Chapter 6
Chapter Six
WHERE A COUPLE NAVIGATE TENDER FEELINGS
When he reached his bedchamber, Nigel nudged the door open with his boot.
Crossing to the center of the room, he gently settled Arabella to the floor.
His curtains were fluttering madly in the gusts ripping through the windows.
They were a pale, milky white velvet, unlike current fashion dictated, giving the space a hauntingly serene feel.
When she was steady on her feet, he stepped back, allowing her the choice to leave him. To say no. To pick someone else . To change her mind about him.
He wasn’t noble. She’d created a fictional man in her mind. That silly nitwit Ambrose was closer to her dream than he was. She didn’t want to know the things Nigel had done to survive. And he didn’t want to tell her.
She trailed her hand up his jaw and tapped his temple. “Stop it, darling man.”
Grabbing her wrist, he pressed a kiss to her palm. Bit into the fleshy heel of her hand while wondering what she looked like beneath those pesky layers. “Last chance, Bell.” Though he truly wondered if he’d let her leave.
Maybe if she begged .
When he prayed she’d beg for other things.
Releasing an age-old, knowing smile, she turned, presenting her back.
The row of hooks and ties holding her gown in place invited his touch.
Although his hands were shaking, a novel sensation, he didn’t pretend ignorance of the bindings.
His experience was what it was. His past was what it was.
His feelings for this wondrous woman were what they were.
As he’d been told a thousand times by his father, a man didn’t choose.
Love chose you .
Unexpectedly, like a blow to the head.
To reclaim a trace of control, he teased her during the process.
Ten hair clips, his lips dusting the nape of her neck with the removal of each.
A kiss to any exposed patch of skin with each hook released on her gown.
One tie, one nibble. Earlobe, shoulder, wrist. Until he was on his knees, her gown puddling around her ankles and flowing over his boots.
Then he stood and started again. Eyelets on her corset, drawstrings on her drawers.
Caresses followed each advance in her unveiling.
Until she stood swaying, her breath rasping from her lips, her skin littered with goosebumps and a fine sheen of sweat.
In nothing but a gossamer chemise that left little to his imagination.
She was slender and slightly taller than he’d recalled. Shapely, but in the most graceful fashion. He grabbed a handful of her gorgeous, flaxen hair and brought it to his nose. She smelled of lemons and lust.
Leaving Nigel worried he wasn’t going to last long enough to pleasure her.
Therefore, he formulated a plan.
Pressing his chest to her back, he filled his hands with her surprisingly plump breasts, her nipples pebbling beneath his thumbs.
She curved into him, nestling his cock against her bottom.
He held back a groan with every scrap of his strength.
“I’m going to make you come before I remove one stitch of my clothing, imp.
With my hands and my mouth. Unless you stop me. Do it soon if you’re going to stop me.”
In reply, she issued the supplest moan he’d ever heard.
Not going to stop you , it said.
Glancing around, he realized there were few options in the room. The bed, of course, which he was saving for the moment he slid inside her.
And the desk.
A hulking mammoth of an antique his mother had given him upon his graduation from university. Some said Henry VIII once owned it.
That would do.
Spinning her around, he took her lips in a kiss meant to destroy and backed her toward it.
Christ , she kissed like a lightskirt, he marveled, losing focus for a lengthy second. She held nothing back, nothing.
Sitting Arabella on the desk, Nigel raised her chemise. Thighs, waist, tummy, breasts— ah , her glorious breasts—shoulders, then the wisp of silk fluttered to the floor.
And, saints love her, she didn’t bat one eyelash. Flinch or try to cover herself. A Macauley through and through, this girl.
Extending her leg, she drew her toe along the impressive erection tenting his trousers. “What if I make you come first?”
Nigel laughed, bringing his hand to his lips to cover it.
When had he enjoyed being with someone as much as he enjoyed being with her?
“You could try.” Bracing his hands on the desk on either side of her, he leaned in, taking her nipple between his lips.
Then his teeth. She hissed out a sharp breath and bowed into the touch. “But I’m a very competitive bloke.”
From there, the world dissolved, like the view through a rain-streaked windowpane.
The sound of carriage wheels striking cobblestones, the distant clamor of thunder, Arabella’s faint cries as he sucked one nipple and moved to the other muted in his mind.
