The slightest dent appeared in his cheek, but his eyes remained shadowed.
“Thoroughly direct, as always,” he murmured. “The only pretense of that sort that I have engaged in lately is in making you believe I do not want you.”
The breath whooshed out of her.
“Oh. Is that all?” she uttered.
“What more do you want?”
“A great deal more, I should say.” She did not halt the words that rushed to her tongue. She could not. “I want what you gave Lady Nathans.”
“Miss Pierce,” he said as though he hadn’t heard her, “it may be to your advantage now to go back to the house and lock yourself in your chamber.”
She blinked, her breaths coming fast, the breeze stirring about them chill but her body hot as lit coals.
“Lock?”
“Octavia, go now,” he said huskily. “Or you are going to get a great deal more than I gave her.”
She recognized that husky quality in his voice. She craved it.
“Why do you keep telling me to go?”
“Because I find I cannot bring myself to.”
“I want to stay.”
“I don’t think you know what you want. But I know what I want, and it is not what you are looking for.”
She trembled from her lips to her toes. “Will you marry Lady Constance someday?”
His brow lowered again beneath satiny hair.
“Will you?” she repeated more firmly.
“No.”
“Does she wish to?”
His eyes looked so strange, intense and somewhat confused. Then, abruptly, fierce.
“No,” he growled, and dragged her to him. He covered her mouth and there was no holding back and no reason to now—not Marcus or Constance—nothing but her fear of falling.
She cast the fear aside, sinking beneath the onslaught of his lips, his hands tangling in her hair, his hard body grazing hers as she twisted his waistcoat between her fingers to hold him close. She couldn’t get close enough. She wanted him inside her, his heat. Needed him. But she could not lie to him. He kissed her as though he would not cease, but he had before. The memory of his cold words beneath the trellis pricked her.
She broke free and sucked in a breath, gripping his shirt. He kissed her throat, trailing hot caresses into her hair, his tongue slipping along her sensitive earlobe.
“What if—” She gasped, his big palm hot and heavy on her behind. “What if I want it for the same reason as Lady Nathans?”
His mouth captured hers and she met him because she could not resist.
“What if that?” she insisted.
His eyes swam like pools of midnight water, his chest moving hard beneath her hands. “I don’t care anymore.”
She twined her arms around his neck and gave herself up to him. He kissed her and she knew only his mouth and hands and that she never wanted this glorious madness to end. Rain pattered onto the marble steps and her cheeks, thick droplets heating beneath his palm cupping her face then curving down her neck. She drank him in, tasting him, water slipping off his skin and between her lips in tendrils like nectar. Ravenous, she closed her teeth around his jaw, seeking him with every part of her. He pulled her tight to him and his kiss consumed.
The storm broke above, splitting the black sky with strident light, but they were fused. Ben slid his hand between their mouths, separating them, and Tavy took his finger with her tongue and sucked on it. He groaned, gripped her hand and pulled her down the steps.
The rain lashed at them, wind whipping sheets of water at an angle against her skirts. He urged her ahead through the darkness and she ran, her gown clinging and legs light, her body filled with feeling, thoroughly alive. Behind her, he laughed and it was like heaven opening up. She turned mid-stride, tripped, and he grabbed her up, covered her smiling mouth and made love to her with his kiss. The rain washed them in a blanket of sound, pure and clean. He drew away from her lips, holding her face in strong hands, water streaming down his brow and cheeks, and she blinked through the downpour to see him. He found her hand again, then the small of her back, and pressed her forward through the deluge.
She ran so that she could be in his arms again that much sooner.
He pulled her toward a door at the rear corner of the house and they stumbled inside. Ben pushed the door shut against the wind and without pausing drew her swiftly along the passageway, his fingers wrapped around hers. They emerged onto a corridor near the dining chamber. The house was dark and silent now, the sounds of the storm beating on windows and walls outside muffling their quick progress.
He halted abruptly, his grip tightening. Footsteps sounded ahead, then male voices. The glow of a lamp bobbed around a corner, approaching. Tavy’s heart hammered.
Ben dragged her across the corridor, opened a door and pulled her within. A single candle lit the billiards room furnished with only the broad flat table, chairs against the paneled walls, a rack of cues and a sideboard topped with crystal carafes. He turned the key in the lock, dropped her hand and moved silently to the opposite door to fix the bolt.
Shivering in her drenched clothes, Tavy pressed her palms and ear to the door and listened. The footsteps came close and halted. The doorknob rattled. Her pulse leapt. She did not dare breathe.
