Scandal (23 page)

She quivered and arched toward his mouth, and at the peak of her motion, he touched her breast, the very lightest sweep of a fingertip over her while his mouth covered her down there. His tongue flicked out. She moaned, a wanton sound that wasn't her at all. Except it was. She forgot everything but right now. The world slid away. Only Banallt was left. Only his touch, her breath. Her body opened to him, and in the very last moment in which she could think, she knew she would love him the rest of her life, just for having given her this moment.

Banallt pulled himself over her, one hand still between their bodies. “And then I'd come over you, darling, hard for you, aching for you, dying to be inside you, to have you beneath me.” His hips tilted back.

“What else?” she whispered.

“Your tender skin feels my clothes, and I reach to unbutton.” He bit his lower lip as his hand worked at the fastening of his trousers. “I'd push your legs apart—” The outside of his thigh pressed against hers, and Sophie sucked in a breath. His hard-muscled leg slid along hers. The buttons of his waistcoat pressed into her, and along the length of her legs the fabric of his trousers rubbed her.

“I can withdraw,” he said softly. “If I did that, there's little risk you'll get with child.” With his fingertip, he made a circle on her belly. “Will you say yes, darling?”

He touched the outside of her thigh, trailing a fingertip along her skin. Her breath caught. Every muscle in her body tensed. She put a hand over her mouth. His fingers moved between her legs and touched her nether hair. Her heart pounded, and her body went rigid. His hand flattened on her thigh. He drew a finger along the inside of her leg.

His body was in position. All Sophie had to do was tip her hips toward him. She did, and he was there, at her opening, sliding in, filling her, setting every nerve in her body on fire. Then he was inside her. He dropped his head and sighed into the hollow of her throat. “Sophie. God, Sophie. How beautiful you feel.”

Pleasure rippled through her; something deep inside her felt ravenous. She drank him in. She'd never felt such longing, like the edge of a storm about to break. A lock of hair fell in a slash of black across his cheek. An aesthete's face, lean and hawkish. He watched her looking at him, and the corner of his lip curled. The darkness in him beckoned. Thousands of butterflies dipped and dived in her stomach. The same smile quirked at the corners of his mouth.

“Banallt,” she whispered. He was inside her body, and she was beyond anything but the sensation of his movement.

“You are mine, Sophie,” he said in a voice as dark as his eyes. “Mine. You ought to have told me yes the very first time I asked you. Admit we should have done this much sooner. Oh Jesus, Sophie. Maybe you do have reason to hate me, but right now at least have the decency to admit you love this.”

“Yes.” She let out a trembling breath. “Yes, I do love this.” His eyes went soft, and when she rolled her pelvis, he arched toward her. “I used to hate you, Banallt.” He leaned over her, and his hair fell over her shoulder. She twined her fingers in it and tugged. “When you left Rider Hall that night, I hated you with all my heart.”

“I know. I deserved it, too.” He stilled. “But now it's different. You don't hate me anymore, do you?” She shook her head. A smile spread over his face. “Good,” he whispered.

Once she understood what he meant by the gentle pressure on the underside of her knee, she bent both knees, feet flat on the mattress. She closed her eyes so tight colors exploded behind her lids. He circled her wrists and brought them above her head, pinning her. And she didn't care at all, because she hadn't ever in all her life imagined feeling this way.

She freed a hand and threw an arm around his neck and pulled his head to hers. “Banallt.” A low sound tore from the back of her throat, and she bowed toward him, one leg thrown over his, feeling the rasp of his clothes against her body. “More,” she said. “Please, more.”

Banallt answered with a movement of his own, a pushing, sliding motion into her and then over her. She felt his body, the shape of him, covering the length of her. Air came into his lungs with a gasp.

Their gazes locked. He made her feel beautiful. With him she was desired and special. The tickle in her belly spread out from her center. He studied her face while he bore down, farther inside her. His fingers spread around her thigh, sliding beneath, clutching and pulling up, and then he stopped moving. She gasped. He drew out, only a short way, and readjusted himself. He propped one elbow above her shoulder and gripped her thigh, pressing down on her, into her. He threw back his head, drew partially out of her, and then slid back in, hard enough for her to feel the friction deep inside her.

