Worth Winning (25 page)

Somehow, despite all his experience and expertise, he always seemed to be seducing Julia in exactly the wrong place, at exactly the wrong time. And for some reason, he simply didn’t care. Everything she gave, everything that she was, he willing took. Damn the time, the place, and the circumstances.

He angled his head to drink more deeply from her lips, and, meeting no resistance, he allowed his hands to wander along her back, down to the curve of her hip and then up again to mold themselves against the swell of her breast. Her breath grew ragged, but her hands and arms did nothing but tighten around him, urging him on. The front lacings of her day gown came undone quite easily, and it was mere moments before he’d exposed her flesh to the cool cottage air, while his mouth kept her occupied, deepening and slowing their kisses, calming and enticing her all at once. He kept one hand anchored against her hip, lightly caressing, while the other sought out the soft swell of her breast, cupping it gently. He waited until their kisses had steadied, until her breathing had stabilized. Unlike that day in the woods, when he’d allowed them to proceed far too quickly, he intended on remaining firmly in control today.

Inwardly, he smiled. With Julia, he never seemed to be completely in control. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here, in some nearly abandoned cottage, where the curtains weren’t drawn and almost anyone could see in. Not at all his usual setting.

Then again, nothing with Julia ever seemed to go as planned.

He disentangled them gently, keeping his hands at her hip and breast, effectively keeping them in the grip of passion, despite the fact that they were no longer kissing.

“Where is the bedroom?”

She didn’t blush or pretend to misunderstand. She looked down and bit her lip, a nervous habit that he found increasingly endearing. She was silent for so long that he thought she was going to demur. That she’d been shocked by the mere suggestion. Instead, he felt one of her hands reach for his, and without looking at him, she led him down a small hallway into a bare bedroom. The room in its entirety consisted of a dresser, a small table with an unlit lantern, a window with the curtains blessedly closed, and a rather large, plain bed covered with an ancient, faded quilt.

Julia stood awkwardly next to the door. She let go of his hand and whispered, “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Charles smiled. “Exactly what I wanted to hear, my dear.”

Her eyes flew to his, and a slow blush spread across her cheeks. The front of her dress gaped open, and her hands went awkwardly to the folds, trying to hold them together. His hands closed over hers and drew them away firmly, assuredly. He didn’t want any part of her covered. He drew his hands down to her hips and lifted her onto the bed. Her eyes never left his as he swiftly removed his coat and kicked the door closed behind him.

“You think too much.”

“I thought that was one of the few things you found attractive about me?”

Charles chuckled, kicking off his boots and joining her on the bed, where she remained exactly as he’d put her, sitting awkwardly, in the middle.

“How wrong you are.” He kissed her again, and when he was almost certain she wouldn’t be able to speak, he released her lips. “Your mind is only one of the many, many things I find quite fascinating about you.”

She let out something that was half laughter, half cry, a bitter sound that was completely unlike her normally open and cheerful laughter. “Fascinating because of the bet?”

“Oh, no,” he said softly. His hands moved to her breast again, and he heard her breath hitch even as her eyes widened at his statement. “What happens between us now has nothing to do with the bet.” He kissed her again and waited for his words to sink in. When he was certain that he once again had her undivided attention, he ran the pad of his thumbs across her nipples, deliberately and slowly, with years of expertise and practice coming into play.

Her response was instantaneous and electric. Her head tilted back, and her mouth opened with a soft gasp. He smiled and repeated the soft torture, again and again, until she was panting with need. Without her appearing to realize it, her knees had begun to widen, and her body arced gently backward. Knowing that he wanted to prolong this for as long as he possibly could, he wrapped his arm along her back and kept her upright, kneeling in front of him, the front of her dress still gaping, her hair beginning to come loose from its bun.

He kept one hand on her breast as the other began to loosen her hair, skillfully, and to free her from the front part of her dress. Her sleeves slid off her shoulder without her protesting. He untied her thin chemise and pulled until both dress and chemise were pooled at her waist, leaving the upper portion of her body bare, utterly exposed to his attentions.

