Her Protector's Pleasure (16 page)

"There are ways of keeping a
selkie
, you know," he said, testing one of the knots.

Quelle surprise.
When it came to subjugating women, men always had their ways.

"Let me guess," she said derisively. "You steal her skin. Keep it hidden, locked away."

"That is one method," he agreed. "Not the one I would use, however."

"Oh? Pray tell what your scheme would be."

He withdrew, bending to reach for something ... in his boot? Her breath halted at the sight of the blade in his hand. His eyes steady on hers, he lifted a corset string and slid the blade gently beneath. One cut and the laces unraveled. Her breath returned in a heady, unrestricted rush.

"I say if you want a wild thing, you must set it free." Beneath his penetrating gaze, she once again felt laid bare, vulnerable—only it didn't elicit fear this time, but yearning and arousal.

Could it be? A man who might actually understand me ...

"What if she doesn't come back?" she said.

He tossed aside the corset. Grasping the straps at her shoulders, he lowered them down her arms, and her bodice followed. Her spine arched as the fine muslin raked over her nipples, baring the taut peaks to his heated gaze.

"I'd give her a reason to," he said and lowered his head.

She gasped when he drew one sensitive bud into his mouth. When his tongue curled, the sensation shot all the way between her thighs. During her searches through brothels, she'd seen men suckle women—seen much more than that—yet she'd not known the pleasure herself. Indeed, her understanding of sexual matters far outweighed her actual experience. Thomas had been a virgin; in the three times they'd made love, they'd only begun to discover what their bodies could do.

Clearly, Kent had a man's knowledge. A moan tore from her throat as he titillated her nipple with wet flicks. He kept an accompanying rhythm on her other breast, his fingers circling, pinching with just enough pressure to drive her mad. Her spine bowed, her hands clenching in his thick hair as desire swamped her. Years of pent-up longing washed away the remaining vestiges of her self-restraint.

"Don't stop." The words emerged from nowhere, in a panting voice she did not recognize. "Just ... don't stop."

"Easy, sweeting. I'm not going anywhere." Even his voice aroused her, the shape of his words pressed against her taut, throbbing peak. "One day, you're going to trust me, to know that I'd never leave you wanting."

She would have argued, but his lips fixed onto her other nipple, and the wildness in her grew to a feverish pitch. Her skin seemed afire, wet heat blazing from her core as he kissed his way down the path between her ribcage. His tongue dipped into her navel, and her hands fisted in the coverlet at the intense, unfamiliar sensation. A tug dragged her petticoat past her hips, baring her most intimate place. Her lungs struggled for air. She told herself to be calm, to just lie back and … His lips touched the inside of her thigh, and the branding kiss drove a gasp from her lips.

"Don't like that?" he said, raising his head to look at her.

"I don't know. It feels a bit strange," she managed.

That line deepened between his brows. "Haven't you been kissed there before?"

She wanted to lie; for some dashed reason, her head shook of its own accord. Confusion clouded his gaze, and she knew what he was thinking.
The wicked Baroness Draven has never had a man's mouth between her legs?
He'd probably laugh if he knew the truth—or worse yet think that she was an innocent just because she'd not tried the things she knew so much about.

"The fancy has never struck me." Her tone came out as lofty as she could manage given that his thumbs were making mind-melting circles on either side of her quivering sex. "If you wish, however, I give you leave to … gamahuche me."

His eyes flared at her use of the naughty word. Excellent. Let him know she was no naïf.

Then his lips quirked.

"By your leave, then," he said.

She bit back a sound as he parted her aching flesh. Her cheeks burned when he did nothing but study her for long moments. The look of dark hunger on his features titillated her beyond bearing, and her sex grew even wetter.

"Well, are you or aren't you?" she said when she couldn't take the anticipation any longer.

Kent's hooded eyes met hers. In that bright, erotic gaze, there was a hint of … laughter? She began to struggle, but his hands clamped her thighs. Held her open.

His husky words stirred her dampened curls, feeding the fire in her blood. "A man likes to look his fill before he feasts," he said. "Especially when the offering is so decadent."

