Lord of the Rakes (10 page)

Philip took the lamp from Caroline’s unresisting hand and set it on the cabinet table nearby, along with his stick, hat, and gloves. She stayed exactly where she was, watching. Each small movement he made was fascinating to her. When he turned to face her again, he moved so close that she could feel the warmth of his skin as clearly as if it was a fire on a winter’s night.

“You’re trembling, Caroline.” Philip ran his rough warm palm over her loose curls, across the edge of her ear, and down her temple to cup her chin. “Are you cold?”

“No. Not cold.” Her mouth had gone dry and she licked her lips. He was right. She was shivering. It was his smile and his touch that did this to her, and she could not make it stop.

“Are you afraid?” he asked. “I do not want you afraid of me.”

A small laugh escaped her. “I’m afraid that I’m going to faint. It is difficult to breathe when you look at me like that.”

“Well, we cannot have you fainting. I will have to find new ways to look at you.”

He kissed her. His mouth against hers was as sweet and hot and open as she remembered from the garden. But this time was even better. This time, Caroline was free to press her whole body against his. Her breasts crushed against the hard planes of his chest, and her nipples tightened down at once to exquisitely sensitive points. The prominent and enticing ridge of his organ pressed against her belly. Caroline tipped her head back to make him deepen the kiss and Philip obliged. Emboldened by that success, she tightened her arms about his so she could hold herself close as she rubbed against him. It felt wanton, it felt delicious, and she did it again, delighting in the rough growl that rose from him.

Eventually, they both remembered the need for breath, and Philip drew back, just a little. His hands stroked her back, wandering lower, to cup her derriere and squeeze. It felt so odd that she laughed, but even as she did, she was aware of her delight taking on a sharper edge. The muscles below her belly and between her thighs tightened urgently.

“Have I told you yet you are beautiful, Caroline?”

“No,” she answered, attempting to shape her trembling lips into a smile. “I don’t believe you have.”

“I am an oaf and a cad, then, and I will pay a price for my neglect, I am sure.” He did not seem at all upset at this possibility. “For you are very beautiful, and in my most clumsy haste, I have made you all wet.”

It was true. The rain from his coat was even now soaking through her wrapper to her dress. He laid one hand on either side of her and stroked her, up her thighs to her hips to her breasts and all the sweet way down again in a lingering, possessive gesture.

“I don’t mind.” Several locks of his gold hair had fallen across Philip’s brow. She smoothed them back, letting them coil around her fingers as she did so. She liked the texture of his hair. Despite its fair color, it was thick and wiry. She liked that she could touch him in this way, especially while she was pressed so shamelessly against him.

“But we cannot have you taking a chill, Caroline. You should get upstairs.”

In one startling motion, Philip swept her into his arms. Reflexively, she grasped his shoulders. Before she could shriek or protest, he was kissing her again. His tongue plunged deep into her mouth but pulled back almost instantly to taste and tease the edges of her lips. It was a delicate gesture, somehow exciting her and calming her at the same time. His arms were rock hard around her and Caroline soon felt absolutely secure. So secure that she could turn toward his kiss. She could spear her fingers into his hair and pull his head down closer, demanding that he kiss her more deeply. His caped coat was still closed, and still damp. The rainwater leached through layers of silk, muslin, and cambric to her skin, and she shivered against him.

Philip carried her up the stairs as if she weighed less than nothing. She did not bother to loosen her embrace. She indulged herself in stroking the subtle contours of his neck and of his shoulders. Even with all the layers of wool and linen between them, she could not get enough of touching his body.

“Which room?” he asked as they reached the second-floor landing. He was breathing hard now, and his arms had tightened around her, crushing her from thigh to breast to shoulder against him. “Where would you choose for us to be?”

“On the left.” She realized her mouth was level with the edge of his collar. She could kiss him there, right on the throat. Why had she not noticed this before? His skin there was warm and rough. She could feel his pulse beating against her lips. He swallowed and she grinned, and did it again.

She’d left the spare bedroom door a bit ajar. Philip put his back to it, and pushed.

Caroline had rented the house fully furnished. Fortunately, her landlord’s wife handled the decor, and she was a woman of good, if somewhat restrained taste. This room had been meant as a guest room, suitable for a gentleman. It was filled with solid, unpretentious furniture, comfortable armchairs, and a wide bed with plain burgundy velvet curtains. The cabinet table held decanters of wine and whiskey as well as a kettle and tea set so that no guest would have to disturb the kitchen for a hot drink. There was a large hearth, and Caroline had spent some time building up the fire as she waited for Philip to arrive, so the room was pleasantly warm.

Philip set Caroline on her feet and divested himself of his caped coat. She’d left the lamps lit, so she could see he wore an exquisitely cut blue coat, a silver waistcoat with a single gold chain, and buckskin breeches that showed off every detail of his strong legs. His Hessian boots had probably started out the journey gleaming with fresh polish, but were now mud-spattered. This, however, did not prevent them from fitting his calves perfectly.