She moved, this time toward his forward pressure. He let his weight press down, into her. He pulled her thigh up and surged into her, farther and deeper, then away and back again until at last, something broke inside her. She cried out, but he came into her so fast and so far that all the air whooshed out of her lungs and cut off her groan. He pushed and pushed and still he fit. “God help me,” he said. “Too soon.”

He stopped moving for the space of a heartbeat. He bent his head to her shoulder and rocked his hips, pressing inside her. His hair fell forward around either side of his face, a frame of black, silky where it brushed her collarbone. “I am in paradise.” His hips rocked again.

She closed her eyes tight. She felt his lips on her cheek and then on her eyelids, placing gentle kisses. He pulled nearly all the way out of her and then pressed in. “Jesus, you are tight, and I am as hard as ever I have been in my life.”

He had his elbows above her, pressing the tops of her shoulders. A quiver of anticipation shot through her, wrenched her passion higher yet. She grasped for it—or maybe, just maybe, he paused long enough for her to reach for it. The quiver pooled in her belly again, as it had when he'd put his mouth on her there, as it had when he first slid inside her. She took a breath and then another, and then she stopped thinking about how impossible it was that Lord Banallt should be inside her, because all she could think of was how he filled her and how hot he felt, and how good she felt. And how wonderful he looked. How beautiful his eyes were when he looked into her face. She lifted her pelvis off the mattress and strained to meet him.

“Sophie,” he whispered. His eyes darkened. “Sophie.” He did what he'd promised, which was withdraw. She threw back her head and protested with a groan. He grabbed her hand and curled her fingers around him, gripping hard as he came.

After a bit, he grabbed her arm and said, “I'm not done with you yet, madam.”

Nineteen

THE FIRST FEW SECONDS AFTER BANALLT REALIZED HE was awake, he was aware of remarkably little. He could easily have slipped back into sleep, and nearly did, except, just there in the back of his head, there existed a niggling reason he shouldn't. What was it? Without opening his eyes, he knew it was damn early in the morning. There was very little good reason to get out of bed before the sun was up. The bedsheets formed a cocoon of warmth around his naked body. Unusual for him these days to be naked in bed, but there it was. He was naked: tired and happy in some deep and indefinable manner.

Ah. This was not his room.

A body stirred beside him, a woman, of course, and he knew she was the reason for his extremely pleasant state of existence. Nudity. Sleepiness. Happiness. He reached, pulled her close, spooning her body against his. He breathed in the scent of her and touched the warm softness of her skin. And knew.

Sophie.

She was his. Now she could not deny she was his. Now she must confront her feelings for him. He knew Sophie well enough to suspect she wouldn't. This would work between them. He'd make it work.

He tucked his chin over her shoulder and drew her closer. She sighed, a gentle sound, and her backside pressed against him. He really could fall back asleep quite contentedly. So he did. It was a joy to have Sophie in his arms and feel utterly and unashamedly happy as he tipped back into sleep.

He woke a second time to a room not as dark as before. There was still no hope of seeing the time on the clock ticking somewhere in the room. And yet, it was undeniably morning. Sophie turned in his arms and draped a hand over his waist. Her breathing changed. “Good morning,” he whispered. He was a bit tense. How would she react?

She didn't open her eyes. “ ‘Tisn't,” she murmured, wriggling close to him, with a rather predictable response from him. “Not morning at all. I'm too tired for it to be morning.”

Banallt held his breath, waiting for her to whisper Tommy's name. But she didn't. He kissed the top of her head. Downstairs he heard the faint sound of servants in the kitchen. After five in the morning, but not yet six, he thought. Even so, the darkness wouldn't last much longer. Not that they needed to be up and about just yet. Bringing up the fire in the kitchen took long enough that there'd be nothing hot to eat for hours yet. “If you say so, darling.”

“I do say so.”

