Dukes Prefer Blondes (25 page)

He reached for her and kissed her, deeply, tenderly, hungrily—­a mix of feelings, as always happened with her. She made a tumult, tugging him this way and that, knocking objectivity and reason askew. Stay detached and in control when Clara was by? What a joke.

He kissed her with feelings he'd tamped down again and again over the weeks since he'd met her: the delight he felt in her company, the desire he couldn't talk himself out of, the humiliation of knowing she was beyond his reach, the fear when he thought death would snatch her away, and the despair when her father refused him.

He poured all that passionate turmoil into the kiss, and softened it, too, with an affection so deep he'd never have believed it of himself.

She tasted like sunlight, the same sunlight one heard in her laughter and saw in her smile and in the sparkle in her eyes.

She tasted like innocence and like experience, too. Her mouth and tongue joined with and responded to his as though the kiss were a dance, and they'd been dancing together all their lives.

He pulled her closer, bringing his arm round her, and never broke the kiss while he rolled her onto her back.

She was his at last by law, and what he wanted to do was take her there and then and make her his in physical fact.

But she was not a girl of experience, and if he didn't give her time and make her first time as pleasant as possible, she would get the wrong idea about him and about marital relations, and their future together would be even rockier than it looked to be already.

This was why, though he was already overheated and though he'd waited an eternity for her, he eased his mouth from hers and said, “Well, then, let's see what I got myself for a wife.”

He came up, shifting onto his knees, and looked her over.

Long and leggy. Voluptuously shaped. Silken skin. A perfect face, set with aquamarine eyes.

Voluptuously shaped—­one couldn't say that often enough or appreciate it sufficiently.

How on earth had Raven Radford, of all men, rated a goddess?

And the thing she was wearing—­for once there wasn't much of it: a nearly transparent scrap of linen decorated in all the places the eye—­the masculine eye—­was naturally drawn to.

“You might have taken a proper look when an escape clause offered,” she said, coloring. “When the minister asked for objections.”

“I did look,” he said. “But you were hard to see properly, under all the bric-­a-­brac. I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“
Bric-­a-­brac
,” she repeated, eyebrows aloft. “Wait until I tell Sophy and her sisters.”

He planted a light kiss on each arch of her perfect eyebrows. “Never mind, never mind, my lady. You'll do. For a barrister's wife.” He drew back and tried to detach himself.

“What a tease you are.” She put her arms up. “Come here.”

“No,” he said. “If you start that, it'll all be over before you can blink, and you'll want to kill me afterward.”

“I expect to want to kill you from time to time,” she said. “Come.”

Gently he put her arms down onto the bed.

“No kissing,” he said.

“Mr. Radford.”

“You may call me Oliver. Or Raven. Or both. We're private now, after all.”

“And you may call me Lady Clara,” she said loftily. “Or my lady or your ladyship. Or Heptaplasiesoptron.”

“Thank you, my lady,” he said. “If your ladyship would be so good as to lie there and try not to participate until I suggest it—­”

“Lie here and take it, you mean,” she said. He saw the way her fingers curled and uncurled on the bedclothes. She was nervous, but putting on a fine show, her screen in place.

“Feel free to comment, as the whim takes you,” he said.

“Is there a book?” she said.

“A book?”

“With the rules of how to do this,” she said. “You know, with a firstly and a secondly and a thirdly.”

“There are many books,” he said. “This is a plot of my own devising. Because I've never done it before with a
virgo intacta
.”

“Who said I was?”

He straightened. “Are you or are you not? Because if you aren't, we can dispense with—­”

“This is my first time.” She sighed. “And given the rate at which it's proceeding, I may not live long enough to do it again.”

“Then kindly leave this to me,” he said.

She laughed.

And sunshine broke out in the shadowy bedroom.

His heart soared with a happiness so rare he wasn't sure
happiness
was the name for it.

“We'll start with familiar things,” he said. He straddled her legs, and bent and kissed her nose. “Like this.” He kissed her forehead. “And this and this and this.” Between words, he feathered kisses over her face.

