Recklessly Yours (30 page)

There were many ways to satisfy pleasure. Tonight he would be the teacher and she the student. Cut off from the entire world around them, the bed would be their secret classroom.

He lifted himself off her again. Sliding her chemise upward along those endlessly silky legs, he regarded her with a half smile, then considered her boots and stockings.

“Hmm. On . . . or off?” He ran a finger from the toe of her boot to the tasseled cuff that hugged her shapely calf. His finger wiggled inside an inch or two, causing her to squirm and stifle a laugh in her hands. “Ticklish?”

“No!” she said too quickly.

His smile widened. Removing his finger from her boot, he ran both palms up her stockinged legs to the tops of her knees. As he reached the toned swell of her thighs, he stopped. “Ah, what riding has done to this body.” He squeezed her thighs gently, and she gave a squeal.

“Don't!”

“Too late, my dear. Your secret's out.” Bending low, he kissed her belly through her chemise. “Holly Sutherland has a weakness, and I intend to work it to my full advantage. Now then, the boots and stockings . . . I do believe we'll keep them, for now.”

Showing her the wickedness of his intentions with a rakish grin, he sat up, grasped her knees, bent them, and spread them gently. He settled his length over her, snug in the cradle of her thighs. He nuzzled her neck. “Tell me what you like.”

“I don't know . . .” Her head tipped back. “Oh, I like
that
.”

He had opened his mouth to suckle her skin, and now he put more effort into the endeavor until he had her squirming again, this time in earnest. He settled his palm over her breast, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the nipple. “What else?”

“Oh,
that
.”

At her low moan, he stopped to raise her chemise higher and tunnel his hand beneath until nothing lay between his fingers and her body. Then he resumed his ministrations, making sure he didn't neglect either breast.

Through her purrs of pleasure, a question emerged. “What for you? What do you like?”

In reply, he grasped her hand where it lay clenched on the coverlet. He kissed it, then brought it to his chest, opening her palm flat against him and smoothing it across his pectoral muscles. She needed no more coaxing, but set about exploring eagerly, each warm touch raising heated shivers that shot straight to his groin. When her hand strayed lower, following the trail of his chest hair to where it became a narrow line down his belly, he nearly lost his fragile control.

His hand closed over her wrist, stopping her while he sucked air into his lungs and reestablished his strength of will. Ever bold, ever reckless, she tugged free and continued onward . . . downward.

“I don't know much,” she murmured, “but I believe I can safely assume this . . .”

Her hand cupped him at the juncture of his breeches, her fingertips searching, testing, and then it was him writhing and moaning. No longer the teacher, nor even the student, he became a mindless supplicant in bliss, willing to do anything, say anything, to keep her hand precisely where it was.

Unless . . . it was to slide lower, against his bare skin.

He grasped her wrist again, and quickly eased off her.

Her brow puckered. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh, no, dear heart. You did it too, too right.”

“In that case—”

He shook his head. “It is a matter of honor.” At her crestfallen expression, he grinned. “Ladies first.”

Perching between her still raised knees, he tossed the hem of her chemise high to expose her booted legs, her contoured thighs, her flat belly, and those luscious breasts, the nipples tipped and reddened and staring temptingly up at him.

With that, he parted her thighs wider and let his tongue guide his way between them.

 

Holly jolted at the first moist touch against her nether lips. Was that . . . good heavens. His
tongue
. . .
touching
her . . .
there.
The shock of it radiated outward from that most intimate place to the very tips of her fingers and toes. Her head came off the mattress.

“I . . . oh . . . but . . .”

He smoothly released one of her thighs, reached up to lightly grasp her chin, and pressed her head back down. Against her female regions, he uttered, “Shush,” and “Relax,” the vibrations of his lips sending more of those delicious currents through her.

