Chapter Four #2
He raised his head and kissed her wetly on the mouth. She moaned again. “What injury?” he asked, managing to sound guileless and wicked at once. “You have a beautiful body, Emma Boscastle, and a keen mind. I kept looking at you today during the wedding.”
“Because of my mind or my body?” she whispered wryly, wondering why his confession should scandalize her when what he was doing was far worse. Her nipples stiffened impudently against his mouth. She was practically offering herself, her breasts at least, to his advances.
“Both,” he answered with a fleeting smile. “You appealed to me. That is all I know.”
“You desired me…at the wedding?”
“Yes,” he said, hesitating only slightly. “Does that offend you?”
“In front of witnesses?” Her voice was almost inaudible. The clamoring in her body drowned out everything else, the measure of her breath, the deep ticking of her pulses.
He was taking soft, sensual bites of her breasts, and she seemed unable to discourage him. Thick warm fluid lubricated the folds of her sex. She could only imagine what it would feel like for his agile swordsman’s hand to touch her there, to penetrate her aching recesses.
“It’s too much,” she said in a raw voice, her spine bowing.
“I have to be honest,” he murmured, “it’s not enough for me.”
She swallowed. “There is such a thing as being too honest. Certain thoughts shouldn’t be expressed.”
He appeared to ponder this, but obviously at no great concern, for his attention soon returned to kissing her throat and nibbling tenderly at her breasts again. “I disagree,” he said in a low disarming voice. “We are both of us past the age of indecision—and both of us have made love before.”
“Certainly not with each other.”
“Isn’t that what makes this all the more tempting?” he challenged quietly.
Tempting.
“I’m a widow,” she whispered. “That part of my life is over.”
“You’re a woman, Emma. That won’t ever change.”
She felt a bittersweet little twist of acknowledgment, of longing. “It has.”
“I do not remember ever being this attracted to a woman before,” he said thickly.
His hand drifted from her hip to the hollow between her thighs. She bit back a sob. His touch, or lack of it, was torture. Her cleft pulsed in silent need. She dared not move.
She glanced down, realizing her legs were bare, and her gown was bunched around her hips. How different they were. How carelessly this man sinned while she diligently pounded sin with her bare fists back into the gutter where it belonged.
In fact, she could imagine her students’ exclamations of wicked glee if they could see her now. Emma Boscastle in bed with a dashing aristocrat, having merrily abandoned all the principles that not only the academy represented but those she had made personal sacrifices to uphold.
“I am at your mercy, madam,” he said unexpectedly into the lengthening silence.
She gazed up at his beautiful face with cynical resolve. “At my mercy?” she asked faintly.
“I think I’ve lost my senses,” he whispered, his voice penitent.
“Well, you certainly won’t find them under my gown.”
He laughed and slid his large arms around her waist. “Emma, oh, Emma. I’m dying of desire for you. Why do you have to be a Boscastle?”
“I’ve asked myself that same question on many occasions.”
He slid his hand up her belly to her neck and undid the buttons of her gown. Her soft white breasts swelled, the pink rims peeping above the silk.
“Very nice,” he murmured. “And what about down here? All delicious and tender, too?”
She swallowed thickly as his hand wandered down into the warm hollow between her thighs. “Oh, Emma,” he said, briefly closing his eyes, “you’re so wet, darling. Let me bring you off.”
“Bring me—” A blush of shame rose to her skin. Her woman’s place softened, opened moistly at his invitation. She made no move to stop him.
“You need it.” His scarred knuckles drifted over her mons to the engorged folds beneath. Her inner muscles melted, awaiting his touch. “Don’t you?” he murmured.
She closed her eyes against the temptation burning deep in her belly.
He bent his head and licked tenderly across the tops of her breasts. Her face heated, and the heat spread, meeting the fire in her belly.
“I can’t—” Her voice broke.
“Hush. I’ll take care of everything.” His thumb glided across her tender nipples, back and forth, until the pleasure-pain made her tremble. He shifted closer. His erection throbbed through his long cambric drawers and dressing robe against her bare thick belly.
“Why am I allowing this?” she asked with a helpless groan.
