Throughout dinner, their guest looked at her often, dark eyes squinting through the candlelight, thoughtful, searching, sometimes bemused. Just like the first night they met. Not a part of her, she was quite sure, had been left unstudied.
He was going to kiss her.
Her skin shivered with anticipation until she could barely sit still. There was something proprietary about his gaze, the way it claimed her as surely as an arm around the waist.
After the meal, she left the table and Lucky Luke stayed to talk with her father. Becky found the dog Ness, now with a full belly, snoring happily by the fire, his paws twitching. The scene was peaceful for once with no Mrs. Jarvis angrily crashing her pots and pans about. Snow piled up against the window, and a stronger wind had sprung up to send the flakes spinning and spattering against the glass panes, but it was warm and cozy in that kitchen, and her smile, reflected in the window, was sunny. It was pleasant to hear her father’s distant laughter and the low murmur of male voices in the house.
She took three leaves from the pot of mint on the windowsill. If he was going to kiss her, she ought to have sweeter breath. Several other leaves had also been very recently ripped from the stems, she noted. Had he also taken some to be prepared? Smiling, she chewed the mint and resumed wiping down the table.
When Luke came in, she was still cleaning up the kitchen.
“Your father has fallen asleep, Miss Sherringham. I hope I didn’t bore him too badly.”
“Oh, it’s quite normal for my father to drift off midsentence. I’ll see him up to bed shortly.”
Becky had extinguished the lamps in the kitchen, and now light came only from the fire and the soft glow of the hall sconces through the open door behind him. He cast a great, bulky shadow across the flagged floor, a black, three-legged spider. His eyes were very dark and wary again as he paused there, just inside the kitchen doorway, leaning on his cane.
“Thank you for preparing the dinner,” she said. “It would have been cold game pie if you weren’t here to share your talents.”
“Well, I had to repay your kindness somehow, Miss Sherringham.”
He was being very polite now, she noted. His tone changed back and forth, one minute casual and even too familiar, the next formal, distant, as if he couldn’t decide what he ought to be. When she’d first met him in Brighton, she’d never imagined that he even knew how to be courteous, but now, seeing him converse civilly with her father, she suspected there were hidden sides to Lucky Luke.
She looked at his scars, his watchful eyes, and then his lips.
I tell you what…you’ll owe me a kiss…one kiss. To clear your brother’s debt to me.
Becky swallowed hard, tasting the cooling mint on her tongue. She reached into a drawer of the Welsh dresser, fumbled to the very back of it, and brought out the playing card he had once given her. She placed the IOU, writing side up, on the kitchen table.
“I suppose it’s time you collected. May as well get it over with.” She tried not to look too eager.
He eyed her in his thoughtful, thorough way. “It’s not necessary, Miss Sherringham. I’ve decided to forgive the debt.”
Before she could even think to hold it back as a demure young lady should, the surprise burst out of her. “Not necessary? After I waited five years for you to show your face again? Oh no, you’re not getting away without it. You’ll kiss me and you’ll do it well. Leaving me with this past due matter unsettled another five years is unacceptable.”
The man looked as if he might laugh. He sucked in his cheeks and then rasped fingers over his unshaven chin. “You’re determined, then.”
“To pay that debt, yes.”
“Ah. Just to honor the debt.”
“What other reason could there be?”
The dog by the fire snored loudly, paws scratching at the stone floor, chasing rabbits in his dream. The only other sound, apart from the steady thumping of the heartbeat in her ears, was the gentle tapping of snow at the window behind her and the coals in the fire, popping and cracking.
Lucky Luke still hadn’t moved.
“Will you come here, or should I go to you?” The length of the table between them was a huge distance suddenly. Then there remained the matter of his limp. Expecting that he walk to her seemed cruel. Becky rushed forward, colliding with Lucky Luke as he moved at the same moment.
