Gareth: Lord of Rakes (6 page)

“Don’t you be kind, Gareth Joyce Alexander. Don’t you dare be kind.”

He rose, the bitterness of her tone taking him aback every bit as much as the content of her accusation. “I was
trying
to be seductive.”

A difference of opinion on that topic wasn’t in his lesson plan for the day—for any day, for that matter, though he hadn’t truly exerted an effort pursuing a woman since ascending to the title, and nine years of idleness dulled a man’s… reflexes.

“I was trying to be…” Felicity rose too, a fat, russet curl bouncing against her nape. “I don’t know what. I’ve given you the right to deal with me however you please. Viewed from a certain angle, I’ve invited your attentions, but I simply…”

Insight struck with inconvenient certainty. Gareth passed her his handkerchief and swept the curl over her shoulder—to which she did not object.

“This has nothing to do with permission, Felicity.” It
should
have nothing to do with permission.

She dabbed at her eyes, confirming she’d been on the verge of tears and that he’d been the one to put her there. “What does it have to do with, then?”

So testy, a student who’d been certain she’d had the right answer.

“It has to do with
privilege
.”

He scooped Felicity up and hauled her against his chest as he settled onto a divan along the wall. “I am not exercising contractual rights when I touch you, I’m exercising a privilege you may revoke at any moment—though I rather wish you wouldn’t.”

That was the sort of honesty most women would have known to take advantage of. His admission should have sparked a spate of flirting on her part and wheedling on his.

Thank God the woman in his arms knew as little about flirting as he knew about wheedling. Felicity’s upset was such that she didn’t flounce off his lap and stride away while demanding a discourse from him on the difference between a right and a privilege. She instead snuggled closer on a sigh.

“You confuse me, Gareth. I had hoped you would find dealing with me pleasurable, but I fear I’m simply another duty for you: meet with estate manager, attend opening of Parliament, deflower aging virgin.” Felicity buried her face against his neck. “I hate that I’m crying in front of you.”

“I don’t like to see you upset either.” This admission was more poor tactics, but also the plaguey damned truth.

“Maybe we should just go to bed and get it over with.” Convicted criminals spoke with the same enthusiasm about exercise at the cart’s tail.

“Maybe not,” he rejoined, letting one hand work its way into the thick braid coiled against her neck.

“Why not? I’m not good at this seduction-by-parts you’ve embarked on, Gareth. I feel like a rabbit frozen at the sound of the approaching pack. I’m morbidly mesmerized by my impending doom. That feels good,” she grumbled, rolling her shoulders.

He shifted her in his lap, the better to massage her scalp, and firmly resettled her against him. She stirred about as if trying to gather her wits, though Gareth had entirely different plans for her wits—perhaps for his own, as well.

“Behave,” he growled.

She cuddled up again. “So why don’t we toddle over to that bed of yours and be about it? Then you’ll be done with me and can be on your way, as you put it. Wish me luck, I think you said.”

He considered her proposal and rejected it. Felicity was
not
ready.
He
was
not
ready.
He was not ready to consign her to a complete loss of propriety, and what that said about his credentials as a rake did not bear examination.

“First, even if I did take you up on this daring proposal, there is much more to learn about copulation than the simple business of your quim being penetrated by an erect cock.” He suspected she liked his blunt speech, though if nothing else, it would distract her from her tears. “Second, a man must be in the mood to have relations, or he won’t achieve a cock-stand, much less satisfaction.”

“You are speaking crudely again, Gareth. I know the cock is the male breeding organ, and have overheard enough footmen to know that you also make indelicate reference to a female’s privy parts. I am not precisely familiar with that other cock business you mentioned.” She sounded sleepy and bored.

Cock-stand. You will soon be sitting on one.

“Have you ever seen horses mate, or flirt with each other in anticipation of mating?” he asked as he unraveled her braid.

“Once, quite by inadvertence when I was visiting my aunt. The whole undertaking seemed noisy and violent— until it was over. Then the stallion rested his neck along the mare’s, and that looked tender, though I can’t imagine the mare liked having half a ton of exhausted male atop her. I will not countenance you biting my neck, Gareth.”

