The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (11 page)

“Sebastian, please,” she began, but she didn’t know what she wanted to ask for. Something . . . something
more
.

His palms slid down over her thighs now, and his kisses trailed upwards as he buried his face in the curve of her throat. “So lovely.”

She couldn’t seem to get close enough to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her chest tight to his. Her skin was so sensitized, she could feel the difference in texture between the velvet of his coat collar and the velvet cushions of the coach seat. One seemed to cool her, the other to burn. An ache was building inside her that was almost like the pressure of weeping, and just as desperate.

At last, at last, he was pushing her skirts aside, and she squeezed shut her eyes in sweet anticipation of his touch directly against her flesh.

“Damnation,” he rasped. “How did Lord Greeley manage to keep his hands off you?”

That name was like a dash of cold water in her face. She pulled back. “Lord
Greeley
? Good heavens—don’t mention him. And for the record, he
didn’t
keep his hands off me.”

Sebastian’s fingers gripped her hard around her thighs. “I’ll kill the bastard.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, suddenly laughing, the last thing she would have thought possible with her body half aflame. “He only tried a few times, and each time I gave him my best governess glare. He always backed off like a frightened schoolboy.”

“Ah, well, that makes sense,” Sebastian said, his arms drawing her tighter against him again, and laughing, too. “You’re certainly a steely little creature when you need to be. All right, then, show me this forbidding glare of yours. Let’s see if it cools my ardor.”

She bit at her lip. It was difficult to focus with all the sensations still rippling through her body, muddled now with the urge to laugh. She tried to imagine Lord Greeley and his awful pudgy hands pawing at her backside through her old wool dresses, tried to conjure that very real outrage and disgust she’d felt and funnel it into a sharp, forbidding look.

For a moment, she thought she had it, but Sebastian’s eyes disconcerted her—that strange, pale blue, somehow molten now, their heat only brighter for the amusement glinting in them. And her effort dissolved in a blush.

“That’s not working,” he said, his grin broadening. “Not even a little bit.”

“
Hmph
,” she said. “I suspect you were never easily cowed, even as a schoolboy.”

“Never.” And suddenly his fingers were in her hair again, at the back of her skull, pulling her down for a kiss.

She’d kissed him once before, on that first mad day they’d met, when he’d mocked the idea she could pass for a courtesan. Although that kiss had been calculated as a chess move, the touch of his mouth had sent a shock through her brain.

This
kiss did that and more. Far more.

His mouth was hot on hers, and greedy, his tongue stroking over her lower lip, seeking entrance. She felt that heat, that need, unfurl through her, like a drugging fume.

Now she understood why poets said kisses were headier than wine.

The air grew heavier, swirling about them like a current, and even with her eyes closed, it seemed the color of the light in the coach around them had deepened to shades of purple and dusky rose. Impossible sensations—flowing color, thick heat.

The effect went deep inside her body, drawing in parts of her she’d never been quite aware existed. Everything in her was going liquid, merging with the current that swept between them, and somehow, terrifyingly, blissfully, merging something of the essence of her with the essence of him.

Oh, dangerous. This was dangerous.

And she wanted more.

Their tongues tangled. He groaned, and she felt it vibrate through her belly. Need exploded through her, need to press against him more fully, need to have the burning ache at her core satisfied. And he seemed to sense it—one of his hands still tangled in her hair, but the other found its way under her skirts, his fingers hot as brands against the sides of her legs as they slid their way upward.

His mouth broke from the kiss, pressed against her ear. “Can I touch you here?” he asked hoarsely, panting, his breath warm on her cheek. “Can I touch you more?” The urgency of his hand roaming over her hip made the question seem like hardly a question at all, but at least he was asking.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes,
please
.”

And that seemed to be all the encouragement he needed.

His touch through the silk had been erotic, but his hand on her bare skin, sliding over the top of her leg toward her inner thigh was almost overwhelming. Her blood pounded, her heart was swelling, thundering. It didn’t seem possible that it could be contained within her chest. And the wild feeling where his fingers caressed her, that seemed just as impossible to contain. Soon, she would scream. Soon she would burst wide open.

Fisting her hands in his hair, she poured all the energy in her into kissing him fiercely, almost bruisingly, and he groaned.

His fingers beneath her skirts found their way to where she was throbbing and cupped her there. His thumb flicked back and forth against the most sensitive spot, and she was very glad she was already on her knees, because had she been standing, she’d have collapsed onto the ground. As it was, she fell forward against him, gasping, making mewling sounds against his lips.

In response, his tongue matched the rhythm of his hand, darting in and out, round and round, the flicking of his thumb driving her mad, his fingers gathering the slick moisture from between her legs and using that to . . .
oh
, intensify the sensations tenfold.

She shuddered, feverish, losing control of her fingers, which clutched feebly at his curls.

Amazingly, he chuckled. “You like that?” he asked, his voice low and as hot as the pleasure he sent shooting through her. “You like the way that feels?”

“Yes, blast you!” she said, her breath ragged.

“
Blast
me?” His thumb flicked, his fingertips slid between her slick folds. “Do you want me to stop?”

“
No
!”

Again he laughed. “I didn’t think so.”

“Oh, God—why do you talk so much?” She dragged in a breath. “
How
can you talk so much?”

“You’re not touching me the way I’m touching you,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I’m nowhere near so far gone as you are.”

She pulled back for a moment, tried to make her eyes focus enough to read his expression. “Do you want me to?” She fought to catch her breath. “Touch you?”

“God, yes,” he said fervently. “But . . .
no
.”

