The Wicked Wallflower (15 page)

“Because it's you. And me. And this is naught but a ruse and we both know it,” she said, though it became more difficult to determine where the game ended and the truth began.

“One should never do anything by halves, wouldn't you agree?” He didn't give her a chance to reply before carrying on. “Thus we should play our parts in this mad charade fully and completely. We should totally immerse ourselves in the roles of the beloved, besotted betrothed.” That smile again. Her traitorous heart.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“That's hardly an answer,” she replied.
But what if he means it?
He'd planted the idea in her head that perhaps, just perhaps, she wasn't an unfortunate spinster, but still a lovable girl.
And if that were true?

“Very well, Emma. I'll give you a complete and honest answer. At first I was merely intrigued because you—­and only you—­refused my advances. You teased me, you challenged me, and you have shown me the pleasure of anticipation. But then I tempted and cajoled and tasted you, Emma. You tasted sweet, because it was
you
and the pleasure was all the more great because I earned your kiss. I have felt you, after hours of imagining a touch of the forbidden. And now I crave you because I have tasted and touched and I only want more. I'll make no promises, and you won't either—­I know your heart is set on your lover boy. So here is yet another proposal for you: one kiss. Just for the pleasure of it.”

B
LAKE LED
E
MMA
by the hand out of the ballroom and out to the garden and the warm summer night air. He'd meant every word he told her tonight. His eyes had been opened to her. The mask had been lifted. He wanted her. More than anything, he wished she would see herself the way he did.

She wasn't just another conquest.

This wasn't just another kiss.

His heart was pounding, hard, as if he were some randy schoolboy about to experience his first woman. It would be just one kiss. Not even a first kiss.

A
last
first kiss? He pushed that thought away and focused only on Emma's small hand in his. The moonlight was just right, the garden was deserted. He led her to a place where they were assured privacy: the small clearing around the pond where he had kissed her after the walk from the ruins.

“One kiss,” Emma whispered, her voice almost lost in the gently rustling tree branches above. “Just one.”

“One kiss,” he promised, reaching out to cradle her face in his hands. He slowly brushed his thumb across her lips. There. He would kiss her there. It was a promise that would surely be broken before the night was through. He hoped she'd forgive him.

Blake lowered his mouth to hers, closing the distance between them. His heart beat hard and hardly steady as he felt her soft lips. Though he wanted to sink his hands into her hair, pull her flush against him and kiss her fiercely, he kept his touch light and kiss gentle. One kiss. If that were all they had, it wouldn't do to scare her off so soon.

Cautiously, Emma slid her arms around him, drawing their bodies closer together. Once again he underestimated her. Once again she surprised him. It seemed they were of one mind: one kiss had better be something else entirely.

With his tongue he traced the seam of her lips, and she parted them, letting him in and letting him taste her. He caught a sigh and a moan. Though tentative at first, she dared to taste him, too. Noble intentions of being gentle began to recede. Emma, sweet, maddening Emma, had refused and rebuffed and it only made him want her more.

He wanted to sink to his knees and drag her down with him. She had made herself forbidden, untouchable, and impossible to possess. He could never resist a challenge. But what he thought would be some sort of victory—­this kiss—­was only an exquisite, torturous reminder that one kiss was not everything. There was the matter of her heart. And every last inch of her that he wanted, simply, to know.

The night was loud with a chorus of crickets and the heady rush of their breathing, turning frantic now, as this kiss took a turn for wicked. There was something just devastatingly sublime in knowing that for all their differences, she felt that same urgency, that same ever-­building pressure threatening to explode, that same desperate need for more. Now.

He was hard, so hard. With one hand he clasped her bottom, pressing her against his arousal so she would know how she affected him. Emma wasn't just some plain wallflower. She was the one woman who challenged him, teased him,
seduced him.
She was the only one who occupied his thoughts. She was the one whose slightest caress, smile, or suggestion had him desperate for more.