He cradled her in his arms. He was happy. Beyond happiness. Sophie was his. He knew quite well he ought to get out of bed and go back to his room while there was still a better than even chance of him getting there before anyone realized where and how he'd spent the night. He had a few moments more before the risk was too great, though, and he spent them holding Sophie, who'd fallen back to sleep.

When he woke the third time, the room was no longer dark. Dawn had certainly come and gone. He turned his head and had no trouble at all seeing the clock on the fireplace mantel. Four minutes after eight. Damned early yet, following such a late night, and yet, he was going to have a devil of a time getting out now without being seen. He sat up and scrubbed his hands through his hair.

Beside him, Sophie opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. Her hair was tangled, since the precaution of braiding her hair before they slept was simply not anything that had penetrated his pleasure-sated mind last night. Nor hers, either.

“Banallt?” Her voice was thick with sleep. “Is that you?”

Who the hell else would it be? “Yes.”

She sighed. “Good.”

“Go back to sleep, Sophie.” He slipped out of bed, holding the sheets low to keep the cold air out and the warm in. Damn, but the chill was going to freeze his balls off.

She squinted at him and, with her weight on an elbow, partially sat up, holding, more's the pity, the sheets to her bosom. “What time is it?”

“Time for me to go.”

Her attention was not on his face. She was, in fact, giving him a very long and assessing look. “You haven't any clothes on.”

“Neither have you.” His smallclothes had come off last. Well, yes. Of course they had, but that meant they ought to be closest to the bed. In fact, he was stepping on them now. His trousers were draped over a chair. He didn't see his coat, shirt, or stockings anywhere.

“Oh,” Sophie said. A charming flush appeared in her cheeks.

“Yes,” he said. “Oh.”

Her eyes were sleepy, her hair mussed. Banallt wanted to get back into bed with her and hold her while they both fell back to sleep. If he did that, they would be caught out, and her brother would insist on shooting him dead and he'd have to let him, after which they would have to be married by special license. He wanted her to have a church wedding, with her brother to give her away and all his relatives in attendance.

“I ought to get up, too.”

That brought him up short. “What on earth for?” He knew the moment the words came out that he'd spoken too quickly. He didn't want to sound like a tyrant. Controlling and officious. Tommy on his worst hungover morning.

“I'm usually up before eight,” she said in a very bland voice. A dangerously bland voice.

Good God, but he would live the rest of his life learning how to avoid that tone of voice. He suspected he would be a better man for the lessons. “You only just closed your eyes,” he said gently. From the corner of his eye, he saw his shirt hanging off the edge of a chair. He forced himself to take a breath. She sat the rest of the way up, holding the sheets to her chest, but exposing a goodly portion of her exquisite back. “Your brother and Vedaelin won't be up for hours, I'm sure. There won't be anything for breakfast yet, either.”

“Oh. Oh goodness.” With one hand, she pulled her hair out of her face. “This is a tangle for us, isn't it?”

Banallt stood there, and his heart felt too big for his chest. She was naked, for pity's sake. They'd spent the night making love. He wanted to again. He wanted to be certain they were all right. So far so good, but he never knew with Sophie. This was new territory for them both. He retrieved her gown from the floor where he'd let it fall. His shirt was nearby, in good condition. “I've only to make it to my room unseen, Sophie.” He found her corset, too, and set that on the chair with her gown. He smoothed a few of the wrinkles from the satin. “Unless you wish to find yourself embroiled in scandal, perhaps you could help me locate my cravat. It's gone missing and it won't do to have a servant find it here.”

“Banallt,” she said in a low, drawn-out whisper. “I've nothing on.” Her cheeks turned pinker.

“Yes,” he said. He leered at her, hugely diverted by the thought. “I know.”

She pointed with a bare arm. “There. By that chest of drawers.”

His cravat was ruined. There was no way to resurrect it. He held up the crumpled linen. “My valet will have my hide when he sees this.”

“What a scandal that would be,” she said. Then she fell silent, and her gaze turned inward; he knew she was thinking about the kind of scandal that ruined reputations. Primarily the reputations of women.