Craving the Rake's Touch (Rakes of the Caribbean) (4 page)

Chapter Eight

Let me persuade you.
We’ll take it one night at a time.
Benedict had a
serpent’s own tongue. This was absolute madness! He’d promised marriage before
and failed to follow through. Why would this time be any different? Or perhaps
it
couldn’t
be different. Only this time, it was she
who couldn’t allow it. She had to marry money and Benedict didn’t have any, not
in the sums she needed. Yet, those arguments held no sway here as they ventured
out into the dark hallway and mounted the staircase, her hand gripped in
his.

The import that they were headed for her bedroom was not lost on
her. It was one thing to couple on the moderate comfort of a divan in a library
in the midst of a ball, where haste was required by two people overcome with
youthful desire. It was another thing entirely to deliberately seek the
sanctuary of a room specifically designed for intimacy, a place where they would
not be disturbed, where no haste was required. They had all night.

The very thought of such a night spent with one of London’s most
notorious lovers was enough to send her pulse soaring. That the man in question
should be Benedict was positively heart-stopping. It was perhaps the most wicked
thing she’d ever done. It was also quite likely one of the most honest. Maybe
even the most
honest
thing she’d done in this entire
Season of deceit and playacting, pretending to be something she was not.

But not tonight, Sarah thought as Benedict ushered her inside, a
hand warm at the small of her back. Tonight was going to be different. Tonight
she was not going to pretend she didn’t care a whit for Benedict DeBreed. She
wasn’t going to hide behind sharp words and an armor of haughtiness. Tonight she
wasn’t going to ignore the flutter in her stomach whenever he was in the room.
She wasn’t going to deny herself the thrill of his touch, or the way he made her
feel when he spoke to her, looked at her with those eyes—as if she was the only
woman who mattered. Tonight would be for her, for all she’d given up in order to
be the good girl her parents had raised her to be.

The door shut softly behind her, her gaze suddenly riveted on the
bed dominating the room, but she turned at the sound of Benedict’s voice, low
and intent, as he uttered four simple words. “Are you sure, Sarah?”

He leaned against the frame, his eyes twin green flames as he
studied her, leaving no doubt that
he
was sure and
yet it was the most vulnerable she’d ever seen him. He wanted,
waited
, for her compliance. He would advance no
further without it.

But she would. The next move had to be hers and it had to be a
bold one. Sarah stepped toward him, her hands resting at the waist of his
trousers, her mouth seeking, her answer whispered between kisses. “Yes, I’m
absolutely sure.”

Sarah tugged the tails of his shirt loose, fingers trembling as
they worked the studs free. Knowing there was a need for boldness and actually
being
bold were two different things, but Sarah
suspected her hands would have trembled anyway simply because the man who stood
before her was Benedict. This afternoon had been spontaneous. There’d been no
time to think. It was far harder to be bold when it was deliberate.

He came to her rescue, warm hands covering hers where they
lingered on his chest. He raised them to his mouth, kissing them each in turn,
his eyes meeting hers over her knuckles, his voice husky with desire. “Allow
me.”

He stepped back so that she could take him in and motioned that
she should sit, that she should watch. He managed an elegant shrug out of his
tight-fitted evening jacket and went to work on the rest of his garments. He set
aside the diamond stickpin on the table by her bed and gave his intricately tied
cravat a tug. The shirt came next, revealing contoured planes of rigid muscle
from hours at the fencing salon and Jackson’s.

Benedict was gorgeous. Her mouth went dry at the sight of such
beautifully made masculinity. She’d not dreamed, had not
imagined
, a man to be so handsomely made, nor had she anticipated
the intense intimacy attached to the act of disrobing. He bent to pull off his
evening shoes before his hands went to the waistband of his trousers, pushing
them past lean hips and muscled thighs, the mirror above her dressing table
reflecting firm buttocks from behind. “Ohhhh.” A sigh of appreciation escaped
her. It was a most magnificent, erotic view of the entire man.

Benedict held out his hand in invitation. “It’s your turn. Might I
assist you?” He would have to, Sarah realized. The gown she’d worn to dinner was
not one she could get out of on her own.

She rose and gave Benedict her back with a single word. “Please.”
Please undress me
,
please
me touch me
,
please help me forget the terrible
decision I have to make this time tomorrow.

His mouth was at her neck, pressing a kiss to her pulse point, and
his hands made quick, competent work of the fastenings. He pushed the tiny
puffed sleeves down her arms. With a little wriggle from her, the pink dress
found its own way to the floor, leaving Benedict’s hands free, free to move over
the thin linen of her chemise, free to cup her breasts, his thumbs running over
her nipples creating a delicious, gentle friction.

