All I Ever Needed (16 page)

East acknowledged her point with a slim smile. "Touche."

"Will you leave by the usual route or do you prefer a window exit?"

"The door will do."

She nodded, stepping aside, her arms still crossed in front of her.

East studied her for a long moment. Resolve set nicely on her face, defining the slim line of her jaw and the unwavering brightness of her wild honey eyes. Her lower lip protruded slightly, not in a way that gave her a soft pouty look, but in a manner that lifted her chin and firmed her position. The faint lift of a single arching eyebrow and the fractional tilt of her head completed the picture that was at once as determined as it was provocative.

East supposed there were an infinite number of choices available to him, but only one that would not leave him with regrets. It was probably true that her sweet mouth would always tempt him now that he knew the taste of it, and equally likely that another kiss would never be enough, but Eastlyn decided for better or worse, he wanted another bite of the apple.

"Sophie?"

"Hmm?"

"I am going to kiss you." If she was startled by this intelligence, she did not show it, and Eastlyn did not give her further opportunity. One arm caught her at the small of the back and the other at her nape. He drew her close so that her head was angled toward his and lowered his mouth to hers.

Like the fruit first offered by Eve, the taste of Sophie's mouth was a feast for the senses. Sweet. Tart. A hint of tang. Warm and honeyed. The suggestion of something like mint. Her lips parted and fashioned their movement in a way that mirrored his, and there was something extraordinarily powerful in teaching her to kiss, for that was precisely what Eastlyn knew he was about.

It was not that Lady Sophia Colley had never been kissed before, but that on so many occasions it had been done inexpertly. Timothy Darrow had been the first when he ran her to ground behind the stable at Tremont Park. She could have raised a hue and cry because he was only a young groom, not yet in his fourteenth year, and she was the daughter of the earl and three years his junior. She had never told a soul how he had pinned her to the rough stone wall and dared her to call for help. He had been angry, of course, and more than a little frightened or he would not have attempted such a transgression. Sophie blamed herself for her predicament because moments before she had been spying on him from the loft. He and Katie Masters had been covered with hay, but not so much of it that she hadn't been able to get her fill of his bare arse pumping up and down between the scullery maid's open thighs. It had not seemed to Sophie that there was an abundance of fun to be had in this sport; but the kissing looked nice enough, and so when Timothy had trapped her, she had permitted him to put his mouth to hers.

She decided then and there she had been wrong about the kissing. It had nothing to recommend it.

Sophie hadn't been kissed again until Harold had done it on the occasion of her thirteenth birthday. They had both heard rumors that there might someday be a match between them, thus uniting the fortunes of the family. That had been when her father still possessed a substantial amount of his wealth and Harold's father had considered the title lost to his descendants if not secured through marriage.

The kiss had been mercifully brief. Harold's tongue had been thick and sour, and Sophie was quite certain she did not want to have it in her mouth again, no matter that he seemed to like the taste of her well enough. When she grew weary of him trailing after her skirts in anticipation of another opportunity, Sophie gave it to him—and drew blood when he tried to thrust his tongue past her bared teeth.

Harold's father had taken her in hand then, but her punishment had not been so terrible as that kiss.

Lord Edymon had taken the liberty of placing his mouth upon hers immediately after his proposal. If Sophie had had any doubts as to their unsuitability, they were put to rest when he ground his lips so hard against her that she winced. Humphrey Bell, her second suitor to come up to snuff, kissed so wetly he created sucking sounds that echoed in Sophie's ears long after she had pushed him away.

Too hard. Too wet. Too loud. Too thick. All of it too silly. The poets were wrong, Sophie had decided. There was no rapture in the ritual, no matter that there were hundreds of sonnets dedicated to the practice.

It was odd, then, that she was reexamining that premise.

If only this kiss had been as brief as the first teasing brush of his lips. Although it had seemed complete enough to her at the time, that kiss had been but a promise. What he was doing to her now was all about fulfilling it.

