Chapter 20

CHAPTER20

“Tonight” had never been a vaguer word than it was that night, as Emma paced around her bedchamber like a caged animal. Had Silas meant a certain time of night? Had it passed already? Did he mean after midnight or before? Ultimately, did it matter?

She walked to her window seat, peered out for a few minutes, then wandered to her writing desk to begin an apologetic note that she could not begin much less finish, then hurried back to her bed and wrapped herself tight within the blankets, as if those were firm enough restraints to keep her from doing something stupid.

The pattern repeated. Had repeated for the better part of two hours after she had retired for the evening. Now, the carriage clock on the mantelpiece read a quarter-to-two in the morning. The manor was fast asleep. Yet, somehow, she could feel another soul pacing, far down the hallway, behind the door she had burst through the previous night.

“Good,” she muttered, stalking to the window seat for the millionth time. “I hope you wait all night. I hope you see the dawn rising and realize that I am not coming, that I will not be ordered around.”

Even that would not be punishment enough for him ruining the rest of her afternoon. Had he expected her to just go back to pleasantries and cheerful jests with blood throbbing in her veins and the ghost of his kiss on her neck? In what world would that have been possible, when the mere act of biting into a strawberry had suddenly felt obscene and weirdly exciting?

Then, there was the fact that she had known he could see her and was paying close attention. The very thought had made her skin tingle and flush, as if he had been sitting right beside her, brushing his knee against hers and making sultry remarks under his breath. So much so that Nora and Luke had both asked, at different times, if she was burning in the sun and needed more shade.

“You can bloody well wait and be disappointed,” she grouched, gaze flitting toward the door.

Despite herself, she was listening out for the sound of him coming to her instead. That might have changed things.

She did not have Snowy to distract her, either. He was back in his warm spot by the stove in the kitchen, and Emma did not dare to cross Augusta again by stealing him away a second time.

“No!” she blurted out, jumping down from the window seat. “Why should I lose sleep because of you, hmm? Enough of this. I will tell you myself that you can cease your waiting and go to sleep, because whatever you are thinking, I refuse to be yours.”

Satisfied with her decision, she hurried across the room before she could change her mind and darted down the hallways like a thief in the night. She kept her ears pricked for any unusual sounds, her eyes adjusting to the gloom, as she finally reached Silas’s door.

She raised her hand to knock, but the door flew wide before she could touch her knuckles to the wood. A hand closed around her wrist and pulled her inside, the door clicking shut behind her.

There was no time to catch her breath before Silas had her pressed against the door, his arm wrapped around her waist, his breaths as ragged as they had been that afternoon.

“I just came to say that there is no need to wait for me,” she whispered, her voice catching as his other hand slipped into hers. She watched, wide-eyed, as he brought her hand up and kissed it, his lips grazing against bare skin.

He did not stop there. He traced his kiss down to her wrist, following the pale blue pathways of her veins all the way along the inside of her forearm and up her upper arm until he reached the peak of her shoulder. She could not breathe at all as he pushed the capped sleeve of her nightdress down over that peak, exposing the full length of her collarbone… and more of her décolletage than she had anticipated.

He kissed his way along the ridge of her collarbone, pausing at the notch at the base of her throat. His tongue flicked against it, as he moved her hand onto his chest and pressed it there. It was only then that she realized he wore no shirt, his skin feverishly hot and devilishly smooth beneath her palm, like molten silk.

She gasped as his mouth moved lower, searing across her chest, but clearly she had not drawn in enough air, for the room began to waver as he took the neckline of her nightdress between his teeth and pulled it down.

“Did you… not hear me?” she panted, hooking her hand over one broad shoulder. “I am… leaving this room… at once. I just came to tell⁠—”

All desire to be elsewhere evaporated as his mouth closed over the peak of her nipple, the delicious shock of that wet warmth shuddering through her. It was nothing compared to the blast of lightning that splintered down that invisible string within her, stretched from throat to thighs, as he did the unimaginable… and sucked.

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, his back, his arms, as his mouth pulled and his tongue tasted, while his hand caressed the swell of her breasts. She had thought she knew herself entirely, but it was like he had opened a secret room that had been hidden from her, revealing treasures and secrets she did not know she possessed.

