“Lady Rutledge! Mr. Cavendish!”
The voices were coming from the other side of the hill and she dropped the hoop in surprise. Cav stepped away as a few of the guests crested the hill and descended upon them.
Emily forced herself to laugh up at them. “We went off course, I’m afraid, and only just managed to get our hoop under control.”
Cav bent, took the hoop and waggled it toward the others. “We’ll come around to the other side of the hill now. I cannot wait to hear who won the day.” He sounded so normal, but as the others strode back toward the finish line, he glanced down at her.
“We can’t talk about this here and now,” she said.
He arched a brow. “No. But we aren’t finished talking about it either.”
She caught her breath. She’d seen Cav turn that heated stare on a few ladies over the years. Normally when he didn’t know she was looking. But now it was focused on her and it was transformative. She was no longer any of the things which had defined her for so long. She didn’t feel like a widow or a lady or a friend.
She felt something else. She felt like a lover, waiting for that first caress. She felt like an instrument ready to be played.
“No, we aren’t,” she managed to choke out. “Will you…” She trailed off because the suggestion she wanted to make was a point of no return.
“Will I what?” he pressed.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat and croaked out, “Will you come talk to me in my private parlor after we return from the gathering and the others go to rest or entertain themselves before supper?”
His eyes widened a fraction, but then the flash of heat she’d noted earlier flared even higher. An inferno contained by a sea of blue, and she shivered because her body knew what that inferno would do if she let it. What he wanted to do, despite a history of friendship.
“Yes, my lady,” he said. Then he offered her his arm and guided her off toward the others.
They didn’t speak of it again as they walked around the hill to where the others were gathered, laughing and partaking in wassail. But what they had agreed to hung between them. And that was terrifying and thrilling and like nothing she had ever experienced before in her life.
* * *
Cav felt like he was coming out of his skin as he and the rest of the party came into the warmth of the parlor an hour later. Of course, he’d felt that way since kissing Emily the previous night.
But now she’d asked him to join her in her private parlor, and that meant…everything. Or at least, it could mean everything. If she let it. If he did.
“Supper will be at seven,” Emily said, smiling at the crowd with the same brightness as she always did. No one would think she was carrying some kind of wicked plan. “And I hope you will enjoy yourselves until then.”
The party separated with that permission. A few of the gentlemen started off down the hall. Lord Allington was one of them, and he pivoted back toward Cav. “We were going to play a round of billiards, Cavendish. Care to join?”
“No, I think I’ll rest a bit,” he said.
Allington wrinkled his brow as if confused by that suggestion, but then he shrugged and off they went.
“I think that is a fine idea, Mr. Cavendish,” Emily said. “A party like this one is bound to wear out the mind.”
He arched a brow and leaned closer, whispering, “Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?”
She glared at him and he smiled. At least they hadn’t entirely lost their ability to banter. No matter what came out of this party and whatever was about to happen, he didn’t want that. That was what had kept him from pursuing her. He’d rather long for her than lose her because he had pushed too far.
And yet here they were. She bid her farewells to the group and started up the stairs with just a backward glance toward him. He waited a few moments, chatting with Lady Hickson and Lady Mulberry for a brief moment before he excused himself and went up the stairs himself.
He glanced down to make sure no one was watching, and when it was clear he was safe to do so, went right instead of left into the family wing of bedchambers. He counted the doors, just as he’d done a dozen times over the years when he’d come here. Counting his way to her, but never doing anything about it when he got to her chamber.
Today he lifted his hand and hesitated. Emily had claimed she didn’t want to destroy their friendship, and he had insisted they didn’t have to do that. But he knew that was a lie. Just a kiss had changed things between them. Anything more and…well, he wouldn’t think of it.
He knocked, and there was a flutter of movement from within before Emily opened the door. She ducked her head out, checking in the hall before she motioned him in.
“I was careful, I assure you,” he said, noting how pale her cheeks were and how she worried her hands before her after she closed the door behind him.
He took a step away from her and looked around the private parlor. He’d never been in this room, and he smiled because it looked so much like her. He smiled because it looked nothing like Andrew, and that made all of this much easier.
“A pretty view,” he said as he moved to the window and looked down over the garden. In the distance he could see the lake, and judging by how the birds were waddling on its surface, it was frozen by the cold.
“Y-yes,” she said softly. “I have always loved that view. I’ll miss it when this room is no longer mine.”
He turned toward her. “No longer yours?”
She shrugged. “Andrew has been gone a long time, and his family has indulged me by allowing me to still call this home my own. But I know you’ve heard that his younger brother has found a bride. Once they are married, it would be wrong of me to continue to pretend I am Lady Rutledge and that this home is mine. I need to…to move on.”
He frowned. He happened to agree with that assessment, for his own not entirely selfless reasons. But he didn’t want her to use whatever was happening between them as some unwanted push toward her next chapter.
“Emily,” he said softly.