To feel her, even through all of that damnable fabric, was torture. The way she moved against him made him want to growl, tighten his fist around her hair and pull her to the ground and bury himself deep inside her.

He kissed her hard. She kissed him back. Her tongue, tangling with his. Frantic breaths, hers and his. He couldn't breathe. His heart was pounding. He couldn't taste her or touch her enough. This kiss . . . they would not stop with this kiss. There was not enough time in the world for this kiss. It would take a lifetime.

Blake jerked away and stepped back to put some distance between his desire and Emma, and to cool the insane thoughts of his overheated brain.
A lifetime.

A lifetime.
He, who often did not even stay to see the sunrise with a woman, wanted to see a lifetime's worth of sunrises with one woman. Which begged the question, why not have her here and now and marry her after all?

So much for just one kiss.

He was breathing hard.

Her eyes were large and dark. Even in the moonlight he could see her cheeks were flushed. Her mouth was a plump crimson pout; the mouth of a woman who had been thoroughly kissed. Like this, she was a stunning beauty.

He wanted to gaze upon her thusly for hours and days. He did not want anyone else to see.

“I need to cool off,” he said. She nodded. “Wait here, but turn around.”

“What are you doing?”

“Stopping at just one kiss,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her, only to see that she was glancing over her shoulder at him. He took off his boots and breeches, then stripped off his shirt, letting it fall carelessly to the ground.

And then, after a moment of silence, “I need help with my dress,” she said softly.

He ogled her backside and eyed the buttons on the back of her gown the way a burglar might regard a lock protecting untold riches.

“I'm trying to keep my promise,” he said. “You're not making it easy.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No,” he said roughly. “No.”

He swiftly undid the buttons of her dress and unlaced her corset while ordering himself to complete mathematic equations in his head. But 237 plus 189 equaled—­
oh God, her skin was so soft
—­and 17 multiplied by 12 equaled—­
she is so ­beautiful—­
47 plus 99 minus 32 added up to—­
I have never wanted a woman so badly
.

Had anyone told him he'd be naked in the moonlight, panting with lust for London's Least Likely, he would have laughed. He wasn't laughing now.

“The chemise can stay,” she said, though he soon discovered it hardly provided any coverage at all, especially once she followed him into the pond. He dove in, glad to have water shock his heated skin.

Emma gasped with each step as the cold water lapped at her ankles, then her knees, then the secret place he wanted to kiss. Slowly, she waded farther out, and was almost completely immersed before she ducked under completely.

Blake lunged for her, thinking she had slipped or stepped off into deeper water. He assumed she couldn't swim. His heart stopped and his chest tightened in the frantic moment before she surprised him by popping above the water's surface, splashing him playfully and laughing in the moonlight.

“I used to love swimming in the lake at our country house,” she explained. “But Mother forbid it when it was time for me to become a Lady.”

“When was that?”

“I was just ten. Instead of games and play, I memorized Debrett's and learned to mind my manners,” Emma said.

“That sounds dreadful,” he said. But it had been the same for him: at some point games and reckless adventures were forced aside for lessons in mathematics, Latin, botany, philosophy, and all that. Everything wild and reckless was fit into a formula.

“The reward is Being a Lady,” she said with a laugh. “I must be a lady so I might marry well.”

“Also, how dreadful,” he said, but Emma seemed to be lost in a world of her own thoughts. As if this cool water truly woke her up, as if this wild, midnight adventure unlocked something in her. He watched and listened as this transformation occurred.

“Did you know, Blake, that following the rules is vastly overrated?”

“Yes,” he said, not sure if he agreed with what she said or whatever wicked plan she was obviously considering. There was an unmistakably mischievous gleam in her eyes.

To his surprise, she swam toward him, wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips against his.

There was no turning back after that.

S
HE MUST
HAVE
gone mad, utterly mad.

Emma had agreed to
just one kiss,
not realizing that there could be no such thing. Not when a kiss quieted her mind so all she did was feel a pleasure so intense it was almost unbearable.