He kissed her ear and nibbled at the lobe, and she gasped and squirmed. He kissed a tender place behind her ear and worked his way down her neck.

The scent of her skin was in his nostrils and filling his head. He couldn't get enough of it. He brushed his cheek against hers. Her skin was as soft and smooth as flower petals. He couldn't get enough of the feel of her skin. He kissed the hollow of her throat, and the warmer scent of her wafted up from the low neckline of her night dress. He brushed his cheek over the skin her neckline bared and drank in the scent. He brushed his lips over the place. He pushed away lustful impatience to simply absorb the sensual pleasure of this moment.

She moved under his touch and sighed, and her breath came faster.

He let his hands slide over her skin where his mouth had gone, and over her neck and shoulders and down over the swell of her breasts and down where the bodice's fine linen covered them, but not very well. The cunningly designed embroidery circled the deep pink buds. They tautened under his touch.

“Oh,” she said. “That's . . . naughty . . . and . . . not unpleasant.”

He loosened the neckline's ribbons and drew it down, baring her perfect breasts. She opened her eyes wide, and a blush spread over her face and downward.

He trailed his mouth over the silken curves, following their shape and reveling in the warmth and scent of her, and the way she moved under his caresses and the way she took the pleasure he gave himself and her. He took one rosy tip into his mouth and lightly suckled, and she gasped and brought her hand up and pushed her fingers through his hair and held him there.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, my goodness.” Her voice was soft with surprise and pleasure.

She was too perfect, too responsive, too much altogether for a mere mortal male.

He could not go on like this without having a heart seizure.

“Don't stop,” she whispered.

So many ­people wanted to kill him, but she would succeed.

Raven Radford was going to die on his wedding night.

H
e'd kissed her before. He'd touched her before. Clara had felt pleasure and excitement.

This was beyond anything she'd felt at those times. Then she'd only been on the border of an unfamiliar realm. Now she moved into that new place. Now it seemed as though she'd been only half aware of herself. Or somehow not fully alive. Her body had kept secrets from her.

Radford kissed her and caressed her, and every inch of her vibrated, outside, inside.

He suckled her, and she felt the tug in the pit of her belly. Then his hands and mouth were everywhere, sending electric sensations over her skin and under. She couldn't keep still. She couldn't help making sounds—­little cries and moans, not at all ladylike—­as shock after pleasurable shock struck and raced along her skin and inside her.

She hadn't realized her heart and body could feel like this. How could she have guessed what it could be like?—­the feel of his face against her skin, the masculine scent filling her consciousness and blocking out everything else. The world narrowed to him . . . and her . . . and to sensations familiar and new. And an aching pleasure that made her restless.

He drew her nightgown down, all the way to her waist, but she was past blushing now. Embarrassment couldn't live alongside these surging feelings. Modesty dwindled to nothing under the movement of his hands and the touch of his mouth.

She clutched at the bedclothes, trying to do as he'd asked—­in this he knew better, after all—­but he was kissing her belly and she couldn't remain still any longer. She had to touch him.

She brought her hands to his head, and dragged her fingers through his thick, silky hair. She felt him shudder under her touch. He paused, but only for a heartbeat. Then he swirled kisses over her belly, drawing her gown down farther as he went . . . down past her hips . . . kissing her . . . kissing her . . . and moving her legs apart . . . and her knees came up of their own accord . . . and he was kissing her . . .

. . .
down there
.

Her eyes flew open. She saw the canopy above her head, deep blue embroidered with gold that shimmered in the candlelight and firelight. She saw stars, too, flashing in her mind's eye, as though she'd fallen into the sky. But no. The sky felt like water, the stars reflected in it. She wasn't flying but swimming in feelings, happy and restless and wanting very badly to reach a place she couldn't identify.

Her hands fell away, to the bedclothes. She closed her eyes.

