Confessions of an Improper Bride, page 16
But why? What were Jonathan’s real intentions? She understood why he’d kissed her—because he’d believed it had been a way to find out if she truly was Meg. But what did he plan to do with the knowledge? If he considered himself such close friends with Will, why hadn’t he exposed her already?
It was horrible and it was sinful, and she felt like she was deceiving everyone, even herself. But after all these years, she still wanted Jonathan. So badly her body ached with it. His kiss, his lips—she had forgotten what they could do to her until he’d kissed her in his kitchen. Those kisses melted every iota of her resistance as swiftly as the sun melted snow in the summertime. Falling, spinning deep into his caress, it had taken long moments—too many moments—for her to come to her senses and realize the wickedness of her actions.
She stretched her limbs, reaching to grasp the headboard and point her toes to the foot of the bed, then flipped herself over, embracing the frigid sheets like a lover.
She and Jonathan had not planned to rendezvous that night at the dowager duchess’s ball. They’d spotted each other across the ballroom. After they’d exchanged a series of glances and gestures, he’d led her into an alcove at the top of the stairs surrounded by heavy velvet curtains. Like a balcony at the theater, the alcove looked over the ballroom below. The danger of it had excited her, made her shameless, reckless.
She had wasted no time. As soon as he sat on a plush velvet armchair, she unbuttoned the falls of his breeches, then lifted her skirts, straddled him, and set herself over him. She’d felt such exquisite pleasure at that moment, knowing they were surrounded and that if she made one small noise, many people would hear it.
Serena hiked up her night rail and slid her hand between the bed and her body, cupping her palm over the soft curls. How he had filled her there. Deep within her, his energy permeated every inch of her body, made her feel full and alive. Happy.
She tightened her buttocks and thrust her body into her palm, into the bed. He had held her by the hips, pumping inside her to the lively music. She squeezed her eyes shut. The sounds of the quadrille resonated in her mind. She thrust to that same rhythm now.
She had reserved the dance for someone else. The idea that she’d jilted another gentleman to be with Jonathan instead, and the gentleman would likely be searching for her, that the risk of what she and Jonathan were doing was very great indeed, opened her wider. The thrill of danger made her slick between her legs, made her nipples tighten to the point of pain, made her shudder from head to toe.
To feel that way again… oh, how she wanted it. She’d never felt so free before that moment, or since.
The way he had moved beneath her had rubbed against her most sensitive spot. Now, she slipped two fingers deep inside herself, then out, touching that place Jonathan had stroked over and over with his body.
The sudden sound of laughter just beyond the curtains had racked her with spasms, and lust had torn her apart, made her lose herself, made her cry out.
Serena muffled her cry into her pillow now as the muscles in her body tightened and then released in a flood, and her sex pulsed around her drenched fingers.
It was then that the dowager duchess had found them.
Slowly, Serena relaxed, sinking deep into the bed. After that night, shame, scandal. Jonathan had not offered for her as she’d believed he would. He had not saved her from disgrace. Instead, he’d turned away from her. He’d given her the direct cut.
Aunt Geraldine told her that she was a weak, odious creature, a stupid, amoral slut and that Jonathan had never wanted her. Soon thereafter, Serena had left London in shame.
“Why?” She asked it aloud. Why did it have to be this way?
She rolled onto her side, tucked her knees into her chest, and stared at the door, sick with the unfairness of it all.
Sebastian rented rooms in a part of London Phoebe hadn’t yet visited. The streets were busy in this area, but they were narrower, the houses smaller and in various states of disrepair, tucked close together. Savory steam wafted out from the sealed windows of pie shops closed for the evening, and spring flowers bloomed in window boxes, but these pleasant smells mixed with the rank odors of fetid water and smoke.
Sebastian stopped at a tall, narrow door set right up against the pavement. He held her close against him, his fingers squeezing over hers while he fumbled with the key in his other hand. She watched him out of the corner of her eye.
He was nervous, and that gave her a flush of pleasure. She knew he was an experienced lover—he’d told her he was, and it didn’t surprise her, what with him being a young buck about Town. But he was anxious this time, because it was her, Phoebe Donovan, and he cared for her.
He went inside and drew her into the dark, closing the door and leaving them in utter blackness.
“Wait here. I’ll light a candle.”
She did as she was told, tugging off her gloves as shuffling footsteps moved away from her and she heard the sounds of him fumbling about. Light flickered and blazed to life, revealing him by a table in the small room beyond the tiny entry hall. He smiled at her, his handsome face bathed in a yellow glow, and she smiled back.
“It’s nothing like Lady Alcott’s house,” he said, apologetic.
She shook her head. “How could you think I would care about such a thing?”
A fine line appeared between his brows as his smile faded. “Everyone does, Phoebe.”
She could see it: the pain in his expression—the hurt that stemmed from the fact that some stupid, arbitrary line had been drawn between him and his “betters.”
“Not me,” she said. “I don’t care one bit.”
He reached out his hand, and she went to him. He enveloped her in his arms, drawing her hood off and burying his face in her hair. “I’m not good enough for them,” he murmured. “I’m not good enough for you.”
