The Rake and the Recluse REDUX (a time travel romance) (39 page)

As she looked around, Francine realized it was the first time she’d been in this room. It was more masculine than the other parlor, decorated in a rich burgundy with gold trim. The gold was simple striping and piping, not tassels and gilding. Several more settees and chairs occupied the room since it was an evening parlor and used for entertaining.

The women sat together on one of the settees by the fire and Miss Faversham told Francine more of her previous position.

Francine interjected minimally, whispering. She felt her voice getting stronger, but she didn’t wish to take any chances on damaging it further, so she was trying to abide by Gideon’s wishes and not speak as much as possible.

“I do hope your voice is recovered when I reach London,” Miss Faversham said. “I want to learn more about you. I wish I could use the sign language I have seen you using. It is wonderful—perhaps you could teach me some when I return?”

Francine smiled and nodded, also wishing she could speak, but a bit thankful because it protected her from saying something wrong, like
I learned sign language from a girl with no home, from Five Points in Denver.
Without much conversation, they decided to turn in. Miss Faversham would be leaving early and needed rest, and Francine wanted to relax and read some more in the private parlor.

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” Francine read the passage from
Wuthering Heights
aloud. She put the book down on the small table next to the settee, closing her eyes and absorbing the prose.

“You are more myself that I am,” Gideon said, the words rumbling forth in that baritone Francine loved so well. She stood and looked at the entryway. “Whatever our souls are made of, yours—” The words reverberated through his torso. “—and mine—” He paused, looking into her eyes. “—are the same.” His voice came from deep within his core, raspy and coarse. It burnished her soul. She gasped, feeling his voice beneath her skin, firing every nerve. He silently shut the parlor door, engaged the bolt, and walked toward her.

“Gideon,” she whispered.

“Francine, I am going to kiss you.”

She looked up at him. His hair was messy from the day, falling over one smoldering green eye.

“Ah, Gideon.” She whispered his name again, letting it float softly from her lips.

The tension inside him broke loose and his mouth descended to hers, their lips meeting in strength and softness, his begging hers to open to him as she sucked and licked his lips. He massaged the hollow beneath her ear with his thumb and she sighed. He took advantage, delving into her offer with his tongue. He tasted of sweet red port and undone passion.

She shut her eyes tightly, allowing his supplication.

His lips released her but their gazes held as he gently lowered her to the settee. She stared up at him, her long dark lashes distorting the room like a screen. Something about his countenance had her heart rushing to keep up. He sat at the other end of the small settee and leaned back against the corner with one knee bent, lazily resting on the seat beside her.

“Lay your hands on me,” he whispered, his voice low.

Her eyes widened and she reached out to his knee, her hand shaking like the top of an overheated teakettle.

“No,” he said quietly, and she drew her hand back. He reached out, grasping her wrist to lead her as he spread his thighs. “On your knees.”

She moved slowly to the floor in front of him, a bit frightened by the forceful demand. He released her wrist, stretched his arms wide along the back of the settee as he watched her, waiting.

She finally reached up, unraveling the delicate folds of his neck cloth before sitting back.

He nodded.

She unbuttoned his silk waistcoat, spreading it wide across his abdomen, the heat of her hands sinking through the cotton of his shirt. He hissed, drawing breath through his teeth, and leaned his head back on the settee.

“Keep going,” he growled.

Her forearm inadvertently brushed the rise of his manhood. She gasped at the thick hardness she felt through the fabric of his trousers.

“Oh, lord,” he inhaled sharply. She smoothed her hands up the front of his shirt and started undoing it, slowly revealing his warm, smooth chest in the flickering candlelight.

She pushed the shirt open, teasing his nipples with her thumbs, and he tensed with a groan. Her manner instantly shifted to brazen. She ran her hands down the inside of his shirt, tracing the ridges of his muscles as she spread the shirt wider, pulling it from his trousers.

His breath came faster as she leaned forward and circled his navel, then placed a kiss in its depth, smoothing the soft black dusting of hair that encircled it and trailed into his trousers.

