Well, he could think of one, but he was determined to be a gentleman about it. This moment was about her, not him, after all.
But before he quite registered what she was about, she was deftly working the buttons at the fall of his breeches and jerking the tight nankeen down his thighs until all the hidden parts of them were flesh to flesh. Thank hell. When she was done and had wrapped her long legs around his hips, he was the one to shudder helplessly, too lost to even attempt to strip the breeches the rest of the way off his legs.
He was so hard he ached, dragging his turgid length through her petal-soft, wet heat for relief, his breath hitching at the sensation. She was ready from what he’d done to her before, her undulating body urging him on. He braced a trembling hand against the headboard and groaned, helpless, at the mercy of instinct, and eased inside of her, slowing down the motion of their bodies to savor every inch of the joining.
She sighed, impatient, took him farther in of her own accord, nearly pushing all the breath from his lungs in the process. He saw lights in the edges of his vision, could barely hold on, sweaty palm slipping against the headboard, his other hand clutching at her shoulder for purchase.
“I will not break,” she said against his ear, all moist, breathy heat, and he nearly came right then as a shiver raced down his spine.
“But I might,” he returned with a slight gasp, digging both hands into the mattress on either side of her head and thrusting his hips against hers until she gasped as well.
She coaxed him faster, harder, with her lips and heels and fingertips, until he finally let go of his self-imposed reins (gentleman be damned) and gave her what she wanted, even though he knew he couldn’t last long. It was too much, and he was not prepared for how good it felt to be buried deep inside a woman. His woman.
He reached beneath her legs, grasped the supple skin of her buttocks and canted her hips up so that he could go as deep as he could, drove into her until there seemed no clear distinction between their bodies. Finally a white-hot heat rose from the center of his body and washed through his veins all the way down to the tips of his fingers and toes in the most intense climax of his life. It was a sensation he’d never come close to achieving over the years, when he’d had nothing but his own hand for relief. He didn’t think he’d ever feel so intensely again as he poured himself into her, even as he hoped he was wrong.
He was certainly willing to try and duplicate the feeling. Just as soon as he didn’t feel as if he were about to fall into a hundred-year sleep.
He slumped against her, winded and unable to stop the small tremors that passed through his shattered body. Her hands rubbed soothing circles against his back, and her lips placed gentle, damp kisses against his forehead.
He clutched her close and shut his eyes. “Perfect,” he murmured. “So perfect.”
Her hands stilled against his back at his words, but he barely noticed as he drifted off into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
In Which the Author Finally Concludes the Tedious Emotional Melodrama with the Help of Our Silver-Tongued Hero
IT WASN’T A hundred years, not even a hundred minutes, when Katherine was jolted out of her light, worried slumber by Sebastian’s long-fingered hand, moving gently across her waist in his sleep. The moon had shifted away from the bed, the fire had burned low, and he had entwined himself around her as if afraid she would escape him in the night, the heat radiating from his body keeping her warm.
Not wanting to wake him, she slowly extricated herself from the tangle of arms and legs, maneuvering him until he was on his back, one arm flung across the mattress. She propped herself on her elbows and took in the sight of his naked, slumbering form hungrily. It was so erotic that for a moment she was paralyzed with a fresh longing to touch. To relive the last few blissful hours of her life. But she couldn’t linger. She would never regret giving herself to him, but now that the moment was over, her courage was once again faltering.
She shivered as she left the bed and searched the floor for her chemise. She found it and pulled it over her head, running her hands up and down her arms to ward off the gooseflesh. The room was unpleasantly cold outside of his embrace, now that the fire had died. Another reason to retreat as quickly as she could to Bruton Street, before she was tempted to return to his arms. It was the only place she truly longed to be, but she was just not ready to face him.
The night had allayed most of her fear of rejection, but not all. Johann and her father had hurt her too deeply, and she had spent too many years building up her defenses against men, to completely trust Sebastian’s feelings—or her own. Despite his protestations of love, there was still a chance he would hate her once she confessed her past to him, considering his own complicated history with his mother, and she just couldn’t bear to find that out. Not tonight. She wanted to go home. She wanted to savor the night—at least in her memory—for a little bit longer before reality set in. Before she told him the truth.
As she bent over in search of a stocking, something warm and solid caressed her lower back. His fingertips. She jolted, practically jumped away from him, before turning. Her heart sank at the sight of him watching her with heavy-lidded eyes and a gentle smile, all rosy cheeks and rumpled curls and long, sleek, pale limbs sprawled across the sheets.
Another pang of longing shook her, but it was nothing compared to her rising nerves. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes as she clutched the stocking to her breast, trying to shield herself from his scrutiny, from the temptation of his warm body.
He sat up and tried to reach for her again, his brow furrowed with confusion at her response. She jerked farther away from him, her heart beginning to race with panic, and retrieved her other stocking. She sat down in a chair near the banked fire and began to tug them on with clumsy impatience.
“What are you doing, Katie?” he asked, though it was glaringly obvious.
