No Place for a Dame (34 page)

Sophia’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t seen Strand’s lover’s face, only the back of a head and a smallish form covered in a blanket, but she knew those short, tousled auburn locks. They could not have belonged to anyone else but Avery Quinn.

What would Vedder pay for
this
information?

And just that quickly, Sophia’s plans for the evening changed.

Chapter Thirty-Five

J
aw in a hard line, eyes glittering like shards of broken glass, Giles carried Avery to the bed and lowered her gently in its center. She should be nervous. At least a bit apprehensive. She was a virgin and she’d heard enough ribald tales from the maids and servants to understand that this first encounter did not always go well.

But she wasn’t nervous at all.

He worked expertly to divest her of the hated coat and shirt, tug her shoes off, and strip her trousers from her legs. Only the hideous, padded corset gave him pause—and so gave her pause.

She turned her head, afraid of what she might see on his face. He mustn’t laugh. Not now.

Her earlier terror had awakened in her a certainty of what she wanted,
who
she wanted. Who she’d always wanted. Giles.

And
he
wanted
her
. She recognized the banked fire in his eyes, felt the hunger in his kiss, and with that had come a sublime new confidence, not in her intellect, but in her desirability. But he could destroy that confidence just as easily as he’d engendered it. He could shatter it with a flippant remark, a caustic grimace.

She glanced around. He did not appear to have noticed the absurdity of the garment but, with obvious frustration, was studying the hooks and eyes, the buttons and strings holding it together. With an unintelligible mutter, he gripped the top edge of the padded atrocity in both hands and, with a jerk, rent it in two. Then he straightened and, with infinite care, turned back the edges of the ripped garment as though he were unfurling a rose, exposing her body.

“My heaven.” His voice was soft, reverent, his gaze smoldering. And then, before she had a chance to feel shy at his heated perusal, he was tearing at his own clothes, yanking off his boots before wrenching his coat and trousers from his person, peeling off his shirt until he finally stood naked.

He was big, she realized, but so perfectly proportioned that his size was not always evident. But then, to carry Neville so easily, he would have had to be strong. And he looked very strong indeed. His shoulders were broad, capped by heavy muscle, and his chest was likewise deep and broad, tapering to hard flanks and narrow hips. His limbs were long and sleekly muscled beneath clear, golden skin. Her gaze flickered below a well-defined, ridged belly to where his member jutted from a thicket of dark hair.

Oh, my.

She realized she was staring and blushed. He didn’t even realize. His own gaze was riveted on her body, traveling over it with breathtaking deliberation. His chest rose and fell in deep rhythm, his nostrils flaring slightly as though scenting her.

He put a knee on the bed beside her hip and set his hands flat on either side of her head. With an easy, elegant grace he shifted his body over hers and braced himself over her.

The position cast his face in shadows, the hearth light glinting off his burnished curls and limning the powerful slip and play of his shoulders with golden light. Heat seemed to flow off of him like a mist, warming the space between them. His staff bobbed slightly in the air above her belly like a cautioning finger.

“My heaven,” he whispered again and this time the words had taken on a different meaning altogether.

She looked down. Freed from their cotton cocoon, her breasts rose round and ample above her meager ribcage. “Now you see why binding
would never have worked. They are out of proportion to the rest of me.”

He brushed his fingertip along the outer swell of one breast. “Your breasts are glorious.”

He bent his head. With exquisite languor, he licked the areola around her nipple. She jerked in response, as though touched by a firebrand, her back arching. His arm slipped beneath her waist and pulled her higher as he took her nipple into his mouth. She gasped at the erotic sensation as he suckled her, slowly, unhurriedly. She clutched at his shoulders, unprepared for a sense of escalating need that uncoiled like a whip inside of her.

“Relax, my love,” he whispered. “We’ve just begun.”

My love
. Her eyelids fluttered shut.

His free hand slid lower, moving to her buttocks. “You are so soft. So beautiful. My God, but you are exquisite,” he murmured as his hand slipped around and between them to cup the mound of curls.

With infinite gentleness, he parted her inner flesh. It was beyond intimate, too raw, a sensory excess. She tried to cross her legs. “Let me. Please.” He sounded so pleading, so reverent. She forced herself to relax.

His finger slipped inside and she gasped. “You’re wet, beautifully wet.” He spoke as if she’d given him some gift. He did not remove his finger, but kept it inside her, unmoving, as he lowered his head and tenderly kissed her mouth, her chin, the side of her neck, her collar bone, her shoulders, her breasts.

It both stimulated and relaxed, incited and turned her body to warm wax. And then he moved his finger, sliding it deeper inside, stretching her. She shifted and the feeling of him inside made her nerves coil in anticipation, heat spread throughout her. She arched into his touch and he moved it deeper, suddenly going quite still.

“Virgin,” he said in an odd, desperate sort of voice.

She barely heard him. The nearly painful physical anticipation he’d started was building within her. Her arms wrapped tight around his flanks, a bulwark against the unbearable excitement buffeting her. Her hips pitched instinctively into his touch.

“Please,” she heard herself murmur.… A whisper? A command? A plea?

Her words seemed to release whatever had held him immobile. He moved his hands to her hips and rolled her on top of him, so that she sat
with her thighs spread wide astride his lap. His erection pulsed against her inner thigh. He lightly clasped her shoulders, his gaze hunting her face.

“You’re sure?”

She stared down into his eyes. He looked intent, desperate, and… anxious.

Good God. Giles Dalton, anxious over the deflowering of a gamekeeper’s daughter. The servant’s daughter. At the unfortunate thought, her brows drew together in a fierce scowl.

