Chapter Seven
Where a curious woman tempts fate.
The embrace was exquisite.
Transformative.
It altered her the instant Everard Trentham curved his hand around her nape and drew her into a kiss that traveled leagues beyond any she’d known.
All of it within the first five seconds.
Bowing his long body, unapologetic, he pressed her—hip to hip—into hard oak as he ravaged her mouth. His tongue pursued hers without restraint, granting no quarter to her innocence; this was possession. Domination.
Her guileless maneuvering and his jaded surrender made the result explosive.
Not only did she accept his offer, Isabella demanded more.
She didn’t yet understand that passion could break you.
Her previous encounters hadn’t involved a man’s fingers curling around her hip and lifting her into his hardening length.
Or his hand sliding low to cup her breast, his thumb teasing the rigid peak of her nipple through layers she now longed for him to strip away.
There hadn’t been a moment before when a kiss became too much and labored sighs spilled against cheeks and necks, into the wisps of hair at one’s temple.
Followed by a mad rejoining, a rebirth, contact that ratcheted up two, four, six degrees, until they trembled, locked in combat, minds spinning with how much farther to go.
Breathless. Blatant need. Raw desire.
In the Earl of Merevale’s secret little office, Isabella found courage.
The daring to see what he liked best.
And what she wanted.
Rough kisses or soft. His bottom lip caught between her teeth or laved by her tongue. Casually dressed when she arrived, her hand trailed beneath his loose shirttail, fingertips skimming his back, nails biting. His body was a marvel beneath her curious touch—hard, broad, and hot.
He groaned softly through it all, mystifying and delighting her. The caresses, the nibbles, the erotic commands—so much variety, each designed to pull her under with him.
This was no simple kiss.
Tugging her skirt up in fistfuls until his broad palm flattened along the outside of her thigh, he whispered an aroused plea against her ear.
Like this. Where they moved in a slow cadence against each other, against the tall door, a push-pull that spoke of sensual intimacies she’d read about in French novels but never practiced.
Bright flashes burst behind her eyelids, the steady pulse between her legs sending reason up in smoke, as though he’d set a blazing ember to parchment.
“Do you understand?” he murmured against a sensitive spot beneath her jaw.
When she didn’t answer at once, he nipped her skin, soothing the sting with his tongue.
“The danger of placing yourself before me, insistent, where I cannot help but take you? Where I’m too far gone to care?
I am weak, sprite. And we do not require a bed, if you imagined that posed a challenge, though I have one in the next chamber, narrow and prone to creaking, yet serviceable.
My desk would suffice, bending you over it and coming in behind. Or here, standing…”
He captured her lips again as images stormed her mind, tongue finding hers to parry and thrust, urging her into movement that synchronized the final dance.
Her ragged moan slipped free, an unguarded confession of how close she stood to a pleasure she had only ever known alone, in the darkness of her bedchamber, exploring the secret place between her thighs.
He paused, lifted his head, and saw everything.
“How far, Madam Mischief, do you wish to go with this?” he whispered, the hand on her thigh inching closer to disaster.
“Lust took me in its teeth long minutes ago, so you’ve lost any chance I might deny you, God help us both.
I should know better. I do know better. And yet here I am, my fingers trembling where they touch you, my body taut with need. ”
Isabella licked her lips, and he leaned closer in answer, his hot breath brushing her cheek. His shaft pressed hard against her hip; there was no denying the evidence of it.
She rushed to speak before he claimed her mouth again. “Brick, and Lottie, my maid…”
Ever tunneled his hand into her hair and tilted her head back.
A clip slipped free and struck the faded carpet at their feet, sending her hair cascading past her shoulders.
His eyes glowed as he stared, emerald bright in the muted light.
“He’ll keep her occupied. But you’ll have to be quiet. And I’ll have to be quick about it.”
“How long does—” She broke off. The wanting was clearer than the question.
“Talk me out of this, Isa. Now, tell me no.”
