Taste for Trouble (34 page)

“Bel,”
he said. “Bel.”

She
speared her fingers through his hair and brought his mouth back to hers with a
greedy purpose. She didn’t want to talk. She’d had enough talk to last her
whole life. Now she wanted action.

Because
she’d seen James in action, seen him back up all his words with an enormous act
of courage and strength. And now she wanted it all for herself. All that
courage, all that strength, all that loyalty and determination and goodness. She
wanted it in her arms, in her bed, in her heart. In her life.

He
loved her. He’d said so. And she loved him. For better or worse. She wanted to
bind him to her now, before they talked and things got complicated. She wanted
to give him her pledge in the most ancient and primal way possible. Not with
words, but with her body. With her heart and her kiss.

She
wanted her mark on him, and his on her so the entire world would see them and
know they belonged to each other. That no matter what fate threw at them, they
would weather it together.

Hunger
like she’d never experienced ate at her, sharp and cruel. A hunger that she
somehow knew nothing but his skin under her hands would satisfy. She pushed at
his coat, shoved it off his shoulders with an impatient jerk. He wrestled out
of it, dropped it to the crushed shells underfoot while she tugged his shirt
free of his waistband.

Her
hands found the warm skin of his back and streaked upward, greedy to discover
all his edges and angles, to explore the supple muscle and smooth skin. She’d
denied herself even wanting him for so long. To have him now hot and alive
under her fingers had a soft purr of pleasure humming in her throat. He was so
real—all this bone and blood and breath, trembling under her touch. Trembling
with desire for her. For
her
.

Her
lips curved in satisfaction and a whippy excitement crashed into her system. Had
she ever made anybody tremble before? Doubtful. It was a new experience. One
she could get used to.

“Bel.”

His
hands slid up her arms and across her shoulders, his thumbs dipping down to
flirt with the neckline of her dress.

“Yes?”

She
brushed her lips across his cheekbone, then moved on to explore the shell of
his ear.

“Bel,
are you sure?” His hand drifted down to trace a path of tingling fire across
the edge of her bodice. Her thoughts fell to her feet and blew away.

“About
what?”

He dipped
a finger into the hollow of her cleavage and limned the inside curve of her
breast. Her nipples tightened to an aching awareness and the breath left her
lungs. “About this.”

That
finger dipped again into the cleft between her breasts. Bel’s spine went to
warm honey, her shoulders rounded and her lips parted on a soft, silent oh. Her
bodice gaped slightly and the night air flowed cool and forbidden across the
exquisitely sensitive skin of her breasts.

“Um,
yeah,” she said, breathless. “Pretty sure.”

His
clever fingers slid warm and sure into the hot velvet of her dress to cup one
breast in his palm. He dragged a slow, deliberate thumb over her nipple and an
electric shower of sparks exploded low in her belly.

“God,
James, I—” She broke off, catching the words before they fell out and ruined
everything. The way they always did.

“What?”
His voice was a low rumble, amused and urgent, against her neck where he’d
pressed his lips. “You what, Bel?”

She
forced her eyes to open, to focus on the precisely trimmed hedge silhouetted
against the night sky.
I love you
, she thought.
God, I love you
.

“Nothing.”
It was already perfect—this night, this man, this decision. There would be time
to define it later. For tonight, she wasn’t going to talk, wasn’t going to
think. Tonight she was going to just let herself ride out the thrilling, crazy,
buoyant storm inside her.

She arched
into his hand, and her bodice snapped tight again. His palm, trapped hot and
hard against her exquisitely sensitive skin, sent a knee-weakening surge of
liquid heat into her belly, and a small moan escaped her. But James seemed to
be breathing through his teeth, so Bel let embarrassment slip away like her
thoughts.

“Jesus,
Bel,” he said. “I want—”

He
broke off to drag his mouth, hot and open, up the side of her throat and she
dropped her head back to allow him better access.