Such
an innocent. He sank his teeth against her neck, gently, and spoke from a lightly clenched jaw. “A marquess bites whomever he pleases to bite.” She tasted like the lavender ices he’d had at Gunters’, only… better. He swiped his tongue against the pulse in her throat as her hair went tumbling down in thick, cinnamon waves. “Did you note anything about the stallion in particular?”

“He had what the stable boys called a fifth leg, though I’m sure they’d have been mortified to know I’d overheard that. I will be quite cross if you tangle up my hair.”

“Bother your hair. Your attention to the matter at hand would be appreciated, Felicity. I’m trying to explain procreation to you, for pity’s sake. Now… what you observed was the stallion’s member preparing to pass his seed into the mare’s womb, which is necessary for conception. I assume you know that much?”

He had the urge to laugh—at himself. Felicity’s affirmative reply was muffled against his chest, suggesting he was entertaining her as well, an improvement over provoking her tears, if nothing else. Gareth continued stroking her hair, finding it relaxed the bundle of womanhood curled up in his lap.

Also the man holding her.

“A man’s member also prepares for copulation by becoming rigid and erect.”

“This does not sound very convenient, when his breeches are tailored to reveal every detail of his manly physique, nor does it sound dignified.” Her tone was amused, gleeful maybe, at the thought of men relieved of their pride.

“Dignity has little to do with it, and when one is aroused, that doesn’t seem to matter so much.” Felicity’s attitude made it hard to be matter-of-fact. The feel of her hand playing with the hair at his nape didn’t exactly predispose a fellow to disinterest either.

“You are serious about this, aren’t you?” Felicity said, humor still lacing her voice. “You aren’t having me on about male parts enlarging with passion? One hears schoolgirl rumors, but they’re hardly trustworthy.”

“I would not lie to you, Felicity, ever. Though I must say, if I’d known the facts of copulation would strike you as so humorous, I would have mentioned them sooner.” Why, in all the hours he’d spent in Felicity’s company, had he never heard her truly laugh?

She let out a breath and scooted around on Gareth’s lap. “This is not what I had expected today—it seems a strange undertaking, Gareth. I’m not sure I can get my mind around it.”

Her scooting was having a predictable effect on Gareth’s mind, and his body.

“The whole situation would make more sense to you if you had experienced arousal. No.” He put a forefinger to her lips to still her response. “Don’t think about it. Allow me to demonstrate.”

He replaced his finger with his mouth, kissing her without warning or preamble. He shifted her in his arms so she was cradled in his embrace but reclining against the arm of the divan. This impulse on his part had taken her off guard—as it had him—and she stiffened in his arms predictably.

“Relax,” he warned against her ear. “I shan’t leave off until you do.” And very likely not then either.

Gareth exercised both his patience and his determination, the latter being one asset he possessed in abundance. Little by little, Felicity became pliant in his embrace. Her right hand wrapped around the back of his head while her left rested over his heart, and her tongue made a timid foray along his lips as her eyes drifted closed.

Moving deliberately, Gareth brought his hand down Felicity’s arm, rubbing along the length of her sleeve in slow strokes. He moved back up to her shoulder, to her collarbone, to her throat, caressing and stroking elegant bones clad in worn, modest attire. When she seemed comfortable with that, he let his hand drift to her stomach while he distracted her by sucking at her sweet, lemony lower lip.

His intention had been to soothe and arouse her with his touch, to start her a few steps up the long, lovely climb toward sexual satisfaction. To his consternation, he was the one soothed and aroused.

The problem was, he had to
pay
attention
to her. He could not move through the same steps of the same dance and achieve the same results, as he could with any of his other partners. She was, drat the woman and her glorious unbound hair,
interesting
rather than convenient.

To touch her was a privilege, exactly as he’d said, and on an instinctive level, she knew not to allow him to assume anything less.

Slowly, so slowly, he inched his hand up to her rib cage, at which point in the proceedings, her fingers came down on top of his. Undeterred, he eased a thumb along the underside of her breast, skimming the fabric of her dress. He teased and hinted and toyed, until she arched against him, sighing when he closed his fingers around her breast.