But as she came up hard against his chest, she found him, oddly, even taller than estimated. She couldn’t reach his mouth, since he wouldn’t bend. While her fingers held onto his jacket sleeves, Luke solemnly looked down, considering her lips. Becky, impatient as usual, wondered why ladies spent their lives waiting for men to take the initiative in these matters. In the books she’d read, polite gentlemen always asked first and never kissed more than a hand. It was quite a source of frustration for certain members of the Book Club Belles.
Exactly when, she thought crossly, was it decided that men should be in charge of these matters?
Seven
“Kiss me, then,” she demanded.
“Where?”
“Where? On the lips, of course. Where else?”
Slowly—very slowly—he smiled.
She released her grip on his arms. “I cannot think where else—”
He raised his free hand to the tiny seed pearl buttons that closed the lace above her bodice. Very carefully, his large fingers worked each one free, his dark gaze following their progress. He swept the delicate lace aside to expose skin at the base of her throat.
“You should never have agreed to pay your brother’s debt this way, Miss Sherringham. I’m the last man you should ever permit to kiss you.”
She gasped, annoyed that he still delayed. Even further irritated by his attempts to teach her about men. “If I didn’t already have functioning eyes and ears in my head, I might need the caution. But even if I was the stupidest girl in the world, isn’t it rather late to be telling me this now? The debt, sir, was agreed upon.”
He ignored that and continued with his warning. And the teasingly slow unbuttoning of her lace. “I’m too old, Miss Sherringham, too damaged, too selfish and set in my ways. Too dangerous for you.”
She scoffed. “What makes you so dangerous?” It wasn’t as if he could catch her if she ran away and made him chase her around the table, was it? Not that she felt inclined to run anywhere. It was really quite sweet and comical that he thought he had to warn her.
“I’m a sinner with no heart.” His fingertips trailed gently over the base of her throat and down across the upper curve of her breast. “No conscience. No soft words and tender feelings. I’d never court you with posies and love letters. I don’t dance and I don’t know the first thing about poetry.”
“Sakes! You don’t say!”
“I’m not the faithful kind to sit at your feet and pine.”
“Of all this, I am well aware,” she exclaimed, tension and anticipation making her sound cross. “Just because I once saw you cuddling a pup inside your coat doesn’t mean I’m fooled into thinking you Prince Charming.”
He growled. “For the last time, wench, I wasn’t cuddling or coddling—”
“This is only one kiss. I’m not expecting courtship from you, sir.”
Luke’s gaze followed his fingers across her bosom, tracing a light, ticklish pattern over the goose bumps he’d conjured with his touch and his whispers. “So you want nothing more from me? You have no romantic expectations?”
“I am no naive fool! I agreed to pay a debt for my brother and I don’t go back on my word.”
“Good.” His eyelids lowered as he popped the final button free with his rough finger.
Becky tried to swallow but found her throat too dry.
“Because the last thing I need,” he added, “is a woman hanging on me. I’m not a man to be trapped, Miss Sherringham. I’m happy alone on my island. Let
me be clear. I’m not a marrying man.”
It is almost as if he says all this to reassure himself, she mused. “What makes you think I’m a marrying woman?”
“All girls are, of course. You can’t help it. ’Tis the way you are made.”
“I’m not a girl. I’m two-and-twenty. You don’t have to worry that I want anything more from a man like you.”
“Just to be sure of where we both stand, Miss Sherringham.” Lucky Luke bent his head and she felt his warm breath on the bared skin of her breast. “One kiss and no more.”
She closed her eyes, barely listening, drawing a deep breath of wonderment as his warm lips made contact with her flesh at last.
Had that wanton groan come from her? Must have. There was no one else to blame for it.
His moist tongue moved aside the lace panel and found the warmth between her breasts. There his lips nestled another kiss. Hungrily, hotly. It continued too long, his rough cheek bristles rubbing against her soft bosom. Heat radiated from the spot his mouth possessed. It tore through her body, beating a route to her most sensitive regions and waking them to a rush of new feelings.