“No?”

“I’m trying to maintain my self-control.” He smiled, and slid one finger partway inside her, making her gasp. “And I’m trying to make sure you lose yours.”

Oh, he was doing a very good job of that. His thumb was moving over her in whirls now, driving her higher and higher, making her moan, and at the same time a second finger joined the first in parting her folds. Her nerve endings blazed, and her thighs began to tremble.

A thought drifted through her mind, that she ought to be embarrassed by this, by what she was allowing him to do to her, so shamelessly. But, remarkably, she wasn’t. He could touch her all he wanted, tease her all he wanted, laugh if he wanted, this felt
right
. Natural.
Inevitable
.

She squeezed shut her eyes, let her head fall back.

“I’m being incredibly noble, don’t you think?” he murmured, his maddening fingers sliding in and out. “Aren’t you impressed with my selflessness? Pleasuring you and expecting nothing in return?”

Damnable man
. She felt such a strange combination of things, the desire to strike him with the back of her hand, and the desire to reach down and touch him after all, despite what he said about needing to keep control.

And he deserves as much
, she thought, and whether that was an impulse of revenge, or an impulse to be good to him, she wasn’t entirely sure.

It really didn’t matter. Before he could render her completely incapable of conscious action, she worked her own hand down between them and ran her palm over the bulge at the front of his trousers. Immediately, he made a most gratifying moan. His hips thrust upwards, seemingly of their own accord, and when she opened her eyes, he was biting hard at his lower lip.

I can make you lose your control, too
,
Lord Gargoyle. You don’t wield all the power here.

He blew out a hard, pained breath, and brushed her hand away. “No more of that, sweetheart,” he said regretfully. “Or I won’t manage to be noble much longer.” The words came short, and it pleased her that his speech wasn’t as easy as it was before. “I’m trying to get you to trust me, and it wouldn’t do to have me frighten you.”

“I’m not frightened.”

He gave her a smirk. “You might be. You haven’t seen what I have to offer, yet.”

If she weren’t so distracted by the stroking of his hand, she’d have rolled her eyes at his egotism. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

“For good reason, I promise you.”

Damnable, damnable man
. Oh, but the magic of his caresses . . .

“Do you know what I want to do with you?” he said. “I want to be inside you. I want to drive up into you, to feel your hot, wet sheath clutch all around me.”

At his words, fever soared through her, even as his hand beneath her skirts kept stroking, stroking, turning everything inside her to simmering liquid.

She’d nearly forgotten the other hand that was still curved behind her head, dallying in her curls, but he used it now to stroke her cheek as he gazed deep into her eyes. And now it was his eyes that riveted her most—the blazing intensity in them was shocking.

“Look at me,” he said. His eyes were hypnotic, stroking her as surely as the hand between her thighs. A current of molten red seemed to burn straight down the middle of her body, threatening to reduce her to ash.

His expression had been teasing before, but it wasn’t now. As she gazed back at him, she saw something far different from his usual arrogance, his usual arch capriciousness. It was as if all surface layers had been stripped suddenly away, and she was looking into some deeper-buried part of him, into a strange and unfamiliar openness. And all she could feel was a powerful sense that she
knew
him, that she was part of him, and he was fast becoming part of her.

He was stroking her harder now, stroking and stroking, his long fingers pressing deeper and deeper, stretching her, building a hard, hot, tight pressure through her belly, making her want to curl in tight against him, making her want to shut her eyes and give herself over to pure sensation.

“Keep your eyes on me,” he said, whispering fiercely. “Let me see your face.”

She wanted to say something, wanted to say his name, but words would no longer come. She could barely draw enough air to keep her head from spinning. Her lungs rasped with the effort. She fought to keep her eyes on his.

And still he kept talking, his voice as much a caress as his fingers. “Wouldn’t you like to feel me there, sweetheart? Inside? Filling you? Taking you?”

The idea burst like a firework inside her brain. “Yes,” she managed to say, the only word her mind could form. “Yes, yes, yes.”

But he made no effort to loosen his breeches. Only his fingers moved inside her, faster, harder, bringing her closer and closer to madness. “Do you understand the effort it’s taking to refrain?” he said, and something in his voice told her he made the revelation as much for his own sake as for hers. “This is not like me, not at all like me, to have a willing woman on my lap and not take what’s being offered.”

What exactly did he mean by that?

And why should it matter to her?

Oh, but somehow it did.

He was talking still, murmuring more words, passionate words, but she could barely make out their significance through the dizziness that sent her mind whirling. She could no longer discern the individual movements of his fingers—it was all one great velvet stroke, one hot caress, and her whole body moved with it, rocked with it, rose with it, faster and faster, higher and higher and higher. She was going to faint soon, or die maybe, with her heart hammering so violently, her whole body trembling. She was hurtling forward somehow, running straight for the edge of a cliff.

“Good girl, Rachel,” Sebastian was saying, she could make out that much, but his eyes were sweeping her in, swallowing up everything in the world and her along with it. “God, look at you. Come for me, sweetheart. Come for me now.”

And heat rose through her, that molten red current taking her under, and then she was falling, and coming apart, heat ripping through her, colors exploding through her flesh, and she heard a cry—her voice, maybe, or Sebastian’s, or both of them at once?

And she was pulsing and shuddering, and eddies of impossible sweetness swept through her, beating through the tips of breasts, through her belly, and behind her eyes. Her hands and feet were clenching, grasping at the shocking joy of it. Pleasure, vast, rippling pleasure was flowing everywhere.