Chapter 9

His hand went to the buttons at the fall of her breeches. Even then he halted for a moment, as if in question, and she made a low sound of impatience that set him smiling. He undid them deftly, and slid his hand inside. She gasped as she felt his warm fingers slip between her nether lips and gently, very gently cup her sex. She felt dizzy at the intimacy of the action, and was surprised by a sudden fierce urge to press herself against him, to move in the hope that he would move too. He made no further motion, though, but kissed her quick and hard as he held her, and murmured against her mouth, ‘Perhaps you will be more comfortable sitting down?' He was right; with his hand on her she felt lightheaded, liquid, flushed with heat and tingling with the promise of fulfilment.

There was a velvet sofa just a step or two away, and he drew her across to it, his fingers still on her. She had no thought to do anything save go with him. He took his hand from her, slowly – reluctantly, it seemed to her – and she had just self-control and wit enough left to her to make no protest at the sudden absence. Then he fell to his knees before her in one graceful movement, drawing her breeches down over her thighs, and as he did so she sank helplessly into the soft cushions. ‘Alas,' he said, ‘adorable though you are in this garment, I think we will both do better if I relieve you of it.' He undid the buttons at her knees and in a moment she was naked below the waist. Apart from… ‘Shall we keep the stockings?' he mused, settling back on his heels to regard her with glittering eyes, eyes that made her shiver with desire and anticipation. ‘I think we shall. The black is excessively becoming. They undoubtedly add… a certain something.'

Then his hands were on her legs, spreading her with a gentle but inexorable touch. ‘Although you might have noticed that I like to talk,' he said, setting his hands firmly either side of her hips, ‘and talking to you has been enormously stimulating, I believe that now the time for talking is done. So I will not make myself tedious by asking you again if you want this. Indeed, you have given me every reason to think that you do. I hope I will find ways to please you, my Rosalind.'

And then he lowered his mouth to the side of her thigh, just above the knee, and began tracing his way slowly upwards. She leaned back against the sofa cushions in a sort of daze and looked down on his silvered head, wondering if she had run stark mad. But the sensations he was evoking soon drove every coherent thought from her head. When he reached the most sensitive and fullest part of her inner thigh, he kissed it lingeringly, and then to her enormous surprise bit it gently. A bolt of pure sensation shot to the hot, wet core of her; she gasped and arched her back. He laughed, a private sound, triumphant. He kissed where he had bitten, then withdrew a little and retreated to her other thigh, and once again he edged his way upwards with great care and deliberation. This time the anticipation heightened the pleasure, for she instinctively knew what he would do next. She was right: when he reached the point once more where her flesh was softest and most tender, there was another long kiss, and then a bite, a little harder this time. She thought she cried aloud.

Then his mouth ventured on further, and she was truly lost. He settled forward on his knees and slid his hands under her naked buttocks, clasping her tightly and positioning her so that she was entirely exposed to him. She raised herself a little in shameless mute appeal, and he buried his face in the curls at the junction of her thighs, and set about devouring her.

His wickedly clever tongue explored her innermost folds and found her nub. When he fastened his lips on it and sucked it into his mouth, once again she cried aloud, and grasped the sofa cushions with each hand and bucked under him, pressing her core against him. Then he released her, but before she could moan in protest his tongue was sweeping along her crease to find her entrance, and laving around and around it, then pushing on inside her in the most intimate action she had ever known in her life. And then it all blurred together and she could no longer distinguish one thing from another; she merely knew that he was carrying her away on a rising tide of pure pleasure such as she had never known or imagined possible. His lips, his tongue, his face buried in her, his hands on her, holding her so tightly… She threw back her head and abandoned herself to it utterly.

When the great waves of sensation broke over her, she closed her eyes and let them take her. He did not stop, his mouth, his tongue still busy worshipping her, still drawing out exquisite sensations from her almost unbearably sensitised flesh, and as she returned slowly to what was left of her wits, she was for a moment unsure if she would die if he did not stop, or die if he did. But at last it was too much, too intense to bear any longer, and she moaned wordlessly in feeble protest. He seemed to understand her, for he drew away instantly, though he did not take his hands from her, but still held her possessively. She was still exposed to him, had no thought of covering herself, and he looked up at her in obvious appreciation, his desire for her obvious, his mouth wet and glistening. He was smiling beneath the mask that he still wore; his black and silver hair was wildly dishevelled and his eyes dark as sin, his pupils dilated. ‘I do not think that I would easily grow tired of doing that,' he said, his beautiful voice caressing. ‘And nor, I think, would you. And now the question once again must be, was that enough for you? Or do you still want more, as I must confess that I do? And if indeed you feel the same, what next can I do to please us both?'

