by Amy Sandas
While she remained silent, Avenell felt an unusual desire to provide some sort of explanation. Not all of the truth, perhaps, but something to help her understand that the denial was not a personal rejection.
“I have never kept a mistress,” he began, carefully easing into what he needed to say.
“I recall you telling me as much,” she replied. “And of course, you know I have never been one before.”
Her tone was gentle, and her features were set in a perfect expression of serenity, but he could have sworn he detected a note of dry humor in her tone. Her composure despite the subject matter astounded him. She was so unlike the typical modest young lady.
Something in the steadiness of her gaze urged him to glance away, to look anywhere but at her. He resisted the temptation and began again. “I never entered into such an arrangement because I knew there would be an expectation of certain liberties that I cannot allow.”
There was a long pause, during which the point of pressure in his chest spread outward. Then she tilted her head in a subtle gesture.
“What sort of liberties?” she asked softly.
Her voice had changed. It was difficult to identify exactly what it was, but it warmed him. Made him feel a burst of impatience, a wave of deeper desire. He took a moment before he replied.
“You will understand more fully soon enough. But I promise, I will not allow my limitations to lessen the pleasure you experience during our association.”
A blush pinked her cheeks. But she did not look away.
“And what of your pleasure, my lord?” Her voice was soft and low. Smoky, like her eyes.
It weaved through Avenell’s senses and hit him hard in the gut. Heat scored through his insides on a direct path to his loins. He had suspected from the start that her gentle manner had lured him so strongly. But the unexpected boldness in her query had an intense effect on him.
His arousal roughened his tone as he answered, “My pleasure is assured. Do not doubt that.”
The pink in her cheeks spread down across her chest and the upper swells of her breasts, but still she held his gaze. He wondered what she might be thinking. Her stillness was disconcerting when he sensed so much going on inside her.
After a few moments, her lashes swept low as she looked down at the glass of champagne held lightly in her hands.
Avenell set his own glass on the mantel over the fireplace and turned to face her more fully. It was time to begin.
“Come here, Lily.”
* * *
A waterfall of tingling sensations flowed through Lily at his quiet command. It was a similar directive to the one he had given that first night in his bedroom.
This time he used her name. Hearing it in his deep voice made it sound erotic somehow, and sparks ignited deep inside her. From the moment they had entered this room together, she had felt his growing tension, and she wondered again if he might be just as uncertain as she was.
No. It wasn’t possible. Her uncertainty filled her nearly to overflowing. Yet it did not stop her from following his low-spoken command. In fact, it was her uncertainty that urged her to proceed. She wanted to know what came next.
She set her slim-stemmed glass on the table beside the gloves she had taken off when she first sat down. Smoothing her hands down the front of her gown, she rose slowly to her feet then walked toward him. His body remained rigid, and his brows were heavy over his gaze as she approached. When she came within arm’s reach, she stopped.
His eyes flashed with dark fire. “Before we begin, I must ask you to promise to do exactly as I say. I intend to go about things differently than you may expect, but I assure you everything has a purpose.”
Something twisted low in her belly. It was an unusual sensation and not unpleasant.
“Can you promise me?”
She would likely promise anything just then. “Yes.”
He said nothing in response, not even to acknowledge her acquiescence. He just stared at her with his fathomless eyes.
She sensed these silent moments were important to him. In truth, she appreciated them as well. They allowed her to sink more deeply into herself, to fully acknowledge her new reality. Soon she would understand more of the feelings that ran through her every time she was with the earl—she would actually experience the things she had read about—and it thrilled her from head to toe.
Goodness, she had wickedness in her. She had suspected its existence for some time but had not fully recognized it until she had first encountered this man. In the years since her mother’s death, she had learned to suppress so many contrary aspects of her nature. This reckless longing may be just another element she had always possessed.
“Tell me what you are thinking when you look at me like that.”
There was iron and ice in his voice. Not even a hint of tenderness. For some reason, his harsh manner did not bother her. She sensed something beautiful and elusive existed behind his daunting facade. The possibility of discovering what it was filled her with delicate anticipation.
She looked into his eyes and answered truthfully. “I am thinking about how you make me feel.”
The muscles along his jaw tensed, and his eyelids lowered just the barest fraction. He brought his hands around to clasp them behind his back.
To keep from reaching for her?
“How do I make you feel?”
Her skin tingled in reaction to the raw note in his voice. Lily took a moment as she thought about how to put it into words. It was a difficult thing to explain, and she wanted it to come out right.
“I feel…” she began, then hesitated. Her breath caught in her chest, and she had to force it out on a heavy sigh. “I feel strong and weak at the same time. When you look at me, I feel exposed, as if you can see my most private thoughts. And though it frightens me—you frighten me—it is such an exquisite sensation that I do not want it to end. Because I want you to know me, to see the deepest parts of me.”
