Chapter 15

15

He kissed her with intention this time. And she knew what to expect, so the strokes of his lips against hers were like warm honey, sweet and slow, coating her senses with liquid sin.

His hands went down her spine and pressed her to him, wrapping her in his embrace. Heavens, how good it felt, to be his, surrounded by this hot, hard male with his muscles and wonderful warmth, and his smooth, naked skin.

A thought came into her mind: she should stop him. He was going to compromise her, and she was going to be a ruined woman. He’d never marry her, whether Dorian forbid him or not.

He’d never marry anyone.

And she didn’t want a husband anyway.

Right?

The strokes of his tongue and lips against hers made her warm and soft, eroding her willpower. It was impossible to stop him.

Whatever would happen after, she wanted this. Even if it was for just one night, she’d know what it was like to be with Lucien, to lie in his arms.

His kiss intensified, became more demanding. Her breasts felt swollen and heavy, her nipples puckered into two dots, aching against his chest. Something warm and wonderful was seething between her thighs.

He kissed her neck, gentle kisses that made her legs give in like she was going to faint. But he held her, then picked her up like she weighed nothing, with one arm under her knees, the other under her back, and carried her to the bed.

She whimpered. The storm was still raging, and the wind howled, protecting them from intruders.

He lowered her slowly to the bed. Then he stretched alongside her, his powerful chest smooth under the dusting of soft blond hair.

She licked her parched lips. “Are you going to lose?”

“No. As much as this bet is torture, I will prove to you that I am not my sin.”

There was some sort of promise and wonder in his violet eyes.

Perhaps he felt it, too, the incredible allure of the forbidden.

She caressed his cheek. “You have to prove it to yourself.”

“You know me so well, Star. I told you things I never told anyone. Even Dorian.”

She sighed. “I told you the same about me.”

He shifted closer to her, so close she could feel his breath on her skin. Outside, rain lashed the roof and thunder rumbled. He looked her over, taking her in.

“Is that what we’re going to do?” she asked. “Kiss?”

He chuckled, then shifted and removed something white and fluffy from under his body.

A feather…

Them being here together alone, almost naked was wrong. Forbidden. By Dorian. By society. By her virginity. By the part of her that had decided long ago she would never be a real woman, not in the sense her papa and the ton wanted her to be. And yet, there was something so alluring, so incredibly exciting…freeing even…in allowing this impossible thing to happen. This thing she had secretly dreamed of since she knew what happened between a man and a woman.

“Not just kiss.” A mischievous grin spread on his handsome face. “Your conditions for the bet postulated that I couldn’t experience sexual pleasure. Self-gratification. Or intercourse. You said nothing about kissing. Or giving pleasure to you.”

She swallowed. “Blast, I should have thought about those rules more carefully.”

He ran the feather softly down her neck and over her chest above the neckline of her chemise, sending delightful tickles across her skin. She shuddered and inhaled a ragged, sharp breath from the onslaught of sensations. Her back arched of its own accord.

“Is this what you like?” he purred. “Soft, tender strokes?”

“I wouldn’t know. I never…”

He chuckled as he continued his exploration with the feather down her stomach and towards the apex of her thighs. “Would you like me to continue?” he asked.

Yes, yes, yes , her body was replying in its own wicked way, through the tug of need at the pit of her stomach, through the yearning of her breasts, through her lips that craved his.

“I…er…” she managed.

The feather passed over the area where her pubic hair was and traveled down one thigh and over her bent knee, all of which—damn it—were still covered with the muslin of her chemise.

“I want to give you pleasure,” he murmured. “I won’t take any…except for feasting on you with my eyes, with my hands, with my mouth.”

Heavens, why was this so wonderfully delicious? What would it mean? Would she be a fallen woman?

“I won’t take your virginity.And I will not do anything you don’t want me to do.”

As the feather caressed the exposed skin of her ankle, Chastity gasped softly, overcome by the sudden rush of exquisite feeling.

She never knew her body was capable of this. Truth was, she didn’t pay much attention to her body at all. Most of the time, she tried to ignore such silly things as physical pleasure, whether it was food, drink, or…well…sexual desire. She hadn’t thought she’d ever feel this in her life. Her path had been clear for her from the moment she’d seen Lucien kissing Miss Chinery. Chastity would never be someone to be kissed, or caressed, or desired.

And yet, there she was. Lucien was opening a door into a whole new world, which was her body. And it was a world of sensations, and pleasure, and…surprisingly, she was discovering herself, the part of her she had shut down and buried years and years ago.

“I want that, Lucien.”

He exhaled sharply, closing his eyes. “Oh, sweet Star, how long have I ached to hear that.”

