Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

S ometimes the sharing of a coat was simply the sharing of a coat.

Any number of situations could necessitate it— cold…wet .

Both were in evidence.

Except the look of necessity flickering within Dev’s half-lidded eyes had naught to do with exterior elements.

But only with what sparked between them.

It was spoken in that tiny three-letter word.

Yet.

As he closed the distance, Beatrix allowed her gaze to rove across him in a way she hadn’t allowed herself… yet .

How gorgeous he was.

The rare man who incorporated ideals of both beauty and masculinity.

The rain had turned her into a sopping, wet mess.

But it had turned him into a god—black hair damp and tousled with a loose curl to it…clinging white shirt revealing the dense muscles of his arms.

And there was the swagger in his step—and in his smile, too.

How alive the air was around him.

How alive she was when he was near.

He moved with slow deliberation, as if not to startle her into bolting.

She was going nowhere.

He stopped just beyond her knees, and she had to tip her head back to hold his gaze.

Intention .

That was what glittered there, and it arrowed a bolt of desire straight through her.

It wasn’t she who parted her knees but rather desire and need.

He reached down and pushed the clingy muslin up her legs. Then he kneeled between, so they were face to face, his body brushing against her inner thighs, that skin so sensitive and so alive to the large, male feel of him. She opened the coat and twined her arms around his neck so they both shared in the warmth. The world outside this intimate cocoon ceased to matter.

All that mattered was the ragged in and out of their mingled breath…the hard drum of their hearts…the heat that flowed between them…

He reached up and brushed his knuckles across her cheek, and her eyes drifted shut for an instant so her entire earthly experience was the feel of his bare skin against hers.

Then he angled forward and pressed his mouth to hers.

Before now, time had slowed its forward march, but with his soft, beautiful mouth moving against hers, urgency seared through her with desire unsated. Time sped up and, of a sudden, there wasn’t enough of it.

At least, not for them.

It had been two weeks—and she felt it desperately.

Her arms tightened around his neck, bringing her body tight against his, her nipples pressed into his chest. He groaned into her mouth, as her legs hooked around his waist, bringing the rigid length of his manhood hard against her sex, pulling a gasp from her and a ragged groan from him.

More …she needed more.

Impatience guided her hand between their bodies and had trembling fingers grazing across his shaft.

“Bea,” he groaned— pleaded —against her mouth.

All that stood between her and what she wanted was a thin layer of superfine.

A barrier easily resolved by determined fingers.

Only the flick of a few buttons and she would have it—him inside her.

She’d already moved to the second button when his hand closed around hers. On a frustrated cry, she broke from his mouth. “What are you thinking of?”

“ You , of course.”

She couldn’t countenance the smile curling the corner of his mouth.

“Today,” he continued with a patience that just might stir her to wrath, “we’re going about matters in the correct order.”

She attempted to remove her hand from his. He only tightened his grip. Oh, she was definitely becoming stirred to wrath. “What are you on about?”

“You…first.”

“ Me…first? ” The man was making no sense.

Enigmatically, he nodded and shifted backward. Oh, the wickedness in his smile as his hands closed around her thighs and applied gentle pressure.

Uncertainty pulsed through her for a few, quick heartbeats of time, but quickly gave way to a stronger feeling—curiosity. Whatever it was he had planned, she wanted to know.

He angled down and pressed his mouth to the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. It felt…naughty…and delicious…and it tickled.

A giggle sprang from her.

He kissed her again— higher . Then yet higher, as he trailed slow, warm kisses up the interior of her thigh. When she thought he couldn’t go any higher, she felt it —the slick, velvet brush of his tongue along her slit.

Every cell in her body sparkled into effervescence, and she gasped. His eyes remained steady upon her, a question within those aquamarine depths. “Some women don’t like this.”

Beatrix knew in an instant—she wasn’t one of them.

Yet she said, “Then I think that leaves us with but one option.”

