Lessons From a Scarlet Lady (38 page)

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Authors: Emma Wildes

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: Lessons From a Scarlet Lady
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“What if
I
can’t?” She sounded breathless. “Don’t forget I’ve been dreaming of this for over a year, ever since I first saw you. I want you.” One slim hand tugged at his cravat, loosening it. “I intimated I might stay with Arabella. I’ve done it before. We have all night. If I do not return home, my parents will not be alarmed.”
She had no idea what she was saying, what she offered. Robert caught her wrist. “Your father could still very well refuse. If I behave dishonorably—”
“Do you plan on telling him? I don’t.” She freed her hand and kissed him again, untutored but inquisitive, the tentative brush of her tongue into his mouth making him stifle a groan. All the time her hands were busy, discarding his cravat and fumbling with the top fastenings of his shirt. One small palm crept inside and pressed his bare chest, cool against his heated skin.
Bemused, aroused, and undecided, Robert broke the heated kiss with effort, trying to hold on to his honor. “I need to take you back to your parents’ home.”
“Don’t worry about my father. I’ll marry you anyway, with or without his permission. He probably would refuse to pay the marriage settlement—”
“I don’t care a fig for his money,” Robert interrupted curtly. “I don’t even want it if he gives us his blessing. I want
you
.”
It was prudent to settle Rebecca back on the seat across from him and he deposited her back that short distance, but it did nothing to help him. She looked just a little disheveled—delectably so—with her mouth rosy and a flush on her cheeks. The aquamarine of her eyes shimmered. “Please.”
His resolve wavered at that one small word. Her allure was so powerful he had to close his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her again. With an inner curse, Robert tapped sharply on the ceiling to signal his driver.
Chapter Twenty-one
Society has a set of rules to govern the behavior of gentlemen and ladies. But in the bedroom, we are simply men and women. Instead of the rules, I recommend you follow your instincts.
From the chapter titled: “Is It Scandalous, and If So, Should You Care?”
 
L
ady R was nothing short of a genius. Rebecca felt her fiancé’s hands linger at her waist as he lifted her from the carriage, and the smoldering hunger in his eyes made her stomach tighten. Without a word he guided her up the steps of his town house.
Her fiancé.
Robert Northfield, no less.
“I keep only a modest staff.” He unlocked the door himself. “And they are discreet.”
So they would have to be, she thought in unwilling amusement, to serve a disreputable rake of his stature. To her surprise, she didn’t resent the notion any longer, for she would remember as long as she breathed the moment when he reached across his carriage and snatched her into his arms.
He’d looked
unguarded
.
“They’re used to you bringing women here.” She clasped his extended hand.
Robert shook his head, his azure eyes direct. “No one like you. Ever.”
That was true enough, she would guess. No eager virgins who had shamelessly half undressed him in his carriage after they brazenly proposed marriage along with a scandalous promise of a lifetime of sexual fulfillment. Rebecca would be more embarrassed over her actions if they hadn’t produced the desired result. Had she couched her proposal in terms of romantic love, told him how much she wanted to cradle his child in her arms, how she’d dreamed just as often of his smile across the breakfast table as she had heated passion in his bed, what would have been his reaction? She wasn’t sure, but she could guess.
To men, love represents vulnerability. When a man becomes emotionally attached to a woman, she wields a great deal of influence in his life. You must understand that this frightens most of them, whether they admit it or not. Of course, their fear varies in degrees from one male to another. They embrace passion, but they tread around love most carefully. It is a glorious gift when a man gives you both.
His bedroom was on the second floor and she got a brief glimpse of a huge bed hung with dark silk, an armoire in the corner, a pair of boots by a carved chair, before he caught her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “You’re sure? You’ve had no time to prepare, to talk to your mother or whatever brides do. Rebecca, I can’t say with honesty I am reluctant to take you to bed, but I can say I have no desire to ruin you.”
One of the servants had left a lamp lit for his return and the light gilded his golden brown hair. She reached up and touched his jaw, feeling the faint hint of a beard under the clean-shaven surface, her fingers both questing and gentle. “I’m prepared, and I have no need to talk to my mother.”
Arched brows lifted but his hands slid down her arms in a light, practiced caress. “Is that so? I am curious as to how.”
“Show me,” Rebecca whispered evasively, as she pushed his coat off his shoulders so she could finish unbuttoning his shirt. “I want you to show me every wickedly wonderful aspect of what happens between a man and a woman. I want to see you, to
feel
you.”
When she tugged his shirt out of his breeches, he helped, slipping it off his shoulders. His chest was hard, the musculature well defined, his shoulders dauntingly wide. “I doubt we have time for every wicked bit of education in the next hour or so,” he murmured, clad only in boots and breeches, a noticeable bulge in the front of the latter. “But I will do my best. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to not be the only one undressed. Turn around, my sweet, and let’s see if my fantasies do you justice.”
 
