Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Along with her mind, Delilah’s lungs refused to move.
Both were decidedly stuck.
On the man below her.
She could hardly countenance where she was or how she’d gotten here. One moment she’d been pacing the stage and practicing her lines. The next, she was falling through the trap door, and now…
She was straddling Ravensworth, cobwebs in her hair, scratchy dirt beneath her knees.
Straddling Ravensworth.
That was the main point.
Good Lord.
It couldn’t be…
She dragged her skirts back and confirmed that, yes, it was he. His solid, muscular chest below her. His hands clutching her waist. And his golden gaze staring up at her as intense and inscrutable as ever.
To be so centered within that gaze…
She couldn’t move.
She’d never been this close to him.
She’d never known his scent.
Until now.
Citrus and cedar.
Lovely.
The man smelled lovely.
And the feel of him between her legs…
Lovely didn’t come close to the correct word for that feeling.
Even as her mind rejected the very notion, her body experienced a very different response. As if the center of her had gone hot and liquid and needed—oh—needed to rub against something.
And the look in his eyes…
It said he could provide exactly that something.
Madness… This was utter and complete madness.
And yet she couldn’t break away from it.
“Delilah,” rasped against the back of his throat as his hands at her waist tightened and pressed her down upon him.
Her hips instinctively angled, and she gasped, suddenly supremely aware of a single fact. Only the fabric of his shirt lay between his muscled chest and…her—oh—sex…that sensitive flesh pressed against him, aching for…
He pulled her hips forward so she ground against him.
Sudden light sparked through her, and a little cry escaped her parted lips. His pupils flared as he moved her against him again, her thighs instinctively spreading wider. “Oh,” she breathed.
What was happening?
She wasn’t certain, but the man below her…
He was.
It was as if an awakening was occurring inside her, demanding she follow it, blind.
Again, she ground herself against him. This was madness. And yet she couldn’t pull herself away. Deep, dark places inside her were coiling tight and making demands of her.
Demands she didn’t know how to satisfy, though she must.
Or she would surely perish.
This time, her cry was one borne of frustration.
“Delilah,” he spoke, his low, masculine voice vibrating below her. “I can give you what you want.”
The part of her that must contradict his every word spoke up. “Because you always know best.”
Oh, why had she said that?
Foolish woman.
“Let me touch you.”
And she saw within his golden eyes, certainty.
He knew what she wanted.
And how to give it to her.
“Touch me,” she demanded, asserting her right to have his touch upon her…now.
Long, capable fingers slid up her thigh, and a thin layer of perspiration sheened her skin. Immediately, she knew what had been missing as her eyes squeezed shut—anticipating…craving…needing…
His fingertip glided along her slit, and her eyes flew open, the breath freezing in her chest, as the coiling sensation in her sex pulled tighter.
A smile curled about his mouth. “So wet for me,” he muttered.
Then that fingertip applied pressure to the sensitive flesh that only her own curious hands had encountered in the privacy of her bed.
But his finger caressing her there—oh—it was different…better.
That finger knew what it was doing as it rubbed her—her entire being centered in that exquisite half inch of flesh—her body collapsing forward, her hands planted on the ground to either side of his head, her face inches from his, his breath hot against her mouth, as he delivered a pleasure that swirled and looped, elusive, taunting…
daring her to catch it. Then she managed to grab hold as a sudden burst seized her and exploded in bright light and molten sensation.
The hand at her waist released and suddenly clapped over her mouth as she cried out, her quim pulsing against his fingertips.
And not once had his gaze left hers.
She could crumple atop him with satiety. But, at last, the instinct of self-preservation seized her, and she became acutely aware of…
Oh.
She was kneeling on the dirt beneath a stage straddling the Duke of Ravensworth, his long, capable fingers having just brought her to…
Oh.
What had she done?
Committed an act of supreme madness.
And she’d committed that act of supreme madness with…Ravensworth.
She scrambled off him and scuttled away on her bottom, panting for air as if she’d just sprinted fifty yards. “But you’re my nemesis.” Those were the first words out of her mouth.
His gaze pierced and searched hers, but it didn’t flinch. “I’ve never been your nemesis, Delilah.”
A head poked into the trap door opening. Soppitt, she thought his name was. “All right down there?”
Down there.
A blush began at the roots of Delilah’s hair and crawled across her skin to her toes.
If only the man knew what he was asking.
