Chapter Nineteen
T essa felt a rush of pleasure consume her as Chase’s lips plundered hers. Greedy and gentle in turns, inexorably both seeking and cajoling, his kiss left her mind reeling and her body aching for more. She knew now the kinds of pleasure he could give her, and she wanted all of them—and more. She wanted to bring the same pleasures to him, and tonight, she wouldn’t let anything stop them.
She tugged at his neck cloth to free it, yet only succeeded in tightening the knots even more. A frustrated whimper rose from her lips.
“Shh,” he mumbled soothingly against her lips. “Take your time. We have all night.”
She buried her face against the knotted cloth, feeling embarrassed in front of him for the first time. “But I’m doing it wrong.”
“You can’t do anything wrong,” he encouraged, “as long as you enjoy yourself.”
He’d been a soldier, a mercenary, a duke since a child…never a saint. Women surely threw themselves at him all the time, and he surely accepted at least some—if not most—of those advances. He knew more about how to pleasure a woman than she could ever imagine; even his kisses were proof of how skilled he was. But she knew practically nothing about how to please a man. What little bits of information she’d picked up from eavesdropping on servants and officers’ wives seemed overwhelmingly miniscule in comparison, and she feared she would embarrass herself with her inexperience.
She countered, “I don’t believe that.”
A deep chuckle reverberated from his chest, and he slid his hands up to her hair to carefully unpin it. He tossed the pins onto the washstand and ran his fingers through her locks, brushing it down her back and across her shoulders. He stared darkly down at her as he took her long hair in his hands and tickled its silky ends over her breasts, turning her nipples hard and aching.
“Then I’ll teach you.” He let her tresses slip free of his fingers, and his hands caressed her, warming her bare flesh and stirring a heavy ache in her breasts that made her arch toward him. “How shall we begin, hmm?”
She bit her bottom lip and sneaked a glance toward the bed. They would end up there, she knew, perhaps sooner than—
“That’s a good place to start.”
Her eyes flew open wide as he lifted her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and placed her on the mattress, following down after her with a heady kiss that launched the butterflies in her belly into a cloud of flight.
“If you say no, at any point tonight,” he rasped against her ear, each hot breath sending a tremble through her, “I’ll stop. Immediately. Understand?”
The last thing she wanted was for him to stop because she needed the solace of his embrace as much as he needed hers, yet she gave a jerking nod. “Yes.” She rose up to kiss him with an intensity that matched his. The single word wasn’t one of understanding but permission. And raw need. “Yes.”
He reached down to remove her shoes and drop them to the floor. She wore only her stockings now, held up by lace garters at her knees. But when she wiggled her hand down to untie them, he stopped her.
“Lesson one,” he told her as he brought her hand to his mouth and sucked lightly at her fingertips, “sometimes leaving pieces of clothing on is more provocative than being completely naked.”
“I don’t believe that either.”
He flashed her a mischievous grin. “Then I’ll prove it.”
He slid down her front with his lips trailing open-mouthed kisses along her body as he went. He paused to suckle at her nipples and roll them between his teeth until they puckered against his tongue. When he released her nipple with a soft pop of his lips to continue his journey down her body, she grabbed for his shoulders and nearly begged him to return to her breasts, not yet ready for him to move on and still craving the sinful feeling of his lips on her flesh—only for an aching rush of heat to spill through her when his mouth moved lower toward the pulsing ache between her legs.
She tensed and held her breath, hoping he would kiss her right there , where she was already feeling hot and damp, just as he had in the garden. The memory of that night still made her tremble from the pleasures he’d given her.
But he lifted his mouth before his lips reached her feminine curls, and when he placed his mouth back on her, it was on her leg, right where her garter encircled her lower thigh. And then, not even his lips but his tongue, sliding under the lace garter to delve beneath her stocking in a kiss so sensual, so wicked, her toes curled. Oh, he was right. The devilish kisses he gave her were made even more erotic by having the stockings covering her legs, and when he stroked his palm along her calf, a ragged sigh of pleasure fell from her.
