Ruined by Moonlight (11 page)

“It isn’t always that way. Sometimes the pleasure is
the only consideration.” He’d bedded married women, but never if they didn’t have an understanding with their husbands. The tendencies toward loveless matches in the aristocracy rendered a set of rules that allowed wives to follow their own inclinations once a legitimate heir had been born.

Thoughtfully she considered him. “I suppose that must be true. For instance, you are not married, but rumored to have…well…many times.”

His marital status being contemplated by a very eligible young debutante gave him pause. “As long as everyone understands the rules before the game begins, it is a fair trade rather than a bargain struck.”

“I suppose what you are telling me is that women
do
enjoy sharing a man’s bed if he is of their choice?”

And possess some finesse and the desire to please her.
Ran chose not to go into the details of how a man needed to understand the complexities of female arousal. The conversation had gotten uncomfortably immediate already. If the table wasn’t between them she might even notice his growing erection, and that, he would have to explain, was the graphic difference between men and women.

He could be a great deal more enlightening about
male
arousal but it just wasn’t wise.

The temptation was, in fact, damned foolish, and he wasn’t a fool. Or so he liked to think anyway, and his instincts with women were usually correct.

Careful
.

“It always depends on the two people involved,” he informed her neutrally, a part of his wayward mind speculating that she would be responsive in bed because she was so refreshingly without artifice.

He had no doubt that her dazzling beauty was why men had flocked to her, but the more perceptive ones would have sensed that underlying sensuality because she wasn’t skilled enough—or jaded enough—to hide it and hadn’t recognized yet the power that aura wielded.

But she would, because she was sufficiently intelligent to realize it eventually. He didn’t intend to be that vulnerable, but there was a certain licentious temptation to be the man to teach her how to play the game.

A game he was very, very good at, by all accounts, and he enjoyed immensely, which was a bit of a problem.

Or
more
than a bit at the moment.

“I have just one more question.” She regarded him directly, her robe delectably draping her slender figure.

He was weakening, damn all. The resolve not to touch her was born of self-preservation and outrage over their circumstances, but the cracks were widening and the temptation not helped by their current conversation.

“Yes?” His gaze involuntarily strayed to the slight part in the material of her robe where it covered her breasts.

And she noticed, for her cheeks took on a faint pink color. “How do you know?”

“Know what?”

“If it is a fair trade, as you put it.”

Ran explained slowly, “Sexual pleasure is dependent on how receptive the lovers are to each other. I don’t think attraction can be defined—it just happens. When you marry duty is involved, but that is entirely different.”

An ambiguous answer at best but a truthful one. From her few remarks on her engagement she didn’t appear to be emotionally involved with Lord Colbert, which was a pity.

But she was attracted to
him
. Ran knew the signs well enough, and though she wasn’t skilled enough at flirtation to be deliberately provocative she managed it anyway.

You want her. She wants you. There is privacy and a bed.
…

“It
sounds
less than satisfactory,” Lady Elena muttered, resting a slender hand on the table. “But it still makes no sense to me. If so many women take lovers and some of them are married, they must find pleasure in it. As a husband, why not offer it to your wife instead?”

A palatable silence descended as he contemplated the answer. She didn’t yet understand the nuances of choice and male privilege—and when the hell had this discussion turned from a titillating discourse on sexual practices to something else entirely? He didn’t want to destroy any romantic notions she might have over her upcoming nuptials.

“I’ve never been a husband so I don’t know.”

“When you marry, I assume you will do your best to—”

He didn’t normally interrupt a lady, but now the conversation had definitely taken the wrong turn. “There is more in this room that indicates that it was used for illicit trysts.”

Lade Elena glanced around, diverted, thankfully, from the less than desirable topic of any marriage, much less his. “What? There is hardly anything in here at all. No armoire, just this small table and chairs, and the screen and hip bath.”

“Exactly. It was never used as a bedroom in the sense someone lived in it. The sole purpose is the bed and a place to bathe afterward.”

“Why would you bathe afterward?”

Her innocence should be off-putting, not intriguing.
Damn.
He’d never wanted a grass green girl in his bed.
Woman,
an errant voice whispered in his brain.
Every inch a woman
.

Damn all if he didn’t want her enough to listen.

Hadn’t she just asked him a question…? He cleared his throat. His cock was rigid now, throbbing with the beat of his heart. “For it all to work with the greatest sensation for both male and female, our bodies ready in certain ways. It is also a bit messy after climax.”

The blank look on her face was predictable. “Climax?”

It did him in, and his voice took on a telltale huskiness when he said, “Though I still vow not to cooperate with our mysterious captor, I would love to demonstrate.”

W
as she being seduced?

Although she did not have any experience with it, Elena rather thought so. It was in the subtle change in his demeanor, in the intensity of the viscount’s gaze. Their discussion, which she had certainly encouraged, hadn’t helped a bit, and his last statement was definitely contradictory.

Surely either a woman was compromised or she wasn’t.

“You know I have no idea what you mean.” She said the words softly but an unexpected heat raced through her body and she regarded his dark beauty with as dispassionate an eye as possible. Unfortunately, an understanding of why so many women had graced his bed became clearer by the passing moment, and it wasn’t just his masculine appeal.

Fair trade
.

He was…not just polite but genuinely considerate. Other than their initial exchange in which he was suspicious—understandably so; she’d been suspicious too—of why they were locked in together, he’d always been thoughtful and solicitous, though she knew the
strain of forced idleness was difficult for a man more used to action.

If he’d changed his mind on staying a gentleman that was no doubt her fault.

“Demonstrate in what way?” she asked when he didn’t speak, but she instinctively knew the answer. It involved that scandalous bed and liberties she should definitely deny him.

And her heart had begun to flutter in a particularly unruly manner.