Caroline pressed her hand against her mouth.

“Now, what is that for?” asked Philip.

“You,” she breathed between her fingers. “You’re so . . . so . . .”

“What am I?” He took her hand away from her lips, turning it up to softly kiss the palm, smiling all the while. “Tell me.”

Instead of waiting for her response, however, Philip took her index finger into his warm mouth and swirled his tongue around the tip. It tickled, and at first Caroline laughed. But that laughter faded into a sigh as he stroked her finger with his tongue, raising a whole new excitement in her. Philip smiled at his own mischief, and sucked, just a little.

“I shall never be able to remember my answer if you keep doing that,” Caroline admonished him, but her words had no force.

“Ah, now that I won’t allow.” He was pulling her close once more. He dipped his head to kiss her brow, her temple, the corner of her mouth.

“What am I, Caroline?” Philip kissed her throat. He licked her with his wicked, clever tongue, and then very, very gently, he nipped. Caroline gave a little mewl of surprise, and clutched at him.

“You . . . you’re . . .”

“Tell me.” Philip’s command burned through her. He nipped again, and laved the spot with his busy tongue. “What am I?”

“Wicked,” she gasped. “Entirely wicked.”

“Hmm.” He rubbed his lips against her shoulder. “I should be offended, I think.” He pushed down the edge of her wrapper, and the loose dress beneath, only to nip her freshly exposed flesh.

“Then you should stop doing . . . that.” She closed her eyes, trying to bring all her awareness down to the single point on her shoulder where his mouth now brushed back and forth and back and forth.

“Should I stop, Caroline? Should I really?”

“No.”

But this reply did not seem to content him, because Philip took hold of her chin and tipped her head so she had to look into his eyes.

“I want to be absolutely sure,” he said, and there was no hint of mischief in his voice or his demeanor. “I want you, Caroline. I want you as I have seldom wanted any woman. I confess, I will tease you as well as pleasure you, my dear, because I like to hear you laugh when what we do together delights you. But on one point I am fixed. If you tell me to stop, then I will stop, no matter when or what we are doing. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, and . . . thank you.”

“I would have you trust me, Caroline. I want you to freely obey each desire of your luscious body.” His fingertips grazed the swell of her breast and she drew in a long, hissing breath. “I want to follow every impulse you have to pleasure. But no pleasure is worth losing your regard.”

Caroline swallowed against the knot that formed in her throat. How could she answer? What should she say? “I want you,” she told him, because it was nothing less than the truth. “I want to see all you have to show me. Now.”

“Now?” Philip’s solemnity vanished with that single word. “We should not wait? You would care for a glass of wine to refresh you, perhaps?”

He was joking again and Caroline resisted the childish urge to swat at him, but only for a moment. After all, he had just said she should obey every impulse. Well, at this moment her impulse was to slap him on the arm, and she did. “Now, sir!”

Philip’s answering sigh was long, and accompanied by a theatrically forlorn look. “Well, if my lady commands, what can I do but obey?”

P
hilip was kissing her again. He ran his dexterous fingers through her hair, disordering her curls and seeking out the few remaining pins. He plucked them free one by one so the whole unruly mass cascaded down her back. Just as Caroline thought she would faint from pleasure and loss of breath, he moved his wicked attentions from her mouth to her throat. She liked that. She liked the way he kissed and laved her, tracing his tongue along lines and hollows she had scarcely been aware she possessed. But this was not enough to ease the aching need inside her. Not anything like enough. She wanted his skin against hers. She wanted all of his body, with no barrier between them.

Caroline thrust her hands under Philip’s coat, pushing it back across his shoulders. Philip lifted his head. “Is there something my lady requires?” He stepped away to look quizzically down at her.

Caroline didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. He’d threatened to tease her and now he was. She had no idea what to do with him, except play along with his absurd joke.

“Your coat, sir,” she said in as imperious a tone as she could manage.

Philip glanced at his sleeve. “It is very fine, is it not? I believe my tailor was most—”

“Take it off!” Caroline stomped her foot. “Now!”

Philip stared at the gesture. “Truly? Well, I will explain to my tailor later.” But he did take the coat off and laid it on the armchair so that he stood in front of her in shirtsleeves. “What now would please my lady?”

What would please her? Caroline’s eyes raked him from the crown of his leonine head to the tips of his boots. She knew something of the male form and its workings. When they were girls, Fiona had found several surprisingly detailed and carefully illustrated books in her brother’s study. That rigid bulge behind his breeches was the potent evidence of Philip’s desire for her, and yet here he was, keeping himself a full foot away from her and delaying . . .
things
.

“Your cravat, sir,” she commanded. “Your waistcoat and shirt.”

