A Matter of Scandal (14 page)

“You mean there aren’t other words you’ve
memorized? Other words you want to know the true meanings of?
Machaera
, perhaps? Or
follis?
”

If he continued, she was going to faint. “Stop that at once.”

“Too vulgar?” he murmured. “Do you prefer
capulus
, or
temo?
”

If she hadn’t been thinking about sword hilts or poles, she was now. Involuntarily her gaze strayed down past his hard chest, and then whipped back to his face again as his hands shifted, tugging her long hair forward over her shoulders. His fingers tangled into her curls, twining and gently twisting until she could barely breathe. “You’re only trying to shock me,” she said, swallowing.

“No, I’m not. I’m trying to show you there’s a difference between knowing a word and knowing what it means. Take
interfeminium
, for example—the place between a woman’s thighs. It’s more than just a word, Emma.”

Before he’d crashed into her life, she thought she knew the word “kiss.” Until he’d kissed her, though, she hadn’t known—really known—what it meant. Until tonight she’d never thought of Latin as arousing.

Even the anatomical vulgarisms she’d memorized had seemed clinical, which was the only reason she’d been able to utter them. When the Duke of Wycliffe said them, though, fire seared through her.

Grey leaned down and gently touched his lips to hers. “Let me teach you, Emma,” he whispered.

Why me?
If she asked aloud, he might remember that she was just a headmistress; that he al
ready knew countless women who didn’t need his lessons and could provide him infinitely more pleasure than she could. “You’ll stop if I ask you to?” she breathed.

“Yes. But you won’t ask.”

“You’re very sure—”

He captured her mouth in a deep, slow kiss. Inexperienced as she was, she felt the difference this time; his touch was more focused, and more leisurely, as though he knew they wouldn’t be interrupted tonight.

The logical part of her realized that this could be the best, last, and only chance for her to discover what it was like to be in a man’s embrace. Her heart and her nerves and her flesh all came to tingling, burning awareness at his touch, like time had stopped and accelerated all in the same moment.

“Emma,” he murmured, as he shifted his mouth to caress her bare throat, “you’re choking me.”

“What? Oh, I’m sorry.” Her hands were wrapped into the material at his chest so tightly she was surprised she hadn’t ripped something. She opened her fingers, laying them flat against his hard chest. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

He lifted his head to look at her. “What do you want to do?”

“Touch you.”

Grey drew a slow breath. “Then touch me.”

Shaking and weak-kneed, Emma looked down, then returned her gaze to his face. “You’re not going to laugh at me tomorrow, are you?”

He tilted his tawny head, his eyes searching
hers in the dark. “Where did you come from?” he whispered. “I’ve never known anyone like you.” He caught her mouth again, more roughly this time. “No, I won’t laugh at you.”

Her heart hammered so hard she thought he must be able to hear it, or at least to feel the pulse at her throat beneath the caress of his lips. His hands slid down her shoulders, brushed the sides of her breasts with an intimacy that made her gasp, and parted her robe at the waist. Grey slipped his arms inside the warm wool, around her hips, and nudged her backward until her thighs came up against the desk. The whole time, his mouth sought hers, teasing and seeking and stealing what remained of her ability to think and to breathe.

When he moved his hips against hers, she felt his arousal, hot and hard through his breeches. Moaning, Emma slid her arms around his neck, kissing him open-mouthed as his tongue plundered her mouth.

To her surprise, Grey took a half step backward. Sudden panic rose in her chest. He couldn’t want to stop; not now. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked shakily.

He shook his head. Lifting his hands to hers, he freed her grip on his shoulders and pulled her arms back down to his chest. “Touch me,” he repeated, his voice a low, sensuous growl.

She stared at his chest, both because the view fascinated her, and because she felt so exposed and vulnerable that it would kill her to look up and see that, despite his reassuring words, he was laughing at her.

Grey tilted her chin up, making the touch an
other caress. “Don’t think so much,” he murmured, his eyes glittering and dark with desire. “Just feel.”

Taking her hands again, he slid them up his chest, under his lapels. Finally she realized what he was doing, and helped him shrug out of his coat. Through the fine cambric of his shirt, his arms were warm and strong. She shivered again. Dreaming about being naked with him and actually doing it were two completely different things.