He watched her, wishing he could prolong this moment. That she’d allow him just to look and enjoy this moment, with her panting and willing, breathless and for once unable to think of any pithy comments or comebacks. But he knew that she was still untutored when it came to the physical side of their relationship, so he filed it under things he’d eventually do, when there was more time and when she’d grown more accustomed to his demands and desires.

For now, he stored it among the growing list of fantasies he’d begun to accumulate where she was concerned and lowered his head to her breasts, lavishing attention on them, kissing the underside of first one, and then the other, all while his fingers continued to torment and tease, until her breathing became truly ragged.

Eventually, she grew accustomed to the sensation, and her breathing evened, though her eyes remained dilated. Her lips, already slightly bruised from their kisses, opened to say or ask something, but he didn’t wait to find out. He didn’t want her talking him, or herself, out of what he now desperately needed to happen. His lips claimed her again tenderly, nipping and lathing them with his teeth and tongue, caressing and beguiling her until she opened herself to him more completely, until her hands clung to his neck, and she was once again breathless.

When he lifted his head from hers, he found that his own voice was a little unsteady. “I need to make love to you,” he said, the urgency in his voice a bit shocking, even to his own ears. “If you want to leave,” he said, looking down, pressing a lingering kiss to the top of one breast, and then the other, “if you want me to stop, you need to tell me now. Not five minutes from now. Not even five seconds from now.”

His voice shook a little on the last, and he wondered how he’d ever be able to stop, to force himself to leave, if she decided she wasn’t ready or didn’t want . . . this.

Her fingers, still wrapped around him and entangled in his hair, seemed to clutch a bit convulsively, and it was an eternity before she said in a small voice that he had to strain to hear and that was nothing like her usual, confident one, “I can’t believe you’re going to make me say it.”

He chuckled unsteadily, a bit wonderingly, as he acknowledged to himself how immeasurably aroused he was. Incredible, considering that he’d done little more than kiss and fondle her, that she’d done no more than allow herself to be watched and touched. He’d never before been aroused by a woman’s responses before and was awed by the experience.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.” He kissed her again.

“I don’t . . . know,” she said finally, tremulously. “I want to, and I . . . don’t.”

He sighed. He’d known it would be so. Had known, even that day in the woods, that there was no way Julia, in her inexperience, could possibly be pushed this far, this quickly, no matter how his body was trying, insistently, to convince him otherwise.

“It’s your decision, my darling, and not one I will force upon you.” In a different mood, on a different day, he would have stopped to wonder at his own words. He wasn’t one for using endearments, nor did he allow women to tease and torment him before crying off at the last moment. Not that anything close to that had ever happened before.

It, like so many experiences with Julia, was the first.

“We won’t make love, not if you’re not sure.” There he was again, saying things he never said. Before, he’d always called a spade a spade. This was sex. Intercourse. Coupling, perhaps, when he was trying to be slightly more romantic, but here he was, calling it “making love” for the second time in the same afternoon. What was this girl doing to him? He continued, even while a corner of his brain wrestled with his choice of words, and his body protested against what he was about to promise. “I won’t force or pressure you in any way, but I must, I simply must touch you.”

His hands were already moving upon her, taking in the fact that her breathing was shallow and rapid.

“I don’t suppose you know the, um, origin of that expression?”

“Making love?”

He smiled against the column of her throat, thinking that this too, was so very like Julia, to want to discuss Latin etymologies in the middle of foreplay.

“No, I meant, um,” she gasped again, clearly having trouble focusing while his lips and hands played upon her. He smiled again, finding her anxiety endearing, and her mode of dealing with it particularly . . . Julia.

“The word
must
is from Old English, mōste, and means more or less what you’d expect, that you have to do something but, ah . . .” she paused and seemed to gather her wits. He found that he enjoyed listening to her . . . almost as much as he enjoyed the small gasps and half groans that interrupted her discourse.

