”
He tongued the hollow of her throat. “Answering the question of why you should marry me. Aside from the argument that I took your innocence.”
When his hand swept up to cover her breast, she gasped. “And I suppose you think . . . seducing me is the answer.”
“One answer.” His palm kneaded her through the fabric with a deftness that made her mouth dry and other parts of her wet. “But there are others.”
She found it hard to breathe, much less speak. “Such as?”
“I’m willing to put you into any number of my famous paintings.”
“What if I don’t . . . want to be in your famous paintings?”
With a smug smile, he bent to nip her ear. “I could tell how much you hated it by how eagerly you posed for them and how readily you dressed for them.”
Beast. “I had a reason for complying. We had a bargain.”
“Right. Your brother. And that’s another reason you should marry me. How many of your English gentlemen would bring you to a brothel if you requested it, no questions asked?” His free hand slid tantalizingly down her ribs to her waist.
She shivered deliciously. “You did ask questions.”
“And you didn’t answer them. Yet I took you there, anyway. Wasn’t that sporting of me?” He undid her sash with one hand and dropped it onto the bridge.
Oh, Lord. “Y-yes. Very sporting. But not a situation likely to be repeated in . . . the future.”
“So you say. From what I’ve heard of him, your brother could have fifty by-blows. We might have to visit any number of brothels in the future.”
When he began to unfasten the front buttons of her redingote dress, she made a feeble attempt to stop him, ignoring the wild anticipation pulsing through her. “Are you mad? Edwin could be back any minute.”
With a snort, Jeremy continued what he was doing. “I’ll be much surprised if your brother shows up again before dinner. He was itching to get away from us.”
Grudgingly, she admitted the truth of that. Apparently, Jeremy had begun to know her brother almost as well as she.
“And besides,” he went on as he undid the last of her buttons, “if he did find us together, what could he do? Make us marry? That’s an even better reason to risk it.”
He lifted her onto the parapet, and her gown fell open to reveal her corset and petticoats shamelessly exposed to the air. His gaze drifted down to where her breasts were pushed high within their corset cups, and his voice turned guttural. “I can think of several excellent reasons to risk it.”
The idea that he would make love to her here, in the outdoors, was so tempting . . . so outrageous! “But anyone could stumble upon us.”
“Yes. Anyone could.” Piercing her with a dark glance, he bent close. “Tell the truth—that excites you, doesn’t it? The idea that we could be caught any minute.”
She gulped. It did excite her. She really was a wanton.
Keeping his heated gaze locked with hers, he pushed down the cup of her corset to fill his hand with her breast. “That’s another reason you should marry me,” he said silkily. “Because how many men would make love to you in a forest, no matter the risk?”
Her breath quickened as he thumbed her nipple. Delicately. Seductively. “Mr. Ruston attempted . . . something similar, if you’ll recall. I—it didn’t work for him.”
“Yes, I remember your saying that you parried his advances quite well.” With his other hand, he began to drag up her petticoats. “But you’ve barely even tried to parry mine. So I suspect I’ll have more success.”
She was gathering breath to protest that arrogant statement when he took her mouth with his once more.
Twenty-Five
Jeremy reveled in Yvette’s eager response to his kiss. She was his again. He might be half-drunk from lack of sleep and reeling from his wildly swinging emotions, but he still had the presence of mind to seduce Yvette.
Thank God. Because right now the need to be inside her was eating him alive.
Merely seeing her expression when he’d suggested doing this here had been enough to spur him on. Curiosity had warred with propriety in her face, and, as always with his Juno, curiosity had won. That was one of her most entrancing qualities.
Even as he ravaged her mouth, he undid the buttons of his long frock coat and drew it open so it could better shield them. Then he pushed up the layers of her frothy undergarments to get to the sweet flesh at her core. But before he could plunder that, too, he felt her fumbling to unfasten his trousers.
He couldn’t resist teasing her. “I see I’ve quelled all your fears about making love in the outdoors.”
“Not all of them.” Her eyes sparkled up at him as she flicked open the buttons of his trousers, causing his prick to strain against the fabric. “I’m still not sure I want to be found in my altogether by anyone wandering the woods.”
“You won’t. If I lift your skirts and lower my trousers and drawers, my frock coat and your gown will protect your modesty.”
“Will they?” Her fingers froze on the still-fastened buttons of his drawers as she looked up at him. Her eyes shone the deep green of the forest above and around them. “Are you sure?
“Sure enough.” Covering her hand with his, he urged her to continue her unbuttoning, and when she did, his blood thundered in his ears. “Here, I’ll show you.”
He hoisted her legs so he could press in between them and tuck her knees against his waist on either side, inside his frock coat.
She blinked. “My, that is rather . . . intriguing.”
To say the least. He fought to control his arousal as she finished undoing his drawers. “Lock your heels behind my thighs.”
With color suffusing her cheeks, she did so. That brought her so tight against him that his prick practically jumped out of his open clothing, like a compass needle seeking north.
When she felt the impudent devil swelling against her, her eyes widened. “Good Lord, I had no idea that people did this in this fashion.”
