Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine (25 page)

“I disagree cordially.” She wriggled under him, “'Tis not the sun, Russ, 'tis you. Against all my efforts, I've fallen in love with you.”

Her words squeezed around his heart and stopped it for a breath. Then it pounded back to life. She was so beautiful, lying there beside him with hay caught in her hair, her eyes heated with longing, her lips parted and dewy pink. He couldn't speak. A sob of unmanly happiness was stuck in his throat.

He checked quickly over his shoulder and saw the lane was empty. The sun drifted down through the treetops, the sky was calm, and the air was thick and still. Resting on his elbow, he looked down at Sophie and longed to understand her, all her thoughts and fears. He grew thick, heavy, and hard at once under her steady strokes.

Her warm gaze wandered over his mouth as it hovered above her. “I'm hungry,” she whispered. “I want to taste you.”

“I'm not your husband yet,” he reminded her.

Her hand cupped his sac. “That didn't stop you tasting
me
, several times.”

“That was different. I was trying to sway your decision.” He grinned briefly. “I had a proud, stubborn wench to win over.”

“So now you won me, you no longer have to try?”

Again he lost his voice as her fingers caressed his hot, swollen crest.

“Shall I stop?” she asked softly.

He moved his hips closer, and her hand closed around his sac again, gently squeezing. Eyes closed, he swallowed another deep groan. “Sophie!”

Now her hand swept up his length again, her fingers wrapped tightly around him, and he exhaled a shuddering breath. She repeated the motion, and he forgot entirely where he was. The dying sun was no match for the feverish heat she conjured with her hands. He throbbed, aching with the need to release and yet not wanting to end it. Every drop of his blood seemed to rush to that one body part. She leaned down, and he felt her exploring tongue, then her soft lips on his crest. He gasped and shuddered. At some point he'd wrapped her braid around his fist, and he clung to it, the muscles in his weight-bearing arm tense with strain. He let her sample him as long as he could, and then he pulled her up. He was too close to spilling. Her eyes were wide open, watching him with interest.

“Aunt Finn is spending tonight with Maria at the rectory,” she whispered. “Chivers and Tuck have gone to celebrate at Merryweather's Tavern by the common, and we have the house to ourselves for several hours at least.”

“What is it you suggest, Miss Valentine?”

“What do you think I suggest, Mr. Kane?”

“I'm almost afraid to say it. Is this how housekeepers generally behave?”

She laughed softly, the sound rippling through her body and into his. “It's how this one behaves. I'm very thorough, Mr. Kane.”

He observed her solemnly, and one hand stroked her hair. “Lucky for me,” he said.

The house was empty and the air filled with scent, for at her request, Tuck had filled every container capable of holding water with those dark, purplish-red wild roses that grew up the garden wall. The blooms were abundant this year and almost covered the grey flint stone.

Before she could protest, Lazarus swept her up and carried her over the threshold, not even losing a single breath.

“It's not our wedding night yet,” she pointed out as he set her down again.

He hesitated then laughed. “It feels as if it is.”

“Yes.” She began removing his shirt, but his rough, square hands came down over hers.

“We shouldn't…”

“But I can't wait. I want you now!”

“Well, you're a bossy little madam, aren't you?” His hands tightened over hers.

“You taught me to express my needs and to stop hiding them,” she reminded him.

His eyes narrowed, but she still felt that smoky heat of the warrior's raw desire on her face. It was almost comical when he tried to be a gentleman, suddenly concerned with propriety.

“Will you remove your own clothes?” she asked sweetly, “or shall I do it for you?”

At last, he relinquished the task to her eager fingers with only one further caution. “We should not. We should wait another three weeks, until the ceremony.”

“Do stop chattering, Kane. It's most distracting.”

He kissed her before the last word was fully out, but this interruption she didn't mind. She felt the drowsy effects of the sun's heat that day and all that heady rose fragrance, and she let him take over, allowed his lips to take possession of hers.

Her fiancé's hands sought the hooks to her gown, earnest in their task but fumbling.