She pulled away to frown up at him. “You cannot be serious.”
His nod was tiny, but there it was, and all at once she understood his hesitation with her, his insistence on treating her like a piece of glass.
“My family is poor,” she said. Probably poorer than his, when all was said and done.
“But aristocratic. Your uncle was a viscount. Your grandfather was a earl.”
“My father was nobody.”
“He was of noble birth.”
“Noble Irish birth,” she corrected in a low voice. “To most of the English, that is a few steps below nobody.”
He looked at her, and she rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m just a person, Sebastian. Just a woman, like any woman you’ve ever known. A woman who”—she hesitated, then swallowed hard—“loves you.”
“But why me?” he whispered.
“I could ask the same question of you.” And she had asked it of herself, night after night, since she’d met him. With his dark, sleek good looks, women must clamor to be in his bed. Yet he’d chosen her.
He pulled her away from his body and framed her face with his hands, tilting her head up so she faced him. “You’re different from the others. You understand me like no one else. I can be myself with you.” He hesitated, and the look in his eyes melted a spot deep inside her. “You soothe me, Phoebe. You siphon away all the rage I feel at the world and leave only calmness and peace.”
His voice was so soft it reminded her of a leather saddle her father had owned, so used and worn she would go into the stables and rub her hand over it again and again, loving the supple feel of it against her palm.
That was long ago. Before they’d sold the horses. She wondered what had happened to that saddle.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I feel the same way about you.”
The truth of it stroked through her, like his voice, like the leather of the saddle, softening every bit of her from head to toe. She’d never felt more comfortable, more herself, with anyone.
Sebastian was special. No matter what Serena said, what anyone said, she wouldn’t let him go.
He lowered his lips to hers, gentle, loving, caring, and she slipped her arms around him and moved her lips against his in a slow dance as old as time. A dance he’d begun to teach her but had stopped again and again before it was properly finished. Tonight, they’d take the dance all the way to completion, and she couldn’t wait.
“Make me yours, Sebastian,” she whispered against his mouth.
His arms tightened around her, and his hand moved to her neck to untie the strings of her cloak. Fabric puddled at her feet, but she hardly noticed. She was fumbling with his cravat. Finally managing to untie the long tails of stiff white fabric, she pushed it away and began to work on the buttons of his waistcoat. She pulled the woolen edges open, and he shrugged, allowing his coat and waistcoat to fall to the floor.
There it was. His shirt, white and billowing, freed from the constraints of his coats. She ran her hand down the front, fascinated by the feel of linen under her hand, hardly noticing that he’d gone to work on the buttons at the back of her dress.
She’d worn only her simplest dress and cloak over her chemise tonight. No petticoat, no stays. When he parted the material of her dress and drew it down over her shoulders, she looked up at him.
“I’ve never done this before.” Her voice was breathless.
“I know you haven’t.” His hands stilled, cupping her shoulder blades. “Do you want me to stop?”
“You know I don’t. I want you. I’ve wanted you from the beginning.”
He stared at her. “I know it hurts the first time, Phoebe. I’ll try…” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’ll try my damndest not to hurt you, but…”
“It’s all right,” she whispered, pressing two fingers over his lips.
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“If I must stop, tell me. Tell me anytime, and I’ll stop.”
“I trust you, Sebastian.”
When her dress slid down, snagging on her hips, she pushed it the rest of the way off and stepped out of it, leaving a pile of her clothing on the floor.
The room was tiny, with a small table to one side and a tidy sofa near a compact fireplace. A closed door stood between the sofa and the table, and Sebastian took her hand and opened the door.
“No one comes here.” He glanced over his shoulder at her while he led her into the bedchamber. “Nobody but me has been in this place since I first came to London.”
She didn’t need to ask him why. It was because he had wanted to portray the image that he was better than this small dwelling. He wanted people to imagine that perhaps he lived in a house as grand as Aunt Geraldine’s.
“I’m glad you brought me here,” she said. Though it was plain, it was tidy and homey, with a neat stack of newspapers in a pile near the sofa and a fresh loaf of bread and square of butter on a plate on the well-worn table. The bed was narrow but neatly made, and Sebastian’s clothes lay crisply folded on the parallel rows of shelves nearby.
Even though the place was small and simple, he treated it with care, and that showed her something about his character she’d already suspected—he respected simple things. Ultimately, Sebastian was a simple, good man trying to live in a world in which he didn’t belong.
Phoebe studied his face, suddenly feeling to her soul that she understood him in a way that he himself had only recently come to terms with. How could that be? He’d lived in his own skin for twenty-one years, and she’d only known him for a few weeks.
He smiled down at her, and she gazed up at him, allowing all her desperate longing—caring—for him to show in her face.
Tension tightened his cheeks, and need flared in his eyes. “I love you, Phoebe Donovan,” he whispered, and he kissed her again.
This kiss wasn’t as gentle as the last. It was possessive and thorough. A rush of passion, of desire, soft as warm water yet with all the force of a flood. Phoebe wrapped her arms around him, tugging his shirt up from the waist of his trousers and sliding her hands beneath, gliding them over the smooth furnace of his skin.