“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” said Ravensworth, pushing himself up and into a sitting position.
How coolly the lie rolled off his lips.
As if what had just happened hadn’t just happened.
And it had most definitely happened.
Her quim that still tingled and throbbed with satisfaction could attest to the fact.
But how?
From start to finish, it couldn’t have taken more than one—two?—minutes. She’d had no idea such a thing could be achieved in less than a minute—or that life could continue on after as if it hadn’t.
All her life, she’d been called wild.
But this was the very first time in those four and twenty years that she’d truly acted on that impulse.
Wild.
Soppitt’s hand reached down. “Lilah?”
She was meant to take it.
Which was just as well.
Distance from Ravensworth must be achieved…tout suite.
It occurred to her that in all the years she’d been acquainted with the man, she’d neither touched nor been touched by him.
And now she had been.
Intimately…
Thoroughly.
Delilah placed her hand in Soppitt’s and allowed herself to be hauled up onto the stage. As she stood in the summer sunshine, slightly disoriented, her legs a bit wobbly, it was almost if dark, pleasurable happenings hadn’t occurred below.
Almost.
Her body was having a decidedly difficult time pretending otherwise.
Her body… It had never felt like this before. Like she could feel the individual blood cells rushing through her veins.
Ravensworth appeared through the trap door opening, concentrated on the task of dusting off cobwebs and dirt, his dark blond hair tousled and mussed. He planted his hands on the stage and pushed himself up. Her gaze fell to those hands…his fingers, long and masculine.
Those fingers contained knowledge.
Like how to make her body feel like it did at this very moment—singing with light.
He twisted around so he came to a seat, his legs hanging through the trap door opening. He cleared his throat. Delilah’s gaze startled up. She’d been staring at his hands.
The look in his arrogant golden eyes said he knew it.
And why.
“Lilah,” came her name as if from a great distance.
She whipped around to find the company director Mr. Morgan three feet away, not thirty.
Ravensworth had her completely turned around and utterly muddled.
“Lilah,” repeated Mr. Morgan in his Welsh lilt, handing her a sheet of paper. “Will you run these lines?”
Her gaze skated across the page. It was a scene from Lover’s Vows. “I know the play well.”
Her usual self began to return to her, even though she could feel the heat of Ravensworth’s stare. That was nothing new. Every night, the first thing she did before a performance was locate him in the audience, so her gaze would never once happen that direction.
She took her place in the center of the stage and exhaled a long, steadying breath, inviting the docile, lovestruck spirit of Amelia, the heroine of Lover’s Vows, to fill her. “Where would you like me to start, Mr. Morgan?”
“At the top.”
Delilah glanced down and realized this was Act III.
The scene between Amelia and Anhalt where they discuss matrimony and proclaim their love for one another.
Her stomach churned. “Perhaps a different scene would be better.” An idea came to her—a brilliant idea.
“I don’t have to play Amelia. I could play the Count.
” Then she wouldn’t have any love scenes. Perfect.
Mr. Morgan flicked a dismissive wrist. “The audience would want you as Amelia.”
Right.
Subtly, from beneath her eyelashes, she chanced a quick glance toward Ravensworth. Arrogant smile curled about his mouth, he was watching the proceedings with that intense, undivided attention of his.
She squeezed her eyes shut. This was an opportunity. Mr. Morgan was offering her the lead role in a scene—her first. She mustn’t muck it up. She opened her eyes and spoke the line at the top. “I will not marry.”
Mr. Morgan held up a hand and shook his head. “You need a scene partner.” He cast his gaze about. No one happened to be around, other than—
His gaze landed.
Ravensworth.
Her heart became a hammer against her ribs.
No, no, no.
Mr. Morgan crooked his index finger. “My good man Seb, would you be so kind as to—”
“No!” burst from Delilah.
Both sets of eyes swung toward her, but Ravensworth was already pushing to his feet, unfolding all six feet and several inches of himself, that arrogant smile not having slipped a whit. He looked to be enjoying himself.
Of a sudden, Delilah saw Ravensworth, not as she’d seen him when she’d first met him as a friend of her brother’s, but as if she were only seeing him now for the first time.
The sheer physicality of the man. What she was seeing was what all the other ladies must’ve been seeing all these years. She felt slightly lost for breath.
Was this the effect he had on women? How had she been so oblivious to it?
She needed to get a firm grasp on herself.