An Invitation to Sin (29 page)

“God, Jo,” Damian muttered, his lips moving to a sensitive spot just below her ear, “you make me forget propriety. Hell, you make me forget my own name.”

“Mmm.” She tilted her head to give him more room to explore as she succeeded in freeing his shirt from his breeches. “Mmm.” She ran her hands up his back. If only she could—

His fingers dipped below her bodice and rubbed over her nipple. Lightning shot through her body to lodge … she pressed herself more tightly against his thigh and moaned. “Damian—”

Suddenly her face was crushed against his chest again. “Shh,” he breathed by her ear. “I think they’re here.”

Her pleasure-soaked brain tried to recall whom they were expecting when she heard Lady Noughton’s voice.

“It’s Lupercalia, Stephen.”

Jo looked up at Damian; he pressed a finger to her lips, and then they both moved to peer around the pillar. Mr. Parker-Roth stood just inside the door; Lady Noughton had ventured farther in.

“Right. Hard to forget after seeing all those naked arses flashing across Greyham’s lawn. I’ll have nightmares about that for weeks.” Mr. Parker-Roth’s voice acquired a new edge. “I’m surprised you didn’t join in, Maria.”

“I might have if you’d done so.” Lady Noughton’s voice was low and sultry, rather appropriate given the oppressive heat.

Mr. Parker-Roth snorted. “I don’t care to have frosted ballocks.”

“No, that would never do.” Lady Noughton ran her hands down her sides and gave a slow little wiggle—Jo wondered if she should practice such a move.

It seemed to have no effect on Mr. Parker-Roth, however. He turned away to examine the windows. “What did you drag me down here for, Maria? I was planning to spend a quiet night”—he looked at her, his lips twisting into something of a sneer—“alone with a good book.”

“I thought we might go for a swim.” The woman gave another wiggle and somehow her dress slipped down to reveal she had nothing at all on underneath.

She had a very impressive pair of … well, it was quite obvious why she was such a success with the male members of the
ton
. Jo looked up to see if a specific earl was impressed, but Damian was watching his friend.

Mr. Parker-Roth’s eyes never strayed from Lady Nough-ton’s face. “It’s over, Maria. We had a pleasant association, but it’s done. I’ll send you a draft on my bank, and you can pick out a suitable bauble at Rundell and Bridge to assuage your wounded feelings.”

“But I love you, Stephen.” Lady Noughton spread her arms wide in case Mr. Parker-Roth had perhaps not noticed her very large breasts.

He still did not appear interested, but then he’d probably had many past opportunities to examine them thoroughly. “I don’t think you do, Maria. It certainly hasn’t kept you from sharing your favors with an assortment of men—something I would never tolerate in a wife, by the way.”

She dropped her arms and glared at him. “I’ll tell everyone you offered marriage, Stephen. Many will believe it; you’ve been showing me very marked attention these last few months.”

“More fool I.” He put his hand on the door. “You may do as you like, Maria. I know it is a lie, and I imagine most of the
ton
will know it, too. You will only make yourself look foolish.”

“Especially when I corroborate Stephen’s side of the story,” Damian said, stepping out from behind the pillar.

Lady Noughton spun toward him, sending her large breasts bouncing. “You!”

Mr. Parker-Roth grinned. “Damian, I hate to say it, but you were right. I should have listened to you.”

Lady Noughton put her hands on her hips—apparently she was completely at ease with her nakedness—and tossed her head. “People will only say you are supporting your friend.”

“They’d best not suggest I am lying.” There was more than a touch of steel in Damian’s voice. “Dueling may be illegal, but I have many other methods at my disposal to make life uncomfortable for anyone who dares question my honor.”

“And I shall support Mr. Parker-Roth as well,” Jo said, going to stand by Damian. Not that anyone would care what a provincial spinster said, but it just didn’t feel sporting to stay hidden behind the masonry any longer.

Damian scowled at her. Clearly as soon as they were alone he was going to let her know she should have stayed out of sight.

She was rather looking forward to that argument.

“Miss Atworthy.” Mr. Parker-Roth’s grin widened; he bowed.

“Miss Atworthy.” Lady Noughton almost spat the words. “I don’t believe you’ll be in a position to say a thing after everyone learns you were here with Lord Kenderly.”

