Chapter 9
Standing there, surrounded by seditious books and treaties on the future and hopes for freedom, it was a strange place to want to be consumed by carnal passion, but the fire in her ignited the fire in him, and Peter could not stop himself.
He slid his hand to her waist. “I could listen to you talk about this for days, for hours, for a lifetime,” he said.
“Could you?” she breathed. “Isn’t there something you’d rather do?”
“Only one thing,” he rumbled, “that I can think of.”
“Oh?” she queried. “And what is that?”
“Taste you,” he said. “Touch you,” he added. “Pleasure you.”
Her cheeks turned a delicious shade of pink, not of embarrassment, but of anticipation.
“In that order?” she asked.
“Quite possibly,” he said.
“Well, let’s see if you can make good on what you’d like to do.” She slipped her hand up to his cravat, then into his hair, and pulled his head down. She all but seized his mouth in a kiss, and God how he loved it. He loved how she knew exactly what she wanted, and how she didn’t hold back.
It was truly the first time in his life in which he felt he had found someone who could ride the storm of this life with him, and not be afraid, not be intimidated, and not grow fed up with him.
Their mouths tangled, hot and almost frantic. Their tongues touched. Their lips caressed. With each kiss, his need for her grew stronger, more intense. He wrapped his arms about her back, pulling her closer, bowing her over so that he could kiss her more deeply.
She let out a cry of bliss and wound her hands about his neck.
For a moment, he thought she might try to climb onto him, wrapping her legs about his waist, but her skirt proved too much for such an endeavor.
Instead, he backed her up to the small table that was meant to bear books for study in the room.
He pressed her up against it, and she grabbed the edge with her hands.
“Hold tight,” he instructed as he took a step away from her.
She dropped her head back, her golden curls spilling around them, caressing the table and the books there.
Peter lowered himself down to his knees and touched the hem of her skirts. Without hesitation, without worrying, because she was as bold as him, as powerful as him, he began to lift her skirts upward.
He dragged her skirts past her stockings, loving the feel of her ankles and her strong calves, calves which had been made powerful from riding and walking. Then he teased his fingers upward, touching the delicate curves behind her knees.
He squeezed her strong thighs, and then he pushed them apart.
As if as eager for him as he was for her, she parted her slippered feet.
Her skirts were full and heavy, but he maneuvered them ever upward, draping them back over the table, and when he gazed at her sex, he let out a low groan of hunger.
“I want it all,” he whispered, and then he gently skimmed his fingertips over the soft skin of her hips, then down to the delicate flesh of her inner thighs.
She shivered, her hips rocking forward, needing him.
He gazed upon her slick folds. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Gently, he traced his fingertips over the petals, spreading the dew of her desire over them.
She trembled, her legs shaking.
He looked up, delighted to see that she was studying him. Now, he smiled slowly, and then he began to stroke. He wanted to see her. He needed to see when he hit that special spot.
It took him a moment, but then he found it.
Her lips parted, her body tensed, and her legs jerked.
Her hips thrust forward, searching for him, and he did not stop circling his fingers over and over until he felt her body on the brink.
And it was only then that he leaned forward and took her into his mouth.
He kissed her, then teased with his tongue, devouring here until, at last, she peaked.
Ruby let out a cry she muffled with the back of her hand.
And he tasted her desire as she rippled over and over again.
He slowly stood and lowered her skirts. He studied her pleasured face.
“I want to do that again,” she whispered.
“Already?” he asked, loving her zest for life.
“I don’t know if I could take it again right now,” she admitted, “but I want to know you over and over.”
He stroked her cheek. “I think that can be arranged.”
The sound of coughing came from the library. Loud. Very loud coughing.
Was someone about to die?
“Have you seen that book I was looking for?” someone called.
They tensed against each other, clinging hard and fast. Ruby stifled a laugh against his linen-covered chest.
“Are we about to get caught and forced to wed?” he whispered against her ear.
“I do hope not,” she said.
Though the truth was a voice whispered inside him that he wouldn’t mind marrying her. Not at all. Despite what he might have said to the Duke of Windbourne. Sometimes what one said and what one felt and did were very different things.
“Oh yes,” another man called. “I do think this is it, Your Grace.”
The Duke of Rivers.
That was the voice he knew.
“Very clever,” the duke replied to someone who seemed to be a servant.
And the voices departed back out to the hall.
“I think we should go,” he said. “I’ll go first and make sure the way is clear.”
She nodded.
He hated to leave her, but he had to. So he slipped out of the small room, stunned by the way his heart was beating. Stunned by how alive he felt. By how suddenly all the years before this, no matter how fast they had gone, felt hollow.
Ruby was changing everything. It was unpredictable. It was wonderful. And he felt like it could all rattle apart at any moment.