He choked back a laugh. “People are rather creative when it comes to doing ‘this’ in any fashion. You’d be surprised.”
Working his finger into her thatch of curls, he stroked her delicate pearl, then gloried in her moans and sighs. He was so intent on inciting her to madness that he almost missed her halting whisper, “This doesn’t mean . . . that I’ll marry you . . . you know.”
Oh, he did know. Only too well. He rubbed the full length of his erection up and down against her soft, damp flesh. “It doesn’t mean that you won’t, either.”
Her expression was a mix of vulnerability and a heartbreaking yearning that stole the breath from his lungs and spiked his need to be inside her to painful heights. Breathing hard, he felt for the entrance to her quim and drove himself deep.
Exhaling on a sigh, she squirmed against him. “Ohh, Jeremy . . . that’s so very . . . oh . . .”
“Yes, it is.” With his prick firmly seated inside her, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. “You’re like hot velvet, my fierce Juno. My lovely wife-to-be.”
“Not your wife-to-be . . . yet . . .” she managed, though her eyes slid closed, and her face wore a look of such rapture that it made it impossible for him not to move.
“You will be.” Gripping her waist to anchor her against him, he began to thrust into her, first with easy plunges, then harder and deeper ones that dragged moans of pleasure up from her throat. And his, too, as she leapt to meet each stroke, her fingers digging into his waist.
With her head arched back he could see the pulse beat in her neck, and it fed his own frantic pulse. There was nothing lovelier than Yvette in the throes of passion. He would never tire of the sight.
Which was why
he meant to make sure he got to see it again and again and again, to have her in his bed . . . in his life.
She slammed hard against him. “Oh . . . heavens . . . you . . . you . . .”
“Marry me, sweetheart.” He brushed kisses over her chin, her lips, her cheeks, whatever he could reach. “Don’t say no.”
“Jeremy . . . please . . . more . . .”
The word inflamed him. He drove into her, reveling in how she clung to him, undulated against him. Reveling in the hot flesh that enveloped him and welcomed him and made him feel something beyond mere desire. “Say yes . . . to me. To us.”
Somehow he would persuade her with this, their joining. He would make it good for her. He would make it so she never wanted to let him go, so they were as tightly bound together as man and woman could be.
Because he knew that was what he wanted. Her and him together. “Marry me. God, just marry me . . . and I swear I’ll make you happy.” It was a promise he’d always been terrified to make. Yet somehow it seemed right with her. And he’d do anything, promise anything, to keep her.
Within reason. But it wasn’t reason that drove him to please her, to drive hard against her where he knew it would most arouse her. To kiss her and pet her and make her his. His, damn it.
“Ohh . . . like that,” she whispered. “That is . . . It feels so . . .”
“I need you.” The urge to come rose in him, inflaming him, making him pound into her, making him say things he shouldn’t, things that showed just how strong a hold she had on him. “I need you, Yvette . . . God, I need you . . .”
Her body clamped tight about his prick as she neared her climax. “Yes,” she whispered. “I need you, too. Yes . . . oh, Lord, yes . . . Jeremy . . . Jeremy . . .”
And as she gave the keening cry that heralded her release, he drove into her and came . . . hard, violently, with all the force of his roiling, raw emotions.
The contractions of her body milked him dry, turning him weak-kneed as a green lad with his first woman. God, that was incredible. She was incredible.
As they drifted down into normalcy, their bodies still straining against each other, she pressed her lips to his ear and murmured, “Yes, Jeremy. Yes.”
And he had his answer at last.
When they emerged from the woods sometime later, Yvette was relieved to see that no one else was about. She was certain she looked exactly like she felt: as if she’d just been thoroughly—and most pleasurably—seduced.
I need you.
His sweet words rang in her ears. That was all she’d ever wanted. For Jeremy to need her. If he couldn’t love her, she could live with at least being needed. It was enough for now.
“So we’re agreed?” Jeremy entwined his fingers with hers, then lifted her hand to press a kiss against her bare skin. “You’ll marry me?”
The tenderness of the gesture sent a delightful shiver echoing down her spine. “I suppose. Though I did give my answer under duress.”
“That explains why you screamed at the end.”
“Jeremy!” she chided in mock outrage. “You’re the most wicked man I know.”
“I’m the most wicked man I know.” He grinned. “And you like that about me. Admit it.”
“Sometimes.” She shot him a coy look. “Under certain circumstances.”
“The ones where you scream?” he teased.
She merely arched an eyebrow, eliciting a laugh from him.
“Wait up!” a voice hailed them.
Yvette froze. Edwin. Heavenly day. She tried to pull her hand from Jeremy’s but he wouldn’t allow it, gripping it tightly as if it were his own personal treasure.
The moment Edwin reached them, his gaze arrowed in on their joined hands. “So the offer has been accepted, I take it.”
Jeremy’s whole body seemed to tense, as if he still wasn’t entirely sure of her.
She squeezed his hand. “Yes. It has been accepted.”
Edwin broke into a rare smile and clapped Jeremy on the back. “It’s about damned time.” He walked with them back to the house, chattering about wedding plans in a manner most uncharacteristic of her cynical brother.