Jo shrugged. “Since—as you know—I’ve never been to London and probably never will, I can’t imagine anyone will care what I was doing.”

“Ah, there you are wrong, my love,” Damian said, putting his arm around her and pulling her scandalously close. “Society will be very anxious to hear everything about the new Countess of Kenderly.”

Jo’s gasp was drowned out by Lady Noughton’s screech—and that was drowned out, quite literally, by the Lupercalia celebrants as they stampeded into the bathhouse and into the pool in all their naked glory.

Chapter 9

“I fear I will go to my grave with the image of fat, balding Sir Humphrey running naked into that damn bathhouse,” Damian said, hurrying Jo up the path to the house. Her teeth were chattering. He was damn cold, too, but there’d been no time to collect their coats. With all the naked revelers, a hasty departure had clearly been called for.

“Ah, but then think of Maria’s expression as he barreled into her and took her into the pool with a mighty splash.” Stephen looked down at Jo. “Miss Atworthy, are you certain you won’t take my coat,” he said for the third time.

“N-no, th-thank you.” Poor Jo was so cold she could barely speak. “W-we are al-almost th-there.”

Thank God they were. Damian hustled Jo over the last few yards, through the servants’ entrance, and up the flight of stairs. They stopped at Damian’s door.

Stephen clapped him on the back. “My heartfelt thanks for all your efforts, my friend. As I said in the bathhouse, you were right about Maria. I shouldn’t have come to this infernal gathering.” He grinned. “But if I hadn’t, you would have stayed sequestered in your study and never met the lovely Miss Atworthy, so I can’t repine too much.”

Zeus, Stephen was right. Jo felt like such an important part of his life now, but he’d only known her a handful of hours.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d known her for months through her letters.

“I warn you, Miss Atworthy,” Stephen was saying, “Damian has the highly annoying habit of being correct in his advice nine times out of ten.”

“I d-don’t know about th-that.”

Jo’s teeth were chattering again, damn it. “I need to get Miss Atworthy warm,” Damian said, an edge creeping into his voice.

“And here I am, jawing on and on. I will take myself off immediately.” Stephen frowned. “I don’t put it past Maria to find a way into my room tonight, so I’m going to borrow one of Greyham’s horses and decamp to a neighboring inn. Would you take anything I must leave behind with you when you leave, Damian?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Stephen took Jo’s hand in his. “I look forward to dancing at your wedding, Miss Atworthy.”

“Oh, I—” Jo shook her head. “There’s no w-wedding. L-Lord K-Kenderly just said that to avoid a s-scandal.”

Stephen laughed. “Trust me, an earl doesn’t ‘just say’ such an interesting thing to Lady Noughton unless he is willing to have the information spread far and wide.”

“Oh.” Jo chewed on her bottom lip and shivered some more.

Damian glared at Stephen. Why wouldn’t the man move along and let him get to his wooing before he and his bride-to-be turned into icicles? “Didn’t you say you were leaving, Stephen?
Immediately?
”

Stephen grinned. “I did. I am.” He looked back at Jo. “Don’t worry, Miss Atworthy; people really will be delighted. I, for one, must thank you for bringing Damian out of his cave. He’d become quite the hermit.”

“I like being a hermit,” Damian said. “I hope you don’t expect me to start showing up at all of London’s inane parties.”

“Well, you’ll want to introduce your bride to society.” Stephen’s grin widened. “But if you’re absent, I’ll know you’re at home doing something more interesting than translating dusty Latin texts.”

Damian put his arm around Jo as a particularly nasty shiver shook her. “
Good-bye,
Stephen.”

“Good-bye.” Stephen laughed, looking as innocent as sin, damn him. “But before I go”—he waggled his brows—“does the Prince of Hearts need any advice from the King on how best to get warm?”

“No.” Damian jerked his door open. “You may go to the devil with my blessing.” He pulled Jo into his room and slammed the door on Stephen’s laughter.

“I-I should go to my own room.” Jo tried to keep her teeth from chattering. She was cold, but she was also nervous … and excited.

She didn’t want to leave; she wanted to stay right where she was.

It had been such a bizarre evening, starting when she’d come flying in this door and landed against Damian’s chest. His naked chest.

