Between a Rake and a Hard Place (19 page)

Then, blessed woman, she did stroke it. Her cool fingertips brushed over his full length from root to tip. He gritted his teeth to keep the pressure from rising in his shaft.

“I'm still dressed,” he reminded her.

“Oh, so you are.” She tore her gaze away from his groin and pushed the banyan off his shoulders. Serena trailed the silk with her palms as it slid down his arms and then joined her night rail and wrapper in an untidy pile on the floor. “How's that for my first time undressing a man?”

“Incredible,” he assured her. “However, I must warn you not to get puffed up about your accomplishment. There is no wrong way to do it.”

He reached for her, but she straight-armed him and took a leisurely stroll around him, perusing him as if he were da Vinci's
David
. Except that no self-respecting docent would allow her to trail her fingertips along the statue's waist or trace the creases beneath his buttocks. His breath hissed in over his teeth in surprise at her audacity.

“So a woman may undress a man in any way she wishes and he'll be pleased?” she said when she'd completed her short trek and stood facing him once more.

“And touch him any way she wishes.”

“Good to know.” Serena ran her fingertips up his thighs and around his scrotum, setting all the wiry hairs on end. Then she cupped his balls, fondling the sack.

Jonah's eyes nearly rolled back in his head. It took all his self-control not to spend in her hand like a randy boy.

“Of course, you must realize that a man can only take so much.”

Serena grasped his shaft and squeezed. “What happens then?”

On January 3 of this Year of Our Lord 1818, astronomers tell us that the planet Venus and the giant planet Jupiter fell into rare alignment so that the much smaller Venus eclipsed the larger body. Such a thing does not happen often, and, if one puts stock in such things as mathematics, clever fellows from the Academy of Science have determined that the occurrence will not repeat itself until the distant year of 2065!

However, this celestial event serves to remind us that every once in a while the dainty goddess of love trumps the larger bodies of marriages of convenience and political expediency.

It happens, of course, but so rarely it's hardly worth mentioning.

From
Le Dernier Mot,

The Final Word on News That Everyone Who Is Anyone Should Know

Jonah didn't answer in words. Instead, he made a sound in the back of his throat that greatly resembled a growl. Then he picked her up and carried her to the waiting bed before she could protest.

Not that she felt like protesting. Serena was still tingling with feminine power over driving him to such feral extremes. He laid her out on the counterpane and bent over her, supporting his weight on his knuckles while he ravaged her mouth. Then he pulled back and straightened upright.

“Serena, I've been thinking…”

“That sounds ominous.” She tried to keep her voice light. Seeing his long, lean frame licked by the flickering firelight left her breathless and dry-mouthed. She ran her palm up his hard thigh. How could the man think about anything when all she wanted to do was feel? “What about?”

“About us.”

“There's so precious little of ‘us' to contemplate, I can't imagine what you're thinking on,” she said. “Doubly ominous then.”

“I don't mean it to be.” He settled a hip on the bed and leaned over her, focusing his attention on her face.

Serena forced her gaze away from his mesmerizing eyes. His mouth was wide, his lips full, slightly parted, and firm. Just looking at them made her ache to feel those lips on her, trailing over her hills and valleys, on any bit of her he chose to kiss. The thought brought fresh blood to her cheeks, but she wouldn't unthink it. If she was going to lie with a man, she wanted as much of the adventure as a maiden could have and still remain a maiden.

A crisp mat of dark hair whorled around his nipples, and the thin strip of hair that started beneath his navel broadened to nest around his astonishing maleness.

She itched to run her fingers through that hair, but before she could, he caught up both her hands and pinned them above her head. Somehow, the fact that she couldn't touch him then made her want to do so all the more.

“I've been thinking you're right,” he said.

She shook herself, sure she hadn't heard him properly. She scarcely remembered a conversation with Jonah when they weren't at loggerheads at least part of the time. “About what?”

“About making sure you're pure for your duke,” Jonah said. He bent down and nipped her breast, sending a fiery message to her lower belly that was anything but pure. “I understand why you wouldn't give up the chance of a crown for someone like me.”

Serena wrested one of her hands free and laid her palm on his chest, feeling very tender toward the steady thump of his heart beneath it. “Jonah, it's not like that.”