“Now it’s my turn.” His motions much more confident than hers, Grey slipped the robe off her shoulders and let it drop to the desk behind her. Then his mouth found her collarbone and trailed along the skin to the low neck of her nightgown.

Mouths were wonderful. She’d never imagined the touch of someone’s lips against her flesh could be so…stimulating.

Emma fumbled with the buttons of his waistcoat, and managed to unfasten them without popping any of them off. More sure now, she pulled it from his shoulders and went to work on his cravat.

He held still, letting her fight with the intricate knots. “You’re a quick study,” he said, trailing his fingers along her neckline, and dipping them beneath the ruffles.

“You’re a good teacher—so far.”

This time he chuckled. “So far? I think it’s time to advance to the second lesson.” Untying the bow which hung between her breasts, he slowly slipped the garment down her shoulders.

As cool air touched her breasts, Emma drew in a ragged breath. She couldn’t convince herself
any longer that she was dreaming. The Duke of Wycliffe stood before her, running his fingers along her skin, caressing her in places no man had ever seen, much less touched. “This is too much,” she gasped, catching his hands as they cupped her breasts.

“Why is it too much?” His fingers moved a little, brushing across her nipples.

She gasped again at the sensation, her nipples hardening in response to his light touch. “I don’t know. I just feel…I feel as though I’m coming out of my skin.”

“Is it an unpleasant sensation?” His fingers moved again, stroking her.

“No…” she moaned.

“Then enjoy it,” he whispered. “I am.” Grey dipped his head, and his tongue took the place of his fingers.

“Oh, good heavens,” she panted, arching against him, tangling her fingers into his hair to yank him even closer.

She felt his muffled chuckle all the way through her. No wonder he wanted her to touch him, if his touch felt so electric to her. Trembling, she pulled the tail of his shirt free from his breeches.

His suckling deepened, pushing her backward on the cluttered surface of the desk. Her shoulders bumped a stack of books, and impatiently she pushed them to the floor. “If this is your way of distracting me from the wager, it won’t work,” she stated breathlessly, running her hands up his chest, beneath his shirt, feeling the play of his muscles as he lifted her up to sit on the desk.

Grey lifted his head from her breasts just long
enough for her to pull the shirt off over his head. “I’m feeling terribly distracted,” he murmured, sliding her gown the rest of the way off. Standing between her legs, he kissed her hungrily, leaning forward and pushing her shoulders down.

Naked, flat on her back, with him leaning over her, Emma should have felt vulnerable, yet she felt strong and powerful. Her body ached for him, for something only he could give her. “Grey…”

Long, sure fingers moved in slow, lazy circles from her breasts, down her stomach, down her abdomen, down the curling dark patch of hair, and touched her. Emma bucked, grabbing onto his shoulders at the white hot pulse of lightning which shot through her. She barely recognized the low, keening, wanting sound as coming from her own throat.

“Jesus,” he whispered, his voice shaking. He kissed her again, roughly, and with his free hand undid his belt and breeches.

Emma raised up on her elbows, breaking the embrace of their mouths. “I want to see you,” she stated.

“And I want to feel you. I want you, Emma. I want to be inside you.”

She couldn’t answer. Grey bent down to yank off his boots, straightening again as his breeches followed. He was a tall, big-boned man, and as she stared at his erect manhood, the little bit of her brain which still functioned noted that he was well proportioned.
Very
well proportioned.

“Emma,” he murmured, running his thumb across her lips, “are you learning anything new?”

She nodded mutely, unable to tear her gaze
from his
mentula
. “My goodness,” she breathed. “May I…”

“Touch me? Please do.”

Sitting up, her knees on either side of his muscular thighs, Emma reached down with shaking fingers. As her fingers brushed the smooth, warm skin, his muscles jumped. It startled her to realize that she affected him, maybe as much as he affected her. She wasn’t the only one who trembled.

Slowly he ran his hands up her knees and her stomach to fondle her breasts again. This mutual touching was at least as pleasurable as mouths and tongues. Emboldened, she curled her fingers around his girth and stroked him.