Mmm. She’d like to be up against his chest again, but this time she’d like to be naked, too. He was moving in the right direction: he was pulling off his wet shirt.

To think she’d never seen a naked man before, and then tonight she’d seen a herd of them, pale and hairy with their little dangly bits bouncing as they ran for the pool. They’d looked rather comical, once she’d gotten over the shock.

There was nothing comical about Damian’s body. She watched the muscles in his back flex as he yanked the wet shirt over his head. Damian’s chest was far more impressive than any of the others she’d seen tonight, and if the sense she’d got when she’d been pressed against him was any indication, his dangly bit was also. She would very much like to inspect it more closely. She’d—

But her feminine bits were not very impressive, especially when compared to Lady Noughton’s. Would he be disappointed?

And why was she considering letting him see them at all? God should strike her dead where she stood for thinking such a thing.

“We need to get you warm, Jo,” Damian said, dropping his shirt by the fire and coming over to her.

“Ah.” She swallowed. Her mouth was dry. He was so handsome. “I sh-should go back to my room. I can g-get Becky to help me.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Do you want to go back to your room?”

She should say yes. Of course she should say yes. Miss Atworthy, the staid, boring, shrewish Latin tutor would say yes.

She was a twenty-eight-year-old spinster. She might never again get a chance like this to sin.

“N-no.” Another shiver set her teeth to chattering.

He smiled. “Good. Now let’s get you out of those wet clothes.” He turned her around, and his nimble fingers flew down her back, unbuttoning her dress. He tugged it off her shoulders, down her arms, and over her hips. It felt wonderful to get the cold, damp fabric off her skin. She stepped out of it, and he undid her stays. As soon as they hit the ground, he grabbed the hem of her shift and pulled it up and over her head.

She was completely naked except for her stockings. She tried to wrap her arms around herself to hide her poor little breasts and her nether region. She should be mortified, but she was shivering too much.

“Under the covers with you now,” Damian said as he lifted her up and laid her on the bed, pulled off her stockings, and tucked her in. He might have been her nurse for all the interest he showed in her body.

She shivered again and curled up, turning her back to him. Apparently, she needn’t have worried about sin. She—

She felt the mattress depress, and then a pair of naked arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her back against a very naked male body.

“Sharing heat is the fastest way to warm up,” he murmured by her ear as his hands moved, one to cup her breast and the other to rest low on her belly.

“Um.” Her temperature was certainly rising. His must be, too. He was like a furnace all along her back.

He stroked the side of her breast and pressed her hips firmly against what felt like a very long, very large male appendage—nothing at all like the small, dangly things she’d seen bouncing on the men in the bathhouse.

“Stephen was right, you know,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “News of our betrothal will be all over London as soon as Maria leaves this party—which will be tomorrow, now that Stephen has gone.”

“Oh.” She found it very hard to care about a place and people she’d never seen. She was far more interested in this warm bed and the very male, very hard person behind her. If only his hands would each move just a few inches. Her nipples had become hard points, screaming—if they could scream—for his touch and the place between her legs was weeping in frustration. She wiggled her hips a little to encourage him, but his hand stopped her immediately. Damn.

“I don’t know anyone in London,” she said. Her frustration showed in her voice; even she heard it.

“But many people in London know people here. The news will be all over Greyham’s estate and the village in no time—perhaps even before the
ton
hears in Town. I doubt Maria will keep her lips sealed until she arrives.”

“Oh.” That would be unpleasant, but not fatal. “Then I’ll just tell everyone Lady Noughton was mistaken.”

Mmm. His lips had found that sensitive place under her ear again. She almost purred, but she caught herself in time.

“Was she? I hope not.” He turned her so she faced him, his hand on her shoulder keeping her an arm’s length from his lovely body. “Don’t you want to marry me, Jo?” His gaze held hers. “I thought you did; I thought that was why you agreed to come to bed with me.”

“Ah.” Should she admit she’d been willing to sin with him just this once? But that wasn’t really what she wanted. Still … “Marriage is for life.”

“Yes.”

“And we hardly know each other.”

“On the contrary, I think we know each other very well, certainly better than many of the
ton
do when they wed. We’ve written to each other.” He smiled. “We’ve shared our thoughts.”

He hadn’t been smiling on the terrace earlier. “You were angry when you learned it was me you’d been writing to.”

