But she whispered back to him, “Yes. I’ll let you,” and it was over for him. He threw back his head, clenched his teeth against a telling shout of satisfaction, and came for her. Her small hand continued its stroking rhythm even through the pulsing of his cock beneath it, and he had the strangest sense she was trying to make it last as long as possible, to draw out his climax. Her gaze was riveted to his face, enthralled.
He shuddered through the last unbearable pulses, clasping her inquisitive little hand in his own, and as the tension faded he bent forward, burying his sigh of completion in the delicate skin beneath her ear. As his breathing calmed at last from its disordered measure, he murmured against her throat, “Have you ever been debauched in a carriage?”
And he was pleased to hear that her own voice was something less than steady as she replied, “You know I have not.”
He dropped a kiss to the corner of her lips, to that tiny tilted indentation that spoke of mischief and hinted of a temptation toward wickedness. “Would you like to be?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Poppy knew good and well that it was a mistake. She’d told herself—and him—that she would not welcome him into her bed, and she had meant it…at the time. But she could still feel the shape of him as if he’d seared her hand, her fingers unconsciously curving as if to cradle him in her palm.
She hadn’t expected to feel the heat of him through his breeches. She hadn’t expected his pleasure to look quite so much like torment. She hadn’t expected the rasp of his breaths to prickle the skin of her throat, to coast over her flesh and dip into her bodice to caress her breasts. She hadn’t expected the revealing dampness between her thighs, to have found his obvious desire for her so compelling, so captivating. She had believed him when he had said he’d desired her more than his Elaine.
He’d let her watch him in the throes of climax. He’d wanted her to watch him. He’d offered to let her watch him again, without the inconvenient barrier of clothing, and God help her, she wanted that so badly. Just once, she wanted to be selfish and take something for herself. Even if she knew it could only end badly. Just once, she wanted something all her own, to make a foolish mistake only for her own pleasure.
She hoped she didn’t look as disheveled as she felt. She knew he had conscientiously refrained from mussing her hair or wrinkling her gown, but she felt wicked. Still, it had been her responsibility to brave the ballroom once again. She hadn’t understood until he’d gestured to the dark spot staining the front of his grey breeches, and then she’d realized that what they’d done had consequences—namely the fact that if he set foot in the ballroom, everyone would know what had transpired between them on the terrace.
Her quiet entrance back into the ballroom drew little attention. Jilly was engrossed in conversation with Lady Ravenhurst, though she did send the occasional glance toward the dance floor, keeping an eye on the twins.
“Poppy, how lovely to see you! Oh, but where has Westwood gone off to?” Lady Ravenhurst asked as Poppy approached. “Don’t tell me he’s slipped off to the card room.”
“N-no, he’s—he’s having the carriage brought around.” Somehow Poppy managed to stifle her embarrassment. Turning to Jilly, she said, “I hate to ask, but would you mind terribly keeping an eye on the girls for the rest of the evening? We’ll send the carriage back for them.”
“Of course,” Jilly said easily. “They’ve been perfectly behaved thus far.”
Lady Ravenhurst’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “Go,” she said. “Between the two of us—four, if Rushton and Robert ever return from the card room—we’ll see that the girls come to no harm.”
“Thank you,” Poppy managed, with the uncomfortable notion that Lady Ravenhurst knew exactly why they had chosen to leave the ball so early.
“Go on, then,” Lady Ravenhurst urged again, and as Poppy turned to leave, she heard Lady Ravenhurst murmur to Jilly in an amused little voice, “Newlyweds.”
∞∞∞
The Westwood carriage was waiting in the drive as Poppy descended the steps, and the door hung open for her. The interior was dim, the curtains drawn over the windows, but from the shadows she saw a hint of movement, the suggestion of someone within. The coachman doffed his cap to her as she approached, but did not descend from his seat to help her in.
