The Reckless Bride (39 page)

Entering, he shut the main door, then crossed to the last door between him and his intended. Halting before it, he raised his hand, hesitated enough to restrain his impatience, then rapped lightly.

“Come in.”

The faintly sultry, decidedly languid tones rushed over him like a caress, and set every instinct on high alert.

He hesitated, then, jaw tightening, grasped the doorknob, turned it, and walked in.

She was lying on her side across the bed, propped on one elbow facing the door, a smile of welcome on her face, her long, luscious body encased in a confection composed of feathers, wisps of satin, and scraps of lace.

Beyond his control, his gaze swept from her shoulders, the ivory curves peeking through a froth of lace and feathers, past the ripe curves of her breasts outlined in sheening satin, past the indentation of her waist, the evocative curves of hip and stomach, the long svelte lines of her thighs, to her calf, half revealed beneath a ruffle of lace and feathers, to the tiny feathered slippers on her feet.

Lamps on side tables flanking the bed cast a warm, loving glow over her dark hair, her porcelain skin. Gilded her curves.

His mouth had dried. Breathing was difficult. He managed to shut the door behind him. Cleared his throat, gestured. “Where …?”

“Esme. Paris. What more need I say?” Her smile was an open invitation.

He took one step foward. Halted. Seized the moment to get his baser self under more rigid control.

Her eyes on his, she moved, slowly, sinuously, rising to her knees.

Revealing to his fascinated senses that the nightgown was even more alluring than he’d thought—almost insubstantial across her upper breasts, leaving the ripe mounds to beckon and tease behind a shifting drift of feathers anchored on open lace. At her sides, panels of the same lace framed two slits that ran up her thighs, up the sides of her hips to just below her waist.

Whoever had designed the nightgown knew a great deal about men. Whatever Esme had been thinking when she’d bought the garment for Loretta, he didn’t want to know.

On her knees, Loretta, all siren, beckoned him to the side of the bed. His feet moved of their own accord, and took him to her.

“This time,” she murmured, fingers closing around his lapels as she drew him the last inch closer, “I get to lead.”

He couldn’t think of a worse idea but, as her lips pressed, all voluptuous temptation, to his, he gathered she wasn’t interested in his opinion.

His reservations.

He clung to the latter, but he couldn’t deny her as with those delicate lips and the tip of her wicked tongue she lured him into the exchange, until he accepted her brazen invitation, and sank into her mouth and claimed.

All she offered. That reality, as ever, sent his senses reeling, set his desires aflame, his passions slavering. His hands closed about her, satin shifting seductively under his palms, teasing his fingers with the tactile promise of what lay beneath. Skin so fine it made satin seem coarse.

The nightgown had been designed by some sorceress to pander to a man’s lusts, to heighten male anticipation; he wasn’t proof against the magic. Hands spreading, fingers splaying, he seized—

Loretta pushed his coat over his shoulders, restricting his reach.

Holding to the kiss, an incendiary duel of heat and rising passion, he shrugged off the coat—discovered his waistcoat hanging open and shrugged it off, too. Her fingers were busy with his cravat. Leaving her to it, he closed his hands about her hips, sank his fingers into the firm flesh beneath the sliding satin, then eased his hold and sent his hands skating around and upward to close about her breasts.

The feathers and lace distracted him, confused him.

Her lips still locked with his, she drew his cravat off, tossed it aside. Leaning into him, into the kiss, flagrantly pressing her breasts into his hands, she seized his shirt above his waistband and tugged.

Then she rocked back on her heels, broke the kiss. Eyes dark with passion, lips swollen and sheening, demanded, “Off.” She tugged at the shirt.

Determination was stamped in her expression, echoed in her tone. Muttering a curse, he grabbed the shirt and hauled it up over his head.

Felt her hands grip his waistband as he did.

Felt the buttons give as he whipped the shirt off his head, then wrestled to free his arms.

Even as he dropped the shirt, she closed her hands about him. Locked her fingers about his erection and stroked.

