Chapter 16 #2
Darcy’s breath caught. There it was, the full force of the rake beneath the elegant gentleman. He spoke of pleasure without the slightest embarrassment, with an ease born of experience that made her acutely aware of her own lack of it.
“And when the need became stronger?” he asked. “When you could no longer pretend mere curiosity drove your hand?”
Her pulse beat fiercely beneath her skin. The heat she had carried into Aphrodite seemed to gather again, made sharper by the knowledge that he understood precisely the frustration that had brought her here.
Sebastian watched her closely. “Did you think of my hands upon you? My mouth? Did you imagine how differently I might have touched you?”
Dear God.
His alluring debauchery was quite without mercy.
Darcy stared at him, caught somewhere between mortification and a desire so fierce it made retreat seem impossible. Then she shifted closer. Before she could reconsider the extraordinary boldness of what she was doing, she placed one finger beneath his chin.
Slowly, deliberately, Darcy lifted, tilting his face toward hers.
“And if I did?” she asked softly. “What if, when I glided my fingers over my belly, it was the phantom caress of your fingers I felt? What if I imagined your mouth upon my pussy, giving me the pleasure I have painted and witnessed, yet have been unable to find for myself?”
He stilled for a fleeting instant, and though the lapse was slight, it was enough for her to perceive the subtle fracture in his composure.
“Why have you come tonight, if not to talk or paint?” he asked, his voice rougher now.
Darcy drew in a breath, the truth slipping free before she could temper it. “I could not sleep,” she admitted softly. “There is a restlessness within me that would not be quieted, and I believed you might know how to silence it. Was I mistaken?”
Something dark and intent settled into his expression, and without another word, he closed his hand around hers, his hold firm with quiet, deliberate purpose.
He led her through the crush of bodies, through the echo of music and laughter, and out into the night air beyond.
The terrace lay open and dimly lit. He did not stop there, but continued down the steps into the shadowed gardens as the music and laughter faded behind them.
Darcy’s breath quickened as the world narrowed to the heat of his hand and the pull of something she no longer possessed the will to resist. He stopped at last, turning to her.
For a moment, neither spoke. The night pressed close around them.
A quarter moon hovered in the sky, its slender light offering little relief from the darkness that cloaked the gardens and drew them into its quiet concealment.
And in that quiet, charged stillness, everything between them felt dangerously, irrevocably changed.
A recklessness, perilously close to ruin, surged through her, and yet she felt no desire to flee. The moment carried the intoxicating sense of something stolen, something that belonged solely to her, and for once she wished to indulge in it simply for herself.
She felt the hard beat of her heart against her ribs and the damp evening air upon her skin, but most of all she felt Sebastian, the overwhelming presence of him standing so near she could see the pulse beating in his throat.
His eyes, dark blue and unreadable, searched her face as if seeking permission, seeking the words she could not bring herself to speak.
Darcy showed him instead, moving with sudden, unrestrained intent as her hands fisted in his jacket and she pressed her mouth to his.
There was nothing gentle or coyly hesitant in it.
This was hunger, pure and unvarnished, a wanton desperation that had been building since the first moment she laid eyes upon him.
Her lips parted beneath his, her tongue sweeping into his mouth with a boldness that shocked even herself.
He groaned against her, a low, guttural sound that vibrated through her entire body, and his hands came up to grip her waist, pulling her flush against him.
The kiss was wild, frantic, a tangle of breath and teeth and tongue.
She tasted the faint trace of brandy upon his lips, felt the scrape of his evening stubble against her chin, and it only inflamed her further.
When they finally broke apart, gasping for air, his forehead rested against hers, his breath coming as ragged as her own.
“Take whatever you want from me, Red,” he rasped, her name a prayer and a plea on his lips.
“I wish to feel wild and free, truly unburdened,” she whispered, her voice steady with quiet resolve. “I want no noise in my head and no restless thoughts to trouble me. I wish to be so thoroughly spent that sleep claims me without dreams because, for once, I am content. Is that so selfish?”
“No.”
