One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) (11 page)

Her lips formed a soft “oh” and her eyes took on the hazy otherworldly quality of a Botticelli angel. Nate was willing to wager none of that artist’s models had smelled so intoxicating. Her unique scent wove itself around his insides and threatened to turn him into a kneeling supplicant. Anything to be near her, to breathe her in, to—

She leaned over and blew out the candle. “I want you too, Nate.”

With a low groan, Nathaniel gathered her into his arms. His mouth closed over hers. He’d been holding his breath, waiting for the answer to his unspoken question. This was too much to hope for. He didn’t deserve her.

And she certainly didn’t deserve what he was about to do to her. She was meant to be royalty. He was about to steal more than her maidenhead. He was stealing a crown.

He couldn’t let himself think about that. Especially not with the way she pressed her lips against his neck and then under his jaw. Gently, her mouth touched, featherlight, beneath his ear, and then softly in front of it where the knobby protrusion of cartilage met his cheek.

“Whatever trouble you’re in with that devil of yours, it’s not your fault,” she whispered, then continued to plant soft kisses on his temple, first on one eye, then the other.

He’d meant to ravish her, but instead he grew still beneath her tenderness.

Her face hovered before his for a moment. Her long hair, which she’d neglected to braid for the night, trailed down on either side of her face, a fair, slightly curling nimbus. She was as disheveled an angel as he could wish. An angel he was bound to ruin.

He closed his eyes.

“Look at me, Nathaniel Colton.” She put both hands on his cheeks, willing him to open his eyes. When he looked at her, he feared she saw his soul, shimmering black. In her clear-eyed gaze, he saw her soul as well, radiating healing and a benediction for his tortured conscience.

If
she
only
knew.

She pressed her lips gently against his. It was a kiss sweet enough to make cherubs weep.

“It’s not your fault.” Georgette kissed him again, deeper this time, parting her lips slightly in invitation.

He was quick to answer her, slipping his tongue in to explore her delectable mouth.

Finally, she pulled away and to his utter surprise, she slipped off her wrapper and laid down on the banquette.

His heart threatened to batter its way out of his rib cage.

Nate lay down beside her, his body snugged next to hers. He kissed her slowly. If he was going to ruin her, the least he could do was make sure she enjoyed it.

Then he released her lips and traced his fingertips from the part in her hair, along the edge of her brows, and past her temples. He buried his hand in her hair, holding her immobile. Lightning flashed outside, and in the brief moment of illumination, he caught a glimpse of Georgette. Her eyes were shining and her lips softly parted.

It was a look of utter trust.

Thrusting his conscience aside, he bent to kiss her again. But she turned her head shyly, so his lips grazed the corner of her mouth. He left a trail of moist kisses over her jawline, and down her neck, lingering in the soft hollow at the base of her throat. His lips hovered lightly at the lacy edge of her night shift.

Her breathing hitched.

His hand traced the same path his mouth traveled, lightly skimming the surface of her silky skin. Teasing and circling, he occasionally dipped beneath her shift to stroke the upward curve of her breasts. One tug on the lace bow at the center of her neckline was all it took. The knot gave like a cowardly sentry, surrendering without a fight.

He found her mouth once more, as one by one he undid the tiny buttons that held her night shift closed. Slowly, his fingers grazed her breasts as he laid back each side of her shift, baring her upper body to the navel. Goose bumps rippled across her skin. Nate laid his head on her soft shoulder, sending his warm breath swirling over her exposed flesh.

Her breasts rose and fell in little hitching breaths.

He rose up and looked down at her. Her breasts were perfect, her nipples drawn up into hard knots. He planted a soft kiss on one. She quivered a little, as if in anticipation of where he’d touch, he’d kiss, he’d taste next.

She inhaled sharply when his hand settled on her flat belly, his long fingers splayed as though claiming her. Slowly and smoothly, his hand traveled upward, over her navel and rib cage, and came to rest in the sweet valley between her breasts, his thumb cradled under one of them.

Beneath his palm, Georgette’s heart hammered like a small, wild creature, freshly captured and terrified. He nuzzled one of her breasts, taking the nipple gently between his teeth. A tiny gasp escaped from her lips.