“But I have to admit,” he confessed as he lifted her leg until he slipped it over his shoulder and nipped his teeth playfully at the back of her knee, “that sometimes, bare flesh is even better.”
He dipped his head between her thighs and captured her beneath his mouth.
“Chase,” she moaned. Her fingers sank into his shoulders, not to stop him but to hang on for dear life as his mouth plundered her feminine folds the same way he had kissed her lips only moments before, as if he could lose himself in her and somehow drive away the past, if only for the night. She held no illusions about what would come in the ensuing days and weeks, no empty fantasies or hopes that he might remain in England…that she might be able to remain with him.
But for right now, he was hers, and she would allow them these few precious hours of mutual pleasure and escape. So she reached down to comb her trembling fingers through the soft hair at his temple in silent encouragement and opened her legs wider.
Bliss…that’s the only way she could describe the feel of his mouth on her in this most intimate of kisses, his warm breath tickling against her curls, and the wet slide of his tongue along her seam. It delved wantonly deeper with every stroke until he plunged inside her. Her body tightened around his in sweet anticipation of release, her leg clamping down over his shoulder and her hands squeezing at his head to press him even harder against her, even deeper. The most wicked act she’d ever committed…and the most divine.
“Lesson two,” he whispered, his hot breath tickling over her wetness, “let go.”
Let go? Impossible. Even now, she felt compelled to writhe beneath him to bring his mouth even harder against her, to grasp his hair even tighter in her hands, to resist the urge to slam her thighs closed against his shoulders.
“Let go, Tessa,” he cajoled and closed his lips around the aching point buried in her folds, the center of her need.
A frustrated whimper tore from her. “I can’t let—”
He sucked, and the pull of his lips caused her hips to buck beneath him.
“Chase!” But his hands on her inner thighs kept her pinned to the mattress and her body spread open wide. His lips closed around her and sucked again, this time stronger and longer than before.
Electricity shot through her, from that aching spot beneath his mouth out to the ends of her fingers and toes, and when it receded, in its place came a torturous pleasure that simply undid her. She knew what he had meant now as all her muscles clenched, then instantly… let go . A wave of physical joy crashed over her so intensely that a low cry left her lips, and the pulsating ache he’d stirred inside her to the point of breaking turned into the lapping of wondrous waves that seemed to flow in time with the pounding of her racing heart. Her body melted into the mattress beneath her, and her hands at his head fell away, able to do nothing more than give a faint caress to his temple so her heart could express what her lips couldn’t.
She felt the loss of his body as he shifted off the bed, and she looked up at him through the darkness, watching as he quickly removed his clothes. He stood by the bedside not nearly long enough for her to look her fill of him before joining her again on the bed. She almost demanded he stand back up just so she could satisfy her curiosity at seeing her first naked man. But the intoxicating feel of his warm, hard body sliding over hers and the delicious weight of him pushing down gently over her drove away all thoughts of physically parting from him from her desire-fogged mind.
He settled into the cradle of her hips and reached between them to guide the tip of his hard length against her. Holding himself there, he laced his fingers through hers and lifted her arms to pin them against the mattress over her head.
“Lesson three,” he murmured, his eyes locking with hers, “hang on tight.”
Then he lowered his hips and plunged inside her.
Tessa gasped at being filled so completely. The sensation of having that large part of him inside her overwhelmed her, forcing her to do exactly as he said and clasp her fingers tightly in his. But only for a moment, only until he began to move slowly inside her in a smooth, tantalizing rhythm of gentle advances and retreats that soon banished all lingering discomfort and unease. Her body adjusted to his, and she relaxed beneath him with a shuddering sigh.
She slipped her hands away from his to run them over his back and thrilled to feel the flex and strain of his sinewy muscles beneath her seeking fingers, the long stretch of spine, his smooth buttocks. Oh, the feel of him was simply delicious! Warm, soft skin stretched over hard planes, a dusting of dark hair on his chest tickled at her nipples and inexplicably excited her beyond measure, and his hard thighs worked against hers as he continued the relentless motions of plunging, swirling, and retreating. When she captured his buttocks in her palms and gave a wanton squeeze, he groaned into her mouth.