It wasn’t that Robert had never been seduced, but he certainly had never been seduced by an innocent ingénue. First she’d proposed—and he’d accepted—and now in a somewhat clumsy but entirely arousing way, Rebecca had managed to divest him of most of his clothing with an enthusiasm that resembled nothing of what he’d pictured in his imagination of fearful virgins.
It appeared he needed to adjust his thinking, at least when it came to his future wife.
Wife.
That was something he’d have to digest later. Right now the throbbing between his legs precluded rational thought.
He unfastened her gown with practiced ease, pushed it off her creamy shoulders, and sent a fall of lemon fabric to the floor in a gentle swoosh of muslin over smooth, warm skin. Under the demure lace of her chemise, her full breasts were outlined in a way that sent the blood rushing through his veins, and he plucked out the pins confining her hair with impatient fingers, carelessly tossing them aside without care.
Sable silk tumbled downward, covering the graceful line of her spine. Robert leaned forward and inhaled her delicate fragrance. His hands cupped her elbows, and standing behind her still, he urged her backward against him. “From what I see so far,” he whispered in a voice suggestive with erotic need as he admired the upper swell of her breasts, “you are more than I imagined. But I need to see it all.”
“I would not be here if I didn’t want everything.” Rebecca leaned willingly into his chest, her bottom nestled with provocative softness against his thighs. “I trust you.”
His fingers drifting through her soft hair, he stopped, arrested, not sure if anyone had ever said that to him before.
I trust you.
Certainly she must, to put her future in his hands. It was humbling, and the idea of marriage crystallized into something else for him at that definitive moment, something apart from his previous selfish reservations over his freedom being curtailed and his life changing in an irrevocable way.
“You
can
trust me,” he assured her in a voice that reflected unexpected sincerity. “Anything you wish to give me is safe.”
“Somehow, I have known that from the beginning.” She must be telling the truth, or she wouldn’t be there now, in his arms, half naked. If she gave her virginity, there was no taking it back.
No going back for either of them.
Holding her in the circle of his arms, he reached around and slowly pulled free the ribbon on her bodice. Cloth parted, the shadow between her breasts deepened, and the garment slid downward, exposing pale opulent flesh, taut and firm, her nipples a delicate coral. His gaze strayed lower, to the dainty patch of pubic hair between her slim thighs, those dark curls beckoning his fingers.
And mouth, though maybe it was better to not be
too
wicked for her first time, no matter what she said. He’d be gentle, he promised himself, the fierce strain of his cock against the confinement of his breeches making him grit his teeth, use every bit of finesse he possessed and not rush things. . . .
“Hurry,” Rebecca said, her head falling back against his shoulder, “touch me. Do something. I’m—I don’t know.”
The request inundated his already heated blood and briefly he wondered if her eagerness was a result of this unmistakable chemistry between them or an innate sensuality. If he was lucky, it was both, he decided, and lifted her into his arms.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to touch you.” His voice was far from the practiced insouciance of his normal bedroom tones. Usually he teased, tempted, played at dalliance and desire. This was different. “I’m going to touch you so deeply you will never forget it, never forget this night.” He laid her on the bed, his gaze admiring every detail of long legs, the sensuous curve of womanly hips, the fullness of those lavish breasts. Rich, glossy hair spilled everywhere, the contrast of dark against the white linens evocative of the superlative paintings of the old masters, when female beauty was an object to be revered and studied.
And her eyes—so long lashed, and that unusual luminous color, reminiscent of the sea under a summer sun—watched as he sat down to remove his boots and then stood to unfasten his breeches. Rebecca made no secret of studying his erection, her soft lips parting in . . . surprise? Admiration? Trepidation?
“You’re huge.” Her gaze was riveted.
Robert let out a smothered laugh and joined her on the bed. His hand smoothed her bare hip. “But then again, darling, you have nothing to compare me to, do you?”
“No, but—”
He kissed her, trying to tamp down this first flicker of virginal misgiving, drawing her close enough his erect cock brushed her hip but no more, to get her used to his arousal and intentions. With reverent exploration he traced the graceful line of her spine, the dip of her waist, the arc of her rib cage, until he cupped one of her perfect breasts. The warm, supple weight filled his hand to overflowing. At the intimate caress, she quivered.
“Perfect,” Robert told her, his lips grazing her cheek to her ear. He whispered, “You’re perfect. Designed just for me. How many men have thought about being here like this, with you?”
The speculation was so out of character he was stunned by the question he’d just asked. To his surprise, he was jealous of those unknown fantasies, just as he’d stood in brooding disquiet watching her waltz in the arms of would-be suitors earlier in the evening.
“I can’t think about anyone else, not now. There are only the two of us in the whole world.” Rebecca turned her head and kissed his shoulder as he fondled one luscious breast.
She was right. The men who had wanted her in the past were banished. They’d lost and he’d won. He said softly, “No. There’s no one but you and me.”
In that one short quiet sentence, so loaded with meaning, all the lovers from his dissolute past were also set aside forever.
“I’m ready,” she whispered, “whenever you are.”
He was more than ready, and her naïve declaration brought a smile to his face, for he doubted she was there quite yet, and despite her willing acquiescence and responsiveness so far, he had every intention of making this moment not so much a denouement as a beginning.
“You will be,” he murmured with a sinful grin as he bent his head, “soon.”
When he took one taut erect nipple into his mouth, her shuddering sigh was an ample reward. “Robert.” His name was a single exhale, poignant with meaning.
He applied himself to seduction, to the exquisite pleasure he intended to give her, to the magic of this unique moment for both of them. Normally he could be detached except on a physical level with his paramours, but the woman in his arms wasn’t in that category.
He moved. She moved in heated response. His mouth sought out the erect tips of her breasts as his fingers found the moist tightness between her legs. With every suckle, every stroke, Rebecca shifted restlessly, her lissome body temptation incarnate, the brush of her skin against his almost more than he could take, his supposed sophistication be damned.
Carefully he tasted and teased her lush breasts while at the same time he rotated his hand in slow, tantalizing circles against the parted folds of her damp cleft. She clutched his shoulders and moaned, far less shy than he would have expected, her legs parted to allow him access. The delicate fragrance drifting from her skin and the more earthy scent of female arousal inflamed his senses—and he was already on fire. “Tell me how good it feels,” he urged, exerting just the right amount of pressure, feeling wetness with deep satisfaction, the nub beneath his fingertips swelling.

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