Page 56 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
“I will not bed you, Bram. Not without a ring.” She said the words by rote, though her voice slowed over his name.
He closed his eyes, a tiny shiver going through his body. “Say my name like that again.”
“What?”
“Bram. Say it again.”
“Bram,” she said.
“No. Soft. Throaty.”
“Mr. Hallowsby.” She’d meant to chastise him. She’d meant to put more distance between them. But even with his formal name on her lips, she heard the hunger in her tone. The throaty purr around the syllables of his name. And he reacted by opening his mouth and biting her knee gently. The scrape of his teeth made her skin tingle, even as he spread her legs a fraction of an inch wider.
“What do you want, Bluebell? Tell me what you want.”
She wanted more of that. She wanted him, but she didn’t say that. She couldn’t. It was too bold, and it was not what she told herself she wanted. “I want to force my father to recognize me.”
He stilled, but he didn’t look up at her. “With a copy of the register? In Oxfordshire?”
“Yes.”
“I will take you,” he said. “I will take you there and help you confront your father.”
She swallowed, her body growing cold. “If I whore myself to you?”
“If you let me show you how it can feel. If you let me touch you—just my hands—and you come for me.”
She didn’t fully understand his words, but she gathered enough of his meaning. “That is still whoring.”
“Maybe,” he said, his word a bare whisper. “And I am a bastard. But I will honor my word and tell no one.”
“And me? How will I feel about myself in the morning?”
He shrugged as his tongue slowly licked the place his teeth had abraded. The heat of it and the wet slide made her gasp.
“You will hate yourself and me, I suppose,” he said against her flesh. “I might even hate myself for you.”
She had released his hand to brace the outside of her knee. He was pressing kisses to the inside, urging her to relax. Andwhile she focused on that, she realized belatedly that his other hand had crept up the outside of her other thigh. He was well and truly up her skirts now, and she needed to stop him soon. Very soon.
He lifted his chin. “Very well,” he said softly. “I will not take you anywhere. This will be solely about pleasure.”
That was not at all what she wanted, and he knew it. “I have no need of you to take me,” she said. “I board the mail coach tomorrow.”
“Then who is to know what you do tonight?”
“Me.”
He smiled. “Yes, you.” And his left hand slid over the top of her thigh. She shuddered, a trembling that reflected the war within her. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to learn from him. He was so large, and as his fingers spread over her leg, it felt as if he touched everything.
“I will show you such things. You want to feel them. You know you do.”
She did. And sweet heaven, he was doing things so slowly. She could stop him at any moment, and yet she kept thinking—in a second. Let me feel his hands on me for another moment. Another kiss.
And his hand crept higher.
She was not wearing any drawers. It was too hot for them. So when his long fingers brushed across the top of her mound, she gasped and drew up straight. But he was firmly wedged between her legs now. That only brought her more heavily against him. His fingers widened and one—
Sweet heaven!