He kissed her and touched his tongue
there
, and heat and excitement ruled her, mind and body. She tried to keep still but her body quivered. Then his fingers were there, too. She grabbed fistfuls of the bedclothes, holding on while shock after pleasurable shock knocked her about and made her mindless.

The feelings sharpened and quickened. A stronger shock flooded her with heat and feelings impossible to make sense of. She cried out—­not words, but primitive sounds. Her legs shook. She grasped his shoulders and tried to pull him up. She needed him with her. He understood, and came up and kissed her the way he'd done before, and she gave back passion, love, and a wild longing.

She couldn't keep her hands from roving over him, over his shoulders and back and arms. She caught hold of his shirt, and tugged it from his trousers. She wanted skin. She wanted to touch him the way he touched her.

“Clara,” he said hoarsely.

“I don't know what to do,” she said. “Get this off.”

He gave a choked laugh and rose. He shrugged out of his waistcoat and tossed it aside. He pulled his shirt out from the waistband of his trousers, she helping clumsily.

He pulled the shirt over his head and flung it away, and she reached up to set her palms against his chest. His skin glowed golden in the candlelight, and his body was hard and warm like a marble statue come alive. She could feel his strength under her hands. She could feel his body respond to her, his muscles tensing under her touch. She slid her hands over his skin, discovering him as though she were an explorer and he a new land she'd happened on.

And yes, his body was a new world to her.

She'd had glimpses of little boys' bodies in her childhood, and she'd seen statues in a state of extreme undress—­most notably and visibly the Achilles in Hyde Park. She'd never before seen a living adult man's body. It was a revelation, though at present she had no idea what exactly had been revealed to her. She was too overheated and dizzy—­and he was touching her again, too, moving his hands over her, exploring her body the way she explored his.

He kissed her everywhere, and she followed his lead, kissing his neck and shoulders and every part of him she could reach. She could hear his breathing come harder and faster, like hers. Her skin seemed to be on fire. She was hot inside, too.

He stroked downward, over her belly and down between her legs, and she parted them shamelessly to his touch, opening herself entirely. She'd discovered an altogether new experience, and she wanted more. Her body trembled with the wanting.

She felt him move, changing his position. His hand came away from her, and she nearly cried out.

He said, “That's as much as I can stand, my lady.”

She heard fabric rustle, but she was too deranged to recognize it or care what it was. She cared only that he'd stopped touching her and moved away.

She said, “Please don't stop yet.”

He muttered something about trousers. She realized he was taking them off. She wanted to look—­she had an idea of what was coming—­but shyness overwhelmed her, and she couldn't. She kept her gaze to his upper body, his beautiful–not beautiful face.

He said, his voice low and rough, “Before was the firstly and secondly. This is the thirdly.”

He came back to her and stroked between her legs. She felt him spreading her, but all she could do was squirm and tremble, her body obeying something that wasn't her brain—­

He pushed into her.

“Oh!” she said, startled, dismayed. Was it supposed to hurt?

What had Mama said? She couldn't remember.

He was kissing her again, deeply, passionately. He was caressing her, squeezing her breasts. Pleasure surged once more, flooding her with heat. The craving—­for whatever it was—­returned, stronger than before.

She was aware of him inside her, and though the initial hurt was subsiding, she wasn't quite comfortable. Yet somehow her body was trying to make it so, warming her and making her move. She heard him groan.

“My girl, I'm not sure how much more of this—­”

“Wait. I think I'm getting the hang of it.”

He made a sound, laughter and groan combined.

Her head was spinning and her body had been taken over by a savage, but she tried to think what a lady could do.

Put the guest at ease.

“Yes, I'm quite well,” she said, trying for dignity while her voice shook. “You may proceed, Mr. Radford.”

He laughed again in that pained way, and kissed her again and again. Then he was moving inside her, and this stirred her up anew, more than before. She could feel her blood rushing through her veins and her heart beating fast and very hard, and with these simple bodily sensations came such transcendent feelings—­joy and surprise and warmth and an overwhelming tenderness for him and a craving, too, as primitive as hunger.