Carnal Pleasures (10 page)

When she had hurried up the stairs, Dulcie found herself a bit woozy, she supposed, from the wine she consumed with supper. She rarely imbibed while in Surrey. But now the tipsy feeling seemed to have passed.

Alone with Griffith Spencer, she was nervous. Just standing near him gave her a strange fluttering in her solar plexus. She had thought about him more than once last evening and later today, and confessed a strong attraction to him in her mind. Something like that never happened before, probably because she rarely encountered strange men, young or old, where she grew up. Certainly none she could compare to her stepmother’s nephew.

At supper, Dulcie and Griff had been seated on either side of the countess who sat at the head of the dining room table. Dulcie tried not to let her eyes drift across the tablecloth at him. Had he noticed her staring? Why did he give her chills—even now?

Dulcie’s fingertips and toes tingled, feeling rather numb. Perhaps a little more wine would get her blood moving. Inhaling a calming breath, she nodded yes when Griff offered to pour her some wine.

He carried a full glass to her and sat down on the settee next to Dulcie instead settling into a chair some distance away. Watching him out the corner of her eye, she noticed his friendly posture was not intimidating. Nevertheless, she straightened her spine and held herself away from the curved back of the love seat.

Griff leaned back and stretched his booted feet toward the fireplace grate. Cradling the balloon glass filled with brandy between sturdy fingers, he swirled the amber liquor to warm it and gazed into the low flames for long moments as if contemplating his next conversational gambit.

Then he straightened up abruptly and turned toward Dulcie. He tilted his glass and gazed deeply into her eyes. “Perhaps we should raise a toast, Dulcie,” he said, smiling. “To thank the countess for introducing us and also to toast our newfound friendship.”

For no reason, Dulcie felt her heart pinging wildly against her rib cage. Her throat felt dry; her gaze locked onto Griff’s face. New sensations trickled through her like water running downstream and heading somewhere in her lower torso. Then sudden heat spread rapidly to a place she hadn’t known existed. The titillating warmth was very strange. Could something she ate at supper have caused this? She wasn’t very hungry at the meal, but she did drink more wine than usual, because she was thirsty. Several times, the countess had signaled a footman to fill her wine goblet.

Now Dulcie’s hand trembled as she clinked her wine glass gently against Griff’s snifter. She brought the goblet to her lips and took a small sip.

Griff focused at Dulcie’s face over the rim of his glass, rolling the liquor behind his teeth, and swallowing slowly. Then he smiled—charmingly.

Her insides turned to mush, squishy, like uncooked egg pudding. She couldn’t take her eyes off the intriguing dimple. Running the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip, Dulcie stared at his chin. Another spurt of warmth invaded the area between her thighs. Unconsciously, she gurgled, unleasing a choked giggle, as she wondered what was happening to her.

“Are you all right?”

Griff must have heard her and frowned. Just as quickly, his concerned expression changed. His smile stretched into a grin, and he chuckled, too.

“I believe you are slightly foxed, Dulcie. You have the strangest look on your face.” He leaned close, too close.

She breathed in and got a whiff of something masculine, a faint odor of sandalwood and perhaps, male perspiration. It wasn’t displeasing, quite the opposite. But he totally discombobulated her when he asked, “Do you mind if I kiss you?” He spoke so low, Dulcie couldn’t believe what she heard. She blinked slowly before opening her eyes wide.

He sat back a bit.

What should she reply? He must have noticed the owlish expression creasing her countenance, knowing that he surprised her with his unusual query. No one had ever asked to kiss her. It was no wonder she looked flabbergasted.

He repeated the question then quickly stood up. He put down his brandy and reached for one of her hands.

“I’m simply asking for a kiss,” Griff said quite calmly. “One tiny kiss.”

Dulcie’s mind reeled. Confusion reigned. Her thoughts grew muddled, vague—unsure. She couldn’t quite gather her wits. What was wrong with her? Her brain-box seemed filled with fluffy goose down, like a bed pillow. She finally pulled her thoughts together and concentrated on what he said.

He wants a kiss. From me!
Oh my,
w
ould it be so terrible if I gave in to his request?