Something he could read in her face gave him sudden pause, though, and he released her then, sliding his hands from beneath her and reaching up with one long finger to capture a tear where it trembled on her eyelashes. ‘I had not known…' she whispered brokenly, hardly aware of what she was saying, all her proud, false defences shattered into a thousand pieces.

‘I perceive that you had not,' he said in a low tone, and was silent for a second. ‘Tell me,' he went on in a more conversational tone, ‘had anyone done this to you before?' She shook her head, any thought of lying to him far beyond her now. ‘And are you, in point of fact, a widow, or even – God help me – a wife?'

‘No.'

‘So what are you then, my delicious little liar?'

‘I don't know what I am.'

He laughed rather cruelly. She supposed she had given him reason. ‘A virgin?'

‘I have no idea,' she said rather dazedly, as the waves of pleasure finally receded, leaving her lost and cold and exposed. ‘Am I? Still? You would know best.'

‘Good God!' he said with sudden heat. ‘Are you completely insane?'

Somehow she found the courage to smile, albeit a little tremulously. ‘It seems so.'

He swore again, still kneeling between her naked thighs. ‘Perhaps,' he said, ‘I should put you over my knee and spank you – since you are undeniably dressed for it – and then send you home.'

Between shame and the lingering dregs of arousal, she scarcely knew what she said. ‘Do you think I might like it? Do you think you might like it?'

‘Oh, no,' he said with some heat. ‘Enough of this. Enough of pretending to be something you are not. This is perilous talk, madam. What is to stop me laying you back against this sofa and spending the rest of the night taking my pleasure from you, before I send you on your way greatly enlightened, but no longer any sort of virgin?'

She should be frightened of him, she supposed, but most oddly she was not. Mostly what she felt was regret, and she had no desire to examine the sensation too closely. ‘Nothing at all. But you won't.'

‘You are very confident.'

‘Am I wrong?'

He rose abruptly to his feet, and stood frowning down at her. ‘You terrify me,' he said. ‘You really do. I don't know if I should flee from you screaming, or carry you off and make you my mistress, and devote the rest of my life to showing you in exquisite detail the true meaning of pleasure. Because you can be sure that was just the beginning.'

His words set little shivers racing all across her body once again, and he saw the effect he had. Of course he saw. ‘Yes,' he said softly, ‘make no mistake, I could… But no. We both need to leave this place. Dress yourself, while I still have the strength to let you, and my carriage will take you home. I don't suppose it will be a very long journey.'

He was silent for a moment and then said, some repressed emotion in his voice that she could not hope to identify, ‘And if by some miracle I were to obtain vouchers for Almack's, I dare say I might see you there any Wednesday I chose, might I not, among the other debutantes? Or at Lady Jersey's rout party, or Princess Esterhazy's Venetian breakfast?'

She was pulling on her breeches with shaking hands, and did not look up at him. Was he trying to discover her identity? The idea was simultaneously thrilling and horrifying. ‘Am I likely to encounter you at any of those places, sir?' she asked with a fair attempt at sangfroid.

He laughed. ‘You are not. And perhaps it is just as well.' He took her hand and drew her to her feet, but did not release her after he had done so. ‘I will let you go now. I do not suppose our paths will cross again, little liar, for I do not belong in the drawing rooms of the haut ton, and you do not belong in places like this. I hope that at least is clear to you.'

‘Yes,' she replied. ‘Very clear. You were right in what you said a moment ago. I know I must stop making these dangerous mistakes. I must do better.'

‘Well,' he said with a glinting smile, ‘I may be a dangerous mistake – God knows it has been said before, and more than once – but I know one thing.' He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently, then turned it over and pressed another kiss into her soft palm. This too was an intimate action, and once more she shivered at the touch of his lips upon her most tender flesh. ‘I flatter myself that you will not easily forget me. And I will certainly not forget you. I wonder if I will want to?'