Between a Rake and a Hard Place (25 page)

Serena didn't want that. She didn't want people groveling before her or currying favor. She didn't want to be royal. She knew in a moment of crystalline clarity there was only one thing she wanted in the entire world.

Jonah
Sharp.

Even the most dissolute scoundrel holds himself a gentleman when he honors his word. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sporting life. A Regency buck is a dab hand at whist. He knows a good deal about horseflesh and can sense when a pony is going to run its heart out for a win.

He wouldn't cheat on a wager unless he's prepared for pistols at dawn. But when a gentleman is out of gentlemanly options, sometimes he must wait to see if Providence will roll the dice in his favor.

From
Le Dernier Mot,

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

Jonah paced the length of his chamber like a caged lion in a menagerie. The urge to slip into the corridor and find his way to Serena's room was so strong, he wished, like Ulysses, he had some faithful friends who'd bind him to the mast to keep from answering her siren's call.

Warrington and Colton, the traitors, were more likely to shove him into Serena's bedchamber and then raise the household so they'd be caught together in that ruinous situation.

Jonah wouldn't do it. He couldn't bring her shame, but the ache of wanting her was fast becoming sharp-edged as a blade.

“Love is damned inconvenient,” he muttered.

It also made him suspect he was seeing things. The door to the Africa Room swung softly open and Serena stood framed by the doorway for a flicker. Then she slipped into his candlelit chamber and closed the door behind her with a soft snick of the latch.

It was no imagining. She was real and she was there.

“You shouldn't have come, Serena.” He forced the words out. “I can't offer you anything.”

She stood still as carved stone, her eyes enormous in the dimness. If his words cut her, she didn't show it, but his chest ached all the same. Sonnet writers had bricks for brains. Love wasn't hearts and flowers and stolen kisses under a full moon. Love tied a fellow's guts in knots. Love hurt. It hurt damned badly, and the more he wounded her, the more pain he felt himself.

“I'm not asking you for anything,” she said softly.

He cocked a brow at her. “Aren't you?”

Serena took a few steps toward him. “All right. Yes. I'm asking for you. Just you, Jonah. Just this moment. Just this night.” She straightened her spine and lifted her sweetly dimpled chin. Her nipples stood at attention beneath her night rail and thin wrapper. “Can you give me that?”

He moved toward her but stopped before she was within arm's reach. “Let me guess. I've become something to check off your list?”

“No. Something to check off my life. Haven't you ever wanted something—needed someone so badly you don't care what you have to do to get it?”

Yes, damn it, he knew exactly what that felt like. He wanted her, didn't he? Wanted her so badly she was like a sickness in his mind and his blood.

And his heart.

“Amelia says a courier is coming from the Duke of Kent tomorrow. It's evidently been settled. And after that…” Serena's little pointed tongue swept her lower lip. “If I don't have you, Jonah, if for only one night, I'll…regret it the rest of my life.”

What
if
I
want
more
than
one
night
leapt to the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back. He'd promised Amelia Braithwaite he wouldn't speak his heart before Serena gave the royal duke his answer. But he hadn't pledged he wouldn't let his body speak his love for him.

“If we do this,” he said slowly, “I can't promise I'll be able to stop with half-measures.”

Her eyes flared for a moment as she realized what he was saying. “I won't want you to stop. I want you, Jonah. And I won't settle for half-measures, either.”

“If that's the way of it then, I'll take you.” Jonah placed a hand at her waist as if they were beginning the waltz again and drew her close. Then he caught her hand and pressed her palm against his chest, willing her to feel the love that made him weak and strong at once. “I've wanted you from the first time I saw you.”

“At Boodles?” She blinked at him. “When I was in my disguise as Cousin Rowland?”

It was perfect. The ridiculous image of her in male attire drained all the pent up tension that stretched between them. Jonah shook with suppressed laughter while Serena covered her mouth with her hand. Then he lifted her off her feet and swung her around in a circle.

“That wasn't the first time I saw you.”