Her senses whirled, gyrating wildly like a child’s top, twirling slowly, until her mind wobbled and stopped completely. Dulcie closed her eyes, because her eyelids seemed too heavy to lift. Queer things were taking over her body. She must have put down her wineglass, because her hand lay in his, and she had risen from the settee. His skin was warm, his hand much bigger than hers, with rough calluses that showed he must work at something that would cause them. A quick movement brought them toe-to-toe. Dulcie sniffed, an intoxicating scent wafted beneath her nostrils.

Staring blankly at the middle of his crisply tied cravat, she murmured, “Mr. Spencer, we shouldn’t be doing this, should we?”

“Doing what?” he asked, tilting her chin upward, because she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “’Tis only a kiss,” he repeated. He squeezed the hand he held firmly in his. “I’ve been admiring your lips for the past day and a half. They look too ripe and delicious for me not to want to taste them.”

Before she could reply, before she could protest, before she could argue, he lowered his head. Dulcie went totally blank when his warm lips descended onto hers. She couldn’t speak. Instead, she stood mute, paralyzed. But the wickedest part of all, born of pure, unadulterated female curiosity or a touch of wild adventure, were the sensations from his kiss. They rapidly infiltrated her inhibitions, chasing them away with a will and mind of their own.

Griff honed in on his target, capturing her untutored sensibilities and captivating her youthful naivete for long, delicious seconds. His kiss was not a perfunctory peck on the cheek. His was an experienced kiss, Dulcie guessed, even though she had never been kissed, never left Surrey. It was nothing like anything she felt before or would ever experience in a million years.

She always believed she would never excite a man enough that he wanted to kiss her, make love with her. She convinced herself of that early on—that she was ordinary. She acknowledged that she would never be the prettiest girl in the shire. But she wasn’t ugly either—just plain. Town swains approached cobalt-eyed, golden-haired girls in nearby Pinkley-on-Barrow rather than flirt with her, even though she had the bluest blood in the area running in her veins.

Oh, God, I must be wickedly depraved to allow him to kiss me on such short acquaintance
.

Griff gripped Dulcie’s waist and pulled her tight against him, pressing her body against his hardened torso. Easing away only slightly, he slowly edged a big palm upward and captured a breast, caressing its nipple.

Dulcie still didn’t protest. It was as if she was under some sort of spell.

Hazily she thought,
I shouldn’t allow him to touch me this way. I must be without scruples, but I don’t want him to stop. I yearn for him to continue.

With a quivering sigh of acquiescence, she gave in and let him kiss her again. When he did, Dulcie realized quite suddenly that Griff’s second kiss was a lot different from his first. His lips insisted more…demanded more. She lacked strength to stop him if he continued on this path. And then, her knees weak with tremors, she forgot her maidenly upbringing, surrendered her inhibited morality, and threw caution to the winds. She kissed him back with hot lipped, girlish enthusiasm.

Delightful warmth rushed through her. Griff’s arms felt wonderfully protective where he hugged her against his chest. He held her so tight she heard the thud of his heartbeats through several layers of clothing. She pressed harder, closer, her arms reaching up to clasp his shoulders and clamp hands around his neck, breathing in another whiff of his brandy breath where it whispered against her cheek. Being held by him was grand, the loveliest feeling she could ever imagine.

Without clear ideas of possible consequences, a powerful urge coursed through Dulcie, urging her to claim something ever since she met the man. She reached up and licked the tiny cleft in Griff’s chin with the tip of her tongue, tasting his skin, plunging into the crease as if it held a sweet, secret elixir no one else discovered.

Abruptly, Griff drew away from her. “Do you know what you are doing, Dulcie?” he asked.

A wave of embarrassment flooded her cheeks. Her face burned with heat. She must have gone too far, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She swallowed hard, stammering a little, before sputtering out an answer. “W-well, you seemed to know what y-you were about, Griff,” she mumbled. “I-I just t-thought…”

A low hum of amusement escaped from the back of his throat, and his husky voice rasped out, “Oh, my lady, your lessons have been sorely neglected.”

Griff grabbed one of Dulcie’s hands, closed his fingers tightly around hers, and pulled her out of the drawing room into the hallway. She followed him meekly. Simon trotted behind them. Griff brought Dulcie to a halt, briefly, stopping to look deep into her upraised gaze.

“Would you like to learn more about love, Dulcie?” he asked.