Because her husband was already extending his hand to her to help her clamber into the coach. As her feet alighted on the step, he gave a strong tug and she sailed across the empty space between them into his arms. His mouth descended upon hers even as he fumbled for the door, slamming it closed, and then he pounded his fist against the roof of the carriage. The carriage lurched as the horses began to move, and Poppy clutched at David as she was nearly unbalanced. His hand pressed against her back, steadying her until she gripped his shoulders. Then his hands were sliding beneath her legs, arranging her as he wanted her, splayed across his lap, the delicate silk of her skirt thrust carelessly aside. Catching her hips in his hands, he bore her down onto him, and she felt the hard ridge of his arousal through his trousers, the friction pure and perfect, sending a rush of pleasure jolting through veins.
Was this what it meant to be debauched in a carriage? Would he free the fall of his breeches and take her here and now? A delicious surge of anticipation warred with trepidation. It had taken only minutes to arrive at the Throckmorton residence by carriage…
She broke away from the kiss with a gasp. “How long—”
He seemed to instinctively know what she had intended to ask. “I told the coachman to return us home in twenty minutes.” He had surrendered her lips without a whisper of protest, his lightly-stubbled jaw abrading her skin as he drew his lips down her throat. One of his hands released her hip. A moment later there was a curious sound, as of something pinging off the floor of the carriage, and then her hair tumbled down from its elegant coif, spilling about her shoulders, the ribbon that had been threaded through her braid slithering down her neck to float to the floor. He’d plucked the pins from her hair, she realized, all so that he could coil it around his fingers, grasp a handful of it and gently tug it to angle her neck where he wanted it—to lay the point of his tongue against her fluttering pulse and taste her skin.
The carriage hit a rut in the road, and he smothered a groan against her as the momentum propelled her down against him. His hand clamped to her hip, he thrust himself against her until a moan slipped from her tight throat. The sound seemed to galvanize him, and with effort he eased the fierce pressure of his hands on her hip, in her hair.
“Distracting me again,” he rasped against her throat. “Even without words, you distract me.”
“W-what?” The words didn’t make sense. “What have I done?”
“You exist. That’s enough.” He slid his hand from her hair, flicked back the curtain a sliver to peer out into the night, gauging their location. “Fifteen minutes from home, I’d guess,” he said. “It’s not much. But it’ll do.” He let the curtain fall, then surged up beneath her, tipping her off of his lap.
She fell across the seat in an awkward sprawl. Her skirts hit her face and she floundered beneath them, batting at the fabric in an effort to reorient herself. Her hair was a wild mess, several strands clinging to her lips. She spluttered, scraping them away.
His arms hooked beneath her thighs, lifting her bottom from the seat. At first she thought he had meant to help her, to assist her in righting her skirts and aid her in regaining her seat—but he tugged her toward him, wedging her between the wall of the carriage and him, arranging her legs until she felt the rasp of his coat beneath her knee—then the heat of his breath between her thighs. Then there was the pressure of his thumbs coasting over fragile skin, opening her.
She froze. Oh, God. Could he see her, there? Surely he couldn’t. The darkness pressed in around her, oppressive. “David,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Debauching you,” he said, and she could hear the sly grin in his voice and tensed. Her hand
s scrabbled along the wall of the carriage, searching for purchase, anything she could cling to, any leverage she could—
His tongue flicked across her sensitive skin, and every bit of breath in her lungs whooshed out as if she’d been kicked in the solar plexus. She gasped, “Oh—oh, no. I didn’t mean—you can’t—”
But he did. She felt the warm huff of his chuckle against her skin, felt the kiss he pressed to the inner thigh of her right leg, which hung over his shoulder. She was still wedged against the wall, with nothing to reach for, no leverage to gain. And his tongue touched her again, a long, lingering stroke that she thought should have been mortifying, but wasn’t. An incandescent burst of pleasure sparked low in her belly, and she slumped back against the seat, her chest heaving.