“Let me,” she whispered, and he did. She turned her back to him as she undressed. The only sounds were those of his agitated breath and the low, crackling fire. Her gown crumpled to the floor, and she stepped out of it. She heard the soft, pleading moan of her name on his lips. She felt his hand brush her hair aside and then his eager breath, warm on the nape of her neck as he struggled with her corset laces. Her chemise slowly slid down over her hips, silently joining her discarded gown. She closed her eyes as his arms immediately came around her, those rough-skinned hands that so fascinated her, reaching for her bared breasts. His lips were on her neck, his groin pressed hard against her behind. Not knowing what to do, she laid her head back against his shoulder while his hands moved over her body, exploring and fondling without asking permission. He took freely, knowing what he wanted.

Maria and Lavinia were right; he certainly didn't have the hands of a gentleman. But her feet were on the ground, and there was no inclination to run away or escape. Except into his arms. And his ungentlemanly hands.

“I love you,” he whispered and reached into her heart and soul with his gentle admission.

And she knew how glad she was he'd come to find her, how relieved she was she'd waited.

His tongue licked the scattered pulse at her neck. His hand cupped her breasts, and his teeth nipped her earlobe. She sank against his chest and reached around to feel him, to free him from his breeches. “Let's go upstairs,” she gasped.

He shook his head. “Here will do.” As he sank back into a chair before the low, flickering glow of the fire, he eased her down astride his lap, and then his hands caressed her arms, her back, her hips, and her thighs, continuing the determined exploration. When his fingers moved between her legs, she groaned with joy.

***

Sheer, white-hot pleasure roared through his veins and spun around inside his head. The low purr forming in her throat suggested he pleased her. He could hear and feel the rapid throb of her heart as he nuzzled her firm breasts. He tickled her hardened nipples with his eyelashes and gently rubbed them with his palms. When she tossed her head back, arching her body and offering her breasts to his mouth again, he knew she was about to reach her peak already. Her skin gleamed in the firelight, a gratifying shade of pink. Her nipple was taut and erect, and she wanted his lips on it now, apparently, unless his ears deceived him and she was not, in fact, begging him with breathless desperation to take it. He held back to prolong the pleasure.

“Russ!” she cried out. “Please! I want you.”

He laughed low, cradled her to his lap, and fell forward, slipping from the chair to his knees on the crumpled pile of their clothes. Her skin was pure luxury—satin and silk, so soft it melted in the heat of his body.

“Are you ready, then, Miss Valentine?” Because he was. In one fluid motion, he thrust and fell forward from his knees, covering her mouth with his to halt that shocked gasp. For a moment, they lay still while her heart beat hard and fast against his chest. He was not even completely sheathed yet. Her eyes fluttered open, met his heated gaze, and held it. He began to move, pressing farther with more care, resisting the powerful urge to thrust again, not wanting to hurt her. She was small and very tight but warmly welcoming. Inch by inch, he filled her at last.

***

Sophie thought there must be something wrong. Surely he was too large for her, but he was patient, careful. When her hands rested timidly on his buttocks, she felt them tense with the strain of holding back, so she caressed them and stroked his back, anxious to help. And then when he did thrust, she gasped again in shock, and her body quivered under his.

He withdrew slightly and then immediately reentered, watching her eyes all the time. As he repeated the motion, she learned the rhythm, and her body gave as well as received. It became a slick, pumping motion, the friction causing sparks they both felt, a sensation they couldn't get enough of.

She curled her legs around his hips, and a symphony of startled gasps and moans accompanied his every thrust and withdrawal. The pleasure swam through her blood like a school of tiny fish, darting this way and that, shooting upward toward the sunlight. She was shameless, utterly lost.

***

Lazarus slid his hands under her bottom as wild heat raged through his veins and his limbs, inspiring him with the need for complete and utter possession.

As he felt her trembling at his mercy, the half moons of her fingernails digging into his back, he took her nipple in his mouth and thrust again and again. A few harsh breaths later, he thought his skull must have separated from his brain as a sensation stronger than any he'd ever felt ripped through his tight, rigid body and flooded out of him.