He ran his thumb along the curve of her cheek, down her neck, and then around a breast in ever smaller concentric circles. Would she be able to remember to keep breathing if he kept touching her like that?

“I tried to imagine what I could bring to you that might make you think twice about the Duke of Kent. I realize now that's foolishness. I could never deserve you, Serena.” The words came out haltingly. “If I had any courage at all, I'd walk away right now.”

“Jonah Sharp!” All the tender feelings he'd evoked in her were suddenly smothered by indignation. After all he'd dared in defense of the Crown, he had more courage in his little finger than most men had in their whole bodies. “Don't you dare go. You can't make me ache for you and then leave me.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head down so she could kiss him hard on the mouth.

“Do you think I care two figs for the Duke of Kent? Not even a little,” she said when she finally pulled back from him. She took his hand and pressed it against her breastbone so he could feel her heart pounding. “Whether I end up as his wife is not about caring. It's about political wrangling and the weight of history and all that rot my father cares so much about.”

“By those lights, you deserve much more than the duke is offering as well,” Jonah said gruffly.

“Jonah, please. Don't make me think. Don't ruin this for me. All I want to do is feel.” She sat up and palmed his cheeks, the prickly stubble of a day's growth of his beard nicking her skin. She searched his face, noting the little scar in his eyebrow, pale in the firelight, the fine lines at the corner of his eyes, the deep sadness in them. Didn't he know she was storing up all the small details, learning every bit of him by heart, so she could pull the little treasures out and use them later to console herself when she was trapped in a cold marriage?

“Don't you realize tonight is all I may ever have?” A suppressed sob made her voice break.

“It doesn't have to be.”

“What are you saying?” Was he offering marriage? Her heart leaped like a springer spaniel at the thought.

“Just that…I know you've turned down other proposals. You don't have to accept the Duke of Kent's suit.”

Her belly spiraled downward. If he'd asked her, she might well have said yes. But now she lifted her chin so he wouldn't sense her disappointment. “Do you think it sensible to hold out for a
better
offer than one from a son of the king?”

He took her shoulders and gave her a small shake. “You should hold out. You deserve better. You deserve…”

“What, Jonah?”

His fierce expression softened and he lessened his grip on her shoulders. “Love, Serena. You deserve to be loved.”

Was he trying to say he loved her in some cryptic roundabout way? Normally Jonah said what was on his mind in a straight, no-nonsense manner.

Maybe he was having trouble saying what was in his heart.

Serena could have swatted herself on the nose for nursing such a ridiculous hope, but the yearning to hear him declare himself wouldn't go away.

Say
it, Jonah,
she urged silently.
Speak
the
words
and
watch
how
the
world
will
change.

But he didn't.

“Just promise me you'll think twice if the duke offers for you,” Jonah said as he took both her hands and bent to press his forehead to hers in a surprisingly tender gesture.

“All right. I promise.” She squeezed his hands. “We have this time together now. Please don't let what might be spoil what is.”

***

Damn, what's wrong with me?

He clamped his lips shut and stretched out beside her. No good could come from talking. She didn't want to hear him. All he could do was give her what she wanted—a night of passion to remember. A way to tick off another item on her list with a big red check.

And
what
else
could
you
give
her, Sharp?

If they married, she'd be simply Lady Sharp with no title to pass on to her sons. He could offer her a more than comfortable living, a town house in London, and a charming country place. His income from investments and property far exceeded that of many titled gentlemen, but compared to the bottomless purse of a prince, Jonah was a pauper.

He rolled toward her and covered her mouth with his, pouring all his longing, all his frustration into the kiss. Then it occurred to him that he could give her love.

Love. What a fool's game.

How did a man know if he loved a woman?

He knew he loved the way she melted into him, the soft, needy little sounds she made. And those tiny goose bumps that shivered over her skin when he touched her, he loved those too.

He rolled on top of her and began to kiss down her body, lavishing her breasts with his tongue. He loved the soft indentations between her ribs.

“Oh, careful there,” she said with a giggle. “I'm ticklish on that side.”

He loved that too. “Could be useful information.” He stroked her ribs again for the pleasure of watching her squirm.

“Not fair. I don't know where you're ticklish.”

“I invite you to find out for yourself later.”