Lord Gosworth’s voice resonated through the thick wood. “Locked already. Blast Doreé’s Methodist butler, shutting all the best brandy away at the stroke of midnight Saturday.”
“S’pose my wife’s expecting me, in any case,” his companion mumbled.
“Good for you, lad.” A sound like a thwack upon wool. “Good for you.”
The footsteps receded. When they faded entirely, Tavy released her breath, then sucked it in abruptly. Ben’s hands covered hers pressed to the door, his body coming up against hers from behind. From shoulders to thighs he trapped her, hard and purposeful. He kissed her neck and she tilted her head to allow him, shivering with the pleasure. His fingers curled around her wrist, then along her arm, trailing to her breast. He stroked her through the sodden garments and her body tightened with prickling bursts.
Her breaths came humid against the door. She pushed into his palm and his touch grew firmer, his other hand smoothing to her waist and without hesitation between her legs. She caught up her breath. He caressed her in deep long strokes, kissing her throat and neck, her damp skin on fire beneath his mouth.
Tavy sighed, a sound heavy and foreign from the depths of her that he roused so easily. She wanted him, and she wanted this to go on forever, the delirium of his hands on her just like this, the sweet heaven of his male need pressing into her behind, startling but delicious. Where he caressed her, she ached. She tilted her forehead into the door and reached back to grip his hips and settle her body tighter to his.
He pulled her around, flattened her against him and kissed her hard, harder, until she could not breathe. Until she breathed only him.
Ben swept her up in his arms, took two strides and set her down upon the edge of the billiards table. His fevered gaze covered her, and beneath it, soaked to her skin, bedraggled like a street urchin, Tavy felt absolutely beautiful. He had always made her feel beautiful. Always.
Her skirts clung, but his hands upon her ankles and warm along her calves were sure. Petticoat, gown, and shift came up and she helped him, her fingers quivering, her body anticipating she didn’t know what but she wanted it. Wanted him so much. Her thighs were pale beneath his warm hands, but when she lifted her gaze, he was looking at her face. She pulled him forward and kissed him, wrapping her legs around his waist and bringing her tender flesh against the front of his trousers. He curved his hands around her behind and held her to him. He was taut and her breath fled, on fire for him but not knowing what to do.
“Ben?” she barely breathed, pressing into him. He slid his hands up to her breasts and held her and she grew faint, whispering his name as she shifted herself against his hardness, seeking relief for the delicious throbbing.
Gently he pressed her back onto the table. Then he knelt upon one knee, pulled her hips to him, and began again a dance with her body that Tavy had been dreaming about for seven endless years.
He stroked gently at first, his tongue soft against her need, and she nearly jumped from her skin. But he grasped her thighs tight and covered her with his mouth. Time ceased, the storm outside a bare echo of reality. She could not be still, thunder rocking through her with each kiss, each moment of pure pleasure in which she became more his. She arched her back, moving her hips to meet his hot caresses that drew her under. He stroked faster, harder, his tongue upon her a divine torture. Briefly, he dipped inside her, teasing. She gasped and gripped the edges of the table, frantic with the need to feel completion, frantic for more of his tongue in her until her breaths shallowed and her vision clouded.
“Please,” she groaned, straining against him. “
Please
, Ben.”
He took her beyond what she remembered, beyond what she dreamt, stroking her into pleasure so sublime and complete her entire body shuddered, trembling as the heat spread. She gasped for air, sobbing, no tears, only rich, sublime convulsions that embraced her from the depths of where he kissed to her lips.
She shook, breathless as he pulled her up and into his arms and buried his face in her hair. She clung to him and willed him not to release her, not to allow anything to end what she never wanted ended.
“This—” Her voice came forth raspy. “This table is lovely. But I want to be in your bed now.”
Wonderfully, he laughed. His hands spread then ran down her back, holding her firmly to his chest. He did not intend to release her, it seemed. It would not end. Not just yet.
“Can you stand?” he said roughly at her ear.
“Stand? At this time I believe I could fly.”
BLINK. That dazzling whiteness around the horizon.
—Falconer’s
Dictionary of the Marine
G
iven the considerable size of the house, it seemed a rather quick trip to the master suite. But—lingering between sublime gratification and shimmering anticipation as Ben drew her swiftly and silently along dark passageways—Tavy could not entirely trust her judgment.