He'd been watching her for days before that without her knowledge and had roused to her repeatedly. Even so, his body had been more than ready to claim her at Boodles, even in that silly male getup.

And now his heart would let
her
claim
him
in the end.

He meant to hold back, to wait for her to respond, but something feral surged in his blood. He had to obey the urge to kiss her or something inside him would burst.

The laughter stopped in a heartbeat as he ravaged her mouth, drinking in her sweetness. He was drowning in her scent. When she answered his kiss and clutched the lapels of his banyan, pressing her breasts against his chest, blood pounded in his ears. Then the drumbeat moved much lower, to his thick cock, throbbing with life.

Jonah walked her over to the wall and pinned her against it with his body.

Don't be such a dog,
he chided himself as he ground his pelvis against hers. He should be gentler, he knew, but he couldn't seem to help it. Serena was giving herself to him. Completely.

He'd take her.

Serena didn't seem to think she was as fragile as he did, though. When he started to ease up, she pulled his head down with a soft groan, urging him to stay.

They took each other's mouths, their tongues vying for supremacy in a warm wet joust. Serena nipped his lower lip, and his groin ached all the more. She made those desperate little noises at the back of her throat again, the ones that drove him to rutting madness.

His hands roamed over her, claiming each dip and valley, the curve of her back, the plumpness of her bum. He peeled off her wrapper and worked up her night rail. He heard the seam rip as he hurried it over her hips, but he was unable to stop till he'd dragged the flimsy garment over her head.

Jonah paused for a moment, taking in the sight of her. Light from the fire gilded her pale skin with a golden glow. She was like some ethereal being—a fallen angel who'd strayed from glory to tempt him beyond his capacity to resist.

“You're stopping?” she asked, her voice dusky.

“Savoring,” he assured her.

Her sigh made her breasts shudder. “Now what?”

“Now, my love…” Surely that wasn't a breach of his promise to Miss Braithwaite. Any rake worth his salt would call the woman in his bed “love” in the heat of passion. “I touch you as a lover should.”

With painstaking slowness, he reached out a hand. Starting at the base of her throat where her pulse jumped, he traced his fingertips over her bare skin. She didn't move, though her breath came in hitching gasps.

She was all warm and soft and willing. Oh, the feel of Serena not trying to be in charge for a change.

Jonah paused to dally in every crevice, the crease beneath her slender arm, the delicate skin at the bend of her elbow. His cock urged him to hurry, but he forced himself to take his time.

This night might be all he ever had of her. It would have to last a lifetime.

He ran his fingertip around the outline of her hands, to the deep base of each finger and threaded his way around her knuckles. He taunted the curve beneath each breast. He drew increasingly smaller circles around her navel. His hand dropped lower, and he teased her legs apart.

She draped her arms over his shoulders and gave herself over to him.

His fingers launched a gentle invasion, all the while his gaze never left her face. Jonah watched as desire, pleasure, and need parted her lips and made her eyes go soft and hazy.

When Serena started to untie the belt at the waist of his banyan, he stopped her. “Not yet, love. You first.”

“No, Jonah.” She pressed her fingertips against his lips. “Once I wed the duke, I expect there'll be plenty of times in my life when I'll be a party to couplings where only one takes pleasure.”

Her words were like a door slamming shut in his heart. He didn't know if he felt like dying or hitting something. Preferably the royal duke.

“I don't want it to be that way for you and me.” She stood tiptoe to brush her lips across his. “We go together or not at all.”

Then she unbelted the banyan and pushed it off his shoulders with excruciating slowness. A breath of night found its way in around the nearby window casement, cooling his feverish skin.

“This lover's touch you speak of,” she said, her voice low and sultry, “it must go both ways. After all, if you're not pleased, how can I take pleasure? Now stand still.”

There
she
is.
That was the Serena he knew. Even though she was coming to him a virgin, she still wanted to be in command of this adventure. He decided to allow it for now.

