A Lady of Persuasion (34 page)

“I want to go home. Immediately.” Bel squeezed her eyes shut to gather her strength, then opened them again. “I want
you,”
she said meaningfully, lifting her free hand to cup his strong, handsome jaw, “to take me home.”

He said nothing. Only sat motionless in the dark, like the chiseled marble likeness of a Roman god. But as she inched closer, Bel thrilled to the evidence that he was very much alive. His breaths came thick and ragged, and his pulse hammered against her hand.

Scooting closer, almost into his lap, she craned her neck to kiss him. “I want you,” she murmured against his lips, kissing him again to silence her moan as his free arm lashed about her waist. Oh, how she needed his hands on her. Needed it more than she needed air. She was mad for him, and she didn’t care what price she would pay tomorrow, or for the rest of her life and beyond. Tonight, she just wanted him.

“I want you to take me home,” she whispered, licking lightly against his ear. “Take me home and make love to me, Toby.”

A few minutes later, they were in the carriage.

It really was a remarkable feat. Toby doubted Isabel could appreciate the amount of strategy, charm, and discreetly exchanged silver required to collapse what was normally a twenty-minute process to less than five. Amazing, what a man could accomplish when his lady lit a fire under him.

Lit a fire
within
him, more like.

Toby was burning for her like he had burned for no woman in his life. The air in the carriage was arid with heat. All his plans for hours of slow, sensual teasing? Evaporated. He wanted her, as soon as he could possibly have her.

And apparently—miraculously—she felt the same.

She gripped his arm, pressing her body to his as the coach lurched into motion. The soft swell of her breast against his biceps was pure, sweet torture.

“How long will it take us to get home?” The throaty pitch of her voice sank straight to his groin.

Toby cleared his throat. “Ten minutes… perhaps fifteen.”

She fell silent, still clutching his arm. He clenched his hands at his sides to keep from mauling her. She had asked him to take her home, after all. Take her home and make love to her properly. Not sweep her off for a crude, sweaty tup in the coach.

Suddenly, she launched herself into his lap, hiking up her red silk skirts to straddle his hips.

The sound of fabric ripping registered in his brain just an instant before his wife’s husky whisper: “I can’t wait that long.”

Oh, thank God
.

Toby scarcely recognized the woman tugging impatiently at his cravat, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, scraping her teeth along his jaw. Was this truly his solemn, saintly wife? She was frenzied with passion and desire. She wanted him, just as desperately as he wanted her.

They were fighting to get closer, kiss deeper, expose more skin to press against hot, damp skin.

They ceased the tussle just long enough to unite against the common enemy of her skirts, hiking yards of silk and petticoats up to her waist until the fabric settled around them in a shimmering cloud. He grasped her hips and pulled her feminine core flush against his aching erection. A fierce groan rose from his chest. Straightening her spine, Isabel rode him eagerly, rocking her hips against his hard length again and again. Even through the layers of his smalls and trousers, she felt warm and soft and absolutely amazing.

So. Damn. Good.

She leaned forward, grasping the seatback behind him for leverage. And now her breasts were thrust in his face with each rolling tilt of her hips. Yes, this passionate, lustful woman was indeed his wife. Toby would know these magnificent breasts anywhere. He pressed his face into her cleavage, inhaling deeply, then stroked over their exposed tops with his tongue.

“Delicious,” he murmured. “You taste of champagne.”

“Yes,” she gasped, straightening in his lap and pulling her bosom out of his tongue’s reach.

His disappointment was short-lived, however, for she grasped her bodice in both hands and eased it downward, aiding the process with erotic, wriggling motions of her shoulders. “Yes, taste them. Touch them.”

Her breasts finally sprang free, in all their bounteous, dark-tipped glory, and Toby thought he would spill in his trousers for the first time since the age of fifteen. He gratefully caressed, lifted, suckled, and she rode him faster, grinding her hips against his in a frantic rhythm.

She gave a little cry, and he knew by the timbre of it that her peak was near. It was tempting to slide a hand between them and stroke her over the edge. Better yet, wrench open his fall and slide into her just at the moment she came. But instead he held back. This time, he didn’t want to bring her to pleasure. He wanted to observe her as she pleasured herself. There was nothing more arousing than the feel of her riding him, the acceleration of her breath against his ear. He allowed her to set her own pace, learn the rhythm and pressure and precise angle that would send her into bliss.

She did it all on her own, his passionate lover, his beautiful wife. But as her climax rocked her, it was
his
name she called.

And that was when Toby knew himself to be the luckiest man on earth.

Isabel was still quivering in his lap and breathing hard against his neck, when the carriage rolled to a halt. He helped her adjust her bodice and skirts as best she could, offering his coat for her modesty as they alighted from the coach. She ducked her head as they entered the house, avoiding the curious gaze of the servants. Toby sent them away with a pointed glance.

“Look at me,” she whispered as they entered the foyer, indicating the wine-stained, bedraggled condition of her gown. “What a state I’m in. Perhaps I should clean up, before …”

“Before?” he prompted, a grin spreading across his face.

“You know what I mean.” She blushed.

Toby thought about telling her that he rather liked her mussed and soiled, and what ever repairs she made to her appearance were likely to be undone in seconds … but he supposed he could rein in his desire for a few more minutes, to indulge her feminine sensibilities. A very few.

He pulled her close, thrusting the hard ridge of his arousal into her hip. “How long?” he asked gruffly. “How long before you’ll be ready for me?”