“Georgette,” he said huskily. He stroked the underside of her breast with his thumb in small, unhurried circles. His conscience was back and bearing a hooked barb this time. It poked at his soul. “This is your last chance. Do you want me to stop?”

Georgette bit her lip, but she didn’t make him wait long.

“No. Don’t stop.”

***

Nate kissed her again as his hand closed over her breast, softly kneading and flicking her nipple with his thumb. Tiny jolts coursed through her with each thrum.

His mouth left hers and began a trek downward, his teeth grazing her collarbone on their way to her breasts. His lips, wet and warm, traced a lazy figure eight around and between the taut mounds. Then his tongue brushed her nipples in a leisurely series of whorls and flicks.

Georgette squirmed beneath him, her breathing ragged. She liked his mouth on her, but it only seemed to compound her problem. She still wasn’t sure what it was she needed him to do, but the need was so strong if he didn’t do it soon, she’d be reduced to pleading.

“Please,” she heard herself gasp, as she instinctively arched her back to thrust her breasts upward to him. The pounding storm outside the house paled beside the one building inside her.

Nate took her tender, swollen nipple into his mouth and sucked. Georgette moaned softly.

“Oh, yes.”

But with the ache in her breasts momentarily appeased, the pounding drumbeat began to build elsewhere. She was so empty. Then the heat began. It was as if a set of signal fires had been lit, one after another, till she was ready to burst into flames.

Nate’s hardness pressed up against her thigh through the thin fabric of her night shift. His body rocked slowly, raking his full length against her. His arousal was fresh kindling for her fire. A throb from the small folds between her legs answered his slow knock.

On top of the fire, now her whole world was growing wet and languid.

Nate’s hand began to roam again, this time rucking up her shift and running his palm along her thigh, up over her abdomen, and down the other leg. Shivers of anticipation slid over her with each pass as his hand inched toward the inside of her thigh. Almost without her volition, her legs parted, but he avoided her triangle of soft brown curls. His long capable fingers danced ever closer, but never quite invaded her most sensitive, personal parts.

She ached so. Never in all her life could she have imagined wanting someone to touch her there, of all places. She couldn’t even feel shame over it. The raw need was so strong it drove out all those smaller, more virtuous urges like modesty and restraint.

She’d always wondered about the obscure wording in the marriage rite, the part about “with my body, I thee worship.”

This didn’t feel like worship. It was more like delicious torment.

A clambering riot of sensations raced through her, seething, demanding…what? If he touched her there, what then? Would she spontaneously combust this time?

She didn’t care. If he didn’t touch her nethers soon, she’d have to force his hand between her legs or die.

“Nathaniel.” She chanted his name over and over in a dazed whisper.

“Hmm?” His mouth left her breast long enough to make this vague inquiry before he transferred his attentions to the other stiff peak.

“I want—”

A shuddering moan slipped from her lips when he finally cupped her sex. She couldn’t have finished that sentence if her hope of heaven depended upon it. It was all she could do to force herself to keep breathing as he explored her slick wetness. He tenderly eased the swollen lips apart to slide three fingers down the length of her moist cleft.

She cried out when his fingertip grazed that sensitive spot again. When his fingers returned to stroke it, a coil seemed to tighten within, like a watch spring being wound beyond the breaking point.

She arched herself into his hand. She was standing too close to a precipice, drawn inexorably to the edge, unable, unwilling to pull back from the headlong fall. Her hips rose and fell to meet his hand, urging him to stroke her.

Harder. Faster. Dear God…

Against her expectations, she didn’t erupt into flames. Instead she unraveled. The coil snapped and her entire body bucked with the strength of her release.

Pleasure radiated outward. It spread the length of her from fingertips to toes, flooding her with an ethereal sense of lightness and well-being. If Nathaniel hadn’t anchored her to the banquette with a leg hooked over hers, she might have floated right up to the library’s high ceiling.

When her breathing returned to normal, Nate eased himself on top of her, resting the bulk of his weight on his elbows. A flash of lightning brightened the alcove, and Georgette looked up into his face.