Within his bedchamber, she hadn’t time to take in the details of the fire-lit space before he set to removing her soaked garments with remarkably deft fingers. She helped, focusing on the task. She did not care what his bedchamber looked like as long as she was in it. And she would not need any of her clothing for the time being. He had kissed her passionately, intimately. She had nothing left to hide from him.
Still, when finally she stood naked before him, she quailed.
“Don’t,” he said, grasping her hands as she tried to cover herself. He stretched her arms wide. “You are beautiful. So beautiful.”
Beyond beautiful. Exquisite. And she was his now. Finally. For the night at least.
Ben drew in a long, unsteady breath. In his thirty years, he had done nothing to deserve this moment. But he would take it without question.
“I feel like Parvati, standing here naked with my arms wide. Except of course that I only have the two.” She grinned. Then her cheeks flushed, her warm eyes twinkling.
Something deep and hot inside Ben turned over.
“What is it?” He could not look away from her lips despite the expanse of creamy skin and dusky pink temptation below.
“I was wondering what the Goddess of Love would do in a situation like this with her extra pair of arms.” She fluttered her fingers like fans. “And hands.”
Ben’s mouth went dry. He released her wrists, slipped an arm around her slender waist and threaded his fingers into her rain-darkened hair. She turned her face up to him.
“Any ideas?” she asked lightly, but her breaths were rapid, her breasts rising against his chest.
“Perhaps,” he murmured over her intoxicating lips. “But at this moment I require only the two. Put them around me.”
She did as she was bidden and the sweetest smile curved her lips. He swallowed roughly and lowered his mouth to trace her pure beauty with the tip of his tongue, to taste her as he had tasted her womanhood. He’d needed to know that he had not dreamt her flavor, honey and musky, beguiling Octavia, as he needed to assure himself now that her mouth shaped to his as though made for his kisses. He spread his hand upon her soft, round behind, and she made a mewling sound of pleasure in her throat. Ben felt the sound everywhere, beneath his skin, in his chest, and through his aching cock. Her lips were sweet, the curve of her throat a delicate slope of perfection, the swell of her breasts tipped with lush peaks, all of her body his now, again, after too long.
He bent and circled a dusky aureole with his tongue. She sighed and he lingered, his erection straining at the fastenings of his trousers. Her fingers slid into his hair, her other palm flat on his shoulder. With his mouth he memorized her hot, soft feminine beauty. Such beauty, precious to him. She shifted her hips and a low groan escaped her.
“Ben.” Her voice was scant. She arched into him with a little whimper, but her hand pressed hard against his shoulder. “Please stop.”
He lifted his head, his chest abruptly tight.
She gripped his neck and pulled his mouth to hers, lips opening, kissing him with undiluted urgency like he fully intended to kiss every inch of her. She broke the kiss, her breaths fast and sharp.
“I want—” She pushed him away and stumbled back. Pink stained her cheeks and the stiff tips of her perfect breasts. “I think it is vastly unfair,” she said, clearly struggling, “that I am standing here like Parvati while you are fully clothed.”
For an instant Ben felt peculiarly light-headed.
He unwound his soggy cravat. His collar went next, waistcoat, and suspenders in short order.
She lifted her hand to stay him. “May I undress you?”
He barely breathed. “I wish you would.”
Slender and agile, her fingers worked at the buttons at his shirt, pushing aside damp fabric and coming to rest upon him.
She drew in a deep breath. “Oh my.”
Impatience lapped at Ben, the feathery burn of her fingertips driving heat everywhere. He pulled the shirttail free of his trousers and dragged the garment over his head.
Octavia’s eyes went wider than he had ever seen them. Ben’s muscles contracted, every single one of them. With effort he managed to loosen his grip on the shirt enough to drop it. She stared at his body, her gaze traveling from his shoulders to his waist then back. He hadn’t ever known such torment.
“Octavia.” His voice came forth far from steady.
“I never imagined,” she whispered in a tone of utter awe, and her hand darted out then halted. Tentatively, as though reaching into fire, she placed her palm upon his chest. Ben sucked in air, her touch tightening him. She must be able to feel the hard thud of his heart. She leaned into his shoulder and inhaled, her uneven breaths soft upon his skin. He willed his arms to remain at his sides.
“You know,” she said in that same tone, heady and thin, “Lal used to visit your house every day. The kitchen, I think. When he came home he always smelled of delicious things, spices and what have you.”
“Please tell me you have not just now compared me to a monkey.”