At last, the angel was his, and he was ready to let her take him up, if this is how it must be. But a few minutes later, he was still alive. He opened his eyes and looked down at her flushed cheeks and wet, smiling lips. Her back was still arched, and her full breasts quivered as the last waves of her own pleasure lapped through her. Slowly she raised her lashes and met his gaze.

“That was lovely, Kane. Again, please.”

Even with her legs wrapped around him, and despite the complete abandonment she exhibited only seconds before, she was now a prim, bossy Valentine again.

Still breathing hard, Lazarus gazed down at her and thanked his exceptional good fortune for this very wanton, wayward fallen angel.

***

She woke slowly, keeping her eyes closed and reality at bay until the last possible moment. Aware of a new scent invading her pillow, she tried to think what it might be, and then she remembered. That scent was of another body beside her own, the scent of a man.

Eyelids still not yet raised, she made a careful assessment of her inner workings and her body parts. She finally concluded she was sore and aching, but she would live, surprisingly.

Finally she opened her eyes and discovered his face, two-thirds pressed into the pillow, mouth partially open. His hair was a rumpled mess, some of it sticking directly up in the air. Jet-black eyelashes twitched and fluttered against his cheeks. Even in sleep, he was restless. Of what did he dream this morning? Of her? From the coarse words he mumbled into that pillow, she sincerely hoped not.

But how young he looked while he slept.

He lay above the sheet, sprawled out naked on his front. There was not a scrap of fat on his body. Every part was well used, from the astonishing width of his shoulders, to the narrow waist and slim hips, to the taut buttocks, hard, lean thighs, and full calves. And, of course, there were those parts not visible while he lay on his front—in particular, that part of him put to very good use last night.

So this was what it was all about. This is what it should be like. It was more than she'd ever dreamed, this blissful completion, this loving. She'd never trusted like this, never let herself go as she did now.

She wanted to throw open those shutters and cry her happiness to the wind.

She wanted to touch him again, but it would be unfair, surely, while he slept. All she could do was stretch out beside him and wait.

Or not.

She inched her face along the pillow and blew gently on his eyelids. At least this way, if he woke, she could claim it was an accident.

He stopped cursing in his sleep. His hand, tucked under the pillow, withdrew slightly and then was still.

She dampened her fingertip and carefully drew it across each of his eyebrows, following the relaxed curve. He groaned and mumbled in his sleep again, something about “giving that bleedin' gent a right smackin',” and she hastily took her hand back. She glanced down the length of his prone form to his hip. Perhaps she could just slide her hand under that curve and…

In the next second, she was flat on her back and he was over her, laughing.

“You were fast asleep,” she protested. Her heart pounded madly.

“Never,” he told her. “I'm always alert, even when”—he leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose—“I may not appear to be.”

“I'll bear that in mind.” She gasped as she still hadn't caught her breath. “'Tis a very sneaky trick.”

He grabbed her wrists and held them up over her head. “As long as you behave yourself and I don't catch you up to no good, you've no cause to fear.” A slow grin broke across his lips.

“I am not very good at behaving myself.”

“I noticed.”

He lay with his legs between hers, holding them apart, and she felt the bold, broad head of his erection already poised to enter her again. It pressed at the threshold, throbbed there, taunting her. Apparently that part of him never slept deeply either.

He held his upper body a few inches above hers and asked casually, “Is there something you wanted from me, then, ma'am? I can't help noticing you were eager for my attention this morning.”

She writhed and rubbed her soft, eager womanhood against that hard, male brawn.

“Is that what you want?”

She groaned. Her hands struggled to get free of his grip. She wanted to grasp his buttocks and urge him in, but he held himself taut above her, his muscles tense. And then he kissed her eyelids slowly, one at a time as he laughed throatily. He moved his elbows to resettle his weight. The sheet whispered as his thighs slid farther apart, holding hers open. “I think my fine lady is insatiable.” He shook his head. “What shall I do with her?”

She still couldn't say the word, although she wanted to. Fortunately, he took pity on her. His question was rhetorical when he asked it, and a few seconds later, it was also entirely moot.