She took a long step toward him. “I-I don’t know what to do, Cav,” she said. “I’ve always known what to do, especially when it came to you and me. I’ve always known what we were. But now it’s all…different.”
He nodded as he moved toward her, closing the distance between them until he could touch her hand if he reached out. He didn’t yet. Emily had always been the sort who needed to talk things out. He wasn’t about to rush her past that.
“You know better than most that things can’t stay the same,” he said. “In the end, we’re always going to have to move.”
“But toward what?” she whispered. “I’ve put off deciding that so long and now it’s here. And everything is suddenly so confusing. And then you kissed me—”
He held his breath as she looked at him, her gaze fluttering over his lips like she was reliving that kiss.
“—you kissed me and my head is spinning and I don’t know what to embrace or fear now. I just know that nothing can be the same again. And I’m afraid of that and I’m thrilled by that and—”
He did reach for her then, and tugged her against him. She broke off her sentence, her breath going short as he cupped her chin and tilted it up toward him. The last time he’d kissed her, he hadn’t planned for it. It was a volcano after years of pressure building up beneath the surface.
This time, though, he savored it. He lived for the catch of her breath, for the way her lips parted slightly just as he brushed his mouth over hers. He drowned in how she opened to him, allowing him in as her arms came around his neck. She tasted like honey, so sweet it was almost overpowering, and he lost all sense of reason when she lifted against him with a soft, guttural moan of pleasure.
She wanted him. Not just when she was swept away by a moment, but she’d admitted she felt the same even when her feet were firmly on the ground. He had pined for her, ached for her, burned for her for so long. How could he resist if there were any optio
n at all that he could have even a taste of heaven?
Just a taste would be enough, wouldn’t it?
She tensed in his arms and he drew back, looking down at her without releasing her. She looked so conflicted, so lost, and he shook his head. “I can stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop,” she admitted, and her cheeks went pink. “I just don’t know how to say what I do want. Not to you.”
He slid his hands down her back, memorizing the feel of every curve of her body. She shivered as she lifted against him.
“You want this,” he whispered, and cupped her backside. Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t pull away. Instead she nodded. He ground her against him, letting her feel the hardness of him as it grazed her softness. “You want this.”
This time her response was a garbled hiss. “Yes.”
“You want this.” He ducked his head and kissed her again, and she dug her fingers into his hair, fingers abrading his scalp as she tilted her head and deepened the kiss with wild desperation.
He quivered with the desire that had pulsed through him for so many years he almost couldn’t remember a time when it didn’t exist. And now it was about to be brought to fruition because he was going to make love to this woman. To Emily. He was going to make love to her until she quaked beneath his touch.
And if he was lucky enough or skillful enough or strong enough, perhaps that would open the door to something more. The thing he dared not name as she whispered his name into his mouth. For now this was enough and he wouldn’t let go.
Chapter 7
Cav was unbuttoning her dress. Emily was vaguely aware of it as she kissed him and kissed him while the world outside the door faded away. He was unbuttoning her dress with those strong, lean fingers that obviously knew what they were doing. It was in that moment that she fully grasped what would happen between them.
She could stop it. If she said no, he would pull away. If she demanded he never touch her like this again, he would obey.
But she didn’t want that. She wanted this wicked, wonderful stolen moment so much that she could hardly stay upright. Luckily strong hands supported her, just as they had supported her for years.
She trusted him. That mattered more than anything.
He broke his mouth from hers, his breath coming in desperate pants as he glided her dress away from her shoulders, down her arms, past her breasts, her waist, and let it crumple on the ground between them. He stared at her in her chemise, the thin straps and soft fabric barely covering her curves. He licked his lips and her body twitched in response.
“Before you…before you take off the rest,” she gasped, feeling the burning heat of her cheeks. She must look like a plum!
He nodded and dropped his hands, clenching them in fists at his sides as if he were forced to do that to maintain control. “Yes?”
“Aside from my maid, no one has seen me like this in years,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I’ll please you. I don’t know if I know how to please anyone anymore and I’m…I’m…”
“Nervous?” he asked softly, his deep voice soothing as much as it was stimulating. How could it be both?
“Yes,” she admitted, and bent her head.
He tucked a finger beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him again. His gaze focused on hers, held her steady, centered her as she had come to depend on him to do. He smiled, something slow and heated.
“There is no way you won’t please me, Emily, I promise you that,” he whispered. “And I know it’s been a long time for you. All you have to do is just…trust me. And let me take care of you.”
Tears stung her eyes at those words. She reached up and traced his jawline with her palm, and he leaned into it with a shudder. “You have always taken care of me,” she murmured.
He nodded, the faint stubble rubbing her palm.
She stepped back and drew in a long breath, then pulled the straps of her chemise down and let it fall to the floor beside the dress. She was revealed, and she felt every inch of her skin as he gazed down over her.
