Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
T ina sat on the window seat in her room, drinking in the perfumed night air. There was a sliver of moon hanging low in the sky, reflected in the ripples of the river. She’d been watching it move slowly against the arc of velvet darkness and knew that soon it would slip below the horizon, leaving her alone.
It was very late now, and he still hadn’t come.
Perhaps he’d had second thoughts? Well she couldn’t blame him for that, but she would forever regret the loss of their one night together. Because she knew he wasn’t coming to her to talk, things had gone too far for talking, and if he did come, then there would be no going back.
Tina wrapped her robe more closely about her and tried not to shiver. Maria had removed Tina’s ball gown and helped her into her nightgown with the darned sleeve, and now she wondered if she would ever wear the ball gown again or whether it would become a ghost in the attic, full of lavender bags and memories.
Or more likely it would be sold to pay some outstanding bill.
Maria had brushed and braided her hair before leaving her to sleep—as she thought. Tina glanced over at the comfortable bed, considered retiring, but didn’t move. She knew she wouldn’t sleep. The day had been a long and exhausting one, but excitement hummed through her, tingling over her skin, making her nerves jump. Without her corset and underwear, she felt free, her body un-restrained by convention, and with the shedding of her grand clothing had come a similar shedding of her doubts about Richard.
Where was he? Please come, please . . .
She wriggled against the cushions on the window seat, trying to get comfortable, and then froze.
There was someone out there.
A light flickered in the darkness, darting like a firefly among the shrubs of the garden. Tina watched it, leaning forward intently. Surely it was the lighted tip of a cigar? One of the gentlemen enjoying the night air, that must be it.
With a soft release of breath, she relaxed and leaned back. And nearly let out a scream.
A hand had closed over the nape of her neck. Warm and strong, it held her as she tried to turn, and then with a mere whisper of sound he stepped even closer, his thighs hard against her back.
“Richard?” she sounded uncertain as it occurred to her it might not be him.
“Who else were you expecting?” His soft teasing caused her to slump with relief. Gently his fingers caressed her nape, and she felt as if she might melt like butter.
“You took so long,” she said, and then silently reprimanded herself for giving herself away.
“I had a great deal to do.”
“What did you have to do?”
He began to release her braid, fingers raking out her hair until it lay in soft, dark tresses over her back and shoulders. “I cleared the ballroom, and then I tidied the supper room and washed up the crystal and crockery, but Lady Isabelle said the glasses weren’t clean enough so I did it again, and?—”
“Richard,” she said between laughter and irritation.
“What? Don’t you believe me, Miss Smythe?”
She tilted back her head, and this time he let her. He was without his waistcoat or jacket, the buttons of his shirt undone at his throat, his hair rumpled. Rather like he’d been the first time she had seen him.
“Kiss me,” she commanded.
He bent down, taking his time, closer and closer. His gray eyes were warm and smiling beneath his dark brows, and she could smell fire smoke and brandy on him. Where had he been?
He stopped just before his smiling mouth reached hers.
“Richard”— she sighed— “don’t be cruel.”
“Aren’t you supposed to pretend you’re indifferent to me? To increase my ardor?”
“I don’t need a lesson. This isn’t part of our business arrangement,” she retorted, and turning on the seat slid her arms about his neck and pulled him down beside her.
He did kiss her then, their lips clinging, their mouths hot and eager. But it wasn’t enough. He slipped his hand inside her robe and enclosed her breast in his big, warm palm.
Tina gasped, aware of sensations she’d only dreamed about until now, and a hot, tight feeling building low in her belly.
“May I?” he said huskily, and before she could find the wits to answer he drew the edges of her robe apart and bared her upper body to his gaze.
Tina made no attempt to cover herself or play the coy innocent. She was innocent, but this seemed so right she didn’t feel the need to act any part but being herself.
“Beautiful,” he groaned.
He bent to press his mouth to the curve of one breast while his hand was busy with the other. His lips trailed down until he was able to envelop an engorged nipple, his finger flicking the other one, stroking her over and over again until it felt more pain than pleasure, but she did not want him to stop.
Tina’s gasps turned to soft cries. She pressed his head to her hot skin, wanting more, much more, because something was building within her, and she could not go back now. The need, the sensation of his mouth on her made her frantic, and she tugged his shirt from his trousers, her hands exploring his bare chest and hard belly. His skin was so warm, and different from her own soft curves, and she licked her tongue over it, tasting him, unable to resist.