His mouth worked over hers slowly, as though her lips were a thing to be savored. She felt herself ripening under his gentle assault and never questioned the peculiarity of this being true. There was a heaviness, a swelling in her breasts and a succulence to her open mouth, and the change was alarming; and yet she could not deny that she felt safe.

Eastlyn's embrace kept her steady, but not secure. She sensed the space between them was deliberate, an act of consciousness exercising restraint. It made her aware of him in a way she had not been before, of his strength held in check, of his broad shoulders curved forward to shelter her. He was taller than she, significantly so, and yet it was no strain to reach his mouth, such was his ability to accommodate the disparity in their heights. She did not realize then that he had moved to lean back against her writing desk or that she had come to stand between his slightly splayed thighs. What Sophie knew was that this kiss was effortless, as natural and as thoughtless a response to life as breathing.

She held the front of his open frock coat in her fists, bunching the brushed wool so that creasing was inevitable. He was not so fierce with her. The hand that cradled the back of her head was gentle in its hold. His fingers were threaded through her hair, the pad of each one a separate point of light pressure on her skull. Just below her belted sash, at the curve of hip and bottom, rested his other hand, unmoving, steadying, there to support her when she lost her balance, as she was certain she would.

The heat was unexpected. And the damp. She felt them both in the suck of his mouth and the matching, steady pulse between her thighs. His lips nudged hers softly, taming her response when her breathing grew rough and her heart surged. He feasted on her mouth, tugging on her lower lip, running the tip of his tongue along the sensitive underside, flicking her skin as though capturing sun-drenched droplets of dew.

In the first moments of contact, Sophie's eyes were opened wide and searching, but what followed was an intoxication of the senses, and the soporific effects of East's drugging kiss weighted her lashes and darkened the centers of her eyes. It was sleep, and yet not sleep, the clarity of wakefulness in the unreality of a dream.

She kissed him back, measure for full measure, matching the tension of his mouth, the insistence. There was hunger here, and Sophie had not known she was starving. She sensed urgency for something when she had not realized there was a need. She was unfamiliar with the ache between her thighs or the heaviness that seemed to define the empty space.

Restless, uncertain, she leaned into him. There was the slightest increase in pressure at her back, a suggestion only that she could move closer still. She did, and it was this small movement, and East's deepening kiss, that unwound the tightly coiled spring inside her.

It seemed to her that she became liquid in his arms. The shudder was like a concentric ring of ripples across the surface of a pond, only this tremor had its source somewhere deep inside her. He held her upright because she could not have managed it herself. It was not so easy a thing to remain standing when muscle tone had been replaced by a flood of sensation.

She might have gasped, she thought, but he swallowed the sound. He stole her air, leaving her light-headed and heavy-lidded, and helpless in a way for which she could not thank him. Sophie had no name for what had happened to her, but it never entered her thinking that it was outside Eastlyn's experience.

It was, though. To not put too fine a point on it, she had come in his arms, not while they were joined in intimate coupling—which he might have expected—but from naught but kissing. Perhaps it was a very good thing, he decided, that Sophie was confined to her room at No. 14.

East drew back a fraction, kissed her lightly on the lips, rested his forehead against hers, and took a steadying breath. His smile came slowly to the forefront as he straightened completely; his eyes remained watchful. Holding Sophie at a point just below her elbows, he noticed her silk sleeves were no longer cool to the touch, but imbued with her warmth and her scent.

Sophie stared at him. Her lips were damp and remained parted. She sucked in a short, shaky breath and said quietly, "We will not do that again."

Eastlyn heard no demand there, and while her words did not have the inflection of a question, there was the nuance of an appeal. "No," he said. "We will not."

As one slightly dazed, Sophie nodded slowly. "You should leave now."

"I suspect you're right." He made no move to do so, though. How could he? he wondered, when her eyes looked as if they might swallow him whole. "Sophie?"