Still, a scorching blush burned her cheeks at the thought of her position, his actions, the sight they must present. But then, oh, his tongue swirled and probed and speared, and her thoughts and qualms dissolved. She felt her body lifting, melting, heating, and she was consumed by a craving for more, ever more, only more of
this
—what Colin was doing to her—while nothing else mattered. Nothing.

Whimpers filled her ears, and she realized they were her own, rubbing her throat raw. Pleasure, hovering all around her, made her strain and arch, while Colin's mouth never left her, never stopped carrying her along a crest of pleasure she could not have imagined. As his lips suckled a place that seemed connected to her very core, her soul, she felt the sudden pressure of a finger pushing inside her, then a gentle withdrawal, and a reentering, this time wider, the width of two fingers.

She clutched at the coverlet, her entire being centered on the twist of fear and pleasure building inside her as Colin worked his fingers, spreading her wider. Suddenly a spasm gripped her, shook her. Another and another followed, until nothing else existed but the shuddering contractions of her womb, the booming of her heart, and her cries of ecstasy.

Before her body stilled, Colin was beside her, his lips pressed to her temple, his arm anchored tightly around her. His hand continued to cup her nether regions, pressing, gently massaging while her body quivered, shuddered again, and finally drifted back to earth. When she could finally open her eyes, it was to see him staring down at her, his own eyes filled with understanding and satisfaction and . . . a tender entreaty.

Her body still tingling, she laid her palm against his cheek. “It is the gentleman's turn now, if he'll be so kind as to advise me.”

“It's all right if you don't wish . . .”

As she drew back with a warning expression, he fell silent, covered her hand with his own, and slid it down the length of his body. At his waistband, he released her and opened the buttons at one side of his trouser flap. It was enough to admit her, enough for him to fall free against her palm, to fill her hand with the solid, heated weight of his shaft.

She tried to stifle a gasp at the startling sensation, but he heard it and smiled so endearingly that she felt no embarrassment, only wonderment at this part of him, as substantial and unyielding as the rest of him. Her heart fluttered and swelled. But instead of speaking, she put every bit of what she felt into the rhythm of her hand, then both hands. She watched his face as his eyes fell closed, as a groan rumbled out of him. As the throes of passion claimed him, she couldn't look away from the chiseled beauty of his taut mouth, the tortured planes of his cheeks and brow, the hard press of his eyelids. Faster and harder she stroked him. His corded neck pulsed, his nostrils flared.

Then, just as she had done, he arched his back and thrust his fists into the mattress. His mouth fell open, and his groan became a roar. One hand lifted from the bed, found her thigh, and settled again between her legs. Her body responded with an echo of the pleasure he'd given her. With his shaft pulsing between her fingers, the power she held over him at that moment rushed through her like a stormy gale. She closed her eyes and let the potency of the act wash over and through her, and for a blessed instant she felt him to be part of her, joined in spirit: one mind, one intent, one great, billowing release.

Her small cry blended with his rumbles. Then he gathered her against his chest, held her and kissed her until their hearts ceased their mutual thumping.

As she lay nestled against him, her cheek resting in the hollow of his shoulder, she stared into the unfamiliar shadows and felt at home. She marveled at how high they had soared together, how heedlessly they had circled heaven and earth. And then she marveled all over again as she realized that through it all, she had remained a virgin.

Of sorts.

W
arm in the afterglow of their lovemaking, Colin lay against the pillows, one arm bent beneath his head. Holly lay quietly on top of him, though he could tell by her occasional movements that she wasn't asleep. His other arm draping her, he stroked her hair and absently twined a curl around his finger. “Did it frighten you, what we just did?”

She shook her head against him. “Not at all.”

“Did you know about it?”

Her cheek moved softly against him as she nodded. “Generally speaking, yes,” she said, and then added somewhat indignantly, “I grew up with servants, too, you know.”

“What the devil does that mean?”

“It means that little girls press their ears to doors and hear conversations they shouldn't, as much as little boys do. Our scullion and laundress loved to trade stories. If Uncle Edward had ever found out, he'd have sacked them instantly.”