How very unlike itself her voice sounded.

“Which is?”

“For you to do it again so I can decide what sort of woman I am.”

It was a game and, oh , how she wanted to play.

He shifted forward on a low chuckle and again slid his tongue along her. Pleasure rippled through her as her head tipped back and he offered her a pleasure unlike any other with his tongue.

It felt so decadent and good… too good , possibly…transgressive, likely.

Except…if the body possessed the mechanism to experience this sort of pleasure, where lay the transgression in experiencing it?

And, oh , what an experience it was as his tongue—his so talented tongue—caressed her…flicked her… Every nerve in her body lit alive with this feeling as if they all ended in the patch of skin where his tongue met her quim.

One hand reached down and tangled in his hair as her hips inelegantly shoved forward, demanding more as a feeling built within her.

A feeling he’d taught her.

Need tore through her, breaking her down into elements, then cells of utter, inexhaustible ache, taunting…teasing…just out of reach, refusing to be sated.

He eased off the pressure against her, just an increment. In doing so, he was denying her what she wanted and giving her what she needed, because, oh , the feeling that taunted and teased now had her in its grip as her body went still and reached for… oh …

A cry tore from her throat as her body broke with release, her quim pulsing against his mouth until the pleasure became too much and she had to ease back from the intensity of feeling.

Her eyes slitted open, and she met his gaze across her body.

“I think we can safely say what sort of woman you are.”

The words were spoken lightly, and she couldn’t help smiling, but she found she couldn’t quite agree. Before this man had entered her life, she’d thought herself a very different woman from the one she was proving to be.

It was as if she’d lost hold of the elements that identified her to herself.

She didn’t know this woman.

A being composed entirely of want.

A wanton .

That was who she was—with him.

She hooked her hand around his neck and tugged. When her mouth met his, she tasted herself on his tongue. Somehow, she’d lost none of her earlier urgency. If anything, her need had had only amplified in feeling.

She might not know who she was in this moment, but she knew what she wanted.

Him…inside her…now .

With a few efficient movements of his fingers his falls were unbuttoned and his manhood freed, its shaft so long and hard and so very ready. He reached under her and grabbed her bottom, pulling her to the edge of the bench so now his length slid along her sex. Oh, the hot, thick feel of him as he pushed into her one slow inch at a time, and she stretched around him to accommodate his demanding girth.

His hands tight around her bottom, he began to move in and out of her, plunging deeper with each stroke. “Sweet Bea, you feel so good.”

Sweet Bea .

She liked the pet name.

That was the truth.

Within this intimate act, there was no room for deception—especially not of the self.

They moved as one, and the coat fell away, unheeded. There was no question of the heat they were creating.

She’d been correct, it seemed.

The only way to prevent this outcome was to stay completely away from this man.

There was no safety in proximity.

They’d gone too far once—and now there was no going back.

Or , came a wicked suggestion.

Perhaps this was exactly what they needed.

Perhaps this time would provide satiety.

Perhaps now they could move on from this mad hunger.

For it was a madness.

Desperation seized her as she moved on him, taking him so deep inside, pain and pleasure inextricable. An act so of the body, even as she reached beyond herself into another realm.

This was what bodies were made for.

More than that, this was what her body was made for—to couple with him.

Deeper, he impaled her, and deeper, she took him. “Bea,” he muttered against her neck, stubble scraping against that sensitive skin, sending pleasure skittering through her as he drove with a relentless intensity. “You feel too good. I can’t last much longer.”

Along with every other pleasure this man was wreaking upon her, here was yet another pleasure and the most heady of them all—his desire for her, so desperate and pleading.

On his next stroke, her sex found its release, and she cried out, pulsing around him, as she clung tighter to him. On, he drove into her, his shaft impossibly hard, following the path of his own pleasure, her body but a vessel for its giving. On a shout, release took him, and he tumbled into the oblivion where she waited for him, their bodies sweaty, panting, enervated, as he slowed his movement to an eventual stop, even as they remained joined, their breaths and heartbeats as one.