But there was more, there must be more, and she wanted to experience it all. She must know what it was his body was promising to show her.
“Tina,” he said hoarsely, catching her hands as they moved lower to the fastening of his trousers. “No, stop it.”
She looked at him as if he were insane, still completely immersed in her desire. “Stop?”
“I will not take your virginity.”
The bluntness of his words confused her even more, and she blinked up at him. “I thought you . . . I thought we . . .”
“Not because I don’t want to,” he added, answering the unspoken question in her eyes, “but because I have made a promise. I’ve sworn I will not marry until I have fulfilled that promise.”
She shook her head with a spurt of anger. “But what has that to do with us? I don’t care about marrying you, Richard. Don’t you understand? I am sick to the stomach of spending my every waking moment trying to make men marry me!”
His eyes lit with laughter, but he bit his lip to stop it spilling from him. Just as well, Tina thought darkly. She wouldn’t be laughed at, not tonight.
“Tina, I don’t want to compromise you, do you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want to take your virginity until I know I can secure our future—if that is what you want. If that is what we both want.”
Their future? Promises? What did any of that matter to her now? Tina shook her head, her long, dark hair whipping wildly about her. “I don’t care about that,” she told him decisively. “You don’t understand, Richard. It was all a lie. I have nothing to offer you or any man, nothing apart from myself. I am poor, my family is bankrupt. We have lost everything, and by the time I go home, we will have lost our home. No one will want me when that is known. I will vanish into the shadows. This night . . .” Her mouth trembled, but she firmed it, refusing to feel sorry for herself. “This night is all I have.”
She would have climbed to her feet then, brushing by him, fleeing with her misery to some small, quiet place. But he caught her and held her, gripping one of her hands firmly in his and placing it against his body. Her surprise at the touch of that hard piece of flesh contained by only a thin piece of cloth made her stop.
“Oh.” She looked back at him, eyes wide and dark in the moonlight from the window, her face full of amazement. “Does that mean . . . ?”
“That I want you?” he rasped. “Yes it does. I want you more than anything else in the world. But I won’t take your virginity, Tina, not until I know I can offer you a future you deserve.”
“Then how?”
“There are other ways.”
Tina tried to read his face, and he smiled a smile that made her heart turn over. “Show me,” she whispered. Slowly, his fingers still entwined with hers, he drew her toward him.
It seemed natural to kiss him, and when his hand brushed aside her robe and skimmed over the curve of her belly and down between her legs, she groaned into his mouth. She was hot and achy, and his fingers played with her, teasing another groan from her as they slid deep inside her slick body.
For a moment she lost herself in sensation, aware of nothing but his mouth on hers and his fingers inside her. Was this it? Was this what drove women like Lady Isabelle to madness? Well, no wonder . . .
“Touch me, too,” Richard said hoarsely, bringing her back to herself, and Tina didn’t need him to ask twice. Her hand reached down between them and pressed against him, eagerly exploring, and when she didn’t find that satisfactory, she unfastened his trousers and slipped her fingers inside, causing him to catch his breath.
He was big and hard, but with a velvety softness. She wanted to lick the tip of him, where she could feel a drop of moisture, but when she tried he jerked against her and pulled her away, his hands shaking as he held her upright. “My willpower is growing weaker by the moment,” he said.
“Good.”
He laughed breathlessly, then laid her down on the window seat, kneeling before her open thighs, and began to use his tongue on her in exactly the same way. The sensation was so exquisite. The pleasure building inside her rose like a bright light, and she almost touched the stars, but he stopped before she could reach them and lay down beside her.
“Touch me now,” he whispered against her ear, his fingers replacing his tongue. She could smell her own scent on him, and, somehow, that was exciting, too. His own touch between her legs grew more deliberate, stroking her, flicking the hard little bud so swollen and aching for attention. Tina could feel excitement building again, but she didn’t stop her own attentions to him, and he placed his hand over hers and taught her how to hold him, how to apply just the right pressure around his shaft.
Her lack of experience didn’t matter, they were both caught up in the heat and need of the moment, and when the pleasure lifted them high, they both cried out, mouths fusing, bodies rocking, as if they really were joined as one.