A moan of bliss and regret whispered from her throat as he drew away from her nipple and kissed his way up the column of her throat, grazing his teeth across her earlobe, before following her jaw to the parted curves of her lips.

She willed him to kiss her, arched toward him in order to let him know that was what she wanted, but he stayed there, a hair’s breadth away from crushing his mouth to hers. A smile danced across his lips.

“What were you saying?” he purred. “Shall I open the door for you?”

Breathless, she stared back at him, not knowing whether to slap him, kiss him, pull him closer, or tell him to stand aside. He was maddening and intoxicating, and she knew that if she returned to her chambers, she would never get a wink of sleep again, wondering what might have happened if she had stayed.

“You are cruel,” she murmured, feeling his thumb stroke the small of her back.

He shook his head. “Never with you.” He paused. “But I am giving you the chance to leave, because if you do not, I will do things to you that you cannot even comprehend. I will make you feel things you did not know you could feel. I will make you mine. So, I am giving you this one last chance to leave. It is only fair.”

“You could not have given me that chance before you…” She could not say out loud what it was he had done, nor how it had already changed her world forever—igniting sensations she had not known her body was capable of conjuring.

He chuckled huskily. “A taste of what you can expect is also the only fair thing to do.”

Clinging to him to keep herself steady, she tried to urge her rational mind to the fore, but each time it tried to take over, she imagined his mouth on her again and all sense crumbled.

“But I cannot make a thorough assessment with just that,” she murmured. “If I, perchance, could have another morsel of what I can expect, then I can make a truly considered decision.”

He pressed himself flush against her, sliding his hand up into her hair. “Another morsel? Very well, though I cannot promise it will not turn into a feast for me.”

Emma had no notion of what that meant, but her curiosity was far greater than her apprehension. “Just… a morsel,” she managed to say, before his mouth finally closed that tormenting gap, kissing her with a passion that would have knocked her over if she had not been tightly held in his safe grasp.

There was no hesitation, this time. She kissed him back with equal fervor, confident that she now knew what she was doing, but eager to learn more if there happened to be some holes in her knowledge.

Her arms looped around his neck, her hand cradling the back of his neck, urging him closer, pulling him to her with a need that would have shocked her if she still had possession of her rational mind. But rationale and logic had no place there, in the fearsomely hot bedchamber, where candlelight was their only illumination. It was a place for secrets… and unveiling them.

His mouth curved into a smile against her lips as she boldly flicked her tongue against his, remembering how much she had liked that feeling. For a moment, she wished she could pull back and see that smile, for it felt like one of his rarest, most genuine smiles. She could not risk it. To pause for even a second might have given her fears enough time to take over, sending her back out of the door to her own chambers.

“Fascinating,” he whispered in a sultry tone, as he dipped his head and lavished his teasing kisses along the curve of her neck.

The sound of his voice, so throaty and gruff, was enough to make her legs tremble. Though that might have had more to do with the way his mouth moved across her skin, as if her veins were one long fuse running throughout her body, and every press of his lips was a fresh spark, making it crackle and burn faster toward a powder keg of bliss.

“Do you favor this nightdress?” he purred, easing his hand under the top edge of her sleeve, pushing it down her arm.

“It is… one of only two… that I have,” Emma gasped, his palm rough against the smoothness of her skin. She could not think of any other gentleman who would have the calluses born of hard work, but she was not sorry that he did; the friction was unbearably delicious.

“A pity.” He sighed. “I shall have to spare it, then.”

Before she could ask what he meant, his hands were deftly unfastening the Dorset buttons that ran from the neckline to the hem of her nightdress. And as he did so, she understood—if she had said she did not care for the garment, she was certain he would have ripped it. The thought, the image in her head, made her ripple from her chest to her thighs.

Yet, he did not make her regret choosing the slower path. With every button he undid, his mouth left a mark, his tongue tasting every newly exposed speck of flesh, his fingertips drawing tingling lines ever downward.

And as the last button came free, Silas now kneeling on the floor before her, he rocked back on his haunches and butterflied the two sides of her nightdress, his palms skimming over her waist to hold the fabric away from her bare skin.