This hadn’t been a gentle coupling of romance and soft beds.

This had been an act of desperation and need. A vulgar act… A fucking , to put it in the proper language.

Yet…it had also felt… right .

Until this moment, she hadn’t known this truth…

There was the mind.

Then there was the body.

She’d been absolutely certain the former ruled the latter.

But that belief had never been tested.

Until now.

Now, she saw it as a neat trick of societal and self deception.

The truth was the body was content to let the mind think it ruled until…

Until a too-handsome man with a too-pretty mouth happened into one’s life and laid waste to all the lies one had been telling oneself.

Here —on this bench— now —him still inside her— this was the truth.

And, for the rest of her life, she could never unknow it.

Face nestled into the crook of her neck, Dev inhaled.

She smelled of crisp rain and woodsy forest and lemon soap and Beatrix .

So small and delicate in his arms, yet so substantial.

For there was she and he apart.

Then there was them together.

And somehow the substance of them together held a weight more substantive than it should have.

It defied the laws of the universe.

She angled back and met his gaze. “We should probably…”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

He shifted and, slowly, slid from her, even as every cell in his body demanded he stay where he was.

Then time sped its progress and they were no longer touching and she set about the business of making herself presentable—or at least, somewhere in that vicinity.

She was a right delectable mess, and their tupping hadn’t improved matters. Though now, seeing her even more mussed and delectable with her flushed skin and bright eyes, it was all he could do not to lunge forward and kiss her again.

She liked his mouth and being kissed by it.

But he stayed where he was and buttoned his falls, allowing her a moment’s privacy while she saw to her clothes.

“It’s stopped raining,” he said, rising to his feet.

His ear picked up a flurry of movement at his back, and she appeared at his side. “We can try finding our way again, I suppose.”

She held his coat out to him. He took it, only to place it on her shoulders. “You’ll catch a chill, Bea,” he said, firmly, to ward off her inevitable protest.

She gave a roll of her eyes and started walking, leaving the protection of the folly. As dusk approached, the forest lay awash in glorious golden light. Side by side, they walked without touching. His fingers itched to twine through hers. Their loss of contact had been too abrupt.

“That probably wasn’t the best idea.” He felt it needed to be acknowledged, if for no other reason than to make the next few days of close proximity bearable.

“It wasn’t an idea at all,” she said, her gaze fixed ahead. “Ideas come from the mind, and that originated from an altogether different place.”

“Shouldn’t we discuss it?”

“Do you want to discuss it?”

“Not especially.”

“Me either.”

Her answer had a contrary effect inside him. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it, because he feared that in doing so they would strip it of its magic.

But her not wanting to talk about it had a different feel…

In fact, he was now convinced they most definitely should talk about it.

“Do you see that?” She was pointing ahead.

He followed the direction of her finger. A moment later, he saw it—a thinning of the woods.

And he understood.

They weren’t going to talk about it.

Disappointment sheared through him, and the now-familiar irritation caused by this woman returned. But he didn’t have time to voice his mounting frustration as they emerged from the woods and onto the drive leading to the manor house. She set out at a swift clip, but he kept pace at her side. Was she attempting to be rid of him?

Well, she wouldn’t find it easy.

The manor house, with its three stories of wide, uniform windows, stared out at them as they approached. They were on display again, for who knew whose eyes were watching their every movement at this very moment?

Still, he didn’t insist they lock arms.

As they crunched across the gravel of the forecourt’s circle drive, a coach-and-four rolled past and came to a stop before the wide, stone staircase that led up to the front doors, which were now swinging open in anticipation of the newly arrived guests.

Beatrix shot him a tetchy glance. She understood just as he did they would have to play the welcoming hosts and greet these guests.

Objectively and collectively, they were an utter, bedraggled mess—hair still damp and tossed about, clothing rumpled, and generally mussed by the elements and…each other.