“What of them?” he asked. “Come now, show me what you mean.”

He could not possibly be asking her to undress him, and yet it seemed he was. Caroline’s mouth went dry, and an energizing warmth, as pleasant as it was agitating, spread through the juncture of her thighs. She lifted her hands to Philip’s cravat and fumbled with the surprisingly complex knot. Impatience set her cheeks burning. In the past, she had tried to imagine how it would be when she finally was alone with a man. Those books she and Fiona found had given her some ideas, but she did not think she had ever considered what part the removal of clothing would play. If she had, it was certainly never like this. While her increasingly frantic fingers worked, her aching breasts brushed against his chest, and the sensation was both exquisite and maddening. At last the knot gave way and she unwrapped the starched linen from around Philip’s throat and drew it away. He looked down at her with arched brows and nodded once. Then, unexpectedly, he clasped his hands about her derriere and pulled her to her toes to thrust his hips against hers.

Firmly, crudely, and deliberately, Philip ground his hips against hers. Pleasure poured into Caroline. She moaned and sagged against him, clutching fistfuls of his shirt as if determined to rip it in two.

“What else?” he murmured. “What else do you want from me, Caroline?”

Somehow her fingers found his collar, and that, too, came loose and she tossed it aside. He didn’t stop rubbing against her. Pleasure swelled. It centered in her mound but stretched its fingers down all her limbs. It was as relentless as Philip’s deliberate circling of his hips against her, and as intense as the mischief in his eyes. He knew exactly what he was doing. It was another move in his absurd, teasing game. He intended to make her falter and moan. Caroline gritted her teeth and forced her fingers to work the silver buttons of his waistcoat.

He consented to let go of her so she could push the waistcoat aside and drop it behind them.

“And now, Caroline?” he asked.

Impatience filled her, driven by merciless desire. She wanted an end to this ridiculous game, even if she did not know exactly where that end lay. She dug her fingers into the waist of Philip’s breeches, feeling the smooth line of his hips. She dragged out his shirttails in bunches while he stood there, not helping at all. He had better not be laughing at her. This was his fault. He drove her insane with his temptations. He started what he would not finish and he was making her into a wild, undisciplined creature she did not recognize.

He did bend down and raise his arms so she could draw his shirt off over his head and toss it after his waistcoat.

And stare.

Philip Montcalm now stood in front of her in nothing but his breeches and boots. Had she ever seen such a handsome man? Certainly there had never been one who stood ready to please her in anything, great or small, and had driven her to laughter and impatience at the same time. Or one whose body could exert such fascination on her. His chest was a broad expanse of taut muscle and tawny skin. His nipples were tight dark patches beneath wiry hairs that glimmered in the lamplight. His stomach was taut and flat. She could see the outline of his most private parts pressed tight against the fly of his breeches.

“Ah, I begin to understand the game my lady wishes to play.” Philip’s words were light, but the tone was dark, almost dangerous. It plucked a new thrill from Caroline’s heart, as surely as his touch could have. “And I believe it is my turn.”

Philip made far quicker work of the knot at her sash than she had of the one at his cravat. “For later,” he said as he slowly drew the strip of silk from around her waist. He reached across her to lay it on the bed, and paused. Now he saw she had left her long, white glove there on the coverlet. His smile was as hot as the fire against her skin. He dropped her sash beside the glove and pushed the wrapper off her shoulders so it fell to the floor at her feet.

The dress underneath was pretty and fairly modest, being green muslin with creamy lace and a square-cut bodice tied with a single ribbon. Despite this, Caroline felt entirely naked. The rain from Philip’s coat had dampened her bodice, so it clung tightly to her breasts, outlining them and hiding nothing. Philip stared unabashedly.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Beautiful Caroline.”

Then she was in his arms, without any awareness of how she’d gotten there. She was kissing him, hungrily, eagerly, deeply, as he had shown her how to do. Her tongue sought out his, then traveled across his lips, exploring each aspect of his delicious mouth. Her breasts, heavy with need, rubbed against his bare chest and her hands pressed against his muscled back. All of him excited her and Caroline gave full rein to her curiosity, letting her hands stroke down to his waist, to his buttocks and thighs.

He pressed one broad palm against her derriere. His free hand glided down her throat, to her shoulder, and to her breast. He squeezed her there, hard. Caroline gasped into his mouth and the last of her strength gave way. She fell back, but he caught her in the crook of his arm. His hand stroked her breast, gently now, toying and caressing the swell of it. How could such a gentle touch be so maddening? She moaned and her back arched as she pressed her breast into his palm. He was smiling again as he kissed her, and his fingertips found her nipple. He toyed with that, too, and Caroline was sure she was going to die from the pleasure. She arched back farther, and he kissed his way once more down her throat to her shoulder, but this time he did not stop. Ignoring the fabric of her dress, he kissed her breast, kissed and licked, sucking at the rain-dampened fabric, and the fever-hot flesh beneath. He lifted her breast so his lips could surround her nipple, and so he could curl his tongue around the tip.

