The Rogue and the Rival (22 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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Phillip’s hands fumbled slightly, shook a bit even, as he undid her dress. Soon enough the wretched garment was gone. He didn’t stop there: her chemise went, too, and her undergarments, until she stood before him completely nude, save for her stockings. She might have felt silly, but it was impossible to do so with the way he was looking at her. Hungrily, lustily, longingly.
“I know. Just one kiss.” Oh, that grin again. She would miss that. But would that devilish grin compensate for all the other things he said he lacked?
He guided her to sit on the bed. He slid off one stocking and then the other. Her feet might have been on the floor, but her head was in heaven. Because Phillip was making this one hell of a kiss. His mouth had left hers, moving to her throat then down to her breasts. They were covered by his hands and—oh, heaven—his mouth. He held them gently, with a little bit of pressure, enough to give her pleasure and enough to lift the weight she always carried around with her. He took one pink center in his mouth, and she moaned and arched her back. He did the other, and then back again. It was
almost
enough.
His hands had been clasped around her ankles, and they now traveled leisurely up the length of her legs, caressing her all the way. His hands were a little rough against her skin, but it only made her feel him more.
His mouth left her breasts and moved lower. And then lower still . . . across her belly, with a pause at her navel, and then lower still. Somehow, his intentions registered in her hazy brain. But he couldn’t possibly mean to do what she thought he was about to do.
Just one kiss. He hadn’t said where, though. But now she knew. She couldn’t stop a little laugh of shock as his mouth found her most secret place. The secret place that ached at night, that kept her awake with demands she didn’t know how to satisfy. That little laugh turned into a sigh, into a moan.
His tongue moved in lazy circles as if he could—and would—do this forever. And so she exhaled and closed her eyes and allowed herself to be completely and solely in this moment. It was overwhelming, for there were so many
new
sensations all begging for her attentions: Phillip’s hair was soft against her inner thighs, his slight beard just a bit rough in that same place, the firm grasp of his hands on her hips, the warmth of the mouth, the gentle yet sure and determined movements of his tongue urging her to abandon all thoughts and surrender.
Phillip’s tongue moved faster, creating a new pattern she couldn’t follow but could only feel. And feel she did, everywhere. Waves of heat coursed through her, so that even though she lay naked with not a stitch covering her, she was not cold. She writhed a little, curled her toes, and arched her back, but Phillip’s hands kept her from moving away, not that she wanted to. But something was building inside her, something she could not control, which demanded an escape.
Phillip did not stop, thank God. His mouth continued this tormenting pleasure, and then he also slid one finger inside her.
Oh God.
This was new, too. With what little ability for rational thought she had left, one truth occurred to her: I am an innocent at this. Maybe she hadn’t known too much after all.
Angela gripped the bedsheets in one hand and ran her fingers through Phillip’s hair with the other. She was almost there, almost on the verge of another little death that had the wondrous effect of making her more alive than she had ever felt.
Her sighs and moans echoed in the small stone-walled room. Phillip laced his fingers through hers. Oh, that hot, pulsing feeling was taking her over now. She pressed hard on his hand. She felt as if she would break or explode at any second. His open mouth covered the bud of her sex and sucked.
And that pushed her over the edge. Angela cried out. For a moment she felt neither alive nor dead but suspended in some magical place of pure pleasure. She cried out, because her body had finally discovered what it had ached for and demanded. And she cried out because in this moment everything was right, sublime, and perfect.
The feeling began a slow retreat, and she did not have the strength to do anything but lie there and enjoy the aftershocks. Phillip moved to lie beside her, to hold her, to kiss her mouth, and to run his fingers through her hair.
All she could do was murmur and try to smile as she returned his kiss. Angela pressed up against him and felt his arousal in his breeches pressing back against her. He groaned at the contact but made no effort to do anything or make her do anything. And she wondered if he was experiencing that same torturous pleasure of wanting with no way to satisfy the demands.
He moved his hips slowly against hers, and she placed her hand on his hip to still him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” he murmured.
“I want to see you,” she said, because for all of her experience with men, she had never had a glimpse of that part of a man. She placed her hand over the hardness, with the fabric between them.
“I want to touch you, too,” she confessed in a whisper.
“Whatever the lady wants,” he replied, with his voice low and rough. She began to unbutton his breeches and then moved them out of the way. His phallus was long and thick. The skin was pink and silky soft to the touch while hard at the same time.
She traced one finger along its length. He sucked in his breath.
She wrapped her hand around it and elicited a groan from his mouth.
Phillip wrapped his own hand around hers, guiding it up and down the length of his shaft. The movement was simple and repetitive, and the changes in Phillip were noticeable. He became harder still. His eyes closed, and he breathed heavily, burying his face in her neck.
After a moment, he took his hand away from hers and cupped her breast in his hand. With his thumb, he caressed the sensitive peak in the center. She arched her back and, without intending to, grasped him harder, all the while moving her hand up and down his length. It was hot in her hand, pulsing, and she knew it was because of her touch. Holding him in her hand made her feel powerful and in control in a way she had never felt before. She liked it.
His mouth crushed hers. And for a while there was nothing but hands here and there and everywhere, along with a scorching, fumbling kiss that stopped so he could murmur her name.
“Angela . . .”
His hips moved, too, now, mimicking the motions of her hand. His hand closed around her again, urging her to hold him harder and tighter and to move faster.
“Angela . . .” he murmured her name again and again like a plea or perhaps a prayer. She didn’t stop, because she knew what he was feeling, that any second now he would reach his own release.
Phillip pressed his mouth against the skin where her neck curved into her shoulder. She felt him shudder. She felt him moan. She felt his climax.
And when it was all over, he held her until they both drifted off to sleep.
But in the morning, she woke up alone, having returned to her own bed in the middle of the night. She had not wanted their secret discovered; she wanted to keep it for her own.
She also did not want to be caught and to be forced into a marriage that he did not want. And she was a little sad to once again discover that a man did not want her or love her enough to even try to make a life together, in spite of all the obstacles in their way.

