Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Now?” Silas gave her a disbelieving stare.
“Yes.” Helena nodded, “Why not?”
“Well…” his eyes raked her frame, “for one thing, you’re not dressed for it.”
“And how is one usually dressed when learning to fight? I would have thought that everyday clothes would be best. Considering nobody will give me time to change, should I be attacked.”
His lips pursed and she could see amusement in his eyes. But all he did was spread his arms in surrender.
“Very well then. We shall begin with the basics. Blocking.”
She dropped her hands and straightened up to her full height. “All right,” she said.
“Now I’m going to make as if to hit you. Lift up your arms and block me while protecting your face. Like so. Understood?”
She nodded, preparing to do as he said.
He clenched his hand into a fist and slowly aimed it at her face. She lifted her arms slowly, to block contact. His fist touched her elbow before he pulled back.
“Good, that was good. Again.”
They practiced that one move for what felt to Helena like a ridiculously long time. Finally, he moved on to something else.
“Now, turn away from me. Pretend you are walking, and I shall come up behind you. It’s an ambush. Show me what you would do.”
Helena nodded excitedly. This sounded like just what she needed.
Her brow furrowed as she tried to think what she would do in such a situation.
Before she knew it, she could feel him behind her, his arms circling her neck. In a second, he had her in a choke hold. She struggled, trying to move his arm, but it was as unmovable as a stone.
She could feel his breath warm on her neck, slow and steady while she panted with exertion. Clearly, she could not pit her strength against his.
She stopped struggling and went limp, trying to pull him down with her weight. But he simply curved his other arm around her waist and held her snug against his chest.
His proximity was… disconcerting, to say the least.
“I…I give up,” she said.
Just like that, he let go of her, spinning her around to face him, his eyes intent on her face.
He shook his head. “Wrong. Never say that to an attacker.”
“I wasn’t saying it to an attacker. I was saying it to you,” she protested.
He rolled his eyes. “I was your attacker.”
“So show me what I should have done.”
“Right, so…” He turned her around again. “Once you realize there’s someone behind you, the first thing that you do is turn around. It is much more difficult to attack when you’re looking your intended victim in the eye.”
Immediately, she turned around and stared intently into his eyes.
“That’s good. So the attacker was reaching for your neck, but now he cannot subdue you from the front. What does he do? He grabs your arms.” He matched words to action. “What do you do?”
Helena bit her bottom lip as she thought. As distracted as she was, she absently noted that his eyes had dropped to her mouth, and then darkened. She frowned, wondering why, but then went back to thinking about her strategy.
“I would—”
“Don’t tell me. Show me,” he said.
“All right.” She lifted her hands, slipping them between his arms and gently pushing against his chest in an attempt to free herself from his hold on her shoulders.
He nodded approvingly. “Good, good. But not good enough. You have gifts that you can use to disconcert your attacker.”
“Gifts?” she asked, puzzled.
His eyes drifted down to her breasts and then up her neck. “You are distracting. You cannot compete with his strength, but you can use your feminine wiles to distract him.”
“Feminine wiles?” she squeaked.
He put his hands on her waist, looking her in the eye.
“Yes,” he said quietly, then leaned in, inclining his head and breathing in her scent from her neck.
She tensed, unable to think what to do. Her hands rose of their own volition and grabbed his shirt. His hands closed tighter around her waist, pulling her closer. He lifted his head, looking down at her breasts.
“Now. You have to kick me,” he said.
She jerked. “What?”
“Kick me.”
She stared at him bewildered.
“You’ve used your body to distract me. Now kick me.”
Helena finally understood what he meant. She lifted her leg, regretful that her gown was too restrictive for her to really bend it, and kicked his shin.
Silas winced slightly, but his discomfort didn’t seem to last more than a second. “Very good, but next time, I suggest you aim higher, somewhere more sensitive.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, “Speak plainly.”
He blew out a breath. “Should you hit between my legs, you are guaranteed to incapacitate me.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Oh…” she said, her face heating up.
She looked down at his breeches, blinking in embarrassment at the thought of touching him there with any part of her body.
“In a fight, you have no space for propriety,” he said as if reading her mind.
She cleared her throat as she nodded, looking anywhere but at him. “I see.”
He tilted his head down so he could meet her gaze. “Have you changed your mind about learning to fight?”
She jerked her head from side to side. “Not, er…” she cleared her throat again. “Not really.”
“We can stop if you have.”
“Well, I have not.”
He nodded once, a small smile ghosting on his lips. “Good. I know you’re brave,” he said quietly.
She hardly knew what to say to that. “I’m not, you know? I’m afraid all the time.”
He leaned in, his face so close that she could feel his breath on her face, his eyes piercing hers. “Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s acting even though you’re afraid. And you have done exactly that, my lady.”
She took a deep shaky breath, opened her mouth to speak, and found that she had nothing to say. His eyes dropped from her eyes to her lips, and he licked his own.
“You are brave, Helena. Braver than you should be,” he said, his voice like gravel and heat. “Looking at me like that. Standing this close. You have no idea what kind of man I am when I want something.” His fingers slid to the back of her neck. “And I want you.”
Her chin tilted upward and his head tilted lower.
And he kissed her.
