Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Juliet replaced her lips with her tongue and stroked along the whorl of Rory’s ear, dragging a long, ragged groan from him.
That groan made her toes curl inside her borrowed slippers.
Of a sudden, his arms tightened around her and he stood. “If we’re going to do this—”
“Oh, we most certainly are,” she assured him.
“Then we shall do it properly,” he finished. “In a bed.”
And with that, he marched with her in his arms straight through the dining room and down corridors blessedly empty of servants, until he was pushing open a door with his shoulder and depositing her to her feet on a worn wool rug before a low fire in the hearth.
“The bed is over there.” She indicated the rather imposing four-poster draped in heavy, satchel-brown velvet draperies from the same century as her dress.
“I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”
“I quite insist you presume.”
“This is your last chance.”
She shook her head. “This is your last chance.”
As they stood facing one another, her gaze dipped to the outline of his cockstand clearly illuminated by the flickering light of the fire. A shiver of desire rippled through her.
Perhaps it was her last chance.
Her last chance to have exactly what she wanted.
This man.
On what could only have been characterized as a low growl, he reached out and caressed her cheek before running his fingers along the nape of her neck. With a few quick movements, her hair was tumbling about her shoulders and down her back.
The dark intention in his eyes… Gone was the light-hearted Rory and in his place was a man whose utter command of the moment sent lightning to hidden places only he could touch.
If his gaze could do all that, what more could his body do?
His hand continued to trail down the column of her neck…along the line of her clavicle…lower still to the small mound of a breast, fingertips grazing a hardened nipple through fabric. She gasped.
A wicked smile tipped at his mouth. “You like that, do you?”
“Yes,” she rasped. Only the truth would get her what she wanted.
More of his touch.
A chuckle rumbled deep in his chest as he pulled her to him.
His head lowered, her parted mouth angled up, and their lips met.
And all the while, his fingers hadn’t left her nipples—far from it.
They’d slid beneath her bodice and were now squeezing the hardened tips, pleasure blazing through her to unexpected places, encouraging a wildness inside her.
Her hands raked through his hair, grabbing hold as she pressed up against the long, thick mass of his body. His body, however, wasn’t the only long and thick part of him. His manhood was certainly making its presence known.
But, oh, his kiss… The way his firm mouth claimed hers possessed a force behind it, but not too much force. A drive…a will… The same drive and will demanding she follow this path where it led. She couldn’t become lost, for she was with him.
He pulled back. Her eyes startled open, indignation flaring through her. “You haven’t my permission to—”
“Shh.” He placed a quieting finger over her mouth. She might feel indignant about that, too. “Trust me.”
She searched his eyes and found utter confidence there. She nodded.
A flash of a wicked smile, and he took her hips in hand and swiveled her around.
Of a sudden, she felt vulnerable and strangely exposed, though she remained clothed.
There was a tug on her dress, then another.
He was untying the laces. Then he was pushing the garment down her body, leaving her clothed in naught more than chemise, stockings, and slippers.
“No corset?”
“One wasn’t necessary.”
Next the thin muslin of her chemise was sliding up her body.
Instinctively, she lifted her arms to allow it over her head, her hair following before succumbing to gravity, the ends meeting the upper curve of her derrière with a swish.
She might’ve heard another growl. Then his hands were on her lower back, nudging her forward—toward the bed.
Once she reached it, his hand fell away. “Do you still trust me?”
“Entirely.”
He pushed her hair to the side and kissed the nape of her neck, his breath warm and humid. Goose bumps raced across her skin, lifting the fine hairs of her arms, tightening her nipples into hard buds.
His presence, behind her, felt sensual…and slightly wicked…
She felt a kiss lower, and lower still, his hands clutching her hips, steadying her, as he trailed kisses down her spine. She tipped forward to brace herself on the bed and a chuckle sounded. “You naughty lass.”
And it occurred to her: Lord Rory Macbeth, the Viscount Kilmuir, the nicest man she knew, had a penchant for wickedness.
In the bedroom.
To quote him, the realization made her feel all lit up inside.
She could be her most wicked self with him.
The idea appealed, even as she felt vulnerable and exposed.
Another contradictory bundle.
He cupped her bottom, taking a cheek in each hand.