He nuzzled her navel and she writhed under him as he spread her legs wide. Her fingernails raked along his back, but the slight pain only added to the pleasure of having her opening to him. She smelled wonderful, all musk and warm woman.

He had no idea why she wasted good money on perfume when the fragrance of her arousal was sweet enough to almost shove him over the edge.

There was tension in her thighs and she started to bring her knees together.

“Lie still,” he commanded and was pleased, and more than a little surprised, when she obeyed. He dropped a row of feathery kisses along her inner thigh and she groaned. He nipped and licked at the edges of her triangle of curls.

Delicious.

Serena was all things adventurous, all things forbidden. She was his ruin and his atonement. He couldn't imagine life without her. Given the difference in their stations, he couldn't imagine a life with her. But did that mean he loved her?

And if he did love her, what then?

***

Every fiber in Serena's body was on high alert wondering what Jonah was going to do next. She'd given up trying to beat back the pounding ache
down
there
or wondering how to still the throbbing in her nipples. They were only a few things in the long list of pleasurable torments Jonah was inflicting on her. Even the tickling was its own brand of helpless delight. She was stretched out on a rack of exquisite agony.

But she wouldn't stop him for worlds.

She raised her head from her pillow and looked down at him. He was kissing her belly and running his tongue along the seam between her thigh and her private folds. With each pass he drew closer to her most sensitive place. She wished she could be embarrassed over how badly she wanted to feel his mouth on her there, but the wanting so totally eclipsed shame, it was of no consequence.

Surely, he's not going to…he wouldn't…

Then he did.

The tip of his tongue parted her folds and sent her into a quaking frenzy. Sneaking a glance at him from under her lashes, she saw him look up at her, a look of possessive pride on his face. He knew she was his to do with as he pleased.

As his breathing became short and ragged, the ache building inside her turned sharp-edged as well. His blessed mouth played a lover's game on her sensitive flesh. She moaned when he stopped and started to withdraw, and then moaned louder when he resumed his gentle assault. She seemed to have grown a second heart. Serena felt the new one pounding between her legs.

She begged him to stop. She urged him to go on.

This
must
be
what
madness
is.
Meaningless sounds escaped her lips, but she was powerless to control them.

She was on a journey. A quest. She drew perilously near her destination once or twice, enough to feel herself start to spiral downward, but then the elusive goal retreated before her in a maddening game of hide-and-seek.

Then Jonah tongued her more deeply, and without warning, a sun burst forth in her secret place, sending warmth and light to all her limbs. Deep bliss radiated from her womb in concentric spasms and her whole body bucked with the force of it. The rhythmic joy was even more intense than the release Jonah had given her in the hunting lodge.

Serena squeezed her eyes shut, and pinpricks of stars wheeled drunkenly on the back of her eyelids. If the heavens had parted and she caught a glimpse of Glory itself, she would not have been the least surprised.

“Well,” she said when she finally found her voice and the will to form a coherent thought, “that settles it.”

Jonah moved up to lie beside her. She was achingly aware of the hot length of his maleness pressed up against her thigh. Even though she was still boneless and sated, there was a sense of being unfinished, of a new longing that was ready to begin tormenting her.

He covered her mouth with his own in a gentle kiss, then laid his head on the pillow beside hers. “That settles what?”

“I won't be writing any instructional pamphlets about this.”

He chuckled and she felt his belly shake against her hip. “Too wicked for you?”

“No, too wonderful to be believed. I would be accused of writing fiction instead of educational self-help.”

He took her mouth then, ravaging and demanding. The ache she'd thought was stilled began again and she met his kiss with need of her own.

His hands were restless wanderers. He couldn't seem to keep them still. They roved over her shoulders and down her arms to entwine his fingers with hers. A light brush down her spine, a gentle squeeze at the curve of her waist, relentless strokes on the underside of her breasts, his hands made her come alive again with a freshly throbbing batch of needs.

“Oh, Jonah, are we never to have a little peace together?”

“We will, sweetheart. As much as you wish,” he murmured into her hair. “But now we'll have a bit of what I wish.”

He covered her mound with his hand, sweetly invading her secret place with his fingertip. She was still hot and wet, and her insides convulsed once more in answer to his finger's nearness.