Waking Up With a Rake (20 page)

“As I recall, there were more female nudes than males in that exhibit,” Rhys said.

“Yes, drat it.” And to make matters worse, more often than not, the male genitalia were hidden by strategically draped stolas or a well-placed fig leaf. Only one memorably unadorned male figure left nothing to the imagination—the statue of Dionysus.

The inebriated god was frozen in marble in the act of relieving his bladder. The Ladies’ Society for the Advancement of Public Decency had staged a protest outside the museum over it. Olivia wasn’t sure which offended them most—the god’s publicly drunken state, his blatant nakedness, or the vulgar pose in which he was captured. But since the Society’s objections only increased attendance at the exhibit, they stopped picketing immediately.

Still she’d thought the statue instructive. However, after seeing Rhys Warrington in the altogether, she had to conclude that the god’s attributes came up woefully…short.

“At the risk of inflating your already ample ego, seeing you in the nude is rather like viewing art,” she said. “You’re quite wonderfully made.”

He smiled at her. A perfectly wicked smile. “While flattering, there’s only one thing wrong with that analogy.” He took her hand and guided it to his shaft. “I’m not made of stone.”

Chapter 18

He was certainly hard as stone, but stone encased in warm male flesh. She wasn’t sure which part of him fascinated her most—his hard shaft or the soft testicles beneath it.

She ran her fingertips over his length and then palmed his balls while she continued to stroke him. He moved toward her caresses, arching into her.

When she glanced up at Rhys’s face, his eyes were closed and he was biting his bottom lip.

“Am I hurting you?”

His eyes popped open. “No, but if I stand still any longer, I’ll burst.”

“We can’t have that. By all means, don’t stand still.”

He wrapped his arms around her and bent to kiss her, leaving enough space between them for her to continue to fondle him. He groaned into her mouth.

A thrill of feminine power coursed through her. She’d made him groan with need. She’d reduced him to bare lust. Her heart sang in wicked triumph as she continued to explore him.

His hands roamed over her as well, down her back, cupping her buttocks, lifting her against him in long languid strokes. She ached so deeply a groan escaped her lips before she could stop it.

Oh
dear. Lust is contagious.

No, this was more than lust. There was such tenderness in his touch, such heart-stopping sweetness in his kisses, even the neediest of them. He cared enough to be concerned for her safety. Surely he cared for her in others ways as well.

She’d already admitted she liked Rhys. It was more than many marriage partners could say.

Certainly more than she could say for the Duke of Clarence. His reputation with women was such that she couldn’t even console herself with fanciful imaginings of the royal duke’s valiant and pure male soul. Any other man who’d sired ten bastards on two different mistresses and tried to force them on Polite Society would be met with only direct cuts. Without his royal standing, the duke was merely an aging libertine.

Of course, what was Rhys but a young libertine?

Nevertheless, she
liked
him. He was charming and clever and brave and…wounded. Her heart ached afresh for his pain over Lieutenant Duffy. There was a depth to Rhys Warrington most would overlook.

He wanted it overlooked, she realized. How much of his playing the rake was only to disguise his well-hidden pain?

Then Rhys deepened their kiss, and all coherent thought fled from her mind. She draped her arms around his neck as he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the waiting bed. Somewhere between the fireplace and the bedpost, her nightrail hitched up past her knees.

She didn’t mind. She might not even have noticed if he hadn’t run a hand over her leg from ankle to mid-thigh. She didn’t stop kissing and touching him as he laid her down on the feather tick with care.

She didn’t protest when he joined her there, settling with most of the weight of his upper body propped on his elbows while he kissed her to oblivion.

It was a little like heaven to feel the sheltering warmth of him. The thin muslin of her nightrail almost didn’t exist. It was open to her waist so his chest covered hers, skin on skin. She’d never imagined a sensation so delicious.

His heart pounded against her breastbone. His breath filled her lungs. His scent, his taste, he crowded her whole world. If anyone had told her there was nothing else but this man, this moment, she’d have believed them.

Her thighs parted and his hips settled between them. That needy drumbeat between her legs was becoming habitual whenever he was near. Now it crescendoed into an entire percussion section. A low boom deep inside her, with pleasure sparking across her skin every place their bodies touched, her shin to his thigh, her thigh to his hips.

During the kissing and caressing, her nightrail hem somehow became entangled around her waist. She could feel
him
—all of him—rocking in a slow knock, now against her bare belly, now in the crease of her thigh. She gasped when the tip of him pressed against her opening. She turned her head to break off their kiss.

“Trust me, Olivia,” he whispered. “Will you?”

She shouldn’t. The man had a reputation. He freely admitted it. But she made the mistake of looking into his eyes.

She saw wanting there. Along with the desire to give. And there in the glinting depths of his dark eyes, wasn’t that…hope?

He needed her to trust him. It was as Babette had said. All souls wanted to be accepted. Trusted. Loved. Even though he didn’t voice it, his eyes said, “Please.”

And she said yes.

***

That lump in his chest swelled and made it hard to breathe for a moment. Then Rhys kissed her once more, softly this time, holding back the surge of passion that threatened to break in him. Surely her lips would be bruised if he didn’t bridle himself.

Then he moved his body off her and lay beside her.

Best
to
remove
temptation
for
now.