A lazy, self-congratulatory half smile tugged at his lips. Then he met her gaze with an intense look.

A knowing look,
Georgette realized. Suddenly, the oblique biblical reference to the marital act rose in her mind.
“And Adam knew his wife, Eve.”
She’d always assumed the King James translators were being coy. Now the wording took on fresh depth. Nate definitely
knew
her now.

I’m going to have to start paying better attention in church.

There was no doubt Nate knew her body better than she did herself. All the secret places, her earlobes, her neck, all the shivery spots on her skin. He knew how to drive her beyond rational thought, beyond her wildest imaginings, beyond caring whether it was right or wrong.

He caressed her mouth with his, lightly nibbling her lower lip. His banyan, which had only been closed with a sash at his waist, was open now. Skin on skin, she felt him. His chest on hers, their breathing in rhythm. His belly on hers all warm. Him, hard and smooth, between her legs.

Surprisingly, the ache that had so recently been banished returned with a vengeance, sharper edged and still hungry. The empty void inside her whimpered to be filled. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down to feel the full weight of his body on hers.

“Easy, now,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He edged forward slightly, filling her opening snugly. Even though he was goodly sized and she ought to have felt a bit of maidenly dismay, she was so wet, there was no pain as just the tip of him entered. Instead relief washed over her. Relief to have him.

To hold him.

He took a deep breath and stopped his forward progress before more than an inch of his considerable length was inside her. A muscle ticked in his cheek and his eyes were squeezed shut.

Frustration raked her. Georgette rocked her pelvis in an effort to draw him further in. The throbbing had returned in earnest. She was sure he must feel the drumbeat, the heat, the infernal ache.

Why was he waiting?

Oh.
Something wilted inside her.
Anne.

She worked both her arms between them and pushed against his chest.

He rose up on his elbows and looked down at her, but still didn’t push himself all the way into her.

“Nate, I have to know. Did you and Anne ever…” She couldn’t finish the question, but she didn’t need to.

His mouth gaped and he blinked hard.

“I just…I just want you to remember that I’m not Anne.”

Anne
. She hadn’t entered his mind in days. He mentally flayed himself.
You
worthless shite.

Nothing else so aptly described a man who was supposed to love Anne forever, only to have her fade from his consciousness completely.

And even more importantly, he’d allowed her to be replaced by her sister in his imaginings, a sister he was within inches of deflowering.

He pulled out and sat up, not bothering to close his gaping banyan. His cock’s head was wet with Georgette’s sweetness, and the musky scent of her arousal made his groin throb. His body roared at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ruin her now, despite his deal with Mr. Alcock.

He’d been conflicted enough before, wracked with an unaccustomed attack of conscience. That was why he’d closed his eyes, not because he was imagining Anne. She never entered his mind. All he could think of was Georgette and what he was about to do to her. He couldn’t even look at her, though he ached to watch Georgette melt under him.

He couldn’t bear to watch himself take her when she trusted him so.

Now he really couldn’t. Not like this. Not with Anne’s shadowy specter hovering over them as well.

“I thought since your eyes were closed, you might be imagining you were with her instead,” Georgette said softly as she pulled her night shift down to cover her slender legs.

The suppressed pain in her tone squeezed his heart, but he forced himself to hurt her more.

“There’s nothing to imagine,” he spat out. “Anne died a virgin. And if you want to remain one, you will leave me immediately.”

She did up her shift, pushing each little mother-of-pearl button through the hole with shaking fingers. From the corner of his eye, he could see that she had missed one and was doing up the string of buttons in crooked fashion.

Twisted and out of balance. Rather like his soul.

“I didn’t mean—” she began.

“I didn’t mean it either,” he said roughly. “Not any of it. But if ever I take your maidenhead, I’ll damn well know who it is I’m rutting. Now get out of here.”

She gasped as if he’d slapped her. The sound rent his heart, but if she stayed much longer, he’d be on her again. And this time he wouldn’t stop.

“Be gone,” he growled.