Gareth schooled himself to yet more patience, a difficult undertaking when Felicity was—at last—melting in his arms. She’d stolen across the divide between wary and wanton, though it had taken more focus and forbearance than Gareth had shown any other woman in his shamefully vast experience.

She tried to sit up. “Gareth, I am uncomfortable… please…”

He responded by dipping his tongue into her mouth and finding, to his pleasure, she met him openmouthed. He lifted her against his body and slipped his hands around to unfasten the back of her dress. Felicity was apparently so enthralled with the sensations to be found by molding her breasts to Gareth’s chest that the loosening of her bodice didn’t register.

Until Gareth peeled her dress down from her shoulders and began kissing the flesh he exposed.

He’d wasted weeks trying to be gentlemanly, weeks arguing with the woman about menus, musical repertoire, and budgets. And all those weeks, he could have been devouring his very own lavender ice. Gareth moved his hand up to again cup her breast, but this time, his fingers closed on the flesh of her nipple through only the thin lawn of her chemise. Felicity gasped—or maybe it was more of a whimper—as he began a gentle, rhythmic pressure on her flesh.

“Oh-my-dear-gracious…” she murmured, though Gareth was moving beyond measuring Felicity’s reactions, beyond careful seduction. His erection throbbed against her, and he briefly considered throwing up her skirts and plunging himself into her heat.

Alas, oh-my-dear-gracious was not an invitation to plunder.

He would have to stop, soon.

But not quite yet.

Gareth considered himself due the satisfaction of taking her nipple in his mouth, and so he closed his lips around her flesh and began suckling in strong, steady pulls. Felicity’s hands cradled the back of his head, and she held him to her as if her life depended on it.

“Gareth, please…”

Please what? By way of a suggestion, he rocked his hips against her. Felicity grabbed at Gareth’s hand, brought it up to her other breast, and closed his fingers over her nipple. He pleasured her for several more moments before forcing himself to ease up. He slid his mouth off Felicity’s nipple and rested his face along her bare, warm breast.

And found, to his fierce satisfaction, Felicity’s heart was going like a rabbit’s.

“My goodness gracious… my ever-loving goodness gracious,” Felicity panted against his hair, wonder in her voice battling with disgruntlement. “You might bite me anywhere you please now. I’d have nothing to say to it.”

Lovely thought, though she’d probably blather at him the entire time.

Gareth sat straighter, tucking Felicity’s bodice up loosely in the name of preserving the last shred of his sanity—because he’d been the fool to tell her to wear jumps or forego her stays.

He regarded the spinster in his arms, the one with her russet hair cascading nearly to the floor, her lips rosy, her bare shoulders a study in grace.

Privilege was a pale word for what she’d allowed. Courage came into it, and pleasure, and even an element of the sublime.

“You, my dear, hide surprising fireworks.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Probably not—for him or for her. Rather than answer that interesting question, Gareth scooted her to sit beside him, then turned Felicity by the shoulders so her back was accessible. “Let’s get you organized.” He fastened her dress up, but allowed himself to plant a kiss on her nape. Such a soft, soft nape she had, and pale freckles dusting the tops of her shoulders.

“Please don’t start again, Gareth. I don’t think I could bear much more of that.”

“You sound so stern, Felicity. I thought you liked it.”

What he’d thought was that in some small degree, she had to like
him
, to permit him such intimacies. He kept that nonsense behind his teeth.

Felicity was quiet for a moment while Gareth finished with her hooks.

“I’m afraid I rather did like it,” she admitted at length. “I was nervous before, Gareth. Now I am terrified.”

Woman, thy name is complexity.
Though maybe she’d become so terrified she’d run screaming from the house, and the last he’d hear from her would be a polite note excusing him from further obligations.

This possibility did not bring as much relief as it ought.

“Passion is overwhelming until you get used to it,” he conceded as he finger-combed her hair into a long plait. Part of him didn’t want to receive that polite note, at least not quite yet.

“And when does one ‘get used’ to all that excitement and pleasure and intimacy and… such?” she asked unhappily. He got up to fetch a green hair ribbon and the seven pins from the vanity. Felicity scowled at him as he padded across the room, and said nothing as he sat behind her, tied off her braid, and wound her plait up into a bun.