The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (29 page)

Her fingers were still smoothing down his hair, going from his temple to behind his ear. That touch was the most extraordinary gift.

Her listening had been a gift too. He felt scraped raw inside, and yet the awful burden he’d carried so long had shifted somehow, its crushing weight no longer bearing down on his heart.

He’d told her everything, and the world hadn’t fallen to pieces after all.

Rachel’s palms lay against his cheeks. She got up onto her knees so she could bring her mouth to his.

Sweet heaven, she was kissing him again. He’d just confessed that her sister was dead because of his stupidity and arrogance, and she was kissing him. As if he were something precious.

He pulled back. “Rachel—”

“Hush.”

“Didn’t you hear what I—”

“I heard.” She began to press kisses along his jaw, gently, her fingers stroking through his hair. “I heard you. And earlier this morning I heard the Giant blame himself too. All of you, feeling so blasted guilty. Don’t you understand? Sarah made her own choices. And I make mine.”

She rose, slid her arms around his neck, and settled into his lap. Her soft weight against his legs and chest anchored him, steadied him. Strength seemed to pour from her body into his.

His hands, which had not moved since she let go of them, itched to touch her. One was pressed between their bellies, one rested just at the curve of her bottom. He moved them now. He brushed one hand up the line of her hip. The other he closed over the knee she had drawn up close to his side. He let his palms slide over her skirts, up and down the length of her legs, as far as he could reach. She was strong lines and lush curves, strength and softness together, and exactly what he needed.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes.” She was whispering something else against his mouth; it took his fogging brain a moment to decipher what it was, to even recognize it as language. “
Da mi basia mille
.”

“What is that?” he asked vaguely, though some part of his memory was stirring against the haze of desire, stirring with the familiarity of the words.

“It’s Catullus, one of the poems to Lesbia.
G
i
ve me a thousand kisses
.”

Her lips sealed to his again, and the words she’d spoken seemed to sear themselves on his brain as if written in fire.

She pulled back for a moment then, studying his face with heated eyes. “Give me a thousand kisses,” she repeated, then brushed her lips to his again. “And then a hundred, and then a thousand more.”

“And another hundred,” he answered, remembering the next line. The poem was most definitely coming back to him.

His hand slid up over her bottom to the small of her back to bring her more solidly against him. Her kiss so far had been tender, gentle, but he roughened it. His tongue pushed between her lips, then withdrew; his teeth nipped at the tender flesh.

He had no patience for subtlety now. Not with the fire roaring through him.

He set both hands to the sides of her hips and lifted her, rolling at the same time so in a moment she was on her back on the bed and he was poised over her, his legs between hers, stretching her skirts tight. His weight tugged at her bodice, too, pulling it taut, exposing the upper curve of her breasts.

Their eyes met as he looked down at her, and awareness sparked between them, hot, demanding.

He had just enough gallantry in him to pause then. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “We should. You’ve forgotten the next part of the poem, my lord.
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux
: Once the brief light of our lives goes out, night is a perpetual sleep. We have no time to waste. We must use the light.” She arched against him. “Remember now?”

“
Yes
. Your methods beat the hell out of my old Latin tutor’s.”

She smiled. “And you promised to teach me, remember that. Teach me everything about what men and women do together. You haven’t kept your word.” She bit at her lower lip, even as she smiled. And then she said, “I want you.
You
, Sebastian.”

That all but undid him. He leaned his weight into hers and claimed her mouth.

She kissed him back with remarkable ardor, and that fissure inside him that was breaking open cracked still further. He didn’t know what would happen if it split apart entirely.

She’d given him a shield here, if he chose to take it. He needed her, desperately, but she was letting him make this a game. Make it about poetry. Make it about teaching her what she wanted to know. It was just enough to hold him together. He withdrew his mouth from hers, whispered in her ear, “What lesson do you wish to learn,
ma nonnette
? What shall I teach you today?”

“Everything,” she whispered back. She was trying to move her body against his, though she could scarcely budge with his legs pinning her skirts.

To help her, he reached down for her hem. He lifted his weight just enough to bring the fabric upwards. His fingers trailed along her stockings as he did, relishing the feel of the silk. “I will teach you something men like. Men dream of doing this—undressing a woman. Discovering the mystery beneath. The best courtesans know it, and dress accordingly.”

It felt ridiculous, to speak like this, so coolly, when his heart was so achingly full.

“This is your first lesson,” he murmured. “Men are remarkably simple creatures. Seeing a woman’s flesh revealed inch by inch is enough to drive us mad. All the other pleasures are magnified if this part of love play is good.”

“Mmm,” was all she said. She was stretched out along his coverlet, looking rosy and pliant, her green eyes darkening.

His blood raced, heating him as though it were midsummer. In truth, he didn’t want to go slowly. He wanted her naked, now, and beneath him.

But this was new to her. He couldn’t rush.

“Undo your hair,” he said. “And spread it out across the pillow. I’ve been waiting a very long time to see that.”

She reached behind her to pull out her tortoiseshell combs, and her rich auburn curls tumbled about her. He wanted to bury his face in them. How beautiful she was.

Sitting up so he could touch her where he willed, he stroked his hands slowly up her calves, savoring each inch. “Lovely.” He slid his hand to the sensitive place in back of her knee, and then up the inner curve of her thigh, and she jerked against his hand with the shock of it. He found the top of one stocking and deftly undid the ribbon. “It’s like unwrapping a gift. Though it can also be delightful if the lady helps.”

“How?” she breathed. “Can I undress you?”

