Chapter 21
Amelia let out a muffled cry as he snatched her around the waist, pulling her against him hard.
His chest was firm beneath the layers of his clothing, and she found herself remembering how his chest had glistened in the bathwater, drops trickling down a firm, sculpted abdomen.
He kissed her again, his tongue slipping over her bottom lip and darting into her mouth. It left a wave of heat in its wake, and the feeling did not recede. Instead, it grew stronger, a prickling sensation in her gut that pulsed harder with every passing moment.
She could feel something hard poking her hip, and it took her a few moments before she understood what it was.
That was a little terrifying, the evidence of his desire for her. Terrifying and thrilling.
She hated how it thrilled her. Male desire was not a good thing; every woman knew that. It was a slippery slope, leading directly to danger and perhaps even death one day. Women died in childbirth, women died in poverty, leaving behind illegitimate children. Even married women were not safe.
There was a beat of silence, and Stephen pulled back, staring down into her face. His eyes were slitted, heavy with desire, yet a hint of wariness lingered, too.
“You are uncertain,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.
She swallowed hard. His hand, curled around the nape of her neck, inched until the pads of his fingers rested against the side of her throat. She imagined he could feel her blood rushing under her skin and the bob of her throat as she swallowed.
“I have no wish for bastards of my own,” she said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. The desire hadn’t slipped away. In fact, it had intensified, but there was a pulse of fear there, too. “I know how hard life can be.”
His gaze never faltered. “I have no intention of giving you any.”
He was telling the truth. She couldn’t have said how she knew, but he was, and that was all that mattered.
This time, when Stephen leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, she kissed him back. Her hands fisted in his lapels almost of their own accord, one palm sliding up his chest to grip his shoulder. There was something so firm about him, so solid that it thrilled her all the way down to her core.
His hand on her waist crept up her ribcage, fingers probing, and the pad of his thumb brushed the side of her breast. The touch sent a wave of sensation through her, so intense it made her gasp. He chuckled against her lips, and she felt him smile.
Then the laces at the back of her dress loosened, and she gasped.
“Fear not,” Stephen whispered, tilting his head to kiss underneath her jaw. That felt wonderful, and Amelia swallowed again, her eyes fluttering shut. “I’ll help you lace up.”
The knots were deftly loosened, and her bodice drooped enough to expose the swell of her breasts, barely covered by the chemise underneath.
Fair is fair, Amelia thought dazedly, and tugged pointedly at his jacket.
She made no headway in actually getting the thing off, but Stephen chuckled again, sounding even more amused. He pulled back, neatly shucking off the garment. The motion loosened his cravat, and he impatiently pulled that off, too.
That left him in a linen shirt, undone almost to the halfway point down his chest. Seizing her again, he pulled her against him. Heat flared between them, almost unbearably so.
What would it feel like to put her skin on his? To have them pressed together without their clothes in the way?
Wrapping his arms around her, Stephen slid his palms down the newly exposed skin of her back. His fingertips tickled her spine, and she shivered, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around his waist.
The linen of his shirt was thin, and through it she could feel the warmth of his skin. There were long, thin, rough marks, and it took her a moment to understand that they were scars.
That jolted her out of her daze. Frowning, she traced one particularly long line, trying to work out what it was.
A lash mark?
There was another scar, a small and circular one, hard like a nub. When she touched it, Stephen flinched, immediately grabbing her elbows and pushing her away from him. He eyed her uncertainly, his eyes unreadable.
She swallowed. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me? No, that scar is long healed.”
“Forgive me, I… I only wanted to know what it was,” she stammered. “The scar, I mean.”
He stared at her. “Which scar?”
“All of them.”
His jaw tightened. “Lash marks and bullet wounds. All healed.”
Bullet wounds?
She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a finger, pressing it against her lips.
“No,” he said firmly, before she had the chance to say a thing. “No, Amelia.”
She bit her lip, nodding tightly. “I won’t ask.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Clever girl.”
Without warning, he seized her shoulders, spinning her around. His touch was firm but not rough, and one arm banded around her waist, pulling her against him. She could feel him against her, warm and almost overwhelming.
