Seduced (14 page)

She blinked. She hadn’t expected to be given anything more than what she’d already shared with him. That was enough, for certain. She had liked it a great deal until the pain.

She nodded, though. She would have agreed to anything at that point, just to feel his hands on her, his mouth on her, his body on her again.

He took her hand, sliding his fingers with hers, lifting that hand to his lips to kiss it. He smiled and her heart stuttered. This was a very dangerous man. Not just because he was a criminal, but because he could make her feel things, want things, things she couldn’t have. Not with him.

She shook her thoughts away and let him lead her from the room. They went up the stairs without a word and down a long hall. There Jack stopped and looked around with a frown.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t live here, remember? I just realized I have absolutely no idea which room is the master,” he admitted with a chuckle. “I suppose we’ll have to try one and see.”

He closed his eyes and pointed a finger, swirling it around in the air before he jabbed it toward a door and grinned at her. “Dare we?”

She couldn’t help but smile even through her nerves. He made it so easy, when this had always been an act fraught with emotion and fear and disappointment for her. Jack seemed to see it as fun.

He opened the door and they peeked in together. The room was a smaller bedchamber and the furniture was all covered with sheets.

“Wrong,” he muttered.

“Try that one,” she suggested, pointing farther up the hall. “There is more space between that door and any other. It would suggest the chamber is larger.”

He glanced down at her in surprise. “Beautiful, desirable and observant too. Are you an angel, my lady? Or perhaps a temping devil sent to torment me?”

She smiled at his teasing. “Just try the door, Jack.”

“We’ll add eager to your list of assets,” he said as he took her to the door she had indicated. It swung open, and he sighed with what sounded like relief. “Ah, the lady wins a prize. Come into my castle, my dear.”

He stepped aside and motioned her in. The room was large, with a big bed along the wall opposite the fireplace and two chairs placed around it. Of course, at present there were sheets on the furniture and the fireplace sat cold and empty.

She looked at Jack with a shrug. “We could return to the parlor, Jack. It’s warm and light.”

He shook his head. “Nonsense. What I want to do will require far more room, privacy and a bed. The parlor doesn’t have enough of any of those things. Why don’t you remove the sheets while I make the fire?”

He squeezed her hand gently and then went off to the fireplace. Slowly, she circled the room, taking away dusty sheets to reveal what were actually very nice pieces of furniture and a comfortable enough looking bed that was fully made and ready to be slept in.

“It will take a while to warm the room,” Jack said as he stepped away from the now glowing fire and proceeded to light the lamps around the room, filling the chamber with a welcoming, golden radiance. “But I have something to do that will keep you from getting a chill
and
will help you be ready for me.”

His eyes lit up as he said those words, and deep inside herself, Letty began to ache. But it was a good ache, an intense one that came from longing. She sank into the feeling and didn’t resist as Jack backed her toward the bed. The mattress hit her thighs and she jolted, but he caught her and lowered her gently.

“Get comfortable,” he urged her, taking a place beside her as she settled against the cool pillows.

He slid his hands into her hair and the pins that held her complicated style in place came loose. Her locks fell around her face as he combed them down around her shoulders. It was funny that she was fully clothed, but that simple action made her feel revealed. There weren’t many people who’d seen her with her hair like that. Only one man.

And Jack was very much not Noah.

“You are beautiful,” Jack murmured as he leaned in to press a few light, teasing kisses along the column of her throat.

“If you say so,” she muttered, hardly able to think when his tongue flicked out to taste her flesh.

He lifted his head and positioned his hands on the pillows to imprison her. “I
do
say so,” he said, locking eyes with her. The teasing was gone from his expression. “And I am never wrong.”

She laughed, and the sound shocked her. Once again, his demeanor made her comfortable, even as one of his hands strayed down her body, sliding back and forth against the exposed skin above her bodice, then lower so the back of his hand traced over her covered breasts.

The friction of her gown tugged over her nipples made them hard and achy. She found her back arching slightly.