Had he? She couldn’t get used to him saying that to her, to the reality where Lucien was attracted to her, dreamed of her, wanted to lie with her.

Gently and slowly, he dragged her chemise up her leg with his fingers. The sensation was like hundreds of butterflies flapping their wings against her, sending signals of light and sparkles through her. His fingers went up to the apex of her thighs. Oh, dear Lord, a man was going to see her naked… Something about the intimacy of this was like exposing the very truth about herself, the vulnerability she’d never allowed anyone to see. And it was about trust.

He had hurt her once, and yet she was trusting him.

He pulled her chemise over her head, and there she lay naked and exposed, under the drum of rain and the branches brushing against the walls and the roof and the window shutters. It was like the power of nature and the elements raging around them were her lovers, too, brushing against her senses, and shooting straight into her heart.

Lucien’s gaze darkened as it trailed down her body. “Star… You look magnificent…luminous…gorgeous.”

He tossed the feather aside and kissed her then, his hand going down her body this time, caressing her breasts, teasing her nipples with soft touches, and then twisting them, massaging them, bringing them to hard peaks. She gave out a sound she’d never heard herself make before, something between pain and pleasure—so, so much pleasure.

“That’s right, my beautiful Star,” he breathed out. “I knew your body was made for this.”

As he continued teasing her, he kissed her again, his kiss as exploratory and as beautiful as what she felt—wondrous, celestial, utterly divine. The sensation of him teasing her mouth and her breasts was all too much, and she kept making little noises, moaning, without wanting to. She just couldn’t do anything else.

He was making them with her, his own moans of pleasure, and his pelvis and body moved slightly with the rhythm of hers.

When he continued down, a wave of bliss followed. Her body rose and fell in waves, a strange dance of its own. She wanted him closer; she wanted him all over her, inside her, wrapped around her. Wanted to breathe him in, smell him, taste him, rub against him, dissolve into him.

Be one with him.

He was igniting the most wicked wave of pleasure in her, and she was going to lose her mind.

His hands tickled her pubic hair, and she gasped as a whole new swarm of sensations exploded through her body. “Open your legs for me, darling.”

She did, her thighs falling open at his words as though he was her commander and director, anticipation acute in every fiber of her being. His fingers slid over her hair, then went down between her folds, and she squirmed and gasped.

“Lucien!” she cried out as one of his fingers touched her most sensitive part.

“Yes, love,” he said. “Do you like it?”

“Yes… Oh, goodness, please do not dare stop.”

He laughed softly and withdrew, and she squirmed in disappointment. “I just told you?—”

“Shhhh…” he whispered. “I know what you need, darling. Trust me.”

His fingers were back at her folds again, his gentle caresses like a swarm of starlight. She opened her thighs even more to him, aching to get closer to the pleasure.

“Ah, there’s your gorgeous, sweet shell,” he said softly. “Aching for attention.”

As he said that, something wet trickled down from her, and she gasped in horror. “Oh!”

“That is quite normal, darling. You want me. You’re ready for my cock.”

His cock…that must be the word for his penis. By Jove, her inner walls clenched with a ferocity that brought even more pleasure. “I do want your cock,” she said as his fingers brushed over her labia.

He teased, playing with her, making soft, light circles around a spot that none of the anatomy books described, which was bringing the most intense pleasure of all. All that sweet bliss he’d been swirling in her like an alchemist brewing an elixir had now concentrated in that one spot.

He brushed against it ever so lightly, so lightly she barely felt it, and yet those were the strokes that excited her the most, the ones that brought small bursts of heat and aching need into her, and her pelvis moved up to meet them, desperate for his touch.

And finally, without giving her any warning at all, he rubbed faster and faster right on top of that place, until it intensified so much it was bringing her to some sort of a peak, where she couldn’t take the concentration of the bliss any longer. She was overcome by a crescendo, one impossible to stop. She cried out, riding that beautiful moment into eternity, until she fell apart right in his arms, trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She leaned into his hard, warm chest, and his arm wrapped around her and pulled her to him, engulfing her in his embrace. She was crying, and he soothingly brushed his arm down her back. She could still feel his erection. Gracious, he must be in complete torture right now.

“Shh, Star.” His breath was soft and warm against her ear.“Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I don’t know why I’m crying…” she whispered. “I…never thought anything like this was possible at all.”

“I know,” he whispered. “That’s what I kept telling you, love. You don’t have to shut out this part of yourself. You never did. Embrace yourself as a woman, because that part of you will only make the scientist part stronger.”

She nodded and sighed, leaning into him.

Lucien had just seduced the coldest woman in England and set her on fire. And she’d never be the same after this. She had just glimpsed the woman she had always been afraid—but had always secretly wanted—to be.