Blessedly, Beatrix was still wearing his greatcoat, so she wouldn’t be starting any scandals with the damp transparency of her muslin dress.

With nimble alacrity, the uniformed tigerhopped down from the carriage’s back bench and opened the door with a great flourish. From its depths emerged the Earl of Bridgewater, looking his usual thunderous self. Dev’s teeth reflexively clenched at the sight of the man.

“Deverill,” he said, his gaze catching on Dev and Beatrix at once. “You’re looking rather…” The lift of a single eyebrow finished the observation for him.

“Yes, well, rainstorms and picnics are rather like oil and vinegar. They don’t mix.”

Bridgewater sniffed. “Indeed.”

Behind him emerged Imogen.

As ever, she looked the picture of exquisite perfection, from the artful arrangement of sun-streaked curls around her heart-shaped face to the delicate pink glisten of bow-shaped lips. She was the sort of woman who could make a man’s lungs forget how to breathe. A rainstorm wouldn’t dare touch a single hair on her head.

A perfect goddess.

Movement to his left caught Dev’s attention.

Beatrix.

Discomfort shimmering about her, she held the look of a woman who would rather sink into the wet earth than stand here in idle chit-chat. “I must—” she began.

“Oh, Mr. Deverill,” Imogen cut in, her voice dripping with delight.

A voice that usually held the power to make him drop everything.

Except in this instant, he had a different concern— Beatrix .

“Primrose Park is absolutely stunning,” continued Imogen, oblivious to any concern but her own. A quality he usually found charming. “Isn’t it, Bridgy?”

Bridgy grunted.

“But…” Imogen cast her gaze over Dev in assessment, as if she were only now really seeing him. “I’ve seen you look better.”

“We, erm , got lost.”

“And there was the rain,” supplied Beatrix, which only drew the attention of Bridgewater and Imogen.

Dev saw he had a host’s duty to perform. “My lord, my lady, may I introduce Lady Beatrix St. Vincent to you?” he asked and hastily added, “My fiancée.”

My fiancée.

For the pulse of a single second, a feeling pinged through him.

Rightness.

For that flicker of time, that concept in relation to him and Beatrix felt… right .

Which, of course, was all wrong.

Bridgewater offered an indifferent bow in Beatrix’s direction, and Imogen’s head subtly canted as she took Beatrix in.

Drawing upon generations of noble forebears, Beatrix lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. Dev could only admire the effort. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” She turned toward Dev. “Now, I shall see myself to my rooms for a much-needed bath and tea.”

The sharp glint in her eye told Dev she would brook no opposition.

Then she dashed up the front steps as nimbly and with as much dignity as a half-soaked woman wrapped in a man’s greatcoat that dragged on the ground behind her could summon.

Dev wished she’d stayed.

Or invited him up to her bedroom to take part in the bath with her.

He gave himself a mental shake.

“Now,” said Bridgewater, “let’s see those stables of yours, Deverill.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Imogen.

“You can manage yourself,” dismissed Bridgewater.

“I always do, don’t I?” No mistaking the note of acid in the little laugh that followed in Imogen’s wake as she swept around them and into the house.

As Dev led Bridgewater toward the stables, the reality of the situation began to set in.

Imogen had arrived.

The anticipation of triumph should’ve been firing through his blood.

Vanquishment and surrender were within arm’s reach, he felt it in his bones. All he had to do was grab hold.

Yet, somehow, his appetite for it felt…diminished.

A novel experience, to be sure, for he never relented once he had a victory in sight.

But novel experiences, it seemed, were becoming rather the usual since Lady Beatrix St. Vincent had entered his orbit.

And these novel experiences with Beatrix… They brightened his world, didn’t they?

In a flash, he understood the source of his prevarication.

To seize victory on the one hand meant to suffer loss on the other.

Simply, and likely selfishly, he wasn’t ready for either outcome.