He took her hand and led her deeper into the garden, past the manicured hedges to a secluded alcove where a stone bench sat half-hidden beneath a tangle of climbing jasmine.
The scent of the white blossoms hung heavy in the air, sweet and intoxicating.
He sat down upon the cool stone, looking up at her with an expression of such raw desire that it stole her breath.
“Come here,” he said, his voice low and rough.
He reached for her, guiding her to stand before him.
His hands found the hem of her gown, pushing the layers of silk and muslin upward until they bunched around her hips.
She stepped closer, and he helped her swing one leg over his thighs, then the other, until she was straddling him, the soft cradle of her sex pressed against the rigid length of him through their clothing.
She gasped at the contact, even through the layers of fabric.
The position was scandalous, utterly improper, and she had never felt more daring and wicked in her life.
Darcy could feel the heat of him beneath her, feel the evidence of his desire straining against her.
He looked up at her, his eyes dark with promise.
“Have you any idea,” he murmured, his hands sliding up her thighs, pushing her gown higher, “how many nights I have dreamed of this? Of fucking you like this?
The word was obscene, and she knew it. Yet she had spent enough hours in Aphrodite’s shadowed halls, studying frank depictions of desire, to understand its power. From his lips, low, rough, and almost reverent, it lost none of its obscenity; instead, it acquired something far more dangerous.
Fucking.
The images that sprang to mind were carnal, yes, but laced with a tenderness that made her chest ache.
“Show me,” she breathed, thrilled that her presence had haunted him as well.
“Show me what you dreamed.” Darcy pressed two gloved fingers over his mouth, silencing whatever protest or promise he had been about to utter.
“Whether it is fucking,” she breathed, the word a wicked caress against her own fingers, “or tupping, or loving me…” She held his gaze, unflinching, her voice dropping to something raw and certain.
“I want it all, and only with you. I know it is extraordinarily reckless, but it is what I want.”
His hands found the ties of her drawers, loosening them with deft, impatient fingers.
The garments fell away, and then there was nothing between her bare flesh and the cool night air—nothing but his hands, burning hot against her skin.
Sebastian gripped her hips and rose from the bench, bringing her up with him.
Darcy instinctively tightened her hold upon his shoulders until he set her carefully upon her feet.
For a moment, he kept her there before him, his hands still firm at her waist, their bodies close enough that she remained acutely conscious of his warmth.
Then he released her and shrugged out of his coat. Darcy watched as he spread it across the stone beside the bench, understanding his intention even as anticipation began to gather low within her once more.
Sebastian straightened and held out his hand.
She placed hers in it.
His fingers closed around hers, and with his other hand settling at her waist, he guided her down onto the coat with an unhurried care that seemed strangely at odds with the hunger she had felt in him only moments before. Yet somehow, that very restraint made her pulse quicken all the more.
Before she could form a question, he was on his knees before her, pushing her thighs apart with an urgency that left no room for modesty.
“Spread for me,” he commanded, his voice low and rough, stripped of all pretenses. “Wider. Let me see all of you.”
The words hovered on her lips, a confession that she had never done this before, had never been with a man.
She could feel the raw, urgent weight of his desire pressing against her, and it terrified her that she might not know how to answer it.
Darcy knew that if she spoke now, she might shatter this fragile, wicked magic between them.
She obeyed, her legs falling open, her most intimate flesh bared to the night air and his ravenous gaze.
The cool stone bit into her skin, but she felt nothing but the burning heat of his eyes upon her, the way his breath ghosted hot against her slick, swollen folds.
She was utterly exposed, utterly his, and the power of it made her tremble.
“Please,” she whispered, not even knowing what she begged for. “I ache, Sebastian. So much.”
His hands gripped the soft flesh of her inner thighs, pushing them even wider, and then his mouth descended upon her sex like a man starved.
His lips parted the soft, slick folds of her pussy, and the sensation was so intense, so utterly foreign and exquisite, that Darcy cried out, her hands flying to his shoulders for support.
His tongue lapped at her, broad and warm, tasting her with an unhurried reverence that made her tremble.