His mouth pressed harder against hers as hers softened to him. She felt his tongue flick out, a taste, a question. She was desperate to taste him again. Parting her lips, she let his tongue in, and let it touch hers.
Coffee and cigars, she thought.
That’s what he tasted of. It wasn’t a taste she would have thought to love, but her senses were buzzing with pleasure. Like bees to honey, she could feel everything in her yearning towards him, her back arching so that her bosom could brush against his chest.
His hands tightened against her waist, and he began to kiss her in earnest. She clung to his shoulders, her knees weak, and let him hold her up as his mouth ravaged hers. Her entire body came alive, tingling with nerves and ready to go, though she knew not where.
She hummed into his mouth as if he was a delicious meal she’d had the fortune to come upon. She felt him shiver as she did so, his hips jerking.
He likes that.
She didn’t know what to do with that knowledge, but it made her feel powerful. Powerful, and in control.
She went up on her tiptoes, the better to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him close. She wanted him deeper into her mouth, to let him plunder to his heart’s content.
His hands began to move, tracing patterns on her back as his lips left her mouth to trail kisses along her jaw and down her neck.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this,” he panted.
She threw her head back, panting softly as his tongue lit a wet trail of heat along the mounds of her breasts, before sucking her skin into his mouth.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her body jerking in reaction, nerves experiencing a type of awakening she’d never felt before.
His hands dropped to her hips and before she knew it, he was lifting her up and dropping her on the table.
Thank Heavens, for she didn’t think her legs would hold her for much longer.
As soon as she was seated, he was diving back in, his deft fingers working the hooks at her back, one by one, as his mouth kissed along her slowly exposed shoulder before biting into her neck.
Then, he had her unhooked to her waist and he pulled down the neck of her gown.
He pulled back for a moment, gazing at her like a man who’d dragged himself through the desert, and she was the oasis.
“I want to worship you,” he breathed, and lowered himself to cup her breasts with a hungry growl.
He opened his mouth wide, teeth digging into the soft, giving flesh as he kneaded the underside of her left breast. It popped right out of her stays, and he took her nipple into his mouth, moaning and groaning like it was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, his tongue licking around it before he placed a kiss at the pebbled tip of her nipple.
She shivered in reaction, wanting more, no, needing it, but not knowing what more it was she wanted.
He reached up with his finger and flicked at her breast, and she uttered a sound halfway between a whimper and a moan, thrusting her chest out at him, as she grabbed his other hand and placed it on her right breast that was just as hungry for the same treatment.
“Good girl. That’s it,” he purred, opening his mouth wide, swallowing as much of her right breast as he could, and suckling at it before moving to her left and doing the same thing.
Back and forth, back and forth as she began to squirm, her lower body lighting up like a beacon, unidentified liquid seeping out of her warmth and wetting her thighs.
“God…” she moaned, not knowing what to do with herself.
He straightened up at the sound, grabbing her legs and pulling her closer so that he was wedged between them, and they were as close as two people could be. He cupped her face and began to kiss her in earnest, body pressed against hers so firmly that she could feel his… hardness poking against her.
“Oh…” she breathed, shivering from head to toe, feeling as debauched as a drunkard in a brewery, soaking in desire and reveling in the pleasure of it.
His hand, warm on her lap, began to pull up her gown and she suddenly wished he would hurry up, an insistent need to feel his hand on her naked thigh bursting within her.
She wanted to feel his hands everywhere.
His body jerked, pressing his hardness into the softness at her center and she moaned aloud at the soft, swelling, insistent pressure she was feeling as a result.
She clutched him closer, her mouth asking without words for more.
She felt his hand on her stockinged leg, moving upward, caressing her, round her thigh and lifting her leg so that it wound around his waist, increasing the press of flesh on flesh, even though the fabric of his breeches, at her center and the flutter of butterflies in her belly—
Suddenly, there was a sharp knock on the door and she squeaked in shock. He dropped her leg, moving slightly away from her.
“Who…” he cleared his throat, as his voice was so low and rough, unintentionally seductive, making her shiver again, “Who is it?”
“It is I, Benedict the Heroic, come to rescue you,” the Marquess’s voice rang through the door. “I’ve found the key, but the doorknob refuses to turn. It seems to need a firm yet careful hand to open properly. Give me but a moment.”
Helena looked down at herself in horror. She could not let anyone see her like this.
“He’s stalling for us. Let me help you,” Silas whispered as he pulled her gown back onto her shoulders, her breast still hanging out of her stays.
She popped it back, trying to arrange her bosom into something less… chaotic.
She touched her hair in horror, knowing that it must be a disheveled mess.
Silas hooked her dress haphazardly and then threw her his coat so she could hide as much of herself as possible before the door slid open, and Benedict appeared.
“Richmont. What are you doing here?” he asked in a strained voice as Helena tried to straighten her gown.
“Highcliff. Lady Helena, a pleasure as always.” Benedict said, bowing, and Amelia emerged from behind him.
Silas threw his sister a deathly glare. The adolescent seemed rather pleased with herself.
“Likewise,” Helena stepped forward, smiling uncomfortably as she pushed a strand of hair away from her face.
Silas took him by the arm. “You came to see me about something?”
“Oh! Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.”
“Good, then let us adjourn to the study.” He pulled his friend quite firmly out of the room, not before hissing at Amelia, “I’ll speak with you later.”