His eyes closed. He clenched his fists, fought for the strength to endure her touch, her eager, exploring caresses, curious, innocent, yet lascivious all at once. He had, he reminded himself, experienced far worse, more expert and demanding torture, yet for some reason with her … her simplest touch felt infinitely more intimate. More meaningful. More passionate, laden with her own brand of sultry heat.

At least she was only touching.…

The thought had him forcing his eyes open. His gaze fell on her face; he took in the wonderment in her expression, an open delight as she stroked and fondled.…

His arousal racheted up another excruciating notch; he was already as hard as he could get. Fully engorged, under her hand he felt like hot marble, impossibly straining.

If he didn’t get her hands off him …

He caught them, one in each of his, drew them from his throbbing erection as he placed one knee between hers on the bed, drew her hands up level with his head—as she looked up, lips parted, he swooped and locked his lips over hers.

Kissed her voraciously.

The instant she was caught, he released her hands, set his own to her sinfully clad body, intending to sweep them beneath her bottom and lift her to him …

She wrapped her arms about his neck, kissed him with such fiery demand she stole his breath—momentarily seized his wits. Before he could reclaim them, she tipped back, tumbled back across the bed, taking him with her.

With neither purchase nor balance to resist, he landed atop her in a welter of limbs and feathered satin. Gritting his teeth, he pushed up. Ignoring the lust spearing through him
at the sensation of having her satin-encased form undulating beneath him, he rolled to the side so he wasn’t squashing her.

But she followed.

Used her weight to push him further, tipping him onto his back. Rising on her knees, tugging the skirts of her gown free, she slid one sleek thigh across his hips, and straddled him.

Bracing her hands on his chest, she looked down at him.

Her slow, sultry smile was that of a cat eyeing an entire bowlful of cream.

He stared up at her, a touch dumbfounded, increasingly wary.

Beyond aroused.

Concealed beneath the fall of her gown, cradled against one delicate inner thigh, the most aroused part of him twitched.

She felt it. Smile deepening, she looked down, then gathered and lifted the folds of satin to reveal his errant, still engorged, still throbbing, member.

“Ah, yes.” Lustful anticipation laced the words. She glanced up at him, met his eyes. “My turn, I believe.”

She might as well have licked her lips.

He wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t as she wriggled back down his legs, then gripped his trousers and tugged them down.

There was, clearly, no point in resisting. Thanking heaven he’d worn trousers and shoes, he toed the later off, heard them fall to the floor, then lifted his hips, helped her free his legs.

Managing to anchor his legs the whole time, she stripped the trousers from his feet, and triumphant, flung the garment aside.

Then she turned back to him. To a slow, thorough perusal of all she’d uncovered.

He lay back and looked at her, encased in the gossamer
fine, provocative, evocative confection of satin and feathered lace, perched across his hips like a lustful angel. Swallowed. His mouth was dry; his chest felt tight. Her words echoed in his head. Her turn?

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

Just how bad he looked set to learn as, leaning forward, she set her hands on his chest just below his shoulders, used her weight to hold him steady as she bent her head and pressed her lips to his.

Kissed him, all sweetness and slow, intoxicating pleasure.

Why she imagined he’d move he didn’t know.

He lay there and drank in the promise of her kiss. Let her show him her flavors, gift him with her textures.

Mesmerize him with her passion, blind him with her desire.

When she moved on, sliding her lips to his jaw, then down the line of his throat, he sighed, and let her. Hands at her sides, he didn’t try to guide, but simply held her, and thrilled to the sensations she sent sliding over his skin as she shifted over him. As with her lips, her hands, her tongue, her teeth, she kissed, caressed, licked, laved, and nipped her way down his body.

Inevitably she found scars; with loving care, she tended them with lips and tongue, with the soft waft of her breath, the brush of her fingertips.

Eyes falling closed, he drew in a shuddering breath as she edged lower, her lips skating across the tensed muscles of his abdomen.

Tension heightened, inexorably tightened as she slid lower still. Delicate fingers again wrapped around his erection. He felt the press of her breasts through the feathered lace as she held the rigid rod against her, then she tilted the head aside so she could place a hot open-mouthed kiss on his navel.