At first he did not respond beyond a fierce clenching of his teeth, and Lily wondered if he wanted to hear something else. Had she revealed too much of her inexperience? Should she have said something more provocative, more sophisticated?
“Do you desire me?” he asked finally.
The molten heat running through his words curled around her, heating her breath, her skin, her blood. She looked into his eyes and felt a swirling deep within. It tingled like white fire and spread to the most intimate places in her body.
“I believe so,” she replied in a whisper.
His answer was a curt demand. “Show me.”
“How?”
He stepped toward her until he stood close enough that she would have had to tip her head back to look into his eyes. Instead, she focused her attention on the full curve of his lower lip as he spoke.
“I am going to touch you, Lily, but I require that you remain completely still while I do so. You must not reach for me or touch me in return. You will keep your hands at your sides. Do you understand?”
She managed another nod.
She could smell his scent—something subtle, rich, and male—and she could practically feel the expectation humming through his taut body. Or was it her body that trembled so acutely? She couldn’t be sure and didn’t care.
“I want you to show me your desire in your responses.” His voice lowered as he continued. His words felt like a caress flowing through Lily’s awareness. “I want to see it in the way your body reacts to my touch, hear it in the way your breath changes, and know it in the darkening of your eyes. If you find something I do to be unpleasant or distasteful, I expect you to tell me.” Lily shook her head, intending to deny that possibility, but he spoke first. “I insist upon your complete honesty. In everything.”
She looked up to meet his harsh stare. There was only a brief hesitation as she noted the intense set of his featur
es, the forbidding scowl and tense jaw, before she replied, “Yes, my lord.”
The strength of his gaze held her captive as he said, “I am going to touch you now.”
Lily’s lips parted. Anticipation made her pulse flutter and her stomach tighten.
Pressing his lips into a firm line, he breathed in slowly through his nose. The muscles in his jaw tensed as he lifted his hand to drift the backs of two fingers along the side of her throat. Starting just below her ear, his barely there caress smoothed down her neck then out to where the edge of her gown caught over the crest of her shoulder. Tingling gooseflesh rose up in the wake of his gentle touch even as a fire stirred deep in Lily’s center.
He released his breath in a low rush of air before he breathed in deeply again.
Turning his hand, he traced the upper edge of her bodice with the lightest brush of his fingertips. Across her chest, over the tops of her breasts, sending tiny frissons of sensation toward her nipples.
He slowly stepped around her and continued to trace the edge of her gown around to her back.
Without him standing in her line of sight, his image serving as an anchor, she felt his touch more acutely. The whisper of his fingertips across her upper back incited more gooseflesh and an awakening of the nerves along her spine.
His fingers began to work on the buttons running down the back of her gown. Did he intend to strip her down right there in the middle of the sitting room? She brought a hand up to press to the front of her bodice as she turned her head, trying to look over her shoulder toward the darkened bedroom.
“Shouldn’t we—”
He interrupted. “I have reasons for the things I do. You must trust me,” he added.
“Trust is not a thing to be commanded, my lord,” Lily replied gently, bringing her gaze forward again.
“But it is necessary if we are to proceed. I need for you to remain still.”
She heard the strain in his voice and noticed he hadn’t moved his fingers since she had spoken. She realized then how badly she wanted him to continue.
She lowered her hand back to her side.
Her gown quickly loosened around her body. Staying behind her, the earl eased his hands beneath her gown, gliding them over her shoulders until the garment slid down her arms to catch briefly at her hips. A gentle tug had it falling the rest of the way to the floor.
Lily stood still as he had directed, though sensations swirled more insistently through her as he loosened the laces of her short stays. Tossing the stiff undergarment aside, he then untied her petticoat, allowing it to pool at her feet as well.
There was a moment of silence while Lily held her breath.
She stood in nothing but her whisper-thin shift, stockings, and shoes. The earl did not touch her for several long seconds, though she could hear the even sound of his breath behind her.
Her skin tingled with a contradictory mixture of chills and heat. Her muscles were tense as she waited for him to touch her. Her nerves sparked when she finally sensed him move. Slowly, he came around to stand before her again.
She risked a tentative glance at his face.
His features were as hard as granite. His lips were pressed firmly together, and he had that dark, angry look in his eyes.
Her heart jolted. She was starting to understand what caused such a look.
“Would you remove your shoes and stockings?”
Lily tipped her head to the side, a smile rising unexpectedly to her lips. “You are asking, my lord?”
She was not sure what had inspired her to tease him. An attempt at lightening his tension, perhaps, or her own.
His eyes met hers, and his voice had a gravelly quality when he replied, “It would give me pleasure to see you—all of you.”
Her belly fluttered. All thoughts of teasing left her. Lowering her gaze, she slid her feet from her shoes and then rolled her stockings off one at a time. In nothing but her shift, she straightened and waited for what would come next.
Without touching her, he swept his gaze over her barely clad form. When his attention fell across her breasts, her nipples hardened and peaked beneath the gentle weight of her transparent shift.