He looked at her with hooded, hungry eyes, his gaze taking in every part of her as a wicked smile teased his sensual mouth into a curve.

“What are you doing?” Emma asked, the intensity of his gaze making her feel twice as exposed.

He met her eyes. “Committing you to memory, my wildling.”

“Oh…”

“Am I the first to see you this way?” he asked, his voice thick with an emotion she could not place.

She nodded shyly.

“Then, dearest Emma, I must be the luckiest man in the world.” He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the sensitive flesh beneath her navel. “How can it be that your skin tastes so good?”

She had no answer for that. Could not have formed one even if she had wanted to, as he ran his hands up the smooth muscle of her thighs.

Then, to her dismay, he got to his feet and walked away. She followed him with her eyes, the warmth of the room caressing her bare skin in his absence, while she fought to catch her breath.

He stopped beside the chair that stood in front of his writing desk. His hand curled around the back of it, and without taking his gaze away from her, he dragged the chair to the center of the room. It made such a din that Emma was certain someone else in the manor must be able to hear it.

“Sit,” he commanded. “Shed your nightdress as you walk over to me.”

It was madness. Utter madness. But his voice was a spell, weaving around her, tugging on invisible strings that made refusal seem like the foolish choice, instead of whatever he had planned for her.

So, with her heart in her throat and her skin ablaze, she began to move toward him, pushing her sleeves from her arms as she did so. The rest of the nightdress fell away with a whisper, pooling behind her as she continued toward him without a stitch upon her body.

It might have been the most liberating moment of her life. No one was more surprised than her to realize that, as she tilted her chin up, held herself taller, and strode with a confidence she did not know she had to where he waited.

His expression was encouragement enough, that ravenous desire flaring in his eyes, his tongue rolling across his lower lip as he watched her every step with complete focus and appreciation.

“A goddess,” he purred, gesturing to the chair.

“Would a mere mortal command a goddess to sit?” she countered, noting something for the first time. His trousers were tight, in the Brummel style, hiding nothing from view. She did not know what it was she was looking at, but it had not been there before, in their usual encounters.

Silas chuckled darkly. “When you leave this bedchamber, I doubt you will think of me as a mere mortal.”

“You are so confident?”

“Sit and find out,” he replied.

She wished she could have refused him, just to claim the satisfaction of seeing his disappointment, but that would have meant denying her intrigue. Flashing him what she hoped was a haughty look, she deigned to sit on the writing desk chair, perching primly on the edge, her thighs together.

Silas was on his knees in a second, leaning up to kiss her hard on the mouth, while his hand smoothed over the swell of her breast. She gasped against his lips, her thighs parting with that sharp exhale so that he would not be so far away as he kissed her.

And as their mouths moved together, their tongues engaging in a slow waltz, Silas trailed his fingertips down her stomach and braced both his hands against her thighs. He gripped them, the roughness of his touch adding another layer to her pleasure as she pulled him closer, running her hands through his hair, kissing him with delirious abandon.

All of a sudden, she cried out against his mouth, clinging to him as a bolt of lightning shivered through her. And he, the magician that he was, was the one who had conjured it.

One hand had left her thigh, his fingertips touching upon a powder keg between her thighs; the place where that crackling fuse had been leading to, all this time, without her knowing. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Unlike anything she could have dreamed.

His fingertips circled the pulsing center of her pleasure in slow, teasing rounds, while his lips coaxed hers into a renewed kiss, more frantic than before. She kissed him back, gasping between each catch of their lips, a moan bubbling up the back of her throat as he gently tapped that secret bud, before shifting to a tortuous strum that assuredly would have buckled her if she had not been sitting.

“Oh… Oh, my goodness…” she rasped, dizzy with the sensation, a feverish heat prickling up the back of her neck.

She tried to grab him, to keep the anchor of his kiss firmly against her lips, but he moved away with a smile upon his lips, letting his kiss follow the peaks and valleys he had savored before, when he had unbuttoned her.

She all but screamed when his mouth closed around her nipple, now straining to a tight peak as if it were cold, but his mouth was warm and welcome as he sucked. With each scorching pull, she bucked against his hand, struggling to control herself and the fire he had ignited within her.

“Silas,” she gasped. “Oh, Silas!”