“Oh, Philip!”

But he was too busy to answer her. He lapped and sucked, sending hot tendrils of pleasure through the whole of her. She clung to his shoulders, lost to the sensations he created as he worked at her breast, petting and plumping with a firm hand while he sucked her. She was so focused on this that she barely noticed he had backed her up to the bed and laid her down. But then he clasped her other breast, his fingertips rolling both nipples together. Sparks and shocks of pure sensation rippled through her. Caroline groaned again. Her hands tried to caress Philip’s arms and shoulders, but achieved little more than a distracted fluttering. Beneath her skirt, her legs fell open of their own accord, and Philip stepped between them.

His fingers had finally found the ribbon on her bodice. He undid the bow on her dress, and the one on her chemise beneath. He pushed the fabric open and down, freeing her breasts entirely to his view. Like him, she was now naked to the waist. Despite her inner fire, the air felt cool against her damp skin, and she shivered. But whether this was from chill, or from the intensity of Philip’s storm-blue gaze on her bared breasts, she did not know. He leaned over her, and she lifted her hands to his chest, finding his nipples with her fingertips. They were tight, and felt oddly complex for such small points. She ran her fingers over them, touching and teasing, trying to mimic what he did to her.

“Very dangerous this game . . . my dear . . .” He panted and grasped both her breasts to squeeze roughly. “Oh, very dangerous.”

“The rest.” She dragged her palms along his hips, and, oh so daring, across the bulge at his crotch. He gasped again, and she let her hand linger there. Curiosity and desire combined with the pleasure he had aroused in her. It was a heady mix, but all she wanted was to drink more deeply. “I want to see all of you.”

“And you will, but first, lie back.” He put both hands on her shoulder and pushed her firmly into the counterpane. “And close your eyes.”

“Why must I?” She pouted, which made him bend over her, and take her lower lip between his teeth and suck. She arched her back to rub her breasts against his chest. The brush of his wiry hairs added fresh spice to the new pleasures of skin against skin.

“Because,” he hissed in answer to the question she’d almost forgotten she’d asked, “a man looks ridiculous taking off his own boots, and I have no wish to spoil this moment.”

Caroline laughed. Had she ever imagined she would laugh so much at this time? Never. She laughed again and flopped back, making a great show of clapping both hands over her eyes.

She was sure he was feasting his own eyes on her yet again. She could hear the catch in his hard, hot breath.

“Oh, how you and I will play together, Caroline,” Philip murmured.

The mattress sank beneath her as he sat down. There followed some shuffling and a thump. Caroline peeked between her fingers and was rewarded by the sight of Philip’s muscular back, and the curve of his breeches around his buttocks and thighs as he bent over to yank off his second boot. She bit her lip against the involuntary sound that escaped her.

Philip turned and looked at her over his shoulder. Like a naughty child, Caroline immediately squeezed her eyes shut.

“Disobedient minx!” The mattress shifted again. He was on top of her, with his thighs clamped tight around hers. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. “You peeked!”

He pressed her wrists into the mattress. He squeezed her thighs tightly together with his. Even through her skirts, Caroline could feel the heat of his body. She liked it. She liked the pressure, and to her complete shock, she found she liked being held so firmly. She shifted, rubbing her thighs together between his, enjoying this new sensation.

“I only peeked once,” she told him.

He swooped down, kissing her hard, plunging his tongue deep into her mouth. She was startled at his suddenness. Her body stiffened beneath his, but only for a moment. His chest just barely grazed her breasts, and she arched and strained against his hands, wanting more. She twisted to try to separate her legs, to find some leverage or angle that would allow her to grind her hips against him. She kissed him harder and she rocked back and forth. But Philip was far too strong. He kept her pinned and gave her only his mouth, and only as much as he chose of that, until she was ready to scream.

Philip wrapped his arms around her and the world spun as he rolled them over. Now she lay on top of him, her thighs wide open and splayed across his hips. He held her tight against him, with one hand spread across her shoulder blades and the other across her buttocks, grinding her—hard, thrillingly—against him while he kissed the whole of her eager mouth.

“You’re a wicked girl.” He gathered her skirts up to expose her stockings and the bare skin of her buttocks. He cupped both hands around her derriere, squeezing and pressing her down against him even more closely. It should have hurt, but it did not and she tilted her hips to press closer yet. She could not get close enough. She would never get close enough. Every inch of Philip was delightful, from the rough rasp of his crisp chest hairs across her breasts and nipples to the wholly decadent pleasure of his silk thighs sliding between hers. “You must be taught to mind your betters.”

“Who are my betters? Are you?”

“I am your lover, my dear, and your master.”