She gazed up at his face. His head was thrown back over the edge of the settee, his mouth open, his breath fast and heavy. She traced that patch of skin on his stomach, tucking her fingers beneath his trousers to feel the wet tip of his erection. She gasped at the unexpected moisture and his hips jerked.

He gripped her wrist and pulled her hands back then leaned forward, his hot mouth on her neck as he pushed her down on the thick, plush carpet beneath them. He knelt over her, one hand on her neck and the other running up her leg, tickling the sensitive skin behind her knee, moving her skirts higher. His lips kissed a trail of heat down her chest to the bodice of her dress, biting at her nipple through her garments. He ran his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips and pushed it in her mouth. She drew on it, sucking hard on his salty taste as she watched him.

He lifted her skirts and tore at the opening to her drawers, splitting them to the waist. His finger slipped between her hot, wet folds. Again she was ready for him. She arched up, releasing his thumb with her gasp. Massaging her gently, he kissed her soft belly through the tear in her drawers.

She breathed deeply as he kissed, and kissed, and kissed, knowing what would happen next. He ventured lower and lower, until his mouth was buried in the crest of her privacy, his heavy breathing creating a cool, tingling sensation over her aroused flesh and her heart sang.

There really was no other explanation for it. The feel of his mouth on her—
on her
—was so arousing her entire body was humming with the little shocks of it.

He teased her hidden nub with his tongue and she tangled her hands in his hair. Drawing her knees up and arching her back, she angled her hips toward him. He tasted slowly, his tongue delving deeper and deeper until it slipped inside.

“Gideon, please.”

“Hush.” His breath fanned over her exposed flesh and she shuddered. His tongue plunged and his finger circled. She felt the tendrils of electricity coursing from her toes to her belly, the tightening and relaxing, her muscles increasing their cadence, marching toward her center.

He circled the entrace to her womanhood—ever wary of protecting her—as he suckled the little nub of flesh and she came undone, the waves coursing through her body, wracking her violently against him as he held onto her, pushing her climax higher and higher. He rose above her, listening to her sighs and looking into her passion-flustered features as she inhaled powerfully and repeatedly before collapsing on the floor below him.

I am never going to recover from this man
. This wasn’t anything like she had read in the romance novels that mother-number-two had, or the movies she and her foster sister watched on cable in the middle of the night.

This was so much more.

This was everything.

He stroked her legs then straightened her skirts as he sat back and willed his overexcited body to calm. He watched her for innumerable moments, realizing he was going to remain in a turgid state until long after he was away from her. He shook his head and pulled her limp, sated body into his arms, holding her as tight as possible against himself to minimize any movement between them. He stood with her and walked to the parlor door, opening it quietly and slipping through. He carried her to her suite, setting her on the bed.

She reached up, smoothing her hand over his jaw.

He smiled down at her and loosened her dress, kissing her lips. “Francine,” he said, placing a finger over her mouth to keep her silent. “I have to go before we are discovered. I should never have come to you tonight. I—should not have. We really do need a chaperone.” He shook his head with a quiet laugh.

She smiled as she leaned back into the bank of downy pillows, speechless as she watched him disappear back into the passage.

He returned to his room, entirely disheveled but not caring in the least.
The question is no longer when will I see her next, but can I survive one day, one hour, or one minute without her
?
And I simply cannot
. He hadn’t meant to do seduce her. He’d only wanted to see her once more before going to bed, but when he heard her reading in the parlor he was drawn in. He hadn’t meant to, he kept telling himself—but the look she gave him…

Well, he’d felt entirely unnerved. He groaned loudly. He had to find some control, or at least some semblance of it. He stripped what was left of his clothing, unceremoniously leaving it on the floor at the foot of his bed. Falling to the pillows, he rolled under the sheets and tried to sleep.

The next morning, the Larrabees arrived at Eildon Hill early to gather the governess and outriders. Then they loaded the carriage and left.