Twelve
The room swirled around Georgette in a soft blur. Nathaniel tried manfully to hum, but he was as poor at staying in the same key as she was at playing the pianoforte.
It didn’t matter. It seemed she could almost hear the tune he was attempting to hum played instead on shimmering strings.
The gentle swish of her skirts. The warm glide of muscles moving together. The heat of Nathaniel’s gaze as he looked down at her.
Georgette was no longer capable of coherent thought. All she could do was register impressions in disjointed images of the ballroom and their place in it. Her body was flush against Nathaniel’s as they turned and dipped in perfect concert.
She was born to waltz with this man.
And it didn’t feel at all lewd. It felt natural. Meant to be, somehow.
Wonderful.
Then the tempo slowed and Nathaniel raised her hand to signal a final underarm turn.
She twirled slowly back into a close hold position as they came to a stop.
Her skirts continued to turn for a moment, brushing against her pantalets in a silk-on-silk caress.
Then the fabric swirled back into the stately column her modiste had meant for it to resemble.
Nathaniel didn’t move. He simply went on holding her with one arm around her waist and the other sheltering her hand against his chest. When he looked down at her, his gaze was strangely hungry. As if he’d like to start nibbling on her around the edges and not stop until he’d consumed her entirely.
I suspect I’d like that.
She ought to say something. Do something.
But that would mean breaking the spell, and who knew when a moment this perfect would ever come again? She couldn’t bear to leave the protected circle of Nathaniel’s arms.
“Georgette,” he said softly, his deep bass resonating through her. The way he said her name gave her the shivers. It was as if he were making love to the syllables. Rolling the bits of her name over his tongue, tasting them, caressing them.
What if he were to do that to the rest of her?
Her chest constricted. She didn’t trust herself to speak, but she raised herself slightly, rocking up on her toes.
“Forgive me,” he said huskily.
She didn’t have time to wonder what he was asking forgiveness for. He closed the distance between their mouths and rational thought fled.
A kiss doesn’t require forgiveness.
It was exactly what she wanted. Needed.
Not that it made any sense, of course. If she were thinking clearly, she really ought to bolt from the room. After all, she was all but promised to the Duke of Cambridge.
But somehow, there was no other way to end her waltz with Nathaniel than this shared breath, this soft, moist joining of their mouths.
So she didn’t protest when he lifted her off her feet and walked her toward the nearest damask-covered wall without breaking off their kiss.
Languid and sensual, it still felt like part of the dance.
He set her down with her back pressed to the wall.
His body moved against hers ever so slightly, his hardness against her softness.
The rhythm was hypnotic and somehow musical, as if the waltz were still going on in the way he rocked against her and she tilted into him. Their kiss deepened as she chased his tongue back into his blessed mouth.
Forgive him, he’d said. For what? He’d given her back her confidence in the ballroom. She’d be able to face Mr. Gooch tomorrow with her head high and her feet in the correct positions at all times.
Nathaniel had also taught her to kiss. At least she wouldn’t go to her wedding night completely ignorant. But if she lived to be one hundred, she’d never experience perfection to match his lips on hers.
He’d waltzed with her. She knew now what it was like to feel a man’s body all tangled up with hers.
She wouldn’t be surprised by the hollow, strangely pleasant ache it caused.
She’d recognize it for what it was and learn to welcome the low drumbeat in her belly, the warmth that pooled between her thighs.
It was as natural as breathing.
It was “the way of a man with a maid” conveyed with more clarity than if her mother had bungled through an attempt to explain matters to her. And it was even more exciting than Madam Charpentier’s flowery, salacious descriptions of sexual congress.
Not that what they were doing was anything remotely like actual sexual congress. If, as the courtesan’s memoirs declared, the kiss was an appetizer, this wicked bit of love play could properly be described as the first course.
Nathaniel kissed her cheeks, her neck, and all along her jawline, leaving flutters of bliss in his wake. Then the wicked man took her earlobe between his lips and sucked.
Oh, what a sinful zing of pleasure arced through her body. It was enough to make her forget she was a maiden. To forget she would eventually go to another man’s arms. To ignore the fact that he was bunching her skirts in his fist and her hem now hovered around her waist—
“Nathaniel,” she said, surprised her voice still worked.