Halting his rhythmic thrusts, he reached down to grasp her hands and push them back up his body.
“But you said…I couldn’t do…anything wrong,” she reminded him as she tore her mouth away from his to pant back her breath.
“That wasn’t wrong,” he corrected as he leaned onto one forearm to free his hand to play with her breasts, as if reassuring her of his words. “It was far too right.”
That made no sense whatsoever. But she couldn’t dwell on his illogic for long because he’d lowered his head to capture her nipple between his lips and suck in time to the rise and all of his hips against hers. The tension mounting from low in her belly and knotting at the small of her back threatened to consume her, and she felt compelled to move to ease it, giving her hips a little wiggle that drew a rumble of protest from him.
Once again, she felt as if she had done something wrong. “I don’t like this lesson,” she complained as she wrapped her legs around his back and her arms around his shoulders to bring his full weight deliciously down on top of her again. “I don’t want to hang on anymore.” Her lips found his ear, and she rasped out in a throaty breath, “I want to let go again, and this time, I want you to join me.”
“We will.” He flashed her a devilish grin and placed a hard kiss to her mouth. “I promise.”
Instantly, the rhythm they had created changed. No more plunging swirls and playful retreats. Now Chase began to move in powerful, hard thrusts that sank deeper inside her than before, and the swirling of his hips was replaced by a grinding of his pelvis against hers, against that very spot where his lips had brought her such pleasure. Each push of his body against hers flared heat through her and threatened once more to steal her breath away. Her body craved his, and all the little muscles inside her instinctively tightened around his hard length, as if she could somehow bring him even deeper, as if she could keep him there forever.
He wiggled his hand between their bellies, down to the spot where his body joined with hers, all the while persisting to thrust into her. His fingers delved into her folds and touched the place which at that moment was the center of her existence, rubbed against her, hard—
She broke with a passionate cry that rose up from the back of her throat like a primal scream, and his mouth captured hers to drink in the sound. Her body tightened around his, her thighs clamping around his waist like a vise and her arms gripping his neck as dark spots danced before her eyes. She arched against the mattress and pushed her hips up to meet his as flames poured through her, searing her from within and laying waste to her senses as the wave of pleasure rolled over her. This wasn’t at all the same pleasure as before—the moments of bliss he’d given her before were nothing compared to this overwhelming sensation of pure and utter joy.
His arms wrapped around her and held her tightly against him as he continued to move inside her, riding her release to bring them both as much pleasure as possible. Suddenly, he lifted his weight from her just enough to slip from her tight warmth, then lowered against her again, pressing his hard length between them. The muscles in his back flexed beneath her fingertips, his buttocks squeezed, his thighs clenched hard—his length jerked against her belly, and he shuddered violently as a liquid heat spilled between them. He held himself still for just a moment before collapsing onto the mattress beside her, utterly spent.
For a long while, he didn’t move except to gasp back his breath. Then he rolled onto his back and pulled her against him, tucking her protectively into the hollow between his chest and shoulder. No words came from either of them as they lay together, sharing the gradual slowing of their pounding heartbeats and their steadying breaths, their bodies entangled in the darkness. Dawn was still several hours away, and a new, terrible day awaited them. But for now, cocooned together in the shadows with only the sound of the falling rain to muffle the beating of their hearts, they had each other to provide comfort.
When he gently kissed her and let his mouth linger against her lips, what she felt in that silent gesture wasn’t gratitude or amity, not a request for the absolution she had been so certain he had sought in her. It wasn’t even fondness, although she knew from the gentle way his hand caressed the side of her body that he felt the same affectionate connection between them that she did.
No…his kiss tasted of acceptance.
Since the day he left three years ago, she had worried about him and the man he had become, afraid he would never again find his way home.
But now, finally, the hope she’d hidden away inside her heart for him had begun to find its way back into the light.