“It also means to be allowed to, if you look into it.”

A chuckle escaped him as passion and humor warred within him. He supported her back as he laid her down across the bed. He moved his hands toward the already-bunched and dropping opening of her dress. “Very apt. For I feel as though I do, have to, undress you. But only if you allow it.”

Julia’s eyes met his briefly, and she enunciated her words clearly when she said, “Yes, please.”

He stole another quick kiss and then lowered her dress farther, so that it pooled at her waist.

His lips trailed down her throat and kissed a pathway along her collarbone, slowly traveling down toward her breasts, the tips of which were already puckered in anticipation. Julia did nothing to stop him, merely holding onto his head and then his shoulders, breathing deeply, murmuring in delight when he nipped at her skin and then lathed and soothed it a moment later.

With something approaching reverence, he kissed, lapped, and suckled at her skin. Never before had it seemed so important, so necessary, to make a woman want him, to see her consumed by desire. He didn’t think he’d be able to have her, not here, not today, but he was damned if he wouldn’t make sure she wanted him just as much as he wanted her, if he didn’t at least leave her as mired in desire as he was, so that she’d have an inkling of what he was going through.

And yet, even as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. He wanted to torture her, yes, but more important, he wanted to teach her desire, wanted to erase any lingering memory of Robeson or any other man she might have fancied. He wanted to claim her, mind, body, and soul. Making her body acquiesce was merely the first step in this campaign.

His hands moved down to her hips and slowly lowered her skirts farther. Though she murmured what might have been a protest, she did not stop him. He continued to undress her a bit ruefully, knowing that from here on out, he’d be torturing both of them and yet, he wasn’t willing to stop—or rather, he corrected himself in a fit of honesty, he didn’t
want
to stop.

He quickly removed her dress, her shoes, and her thin petticoat, never stopping his caresses, kissing her whenever it seemed as though she might protest, until finally, she was naked beneath him, while he remained almost completely clothed.

“I ought to feel awkward, shouldn’t I? To be naked with a man for the first time?”

“With me for the first time. Forget other men.” His tone was harsh and unyielding, possessive even, a quality only she brought out in him. He softened his tone, not wanted to increase her anxiety even more. “And are you?”

“No,” she said, a note of wonderment in her voice. “I wish . . .” she trailed off, and he kissed her, unable to resist. “I wish I could dive under the covers,” she said finally, blushing. “But otherwise, the only awkwardness I feel is that I’m the only one who’s naked.”

He laughed, delighted that she could still make a joke at a time like this, wondering how it was that he could be both aroused and amused at the same time. Certainly this had never happened to him before. She reached for the bottom edge of his shirt and was easing it out of the waistband of his pants when he caught her hand and lifted first one, and then the other, so that both of her hands were trapped beneath his. “No,” he said firmly. “The only way, and I mean the
only
way you’re going to get out of this room with even a shred of your virtue intact is if I stay completely clothed. If you remove even one iota of clothing from me,” he bent down and kissed her again, nipping at the corner of her mouth, where a pout seemed to be starting, “I will not be held accountable for my actions, and any promises I’ve already made must be considered forfeit.”

“Oh,” was all she said, in a small, quiet voice.

“What, Julia Morland has nothing else to say?” One of his hands reached down and efficiently removed the remaining pins from her hair. She raised her head slightly, to help him with the process. He turned and deposited the pins in a neat pile on the table next to the bed, the soft clinking of the pins against one another the only sound in the room.

“I don’t know that I’m up to arguing, while being this . . . unclothed.”

He smiled widely. “I wish you’d told me sooner.” He kissed her again, one of his hands holding hers hostage while the other began traveling down the length of her body, learning her slowly. “If I’d known that this was the secret to quieting you, I would’ve unclothed you sooner.”

“You’re awfully . . . confident.” Her words were breathless, and her body arched against his in mute entreaty.

He looked down at her again. “Only with you. But actually, and this you must never tell anyone, I’m least confident with you.”