Lily could see that he had noticed her body’s reaction. His eyes flickered with something dangerous. Something that made her breath turn shallow. Her short inhalations caused the material to shift over her breasts with delicate friction.
Sensation speared through her belly and down between her legs.
As if he knew what she had experienced, he dipped his chin and continued to stare at her from beneath heavy brows. “Your breasts are very sensitive.”
Lily knew it must be so, because his very mention of them made her nipples tighten even more, her breasts heavy and aching. She loved the way his rich, masculine voice made her body melt and her thoughts go languid.
“I promise to discover just how sensitive they can be,” he added thickly. “You are very beautiful.”
Something squeezed tight in her chest. “I am…quite ordinary.”
A new darkness shadowed his features, and it was unlike the hunger with which she was becoming familiar. “You are far from ordinary.”
The way he said it actually made her believe it.
His gaze swept down her body again. “Remove your shift.”
Lily released the ties, then slid the narrow sleeves off her shoulders. The undergarment drifted to the floor like a sigh.
She watched him as he looked at her, expecting to feel some shyness, a need to cover up. She did not. There was intense vulnerability in standing naked and wanting, but Lily reveled in the power and pleasure of feeling his gaze travel over her skin, from shoulder to wrist, chin to navel, and hip to toe. Everywhere his focus fell, she felt it.
And in that moment, she felt beautiful.
“My lord?” She spoke in a thready whisper, but at the words, he lifted his eyes back to hers. Her belly tightened deliciously at the heat she saw there. “What would you like me to do?”
Fifteen
Avenell’s gut clenched viciously.
It was everything he had feared. He wanted her too badly. His body strained with a sensual craving stronger than anything he had ever known. She was perfection. From her soft and open gaze, to the lush curves of her breasts and hips, to the dimples in her knees and the delicate arches of her feet. Her body was flushed and her eyes needful.
Her modestly uttered question brought to mind so many ways he could answer. But he replied with only one.
“I want you to enjoy this.”
It sounded simple. Avenell knew it was anything but.
The intensity of his reaction to her stunned him. No matter what he had done to avoid her, to deny the feelings she invoked, it had all led her to him anyway. And he had never wanted anything as much as he craved the feel of her touch.
His chest burned. His muscles trembled with the amount of effort it took to maintain his composure as she stared at him. Her steady focus revealed new facets of light and shadow. There was too much mystery there, too much temptation. He suspected it would take hours to explore the depth and complexity of her gaze. But such pleasure was not for tonight.
“Close your eyes.”
She did as he asked with a flutter of her lashes as they swept down against her cheeks.
Avenell stepped closer to her and took a long breath, detecting the clean, pure scent emanating from her skin. Fresh and sweet.
“Remember,” he said in a rough murmur, “remain still and keep your hands at your sides.”
Her reply was an incoherent sound from the back of her throat that shifted to a soft inhale through parted lips as Avenell stroked his fingertips up the length of her arm. He teased the sensitive skin at her inner elbow before he lifted his hand, and with deliberate care, brushed the backs of his knuckles over the outer curve of her breast. Heat lit acr
oss his skin where it met hers. As his drifting touch circled nearer the rosy peak, her nipple tightened beautifully.
He heard her quiet gasp but did not look up to see the pleasure in her face. Instead, he turned his hand to touch her creamy, silken skin with his fingertips, skimming first over her collarbone, then down her sternum, between her lovely full breasts. With a touch as light as a breath, he drew a path to her navel, circling over the skin of her low belly until the muscles of her abdomen tightened and he heard another quiet gasp.
Avenell concentrated on keeping the rhythm of his pulse steady as he continued the gentle exploration of her body. She was exquisite to touch, her skin unbelievably soft, the dips and valleys of her body enticing and mysterious. He wanted to learn every bit of her.
He brought his hand back up to curve his palm around her rib cage, so the heel of his hand rested against the outside fullness of her breast. Then he smoothed his hand down her side, learning the bend of her waist and the swell of her hip before gliding back over the feminine lushness of her buttocks.
The sound of her breath coming swiftly between her lips caused a spike in his awareness. Blood pulsed heavily through his veins. She was so receptive to the first touches of his hand. He pressed his tongue hard against the back of his teeth as his fingers curled into the bare flesh of her buttocks. He ached with the desire to pull her body in to his.
He resisted.
Tonight was a test of his tolerance and aptitude. Tonight, he would touch her.
Learn what she liked and what she didn’t. Gauge her reactions.
Gauge his own.
He circled around her again, taking the opportunity to breathe in her scent as the air stirred across her skin.
Standing behind her, he teased the soft tendrils of brown hair curling against her nape with the barest brush of his fingertips. Gooseflesh rose on her skin. He traced his fingers down the hollow of her spine, feeling the tension in the muscles that held her resolutely in place.