"You best hurry before the feast gets cold," she said.

"Cold?" His eyes crinkled at the edges. "I don't think so, sweeting. You are all heat …"

The first swipe of his tongue made her gasp with shock. The second had her spine arching off the mattress. Dear God, she'd never felt anything like … Her mind blanked as pure sensation swamped her. She became nothing but the tides of pleasure rolling over her senses. His plain-spoken praise and wicked caresses lifted her higher and higher.

"I love the way you taste. Salty and sweet. You whet my appetite."

As if to prove his assertion, he tongued her slit, thrusting deeply inside her throbbing folds. Her hips bucked, bliss stealing her breath. Her vision wavered as the sensations mounted. She was close, so close …

"Kent," she gasped, "I'm going to … to …"

"Yes, you are." His savage look pushed her right to the precipice. "Spend for me. Right now, with your sweet quim against my mouth—let me taste your pleasure."

His tongue angled upward, to the little knot that throbbed with her heartbeat. His lips fastened, sucking gently. Her head flung back as the crisis hit. Pulse after pulse of pure delight, like nothing she'd known before. Before she could recover, she felt a shocking stretch ... his finger. He pushed gently past the initial resistance of her entrance. They both groaned as her muscles softened, then clutched the exciting penetration.

"You're so tight," he rasped. His forehead had a sheen of sweat. "Devil and damn, you're pulling me in deeper. So sweet." His chest heaved, the primal look in his eyes inciting her more, making her passage slicker. "You can take more, can't you?"

"Yes,
more
 ..."

She moaned as he began to pump with a firm, steady motion. Her pelvis lifted to greet each thrust. He went deeper and deeper with each pass, his rhythm and pressure driving her frantic with need. As his fingers played inside her, his palm slapped wetly against the sensitive peak of her mound, sending sparks across her vision. Just when she thought she could endure no more, he lowered his head once more.

"Again," he said.

She screamed as waves of shocking heat passed over her, through her.
Too much, never like this …
Tides of bone-melting sweetness carried her away.

*****

Heart thundering, Ambrose wiped a damp tendril from Marianne's love-flushed cheek. She drowsed, worn out by the climaxes he'd given her. His chest inflated with pride. By God, her pleasure had been magnificent … and he had the damp smalls to prove it. Damn, that had never happened to him before, but the way her passage had squeezed his fingers, her juices raining so sweetly upon his tongue … he exhaled as his cock hardened once more.

Her passion had been mind-blowing in more ways than one. He could scarcely credit what he'd discovered. What she'd kept carefully hidden beneath that jaded facade of hers.

The infamous Baroness Draven was a relative novice to lovemaking.

Her past lovers had done a shoddy job of things. In retrospect, Ambrose didn't think there could have been all that many, given her dazed response to her own pleasure as well as the tightness of her heat around his fingers. Even as his blood thickened with arousal, his jaw tautened at the thought of other men touching Marianne. She deserved better than careless intercourse. She deserved a man who would take care of her needs, who had the patience to chip through those layers of ice to reach the hot-blooded and vulnerable woman within.

What Marianne needed was a lover she could trust.

His breath came harshly into his lungs as she mumbled in her sleep, her lips burrowing into his open collar. Lust climbed in his veins, and he couldn't keep his hand from cupping the sweet curve of her breast. Even in sleep, she responded to him, her rosy nipple puckering, her soft sigh heating his skin. The instinct to take her, to free his erection from his trousers and bury himself in her lush pussy was nearly overwhelming.

But he didn't. Because as of this moment, he wasn't deserving of her trust.

Her earlier words rang in his head.
Does that make you different from any other man who has tried to manipulate me?
Who had tried to hurt her? What travails had she suffered? Despite all he didn't know about her, he knew this: Marianne Draven was not the scandalous, heartless sophisticate she appeared to be. She had secrets for certain, but she was no bloody anarchist. When Ambrose had asked her about her involvement in matters of crown and country, he'd seen the honest confusion in her eyes. She hadn't been lying when she said her interest in Leach was personal.

