Page 35 of How to Court a Rake
‘Does it please you that I rouse to your touch so thoroughly?’ Caine lifted himself up on his elbows, his gaze following her hand.
‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ she admittedly somewhat shyly. ‘I’m glad you like it.’
‘I do like it.’ He claimed a kiss, his voice a whisper against her mouth. ‘Do you know what else I like? I like the scent of you when you’re aroused, I like the sight of your hair falling down your back, the sight of your body claiming the pleasure I give you, the sounds you make when you shatter. I like the taste of you…’
A gasp of shock and new-born arousal escaped her. How could it be that she wanted more again, so soon? How much would be enough to satisfy her? ‘You are truly wicked. I don’t know anyone who talks like you do.’
Caine laid back down with a laugh. ‘You know no one who says exactly what they think?’
‘No one but you, apparently.’ That struck her as all too true. She trusted Caine, had told him things she’d not voiced to anyone. In turn, he’d opened up a whole new world for her. To think this had all started with a dance. That night they’d talked and danced for the first time, she’d wondered what would happen if she stepped off the path of propriety. Where would other, less proper, paths lead?
This path had led here, to this moment, to her hand on him beneath the stars, her body replete with the pleasure he’d given her and yet somehow ready for more. The path had led her to decadence, certainly, but it had led her to more than that. Caine made her feel things she did not want to name for fear of becoming attached to them, to him, any more than she already was and then losing them, him. She’d lost enough in the past twenty-four hours, except for the one thing she’d like to be quite rid of.
‘Mmm, that’s good.’ He sighed, his eyes half-lidded as he lost himself in her touch and she basked in the praise. ‘Do you want to finish me off, or shall I do it?’ He opened his eyes and she felt his gaze rest on her. He was waiting for her to set their direction. This was her moment, another chance to be seized if she dared.
‘Perhaps you might finish us both off, instead?’ Nervously, she wet her lips as she made her request. After all, it wasn’t every night one asked a man for sex.
Caine looked startled. She flushed for a moment. ‘I seem to recall you promised to ruin me.’ She gave a breathy laugh. He was going to refuse and she would feel entirely embarrassed. She sighed and closed her eyes, taking her hand from him. ‘Have I made a fool of myself?’ Caine would tell her the truth even if she didn’t wish to hear it.
He grabbed her hands, squeezing them hard. ‘No, never, Mary. I’m quite intoxicated with your boldness, withyou, if you must know.’ His mouth was soft on hers, stealing a gentle kiss as he murmured, ‘Wouldn’t you rather do this in a bed?’
‘No.’ She smiled against his mouth. ‘I want to make love right here with the moon watching and the night birds singing.’ This would be her paradise, a place out of time where she had a lover who coveted her, cherished her, who saw a woman, not an earl’s daughter with bloodlines and a dowry. She rose. ‘But you’ll have to help me with my laces. I can’t get out of this dress alone.’
‘I am more than happy to oblige.’ Caine came to his feet and moved behind her, sweeping aside the length of her hair, his mouth whispering decadent words at her ear; how her skin was moonlight itself, her scent like a summer garden. His hands worked the laces at her back, warm and competent. His own desire pressed against her in promise of what was to come as her dress slipped to the ground. Oh, how her pulse sped with want and her thoughts raced with desire as her underthings joined her dress and he whispered, ‘I’ll make it good for you, I promise.’
She turned in his arms, pressing her naked body to him, arms wrapped around his neck. ‘Make it good for both of us. I trust you.’ She stepped away from him then.
‘You are beautiful.’ His voice was gravel and she rather enjoyed the power of having stolenhisbreath.
She sat down on the blanket and wrapped her arms about her knees. ‘Your turn now.’ He made short work of his shirt and his already open breeches and the moonlight did the rest, favouring the angles and planes of his body with its light and shadow. Although he didn’t need any favouring.
He looked like a god as he came to her, his broad shoulders and arms corded with muscle, his torso a carved marble atlas of muscle, his hips lean, his thighs long, the perfect setting for what nestled between them. No, nestled was too tame of word. His phallus was too large for nestling; itrose, itjutted. It didnotnestle. He fell to all fours in front of her, his eyes, dark and dangerous, holding hers as he lowered himself over her. She lay back in invitation, her arms reaching up for him, urging him to come onwards, to cover her in full. His phallus brushed her leg and heat rose in her, the wet, damp heat of desire. She wanted this man. Wanted him inside her. To know the feel of him for ever.