Deprived of parental caring, she yearned for affection, but not necessarily in the format Griff envisioned. However, she blinked twice and nodded her head.

“Well, then, come with me.” He led her along the hall toward the house’s bedroom wing

“W-where are we going?” she asked.

“Someplace I can teach you a few interesting lessons.”

Now she hung back. “I don’t believe…”

Things were going on inside of her, things completely foreign to her usual behavior, overwhelming her normal comprehension. Why was she unable to fight them?

“Come on, my lady, you have to learn sometime, you know, if you are to be married.”

“I-I’m not interested in getting married,” she repeated, fighting the odd sensations. “And it w-would never do for—for my stepmother to find us in wrongdoing.” She tightened her lips because she couldn’t seem to make her mouth work properly.

Griff Spencer was strong and overpowering. His broad shoulders and hard-toned muscles were encased in the epitome of sartorial splendor. The warmth of his hand clasped hers, sapping her resistance, bringing on an almost unquenchable desire to fling herself into his arms again.

A trickle of stuttering words abruptly pushed out of her quivering lips. “Be-besides, I wonder if-if you are truly her…”

“Her what?” Griff interrupted with a slight frown.

The color on Dulcie’s cheeks deepened, and her skin grew…hotter…twitchy. She felt very peculiar. It was difficult for her to keep her thoughts on track. Earlier, she had seen her stepmother run a proprietary hand along her nephew’s forearm and caress him. It seemed odd and not quite proper, she thought at the time, seeing her stepmother’s intimacies with her handsome nephew. Was she so fond of her missing relative that she smiled at him so often? Or was it something quite different? Dulcie even thought she noticed her stepmother squeeze his thigh at supper tonight when she leaned toward him and whispered something Dulcie hadn’t heard enough to understand.

Dulcie tried to tear her eyes from Griff’s. She must have been mistaken. It had to be the extra wine she had consumed that had her seeing things.

Griff’s gaze focused on her face, piercing and intense.

“Sometimes,” he said slowly, his tone very low and serious and what seemed to her, in unusual candor, “we do what we must, Dulcie, to make life more tolerable.”

Abruptly, he changed his demeanor and patted her hand. “Now then, your stepmother told us she would be gone for several hours, and I was to entertain you, hmm?”

When she blinked, she noticed his expression had turned inscrutable. But she noticed something else in his half smile. “Come on. We may not have another opportunity.”

She felt strangely comfortable when he took and held her hand. However, she balked when he drew her around the corner and pulled her into the bedroom wing. “Why couldn’t we stay in the drawing room?”

“Servants are always passing by. They are often nosy. I prefer privacy, don’t you?”

Just then, the stern voice of the butler echoed up the staircase to the second storey. In the foyer below them, Bender was heard instructing several footmen in their nightly duties, sending them upstairs to stoke up the fire in the drawing room grate and the countess’s bedchamber.

Dulcie glanced over her shoulder and swiftly agreed, “I s’pose so.” She joined Griff as they fled along the hallway like schoolchildren caught in mischief. Simon woofed like a pup, thinking it was a great game to race along beside them.

The dog slid to a stop when Griff grabbed Dulcie at the end of the corridor and swung her around, pressing her back against the wall. He promptly kissed her again. Caught by surprise, her numb lips parted. Griff didn’t allow her to clamp them shut although she tried. He slanted his lips over hers, shoving hard and opening them for a quick plunge into her mouth.

Befuddlement blocked her normal instincts, and she did nothing to stop him.

“Mmmph,” she moaned, a tiny murmur escaping from beneath his unexpected invasion.

Hearing Dulcie’s soft sigh, Simon lay down, content to wait for the door to the room to open.

Ever so slowly, not fighting him, Dulcie softened against Griff. His potent kiss was quite pleasant.
Very pleasant, indeed,
she mused through a floating fog of euphoria. Kissing Griffith Spencer was as natural as drawing breath.

The intriguing scent of Griff’s cologne, the feel of his large body pulling her close while he pressed her back flush against the wall, removed her modest behavior from reality. Wanton behavior was not what she normally condoned. Yet her eyelids drooped and she shared a blissfully torrid kiss with Griffith Spencer. Was it wrong to seize the moment and enjoy it for as long as it lasted?