She finished yanking on her stockings. “I’m leaving,” she murmured.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said softly.
She shook her head and avoided his gaze as she walked out of the bedroom and into the shadowy parlor, praying that he’d just let her go. She found her gown discarded near the pianoforte and tugged it over her head.
She nearly gasped when she turned around and saw him watching her from the doorway to the bedroom, his breeches hanging low and half-undone on his hips, his brow furrowed even more.
He was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. But she made herself face him this time, tried to memorize every perfect, lean detail of his body beneath the faded bruises and cuts. She might never have another chance.
“You can’t be serious, Katie,” he said. “Don’t leave.”
Her heart jolted at the nickname, her stomach churning with a mixture of fear and shame and frustration, and she lashed out at him despite herself. “Don’t call me that.”
He looked stunned by her rebuke, his eyes wide. “Why would you come here, let me make love to you, then leave? Try to sneak away?”
Her heart was beating so fast now she thought it might explode. She couldn’t find any words to answer him, she was so overcome by her panic.
Whatever he read on her face could not have been good, because his expression fell. The color left his cheeks and all of the light seemed to drain out of those lovely sapphire eyes. “Is it because of what I told you about my mother? Are you ashamed of me? Disgusted? Am I good enough to bed but not enough to acknowledge in the light of day?”
She dropped her hands from the laces of her bodice and willed her body to cooperate with her, her mouth to work, despite her panic. She could not let him believe something so absolutely ludicrous.
“You have misunderstood me entirely on that account. The only disgust I feel is for my late husband, for casting your mother away so callously. And for our society for bringing her to such a horrible end. Never you, Sebastian. O
r your mother. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of,” she finished vehemently.
He looked more confused than ever. “But then why are you doing this? After what has happened tonight, am I so mistaken to think—to hope—you could feel something for me?”
She looked up at him, at his colorless cheeks, wide eyes, and creased brow. He looked . . .
He looked miserable. His anguish was enough to finally jolt her out of the worst of her panic. She could not bear to continue to distress him because of her selfish need to run away, no matter how terrified she was. He deserved better from her.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to be as brave as he’d always been. “No,” she said in a small voice. “You were not mistaken. And you were not mistaken the other day.”
His expression cleared a little, and a spark of what looked like hope lit his eyes. He approached her cautiously, as he would a feral animal, afraid she would bolt. She could not blame him, for half of her wanted to.
“It is not that I do not . . .” she began, before cutting herself off and clenching her hands in her silver skirts, bracing herself, searching for the right words. “It is not that I did not want to accept your tulips that day, Sebastian. Or the book of duets. Your gifts were quite the loveliest, sweetest things I have ever received,” she said steadily enough, though judging from her wet cheeks, she’d begun to cry at some point during her speech.
He started toward her, looking quite alarmed by the tears, but stopped short when she turned her head away from him and held up her hand to keep him at bay. She couldn’t bear it if he touched her now. She’d not be able to bring herself to finish what she’d started if he did.
“If they are so lovely and sweet,” he said slowly, his voice deep and troubled, “then why are you crying?”
She wiped at her tears rather brutally and sniffed. “Because I do not deserve them!” she said, frustrated at herself for becoming a waterpot, for being so petrified. “I do not deserve you. I should have never come here tonight, but I was so angry at myself and selfish and tired.”
“I am cast quite to sea, Katie,” he said gently, after a long, uncomfortable pause.
She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to recompose herself, dreading what was to come. She decided to get it out in one fell swoop before her courage abandoned her completely. “He was there tonight. Johann Klemmer,” she blurted. “He was my music teacher, and when I was fifteen, he seduced me. I thought he loved me, but he was only ever interested in the money, of course. My father paid him off when the affair was discovered, and he went away quite happily, a rich man. I certainly never thought to see him again.”
She watched as Sebastian stood staring at her for what seemed like a millennium, as if trying to make sense of her sudden outburst, before he finally made his way over to the piano stool, righted it, and sat down a bit unsteadily.
She would not meet his eyes as she continued. She couldn’t. “You were always so contemptuous of my marriage to your uncle. But it was safe. After . . . Johann, I became pregnant, but there were complications, and I . . . lost the baby. My father couldn’t even bear to look at me when he discovered the truth. Still can’t. He no longer considered me his daughter, really, just a burden he wished to unload. I had disgraced my whole family, for what gentleman wants a wife who is soiled goods? His only consolation was that I had miscarried, and that I’d never conceive again, according to the doctor who tended me.”
“My God, Katie,” Sebastian breathed.
She shrugged, attempting indifference but failing miserably, one loose sleeve falling forlornly down her shoulder. She didn’t bother to push it up. She was too numb to care. She continued. “Somehow my father was made aware of the marquess’s . . . infirmity. My virtue would never be questioned by a man who could not have a wedding night. So I married him, and I am not sorry for it, even though I know how much you hated him. It was better than remaining under my father’s roof.”