He froze. “Don’t do that,” he hissed, his teeth clenched.

Instantly she released him. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. It feels…very good, but I’m not ready for that yet.”

Swinging her legs onto the desk, he climbed up over her. Their thighs met, his arousal pressing against the innermost part of her. Grey kissed her again, hot and open-mouthed, and she wrapped her arms over his shoulders, pulling him closer. He shifted, nudging her bent knees further apart, then slowly, with a deep, satisfied groan, entered her.

The sharp pain surprised her, and she gasped. At the same time, the sensation of him filling her was the most erotic, satisfying pleasure she’d ever known.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pushing himself up onto his hands and looking down at her. “I won’t hurt you again.”

“I’m all right,” she managed. “You just surprised me.”

Grey smiled. “And you surprise me. But there’s still more to this lesson.”

What could be more remarkable than being joined like this?

Then he moved his hips back and forward again. Emma arched her back, moaning helplessly.

With a slow, steady rhythm he continued to move in and out of her. She dug her fingers into his back. No longer did she feel like she was on fire; she
was
fire, and he was fire, and the way he moved and filled her was so…right.

The pulsing sensation tightened and grew inside her as his rhythm deepened and quickened. “Grey,” she gasped, lifting her hips to meet his thrusts.

He kissed her again, his gaze dark and intent on hers. She tried to meet his eyes, but then she couldn’t as everything inside her tightened and shattered. A deep moan of satisfaction wrenched from her chest, and she clung to him helplessly. After a deep thrust, he withdrew and came, shuddering, against her.

Grey nearly hadn’t been able to do it, to leave the tight warmth of her. Breathing hard, he slowly lowered himself to her, still keeping most of his weight resting on his arms. With the riot of auburn curls haloing her face, she seemed so delicate and so fiery at the same time, he was absurdly worried that now, after all this, he would crush her. “Thus endeth the less—”

Two of the desk’s spindly old legs collapsed, dumping them both to the floor. Grey managed to
twist and end up on the bottom, smacking his head against another of her damned stacks of books. The resulting crash of wood, books, and bodies was tremendous in the sleeping darkness.

“Damnation! Are you all right?”

“Shh.” Emma put her fingers over his lips.

Despite the blow to his head, having her lithe body straddling his hips was very pleasant indeed. Grey kissed her fingertips. “Relax, Emma. It’s two o’clock in the morning. No one heard—”

Down the hallway, a door squeaked open.

“Oh, no!” she hissed, clambering off him. “Get out!”

“I’m naked,” he said, sitting up, and very annoyed at whomever the nosy chit might be.

She whirled to face him, breathtaking in the moonlight. “Which is why you and your man-parts can’t be here!” She snatched up her nightgown and yanked it on over her head.

Grey stood. “And where would you like me and my man-parts to go?”

Her gaze on him, Emma paused in her frantic pacing long enough to look him up and down. “My goodness, you’re beautiful,” she said slowly. “Hide.”

“I am not crawling under your damned bed.”

The knob on the office door turned. He’d latched the door, thank Lucifer, and it only opened a quarter of an inch before it stopped again.

“Emma? What’s going on?” a female voice with a soft French accent whispered. “I heard a crash. Are you all right? Emma?”

With a pleading look, she gestured him toward her bed chamber. Grey bent down to toss her her
robe, gathered up his own clothes, and strode into the room, pausing just behind the door. He wouldn’t have fit under her damned tiny bed even if he’d wanted to.

The office door opened. “Isabelle,” Emma whispered. “I was afraid I’d awakened you.”

Grey edged closer, tilting his head to see through the crack between the wall and the half-open door.

The French instructor entered the room. “What in the world happened? It sounded as though your ceiling fell in.”

Grey silently set down the rest of his clothes so he could pull on his breeches. The entire time, his gaze remained on Emma. She’d been so delightfully curious, and so responsive—he’d known she was
com
passionate, but given her highly developed intellect and disdain for men, he hadn’t expected such passion from her.

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to straighten up my office a little. I must have stacked too many books on the desk, because it just collapsed.”