Chapter 12
Rhys had all the permission he needed.
He could kiss Tilly beneath this magical, snowy sky.
In this moment, and every moment since he’d kissed her, it was all he wanted.
Except something sat inside him at an odd angle—and he couldn’t quite lay his finger on it.
It was located somewhere in those words…
Would you like to kiss me?
Her head tipped back, her soft lips parted, she reached up and caressed the side of his face, her hand warm through her kid gloves—and his misgivings fell away. He took her heart-shaped face in his hands and pressed his mouth to hers—warm and soft against the chill of night edged with sharpness.
During and after their kiss last night, he’d thought it and her perfect.
Now, as his tongue grazed across her bottom lip…his next breath inhaling her delicate sigh, it was confirmed.
He couldn’t explain what precisely set it apart.
For this wasn’t merely about kissing a beautiful woman.
Or merely about kissing a desirable woman.
Or merely about kissing a woman in the interest of progressing the kiss all the way to her bed.
Not merely, because he supposed it was those things, too, if he was being honest.
The perfection of last night’s kiss and of this kiss lay deeper—and it held a mystery.
The sort of mystery a man could spend a lifetime exploring.
Without realizing, instinctively he’d walked her backwards until she was pressed against a tree. Every one of his senses felt lit alive.
Something else, too—hunger.
Of a sudden, he was ravenous for this woman.
Inquisitive hands slipped beneath his greatcoat, brushing across his chest, then his stomach. An appreciative laugh escaped her, and she shifted back a degree, meeting his eye, a little smile curving her mouth. “My, Lord Rhys, what muscles you have beneath your clothes.”
Lower, her hands slipped—to his hard and ready cock. Her hand grazed across his hot length that threatened to spend at any moment.
He groaned.
And it wasn’t just any groan, but long and rasped and animal…full of ache and desperation.
A year, it had been, since he’d had the touch of a woman.
But the desperation ran deeper.
Somehow, he’d gone his entire life without the touch of Tilly.
His mouth again claimed hers with a slow, deep kiss—and again she brushed curious fingers along his cock.
And again, he groaned.
She smiled against his mouth. “You like that, don’t you?”
His eyes slid open. A vertical line formed on his brow.
There.
Again, it stole through him—the same sense of misgiving from when she’d asked, “Would you like to kiss me?”
A little nervous laugh escaped her. “It’s been a while, but isn’t that what men like?”
“What men like?” At last, he was able to grasp what was tickling at the back of his mind. “But Tilly?”
“Yeah?”
“What about what you like?”
She blinked.
And, at last, he understood how to proceed with her.
“Last night…” he said, low. It was that desperation making his voice gravelly.
“I seem to recall you liked this.” He traced a finger lightly along the sensitive skin of her neck.
“And if you liked that, then perhaps you’ll like this.
” His mouth followed the trail of his finger along that creamy column, his other hand untying the closure of her cloak.
“Do you like that, Tilly?” he murmured against her.
“Oh, yes,” she exhaled, her head angling to grant him greater access.
Cloak fallen open, his gaze arrested on her décolletage.
His mouth went dry. Oh, Tilly’s glorious breasts.
They were the stuff of myth, so perfect they were.
His finger trailed down that deep valley, his mouth following.
One practiced tug of her bodice, and there they were, nipples peaked beneath the gossamer muslin of her chemise.
He licked, then sucked a hard pink nip into his mouth through the fabric, his tongue swirling around the nub that had gone as hard as a cherry pit, dragging a low moan from Tilly.
Full and heavy were these breasts of Tilly’s. He had large hands, but they weren’t nearly up to the task of containing her.
Then her breasts weren’t enough.
He needed to taste other parts of her.
Desperation had him on his knees…meeting her gaze as he lifted her skirts…his eyes asking permission…her eyes granting it.
Perhaps it was that rake blood yet roaring through his veins.
Blood still het up from the feel of the dice in his hand…driving him…spurring him on…
That hot, wrong feel of vice ripping through him.
But he didn’t think so.
In fact, he knew it wasn’t.
It was Tilly.
And Tilly wasn’t wrong.
She was everything that was right.
He shifted forward, ducking beneath her skirts, immediately surrounded by warmth and the scent of Tilly…the heady scent of her sex. Unable not to, he inhaled deeply, those elements of her rushing through him straight to his cock, which throbbed…which ached.
He lifted her leg and at the line where her wool stockings ended, he began a trail with his mouth and tongue along that sensitive skin. A tremor quaked through her, he could feel it—the desire…the longing…the anticipation…the desperation…
He touched his tongue to her.
She gasped—then melted against him.
Oh, she liked that.
He didn’t have to ask.
Slowly, deliberately, as if he had all the time in the world, he slid his tongue along her slit and produced a most gratifying little mewl of pleasure and frustration from her.
His blood blazed into a conflagration—lit by this…lit by her.
He entered her with one finger, as his tongue concentrated on the sensitive nub of her sex.
Her body was now beyond melted. It had gone molten, as his tongue flicked against her, his finger sliding in and out of her.
What a sweet, delicate cunny Tilly had—slick and swollen with desire and need.
And though she’d gone molten, he sensed the moment a specific tension entered her.
Release had started teasing, and she’d begun reaching for it.
He pushed his finger deeper, increasing the rhythm of his tongue. She was close…so close…
On a sharp gasp, the breath caught in her lungs, and she went tense.
With few more flicks of his tongue, release seized her and she was crying out and her quim was pulsing against his mouth, around his finger, as he stayed with her through the end of her climax, his own breath gone ragged, the blood stirred in his veins.