“There,” he murmured against her flesh, as if this, too, had been a battle to be won. Another soft kiss, there, against the joint of her hip and thigh, too close to where his tongue had touched her, and her legs trembled, her toes tingled, curling in her slippers.
His hands still cupped her bottom, lifting her hips, and she could feel the imprint of each one of his fingers splayed against her. A wisp of thin silk—a layer of her skirt—drifted down over her face, and she couldn’t even bestir herself to shove it away. Her breath fluttered the fabric, her arms curled lax above her head.
His tongue touched her again, and she gave a helpless little screech, torn between retreating and arching into the electric caress. “Oh, God,” she whispered, her throat dry. “Oh, God.” Struggling to gather her free-floating thoughts, she pressed her shaking hands over her mouth and drew in a fierce breath through her nose.
And then she couldn’t think at all. There was only the searing path of his tongue, the scrape of his stubble against her tender flesh, the teasing nip of his teeth, shearing away every bit of coherent thought from her mind until nothing at all was left of the woman she had been only minutes ago.
He released her left thigh, and his fingers teased past delicate tissues, slipping inside her body to thrust inside her in a throbbing rhythm that attacked the last vestiges of her restraint, moving in luscious counterpoint to his tongue, which caressed an aching little bead of sensation buried in the soft curls above.
She heard her own whimpers, realized that at some point her hands had slipped away from her mouth and to his head between her thighs, stroking and petting his hair in wordless praise.
“Come,” he commanded, his voice rough and dark. “Come.” Inside her, his fingers curled in a come-hither gesture. And she did. Her back arched, and she clenched around his fingers, and a queer cry echoed around them—hers. For a blissful moment everything in her head went quiet and dark, and there was only the decadent pulse of ecstasy beating through her blood, tingling through her body.
Her lungs inflated with what felt like the first breath she’d drawn in eons, cool and sweet. The clatter of the carriage wheels on cobblestones returned, burning in her ears. Another breath and then she was aware that he’d crowded the both of them lengthwise onto the seat, and he was lying half over her, his hands bracketing her head to hold her still for the kisses her pressed into her disheveled hair, across her burning cheeks. Nonsensical, disjointed words of praise rumbled in his throat.
She pressed her head against his shoulder, and each breath she drew was full of him. The throbbing between her thighs had eased into a sweet ache, and it was so easy to simply turn her face into his throat and enjoy the blissful lassitude that had swept over her. For once to feel instead of think.
∞∞∞
They were both drowning in flyaway flounces of yellow silk and petticoats, and David had had to battle what seemed like acres of the stuff to find Poppy beneath them, but it had been worth the effort to feel the exquisite shivers that trembled through her, to feel the soft, shuddering breaths that beat against his throat. Her arms were folded between them, and her hair was a cloud of silk around the both of them, slipping through his fingers like water.
The carriage was slowing. He wanted to pound his fist against the roof and order the coachman into taking another turn about Mayfair, to spend another twenty minutes in dark and the silence, enjoying the satin of her skin beneath his fingers, the warmth of her body against his.
But more than that he wanted her in a bed, to stretch her across cool, crisp linen, and slowly strip her out of her delectable gown. There wasn’t a prayer of putting her to rights again before the coachman opened the door, but that was all right. There was no one to see but their staff.
He forced himself to release her, shoving himself upright once more, and then fishing beneath the layers of silk that had swallowed her once again to draw her up as well, gratified by the lethargy that turned her limbs soft and pliant and made her sway toward him as if to steady herself.
“My pins.” Her voice was blurred, unstable, slightly drunken—like she’d imbibed too much champagne.
He slid his arm around her shoulders, bussing a kiss to her temple. “They’re scattered. No sense in worrying about them now.” A brush of his lips across her cheek; he couldn’t seem to restrain the impulse to touch her, kiss her.
“My hair is a mess.”