“I have been obsessed with these luscious breasts for a while now,” he growled, his tone low and calm and utterly seductive. “Dreaming of what they look like and taste like. Later I’m going to find out.”

She swallowed. “I think I would like that.”

“You
will
like it,” he replied as he hand crested lower, trailing over her flat stomach and across the swell of one hip. She thought of when he’d touched her between her legs and heat rose in her entire body. That had been so wicked and wonderful, and she couldn’t wait for more.

He grinned, and as if he read her mind, he began to ratchet her skirts up once more, revealing her to him as he had in the parlor. And as she had then, she blushed and turned away from his gaze. To her surprise, he tucked a finger beneath her chin and turned her face back.

“Don’t look away,” he whispered. “This act is about pleasure, not shame, no matter what you were told by stuffy old biddies or what you felt when you were refused by a man with limitations. I want you to revel in this, Letitia. To use all your senses, including sight, to drown in what is about to happen.”

She hesitated. To fully immerse herself in what he was doing? To give in to what he offered and what she would surrender? It was terrifying, given the disappointments of the past.

“I am not Noah,” he murmured, slowly and succinctly.

She sighed. “No, you are not. You are exactly what I want, Jack. Exactly what I need.”

His gaze darkened a fraction, and she thought she saw heavier emotion enter his face, but then he ducked his head, sliding down her body with his lips along the trail his hand had taken earlier. She stiffened in confusion as he rubbed his cheek along the apex of her body, pressed closed-mouth kisses across her hip and finally settled between her legs, just inches from her most intimate areas.

“Open,” he encouraged, placing his warm hands on her thighs and pushing.

She did as he asked even as her heart throbbed, her body shook with fear and need combined. He let out a low groan as he tugged the opening of her drawers apart and revealed her sex a second time that night.

Although she wanted to squeeze her legs shut, to push him away, she forced herself to remain still as he looked at her. His face was so close to her now, he could see every fold, every inch of pink flesh, every droplet of moisture she felt pooling there.

“My God, Letitia,” he grunted. “You are temptation embodied.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, he leaned in and pressed a hot, wet, open-mouthed kiss on her sex. She stiffened at the heated caress, shocked and surprised by it. But Jack didn’t stop. He continued to brush his lips back and forth against her sensitive flesh as she gasped and jolted beneath him, even as he untied her garters. Then he tugged the drawers from her legs, easing them down so that she was entirely bared to him.

She could hardly breathe as he tossed the flimsy fabric aside and returned his attention to her sex. This time, he pressed her open wider and kissed her again, sliding his tongue out to trace her outer lips.

“Jack!” she cried out, arching her back as electric pleasure jolted through her. It was similar to the feelings that had stirred in her body when he’d touched her there earlier, only far more intense and focused.

“Relax,” he murmured against her, the vibration of his words, the heat of his breath making her anything but relaxed. “Let me.”

She had no choice
but
to let him. Her body felt weak and heavy. She was mesmerized as he glided his tongue along her over and over. He spread her open and the feelings intensified. He sucked at her, he stroked her, he swirled his tongue against her as she shut her eyes and sank into the sensations that mobbed her body all at once.

She found her hips lifting to the relentless rhythm of his tongue, as if her body were naturally reaching for something. Something. She was on the edge of it, she knew, but what it was she didn’t fully understand.

The pressure between her legs built, and just as she thought she would die from waiting, he drew the little bundle of nerves at the top of her sex between his lips, swirling his tongue around it as he sucked.

Her world exploded in a burst of color and sensation. Wave upon wave of pleasure rolled through her, and all she could do was writhe as the sensations swallowed her up. She cried out Jack’s name, her hands coming down to clench his hair out of reflex, though she wasn’t certain whether to push him away to limit the intensity or push him closer to make it last longer.

At last the tremors that wracked her body slowed and she realized there was a sound in the room around her now. A low moaning. And as Jack lifted his head from between her legs and met her stare with a heated one of her own, she realized that sound was coming from deep within herself.

