Chapter Fourteen #2
“It is an illusion for Father’s benefit, but one I must give every appearance of following through with.
With Simon’s help, I believe it is possible to turn our family’s fortunes around.
Once that occurs, Father’s leverage will no longer be valid.
Unfortunately, the appearance of my compliance with his demand is necessary right now if I am to have any success in achieving my own goals.
” Reaching out, Wylder tipped Emily’s chin upward with the edge of a knuckle.
“Do you understand what I am saying, Emily? It is all but an act worthy of the stage.” Flints of gray steel hardened his eyes as he searched her face.
His hand moved until that same knuckle brushed over the pulse in the base of her throat.
“I fear your words at dinner tonight held a distinct ring of truth. I believe you will lead some unsuspecting man in a merry chase for your hand in marriage. And while I have no right to feel this way, I want nothing more than to tear that unknown gentleman to fucking shreds with my bare hands.”
“Do not fret, my lord,” Emily said calmly, dying inside even as she outwardly projected a resolute acceptance of the situation.
“I shall not go back on our agreement before that occurs. Indeed, I still desire you to teach me about what happens between a man and a woman. And while I will remain woefully and ignorantly innocent of the ultimate act, I imagine that my future husband will enjoy the carnal results of my lessons with you. Indeed, he may even wish to thank you himself.”
Wylder’s fingers curled around her throat.
“Damn you for that. Do you think I want it this way? Do you honestly believe for one second that I do not want you as mine? Because I do, Emily. I want every inch of you. Every breath. Every sigh. Every moan that comes from that sweet, treacherous mouth of yours. I want it all, and I am struggling with the Devil himself not to take what belongs to me.”
“The Devil is not stopping you,” Emily whispered against the pressure of his fingers. She was already soaring, and he’d barely touched her. “And neither am I.”
Wylder groaned at her words of encouragement. “So you truly wish to continue this illicit arrangement?”
Emily’s eyes fluttered shut at the enormity of her actions. She could not let go of what was between them, and neither could he. Together, they were doomed to burn. “I do.”
“Fuck… I cannot help myself when I am with you, Emily. You have intoxicated me like the most dangerous of opiates.” His voice was raspy with lust as he pulled her to him to kiss her hard on the mouth.
Emily felt the iron-like evidence of his arousal. His body was a mountain of rigid edges and even harder planes of muscles that she ached to explore. Pulling back from his kiss, she stared up at him.
“You will continue to show me the many ways a man can pleasure a woman? And you will teach me how to do the same for you?”
“Yes, damn you,” Wylder groaned, tugging his shirt over his head to reveal the broad expanse of his chest. It gleamed like chiseled stone in the lamplight, his nipples hard, round disks of copper that made Emily’s fingers twitch.
A dark line of hair ran from his navel to the tops of his breeches, and she wondered if he possessed the same soft curls around his sex as she did.
Her mouth watered at the erotic path her thoughts galloped down.
“Take off that nightgown, minx,” he commanded hoarsely, and Emily quickly obeyed, drawing the voluminous cotton garment over her head and tossing it aside. “Unbraid your hair.”
As his eyes drank in the sight of her naked body, Emily quickly unplaited her hair. She shook it until it tumbled in flowing, inky waves and curls over her shoulders and down to the middle of her back.
Wylder rubbed his palm over the front of his breeches with a low rumble of approval. “You are a goddess. Do you have any idea how many times I have pleasured myself with my own hand while thinking of you?”
Emily blinked at his confession. Men did that to themselves?
She wondered if she should say that she’d done the same.
The past few nights, she had explored her body with questing fingertips…
wondering why the pleasure her touch invoked never came close to matching the feel of Wylder’s hands roaming over her skin.
Spying the abandoned riding crop lying in the chair, Wylder picked it up and examined it before locking eyes with Emily.
“Shall I show you how to please me, Emily?” With the end of the crop extended, he traced her collarbone before moving lower. He encircled her nipples with the instrument, smirking when Emily sucked in a gasp of aroused surprise.
“Y-yes, my lord.”
“And you remember your word that makes all of this stop, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Emily swayed toward him as if in a trance. Her stomach swooped as she uttered the word that would make all of this stop. A word she swore to herself she would never use in the presence of this man. “Raincloud.”
“Good girl,” he praised, his smile flashing at her sigh of contentment. “Now, open your mouth for me.”