After that, everything moved at a dizzying pace. Edwin wanted to celebrate, and the household had to be informed. Her maid went into raptures over the prospect of a wedding, but when Damber was told, he seemed remarkably unsurprised.
Had he guessed what she and his master had been doing behind his back? If so, he thankfully kept it to himself, merely offering them his heartiest good wishes for their future.
For her, the most encouraging reaction to the whirlwind of congratulations and teasing and winking suggestions was Jeremy’s. He didn’t act like a man trapped into wedding the woman he’d deflowered. He looked happier than she’d ever seen him. Perhaps he did care as deeply for her as his words had implied. Perhaps a marriage between them really could work.
But she had no more time to dwell on it once Jeremy pointed out that she might as well go with them to London in the morning. As he put it, since a wedding had to be planned, it made more sense for her to decamp to the Blakeborough town house than to try to manage it from Stoke Towers.
He was right, which sent her into a flurry of preparations for travel. There was no time to waste! There was packing to be done and arrangements to be made with the staff and a million and one things that had to be handled before she could leave.
By the next morning, when Jeremy handed her into Edwin’s traveling carriage, she was exhausted. Fortunately, the coach was roomy and comfortable, and the trip to London wouldn’t be long, especially with both her brother and her fiancé in good moods.
Fiancé. A secret smile crossed her lips as she took in Jeremy’s finely tailored coat of oxblood wool with gold buttons and satin-trimmed lapels. She had a fiancé, and quite a handsome, well-dressed one at that.
As the coach lumbered down the drive, with Jeremy’s rig taking up the rear, driven by Damber, Edwin glanced at Jeremy. “So what’s in that enormous box in your curricle? I know it wasn’t the portrait, since that’s still sitting in my drawing room. Though I don’t suppose there’s any need for that to be finished now, eh, Yvette?” He winked at her, startling her. Edwin never winked.
Jeremy cast her a knowing glance. “It’s something I worked on when I wasn’t painting the portrait. I fear it’s nothing that would interest you, but your sister might find it intriguing.”
“I doubt it,” Edwin said bluntly. “She doesn’t like your darker pictures.” He caught himself. “No offense, old chap.”
Her fiancé merely laughed. “None taken.”
When Jeremy then winked at her, she had to suppress a snort. Good Lord, who knew that getting married would start a veritable onslaught of winking among all in her sphere?
“So what’s the subject of this other painting?” Edwin asked.
Oh, dear. Time to get him off that topic. “Heavens, Edwin, do allow the man to have some secrets.” She smoothed her skirts. “And speaking of secrets, now that I’m engaged to be married, I see no reason why I can’t go with you and Jeremy to meet Miss Moreton.”
That did the trick. Edwin scowled. “You’re not going.”
“But Edwin—”
“She lives in Spitalfields with her new . . . paramour,” he said. “It won’t be a fit place for a lady.”
“You’ll tell me everything that happens, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Jeremy said with a tender smile. “I’ll give you a complete report.”
“Are you going there straightaway, as soon as we arrive in London?”
“I must stop in at my cousin’s to speak to my mother and sister,” Jeremy said. “I promised Amanda I would do so first thing. So Blakeborough and I will leave you at your town house, and then go on to Zoe’s.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I should like to mee
t your mother. And it makes sense that I be there for the announcement of our engagement.”
Jeremy’s smile grew forced. “Of course.”
“Do you not want me to meet her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Edwin cut in. “You have to meet his mother. I’m sure he’s just nervous about it, eh, Keane?”
“Yes.”
His short response told her that whatever had transpired between him and his sister had not been happy. More than ever, Yvette was determined to find out the circumstances of the rift, though she was also apprehensive. What if his mother was a harridan? What if she didn’t like her son’s new betrothed?
Yvette stared out the window and tried not to worry. The little he’d said about his mother didn’t give her much to go on. Her imagination conjured up all sorts of horrible possibilities—that his mother didn’t fancy English ladies, that his family were against the aristocracy in general. By the time they reached the Keane town house, Yvette was a bundle of nerves.
So she was caught entirely off guard when a tiny, birdlike woman with graying auburn hair came tripping down the steps to greet them, wreathed in smiles.
“Jeremy!” she cried. “My dear boy!”
As he caught her up in a hug, a strange mix of affection and worry suffused his features. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mother.”
The sentiment sounded genuine, which perplexed Yvette even more. Was he at odds with his family or not?
At the moment, she would say “not,” since his eyes misted over as he squeezed his mother tight. It was a very sweet scene. Even Mr. Bonnaud, who’d come out to join them, wore a smile, and Miss Keane, who stood up the steps a short distance, was wiping her eyes.
It dawned on Yvette how long eight months must have felt like to Jeremy’s family. She couldn’t imagine being away from Edwin for so long. It had been hard enough to cut Samuel from her life.
Unlike Jeremy’s sister yesterday, his mother didn’t chide him when he finally released her. She just patted his cheek fondly, then pulled back to look over Yvette and Edwin, who’d instinctively drawn nearer each other.
The Art of Sinning Page 26