Lust closed viselike around his spine, fierce talons sinking deep.

Even as she shuffled lower yet, his mind was awash with thoughts, images, hopes, and contradictory fears.

Would she? Surely not. But what if …

He felt the warm wash of her breath across the sensitive head and stopped breathing. Fists clenching tight, he told himself he wasn’t going to look, wouldn’t …

His lids cracked open, he glanced down his body, and saw.…

A sight that rocked him to his soul.

She was lightly tracing the veins, the bulbous head, but the look on her face … she was studying his erection, examining it, delighting in it as if it were some precious prize.

He must have groaned; her eyes flicked up to meet his.

She looked into his eyes, then smiled.

Put out her tongue and licked.

He jerked, closed his eyes, groaned again—deeper this time.

Felt the soft exhalation of her delighted laugh—an unbelievably erotic sensation—then she licked again, slower, more deliberately, and he stopped thinking.

Could only feel as she tasted him. As she explored and learned.

His hands had risen to cup her head. By an inhuman feat of will he managed not to sink his fingers into the dark silk of her hair, grip, and guide her … but his reins were fraying, his control thinning to a wisp, more hope than reality.

When she slowly licked across the broad head, then circled the rim with the tip of her hot tongue, he’d had enough. Could stand no more. Not without …

Incipient panic gave him the strength to open his eyes, lift his shoulders and, as gently as he could, tighten his grip on her head and draw her away.

She caught one of his hands in hers. Twined her fingers in his, drew his hand from her head and pushed it down to the bed.

“No.” The word fell from her lips, clear, firm, decisive. She met his eyes, her own radiating certainty. “You have to let me.” Her lips curved. She leaned forward on her knees and stretched up to brush her lips over his. Whispered across them, “You have to let me have my way with you tonight.”

From close quarters, she held his gaze. “This, tonight, is my turn to explore and learn what pleases you.” A bewitching, beguiling smile on her lips, she eased back, softly said, “My turn to show you how much I love you.”

His chest swelled. He lay there, searched her eyes—saw that the words had been deliberate, no accident, no light, airy, half-conscious statement.

She’d meant every word.

He lay on his back on her bed, and his world, his universe, rocked. Quaked.

As if she understood, she drew back to her previous position astride his thighs, closed one hand about his straining erection, then bent her head and took him into her mouth.

His eyes closed; his body bowed. A groan was ripped from his chest as she took him deeper.

As she confirmed all she’d said in sensation and pleasure.

Lorettta devoted herself to the task, and discovered just how much pleasuring him rebounded on her. Having him at her sensual mercy was one delight. The sense of control—of leading in this dance at least as far as he would let her—was a different sort of joy.

Holding him in her mouth, suckling, curling her tongue around his solid length, she let her hands roam, stretched them up over his ridged abdomen, over the wide muscles of his chest.

Possessed by touch as she did by suction.

Gloried in her power, in his all but helpless response.

He was magnificient, and he was hers. All hers. She’d spent the day thinking about the previous night, about what it had revealed, and how. About what he’d shown her of the ways to communicate in this arena. About how to return the favor—the pleasure and the wordless commitment, the promise, the unspoken vow.

Tonight, as she’d stated, was her turn. Her turn to communicate that wordless commitment, that unspoken vow. To worship, to pleasure, to give.

Eventually the pressure of their passions grew too great. She felt the urgency pounding through him, through her, felt the throb of aching need between her thighs reach fever-pitch.

Releasing him, she rose up on her knees, gripped the skirts of Esme’s scandalous gift and with a silent thank you to her great-aunt, drew the slithering folds up and off over her head.

He reached for her, gripping her waist. She sensed his intention to roll her beneath him and stopped him, gripped his wrists in both hands. “No—like this.” Shuffling forward on her knees, she positioned herself over his straining member. “I know it can be done—show me how.”

His grip tightened. One glance showed his jaw locked, his features like hewn granite, his eyes a burning blue. But then his fingers eased enough to slide to her hips.

And he showed her.

How to take him in, how to envelop his hardness in her slick softness, how to use her body to flagrantly caress him.