“Avery?” He reached up, gently stroking her face. “You can stop. At any time. We don’t—”

She regarded him in both consternation and horror. He must not think this was an aberration, that the morning would find her bemoaning the night’s events. She had to be clear on that. No matter how much her body ached for a release she somehow knew only he could provide, he must know that this was not the whim of some overwrought girl. She had made this decision as a woman.

But she could not think of the words that could convince him. Her mind was befogged, befuddled by these new sensations, his ravishing touch.

All she could do was answer him in kind. Her hand slipped between them and she wrapped her fingers around his male member. He was hard and heated, a velvety smooth sheath sliding over a thick, solid rod. It was a revelation, a piece of beautiful knowledge: This part of a man’s body could be both silken and adamantine. This part of Giles’s body.

His teeth flashed in a grimace of agonized pleasure. She might not have experience, but her instincts were sound.

He muttered what could have been a prayer or a curse and she shifted slightly to her knees, bringing the head of his staff to where his fingers had recently played. He was right. She was wet and the rounded head eased effortlessly within.

And stopped.

Her eyes widened. Something was wrong. She knew his entire staff was supposed to penetrate her body, but there was no room.

Abruptly he clasped her hips, keeping her still. His eyes had shut tight and his jaw bulged with tension. “Don’t move,” he breathed.

He shifted his hips sideways. Whatever he did, it caused that part of him still exposed to drag against the seat of her sexual sensation. Intense pleasure coiled at the place he touched. Another small movement and he had somehow seated himself a little deeper inside. He reached between them and pressed his thumb on a tightening nerve of pure sensation. It was too much. She melted forward.

“
Don’t. Move
.”

How could she not when each tiny motion elicited such extravagant reward? Avery spread her hands flat against his chest, digging her fingers deep into his pectoral muscles. A quake ran though him. She wriggled a little, seating him deeper still.

Without warning, he sat up. The sudden movement spread her legs wide and he surged deep within her, up to the very root. She let out a cry, as much in surprise as pain. And there was pain, a sharp pain, hot and deep, but, like a cut, once done, it faded quickly, leaving only an echo behind.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching his forehead to hers. He was breathing hard. A thin mist of sweat covered his torso. “There’ll be pleasure, too. I swear it.”

He pivoted, turning her beneath him while they were still joined. He caught one of her hands in his, holding it close to her face. Watching her intently, he slowly withdrew. She tensed involuntarily, unconvinced that this could be anything as wondrous as what the preliminary fondling and kissing had promised. He felt alien and large. His body overwhelmed hers.

“Trust me,” he whispered.

And she did. She did.

She kept her gaze locked with his as he moved, slowly at first, allowing her to get accustomed to him, and then more deliberately. His smoke gray eyes never left her face, watching each reaction as he carefully gauged his rhythm, the depth of his penetration, even as a new sheen of sweat broke over his shoulders and chest and dampened his face.

It built slowly, a feather stroking a nerve end, over and over until the feather was not enough. She stared, amazed, and he smiled, dropping a moist, hungry kiss against her mouth before sliding his hands beneath her buttocks to tilt her up and closer.

Her breathing grew ragged, her body tense in a torment of anticipation. Each thrust grew deeper, harder, and she welcomed it. Unbearable pleasure built inside her, poising her between pain and ecstasy, each stroke driving her nearer to some edge she must know, she must achieve.

“Yes! More! There! Please, God!” she heard herself cry.

He kept moving, strongly, deeply in a primal rhythm, his face set and intent, his gaze never straying from her face. She reveled in his possession, in every powerful movement of his body. She arched her back, stretched on a precipice.

“Oh… there. Just… just… please… there. There!”

The climax took her without warning. Pleasure spiked and exploded, racing through her body, filling every quivering nerve ending with repletion. She cried out, caught in ever expanding waves of pure satisfaction, half-sobbing with laughter and crying out with the beauty of it. She wrapped her arms around him, reveling in the power of him, the masculinity, the heat and potency.

“Avery,” she heard him say in a rough, low voice as his big body tensed above her. “Avery.” His eyes squeezed shut and his lips parted in an agony of sensation. For a long moment, shudders racked his body. Then, slowly, he relaxed. The tension seeped from him and he fell to her side, carrying her with him. His harsh breath pounded in her ears.

An afterglow seeped through her, turning her limbs liquid and warm. She scooted higher and laid her head on his chest. His arms came round her, holding her. His heartbeat deepened and slowed beneath her ear, a counterpoint to the heavy rise and fall of his chest. She turned her face into his chest.

“I wanted it to be pleasurable for you,” she heard him say. “I tried to make it last longer, to give you another. But I was… you are… I could not…”

She had never been more aware of her own femininity, felt more keenly her power as a woman. It made her reckless. It made her joyously confident. “What’s this?” she teased. “The consummate rake at a loss for words?”

She could feel his breath catch in surprise. She smiled against his chest. Without allowing herself to pause and consider, she flicked the tip of her tongue against his nipple. His arms clenched reflexively around her. He inhaled sharply.

“But perhaps that is the key to your success,” she said, dancing her fingertips over his pectoral. Beneath the smooth skin, the thick muscle hardened. “Perhaps feigning inarticulateness serves to disarm unsuspecting ladies of the ton.”

Her grabbed her wandering hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a heated kiss in the center of her palm. It was her turn to inhale sharply.

“I might suggest that I do not need to
feign
anything to win a lady’s approval, but would not like you to think me conceited.” He spoke in a lazily seductive tone, his momentary unease vanished.

“I already do,” she said.

“I might also suggest that pretty speeches, or a disarming lack of them, are not foremost amongst those things that recommend a gentleman to a lady’s bed.”