A Sense of Sin (24 page)
“Upstairs. Before I’m tempted to toss your skirts over your head and fuck you senseless on my study floor. But make no mistake, Celia, I do mean to fuck you senseless.”
He advanced towards her, heedless of the puddles of tea and sugar pooling on the floor. She edged around the wreck of the tray as he came forward.
“Go,” he instructed.
She had one last question. “Are you coming?”
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H
e smiled at her, a full flash of his teeth. He smiled at her the way a lion must smile at a gazelle he encounters at the waterhole. “Oh, absolutely. I promise.”
e smiled at her, a full flash of his teeth. He smiled at her the way a lion must smile at a gazelle he encounters at the waterhole. “Oh, absolutely. I promise.”
Celia would have reached for him, to take his hand, to reassure herself he meant what he said, that he wasn’t just playing another sensual game with her, but he moved around her and held the study door open for her.
She tried to walk calmly across the hall and to the stairs, but she could feel the heat of his body behind her, just out of touch, a coiled, magnetic presence pulling her back and urging her on. She hurried upwards.
She turned at the top of the stairs towards her rooms, but he stopped her with nothing more than his voice.
“My room.”
“But I’ll need . . . I need Bains.”
“No.”
But Bains had been waiting for her and, indeed, had already heard her voice, for she opened the door to Celia’s rooms and said, “I’ve everything laid out, my lady.”
“No. You may go, Bains,” Viscount Darling repeated in a quiet but implacable tone. “My room.”
Celia moved slowly down the hallway without even looking at Bains. She was far too embarrassed. She didn’t wait for him, but opened the door herself, determined not to let him lead her everywhere, not to be a puppet on his string.
“You didn’t have to say that. She’ll think—”
“Yes.” He closed the door behind them and leaned back against the portal. “She’ll think we’re making love. In fact, she won’t just think it, she’ll know we’re up here, in my chamber, on my bed, taking our clothes off and fucking each other until we scream with pleasure. Everyone in the house will know. Because I’m not going to bother to hide my pleasure. I’m going to yell out loud when I finally taste you and see you and take you. And I’m going to make very sure you scream my name in ecstasy when I bring you to the peak of your bliss.”
Her hand rose up to cover her mouth, to stop such unmannerly thoughts from making equally unmannerly sounds. Because she knew he meant to do everything he said. And she knew, without a doubt, that she deeply, desperately, wanted him to make her scream his name with shock and delight.
He pushed off the door and prowled closer, so close he could have touched her, but he didn’t. She swayed towards him, helpless with wanting.
And still he made her wait. “It’s going to take a long, long time to make that happen. We’re going to be panting with want. Loudly. Calling out each other’s names. Loudly. I’m going to enjoy each and every sound, every sigh and every moment.” He held up his index finger and pointed it right at her. “Now take that gown off.”
She fumbled with the tie of her fichu as he stripped off his coat and laid it carefully across the back of a chair. It struck her as polite, even a bit housebroken. Such a strangely domestic description of Viscount Darling, when at all other times he reminded her of nothing so much as a huge predator, a large, sleek jungle cat, like the angry animal in the cage in the traveling menagerie. And like the cat he was, he watched her.
Dressed only in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat he managed to look even taller and broader, more masculine than ever. Except for that time in his house in London, when he had been naked. She jerked the fichu away.
He stripped off his cravat and her eye was attracted to the golden skin below his neck where the button of his shirt had come undone. She tore her gaze away and knelt down to unlace her halfboots and roll down her stockings while she figured out how she was to deal with the lacings of her gown.
“I like that. You have no idea how erotic a sight your bare feet are.”
She peeked up at him. His hands were undoing his cuffs, then the buttons of his waistcoat, which soon followed his coat jacket over the back of the chair. He pulled the tail of his linen shirt free of the waist of his breeches before he paused.
“You’re falling behind.” He reached back and stripped the shirt off over his head.