He was relieved out of all knowing when she did. Georgette flew out of the library, not even stopping to scoop up her discarded wrapper.

After the last of her footfalls faded into silence, Nate picked up the bit of silk. He buried his nose in it, hoping to clear his head with her clean scent.

It didn’t help.

He was afraid nothing would. There was no way out of this tangle that didn’t involve deceit and unfair advantage and more than a little risk to all hearts involved.

His own included.

Nathaniel was a master of the sword. He’d never expected to lower his guard enough to allow a wicked thrust like love to slip into the situation.

When he fell in love with Anne, their whirlwind courtship was all sonnets and nosegays. She was the perfect match for him. Everyone said so.

With Georgette, it had been a whirlwind too, but of the more destructive sort—invading whorehouses and incessant argument. No wonder he hadn’t recognized love when it came in that jumbled-up guise.

It was so different with Georgette. Earthier. More honest and more convoluted at the same time.

He breathed in Georgette’s wrapper again and his ribs ached as if a blade had slipped past to pierce his heart.

Damn.

If that wasn’t love, what the hell was it?

***

Lady Caroline Colton’s slim fingers danced over the Broadwood grand’s ivories. Most of those in attendance were in raptures over the brilliant, sensitive performance, but Georgette wasn’t at all happy to be sitting in Sir Martin Daventry’s packed music room. Her parents had insisted she allow Nathaniel to escort her to this exclusive pre-Season event, but she didn’t have to like it.

“Royalty always champions the arts, you know,” her mother had argued when she protested that she had a tin ear. “You must be seen to enjoy the finer things.”

Even though Georgette had little ear for music, Lady Caroline’s playing certainly constituted a fine thing. But Lady Caroline’s brother, also known as the handsome lout in the chair next to Georgette, did not.

At
least, thank heaven
, she thought with a sniff,
my
eyes
are
no
longer
puffy.

She’d cried her last secret tear over Nathaniel Colton. Of course, it helped that she avoided him as much as she could. She didn’t meet his gaze when they sat across from each other at her parents’ dining table. When he approached, she found a reason to drift to another part of the room. If she couldn’t move without delivering a direct cut and occasioning comment, she simply ignored him and imagined that she shifted away from him inside her clothes.

She would not occupy the same space, breathe the same air as that insufferable man.

On several occasions, she considered going to her father and asking the marquis to send Nathaniel packing, especially since his family had returned to London. The excuse that he’d be rattling around in an empty town house was now moot.

But if her father asked her why she didn’t want Nathaniel around, she couldn’t very well admit he’d diddled her to within an inch of her life and she didn’t trust herself to be alone with him for more than two blinks.

And she certainly couldn’t tell her father that Nate had broken her heart.

Her heart was supposed to be spoken for. Negotiations with the duke’s factor were proceeding swimmingly. Her mother was all but certain the upcoming ball would turn into a celebration of a royal betrothal.

She didn’t want to disappoint her parents. She was already too disappointed in herself to bear more.

Still, she couldn’t help but notice bits and pieces of the man in the seat next to her. His long legs, which claimed her attention despite being at the edge of her peripheral vision, were crossed at the knee. She knew after seeing him in that open banyan that they were dusted with the same dark brown hair as his tousled head.

He was the restless sort and rarely let sixteen bars of music go by without shifting on his seat or uncrossing and then recrossing his legs. His hands were folded on his lap, his long fingers laced together—to keep them still during the concert, she suspected.

She was feeling a bit squirmish herself. Lady Caro’s slim fingers were exceedingly talented on the keys. But when she sneaked a glimpse at Nate’s long, square-nailed ones, it was hard not to relive how very talented they were as well.

It was a relief when the final Bach étude was over and the company rose to its feet in thunderous applause. Almost as one, the first row of the audience surged forward to congratulate Lady Caroline on her performance.

“I need to see to Caro for a bit.” Nathaniel leaned toward Georgette. “She becomes overwhelmed by this sort of thing. Will you be all right on your own for a little while?”

“Take your time.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I was perfectly all right before you barged back into my life, Nathaniel Colton. Rest assured, my heart will continue to beat if you leave me.”