 

Chapter 11
THREE DAYS LATER
 
Phillip
had caught her at it again: watching him as he worked and scribbling in a little brown leather book. For three days now, he had felt that someone was watching him. He would look up, look around, and see her. For three days now, he had endured his curiosity about what she was doing because he hadn’t managed to steal away from his working on the chapel to ask her.
And when he had seen her at the end of the day, well, he was far more interested in other things to remember to ask after a book. He took a moment now to lean against a tree trunk and wipe sweat from his brow with his shirt. He had never been so exhausted in his life. A long day of laboring under the hot sun was followed by long hours in bed with Angela. They had not made love, but they did find other ways to give each other pleasure. Despite his exhaustion, he managed to grin at the memories.
Those very same memories and experiences were making it harder and harder to imagine life without her. To never again hear her cry out his name in that bewitching voice of hers during a climax he brought her to was a very bleak future indeed.
So what if they were penniless and shunned by society? He dared to hope that he could make her happy anyway.
But at the moment, she was sitting at the base of a tree, for it was too hot at noon to be anywhere but in the shade. That book was open on her lap, and her eyes were closed.
He stepped quietly as he approached. She had definitely fallen asleep, sitting and leaning against the tree trunk.
“Hello,” he said.
She opened her eyes, shocked, and stood quickly. The book tumbled to the ground.
“You scared me,” she said.
“And you dropped something. Here, I’ll get it.”
“No!” She reached for it, and he couldn’t help but hold it high out of her reach.
“
Please
,” he said, giving her a pleading look. He would give it back if she really insisted, but now that he finally held it in his hand, he wanted to see its contents more than ever.
“I should have never taught you that word,” she muttered.
“So is that a yes? Say yes, Angela.” He grinned at her, because he was learning that she couldn’t resist him when he did it.
“Fine. It’s nothing that interesting anyway,” she said dismissively.
He didn’t immediately point out just how wrong she was, because he was too riveted by what he saw. He started at the first page and saw an illustration of a man sitting in some drawing room.
“Is that him?”
Angela nodded, and Phillip looked closer at the man who had ruined her. Part of him wished to beat that smug smile off his face. Or tear up the picture, erasing him from her memory forever. But he could see how lovingly she had drawn him, how well she had captured a moment before she had lost her innocence. He’d be damned if he damaged that drawing.
So he turned the page, and saw a drawing of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus as an infant. Angela had given her a serene smile and happy eyes. After a moment, he recognized it as the statue in the chapel, which had miraculously survived the roof collapsing around it. He knew it well, and that it was a heavy thing, since he and William Sloan had moved it into the abbey to keep it safe while the construction on the new roof was done.
He turned one page, and then another, seeing page after page of illustrations of the same thing: mother and child. But he saw more than the image; he saw why Angela had delayed in taking her orders. She longed for a baby of her own, and that slightly tired but happy smile and a plump child in her arms.
He flipped past a few more similar drawings, until a new subject caught his attention.
He recognized himself. Well, he recognized the features of his face, like his crooked nose and the cut and bruise on his forehead that had now healed into a scar. But the expression didn’t seem like it belonged to him. He was peacefully asleep. And written below,
The Devil Sleeps
. That made him smile.
He turned the page and saw another illustration of the statue, this one done from below, as if she knelt before it, looking up to draw it. Idolizing it.
Phillip turned the page again and saw what she had been working on these past few days. It was him with his shirt off. Again, he did not recognize himself. He could not possibly be that impressive. She had portrayed him as practically heroic. There was no background, because her rendering of him took up the entire page. And she included details that spoke of their intimacy, like drawing in his scars in exactly the right places. She knew him, that much was clear, and in a way he didn’t know himself.
But he could see now what he hadn’t seen before. He could see exactly what she longed for, and by some miracle, it was something he could give her: himself. And a child. And that happy, sleepy smile.

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