“I
know.” Her laugh was rich and full with the jittery want streaking through her,
but it cut out when his arm came around her waist like a steel band. He jerked
her off her feet and bowed her into him and suddenly her world narrowed to only
what she could feel.

His
mouth, hot and open and demanding on hers. His fingers, clever and maddening on
her breast, his heartbeat, strong and unsteady against hers.

His
leg slid along hers, caging her between long and powerful thighs, and his
desire pushed hard and strong against her belly. A brilliant, blinding streak
of light shot through her, settled low inside her, screwed the blind, seeking
hunger in her a notch higher.

She arched
herself into him mindlessly. Closer. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to
draw him into herself, to take all this heat, this desire, this power inside
her body. She wanted to take and take and take, let him fill her until there
were no empty spaces left, nothing cold or abandoned or untouched.

“More,”
she said into his mouth. “Please, James. More.”

“Anything
you want,” he said. “I swear to God, I’ll give you—”

“You.”
Her fingers dove between them, flew fast and clever into the waist of his
breeches, worked the buttons there with feverish haste. “Just you. Please.”

“Holy
mother of—” He sucked in a harsh breath as she yanked open the last of the
buttons, took him in her shaking hands. His hands fisted in the lush flow of
her skirt, then danced impatiently up the back of her dress. “I can’t...there’s
no—ah, screw it.”

He
gave up what Bel assumed was a search for buttons or zippers or what have you
at the back of her dress and instead simply hooked his fingers in her neckline
and jerked. The dress—already precariously balanced on her corset-induced
cleavage—gave way without protest, and her breasts popped free.

“Oh,
sweet Jesus,” James said, staring. Bel had a look herself and was astonished. Her
dress pooled dark and rich around her waist, her skin glowed pale and pearly in
the moonlight. Her breasts spilled ripe and full—as full as a modest B cup
would ever get—over the lacy edge of her corset, as if served up on a silver
platter for the guy industrious enough to free them from the confines of her
neckline. And James—lucky, lucky Bel—was that guy.

He
plunked her down without ceremony on the wide marble edge of the fountain,
dropped to his knees and cupped her with reverent hands. The cool night air
flowed over her, broken only by the heat of his hands. Her skin pebbled, her
nipples peaked and James slowly lowered his mouth to one aching point.

“Oh.”
Her head dropped back, too heavy suddenly to hold upright. She speared her
fingers into all that golden hair and arched into him, into the glorious tug of
his mouth, into the delicious molten glow it banked deep inside her.

One
wide hand splayed over her back, holding her steady against him. As if she were
going anywhere, she thought, a strangled laugh lodging in her throat. A laugh
that died when he circled her ankle with long, clever fingers. Fingers that
slid up her calf, danced over her knee and stole slowly up her inner thigh. Oh God.

His
teeth dragged lightly over her nipple, and a pleasure lanced through her so
intense it bordered on pain. His tongue laved gently, immediately soothing the
sting into a punishing, achy want. A want that spun higher and tighter with
each inch of her thigh he conquered with those clever, questing fingers. He
toyed with the frilly edge of her vintage pantaloons for one eternal moment,
then finally,
finally
, slipped inside.

A
black heat filled her mind, scoured away all rational thought, leaving nothing
behind but the primitive want pulsing through her entire body. A want that drove
her relentlessly toward her goal. Toward him. Toward having him, marking him,
taking him.

“James.”
She gripped great handfuls of his fine, linen shirt. “
Now
.”

He
lifted his head from her breast and the want inside her only burned brighter at
the sight of an answering hunger in his face.

“Right.”
He leapt to his feet. “Now.” He drew her to her feet and applied himself with
vigor to the elaborate array of knots and buttons and pins holding her dress in
place.

“No.”
She shoved him down on the wide marble slab she’d just vacated. “Now.” She
wriggled out of the funny little Miss Muffet pantaloons and kicked them aside. She
stuffed half a dozen yards of skirt under one arm and straddled him, the marble
cold and unforgiving under her knees.