Under her clothing, she felt her nipples tighten, and her breasts seemed to swell and grow heavy. When he moved against her, his groin brushed her hip.
Nothing floppy there.
His hand swept across the back of her neck, under her hair, and held her firmly, while his mouth moved upward again. Along her throat he came, to the side of her neck, her earlobe, her chin. Finally he found her lips and devoured them, his tongue plunging deeply, greedily. She reached under his arms and clung to his jacket, her fingers gripping tightly, needing something to hold on to since reality had slipped from her grasp tonight.
Finally, when it became necessary to breathe, she pulled free, raising a hand quickly to hold the lace up to her throat. Her skin throbbed. She still felt the gentle imprint of his teeth on her bosom. It was as if he’d branded her skin.
“You’re quite an exotic dish, Miss Sherringham. I could eat you whole.”
“You’d choke on my bones. They’re very hard and pointy.”
“They don’t look hard and pointy. Nor do they feel it.” He ran two fingertips down the side of her neck and she knew he traced her rapid pulse. “You’re a very tasty piece.” He cleared his throat. “Although I suppose I should be polite and say you’re…an interesting woman. A rare beauty.”
She laughed uneasily, reaching behind to get her balance against the kitchen table. “You don’t have to say all that, for pity’s sake. I thought we were being honest with one another.”
He frowned. “Not used to compliments, eh?”
“Of course I am. I get compliments all the time,” she lied, fumbling with her undone buttons. “Yours isn’t the first kiss I ever had. Nor was it the best.” It was savage, she decided, having struggled for a word to describe his kiss. How different it was to Charles Clarendon’s gentle kiss. This one was demanding, brutish, not at all like the kiss of a gentleman.
It was appalling, really. Later she’d work up more outrage, but at that moment, while this man was still before her, she ought to make the most of it. This sort of thing certainly wouldn’t happen to her again.
Lucky Luke laid his hand directly over her left breast, only a rumpled scrap of velvet and lace coming between his hot palm and her pounding heart. Leisurely his fingertips traced the pricking outline of her nipple, teasing and tormenting. Becky regretted not wearing her stays tonight. It wasn’t convenient while she had costume changes for the play, and her roles had all been male, as usual, but stays would have provided her with some protection now from sly lips and wandering hands.
“You think me a silly, ignorant, romantic girl who might be swept off her feet,” she exclaimed. “Well, you’re wrong. I know everything about men like you. I’ve lived around soldiers all my life.”
“Then you ought to know better than to tempt me like this, to let me…” He bent his head and ran the tip of his tongue along her chin while his hand gently caressed her, his finger lightly tracing the little pip that extended now visibly, pushing against the velvet of her bodice. “…between your…”—his mouth had reached her ear—“…yielding lips. To let me in.” He kissed her earlobe and let his thumb play across her nipple once more. A delicious pang of yearning bolted through her like lightning. “Now you’re at my mercy.”
“You, sir, have a very high opinion of yourself if you think one little kiss would affect me at all.”
It seemed as if he took this for a gauntlet thrown down, for he moved in again, closer still. He rested his cane against the table to free both hands, and another kiss swiftly followed. This one seemed angry, his lips slanted against hers, taking her breath and her gasp with a rough, unyielding insistence. Becky raised her hands to his shoulders and then lost her fingertips in the midnight darkness of his hair. The front of his shirt and waistcoat moved against her aroused breasts and only exacerbated the situation until she wanted more—much more—than a kiss.
“You still haven’t frightened me, Lucky Luke,” she managed on a shredded breath. “I begin to think you’re all boast and breeches. You’d better kiss me again.”
“Again, woman?”
She fought for an excuse. “I haven’t decided whether I like it yet. I assume you want to leave a favorable impression or you wouldn’t try so hard.”
Oh dear, was this that spark of mischief Justina talked about, suddenly coming out of her? Fine time for it to happen, she thought crossly. With a man so very unsuitable.
