Beyond A Wicked Kiss (61 page)

"But you saw the clear night sky, didn't you? And the stars?"

"Yes."

"So you should have known it wasn't rain that you heard. No clouds, no rain. I realized then it was a shower of pebbles against the glass, a sure warning of what was to come. I didn't know, though, that it would be South coming through the skylight. He was reckoned to be a good enough monkey in the rigging of His Majesty's ships, but one never knows how he will do on a rooftop."

Ria gave West's wrists a little shake. Her breasts rubbed his chest as she drew herself up. "You might have warned me."

"I couldn't."

She was silent, considering this. "No," she said at last, "I don't suppose you could."

Sensing something of her hurt, West told her, "It was not because I thought you would betray us, but because I didn't think there was enough time to prepare you."

She kissed him fully on the mouth. "You prepared me well enough. You covered me with your body."

"Mm."

"The glass must have cut you."

"It's nothing."

"Let me see." Ria slipped to one side and waited for him to turn on his stomach before drawing back the covers. Her eyes fell first on the tiny scratches that sprinkled his back, then on the faintly ridged scars that were evidence of the caning he'd received at his father's hand. It was humbling to know that he had taken both for her. She laid her palm gently on his back and moved closer. She kissed his shoulder. "I love you."

Because she said it in the manner of one confessing it for the first time, he smiled. "It is gratifying to know you haven't changed your mind, because I am still determined that you should be my wife."

Ria's sumptuously curved mouth took the shape of a beatific smile. When he covered it with his own, her arms came around his shoulders, and she opened her mouth, then all of herself to him. He came into her deeply at the very first thrust and held himself there, just as she wanted. She was tight and warm and needy and did not mind at all that he knew it. Her willingness to make herself so vulnerable to him and give so generously of herself still had the power to confound and please him, most often in equal parts.

Ria raised her arms toward the headboard and stretched, arching under him, lifting herself on the wave of pleasure he created. He held her and was held in turn, and they shared all that was splendid about coupling when they were greedy and hurried and pitched with a fever of wanting.

And later, when they could afford patience and tenderness, when their hearts beat less fiercely at the outset, they shared what was fine and right about this expression of love.

Ria stirred sleepily against West. Burrowed deeply under the covers, with her body once again fit neatly to his, she knew profound contentment. The sound that rumbled lightly at the back of her throat was very nearly a purr.

"She-cat or kitten?" West asked.

She pressed her nail tips into the back of his hand. "You decide."

He merely chuckled, and realized the sound of it was not so different from hers. That raised his grin. He pushed aside the thick fall of her pale hair and kissed the sweet curve of her neck. "I do not think I can wait for the banns to be read, not when you are so wickedly persuasive as you were today. If a gentleman's dressing room is no longer his sanctuary, and he can be assaulted in his bath, then a special license is all that is left to him."

"Do I tempt you?"

One of his eyebrows kicked up. "Can you doubt it?"

She laid her hand along his. "No, I suppose not, but it is surprisingly gratifying to hear."

West let her nestle against him more deeply, not at all averse to having her under his skin just now. In time her breathing slowed, the cadence changed, and he knew she was sleeping.

He marveled that she could be so completely a whirling dervish in one moment, contemplative in another, and then find the perfect stillness of sleep. If he were fortunate, he reflected, she would always draw his attention in ways both subtle and bold, giving back as good as she got, and most often giving better.

West watched her because he could not help himself, not because he was by nature a spy. She bested him, embraced him. She laughed with him, occasionally at him. There was nothing about Ria that had not been good for his soul. At Hambrick Hall, he had been given his direction by his friends, but it was in loving Ria that he had found his compass.

The End

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Beyond a Wicked Kiss
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LET ME BE THE ONE

The Compass Club Series

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ONLY MY LOVE

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Excerpt from

Let Me Be The One

The Compass Club Series

Book One

by

Jo Goodman

USA Today Bestselling Author

LET ME BE THE ONE

Reviews & Accolades

"Goodman has a real flair... Witty dialogue, first-rate narrative prose, and clever plotting."

~Publishers Weekly

It was their laughter that drew her attention. Elizabeth Penrose leaned to her left until her vision was unobstructed by the easel in front of her. The stool wobbled a bit as she shifted. A paintbrush dangled from her fingers. She failed to notice the fat droplet of blue-black watercolor collecting at the tip, gathering size and weight enough to break free and fall squarely on the one part of her lavender muslin gown that was unprotected by a smock.

It was a pure pleasure to hear their laughter. Unrestrained, it had almost a musical quality. Four voices, all of them with a slightly different pitch, gave it a certain harmony. Elizabeth's eyes darted quickly to some of the other guests, and she saw more heads than hers had turned in the direction of the laughter. She did not think for a moment that the men had meant to call attention to themselves. Not above a half hour ago they had been circulating among the baron's guests, slipping in and out of the small conversational groups that had formed naturally once everyone had taken their fill of the picnic repast.

Blankets covered a good portion of the gently sloping hillside. Like patches of a quilt, they were shaped into a larger whole by the strips of grass and wildflowers between them. In various states of repose the guests enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine, the occasional breeze, and the steady rushing rhythm of the stream running swiftly between its banks.

Elizabeth blinked as the men laughed again, heads thrown back, strong throats exposed. Although the tenor was deep, there was something unmistakably youthful in the sound of it. Mischievous, she thought. She could not help smiling herself, feeling not so much an eavesdropper as a coconspirator, even though she had no idea what had prompted their great good humor.

That they knew one another was not surprising, she supposed. They were all members of the peerage and breathed the perfumed air of the
ton.
What was interesting was that they appeared to be fast friends, not rivals, yet until they had slowly gravitated toward the same unoccupied stretch of blanket, Elizabeth could not have said for certain that they shared more than a polite nodding acquaintance.

They dispelled that notion once again as the Earl of Northam plucked three ripened peaches from the basket beside him, drew his legs under himself tailor-fashion, and began to juggle. Fresh gales of laughter, a little ribald this time, practically erupted from the others. For reasons she did not entirely understand, Elizabeth Penrose felt a certain amount of heat in her cheeks. Though confident no one had noticed her, she nonetheless sought protection by ducking behind her easel.

It was only as she began to apply brush to paper that she realized the Earl of Northam had stolen most of the subjects of her still life.

Brendan David Hampton, the juggling,
thieving
sixth Earl of Northam, lost his rhythm when one of his friends pitched him another peach. "Devil a bit," he said, grinning, "but I could never get the hang of four." He gathered the peaches before they rolled off the blanket and lightly tossed one to each of the others. The one he kept for himself he held up in the palm of his hand and pretended to study it.