When he reached across the small table and took her hand, her pulse began to truly race. His fingers were long, strong, and entirely masculine, and the way he looked at her when they clasped hers made her feel as if she were suddenly transfixed by some magic spell.

Ran said softly, “You are right. No one will ever know what happens here between us. Not what we talk about, not what we do…You can depart from here with your virginity intact and, meanwhile, we have nothing but time.” His voice dropped in timbre. “And I think you are very beautiful.”

His libertine status gave her pause, of course, but it was fleeting. The potent pull of attraction he’d described was there. As much as she would like to be known as the one female who did not find the Raven as darkly seductive as everyone else, she did.

From that first moment when she woke to find him sprawled next to her.

She shouldn’t.

But, then again, her future involved a dutiful marriage to a man she knew only from stilted drawing room conversations, and the discussion she and Ran had just had
didn’t present arrangements like what awaited her in the best light.

“I…I don’t know anything,” she faltered.

Rising, he tugged her with him, coming around the small table and drawing her close because he still held her hand, and placed a persuasive palm at the small of her back, bringing her up against his hard body. “You don’t have to know.” He lowered his head and his breath brushed her lips. “I know enough for the both of us.”

That
she believed and would have tartly said so, but he kissed her.

There, as the rainbow shadows lengthened, Lord Andrews gave her the first kiss of her life, his mouth firm and warm. The contact was light and then deepened as their lips clung, parting briefly, and he pulled her even closer and kissed her again.

Deeply.

Shockingly.

Perfectly
.

When a true rake kisses a virgin, she discovered, it was a moving experience if he puts some effort into it. Or so logic told her, but logic was hardly in charge as her hands tightened on his arms and she let her eyes drift shut. When he lightly traced her lower lip with the tip of his tongue and she stiffened, he murmured against her mouth, “It’s just a kiss, my sweet. Relax. I won’t ravish you, I give you my word. I just want to taste you. Surely others have tried, but I am honored to be the first to succeed. May I?”

Once or twice she’d been invited for a moonlit terrace stroll, but she wasn’t that foolish, nor was her father that permissive. But it was still mortifying he could tell she’d never done this before.

Perhaps this wasn’t the time to think of her austere father,
who would be furious to know of her permissive behavior, clad in only a thin robe, pressed up against the notorious Andrews.

That thought actually steadied her, made her tilt her head back and allow her lips to part. Not because she knew her father would be aghast, but because she understood that no doubt it was just too late anyway. With each minute that passed, whatever happened with the rest of her life, this kidnapping had probably already done the damage it was intended to do.

She was ruined. Her engagement became more tenuous by the moment.

Therefore she should make the most of the evening.

The first brush of his tongue was startling, the intimacy of the moment acute. Her body reacted in a strange way also, as if every muscle tightened a fraction; every nerve became more sensitive all once. One hand drifted to his shoulder and her eyes closed as he explored her mouth, his tongue alternately lightly licking the corners of her lips and then erotically pushing back inside until she was breathless. When Ran lifted his head she realized her arms were fully around his neck.

It was rewarding that when he spoke it sounded nothing like his usual cool drawl but held a raw edge. “There’s a reason lovers usually find the most convenient horizontal surface. It is much easier done lying down. Shall we?”

He might have asked for permission but he didn’t wait for her answer. He lifted her in his arms and walked the few steps to the bed, depositing her on the linens, lowering himself on top of her for another long, spine-tingling kiss. Elena touched his hair for the first time and found those ebony strands as soft and thick as she’d imagined. The contrast to his hard musculature was
somehow arousing, and from the tightening in her breasts and the growing heat between her thighs, she hardly needed that.

He’d sworn he wouldn’t ruin her in truth, but if he changed his mind he could probably accomplish that task with her eager participation as long as he continued to kiss her.

At that moment there was a glimmer of understanding for all those wayward ladies who succumbed to temptation.
If it fe
els
like this,
she thought as his mouth traveled down the curve of her neck, tasting and teasing,
no wonder.
It was a practiced art, of that she had no doubt, and as he kissed the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat she shivered.

“I need to see what I’ve been dreaming about,” he said, long fingers parting the folds of her robe¸ pushing it back from her shoulders, fingertips skimming the partially exposed upper curve of her right breast.

“You already essentially have,” she responded, but to her chagrin her voice was unsteady. Her chemise hadn’t covered nearly enough at that crucial moment when they’d met under the most unusual circumstances ever.

“I remember.” His gaze locked with hers. “In the past three days I’ve remembered all too often. I’m surprised my resolve lasted this long with that image etched in my brain.”

She remembered also what he looked like bare chested, flagrantly male, his chiseled features peaceful in repose as he slept.

Same bed but an entirely different situation at the moment. Instead of peaceful he was most definitely awake…all of him. Though he still wore his robe, through the thin
silk she could feel the press of something long and hard against her thigh.

“This is even better.” He shifted her effortlessly in his arms and pulled her robe completely off with facile expertise. “With you willing and wanting beneath me.”

Am I really doing this,
she thought in response as he lowered his dark head and closed his mouth over her peaked nipple. The sensation was sublime, as surreal as the tower room with the fading multicolored light and the white-hot desire spiking through her body. Was she wanting? Yes, she was, because there was only one first time—and who knew if it would be the last? Her world was in unpredictable disorder after a lifetime of stricture.

When he did something incredible with his tongue along the underside of her breast, without shame she made an inarticulate sound of enjoyment. It was as much the erotic sight of his hair against her white skin, the contrast stark, and the slight rough feel of his beard—he’d made it clear he wasn’t at all happy about not being given the means to shave the past few days—against her sensitive flesh.

Skilled fingers stroked her taut breasts, cupping, lifting, testing. By the time he moved to the other nipple she was trembling.