Jonah didn't move. He scarcely drew breath as her hands smoothed over him, tickling along his ribs and teasing his nipples into hard knots. Then she cupped his ballocks, rolling the twin orbs between her fingers. He'd never realized he could ache so hard.

She squeezed the heavy muscle in his thighs, then stepped close enough to reach around and run a thumb along the crevice of his buttocks. He was in danger of spending without her even touching his cock once.

“Where the hell did you learn that?”

She bit her lower lip. “I've been studying up. As it turns out, the Wyndebourne library houses a slim memoir of the life and times of a French courtesan…and her arts.” Serena cast him a sly grin. “I read it so voraciously, my fluency in French has improved out of all knowing.”

She moved closer, then stepped back a pace. Jonah gritted his teeth as her breasts teased him with glancing brushes. Her soft belly pressed against his cock, but Serena carefully avoided touching it with her clever hands. Instead she raked her nails over his ribs and splayed her fingers across his flat belly. When she finally grasped him, it was all he could do not to erupt in her hands.

“Serena, I can't—” he began, then she surprised him by leaping up, hooking her hands behind his neck, and wrapping her legs around his waist.

“Can't what?” she asked with feigned innocence as she wiggled against him, her hot moistness tormenting the tip of his cock.

“Let me guess. This is more from that book on the courtesan's arts?” he asked.

She nodded. “I was always a very good pupil.”

“Then let me see if I can add to your education.” He covered her mouth with his. All his longing and hope poured into her. The royal duke's bloodless offer for her might come tomorrow, but he'd do everything he could to show her how he loved her tonight.

I
love
her.
Serena Osbourne, maker of lists of forbidden pleasures, unattainable daughter of a haughty marquis. From the cloud of pale hair on her head to the soles of her delicately arched feet, she was all that was lightness and ease. He needed her to knit up the ragged edges of his soul, to fill him with her brand of chaos to replace the dark anarchy that was there now.

If by some miracle he could convince her without a word how much he loved her and make her love him back, he'd spend the rest of his life trying to be worthy of her.

But if he didn't take her right now, there'd be no rest of his life. He'd die on the spot. He pushed her hips down, sliding into her, impaling her slowly on his rock-hard erection. He groaned, awash in the pleasure of her slick, hot flesh. Then he tore through the thin barrier of her purity and she cried out, but not with pain. The gasp that tore from her throat was the feral sound of feminine triumph as she engulfed him completely.

He moved inside her, reveling in her softness, lifting her on and off his full length. Skin on skin, they slid against each other, her head thrown back so he could suck her tender neck. They turned slowly, doing a new sort of waltz, moving to unheard music, keeping rhythm with their shuddering breaths and pounding hearts.

Their bodies joined in perfect concert. Each time Jonah lowered her onto himself, Serena tilted against him, digging her heels into the small of his back, seeking the deepest bonding possible. She kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his closed eyelids. If shared pleasure was their goal, they were nearly there.

Her eyes were hooded as she gazed down at him. She bit her lip and growled in frustration.

“Easy, love,” he whispered. “Let me take you there.”

He braced his feet and moved more slowly, more deliberately till she began to quake in his arms. But as they moved as one, she didn't look away. He'd never locked gazes at the critical moment with a lover before. Now there was a spark in the depths of her blue eyes, and he saw the exact moment when she teetered for just a blink on the brink of the abyss. Then her insides contracted hard around him as his soul pulsed into her along with his seed.

Jonah couldn't say how long it lasted. It might have been seconds. It might have gone on for hours. Time seemed to dissolve, and everything sizzled in the eternal now. When it was finished, her head settled onto his shoulder and he held her as if she weighed nothing.

Unwilling to part from her, he carried her, still wrapped around his body, over to the waiting bed. He sat down and swung his legs up. Then when she unhooked her ankles, he lay down with Serena draped bonelessly on top of him.

Gradually, the heat of lust cooled. When he slipped from her body, she shifted to settle by his side, laying her head in the crook of his shoulder. Utterly spent, he gazed up at the shadowy mural of an African savanna on the ceiling.