The taste of her streaked across his tongue and flowed down his body, where it landed fairly predictably in his cock.
Curling his arm around her waist, he scooted her forward until she was open before him, legs spread.
Going to his knees, he gazed up at her, marveling at his wealth.
Her back was arched just so, throwing her body forward.
Her nipples tight little buds, a dark, dusky pink.
Her lips open with the aroused sounds coming from her throat.
Groaning, she’d tunneled her fingers in his hair and knocked her knees into his shoulders to urge him to touch her .
What had he done to deserve this lovely, spirited, beautiful young woman?
“Hang on, imp.”
She scored her nails across his scalp, sending a shiver through him. “Show me,” she whispered, her head thrown back. “You said you would kiss every inch of me. Kiss me here, like you promised.”
“It was more of a threat,” he murmured and began the assault.
She smelled of the floral fragrance she probably tossed in her bath, he noted, as he trailed his nose along her thigh. He parted her glistening folds when he reached them, playing lightly, tongue, fingers, breath. When he blew on her the second time, she cried out.
Ah, she likes this.
She looped her legs over his shoulders, and he thought, brilliant idea .
Then he recorded every twitch, every sigh, every tensing of her fingers—until he had an excellent read on her stimulation points. It was like watching the gaming tables and observing a gambler’s tells. Nigel was the best in the business for spotting them, hence his incredible success.
And Arabella Macauley wasn’t even trying to hide hers.
When she was breathless and wholly engaged in what he considered a tentative foray, playfully intent, he slid a finger inside her as he took the swollen nub of her sex between his lips.
She tasted divine, her juices coating his tongue and pushing his shaft into a throbbing press against his trouser buttons.
Realizing he wasn’t going to last long if he delayed, he sucked and stroked while she moaned, rocking into his face.
For an untried woman, she was amazingly responsive. And free. Willing to be who she was , in the most private of places, confidence it had taken him years to find.
Images of what he was going to do to her after they made it to the bed sent his head spinning. He had a feeling she’d be keen to try anything. (There were things he wanted to do and never had, a long list of them.)
“Streeter, please, now .” She palmed her hand on the desk and bowed into him. Her hair had come loose, and damp strands were clinging to her neck. Her thighs were rosy from the stubble on his jaw, her sex flushed. He’d never seen a more beautiful sight—and never expected to.
Curling his hand around her hip, he guided her into a rhythm matching the stroke of his tongue, the plunge of his finger.
She began to shake, a delicious quiver that started at her feet and raced up her body.
Since she was wrapped around him, he was able to record the advancement of her release.
Each dazzling second, a first for him. The cries, the trembling, the flood of heat and moisture, her muscles tensing, tensing, then releasing in a deluge of spent energy and dazed arousal.
Gasping, she collapsed to the desk in a side sprawl, catching him in the center of the chest, and almost knocking him off his feet. “Leave me. I’m not going to survive,” she panted through the flaxen tangle dangling across her face.
Smiling, grinning actually, he scrubbed his wrist over his lips. She’d come all over him—and that wasn’t over, no matter what she believed. They were going to be in utter ruins by the time they were through.
Because the bliss was only beginning.
Gathering her tenderly in his arms, he carried her to the bed, and deposited her atop the mattress.
Pressing a kiss to her brow, he brushed her hair from her eyes.
“You are goddamn gorgeous, Bell. The finest sight I’ve been invited to witness in all my thirty-three years.
I wish it weren’t so many years between us… but there is it.”
She snorted a laugh past the arm she’d draped across her face.
“Who gives a shite about eleven insignificant years? I’ve always been more mature than the rest of the Leighton Cluster children.
I should be angry about all those silly doxies you’ve trifled with.
” She lifted her arm and peered at him, her expression completely dazed but with a spark of fire.
“I hate them, the greedy chits, but I love what you can do with that wicked mouth and those talented fingers.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “So, I suppose I win in the end.”
Loving her, simply loving her, he leaned to kiss her, unleashing the sensual magic swirling between them. She flowered beneath him, eager. He waited until she moaned and lifted her hips, telling him she wasn’t finished, not at all.
Straightening, he moved out of reach. “Patience, imp.”