She laughed. “You always smelled so good, from the moment we met.” She laid her lips beside her hand. “Like a man,” she sighed against his skin.
“I should hope so.” He spoke in a vain attempt to still the trembling within him at the velvet caress of her open mouth. Her hand curved around his arm and she sighed, smoothing across his ribs to his back. Her feet followed, the tips of her breasts brushing his arm as she circled him. Only the barest intake of breath, then its release against his shoulder blade, revealed her reaction to the scars upon his back. Fully behind him, her palms slid to his waist, then she came around to face him again. Lifting her gaze to meet his, she slipped her hand over his buttock. Her eyes shone.
He forced words through his lips. “Enjoy your tour?”
“Very much.”
“Care to continue your previous occupation?”
“Yes, indeed.”
The release of each trouser button seemed to Ben an eternity of redoubled torture. He gripped his fists at his sides.
“You must relax.” Her voice hinted at her own high tension. “The veins in your arms are distressed.” Her hand paused upon his trousers, then wrapped about his wrist. She bent and ran her damp tongue along the inside of his forearm. Ben choked on a surge of desire, her mouth so close now.
He grasped her shoulders, pulled her up against his chest and kissed her hard.
“Remove my blasted trousers now, or I will.”
Her head bobbed but she said, “Perhaps you should. I— My hands are somewhat unsteady.”
He released a taut breath. “Octavia, I beg your pardon—”
“Oh,
don’t
.” She drew him down again and pressed her lips to his. “Only be quick about it.” Slender fingers grazed the waistband of his trousers, shaking slightly as they paused above the bulge of his erection. “I am very curious.”
Curious, quivering, but eager and as impatient as he. She stared fixedly as he unfastened the remaining buttons, her color high. Ben hadn’t any idea what to make of her. But he had never known a woman like Octavia Pierce in any other way. Why should she be like other women in this?
With his clothing gone finally, he had only one design: to be between her legs and deep inside her. But she seemed to have another idea. Her slender hand stole to his waist then behind once more, her gaze traveling over him thoroughly.
“Good heavens, Ben, you are a beautiful man,” she said breathily, but he could not respond. She stood so close he could feel the heat of her body upon his arousal. Her hand hovered. “May I?”
He could only nod jerkily.
She touched him, the lightest caress, and he was undone.
He grasped her arms. “Octavia.”
“Did she do this?” Her voice trembled.
Dear God
.
“Who?” He could barely speak for the pain of pleasure.
“Her. Priscilla Nath—”
“I was with her all of five minutes.”
Her gaze flickered up to his, uncertain. “You work fast.”
“I did not make love to her. But unless you would prefer to discuss other matters first, I am going to make love to you. Right now.”
She nodded quickly, her eyes wide. “Yes. Yes. Now would be good.”
He swept her up and deposited her on his bed. Against the white linens, her skin was pale, her hair dark. Ben gazed upon her lovely arms, her long, shapely legs, the thatch of soft russet hair at their crux, her full breasts perfectly peaked, her eyes heated pools of anticipation. He had never seen anything so beautiful, never wanted anything so much.
He parted her knees and moved between them, bringing their bodies together. She gasped then moaned as he slid against her. Lightly he caressed her with his shaft, stirring her heat and driving himself mad. To touch her like this, to have her— It seemed as though he had waited all his life for this moment. Feeling her beneath him now, her silken thighs flanking his hips, her breathing heavy, might as well have been a thousand years of missed opportunity. Wasted time.
Time he must win back now.
He trailed his tongue along the slope of her neck and she gripped his shoulders, holding him, keeping him near, and Ben ached in the deepest part of him.
He whispered her name, touched her, and her body danced for him, supple woman asking for caresses he had longed to give her for years, reaching for more. Kissing her, he drowned in her flavor, her high, needy sighs, the captivating softness of her breasts and belly, and he grew hard beyond endurance. He could not touch her enough. Needing to feel her arousal in his mouth, he took her taut nipple with his tongue and she arched against him, thrusting her breasts upward, whimpering her hunger.
“Oh, Ben.
Yes
.”
She squirmed beneath him, seeking satisfaction. He reached between their bodies and swept his fingers along her womanhood. She shifted against his palm, perfect, ready. He parted her, holding steady against her entrance though he shook with the effort of restraint. Her lashes fluttered, a sound of acquiescence stealing from her throat. In feral relief Ben pressed forward, she gripped him, wet, tight—
dear Kama
, so tight—and he entered a paradise he vowed never to leave.