He shrugged. “I was surprised. I felt you’d lied to me.”

“I hadn’t.”

“Hadn’t you?” Damian raised a brow, and she flushed. Well, perhaps she
had
committed a small sin of omission.

“I’ll grant you it took me a moment to adjust,” he said, rubbing her shoulder with his thumb in a very distracting fashion, “but once I did, everything came into focus. Don’t you feel the same?”

“Er …” She did; there was no point in denying it. Even teaching the Windley idiots would be bearable if she had Damian in her life. “Y-yes.”

He grinned, so clearly happy it was impossible not to grin back at him. “I looked forward to your letters, Jo, to reading them and answering them. I admired your mind”—his lips slid into a rather wolfish smile—“but now that I’ve met you, I admire so much more.” He ran his finger over her cheek. “I love you.”

Her heart stopped—and then set to beating so hard it threatened to leap out of her chest.

“And I love you,” she whispered. She flushed; she might as well be painfully truthful. “I imagined you were my prince who would ride in and deliver me from cramming endless declensions into thick Windley skulls.”

He laughed. “Jo! How could you wish to be delivered from declensions?”

She laughed back at him. “It was Windleys I wished to be delivered from.”

“And so you shall be. I have no Windleys on any of my estates.”

He turned her onto her back then and all thought of Windleys flew out of her head. He was so hard and warm and—“Oh! Yours
is
far larger than the other men’s.”

He chuckled. “Shame on you for looking! In their defense, I must say they’d just been running in the cold.”

“I’m sure they couldn’t ever match you.” She felt that part of him between her legs. It was wonderful, but it would be much more wonderful if it would rub against a specific point of sensitive flesh. She wiggled.

His wolfish expression intensified. “Eager are you? Then we shall celebrate Lupercalia properly.”

“Are you going to strike me with a goatskin thong to ensure my fertility?”

“No, I’m going to strike you with this.” He moved his hips and his male organ slid along the wet place between her legs. “And hope your fertility will start the next Earl of Kenderly growing in your womb.”

“Ahh.” The thought of creating a life with Damian filled her with warm desire and happiness. “And if you don’t succeed?”

He flicked his tongue over a nipple and need streaked through her.

“Then I shall be delighted”—he rubbed against her—“very, very delighted”—he found her entrance—“to try again.”

His hips flexed, and he came into her slowly. There was a brief, burning pain, and then an incredible sense of fullness.

He kissed her. “All right?”

“Yes.” She loved the feel of him on her and in her, but the sensitive place between her legs demanded that he move. She wiggled her hips to encourage him.

Thank God he took the hint. He pulled back, and then came in again. Out and in; back and forth; slow and fast. Faster …

“Oh!” She grabbed his back. She was so tense she was going to shatter. She—

He moved once more and stopped, so close he was almost part of her. Waves of incredible sensation pulsed through her, and under the exquisite madness, she felt another pulse, a spurt of liquid heat, deep inside her.

He collapsed onto her, and she ran her hands up and down his back. “That was wonderful,” she said.

“Mmm.” He rolled to the side, stretching out on the bed next to her.

“I didn’t know what to expect. Frankly, if someone had told me what was involved, I wouldn’t have believed them.” She turned to look at him. Surely he wasn’t asleep? “Is it always this wonderful?”

He cracked one eye open. “Are you always this chatty?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

He grunted again and put his hand on her breast. “No, it’s not always this wonderful. It’s never before been this wonderful for me.”

“Really? You aren’t just saying that?” She felt inordinately pleased, but just a little suspicious. “I’m sure the other women—the experienced women—must have done it better than I.”

He teased her nipple, making her body hum again in anticipation. “Apparently it’s not how it’s done, it’s with whom it’s done that’s important. Love is far stronger than lust.” He closed his eyes again.

“I’ll wager it will be even better next time now that I know what happens.”

“Mmm.”

She looked up at the bed canopy and tried to determine whether she felt different. Well, of course she felt different—she’d never been so sore
there
—but did she feel
different?
“Do you think we made a baby?”

“Mmm.”

“Are you going to sleep?”

He opened one eye again. “I am trying to.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“That’s clear.”

How could he even consider sleep? Her thoughts were darting around like dragonflies on a pond. “When can we do it again?”