Chapter 4 #4
Her words came back to him--I’m not fool enough to marry a rake. Perhaps they were just words. But not sure of her yet, he bit back the impulse to answer her with the truth.
Instead he used what he thought was a compelling argument for seduction.
“And if you don’t let me make love to you?
Will you be content to leave, knowing you won’t see me again .
. . except at those few parties and balls where our paths cross?
” He drew his hand from hers and slid it along her collarbone, then beneath her gown to caress her bare shoulder.
“Will you be content never to have me kiss you, caress you?”
Then he tipped up her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes.
“After tonight, you’ll marry whomever your uncle chooses, won’t you?
And judging from his hopes for you, his choice will be the kind of man to make love timidly in the dark.
Your husband will no doubt burn for you as much as I, but he’ll control his impulses because it would be ungentlemanly to show passion to his lady wife.
Instead, he’ll find a mistress with whom he can express his ‘improper’ desires. ”
He could tell his words wounded her. She tried to turn her face from him, but he wouldn’t let her, tightening his grip on her chin as he went on fiercely, “All the while, you’ll have those same passionate urges, but you’ll suppress them for fear that he’ll think you a wanton.
After a time, you won’t be able to bear it anymore.
Then, like Lady Merryweather, you’ll play the proper woman while finding your pleasures anywhere but in your husband’s bed. ”
“I’d never do that!” she protested, her lips quivering. But he could see the awareness in her eyes. She knew truth when she heard it, even if she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
“After tonight,” he went on relentlessly, “do you think you could live in the kind of marriage your uncle would arrange for you?” He reached behind her back to undo the top buttons of her gown, then slipped her gown off her shoulders to below her breasts.
She still wore her shift, but the cloth was so sheer, she might as well have been naked, for he could see the swells of flesh with their sweet rosy crowns beneath it.
His eyes locked with hers as he filled his hand with one soft, cloth-draped breast, kneading it and stroking her nipple until her eyes grew wild and dark with what he knew was desire.
“Could you forget what it’s like to have a man give you pleasure?” he asked huskily. “Could you live your whole life wondering what it would be like to make love to someone of your own choice, to feel him stroke and caress your whole body?”
He drew her gown down to her waist. Her corset pressed her breasts up high and proud beneath the thin muslin of her shift.
He sucked in a breath. “Could you relinquish this?” he murmured as he fondled them both, thumbing the nipples and watching as her face flushed and she arched back to give him better access.
“And this?” He bent his head to cover one nipple with his mouth, sucking the hard pebble through the cloth until she gasped.
Her fingers against his chest curled into his lawn shirt, clutching it as if for support. “‘Tis no wonder they spin tales about you, my lord,” she choked out as he flicked his tongue over her nipple. “You could seduce a nun.”
The words stung. She thought him a seducer, nothing more.
She thought this was one more conquest to him.
He enfolded her in his arms, his heart beating fiercely with the desire to let her know it wasn’t.
“Perhaps I could, but I only want you.” He gave her a long kiss, burying his tongue in the velvety warmth of her mouth over and over before murmuring hoarsely against her lips, “You want me, too. Don’t deny it. ”
“I-I can’t deny it. I want to. But I can’t.”
The reluctance in her voice sent guilt spiraling through him.
Angry at himself for it, he lowered his head to her neck where he kissed the fragile pale skin, the sloping hollow of her throat.
“Then let me make love to you, Althea. Please. Just this once forget all you’ve been told about what a lady should and shouldn’t do.
” He kissed his way to her ear and ran his tongue around the outside curve, eliciting another moan from her.
“Do what your heart tells you, and it will all come right.”
He pressed forward, forcing her to lie back on the sofa. She made a defeated little sound in the back of her throat, part gasp and part sigh, but when he lowered his mouth to hers once more, she slid her arms about his neck and gave herself up to his kiss, her body relaxing beneath his.
He knew then that he’d won, just as he’d won before, with other less reluctant women. He knew he could take her, and she wouldn’t protest. And yet . . .
What happened next made no sense to him. As if in a trance, he lifted himself off her and stood beside the sofa, fighting the overwhelming desire that surged through him at the sight of her lying there half-clad, her face flushed with pleasure.
“I can’t do this,” he bit out.
Then he turned away.