He crawled up the length of her body and cupped her head, tilting her face back as he kissed her deeply. She tasted an earthy flavor on his lips and realized it was the essence of her sex clinging to him. Her body jolted a little at that fact as she wrapped her arms around him and held tight.

“
That
was what you’ve been missing, my lady,” he whispered as he pulled away.

She nodded. “Missing and didn’t even understand. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“And you’re going to feel it again,” he promised as he caught her hands and helped her sit up. “The room is warm enough now. Let me help you undress.”

Letty let him assist her to her feet and found her legs wobbly after the incredible release of pleasure she had just experienced. Jack smiled as he steadied her. Then his hands strayed to the line of buttons on the front of her silk gown. She watched his long fingers move to unfasten them one by one, feeling almost disconnected from the experience.

But when he slid the shoulders of her gown away, pushing the fabric off her arms to dangle at her waist, she jolted awake. He was undressing her. Completely. In a moment she would be naked with him. She had never been
completely
naked with anyone but her maid, and even then she always tried to cover herself swiftly.

“Jack,” she whispered, reaching up to cover his hands before he could slide his fingers beneath her chemise straps.

He met her gaze. “Yes?”

“I’m—I don’t want you to be disappointed,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

He tilted his head. “Do you think I could be? Letitia, I have wanted you since the first moment you stormed across the ballroom to come to your brother’s rescue. I want you even more now. Let me do this.”

She took a long breath to calm herself. Then she nodded and removed her hands from his. He stroked his thumb over her shoulder gently before he hooked it beneath her chemise strap and tugged that down as well.

She was naked from the waist up, and she felt it as the warm air caressed her skin. But she forced herself not to turn away, forced herself to remain in her spot as Jack stared at her.

“Perfect,” he whispered, then bent his dark head and took one nipple into his lips.

The sensation was immediate, starting with a tingling pleasure at her breast and rapidly increasing the pressure and tugging between her legs. Her knees buckled, but he caught her, massaging her backside gently as he held her upright and continued his assault on her sensitive flesh.

How had she never known this pleasure existed? It was like she’d been asleep for years and now he was waking her, slowly, seductively.

As he slid his lips across her chest, tending to her opposite nipple, he pulled at her gown, tugging it over her hips and letting it and her chemise fall at a pool at her feet. Then he shimmied her drawers away and that left her only in silken stockings and her slippers.

He drew back from her at last, looking at her almost nudity, and smiled. “Better than I pictured. And I have a vivid imagination, Letitia.”

“Will you do the same?” she asked.

His eyebrows lifted. “Take off my clothing?”

She jerked out a nod. She had seen his member a while ago, big and intimidating, but now she wanted it all.

“If you remove those stockings and slippers, I shall be your slave,” he said, folding his arms.

She swallowed hard as she pushed her slippers off, then bent to roll her stocking away. The final vestiges of her modesty were now gone and she stood before him naked.

He muttered a curse salty enough that she blushed hot, but then he shrugged out of his jacket and went to work on the rest of his clothing. She stared unabashedly as he loosened his cravat then went to work on his buttons, revealing inch after inch of the toned flesh of his chest. When he tugged the shirt away, she caught her breath.

He was hard as marble, with cut muscles all along his stomach that she longed to trace with her fingers or her mouth. A dusting of chest hair curled down his body, disappearing into the low-slung waist of his trousers.

Already she could see the outline of his member beneath the flap, and recalled how it felt when he slid into her. There had been pain yes, but also a fullness, a completeness she had yearned for ever since her failed wedding night.

Now she wanted that again. She would endure the unpleasantness for all the rest, for the connection this act would bring.

He toed his boots off, loosened the trousers and pushed them down over his toned hips. When he straightened, he was now as naked as she was. She stared at the thrusting muscle of his member, jutting against his stomach like a weapon. She recalled
The
Ladies Book of Pleasures
, which described it as a
cock
. That naughty book had also described many ways to please a man by touching it…or even sucking it.