His lips moved down her neck, and then his fingers were fumbling with the strings of her chemise. Likewise, her hands traveled to the ties at his neck. They untied each other’s strings simultaneously, and they dropped their arms to grab handfuls of material to pull over their heads. Phoebe lifted her chemise, yanked it off, and tossed it aside, leaving only her drawers, shoes, and stockings on. At the same time, he threw his shirt over his shoulder, and her breath caught in her throat.
His bare torso, shining gold in the lamplight streaking in from the adjacent room. How beautiful he was—all slender, manly muscle. She blinked hard at the planes of his chest and then looked up in his face just in time to see a similar awe crossing his features as his gaze took in the swell of her breasts, the pucker of her nipples.
She hesitated then, staring at him, keeping her muscles from forcing her to lurch toward him, from obeying the compulsion to touch him all over, to drink him in.
“So… beautiful,” he choked out. He curled his fingers around her waist, his skin rasping over hers as he drew her upward and forward. Tenderly, he cupped her breast in his palm and then bent down and pressed his lips to the tip.
It was as if something connected his lips to her breast to her very insides. Sharp, prickling sensation buzzed through her so powerfully, her knees threatened to buckle. She reached up, grabbing his shoulders as his free hand slid around her back and drew her closer to him, supporting her. She gasped. Goodness, what pleasure! What power could be transferred in just the simple press of his mouth to her breast!
He moved to the other side, his lips soft, questing, and she looped her arms around his waist, her palms flat on the warm skin of his back, murmuring into the thick black mass of his hair.
He drew back from her breast. “Go to the bed.”
His voice contained the soft lilt of a question in it. She complied readily, lowering herself onto its edge and then swinging her legs over and tucking herself against the wall, making room for him to crawl in beside her.
The narrowness of the bed pressed them together by necessity, but Phoebe didn’t care. Her heart pattered with excitement, her flesh felt hot and prickly, and a strange, empty ache resided between her legs.
“Touch me, Phoebe.”
He guided her hand until her fingers brushed the length of his manhood. She sucked in a breath, looking at him with wide eyes. He released her hand, and she gave him an experimental swipe, fascinated by the ridges and bumps, the steel of muscle beneath the silky layer of skin.
She watched him in curiosity, studying the way his lips parted and his eyelids grew heavy. “Does it feel good when I touch you here?”
“Ah… Yes.”
She frowned. She wanted to know what to do, how to please him. She wanted to make him groan like she’d groaned when he’d kissed her breasts.
“But… tell me how.”
“You’re doing very well.”
She moved her hand away slightly. “I want to know what feels best.”
He moved his hand down again and cupped it over hers, pushing her fingers so they curled over his shaft and she gripped him gently in her fist.
He nodded on a sigh of pleasure, his eyes half-lidded. “That’s right. Now… stroke me. Gently. Up and down.”
She did as he said, concentrating on the feel of him, his length, girth, softness, and hardness.
“Very… very… good.”
“I’ve always been a fast learner.” She gave him a wicked smile, and he set his lips on hers, his own hand insinuating between her dampened thighs, touching her, stroking her, until she squirmed and gasped.
“Enough.” He jerked away from her, pulling himself from her grasp and removing his hand from her body.
Phoebe’s eyes popped open, and, yanked out of pleasure, she stared at him stupidly. “What—?”
But he rolled her onto her back and he moved over her, pinning her wrists against the bed, his sex heavy against her thigh.
He stared down at her, his eyes sparkling obsidian in the meager light of the candle.
“Are you ready for me?”
She looked at him, at his narrow, beautiful face, strong bones, the strand of thick dark hair falling haphazardly over one eye, and she knew, without a doubt, that she was his. There would be no one else for her. Ever.
“Yes, Sebastian, I’m ready.”
There was pain, in the beginning. At first sharp, then subduing to a dull throb, drowning beneath the tide of pleasure that swept between her thighs and through her body. Sebastian gazed down into her eyes as he moved deep within her, and she whispered his name with every breath she took.
“Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.”
This would never end. This was where she was meant to be, in Sebastian Harper’s arms, forever. She gripped his shoulders and looked up at him, and something powerful flowed between them, so strong that she was unaware of anything but their connection and their love.
Suddenly, he jerked out of her. Gathering her quickly into his arms, his body tightened and shuddered. And then he was still.
Phoebe was confused. After a long silence in which Sebastian didn’t move, she asked, “What just happened?”
He raised his head as slowly and heavily as if it were solid iron. And he stared at her, a frown puckering the skin between his brows. “What?”
“You pulled away,” she whispered. “And then you… stopped.”
He blinked, stared at her for a few more seconds, and then all the tension seemed to drain from his body. Sighing, he rolled off her, then tucked her up against him, stroking her hair as she nuzzled against his chest.
“How much do you know about when a man and woman join together, Phoebe?”
She stiffened, just a little. “Why, I know quite a lot. I should say I do, since I am now rather experienced in the matter.”
She cringed at the offended huff in her voice. She was confused, certainly, but of course no one had ever bothered to walk her through the steps of lovemaking. Still, she wasn’t an idiot. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t sure about the intricacies of the act.
