The Taste of Innocence (11 page)

But that wasn’t his purpose, not to night. To night, and over those to come, he was, he inwardly reiterated, committed to playing a long game. Tactics, strategy, and how to influence a negotiation. She had something he wanted; to night he was sweetening his price.

So he held her against him, his hands at her waist, too wise to tempt his baser self by taking her into his arms; it was not part of to night’s agenda to crush her to him…not yet. Not until she was ready, not until she yearned for that contact with a hunger even greater than his own.

He continued to kiss her evocatively, commandingly, letting passion rise, writhe and beckon—until she clung to his shoulders, the fingers of one hand sunk in his hair, until her body was heated, pliant, and wanting.

He drew back; he had to fight to do it but he held to his purpose and freed her lips. Felt her breath wash over his and had to battle the urge to sink back into the delectable cavern of her mouth and take. Taste. More.

He inwardly swore. He would, soon, but not to night. To night…

Muscles bunching, he raised his head and eased her back. “Enough.”

He wasn’t sure whom he was addressing the command to—her, or himself. He waited until she lifted her lids, until the dazed haze faded from her eyes and she blinked, and refocused. On his face. She quickly scanned it as if trying to read his direction. He would have smiled, reassuring and calm, but his features felt graven.

“It’s late.” He forced his hands from her waist, reluctantly relinquishing the feel of her body supple and lithe between his palms. “Come. I’ll walk you back to the house.”

Sarah found the next day trying, and the evening was even worse, complicated by being able to see Charlie, being able to sense his impatience for their next meeting in the summer house, which in turn fed her own.

The evening dragged while her father played host to the other local landowners, using a dinner to consult over matters pertaining to the local hunt. By the time the gentlemen eventually rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, her frustration had reached new heights; as their neighbors milled and chatted, keeping a sweet smile on her face and polite and appropriate comments on her lips was a distracting irritation.

At last they all left, Charlie included. Surrounded as they parted in the front hall, she had no chance to learn whether he intended to drive home and then ride back, or whether instead he would drive the grays out of the gates and around to the weir through the fields. As she climbed the stairs behind her mother, she weighed distances and times against the likelihood of him leaving his precious pair in a field, and couldn’t be certain; she remained unsure at what hour to expect him, at what hour he would reach the summer house.

Yet she was absolutely sure he would come. Sometime that night he would return, and she would be able to learn, if not all, then at least more.

Reaching her bedchamber, she sent her sleepy maid, Gwen, to bed, and regretfully changed out of her pretty silk evening gown and donned an old plain walking dress instead. If by some chance she was discovered wandering the gardens in the dead of night, she could say she’d been unable to sleep and had taken a short walk.

Selecting a woolen shawl that at least matched the gown, she blew out her candle and sat down before the dying fire to wait until her parents went to bed and the house quieted.

Half an hour later, she rose and slipped out. She crept down the side stairs and eased open the side door; exercising caution, she walked slowly, drifting from shadow to shadow across the lawn.

Once she gained the path and was out of sight of the house, she picked up her pace; drawing the shawl firmly about her shoulders, she allowed her mind to focus on what lay ahead.

Literally, and figuratively.

After last night…she’d returned to her room, her bed, and unexpectedly fallen into a sound sleep. But she’d had all day to mull over Charlie’s actions, his direction; it seemed clear enough that he intended to tempt her into marriage with desire. With the promise of passion, and all that would mean.

Why else had he stopped? Why else had he drawn such a definite line at such a relatively early—and unrevealing—point? She’d sensed his control, the steely will he’d ruthlessly wielded in order to stop when he had; he hadn’t stopped because he’d truly wanted to, but because it was part of his plan.

His plan wasn’t, quite, what she wanted, but his direction suited her well enough.

She wasn’t so innocent that she didn’t appreciate that he could well make her so desperate to experience the ultimate plea sure that she would set aside all reservations and agree to marry him regardless of whether he loved her or not. In falling in with his scheme, she was taking a risk, yet against that stood the reality that in order to learn what she needed to know, his plan—essentially to seduce her into marriage—held out the best prospect of her gaining what she wanted, of revealing to her why he was so set on marrying her. Specifically her.

She’d asked, but he hadn’t truly answered; he’d given her all the conventional reasons, but such reasons weren’t enough for her, and, more importantly, she was quite sure they weren’t—wouldn’t have been—enough for him, enough to move him to offer for her.

He could have had his pick of every eligible, or even not-so-eligible, young lady in the ton, but he’d chosen her. And despite her ambivalence, her insistence on being wooed—her refusal to meekly fall in with his initial plan—he was still, indeed it seemed he was now even more, determined to marry her.

Which either augered well or was simply a demonstration of his ruthless habit of insisting on having his own way.

She rounded the bend in the path, and the summer house came into view. Whichever of those two options was correct, by following his script she would learn the truth. The truth of why he wanted her.

He was waiting; she saw his tall figure shift in the shadows, pushing away from the archway against which he’d been leaning. Lungs tightening, she lifted her skirts and climbed the steps.

Again they met before the sofa. He held out a hand as she neared; she gave him her hand, conscious of his strength as he grasped it.

Smoothly, he drew her closer; lifting her hand, he brushed his lips lightly, lingeringly, over the sensitive backs of her fingers, then, holding her gaze, he turned her hand and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist.

Her pulse leapt.

They had no need for words; they both knew why they were there.

His lips, hot, trailed along the bare inner face of her forearm, sending sensation streaking through her, a prelude, a sensual warning as he raised her hand higher, releasing it to fall on his shoulder as he drew her to him.