But it also wouldn’t stop hurting.

He, however, did not need to know that. And he was probably right about his sister.

Even as a child, Caro had been high-strung and easily upset when she received too much attention, even of the positive sort. Dainty, shy, and strikingly beautiful, Lady Caroline brought out the best protective instincts in the men around her. She was like a gossamer veil that might tear at the slightest puff of wind.

Georgette was not cut from such fine cloth.

Sturdy, that’s me. Like stiff bombazine.

She turned on her heel and headed for the buffet table spread out in the adjoining room. Perhaps if her hands were occupied with holding a cup of punch, she’d feel less like using them to strangle Nate.

“There you are, Lady Georgette,” a voice with a nasal twang called out.

She turned to find Roger Fishwick tailing her.

He’s Lord Fishwick now
, she reminded herself, since his father had died last spring and Roger had come into the barony that abutted her family’s country estate.

“My lord.” She dipped a slight curtsy and hoped he didn’t remember that rum punch-soaked kiss he’d plastered on her the Christmas before last.

“I was hoping I’d have a chance to speak to you without your guard dog.”

She raised a quizzical brow.

“Colton,” he said with a curl of his lip. “The man hovers around you like a wolfhound. But I suppose he’s puttering about you on the Duke of Cambridge’s business. Are felicitations in order for you and His Royal Highness yet?”

“The bride is always the last to know. You’d have to ask my father about that,” she said, looking around the room, hoping someone would join them so she could extricate herself from the conversation gracefully.

She’d known Roger almost as long as she’d known Nathaniel, but she wasn’t nearly as comfortable around him, even allowing for how frustrated she was with Nate. Roger was the sort who would never quite grow into his looks, his face still puffed with baby fat. Even though he was attempting to cultivate a mustache, Roger managed to look boyishly out of place in an adult gathering.

Unless one caught the occasional odd glint in his pale eyes.

His smooth-chinned face disguised a disturbing personality. As a boy, Roger used to skin frogs alive on the banks of the stream that formed the boundary between her family’s land and his. Once he’d tied a lit firebrand to a cat’s tail, but was stopped by his father before he could release the poor animal into a dry field. Georgette hoped he’d outgrown that cruel streak, but she couldn’t look at Roger Fishwick without a shiver of repugnance.

“Still, Colton is an odd choice as an escort for a lady who hopes to land a crown,” Roger said. “Lord knows, the man’s usually sniffing around a woman’s skirt rather than protecting it.”

“And yet Lord Nathaniel has only nice things to say about you.”

He’d done no such thing. Georgette had no idea if Nate even knew who Roger was, but it seemed the best way to forestall any more inappropriate comments.

“Well, I must say Lord Nathaniel seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf, what with his ‘good works’ among the downtrodden lightskirts of Covent Garden,” Roger said with a snicker.

Nathaniel had come up behind Roger in time to hear the last remark. “If anything good is coming of that,” he said, “it’s due to the determination of the women at the House of Sirens themselves, not because of me.”

Georgette was so relieved to see Nate, she could have kissed him right on the mouth. But since no good could come of
that
, she settled for introducing Roger to Nate, taking care to make it seem she was merely reminding him of Lord Fishwick since he supposedly had said nice things about him.

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at Lord Fishwick while the two men shook hands. “You do look familiar, sir.”

“I should,” Roger said frostily. “I have no recollection of the matter myself, but it appears you rendered me assistance at White’s once when I was…indisposed.”

“Oh, yes.” Nate chuckled. “Now I remember.”

Roger fished in his pockets and came out with a fistful of coins. “I believe I owe you for my care, and rest assured, I’m a man who always settles his debts.”

“Nonsense. Without you, I wouldn’t be the proud owner of the former House of Sirens.”

Now it was Roger’s turn to look puzzled.

“Lord Gobberd and I wagered on you and the deed was part of the pot,” Nate explained. “He thought you had expired on the threshold, but luckily for me, you had to the goodness to still be alive.”

“You see.” Georgette smiled weakly at Lord Fishwick. “Only nice things.”