It had been all he could do not to slip into her when the tip of his cock brushed her opening. One quick thrust and his job at Barrowdell would be irrevocably done.

Instead, he kissed his way down her neck, while his hand moved over her belly and into her soft folds. If he was going to take from her, the least he could do was give.

And he intended to give until she begged him to shred her maidenhead. If she implored him to ruin her, perhaps his conscience would stop flailing him over it.

She was so wet. Each silky layer of her was swollen and slick. The sweet perfume of her arousal went to his head. He nuzzled her breast while his fingers played a lover’s game on her mound.

She writhed under him as he teased around her most sensitive spot without giving her relief. She made the most alluring little noises of distress. He so wanted to give her ease, but he needed her to plead for it. He had no other recourse but to draw out her journey into bliss to unbearable lengths.

When he moved his hand away, she nearly sobbed.

“Hush, love,” he murmured. “’Twill be all right. You’ll see.”

Then he kissed his way down her body, lingering at her belly button, before nuzzling the curls between her legs. When he slipped his tongue between her folds, she gave a shuddering breath and arched herself into his mouth.

Rhys cupped her heart-shaped bum and feasted on her.

***

Love. He called me “love.”
Olivia’s heart pounded while she fisted the linens. Surely no man would do to a woman what Rhys was doing to her unless he loved her.

Joy rippled through her, radiating outward from the center of the universe between her thighs. The ache was sharp-edged now, the line between pain and pleasure blurred. A tear squeezed from her closed eyes and trickled into her ear, but she couldn’t have borne for him to stop. If he did, she’d scream loud enough to wake the entire household.

She wouldn’t have left the bed if it had been on fire.

Then she felt herself caught in a downward spiral. She arched her back but couldn’t stop herself from unraveling completely. Could this be right? Surely she wasn’t supposed to come undone like this.

Her insides convulsed. Then bliss spread over her whole body and threatened to shoot out her fingers and toes.

Oh, yes. This is definitely right.

She was halfway to heaven. How long she hung suspended between this world and the next, she couldn’t say. When she finally came to herself and her heart stopped galloping in her chest, she felt Rhys’s head pillowed on her flat belly, his warm breath streaming over her skin.

She reached down and ruffled her fingers through his lovely thick hair. She wasn’t capable of more than that slight movement. Anything else might stop the warmth and light coursing through her body, and more than anything, she wanted that blessed sensation to continue.

But Rhys was capable of more. He moved up to cover her with his body again and kissed her, softly at first and then with more insistence.

The ache she’d thought was completely stilled flared to new life. And with it came a terrible hollowness, a longing to be filled.

“Rhys,” she whispered as she pressed her pelvis against him. “I’m so empty.”

He raised up on his elbows and looked down at her, his expression unreadable in the dimness of the room. “There’s only one way for me to fix that.”

She knew without him saying what that way was.

Her choices were plain. When her father and the Duke of Clarence arrived, the marriage deal would be brokered and she’d enter the rarified world of the royals. Even though her cage would be gilded, it would still be confining and she’d be doomed to a loveless match.

She might wear a diadem someday, but she’d never know what it was to give herself to a man in total acceptance and trust. She couldn’t quite bring herself to add the “love” that Babette included in the list, though she didn’t know what else to call the dizzying sparks of emotion crackling through her.

Her only chance to experience the joy of surrender to someone she cared for was if she gave herself to the man in her bed right now.

If she did, she didn’t think it would undermine her match with the duke. Rhys wouldn’t ruin that for her by telling anyone what passed between them. Even if Clarence was unhappy with her after the wedding, their marriage would never be anything more than a church-sanctioned business arrangement in any case. He would never return her, along with the forty thousand pounds a year that came to him as long as she was his wife.

Rhys kissed her again, a warm, wet kiss tinged with the desperation of longing. A line from a Shakespeare play she’d read last month flitted through her mind.

If
thou
remember’st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not loved.

This was certainly folly. By circular reasoning, did that also make this love?

“Olivia,” Rhys said, his voice ragged. “I want you so.”

His need intensified her own. The ache would not be denied. She closed her eyes and bade being a cautious virgin adieu. “Then take me.”

***

His plan had worked. She’d told him to ruin her. One thrust was all it would take. He’d kept his vow. He hadn’t lied to her. He truly did want her with every drop of blood coursing through his body.

Then why did he hesitate?

Because
you
also
told
her
to
trust
you,
his conscience accused. He hadn’t heard from it for years, but since he met Olivia Symon, its rasping voice was becoming all too familiar to his mind.

He’d deal with the pricks of his scruples later. Right now, he had a completely beddable woman under him and she’d begged him to take her.

How could he do anything else?

He kissed her again as he moved into position. The tip of him entered her warm wetness. She was all that was good and bright in his world. He couldn’t wait for her to envelop him in her snug embrace.

’Twill
be
all
right, you said.

Damn it, he had said that. How could shredding her maidenhead make it all right for her?

She moaned and squirmed under him, ready to take him in entirely.

He’d be gentle. He’d never bedded a virgin, but he thought the pain he was bound to cause her would be negligible if he was careful. The destruction of the symbol of her purity would be over in a blink.

What
of
the
lasting
pain
of
being
publicly
ruined?