He was so . . . naked. So golden and sleek, muscled and broad. And covered along the lines of his bones—his ribs, shoulders, and jaw—with deep purple bruises and cuts. He looked raw, savage, and animalistic. She thought again of that avenging angel, but without the civilizing camouflage of clothes he seemed altogether too pagan, the kind of Christian who was half lion.
And such an expanse of bare flesh, even though he was still in his breeches and boots. Like he had been in the inn yard. Flushed with exertion and the sheen of his own sweat and blood. A fierce wave of excitement shivered through her.
Oh, God.
Something was wrong with her, to have been so excited by that sight. To be so aroused by the memory. Even the sight of his bruises and welts caused her skin to feel on fire.
Oh, God.
Something was wrong with her, to have been so excited by that sight. To be so aroused by the memory. Even the sight of his bruises and welts caused her skin to feel on fire.
“Now, Celia.”
“The laces.” She swallowed and tried to calm her stammering voice. “I can’t reach the laces.”
He lowered his head to regard her through half-closed eyes as he stalked nearer. He stood close, so close she could feel the heat radiating off his chest in waves and smell the subtle male scent of his body. His breath, laced with the pungent fumes of brandy, warmed the sensitive side of her neck and he leaned his head close to hers. “Turn around.”
She did so, very slowly, reveling in the sensations caused by the passing of the heat from the furnace of his chest, warming first her front, and then her back. Her skin felt nearly blistered by his heat. Celia bent her head forward and closed her eyes. “The laces tie off at the top. Bains always does them like that.”
She felt the weight of his hand press into the small of her back before he slowly stroked one long finger up the seam to her neckline, leaving a path of prickling sensation in its wake. Then his long, clever fingers delved between her shoulder blades to fish out the lace ends.
“Thank you, Celia.” His voice was a soft growl in her ear. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you I know very well how to unlace a lady’s gown, but shameful as that prior knowledge may seem, now that I’m married, I aim to put it to very good use.”
She ought to have felt disgusted by the thought of all the women he must have slept with before. But all she could manage to feel was grateful for his skill at seduction and happy for the promise in his statement. She felt a sharp tug or two as he undid the knots, but he didn’t immediately take it off. Instead, he fisted up the loosened material, pulling the bodice taut over her chest.
“Why, Celia, you’ve been holding out on me, with your modest gowns and full-cut styles.”
She was a tall girl, but he was taller, and loomed over her from behind. She felt small, almost powerless when he pulled her back against his chest. He traced his fingers over the exposed skin at the side of her neck and then down, over her collarbone. Her skin came alive, shimmering with liquid heat under his touch.
His hand moved lower, and she watched with gasping anticipation as he traced the swell of her breast through the fabric of her gown, over the layers of stays and chemise. She could feel the scorching pleasure as her nipples peaked tight beneath the weight of his hand. He could feel it, too. He thumbed her through the fabric, plucking her, making her arch and push herself into his hand, as pleasure burst under her skin with each caress.
“I want to see you naked and spread out before me,” he whispered over her shoulder, into her ear. He let go of the gown from the back, and all of it, bodice and stays, sagged off her. She pulled her arms free and turned to him.
“I’ve only had glimpses, tantalizing glimpses, of your sweet flesh. Do you remember? Do you remember how you bared yourself for me? I want you to do it again.”
Her fingers went to the drawstring of her chemise and she loosened it with a tug. She could feel her breasts firm and swell, yearning for his gaze and his touch as the fabric slid down across the tightly furled, aching peaks, baring her to him.
“Yes.” He swallowed. “The skirts.”
Celia found the tapes of the skirts and petticoats and let them go. They puddled to her feet on the floor. She stepped out and bent to pick them up.
“Leave them.” He pulled her back against the furnace of his chest. “I want you to touch yourself for me, the way you promised. Do you remember, Celia? Do you?”
His whispers shivered down the side of her neck.