"Hmm?" The murmur tickled her lips, and she found the sensation almost unbearable. The line of her mouth flattened as she suppressed this last vestige of unexpected pleasure.

East's eyes darted to her mouth. The temptation was to linger there, perhaps kiss her again, but he did not reveal any part of that thought. "You never told me why you permitted me to see you tonight."

Sophie had not anticipated the question would be put to her again. He would not let a thing go, she realized, until he was satisfied on all counts. She suspected he hadn't the capacity for forgetting what was of importance to him and was very likely to bedevil her until he had his answer. "Am I mistaken?" she asked. "Did you not ask to see me?"

"I did."

"Then you wanted me to turn you down?"

"Not at all. I wanted you to see me. I
expected
you to say no."

She nodded. "Well, there you have it, for I am truly weary of doing the expected thing. I have lately come to the lowering realization that I am faint of heart, my lord. No one likes to believe cowardice is a substantial feature of one's character, yet I have had to accept that it is at the very core of my nature. I am now determined to act contrarily. My life cannot help but be changed because of it."

Eastlyn knew himself to be frankly fascinated. He could not have taken his leave just now if Sophie had put his own pistol to his head. "So you have chosen to test your mettle with me?"

She did not answer immediately, but gave the matter some thought. "Yes, I believe I have. Do you find that objectionable?"

There was a distinct possibility, Eastlyn decided, that she might actually render him speechless. Her question had been posed with the utmost sincerity. "I suppose that depends, Lady Sophia, whether I am merely at the forefront of a very long parade to your bedchamber, or if I am the sole participant in the march."

"What an utterly ridiculous thing to say. Did you not just agree that we would not do this again? What can it matter if you are one, or one of many?"

East let her go because it seemed to him she no longer needed his support, and his hands should be free in the event he decided to place them around her neck. "I think I will go now."

Sophie made a small nod of encouragement and hoped that she did not seem too eager. It would be shaming to her if Eastlyn suspected how very close to tears she was. He could not appreciate what it was like to be subjected first to his scrutiny and then to his questions. She had abandoned good sense for adventure when she had agreed to allow him to see her, and she was right that her life was changed for it. It did not follow that he should be privy to all the particulars.

It was her most fervent hope that she would see none of him again.

Eastlyn hesitated a moment more. It was unlike him not to act more decisively, especially on a matter so minor as taking his leave, but something kept him there that was not comfortably defined. He remained where he stood, drawn toward Sophie as a wave was to shore. It required more in the way of resolve than she could ever appreciate not to simply wash over her.

"Good evening, Sophie." Then he was gone.

* * *

Tremont Park was built on a gently sloping hill northwest of London. The approach to the Park was long and winding, and the great house was visible on three sides during the circuitous climb. There had been plans drawn up over the years to straighten the road and fashion a more direct route to the Park, but every earl had eventually abandoned the idea. Publicly they cited the cost as reason enough to put the plans to rest. While true that the effort would have been costly, it was more to the point that no one wanted to surrender the privacy of the Park to visitors who were wont to arrive without invitation. From almost every room in the house, except at the rear, one could see the approach of a carriage from as far off as five miles. Armed with a spyglass to help identify the markings on the side of an approaching coach, a succession of earls at Tremont were afforded the opportunity to make their escape. They had managed to avoid creditors, hangers-on, mothers-in-law, and on one notable occasion, the queen's advance guard.

Sophie sat at a small table placed outside for her luncheon. It was covered with a white linen cloth and a gold damask runner. Large tassels hanging from each end of the runner were sufficiently heavy to keep it and the tablecloth in place. A plate of thinly sliced cucumbers and tomatoes had been prepared for her as tiny sandwiches, each one hardly more than a mouthful. Sophie appreciated the effort Mrs. Beale made to present the fare as enticingly as possible, but it was not enough to nudge her appetite. She sipped her tea instead and fed the sandwiches to the birds.