“Ah.” The notion of a much younger, saucer-eyed Holly pressing her ear to a door made him tighten his arm around her. “Tell me, what else do little girls do?”

“I don't know anymore about little girls, but . . .”

Her voice trailed off and her hands took over, accompanied by her lips, conveying exactly what it was about him that most fascinated her. Gently but boldly, she explored his shoulders, arms, and chest, touching, kissing, occasionally tasting until his muscles quivered, his skin burned, and his loins ached to take her—truly take her in the one way he had not.

In the back of his mind caution and logic spoke their piece. He didn't listen. Not tonight, not here, where he found himself blessedly free from his family, his father, society, and even missing colts. Tonight none of those burdens dangled from around his neck; he wouldn't allow it. He'd be what he wanted,
do
as he wanted. For tonight, he very much wished to continue testing the boundaries of pleasure with this extraordinary woman.

His groin tightening maddeningly, he rolled until she lay beneath him, and set about eliciting fresh moans and the occasional squeal, and replying in kind with groans and oaths murmured beneath his panting breath. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, they both fell into an exhausted, satiated sleep.

As he knew it would, the rising sun brought back all the harsh truths the night had concealed. As the first rays speared through the curtains he'd left gaping, he scrubbed a hand across his eyes, eased away from Holly, and struggled into his clothes. He chose another bedchamber at random and rumpled the covers to make the bed appear slept in. Last night he had temporarily donned clothes and gone belowstairs to collect the meal Mrs. Fulsome had prepared for them. He felt fairly certain neither the woman nor her husband had found any reason to climb all the way up to the second floor.

He went belowstairs again now and ordered breakfast brought up to Holly. Then he helped Mr. Fulsome hitch the hired horses to the carriage, with Cordelier and Maribelle tied behind. When the task was done, Colin lingered in the stable yard.

How on earth would he return to Briarview without the colt? How would he reassure a populace raised on superstition that the loss of the colt—a theft within a theft—would not destroy their lives? How would he convince them he would find the animal when he had no idea how or where to begin searching?

And how—God help him,
how—
would he set Holly free, as he must, without hurting her in the worst possible way? No, not the worst, for he had maintained at least that much control. They had indeed crossed a line last night, a splendid, glorious line, but he hadn't ruined her. Not in the truest sense. Holly Sutherland could go on to meet and marry a suitable gentleman, one who didn't have a horror of a father or a family mired in unhappiness; one who hadn't had to resort to horse thievery in a vain attempt to hold his world together.

Hands thrust in his coat pockets, he rearranged the lines of his face, clearing away the grimness before turning to head back into the house. A good thing, too, for as he glanced up he saw her peeking down at him from her bedchamber window. She raised one graceful hand, and when he thought she would wave, she instead smiled and touched her fingertips to her lips.

Yes, his lips still tingled from their kisses, from the sweet and tangy taste of her skin.

However wrong of him, last night had provided a badly needed respite, a rare taste of normalcy, and a brief but precious sampling of what other men took for granted. Ah, in truth it had been so much more than that. But he didn't dare dwell on what a night spent holding Holly Sutherland in his arms had meant to him.

He smiled up at her, then continued into the house. Why make these next, last hours together as bleak as they could possibly be? She'd done nothing wrong; it wasn't her fault he couldn't offer her what a gentlewoman had every right to expect . . . what she deserved. But once they reached Devonshire, he'd be leaving her almost immediately. After gathering a search party of trusted men, he intended riding out to find the colt.

If indeed the colt was anywhere to be found.

Holly met him at the top of the stairs, fully dressed. “I insist we ride today,” she said in lieu of a proper greeting. “Have Mr. Fulsome arrange to have the carriage returned. We'll make better time on Cordelier and Maribelle.”

He fought the urge to take her into his arms. Instead, he stood over her and mustered a stern, no-nonsense look. “You were hurt when you fell yesterday. We'll travel by carriage.”