“Did you do it? Did you touch yourself for me?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.” He watched from above and behind her shoulder. She could hear and feel him go at his own clothes, at the flap of his breeches, with a heedless disregard for their care, popping the buttons in his haste. They skittered unheeded across the floor. He kept his eyes focused on her. On her body. “Show me,” he begged, his voice full of urgency. “Touch yourself for me. I want you to hold your breasts for me.”
She did, running her palm around her middle and up, over her ribs until she cradled herself in her hand. She felt hot, and aware, but the sensation was empty. She wanted his hand there. His fingers stroking across her flesh. She tried to tell him. “I want—” The words died in her throat.
He let her go and kicked his boot tree roughly into place, levering his legs out of his tight-fitting boots. In another moment he had shucked his breeches and was over her, pushing her back on the bed, coming on top of her all at once, as if he could not wait. As if he had finally exhausted his seemingly endless well of patience and self-control.
He was everywhere, his hands at her face and her hair, kissing her, his body pressing her down into the mattress. Her senses were overwhelmed by him, by the brandy-laced probe of his tongue, by the soft firmness of his lips, by the sharp edge of his teeth as he took her lower lip and worried at it. By the rasp of his afternoon beard against the skin of her neck and chest, by the press of his hands against her breast and by the abrasion of the hair on his legs.
He kissed his way along her jaw and down along her collarbone and her mouth fell open. He dipped his tongue into the hollow at her throat and she felt her pulse leap. He had said he would do that one day, hadn’t he? Finally he was with her, as she felt those things, sharing her need.
He slid lower on her body. His hands slipped down her neck and around to press her shoulders into the mattress. His lips traced a molten path across her skin to her breasts, licking and sucking her, shooting sparks of pleasure across her belly and lower, between her tightly clenched thighs.
She wrapped her arms around his head, holding him to her and raking her hands through his hair, fisting up the short golden strands. She arched into him, pressing, wanting, needing, taking everything he could give her and holding it tight.
He levered himself off her, knelt over her legs and ran his eyes and his hands over her body, from her tightly peaked nipples down to dip into the sensitive indentation of her navel. Her skin felt taut and alive, as if it came to life for just this moment, just these heady, intoxicating sensations.
“My God, look at you.”
She couldn’t. She arched her head back and closed her eyes, letting him do as he wished, letting the pleasure of his praise unfurl within her.
He raked his hands through the curls on her mound, pulling and teasing, looking, making her want to scream and beg and plead with him to please, dear God, please touch her there and ease the burning ache he had created with his hands, his tongue, and his words.
Then he did, slipping first one long finger, and then another inside her. He stroked, sending wave after wave of greedy need spiraling higher. She was flying away, leaving behind everything but the pleasure and desire for him. He turned his wrist, and his thumb joined his clever fingers, parting the folds of her flesh and finding a spot, a place from which bliss and heat and pleasure burst forth, shooting rockets of sensation through her.
A startled sound of ecstasy flew out of her throat.
“Yes, there. Your quim. Where you’re wet and ready for me.”
He stroked again and she bucked up into his hand, searching for more, for more of the friction and strong bliss of his clever fingers.
“I’m going to put myself, my cock inside you. Inside your beautiful, wet quim.”
She had no pride. She had nothing but need, urgent, intense need. “Please.”
He kneed her legs apart and positioned his body at her entrance. She felt her legs bow and her body arch up towards him, ready and wanting.
“You’re mine, Celia. You always have been. Mine.” Del couldn’t wait any longer. He shoved himself fully inside her slick heat.
He was catapulted by the dizzying rush of satisfaction and unadulterated bliss. He knew he was on a bed, and Celia was in his arms, but the world fell away from him until there was nothing but the sweet, lush confines of her body against his.
A sound of anguish and disappointment tore from her throat, piercing the haze of his relentless need. He should have gone slower. He should have taken greater care. But he couldn’t regret the blissful feeling of being inside her lush, tight cunny. There were no words, no thoughts adequate to describe the bone-deep satisfaction, the rightness of having Celia in his arms, beneath him.
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