“Demanding, ain’t you?” He chuckled.
“Extremely. I’m not very good at meek and demure.”
“Really?” He paused, looking into her eyes. “I hadn’t noticed.” And then his lips greedily took hers once more.
* * *
Her bright hazel eyes laughed up at him with a challenge; her lips parted and a curling lock of hair tumbled to her shoulders, over his rough fingers.
Very well then. She’d get one more kiss. But not where she expected it.
Luke reached down and gripped her skirt, forcing it quickly upward, petticoats too. She gasped but made no move to stop him. Not a word, just a short, startled sound, as he lifted her swiftly to the edge of the table and pressed her thighs apart.
“Here comes another kiss, Miss Sherringham,” he muttered, his voice hoarse. “Let’s see if I can impress you with this one.”
She had closed her eyes, copper lashes fluttering against her cheeks.
He tightened his hold on her soft thighs, the violence of his lust almost taking over in that moment. Forgetting the pain in his leg for the first time in years, he sank to his knees on the flagged floor.
The delicacy of her skin under his callused palms was like the finest silk, more expensive and luxurious than anything he’d ever touched. For a moment, he was humbled by it. But soon passion claimed him again, taking over any last vestige of restraint. The sheer need to taste her, make her admit that his kiss was the best she’d ever known, was overwhelming.
Although he realized he’d completely neglected to ask himself what his brother Darius would do next, Luke did not stop to amend the situation.
Her scent reminded him of honey. Sweet and sticky, a treat for good behavior. But this woman was a treat for a grown man, and not for one who behaved himself.
* * *
Becky trembled as she felt his mouth touch her stockings and garters first and then her skin above them. What he did to her was wicked, sinful, totally unexpected, but it thrilled her from head to toe, even as it shocked her. Oh, she could not stop him, could she? Did she want to?
A resounding No! ripped through her.
His lips moved higher, silkily, slyly. His rough, unshaven cheek brushed across her inner thigh.
She opened one eye and looked toward the outside door. What if Mrs. Jarvis should return
suddenly? But snow wailed against the window behind her back, and the housekeeper was long gone. In the dining room, her father napped, unaware of his daughter’s debauchery. She looked down at the dark, unkempt head between her knees and watched its progress along her inner thigh. Feverish anticipation had taken such possession of her body that she could not move. Everything tightened, throbbed, expecting where he might place that next kiss. Her pulse pounded in a steady, thudding rhythm.
* * *
Suddenly he heard Ness growling.
Gingersnap hurriedly tugged on his hair, breathlessly ordering him to stop.
“I haven’t finished you off,” he groaned, a red mist of desire blurring his sight.
“Oh, I fear you have.”
He caught her looking at the kitchen window, as was his dog, but he saw nothing there except a heavy spattering of snowflakes.
Abruptly remembering his cane, Luke reached for it, but in his haste he missed, fumbling fingers knocking it to the floor with a clatter. A wild curse flew out of him as he stumbled against the table.
Miss Sherringham calmly stooped to pick it up again and put the cane into his hand.
“Now the debt is settled,” she said.
Glancing over at the window again, he wondered what she’d seen there. Something had brought their passionate interlude to a sharp halt before he reached his target, but apparently she wasn’t going to tell him what it was. “Some cunning wenches,” he muttered, “would plan such a thing on purpose.”
Her eyes widened and sparked. “Plan what?”
“To trap themselves a husband by getting caught like this. Seen…by somebody.”
“That remark is hardly worth replying to, but I will say this.” She grabbed his hat and thrust it at him. “If I ever wanted to catch a husband, it wouldn’t be you, would it? I might not have much in my favor, but I think I might aim a little higher than a gambling gypsy who would do nothing but cause me indigestion. I can assure you I am not desperate for another troublesome man in my life. Don’t you think I have enough?”
Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) Page 7