The window was in front of them, the garden below mercifully unoccupied. She could see a faint, ghostlike reflection of the two of them in the glass, herself most of all. The cushion of the window seat was right in front of her knees.
Stephen’s hand slid down her ribcage to her knee, lifting her left leg and positioning her so she knelt on the seat.
Then his hand came up to rest across her ribcage once more, holding her still.
With his right hand, he tugged unceremoniously at her skirt.
Amelia caught a brief glimpse of her white thighs.
His hand disappeared, but she could still trace his movements on her skin.
Up and down, rather hurried now, his fingertips danced along her thighs to her mons. Things were moving along a good deal more quickly now, and Amelia knew what was coming. His fingers slid between her folds with a wet sound. Closing her eyes, she bit hard into her lower lip, tasting copper.
He repeated the movement again and again, tracing a line against her. Like before, the tip of one finger circled at her entrance. This time, however, it pushed in oh so carefully, his heart beating in time with hers.
The sensation was strange, a little different from what she had experienced before. The desire building up in her core took on a different note.
Amelia opened her eyes, almost afraid of what she might see.
The first thing she saw was her own reflection, hollowed out and flattened in the glass. Mouth parted, eyes wide, neckline slung dangerously low, she stared at the woman in the glass. Not quite a stranger.
Stephen’s arm tightened around her waist. Dropping his head, he pressed a kiss to the crook of her neck. There was a teasing graze of teeth, just enough to make her flinch but not enough to mark her.
The movement of his hand sped up, losing its rhythm in the frantic pace, and Amelia was faintly aware that she had better be quiet. But she feared she could not remain quiet. A cry was building up in the back of her throat and would not be stifled, and—
Stephen’s free hand slid up to her mouth, his palm pressing over her lips, keeping the cry inside.
“Give it to me, Amelia,” he breathed.
She gasped, her cry muffled against his palm, and climax rolled through her, powerful enough to make her breath stutter in her throat.
A good deal of her strength seemed to leave her, and she sagged forward, supported only by Stephen’s arm around her waist. Once her breathing had returned to normal, he gingerly removed his hand from beneath her skirt, removed his arm from around her waist, and stepped back.
Without his warm firmness at her back, Amelia felt almost unmoored. She’d lost sight of her reflection in the glass and turned away so hastily that she nearly stumbled.
“What about you?” she rasped. Her throat was raw for some reason.
Stephen looked at her strangely. As always, his eyes were shuttered, keeping his real feelings hidden. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“I am a gentleman,” he answered.
Amelia opened her mouth to ask him why he had not answered her question, but at that moment, her loosened neckline slipped off her shoulder. With a yelp, she snatched at the loose fabric, trying to hold it against herself.
Stephen clicked his tongue. “Turn around, I shall lace you up.”
She obeyed without thinking twice.
At once, his deft hands went to work. She heard the dry rasp of laces being drawn through eyelets, and her bodice gradually tightened again, drawing her breasts up neatly inside. She thought of Stephen’s fingertips dancing over the naked flesh of her breasts, and heat rushed to her face.
“There,” Stephen murmured, his warm breath brushing the back of her neck. “All safe and modest again.”
He was going to kiss her on the back of her neck. She could almost feel the heat of his lips. Amelia let her eyes flutter shut.
We must talk about this, you and I. We must decide what it means.
That was what she meant to say next. Or what she hoped to say next.
There was no chance at all, because in that instant, the lock clicked and the door flew open. A theatrical gasp followed, and Stephen leaped back from her as if he had been burned.
“Well,” Letitia gasped, standing in the doorway. “What a shocking sight.”
Behind her stood Marjory, her eyes wide with horror, and the butler, of all people.
No, it was worse than that. Amelia caught sight of movement out in the hall, and her heart sank further.
It was Madeline and Tristan. They had half-turned away, as if trying to make themselves invisible, but it was too late. They had seen.
“What is the meaning of this, Grandmother?” Stephen snarled, stepping toward her. “You lock us in here, and—”
“Lock you in here? I would never do such a thing,” Letitia responded brusquely. “No, I merely wanted to show off my fabrics, but here I find my own grandson compromising my poor companion! I must say, Stephen, this is shockingly improper for a duke. Unseemly,” she added.