Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
The breath caught in Delilah’s chest.
She could almost laugh at herself.
Here she was acting like a heroine in a romance.
Again.
But there was no help for it.
Dressed in his evening blacks, with his dashing silk domino, Sebastian was devastating.
And this devastating man had thrown a masquerade ball simply for her.
The opening notes of a waltz drifted along on air gone light with possibility.
Drawn in by the music—by their own need to be closer to one another—they each took a step forward, then another, until her silk-gloved hand was sliding into his large, strong one, his other hand finding the indent of her waist, his warmth slipping through layers of silk and muslin and into her.
Wordlessly, their feet began to move to the music, but slowly, half a beat to every one of the string quartet.
Here, in this folly, they weren’t bound by rules or other people’s ideas of who they were or should be.
Only what they wanted mattered.
Only who they were to each other.
Words would matter—eventually—but not in this moment as he pulled her closer, her body stretched against the full length of his. Where she was soft, he was hard. The strength latent in that long, muscular body of his amazed her anew each time she felt it.
But really, why should it? Sebastian was strong in every way. It wasn’t simply his physical person. He was strong in his loyalties and in his passions, inspiring a responding loyalty and passion within her. How seductive his combination of strengths.
She lifted onto the tips of her toes, and her mouth met his ear. Her tongue followed.
A groan rumbled through his chest. “Delilah,” he murmured.
It was true he was a strong man.
But she knew where his weakness lay.
A weakness she fully intended to exploit.
His hand tightened on her waist, pulling her closer, an action at odds with his mutter of protest. Well, she wasn’t about to make this easy on him.
She trailed lower, down his neck, his hard, steady pulse beneath her mouth.
Then she sucked the sensitive skin, and his breath took on a ragged quality.
Ah…there.
His resistance was slipping.
Still, she sensed a tension in him.
His resistance wasn’t entirely vanquished.
“We need to talk, Delilah.”
“We do,” she agreed before giving the space behind his ear another lick. He liked it there. Then she pulled back to meet his gaze. “In my defense, I did fully intend to talk first tonight.”
“This won’t solve anything,” he protested. His golden gaze held an unmovable quality.
Dukes.
Yet his hand slid around to the small of her back. Her hips crushed into his, and the hard length of his fully erect manhood made the breath stick in her lungs. Oh, the feel of him…
She needed it.
Now.
“Here’s the thing, Sebastian,” she said. “I can’t arrive at any reasonable thought until we have this out of the way.”
“This?” Humor flashed behind his eyes. She sensed an opening.
“Do you have any idea how devastating you are?” she asked. Now, it was her voice fraying at the edges.
Arrogance now radiated off him in waves. “I’ve been told.”
Oh, how ridiculously attractive was his arrogance.
It should annoy—possibly infuriate—her.
Instead, it made her want to rip every last shred of clothing off his body.
Toward that end, she reached up and took his white silk cravat in hand.
She rather liked having this duke by the throat.
His feet slowed to a stop. “Delilah.”
“Mmm?” she mumbled, distracted. “This knot is the work of the devil.”
“It’s actually the work of my valet.” Sebastian still held that unmovable quality in his eye. He jutted his chin toward the manse. “There is a bed not fifty feet from here.”
Her fingers kept busy, finally making some headway. “We’ve never needed one before.” It was only the truth.
His hands covered hers, stilling them. “Come,” he said, twining her fingers through his.
They did make it up the stone staircase to his study, but only as far as the door before Delilah seized an opportunity and pulled his head down for a kiss.
Instinctively, he returned it, pressing her against the doorjamb, his body fully against hers.
Her leg had no choice but to wrap around his waist, leaving her sex no option but to grind against his length. Oh, the hard, delicious feel of him…
“This is close enough to a bed,” she muttered against his mouth.
Her wants were simple.
All she wanted was him.
Here.
Now.
But he was in no mood to oblige her.
On a tormented groan—oh, why did the man insist on torturing both of them—he wrenched away, reaching for her hand again, leading her inside his private study, through a secret door in a bookcase—she would be asking about that later…
after—and up a dark, narrow staircase. Halfway up the stairs, she reached up and squeezed his taut arse.
Of its own accord, her hand snaked around and dragged across his hot, swollen manhood.
His step faltered. “Delilah,” came a warning without much conviction behind it.
She sensed she could have him here.
But he wanted her in a bed.
And she supposed she was learning relationships were about compromise.
Then they were stepping inside his bedroom.
The only lighting was a low fire in the hearth and a few dim sconces on the walls.
But there was enough light for her to see this was very much a duke’s bedroom—all done in deep blue silks and velvets, impeccably tasteful and immaculate.
She would expect nothing less from Sebastian.
He turned and caught her about the waist. “At last, we made it to a bedroom.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Then she met his eyes, and the dark intention within, and her smile slipped as he shrugged off coat and waistcoat.
He closed the distance between them, then his hands were making short work of the buttons on the side of her dress.
It hadn’t yet reached the floor before he was turning her around, loosening the knots of her stays, the garment slipping off her body to join her dress.