Fully against him, as he had the previous night, but this time his arm went around her, a steely band that held her trapped, that caged her as he bent his head. Eagerly she lifted her face and met his lips with hers.

She inwardly smiled, savoring the firm pressure of his lips, then she yielded to his explicit demand and gave him her mouth. And let her wits slide away as sensation bloomed, as she sensed hunger flare, in herself and in him.

They’d waltzed only once, and that months ago; this was a waltz of a different sort, where their senses revolved in time to a beat orchestrated by sensation. By the heavy stroke of his tongue against hers, by the whirling, fractured pricking of her nerves, by the escalating tempo of her heart.

By the tensing of his fingers on her back as he tightened his grip on his control.

Engrossed, enthralled, she savored the sensual slide into the familiar passion of the kiss, and willingly followed his lead.

She was aware, yet not—acutely aware of him, his lips, his hands, his body, and the flagrant promise carried in his embrace, yet she’d grown strangely insensitive to the world around them, the shadows beyond his arms, the soft sounds of the night beyond the summerhouse, the distant babble of water over the lip of the weir.

Here, now, with him; her world had shrunk, senses intently, intensely focused. On the next stage in his plan.

She quivered, prey to building anticipation, to the shivery thrill of expectation. To the steady rise of a wanting she was coming to think must be desire.

Sunk in the warm pleasures of her mouth, Charlie tracked her responses. He knew to a nicety, to a single shaky breath, just when to ease back enough to slide one hand beneath her shawl. Setting his palm to her waist, he swept upward, lightly tracing her side, then the outer curve of her breast.

The shiver she’d been suppressing became a reality, a response that incited, that invited him to touch, to caress, so he did. At first gently tracing the swelling curves, then subtly stroking so that she heated and yearned; only then did he shape her flesh, curve his hand about the firm mound and gently squeeze, then more evocatively knead.

Her mouth surrendered, her hands once more gripping his skull, her fingers twining in his hair, she arched against his supporting arm, gratifyingly pressing her breast more fully into his hand, offering and inviting—even demanding—his further attentions. The movement set her hips riding more definitely against his thighs.

The latter caught him unawares, set fires where he didn’t yet need them burning. For a moment, he teetered, then plunged back into the kiss, distracting his awakening demons long enough to catch his sensual breath.

Since when could a mere innocent override his will, tried and tested as it was, forged in the steamy, highly sensual world of the upper echelons of the haut ton? His rational mind scoffed, confident and assured. Reassured, he eased his focus once more from the delights of her luscious mouth; taking a firmer, more determined grip on his reins, he returned to the execution of his plan.

Responding to her clear invitation, he let his fingers find, circle, then gently tweak her nipples. Already furled, they tightened even more; he played, and made her gasp. Made her catch her breath and cling, not just physically but mentally, caught on that sensual hook between need and gratification.

But that wasn’t yet enough. His rational mind once again intruded, reminding him that she hadn’t proved to be as malleable as he’d expected; if he wished to succeed, then showing her more, introducing her to more passionate, and more addictive, delights, was only sensible.

As he was going to win—to win her hand and marry her—there was no reason, social or moral, that prohibited him from showing her a great deal more.

Thus went his rationalization, but even while his mind trod those paths, he was conscious, more conscious, of a primitive compulsion to touch her—not for her benefit but for his.

Not for the delight of her increasingly clamorous senses, but for his own.

As his fingers found the buttons closing her bodice, there was no thought in his mind beyond the need to touch her. Beyond satisfying that—his need, not hers.

He distracted her by engaging her in a more heated exchange, a brief duel of tongues to keep her wits whirling. The gown was old, well-worn; the buttons slid easily from their tiny toggles.

And then her bodice gaped; he pressed one side wide, and slid his hand beneath.

Through the heat of the kiss, she gasped, but then he set his palm to the fine silk of her chemise, sliding over even finer, much hotter silken skin, and she froze. Trembled. Tensed as he caressed, as yet undemanding but insistent, then he searched with his fingertips, found the ribbon he sought, and tugged.

The ribbon unraveled.

With a practiced flick, he hooked the chemise over her tightly furled nipple, and then her breast was in his palm.

Skin to hot skin. Sweet sensation and fire.

Both flooded him, and her.

He closed his hand, hungry, greedy, needing; expertise gentled his touch, kept the caress just this side of possessive, but that was sheer instinct.

His wits had suspended, submerged beneath a ravenous passion.

A passion that roared as the fire flared and spread through her—from his increasingly driven touch, through their kiss—and she melted.

She sank against him in wanton abandon, with flagrant promise and in blatant invitation.

As he wished, she wanted. Every instinctive response she made screamed that to his witless, wholly mesmerized brain.

Heavy and swollen, her breast burned his palm, the furled nipple a hot bead, one his mouth watered to taste.

He felt giddy, drunk on sensation. She was hot and so malleable within his arms, pliant, nubile, supple, and seductive. It was as if he embraced a steadily burning flame, a sensual being of heat and glory, an elemental creature lured forth by passion.

Steeped in it.

He drank her fire, supped it from her lips as she eagerly offered it. Plunged deeper into the beckoning flames, felt them lick over him as she arched against him, felt them spreading, urgent and compelling, beneath his skin, setting his own fires raging.

His arm at her back was tensing to sweep her up so he could lay her on the sofa behind him when his rational mind clawed back to the surface and stopped him.

Not cold. He still burned, ached, wanted; something within him raged at the suddenly jerked leash, but…this wasn’t his plan.

He’d been derailed; like one of the new locomotives he’d rocketed off his intended track. As with a runaway locomotive, it took immense effort to pull back and regroup.