Cradling his jaw, she drew his head down and claimed a lingering kiss. Then she reached for his shirttail, uncertain in this fever, only knowing: him. Just him.
He trapped her roving hand in his. As he’d warned, tremors raced down his arm.
“I’m not removing a single piece of clothing, Isa.
Are you mad? If I meant to make love to you, I wouldn’t be bloody quick about it.
Not when I’d sell my soul for the right to taste every inch of you, to tup you for two days without pause. ”
Then he did something so endearing, so absurdly sweet, that she realized, suddenly—I’m falling in love with him.
He turned the key in the door’s lock, a tiny pleat forming between his brows. It was plain from his troubled expression that he’d never entertained anyone here, that he had no practiced plan for seduction.
In this, at least, she would be the first.
She flattened her palm over his chest. The beat beneath her hand matched her own, hard and unsteady. “I’m not asking you to lose control. I’m asking you to let me lose it.”
He made a sound under his breath—half curse, half surrender—and took her hand as if afraid she might vanish if he didn’t. His other hand remained tangled in her skirts, lifting them without thought, until his fingers slackened and the fabric slipped free, whispering back into place.
“I’ve never cared for unnecessary fastenings,” she said, almost casually, intent on driving him mad. “My underthings are the most straightforward there are.”
“Christ,” he muttered, and then he was moving her, turning them both, his mouth finding hers again mid-step, too hungry to wait. He kissed her as he guided her across the room, breath and intention tangling, his hand never leaving hers, committing them both to what she’d started.
The armchair struck the backs of her legs. Ever pushed her into it without ceremony and knelt before her. As if startled by his own force, his breath came heavy as his feral-green gaze lifted to hers.
She didn’t give him time to deliberate. Catching his hand, she guided it beneath her skirts, leaving no room for confusion. “Show me.”
“Isa,” he whispered, her name stripped bare.
She shifted forward in the chair, silk whispering, close enough that her heat became impossible to ignore. Her fingers slid into his hair, not tugging, not urging—simply there, a claim he didn’t resist. Come to me.
Her silent plea seemed to break him, and something dark and intent settled into his expression. Releasing a hushed sigh, he rose just enough to kiss her again, measured this time, deeper, as though he meant to make her feel the consequence of every inch she’d crossed to bring them here.
Her world narrowed to minute details.
The armchair’s rough brocade grazing her skin. The softness of his hair about her fingers, the muscles of his jaw flexing beneath her palm. His caress, unhurried, tracing the hard line of her knee, working higher in tender, carefully calculated degrees.
Her skirt settled in a glossy fold at her waist, he paused as he reached her garter, the crimson silk in startling contrast to her pale skin.
Leaning closer, he tilted his head, reading the phrase she’d stitched there.
His breath skimmed her thigh as he murmured, softly amused, “Quelle tentation dangereuse.”
A dangerous temptation.
His gaze was fever-bright. “Was this meant for me, sprite?” he asked before pressing a kiss there. “If so, I agree, you are.”
The tick of the mantel clock seemed to falter.
Raindrops drummed sharply against the windowpanes.
She was lost in the spectacle, reason dimming.
His calloused fingertips traced a knowing path along her inner thigh, his tongue, his teeth branding her.
Soothing, arousing, tempting. One wicked cycle after another, repeated as he closed in, finally parting the folds of her drawers to tease her slit with a gentle stroke.
“It took years of trying, but you’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, voice clipped, hoarse.
She moaned and arched her back, eyes closing at the sight of him kneeling before her. His dark hair was disheveled from sensual combat, cheeks flushed, trousers tented with the intensity of his arousal.
She wanted this. Wanted him.
But it was the most erotic act of her young life, her imagination having undersupplied reality, and she wasn’t sure how to manage it.
Trembling, her thighs clenched, her fingers tightening around the chair’s arms.