He startled her when he abruptly stood, crossed the distance separating them, and took her hand. His was warm and strong and consoling, and the feel of it against her cold, numb flesh made her ache all over with longing and grief. It was exactly what she’d wanted to do after he had shared his own wretched past with her, but she had, in her selfishness and fear, withheld even that small comfort from him. It was just further proof how little she deserved him.
She tried to tug her hand away—how could she accept such a kindness when she had been so cruel to him?—but he wouldn’t let her.
“You said I was perfect, you keep saying it, but I’m not perfect, Sebastian,” she cried. “I’m not the paragon you take me for. I make mistakes. I have made mistakes. And after everything you have been through with your mother, you deserve better than a fraud like me. Why should you want me when you can find someone better? Someone as truly untainted as you thought I was?”
He only gripped her hand more firmly and shook his head, his expression as stubborn and as determined as she’d ever seen it and so kind. “You just said I shouldn’t be ashamed of my past. Why on earth are you ashamed of your own? You were fifteen, Katie. A child. I should like to find that devil and call him out for what he did to you.”
She laughed humorlessly through her tears. “Why does that not surprise me? But I was hardly a child. I knew what I was doing.”
He looked incredulous at that. “I remember myself at fifteen . . . at seventeen, even, when I blithely entered that brothel. I thought I knew what I was doing then too. But I didn’t. I was so young, Katie, and so were you. Too young.”
God, he was right. So right. To hear him speak those words made something unravel in her chest. Something that she’d not even realized had been tangled inside of her all these years. A hard, unforgiving ball of self-loathing. She had allowed Johann, her father, even her own mind, to convince her that she was worthless, tainted forever by the choice that she had made. But she’d only been fifteen, and so sheltered from the world she’d never even left her father’s estate. What had she known of choice then? Of men? Johann, more than a decade her senior, had preyed upon her naïveté for money. All of the shame was his, not hers.
“You hated me once, for my imagined philandering,” Sebastian continued, taking her other hand. “But now you think that I am going to reject you because you were not a virgin. Did it seem like I cared? Or even noticed? Do you think I am so narrow-minded?”
She gave a helpless shrug, her heart beginning to race again, but not with panic. With hope. “I was scared, Sebastian. I am scared.”
“You fear I am going to stop loving you because of what happened to you when you were fifteen,” he said flatly, “so you push me away. But it is a ridiculous fear, my dear. I assure you my feelings for you are unchanged.”
“Stop being so understanding and reasonable, Sebastian,” she said through more tears and a rather wobbly smile.
“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all. He didn’t look sorry either, with that crooked grin on his face.
There was a pause, then she felt his long, gentle fingers comb through her hair. She shivered at his touch, hope rising ever faster inside of her, tentative but so warm, so welcome. She felt as if she were a hundred pounds lighter, the world a thousand times brighter. God, she’d been such a fool!
“I don’t know how to do this, Sebastian,” she said at last, mimicking his words from the other day.
“How to do what?” he asked carefully.
“How to be worthy of you. How to love you properly,” she insisted.
He snorted. “All this talk of worthiness. What tripe. I liked it better when you thought I was a rake. It is my worthiness that I doubt. Never yours. Just because I am . . . well, was a virgin doesn’t mean I’ve been a saint. The truth is I have led as reckless and dissolute a life as you can imagine, my dear, one I am sure you would not approve of,” he insisted. “Shall I tell you another truth?�
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“Could I stop you?” she asked with a pathetic little sniffle.
“I have loved you from the first moment I heard you play that damned Waldstein. I knew you were the one for me by the time you reached the coda.”
“You gave me the cut direct that day, as I recall,” she said dryly, though inwardly her heart was singing.
“I’d just discovered you were my uncle’s wife. I did not handle the revelation well,” he said with a bit of a pout, his eyes regaining their twinkle.
She snorted in a very unladylike manner, and he grinned down at her, cradling her face in his hands.
“You’re perfect,” he insisted.
That word. She blanched and tried to pull away from him but didn’t get very far before he caught her around the waist and held her close.
“I told you I am not perfect,” she protested.
“And I say you are,” he said firmly. “Perfect for me, Katie. I was seduced by your Beethoven and inveigled by your sharp tongue, but it is your soul I fell in love with.”
Well.
She stared up at his face, so serious, so beautiful, and wondered how in the world she’d ever thought him an irredeemable, heartless rogue. He was the most romantic, most lovely, sensitive, and forgiving man she’d ever met. A man who’d rather the world think him a cad in order to protect his mother’s memory. A man who’d waited an impossible thirty-three years to give his virginity to the woman he loved. A man who rescued pigs from castles and mongrel dogs from the gutter. A man who played the pianoforte like an angel and tried to woo her with duets and the language of flowers.
A man unafraid to make a fool of himself over her, judging by his outrageous behavior at the ball.
How could she have doubted him? How could she ever deserve him?
Virtuous Scoundrel (The Regency Romp Trilogy Book 2) Page 21