“If you like. In a little while. But for now I should prefer to watch you roll down your stockings.” His breathing deepened, and so did hers. “Slowly.”

She blushed, but she slid her fingers beneath her skirts. He caught at the hem and held it to keep her skirt from hiking up all the way. “Don’t show too much at once,” he cautioned. “One secret at a time. Your knee is a treasure worth revealing on its own, worth a purse of gold.” He bent to press a kiss to it. “More than gold. You can make a man promise you anything.”

She blushed more prettily. And then with an unpracticed but graceful motion, she slid the silk of her stocking slowly down. The skin she revealed was lovelier than silk, glowing and ripe. As she worked her other stocking down, she cast a meaningful glance at his torso. “Take off your jacket,” she said, her voice sultry.

His body pulsed at the sound of her words, and he obeyed her willingly. It was all he could do not to tear his shirt and his trousers off at the same time. “You’re sure you’ve never undressed yourself for a man before?” he joked.

“Never. You were the one who undid my garments before.”

He swallowed hard. “I remember very well.” He knew that, of course. Knew how innocent she still was at the core. And yet he was utterly enraptured by her. Worse than enraptured. Desire heated him, but something more pulled on him. A need like he’d never known—to have her here, to keep her here.

Somehow, the dark empty places in him needed her. Something flowed from her that was like a balm to him.

He could lose himself completely if he wasn’t careful.

He made himself focus on the technicalities of what they were doing. On the physical only. He was skilled at that—he knew how to play a woman like a pianoforte. So he stroked his hand along the length of her bared leg, and her back arched.
Damnation
. Unable to resist, he ran his hand up over her bodice, from the flat of her belly to the sleek rise of the underside of her breast.

She arched further, and made a sound like a purr.

He stretched himself out over her again, laying between her legs but supporting himself with his elbows and knees so their bodies weren’t quite touching. He laid his mouth to the swell of her breasts just above the neck of her gown. “And
this
,” he said, trailing kisses over one satiny curve, “is worth more than diamonds and pearls. A pasha would bankrupt his treasury for it.”

She gave a low laugh. “Should I be asking you for jewels now?”

“A true courtesan would have a king’s ransom.”

“Then give me a king’s ransom, marquess.”

In response, he tugged at the sleeve of her gown until it moved down over her shoulder, then lower, until it exposed the full swell of her breast. It thrilled him to see it in the sunlight, more beautiful than he could have imagined, more luminous, like mother-of-pearl. He fitted his mouth to the rosy nub, suckling, and she cried out.

He moved to the other breast and did the same, and she stopped talking of jewels.

She was panting, and her head was thrown back. He thought perhaps she had already gone beyond the point of talking, but after a few moments she drew herself up on her own elbows and asked with a charming earnestness, “Can I touch you now, too? You haven’t given me much opportunity for that before.”

Oh, God
. “Please.”

She gave him a push on his chest so he sat almost upright. With trembling fingers, she loosened his neckcloth and stock, and spread her fingers across his throat, stroking along the line of his pulse. “You’re golden. Golden everywhere. Take off your shirt again.”

“Again?”

“Yes,” she said. “Like you did when we left Corunna. When we were in the woods.”

“When we were . . . good Lord, were you ogling me then, wench?”

“Yes,” she said, tugging the hem of his shirt from his trousers and urging the whole thing up and over his head with a speed that was likely to burst the seams. “When I wasn’t tending to you like a ministering angel.”

He found himself smiling. “You
were
a ministering angel. You have always been one.” Oh, Lord, this was
not
the path their conversation should be taking.

Her palms were skimming over his torso, driving his blood to a pounding roar. She bent her head to feather kisses across his chest.

He groaned.

Where the calm that usually filled him when he was with a woman?

His hands found their way beneath her skirts again, and drew the fabric up towards her thighs. He felt the heat of her as he stroked his fingers through her V of curls.

“Lay back,” he urged her, and slid his fingers down along the silken folds between her legs, pressing just enough to catch the edge of the moisture there. “And
this
treasure,” he told her, as he lowered his head to kiss along her thighs, “should not be traded for less than a kingdom.”

The scent of her was intoxicating—lavender and musk and the tang of salt. He nuzzled her with his mouth and she nearly arched off the bed. He slid two fingers inside her sheath. She was blazing hot, and slick, and every instinct was driving him to be done with all this play and mount her. “I was wrong before,” he sighed. “This you shouldn’t trade for less than planets and stars.”

“Sebastian,” she insisted, putting her hands to his shoulders and trying to draw him upwards and on top of her. “Come here.”

When he didn’t comply, she wriggled her way to sitting again, drawing herself away from his mouth and hands. Her palm slid along his belly and down, cupping him through his trousers. “Take these off.”

The way she was looking at him, all desire, and yet all gentleness at the same time. Pure acceptance. She should hate him, revile him, but she didn’t. She wanted him.

He couldn’t lie to himself—what drove him now had nothing to do with the mission.

She felt like life itself, the gift of life. Forgiveness. She pressed herself to him, her torso against his, and he felt every inch of the softness and warmth of her skin. It was too much, overwhelming—he burrowed his face into her hair and clutched her to him. His hands stilled. He would be weeping in a moment if he didn’t recover himself. Words were pushing their way up from his throat, words he could never take back.

Desperately as he wanted her, as long as he’d waited for this, he made himself pause, made himself stop and think. Did he have any right to this? Any right to take so much from her?

It was one thing to admit his heart was still a living thing, and another to claim ownership of hers. If they managed to survive what was coming in the next few days, she might want to start her life over, start fresh. And if he took her innocence now, he’d be stealing that opportunity from her.