He angled back, releasing her leg and allowing her skirts to fall.
Her breath was coming hard in evaporating white puffs, her eyes closed.
Oh, but she was a vision of molten, sated femininity.
And he wanted more of her.
Giving her pleasure—bringing her to release—satisfied one hunger within him only to awaken another.
Her eyes fluttered open and found his. “Do you want me to reciprocate?”
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that.
He pushed off the ground and came to his feet. “That was about you.”
The words came at a price—the severe displeasure of his cock.
Her head canted, a smile curled one side of kiss-crushed lips he wanted nothing more than to taste again. “You were pretty good at being a rake, I reckon.”
“I reckon I was.”
She exhaled a nearly soundless laugh.
Except when he’d been a rake, he’d been more concentrated on how he felt than how his partner felt. Oh, he would leave her feeling good—better than good, in fact—but that was all surfaces, wasn’t it?
What he’d done with Tilly was about places deeper than surfaces.
It wasn’t about feeling in one way, but a multitude of ways.
A confusion of ways, if he was being honest.
He was opening his mouth to start in on all this when she said in a near whisper, utterly serious, “That was a first for me.”
Rhys felt his brow furrow. She’d been with other men. He knew that. So, what had been a first about what they’d just done?
As if she could hear his thoughts, she said, “I’ve never—” Her gaze caught on a point over his shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. “Is that…?” Her eyes went wide. “Whitty?”
Rhys twisted around, his gaze searching the avenue beyond their little, magical copse of trees, when it landed on a figure staggering across the open pitch. He supposed it could be…
“Can’t be arsed a whit!” the man shouted to no one in particular.
No disputing the fact.
It was Whitty, all right.
Rhys turned back to Tilly.
“I think we must go and help him,” she said, the voice of reason.
Except Rhys didn’t feel like being helpful or reasonable.
He wanted to stay right here with Tilly.
He wanted to talk about this confusion of feelings rioting through him.
But he’d begun the night with the intention of helping Whitty and now he supposed it was his duty to see it through.
Right.
He turned back to Tilly to find her tying the laces of her cloak.
She looked almost entirely herself.
Almost.
Her lips were yet kiss-swollen…her eyes yet overbright from the pleasure that had washed through her…pleasure that would yet be rippling through her veins…
Pleasure he’d brought her.
“We should get him before he legs it again.”
A smile curved her mouth, which his couldn’t help joining.
Then they were on the move, and in the matter of a minute, they caught up to Whitty, who took one look at them and made to bolt—except, this time, his legs were in no mood to obey.
“Oh, Ossie,” he said mournfully. “Why are you out to prosecute—” His face squinched in confusion. “Prosecute…” He held up a staying finger while he worked through the word he intended, then said, “Pro-se-cute me?”
Rhys took Whitty’s meaning all the same. “I’m not persecuting you, old man.”
“Then why are you chasing me all over town?” Whitty exclaimed.
“Because you keep running.”
“And whose fault is that?”
For a drunken sot, Whitty had him there.
Rhys couldn’t fault the logic.
“If you’ll just come—”
“Wait a minute,” said Whitty. “Have you found…religion, Ossie? Is that what this is all about?”
An interesting question, that.
For, in an instant, Rhys knew exactly what sort of religion he’d found—The Church of Tilly Birdwell.
And he’d become a devout member overnight.
Of course, he couldn’t very well say that.
Whitty’s eyes went wide as saucers, as if he’d heard it, anyway. “You have.” He shook his head, in awe to the wonders this old world wrought. “Lord Rhys Osborne, reformed rake. Never thought I’d live to see it.”
Rhys snorted. “Let’s not get carried away.”
He had yet plenty of unreformed parts of himself carrying on.
Like the unreformed part of himself that had pleasured Tilly’s cunny and ached to do it again.
“All right now, Lord Whitty,” said Tilly, taking a step forward, “we’re going to catch our deaths out here. So, let’s continue this conversation somewhere warm, shall we?”
Whitty’s imploring brown eyes met Rhys’s. “Back to White’s, then?” They shifted to meet Tilly’s. “Brooks’s?”
“My flat,” said Rhys.
Whitty groaned as he allowed Rhys and Tilly to each take an arm. “I thought you would say that. But, by gads, I’ll not have a drop of tea.”
As last stands went, Rhys had heard worse.
Three abreast, they tottered one step forward, then another.
Though their progress weebled and wobbled and, at times, lurched and listed, half an hour later, they found themselves staggering up the steps to Rhys’s first-floor flat on Bennet Street, then once inside, depositing Whitty onto the drawing room sofa.
“I’ll just…” The rest of Whitty’s intention dissolved into a long, deep snore.
Leaving Rhys all but alone with Tilly.
“Tilly,” he began and stopped. His gaze narrowed. “You’re shivering.”
“Oh, it’s noth—”
“And you’re wet.”
“It’s only the snow melted. It’ll dry.”
But those last words were spoken to his back, for he was already on the move. “I’m having a hot bath poured for you.”
“It’s gone midnight,” she protested.
But Rhys was determined.
Tilly was suffering.
All right, suffering might’ve been painting the lily, but she was uncomfortable.
And he wouldn’t have that.
In his life as a rake, he’d made much hay from his attentiveness and gallantry toward the opposite sex.
It was a central tenet of the rules of the game, and he’d been a master.
But that attentiveness and gallantry had been hollow at its core.
It had a single end in mind.
But Tilly…
She wasn’t a game.
And there was nothing hollow in his feelings for her.