His own breathing was ragged. She sensed he was holding himself in check, keeping his own desire leashed on her behalf. ‘You don’t need to be careful of me, I won’t break,’ she encouraged, want outstripping her own sense of caution.
He nuzzled her ear. ‘This moment is for savouring, not devouring.’ And she understood. This was not to be frantic like his mouth at her nub. There was to be nothing cheap and hurried in this. This was to be a slow taking, a deliberate taking. Perhaps even a bridegroom’s taking of his bride. Her heart swelled at the care, the courtesy he was showing her amid the surging passion when it would be easy for recklessness and individual need to hold sway, when it would be easy to devour, to sate, and she revelled in it, her body stretching languorously beneath him, hip to hip, leg to leg, as she tried to match his height with hers.
He held her arms over her head, gripped in a single hand. ‘All the better to see your breasts, to kiss them,’ he said and it was she who felt wicked as his mouth sucked at them, turning her insides to aspic, a slow heat building in her she could not contain, so that she was more than ready for him when he finally came into her, slow inch by slow inch, his eyes holding hers, both of them enrapt by the other’s response. He filled her, a sense of having been joined intimately with another, withhim, swamped her.
‘Wait, there’s more,’ he murmured as he began to move within her. Joining turned to completion, and completion turned to climax, this time, a climax they both could share. They were headed to the great release together. The knowledge of that was heady.He’d be there with her when she shattered and she’d be there with him. That release was on them quickly, desire refusing to be held in abatement any longer. Her hips met his, she wrapped her legs about him, holding him close, her breath coming in gasps as he thrust once, twice more and then came the brilliant fracturing, of being at one with another while knowing that one’s self was splintering into a thousand shards of feeling.
Two thoughts swept her at the last.Thiswas the pinnacle of intimacy, the purpose and secret of life, perhaps even what made life worth living. And how would she ever move on without the man who could achieve it?
Chapter Nineteen
They had to move. They couldn’t spend the night here on the ground with nothing more than a picnic blanket and themselves in their rather natural state. Caine sighted the moon through a drowsy eye. It must be past midnight based on the moon’s position. They’d fallen asleep. No surprise, given their exertions.
He wasn’t sure what had woken him, perhaps the hoot of an owl, or the cooling evening air on his bare skin, or perhaps, from the semi-roused state of his phallus, Mary had shifted in her sleep and nudged him into wakefulness. That didn’t mean he wanted to move. Being awake merely meant he had no excuse to avoid taking the necessary next steps—getting him and Mary back to the house. He wondered if that included getting dressed? He didn’t think he had the wherewithal to manage laces and corsets and he didn’t give enough of a damn about who saw him in his altogether to bother with his own breeches.
If he had his way, he’d spend the night by the lake, wake to a sunrise with the woman he…cared for—he didn’t dare call it anything else—in his arms and start the day with a slow bout of lovemaking. Beside him, Mary shivered in her sleep, gooseflesh standing out on her skin despite the borrowed warmth of his body’s heat.
He curled around her, cradling her tight against him, wanting to keep her warm a bit longer, wanting to enjoy the peace surrounding him a bit longer, too. Peace was foreign to him. He did not inhabit a world that allowed for peace or for the safety that went with it. Safety and peace were contingent, one did not exist without the other. But tonight, for a few hours, he’d had both. Because of her.
He’d been with enough women to know that peace and safety were not guaranteed aftermaths of sex. Even though it had just been a few hours, he’d not slept beside a woman for this long perhaps ever. Usually, he left shortly afterwards, giving the excuse of a late-night card game or an evening meeting he needed to attend. And, usually, he was quite eager to go. Mystery and desirability wore off fairly quickly once the clothes were gone and people were left with only themselves.
That had not been the case tonight. Caine breathed in Mary’s scent, all lilies and vanilla underlaid with the faint lingering musk of sex and arousal. She’d been a fascinating mix of boldness and innocence.Wreck me.Such potent words that had fired his desire and he’d done his best although he’d felt as if he’d been the one who was wrecked. His usual rake’s detachment had not held fast tonight.
As much as he might want to frame the evening as instruction, the fulfilling of a forfeit or the continuation of a game they’d started in the carriage, tonight had been none of those things. Which was all the more reason he should have said no. It was one thing to play sex games with women who were looking for the same thing—a few nights, a few weeks, a few months of physical pleasure. But tomake lovewith an innocent who knew nothing of such games, who knew only the honesty of her passion, was another.