“I thought I said I was to be “Your Grace” in private?” he purred, drawing his mouth to her other nipple. “I suppose I do not mind it, as long as you scream it.”

She cried out as he sucked again, but the words were not coherent. Her head was swimming, fogged up by his touch, his tongue, his talents.

With a teasing lick, he moved lower still, kissing between her breasts, tracing the slight dip of muscle that separated her abdomen, before showing appreciation to the slight swell of her stomach. His kisses trembled down her thigh, her breath ragged as his tongue tasted the soft inner flesh, for she knew what must be coming, but could not fathom it.

Her world exploded as his tongue tasted her for the first time, replacing the circle and tap and strum of his fingertips. If she had not had the sides of the chair to grip onto, she was convinced she would have toppled right off it.

But he was only just beginning, as he scooped his arms under her legs and slid them onto his shoulders, pulling her to the very edge of the chair.

He dipped his head for a second taste, a rumbling groan of satisfaction vibrating from his mouth to her swollen bud. She gripped the sides of the chair tighter, gasping his name, gasping a few choice curses that made him smile, as she wondered why on earth she had not known a single thing about any of this.

As his tongue rolled and sucked, sending wave after wave of sparking wildfire through every limb and muscle, until her legs were shaking upon his shoulders, his fingertips suddenly touched the spot just below that throbbing center of bliss, and slid lower, parting her.

He paused at the entrance to her sex, as if waiting. His tongue, however, did not cease for even a moment, and as it curled around her bud and sucked, she bucked her hips in response. At that very second, he eased his finger inside her, and any threadbare hold she had had upon her former life—before him, before this—tore away and fluttered into the ether.

“Oh, Silas!” she cried, arching her neck back, curving her spine away from the chair, writhing and panting as he slowly began to move his finger.

She nearly fainted as he eased a second inside her, filling her up in a way no one—not even the women she trusted—had whispered to her about. His fingers curved and pulsed, creating the most intense pressure in the very core of her being, a pressure that poured fuel onto the inferno of what his tongue was doing, stoking up a blaze that would surely leave nothing behind but ash and a smile of pure satisfaction.

When that blaze finally combusted, she was not at all ready for it. She did not know what it was, at first. It tore through her, seizing her muscles, sending her arching backward until there was nothing of her left touching the chair but her shoulders, her legs shaking violently upon his shoulders. Her hands, meanwhile, gripped the sides of the chair so ferociously that she was certain they might crack apart under the pressure.

She screamed his name. She could not help it. It was the only word she could coax between her mind and lips.

Am I unwell? What is this? It was the like the swiftest fever, coursing through her, every part of her scorching hot, her brain muffled, her skull pounding with the swell of that unique and almighty euphoria that swept away who she was, and gave no hint of what it would leave behind when the tide eased back in.

His fingers stilled, but his tongue stole one last taste of her, making her buck wildly, as his gaze flicked up, dark with desire and an ecstasy of his own. If she did not know any better—and, in truth, she knew nothing—she would have thought he took pleasure from watching hers, savoring it as he had savored her.

Just when she thought she might actually burst apart from the intensity of it all, the powerful wave began to recede by pulsing increments, reluctantly handing back control to her hazy mind, relinquishing its grip upon her body and soul.

But as that bliss ebbed to nothing more than a few lingering sparks and shivers, she could feel that she was entirely changed, just as she had suspected. The woman she had been before she had been pulled into this bedchamber was not the same one who would walk out of it in a daydream.

And she did not know whether that thrilled or terrified her.

“Eyes on me,” Silas growled, withdrawing his fingers.

Her gaze snapped downward, and as he rose up on his haunches, sliding her shaky legs off his shoulders and setting her feet back on the floor, he cradled her face in his hands and kissed the worry from her lips.

“So,” he whispered, pulling back, “do you consider me a mere mortal still?”

She smacked him lightly on the arm. “You cheated.”

“How, pray tell?” He smirked.

“That was not just a morsel, Silas.”

He grazed his teeth over his lower lip. “Oh, my wildling, but it was. And it is the only taste you shall receive until you beg me to touch you again.”

“I will never beg,” she replied silkily. “But you might.”

He grinned. “We shall see.”