One long calloused finger pressed into her pulsing cleft. “Because your body is asking for it. Dear Emma, am I welcome here?”
He kissed her as she struggled to answer.
He tangled his thumb in the soft tuft of hair that crowned her cleft.
Slowly he inserted two more fingers into her crevice, flexing and unflexing them inside her.
She gasped. Sighing in pleasure, he removed his hand and lifted it above her shoulder.
Her pearly essence glistened enticingly on his knuckles.
She heard him growl his approval deep in his throat.
He kissed her forehead. “Tell me,” he said huskily. “How long has it been since a man has entered your body? Since you touched yourself?”
Her eyes flew open. “You impertinent man.”
He grinned, the cleft in his chin deepening. “We’ll deal with my impertinence later, shall we? For now we have to take care of you.”
She squirmed. He laid his other hand flat on her belly, imprisoning her.
His eyes fastened to her face, he gently pinched her hidden bud between his fingers until it tautened and her hips bucked.
His gaze darkening, he forced his three fingers back inside her tight, aching passage. She felt exposed, vulnerable, ripe.
She shook her head. In denial? Delight? Perhaps both.
He kissed her again, his tongue ravishing her mouth, absorbing her soft moans.
His hard thigh pressed against her flank.
She put her hand on his powerful forearm.
He raised up slightly, his shoulder muscles corded with strength.
He was as sexual and beautiful, and as unprincipled, as an ancient god.
In a moment she would put him in his place.
But now, ah, now. She stared up at his gorgeous face. The heat in his eyes sent a current of sexual awareness down her spine. So uninhibited. So male.
Somewhere outside she heard the clatter of carriage wheels and hooves upon the cobbles. She lifted her hand to the back of his sun-burnished neck. She felt his muscles tighten at her hesitant touch. His breathing deepened. His shaft thickened against her thigh as he drew his body against hers.
He rotated her hooded bud again. The pleasure in her body intensified. Hot. Tight. Forbidden. All the while he watched her, understanding her every weakness.
Her brother’s home.
Her school.
A practical stranger.
Viscountess Lyons being ravished by a man she’d only known for hours. His large, warm hand wandered in a caress over her breasts. His agile fingers worked her, thrust between her plump wet lips. In and out. Warm blood swirled in a pool to the aching hollow of her sex.
“Too long,” he whispered. “And now I’m here. When I met you today, when we talked at the wedding, I felt as if we had known each other before.”
“Less than a day,” she whispered.
“No. It did not seem so, at least not to me.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. He was leaning on one elbow now, intensifying the wicked pleasure he gave her. His gaze was riveted to the shadowed juncture of her thighs. Her excitement grew.
Her hips lifted into his hand. She couldn’t control her movements, her need. He exhaled, closed his eyes. “It must have been a long time,” he murmured. “You’re trembling and so very snug inside.”
She could not speak. The warm droplets of moisture that gathered between her thighs betrayed whatever protest she might attempt. How long had it been? Her belly quivered, and a deep pressure built at the base of her spine.
She had never known desire like this.
“Give yourself this one pleasure,” he whispered darkly. “Come alive for me.”
And she did. Her body clenched. She was powerless to stop it.
He held her as she peaked, as her ability to breathe stopped, as instinct stormed her senses.
She fell under his spell. She sobbed, years of subdued desire unchained.
Who was he, this man? What devil’s power did he possess to do this to her?
“Emma.” His deep voice penetrated her bewilderment.
She shuddered. She refused to look at him, awash in pleasured shame and wonder.
“Emma,” he said again, his face pressed to hers. “Are you all right?”
She felt herself slowly return to sanity. Her body pulsed in the aftermath. To her surprise she found herself stroking his hair, the hard planes of his face. Offering him comfort. Who was this man? Who was she? After this day, she did not know.
“When I first saw you at the wedding,” he said, “I—”
She pressed her finger to his lips. “I am a widow, Lord Wolverton. Despite what just happened, that part of my life is over.”
“You didn’t die with your husband,” he said after a long pause.
She lay unmoving for several moments. His eyes were closed. His face rested against hers. “I thought I’d died once,” he said. “God knows I did everything in my power to destroy myself, but I didn’t.”
She felt tears sting her eyes.