“At
least the corset, Bel.” He smiled, his eyes hot on hers. “You’ll die of oxygen
deprivation.”

“Then
I’ll die happy.” She settled against the hard length of him with a sharp,
indrawn breath. An answering emptiness ached inside her, throbbed for
something. For fulfillment, for satisfaction, for him. For this.

She
rocked into him, against him, took him into her by slow, agonizing increments
until he was seated deep inside her and her breath came in sharp pants. Until
his hands found her hips and clamped there, shaking and strong and urgent. The
need to drive herself onto him, to slake this vicious, twisting hunger lifted
her and brought her back down. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t—

“Lie
back,” she said. She twisted and he fell back across the curved edge of the
fountain, one boot on the ground, the other stretched across the marble lip. He
propped both elbows on the wide rounded edges, and clamped his hands onto her
hips. She wrestled her skirt high onto her thighs and shoved most of it behind
her. Then she put one foot on the ground, the other in the shallow water and
rode him.

She
rose and twisted, lifted and fell, climbed with the light and the heat and the
hunger inside her until everything spiraled up, higher, brighter. Until there
was nothing between them, nothing unspoken, nothing unsolved. Nothing broken in
her, nothing empty inside. Nothing holding her back from that wicked,
knife-sharp edge. She hurtled heedlessly over and pulled him behind her.

James
dragged himself hand over fist back into consciousness. He didn’t really want
to, because the dream he’d just had was too good to leave behind. Bel. Warm,
open, touchable. Her lips curved in welcome, in humor, in love. Her dark eyes
narrow and glittery with heat, want, desire. All of it centered on him.

Then
he realized the contented warmth wasn’t coming from that dreamy, happy place
he’d just visited. It was coming from Bel. She lay across him, her dress
twisted around her waist, her hair tangled over his shoulders. And—sweet baby
Jesus in the manger—he was still
inside
her.

He
jerked awake and clamped his arms around her before she could escape. He needed
to reorient himself and didn’t want her to run away while he was getting his
bearings. Plus if this went the way he figured it might—lots of recrimination,
second-guessing and dear-lord-what-have-I-done-ing—he didn’t want this part to
end any too soon.

A
wheezy chuckle wafted out of her. “Okay,” she said, “you may have had a point
about the corset. Can’t...breathe...”

“Oh.”
He forced himself to ease up the grip. “Right. Of course. God. Are you all
right?”

“Better
than.” She lifted her head and the smile she gave him arrowed straight into the
cotton-candy center of his heart. “You?”

“I’m,
ah...” He smiled back at her, totally on autopilot in the face of that smile of
hers. He touched one of those silky maple-syrup curls still pooled on his
shoulder. “I’m sort of confused.” He closed his eyes.
Nice one, James
. The
girl he loved had just screwed him into literal unconsciousness, and instead of
thanking her profusely and begging her to do it again for, oh, say, the rest of
his life, he tells her he’s
confused
? “I’m good, too,” he said hastily. “Really,
really
good. Thank you for that, by the way. I’m just, well...kind of
surprised, too.”

She
reached up and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. He fell into that kiss—God,
who wouldn’t? Mouth like hers?—and time sort of warped into something
indeterminate and circular. Though clearly more for him than for Bel because
when he surfaced, she was already squinting at her watch.

Then
she leapt straight off him, leaving him feeling way too abandoned for his
liking. “Okay, time to get dressed,” she said briskly. “You hear that?”

James
cocked an ear. And suddenly, he did hear it. People. Voices. Footsteps. The
auction must have wrapped up while he and Bel had been, ah, otherwise occupied.
And now their guests were flowing out of the house and into the gardens. “Right,”
he said. He leapt into action alongside her and in a disappointingly short
amount of time, his lovely, wanton, deliciously disarrayed Bel was perfectly
respectable again.