“You have the sweetest round arse in all Creation.” He kissed one cheek, then the other.
Down legs gone trembly with desire his kisses trailed.
Every touch of his lips sent twin shivers of pleasure and ache rioting through her.
She wanted this—his mouth…his large, capable hands… upon her—but she wanted more, somehow.
She squeezed her thighs together.
“Yearning for it, are you?” he spoke against the back of one knee.
She glanced over her shoulder. What she found in his eyes stopped the breath in her lungs.
Desire and determination writ plain.
He wanted her, and he would have her.
It was a promise.
“Yes,” she said on a whisper that sounded more like a plea.
“Spread your legs.”
She inhaled a gasp. The very idea seemed slightly transgressive.
But wasn’t she in this room to experience exactly that?
A little bit of wickedness…a little bit of transgression.
She did as instructed, the ache of desire that had become centered in her sex now a heavy throb. Whatever he was about to do next… She wanted it.
She would perish without it.
Then she felt it…a slow, calloused stroke along her slit—his rough finger a delicious glide across her sex, lighting up every nerve ending in its path, pulling from her the longest moan of her life.
She collapsed onto her forearms, no longer able to support herself as pleasure streaked through her.
His other hand pushed at the small of her back, encouraging an arch, surely revealing more of her sex to him.
Wicked. He stroked her again. “Oh, Rory,” she groaned, hoarse with utter need.
A pressure pushed at the entrance of her sex. His long, thick finger… It was entering her. Another new sensation…another one she couldn’t live without.
Slowly, deliberately, he moved, in and out of her, and a feeling began to build.
All those lit-up nerve endings clamored for more—with every movement of his fingers…
every kiss of his mouth which had, oh, wickedly, joined his finger…
his tongue touching her in places she’d never imagined tongues could go.
Those nerve endings gathered in purpose, increasing her pleasure with his every movement until she was naught more than a panting, groaning vessel enslaved to the sensation only he could provide.
And that building feeling in her sex… Oh, it had her in its grip as she strained toward a place beyond her experience or imagining.
His finger slid from her, and his mouth pulled away, and she cried out, “What are you about, Rory?” It was a question, a plea, and a demand.
He chuckled and turned her around. She collapsed onto the bed and, across the naked length of her body that was both enervated and clamoring for more, she watched him discard one article of clothing after another with smooth efficiency.
“Patience, my pet.” He unbuttoned the fall of his trousers. “I’ll get you there.”
He tossed the garment aside, and here he was—naked, every inch of him hard and unyielding and beautiful.
Italian statuary had in no way prepared her for this: a flesh and blood man with a look in his eye that said—promised—he would devour her whole.
And she would enjoy it.
My pet?
She reckoned she was.
Her gaze roved across him—shoulders…chest…stomach bulked with muscle…the red-gold dusting of hair that narrowed on its descent toward…him—his manhood. So long and thick and ready. Like the rest of him, it was beautiful, too.
Her mouth went dry.
But other parts of her, well, they’d gone decidedly wet.
Commanding and sure, he grabbed her thighs and stepped between them.
“How is that going to fit?” It was only half a joke.
The lopsided smile that curved about his mouth lost its boyishness. It was all determined man. “You’ll find out.” His grip tightened on her thighs, and he pulled so her bottom reached the edge of the bed. “Wrap your legs around me.”
Her legs slid around his muscle-thick waist and of a sudden his manhood was snugged against her sex, hard and slick, leaving no doubt he would fit—if it was the last thing she ever did.
He tightened his grip around her hips, and his gaze caught hers and held, refusing to release her as the tip of his shaft pressed against the entrance of her sex.
Masterful, that was the word that came to her.
Though this Rory was one she hardly knew, she trusted him.
She wanted him.
She had to have him.
She lifted onto one elbow as her other hand reached out.
She needed to touch him. One by one, her fingers wrapped around his thick shaft.
His eyes flared into black as the pupils pushed irises into thin turquoise rings.
Her hand hardly fit around him as she gave a slow pull up his length.
A groan poured from him, his gaze roving across her naked body, settling on her sex, open and aching to be filled by him.
“Like for like,” he murmured.
“It’s only fair.”
Somehow as she stroked him, even as he pressed against her sex, her desire—nay, pure unadulterated lust—spiked higher.