She pulled away and gave him a coy, seductive smile. Good Lord, but he’d done himself no favors, teaching this woman to tease.

“Ten minutes,” she said, fluttering her jet-black lashes. “Perhaps fifteen.”

“Minx.” Toby lifted her into his arms and swept her into the nearest room with a door, which happened to be the blue parlor. “You know I can’t wait that long.”

He kicked the door shut and pressed her against it, using one hand to lift her leg over his hip and working his way under her skirts with the other. The moment his fingertips found the slick warmth of her sex, there was no more coy conversation. There was only need—mindless and intense. He needed to get inside her, and he needed to come. Ideally in that order.

With shaking fingers, he unbuttoned his fall and freed his straining erection. She helped him, hooking her legs around his waist and tilting her hips to ease his way. He positioned himself and thrust, sinking straight into her moist heat with no resistance. His body came alive with bliss. Lifting her backside with both hands, he pistoned his hips, pounding her against the door again and again. He thrust fast and hard, shamelessly using her snug, willing body. Pursuing his own release just as selfishly as she’d chased hers in the coach.

And she loved it. She writhed and moaned in his arms, urging him on. Taking him deeper.

Pulling him closer … closer …

There
.

A hoarse cry ripped from his throat as he came. He sagged against her, spent and weakened.

But far from sated.

He rested his brow against her bare collarbone. Her skin was slick with perspiration—his, hers. Theirs.

“I’m not finished with you,” he told her, digging his fingers into her hips. “You do know that, don’t you? I’m going to take you upstairs and strip you of every last stitch of clothing and have you in as many different ways as I please. In crude, animal ways that will turn you pale with shock and then pink with pleasure. And tomorrow, the beggars and foundlings of London will just have to fend for themselves, because my wife will be too exhausted to move.” He raised his head and stared straight into her dark, almond-shaped eyes. “What say you to that?”

She smiled. “How long will it take us to get upstairs?”

Laughing softly, Toby nuzzled the curve of her neck. “I love you. My God, how I love you.”

He couldn’t help but say it. He couldn’t hold it in a second longer.

Her fingers stilled in his hair. “Oh, Toby. I—”

“Hush. Don’t speak, I beg you.”

She blinked at him.

Toby’s heart pounded in his chest. This night had been so perfect. If she didn’t love him in return, he didn’t want to know. Not tonight. Heartbreak like that could wait for tomorrow …

but tonight, he would embrace ignorance. If he wanted her to love him, the way that he loved her—it seemed logical that he should first let her know how very much that was.

“I…” He smoothed her cheek. “I’ve never said those words before, to any woman. I’ve never felt this before, for any woman. You’re so rich with love, my darling. You give of yourself so freely to even the most undeserving wretches, and I include myself in that group. When it comes to love, I’m but a pauper next to you, but even we paupers have our pride. Perhaps I have just this one coin to give, but I should like to watch it glitter a bit, before you go burying it under ten-pound notes like the generous angel you are. So for tonight, just… just listen. All right?”

She nodded, biting her lip.

“Isabel, my heart. My own.” He kissed her tenderly. “I love you.”

Her fingers laced behind his neck. “Toby, take me to bed.”

As it turned out, Bel did find enough strength to move the following day. Eventually.

Long after Toby had left for the hustings, she dragged herself from their rumpled bed. As she stretched, her body protested with pain. It was the sort of mild, dull ache one typically experienced the day following some strenuous exertion—the muscles clinging to their memories of flexing, stretching, drawing taut. The ache ensured she would think of him and their passion, all day. It was not at all unpleasant.

She examined herself in the mirror, finding other ways in which he’d marked her. Her fingers lingered over a berry-stain bruise at the crest of her right breast. No daring necklines for her today.

She found another small purpling mark, just below her nipple, and she remained there for several minutes, transfixed by its reflection.

It had been a long time since Bel had stood before a mirror thus, contemplating wounds inflicted by love. Not since she was a child. Bruises, scratches … bite marks, on occasion—her mother had given her all these, and more.

El amor es locura
. Love is madness.

There had been so many good days. So many lovely hours spent in that quiet, sunlit room. Her mother would brush and plait her hair, all the while humming pleasant melodies and murmuring words of love and praise.

It took only an instant for everything to change. It didn’t matter how good she was, or how carefully she followed the rules. And Isabel knew, because she had tried hard—so very hard—

to be good. In the space of a heartbeat, the spit of a curse, the smack of a silver brush—the madness would take hold. The madness would clutch at anything within reach: clothing, hair, flesh.

Then it would release its grip, just as quickly. So quickly, Bel could have imagined the whole feverish, violent episode to be only a dream, were there no bruises or marks to bear witness.

But they hadn’t been a dream, all those years of love twining inexorably with hurt. And last night hadn’t been a dream, either. It had been a revelation.

Toby had wounded her, here—her fingers drifted to her other breast—and here. And this morning, she looked upon those marks without a trace of shame or self-loathing or fear. In fact, she found them thrilling.

Yes, he had marked her in a moment of wild, mindless passion, just as her mother had done.

But these marks were different, so different. Everything was different. He’d changed her life, this dear, sweet man who would never lie to her, never let her come to harm, who would risk his life to guard hers. With Toby, at last she felt safe.

Not only safe, but loved.

He loved her. How many times had he told her so, the night before? She’d stopped counting at four. She might have—now that she thought about it—briefly lost consciousness at four. At any rate, it was clear that he’d been wishing to say it for some time, and now she could expect to hear it quite often.