She took the silk tips of her gloves between her teeth and tugged them off, leaving her clad in naught but chemise, stockings, and slippers.
Then the chemise was over her head and joining the other garments on the deep-piled Aubusson carpet.
“The mask can stay,” said Sebastian. His serious, golden eyes slowly raked over her, growing black in the flickering firelight. “There’s something I want you to do.” He hesitated. “And you can say no.”
She reached up and clasped her hands around his neck, stretching her naked body against his fully clothed one, a smile curling her mouth.
No doubt it was a wicked one. “There is nothing you could ask of me that I would say no to.” Her tongue swiped across her bottom lip.
His gaze followed the motion. “So, ask.”
“I want you”—he took a step forward, coaxing a step back from her…a step for nearly every word he spoke—“to lay on my bed”—his mouth met her ear—“and spread your legs…wide.”
A feeling, dark and sinuous, snaked through Delilah. What he was asking of her would push her limits.
And she understood something she hadn’t known before.
She wanted those limits pushed.
“Then I want you to touch yourself.”
The backs of her knees bumped against the bed. Her gaze held his. “While you watch?” she asked through the frisson of mild shock that traced through her.
What a thing to want, and yet…
Didn’t she like to be watched?
“Yes.”
Oh, the flame of lust that licked through her as she released her hands from around his neck and perched onto the foot of the bed. He grabbed a chair and sank into it, his gaze hot upon her as she spread her legs…wide.
Her quim open and exposed like this… She’d had no idea this was what went on between men and women in bedrooms.
One hand planted behind her for support, the other trailed down her body, slowly, teasingly. She took a nipple between forefinger and thumb and pinched. His chest utterly still, no breath entered or left his lungs, and she understood the full extent of her power.
She had the devastating, arrogant Duke of Ravensworth in the palm of her hand. “You like that?” she couldn’t help asking.
She couldn’t help the note of triumph in her voice, either.
“Oh, yes,” he rumbled.
“You want more?”
A smile tipped at one corner of his mouth. He understood a game was underway. “What do you have in mind?”
“Remove that devilish cravat.”
Hers was the power make demands.
Efficient fingers reached up and made quick work of the offending garment, and he flung it away, his shirt flopping open.
Her hand trailed lower, down the soft skin of her stomach to the even softer mound of her mons pubis, stopping there. “Shirt,” she said. “Off.”
Fine muslin lifted over and off his head, joining the cravat on the floor. Now it was her gaze rapt upon him. Well, his bare torso—and the defined muscles rippling beneath skin fuzzed with golden hair.
Of their own accord, her fingers slid lower, meeting the slickness of her sex, grazing the sensitive nub that throbbed…ached…with the desire to be touched…
By the man before her.
Her fingers would do.
For now.
Oh, but watching him watch her touch herself…
How very wicked.
“Are you wet?” he asked.
She nodded and gave herself a stroke.
“How wet?”
“Dripping,” rasped across her throat.
What a wicked thing to say.
But was the truth ever really wicked?
Sometimes.
“Lower,” he said.
She obeyed.
“Enter yourself.” he said.
Her gaze caught his and knowingly swept down his body—coming to a stop on the hard, distinct outline of his manhood. “Unbutton your trousers,” she countered.
Oh, she wanted to see him as she stroked herself. If she couldn’t have him inside her, she would ravish him with her eyes as her fingers made for a poor substitute.
Button by button, he freed himself.
Rigid and thick, his cockstand made quite a spectacle of itself.
Tit for tat, her finger slid along her sex, lighting up nerve endings all the way, and as she entered herself, he took his shaft in hand and gave himself a long, deliberate stroke.
She exhaled a groan of pleasure—but one with unsatisfied edges.
She wanted that inside her. Watching him touch himself… It pulled something new from her. Each time they’d been together, she’d wanted him with every cell of her being. But the way she wanted him now… It was heightened.
It was as if she would die of want without him.
A feeling began to gather in the center of her, pulling her tight with building need. “Sebastian,” she said. Nay, not said. Pleaded…begged. “I want you inside me when I…” she trailed, unable to finish a thought, much less a sentence.
Without taking his eyes off her, or his hand off himself, he rose and stepped forward, his solid, muscular form making way between her legs, his manhood only inches from where she wanted it—inside her.
Yet, oh, it felt so far away.
He didn’t grab her legs like she all but demanded—or plunge inside her like her quim all but demanded. Instead, he tucked his thumb beneath her chin, tipped her head back, and pressed his mouth to hers. Slowly, thoroughly, he kissed her until she was a senseless, trembly bundle of need.
Deliberately, he pressed forward, so she lay flat on her back and he hovered above her, supporting himself with an elbow to the side of her head, his body angled so his manhood slid against her mons pubis. Then he was entering her with a single smooth stroke, filling her to her limit—and beyond it.
“Sebastian,” she breathed out as tingly sensation swept through her. “You were correct.”
“About?”
“This does feel better in a bed.”
His smile against her neck as he plunged deeper inside her, that felt good, too.
Everything with this man felt good…too good.
She hoped he truly meant what he’d started.
Because she was never letting him go.