When Blake stepped back, she had taken a moment to catch her breath. But her corset felt far too confining. The silk of her dress stretched taut against her bodice. When he started to remove his clothing, she thought,
Me, too
. She wanted to feel free. She wanted to cool her heated skin. She wanted to indulge in this wicked, passionate midnight encounter, for tomorrow the games would be over and who knew her fate after that?

This might be her only chance.

While they were at the games, she would play the game. When tomorrow came, she would return to life as London's Least Likely to Misbehave. But tonight she would indulge in the unfathomable: that she was the woman who captivated a man like Ashbrooke.

Tonight he was even more handsome, impossibly so. His cheekbones seemed higher, and in the moonlight his eyes appeared darker. Her gaze dropped to his firm, sensual mouth.

Perhaps it was the wildness of her surroundings or the champagne she had drunk earlier. Perhaps his kisses had permanently altered her brain, but something just clicked for her. Playing by the rules had gotten her nowhere. Daring to break them had led her to follow him into the pond and to this moment. She didn't want it to end.

So she kissed him again.

He kissed her back, wet hair slicked back from his face, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against his hard chest. Her nipples hardened, becoming exquisitely sensitive and aware of the thin, wet fabric of her chemise and, even better, Blake's warm skin against her own.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he said gruffly. She did, oh she did. She felt him, hot, hard, and throbbing at the sensitive place between her legs.

Time passed. She sighed. He moaned. She threaded her fingers through his wet hair and he clasped her bottom with his strong hands. Their kiss had gone from just perfect to perfectly wicked. She ought to have been cold, but there was a heat starting in her belly, smoldering hotter and spreading through all her limbs.

Vaguely, she was aware of Blake carrying her toward the shore and laying her down upon his jacket, which had been thrown down on the mossy ground. A cool breeze stole across her skin just as his hot mouth closed around her nipple, drawing a sharp gasp from her lips. He teased her, tonguing circles around the dusky centers until they were stiff peaks.

Slowly, oh so slowly, he kissed his way down, across her belly. She writhed a little, nervous and suddenly aware of the twigs and sticks under the jacket, the late hour, and the absolutely mad thing she was doing. What was he doing? It was Ashbrooke, she rationalized; he must know what he was doing. His hands clasped around her thighs, urging her open to him. Her skin felt scorching—­was it mortification or anticipation? And then he kissed her in the sensitive place between her legs, teasing her with slow lazy circles of his tongue.

Emma moaned from the heat and the strange, new, lovely sensations. She moaned and sighed because a pressure was slowly but surely building inside her. Her hips bucked when he slid one finger inside her. She was shocked by the pleasure of it. In and out, he stroked her surely but gently. Just a little touch was making her lose control. Breathing was hard. She couldn't focus. Her skin felt feverish. She felt slightly panicked and yet vaguely reassured because of all the men in the world, the infamous Duke of Ashbrooke would bring her to pleasure. Right?

“Blake,” she gasped. “I can't breathe.”

He didn't stop.

“I'm dizzy,” she panted. Truly, she felt like she would faint. The world was spinning and her knees felt weak even though she was on her back, which was absolutely absurd but completely true. The Ashbrooke Effect, she thought, barely, before his touch became exceptionally wicked and she just . . . shattered. Cried out his name. Sucked in deep breaths of air and wondered what magical explosion had just happened.

Blake covered her body with his to keep her warm. Tenderly, he brushed away a strand of her hair. He gazed down at her, making her feel truly beautiful for the first time in her life.
Remember this.

Idly she caressed his back with her fingertips, tracing them along the long, smooth expanse of skin. She felt his muscles tense and flex under her touch. She felt his arousal pressing against the vee in her thighs.

“Emma. I want you.” His voice was a rough whisper. She wanted him, too, but couldn't manage to voice the words. Gently, he guided her hand to his cock. It was hot and hard. His hand closed around hers, showing her how to stroke him, up and down the length of his shaft.