Early on, he'd sensed her hidden pain. It had called to him, and now he could no longer deny his desire to protect her. He would help her with her troubles—which meant he must take care of another matter first.

With self-control he didn't know he possessed, he extricated himself from her silken limbs. He tucked the coverlet over her glorious form. After one last look, he gathered his things and left.

SEVENTEEN

Marianne awakened, blinking groggily as the peach walls of her bedchamber came into focus. Lud, she must have had a deep slumber for she felt better rested than she had for years. Yawning, she stretched, and the movement elicited an unfamiliar twinge between her thighs. Memory jolted through her, her lungs emptying in a whoosh as several facts hit her at once.

Good God. Leach is dead, and I have three suspects for Rosie's kidnapping.

And last night I let Kent …

The intimacies that she'd allowed brought a rush of heat to her cheeks and her belly. She'd never done such things with Thomas. Yet Kent had a way of laying waste to her defenses, to culling forth her deepest desires. She ought to know better than to trust any man, and yet there was something so damnably
trustworthy
about him. He'd saved her twice. Took a bullet the first time and risked his neck hauling her over the rooftops the second.

Why had he protected her time and again?

Her face grew hotter as another fact struck her: after Kent had pleasured her, he hadn't … taken anything in return. She believed in even exchanges, and given the sum of what had passed between them, he'd had every right to demand some form of
quid pro quo
. Yet after his heroics—not to mention the two mind-melting climaxes he'd given her—he'd disappeared ... without so much as a
by your leave
?

What in blazes was the matter with the man?

Frowning, she tossed aside the covers and pulled on a silk wrapper. She went to examine herself in the Cheval looking glass. She looked the same as ever—perhaps better, with a new glow upon her cheekbones and her eyes bright and rested. All her adult life, she'd never questioned her physical desirability to the male sex. Surely Kent was no different from other men in this respect. Surely he had
wanted
to make love to her. Surely he had found her desirable … hadn't he?

Dash it all, I'm feeling insecure over
Ambrose Kent
?

Ridiculous. Jaw tight, she told herself it was only because she didn't like unpredictability. Kent acted unlike any man she'd known. No male could truly be as earnest and upstanding as this one appeared to be. With a sudden shiver, she wondered if he would have acted so chivalrously if he had seen Leach's dead body. When he heard news of the solicitor's death—and she had no doubt he soon would—would he assume that she had something to do with it? Would he go to the authorities? Or would he hold his silence?

Anxiety buzzed; she calmed herself with the fact that Kent could not report his presence to the magistrates without incriminating himself. How would it look for a Principle Surveyor of the Thames River Police to be lurking at the victim's property? And then to aid the escape of two suspects … and to make love to one of them afterward?

At this point, Kent's hands would appear as dirty as her own.

Her breathing grew more even. In the best scenario, he would keep her secret—yet that would only place her deeper in his debt. Under his power. She
hated
being beholden to any man. Swallowing, she recalled her bargain with Bartholomew Black, goose pimples dotting her skin at the memory of his foul collection of riding crops.

What's done is done. You had no choice. For Rosie's sake, you must endure anything.

She straightened her spine. The matter with Black might be out of her hands, but she could damn well manage Ambrose Kent. The notion of sitting by, wringing her hands and waiting for Kent to name his terms was unthinkable … An idea struck her then: perverse and deliciously so.

A way to see to her obligations. To solidify her position as one of power and not passivity. And to pay Kent back in kind for leaving her like a thief in the night.

At her secretaire, she dashed off a note, sealed its contents, and rang for Tilda.

"Have this sent to Mr. Kent," Marianne said.

Tilda took the letter with obvious reluctance. "Yes, milady."

Seeing the disapproval etched on the other's face, Marianne suppressed a sigh. "Do you have something you wish to say to me? I warn you now, Tilda, I'm in no mood for a lecture."

"If you know what I'm thinking, I don't have to say it, do I?"

As Tilda went to draw open the curtains, Marianne reflected wryly that even the maid was getting the best of her. For once, she regretted not going a more conventional route with the hiring of her servants. Surrounding oneself with sharp-witted honesty had its drawbacks.