“Christ,” he muttered, then leaned in and caught her cheeks, kissing her again.
This time there was desperation in his touch, hunger that she responded to with her own as he backed her toward the settee by the fire. He settled her onto it gently and then stepped away to shed his jacket, unwind his cravat and tug his shirt over his head.
She pushed up on her elbows and dazzled at what he revealed. Cav and Andrew couldn’t have been two more different men in appearance. Andrew had been thick and strong and built to carry a broadsword in wars of old. Cav would have been a general. He had a leaner strength, a finer build but no less compelling with his defined shoulders and tapered waist. His stomach muscles bunched as he dropped to his knees before the settee.
He smiled up at her as he loosened her bootstrap and pulled first one, then the other off, followed by her stockings. When he tossed them away, she was truly, fully naked, and she found herself settling her legs open a fraction. A delicate invitation for what was to come.
The reality of that was still shocking, but she wanted it more, not less.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, she thought almost more to himself than to her. Her eyes stung with those words anyway. It had been a long time since a man had whispered such a thing when she was wanton and vulnerable before him. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it until that very moment.
His fingers traced delicate patterns along her calves, trails that swooped higher and higher. When he cupped the back of her knee, she let out a hiss of pleasure that made his pupils dilate further. He pressed a palm against the inside of each of her thighs and widened her legs, opening her to him in a more intimate way.
She turned her head into her shoulder as he stared at her, wondering what he thought. Wondering what he would do next. He pressed his thumbs to her outer lips and she ground against him out of instinct. Then he peeled her open.
The warm breeze of the fire brushed her sensitive sex, but it was swiftly replaced by the heat of his breath. She glanced down, mesmerized as he lowered his mouth and licked her.
She dug her fingers into his hair, lifting to his tongue as he swept it across her again. He watched her as he licked, and she gave him a show because she couldn’t do anything but. The sensation was too powerful for her to mince or pretend it didn’t move her. After so long, after receiving pleasure only from her hand, what he was doing with his lips and his tongue was overpowering.
He took his time, tasting and teasing, massaging her inner thighs as he delved her deeper into the madness of building pleasure. And just when she felt like she would be lost on these building waves forever, he pressed a finger to her entrance.
She froze, lifting up on her elbows to watch as he glided that finger inside. She flexed against him with a low moan, her back arching and her fingers clenching hard against the cushions as he slowly began to thrust into her body. He returned his mouth to her sex, but this time he was more focused. He no longer teased but put all his attention on her clitoris.
And when he began to suck gently, repeatedly, consistently, the pleasure that had been slowly meandering through her seemed to hit a tipping point. She ground hard against his finger and he added a second one, letting her long-neglected body adjust to the invasion even as he tongued and sucked her to the brink.
She was going to fall. She knew it. She reveled in that brief moment when the sensation crested, and then she tumbled into pleasure. Wave after wave of it washed over her. She shook and slapped a hand over her mouth so her keening cries wouldn’t alert the entire household to what was happening here in her parlor.
He dragged her through the crisis, pulling more and more pleasure from her until she flopped, weak and spent, against the settee cushions. He kissed her thigh and she shivered, watching through a hooded gaze as he glided his mouth across her hip, along her stomach, between her breasts. How he could wake desire in her again so swiftly, she didn’t know, but by the time he to
ok her mouth she was aching again.
She tasted herself on his lips, his tongue, and wound her arms around his bare shoulders as she drank of her own pleasure. When he pulled away, she stared up at him, so close and so warm and so…hers in this moment that couldn’t last.
“I hope I served you well, my lady,” he said with a crooked grin.
She laughed despite the emotions bubbling deep in her chest. “Very well. Did the keening not make it obvious?”
“The keening was a fine indication.” His gaze slid over her face. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to have the understanding that there is no wrong answer.”
Her heart thudded at the seriousness with which he observed her. “What is it?”
“Would you like me to…continue?” he asked, sliding a hand up her side, letting his thumb caress the underside of her breast in a most distracting fashion. “Or stop?”
She stared at him. There had been no thought in her mind that he would pleasure her and then leave without taking his own relief. There had been no assumption that he wouldn’t take her the moment he started touching her.
His expression was impassive but for the heat in his eyes, and she almost shook her head in wonder. But of course he would offer her this. Cav had been taking care of her for years, sometimes at his own detriment, she knew. It was his nature, perhaps, to make sure those he cared for were safe and comforted.
She traced his cheek with her fingers and smiled up at him. “If you stop now I will make sure the entertainment for tomorrow is six geese hissing at you, not a-laying.”
“Thank God,” he groaned, resting his forehead against her shoulder with a laugh. “I’m hard as steel—I would not have survived the walk back to my chamber.”
She might have laughed at the image of him limping to his chamber, but the idea that he was hard as steel was too fascinating. She pushed at his shoulders to make him lean away.
Mismatched Under the Mistletoe Page 7