“Don’t,” he whispered, his breath teasing her skin. “Close your eyes, if you like, but don’t hide from this. If it’s good, passion isn’t refined. It isn’t even pretty. It’s raw, impure, the least delicate thing imaginable. Only a select few have what it takes, together, to make magic.”
She sighed in hushed reply as his finger skimmed her entrance, then pushed slowly, languidly, inside her.
His stubbled jaw scraped her skin as he dipped his lips into the crease of her thigh.
“I’m as caught in this web as you, Madam Mischief.
You’re doing nothing alone. My heart is racing with the need to consume you, my cock begging for release.
My body is yours for the taking, should we find a way in the future to allow my fantasies to exist. For now, this has to be enough. ”
His words ceased then, or Isabella was beyond hearing them.
There was only the creak of the aging residence, the distant urban pulse beyond the windows, and the rage of a storm pressing close.
Between it all, two newfound lovers felt their way forward in a world that had never been gentle with either of them.
Frantic, her hand curved around the back of his neck, fingers weaving through the thick locks as he toyed with her, lips tarrying near her sex, his finger stroking her into delirium.
Her breathing fractured, shallow and unsteady, her body responding before thought could intervene.
A subtle tension rippled through her, an instinctive lift toward his touch, as though every nerve leaned in the same direction.
Heat gathered, a heavy, pulsing awareness that made it difficult to remain still beneath the onslaught.
When she began urging him with soft sighs and a lift of her hips, he growled and nipped her skin, his voice rough with need. “I must be mad,” he murmured, low and fervent. “On my knees, undone by your scent, your beauty, everything about you wrecking my good judgment.”
His mouth curved against her, not in hesitation but in determination.
“And still,” he said, resolve sharpening every word, “you’re not leaving this place without knowing how fucking wonderful this can be, to lie in bed every night dreaming about the rest. There’s so much more.
Maybe you’ll figure out a way to make me show you. ”
“Show me now,” she whispered, her breath breaking as his thumb covered her and circled. Pleasure burst low in her belly, impossible to steady. Reason scattered until nothing remained but sensation and the sharp nearness of bliss.
He stilled in a studied pause. Isabella opened her eyes and met his gaze, and in that quiet space, something settled.
He’d decided.
“Now it is, then,” Ever whispered, sliding his arm around her waist and drawing her forward in the chair.
The ambush left her blind, gasping, stripped of reason.
He used every skill to storm her senses.
His mouth covered her, his fingers driving deeper, the low hum of his moans vibrating through her.
Wicked intent—soft gusts blown against her sensitive folds, a tactic she would later recognize as entirely deliberate.
In the end, a single moment of his focus was enough to undo her.
Pleasure crested, hard and sudden, undoing her in a rush that stole her breath.
Moans slipped free, unbidden, as the world narrowed and then vanished altogether, leaving only the dazed uproar moving through her.
Time dissolved. So did she; nothing remained but the dizzying surrender of being carried somewhere life-altering.
And through it all, he tormented her with purpose, withholding mercy.
When pleasure finally loosened its grip, she sagged bonelessly against the chair, awareness returning in fragments, every nerve still singing with aftershock. “Stop,” she murmured, the word barely formed. She nudged his shoulder, weakly trying to push him away. “I’m dying.”
“This is the closest to alive you’ve ever known,” he argued, then laughed as he lifted her from the chair into his arms. Her skin was slick, her breathing hurried, her gown wrinkled beyond repair. An intoxicating, unfamiliar scent lingered in the air.
She’d never been so recklessly exposed.
He kissed her, his own breathing staggered, and she tasted herself on his lips with a mix of awe and disquiet. The intimacy remained longer than the kiss, leaving questions she didn’t know how to ask pressing close.
“Leave it,” he murmured, his thumb smoothing the crease between her brows. “This moment is enough. As for me, I’ve never enjoyed anything this much in my life, sprite.”
And yet Isabella felt the shift, the first tremor of consequence beneath the pleasure, already rising to follow them into the night.