He smothered a chuckle against her throat, unable to resist the temptation to sip the glow from her skin, see if she tasted as warm as she felt. She was a mess. Her gown was a tangle of layers, wrinkled to hell and back again. Her sleeves were slipping down her arms. She looked like she’d been tumbled vigorously. In the tiny slices of light peeping through the curtains, he could see shades of her face, wonder bordered by encroaching panic.
“No one will remark upon it,” he assured her.
A moment later the door opened, and light spilled inside. Poppy blinked, scuttling away from it as if it would spill across her sins and reveal them before the world.
David jumped out of the carriage, in as good a mood as he could ever recall. With a tilt of his head, he sent the coachman scurrying back toward the horses, and extended his hand to Poppy. She reached for it almost guiltily, smoothing in vain at her skirts with her free hand. She’d be humiliated to be seen in such a state.
As she laid her feet upon the step and stood, he reached forward, planted his shoulder in her middle, and hefted her upside down over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
With a squawk of indignation, she flailed her little fists, striking at his back. “Put me down, you oaf!”
Instead he turned, a spring in his step as he headed up the steps and to the front door. Though Mrs. Sedgwick blinked in surprise to see him striding toward her, his arm banded about his wife’s knees to secure her against him, she nonetheless opened the door wide enough to admit them.
“Good evening, Mrs. Sedgwick,” he said, nodding as they passed the woman. Poppy froze, her fists mid-strike, and at last slumped with a groan of mortification. She bounced on his shoulder as he jogged up the stairs.
“I can assure you that no one will be talking about what we were doing in the carriage now,” he said, and she jabbed him in the sides with her thumbs, a feral-sounding growl emitting from her mouth.
Reaching her room at last, he wrenched open the door, strode to the bed, and unceremoniously tossed her down onto it. Skirts flying, hair dripping over her face, she bounced once, then scraped her hair from her face and seized a pillow, lobbing it at him.
“You—you—” Another pillow flew at him, catching him in the shoulder.
“Seducer of women?” he offered, endeavoring to be helpful.
She made a strangled sound, like a sneeze that had backed up into her throat. And another. A third pillow had dangled from her fingers, but it slipped free of them and fell back onto the counterpane. Her shoulders shaking, she cast her head back and laughed. Uproariously, delightedly. Full-throated, melodious peals of sound. Golden and glorious, and all the more so because he couldn’t recall the last time—any time—he had heard her make such a joyful noise.
Desperately he wanted to make that bright sound his own, to take it inside him a
nd keep it and hold it and let it warm him from the inside out, bring light to his life. The whole world would be the brighter for her laughter. Her mouth might be a little too wide to be conventionally attractive, but he’d never seen anything half so lovely in his life as Poppy’s scintillating smile, half-hidden beneath her tousled hair.
His heart, that treacherous, obstinate organ, lurched in his chest and stuttered through a few beats. My God, he thought, as his knees buckled beneath the weight of this newfound knowledge, she truly is beautiful.
He landed heavily upon the side of the bed, trapping half her skirt beneath him, and reached for her, for his beautiful, laughing, curious wife—delightful and captivating and utterly his.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She could have said no. Perhaps she should have done, even. And she could have, if only she had had the breath to do so, if only his hands shoving her sleeves off her shoulders hadn’t shorn every rational thought from her mind, if only his kiss hadn’t starved the air from her lungs.
But she didn’t say no, and she didn’t fuss as his hands worked the laces of her gown, and she even tore at his cravat, plucked free the buttons of his waistcoat, and shoved his evening coat off of his shoulders. She was still laughing as he kissed her, and it was only that the sheer ridiculousness of the situation kept popping into her head.
“I wish,” she began, as he pried himself away from her mouth long enough to concentrate on peeling away her bodice, “that I had seen Mrs. Sedgwick’s face.”
He gave a burst of laughter himself, his shoulders shaking with mirth. “You didn’t?”
She shook her head, wrestling with the tight sleeves of his coat. “No, my hair was over my head. I couldn’t see a thing.” She gave another ripple of laughter. “Was she very shocked?”
His Reluctant Lady Page 21