“Mmmm?”
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he moved down along the edge of her bodice and let his lips hover over the peaks of her breasts. He took one into his mouth, though silk and muslin still separated them. Even so, that needy bit of her made her arch her back, the better to be suckled.
The pleasant ache turned demanding. Tyrannical. She’d never wanted for anything in all her life, but she wanted now. Even though she was still a bit fuzzy on what it was exactly that would sooth that terrible ache, Nathaniel surely knew, and he’d be more than willing to give her ease.
She’d thought herself worldly after mastering the kiss. Now she knew sensuality was an ocean. She’d barely dabbled her toes in the shallow end.
His mouth was a drugging elixir. She couldn’t be bothered to care that he was leaving a damp spot on her bodice, so long as he kept suckling her nipple through the fabric. Then his hand moved between their bodies and cupped her sex.
The effect was like heat lightning crackling over her skin, sparking with pleasure. Georgette sucked a quick breath over her teeth. Never in all her life had she imagined anyone would touch her there.
My “nethers,” for pity’s sake. She had never known what to call that part of herself and decided Mercy’s word was as good as anything.
And she’d never known that a touch there would be so shattering.
She felt achy and swollen. When one of his fingers slipped through the slit in the crotch of her pantalets, she realized she was wet too.
Slippery as moss in a well, if the way his fingers glided through her hidden valley was any indication.
He grazed an extra sensitive spot and pleasure radiated in waves from the slick folds between her legs. But the ache didn’t abate one whit. If anything, it throbbed all the harder.
Her knees started to buckle and she might have gone down if not for the way Nathaniel held her. She’d never felt so out of control, as if she were spiraling into a maelstrom with no way out.
This has to stop.
With supreme effort, she cupped his cheeks and pushed him away from her breast.
He lifted his head and met her gaze. His eyes had gone dark, the pupils enlarged so that his irises were simply rings of cobalt around black wells. His breathing was as ragged as hers. He still held her “nethers” in his hand.
She wasn’t thinking very clearly, but something niggled at her brain. He’d asked her forgiveness just before they kissed. It occurred to her that he’d known exactly what he was about to do to her.
Well, he would, wouldn’t he, him being an accomplished rake and all?
It was like the Eden story, only reversed. This time Adam opened Eve’s eyes.
“Nate.” She couldn’t manage more for another three breaths. She struggled with the ache and finally subdued it. “I…forgive…you.”
That made him straighten to his full height, his expression as stricken as if she’d slapped him. Clarity flooded back into her mind and with it fresh resolve. She needed to end this.
Quickly.
“Now I understand why those poor girls in Covent Garden fall into that life.” Georgette gently pushed his hand away and ruffled her skirts till the hem fell to the floor. She still felt exposed as she exhaled shakily. “Please don’t do that to me again.”
Georgette eased around him. Somehow, she walked across the wide open dance floor toward the door.
Her insides clamored for her to look behind her at Nate, but she didn’t dare.
If she did, she might run back to him and tell him she was a goose.
She didn’t mean a word of it and if he’d be pleased to continue to diddle her silly, she’d count it as a personal favor.
She paused when her hand closed over the crystal doorknob. Without turning around, she said, “I know you are a guest in my parents’ house, but you are not my guest. Stay far away from me.”
Just because she forgave him for giving her a forbidden taste of carnal knowledge, it didn’t mean she had to hang around the tree waiting for him to tempt her with another bite of the apple.
***
Gasping, Reuben Darling rolled onto his back. Hundreds of times, he’d imagined what it would be like to take Mercy Atwood to bed. To strip off her clothes and make her his, finally and completely.
His wildest dreams hadn’t come within spitting distance of the real thing.
“Oooh, that was nice,” she cooed.
“Nice? It was bloody incredible!”
She propped herself up on one elbow and grinned down at him. “Ye have a ways to go before ye hit ‘bloody incredible,’ but ‘nice’ isn’t a bad place to start, Mr. Darling. I suspect ye’re going to learn quicker than I thought.”
Some of the golden glow of his heart-pounding release faded a bit and not only because she’d classed their coupling as merely “nice.” He was more upset because she was back to calling him “Mr. Darling.”