But it was not just his touch that sent desire rocketing through
her, it was the heady realization of knowing that the man responsible for such a
reaction stood behind her entirely naked, the slightest movement of his body
evident in the brush of his thighs, the nudge of his erection against her one
remaining layer of cloth, a reminder that there would be more pleasure to
come.

“Raise your arms,” he said at her ear. She did and he pulled the
chemise over her head, leaving her naked at last. He turned her now to face the
mirror over the vanity. The mirror that had reflected his backside now reflected
them
. “Look at us, Sarah.” His voice was hoarse
with raw desire. And she did look. They were naked, his hands filled with her
breasts, her lips swollen with kisses, her carefully piled hair coming down. But
it wasn’t her own countenance that claimed her attention, it was his.

Benedict’s eyes, green and burning with want, with desire, held
hers in the mirror, and for the fleetest of moments something that was deeper
than either of those emotions. She wanted to capture it in her mind, a mental
portrait to carry with her all her days; Benedict wanting her,
yearning
for her as if the past had not happened, as
if it had not been littered with his broken promises and her destroyed hopes, as
if their love was as pure as she’d once believed it to be and Benedict, too, if
his eyes told the truth.

“Put out your arms, brace yourself against the dressing table,”
Benedict instructed. She did, letting him bend her forward, her arms taking her
weight as he moved behind her, his body positioning itself, making its
intentions known, his phallus urging itself between her legs and in one swift
movement, sliding inside. She gasped at the intimate contact only to have him
retreat and return, her body stretching and contracting around him by turn with
each thrust. This was extraordinary, she’d never felt anything like it, this
completeness as he filled her, as her body pushed against his, begging for even
more, and he gave it; his hands at her breasts, his mouth at her neck, his own
moans mingling with hers as he pushed them onward toward some unseen, amorphous
conclusion. She remembered this, her body remembered this. That amorphous
conclusion had been out there before, frustratingly just out of reach.

She gave an involuntary cry as Benedict increased his rhythm. They
were closer to that edge now, his grip on her tighter, his body warm with his
exertions. In the mirror, she could see his eyes half-shut, all of his
concentration centered on the thrust and give of their bodies, centered on this
very literal labor of love. Perhaps watching them perform this most intimate of
acts should have been lurid, but she found it beautiful, and far too riveting to
look away.

Benedict tensed behind her, thrusting hard, and then they were
there
at that indefinable somewhere, which had
hovered so tantalizingly on their periphery. Only this time, they’d reached it.
Benedict murmured at her ear, barely intelligible as his own climax overwhelmed
him. “Shatter with me, shatter for me.” He entered her one last time, deep and
swift, and she broke with a sob of amazement. The destination was a cliff, and
she was falling,
they
were falling, together into
some blissful fractured world where all was pleasure.

Chapter Nine

Pleasure swamped him, cradled him, as surely as he cradled Sarah; his arms wrapped around her, her buttocks curved against him where their bodies intimately joined. He could have stayed like this all night had his legs been willing. But pleasure had taken its toll as well as given its full measure.

With the last of his strength, Benedict found the willpower to carry Sarah to the bed. He stretched out beside her, Sarah’s tousled head finding its way to the hollow of his shoulder as if she belonged there. Which she did. Whatever paths his life had followed, that had never changed. Sarah was meant to be his.

He’d known it since the first time Ren had brought him to a family holiday house party, a “practice affair” for Sarah before her official debut. She’d been stunning in a gown of patterned blue silk that brought out her eyes. Those moments were seared in his memory. But more than that, she’d made him laugh and she let him talk freely without the constraints of Society’s conversational expectations.

As a result, he’d found himself telling her things he couldn’t tell others, not even Ren; how he wanted to restore family property not far from them in West Sussex, how he’d dreamed of raising a family there one day. He’d stolen her away every moment he could during that party, taking her for walks through the snowy gardens, even a sleigh ride down to the village. He’d been loath to have the holiday end.

Four months later, he’d danced with her at her London debut. He’d spent the Season squiring her around as Ren’s proxy when Ren was too busy, and by the end of it, there was no doubt of their private feelings toward one another. He’d lived on the knowledge that Sarah loved him in the intervening months between Seasons. The separation had been torture. He would enclose a note to her whenever he found an excuse to write to Ren, but beyond that, he couldn’t dare more. Then that next Season, he did dare and she did, too. They’d found themselves entangled on Lady Wilton’s prize French settee in the library and the rest was, as they say, history. Only in this case, a very bad history. There’d been countless women since then, countless escapades, all meaningless, all futile attempts to forget that he’d lost her.

He’d lost more than a lover. He’d lost the best friend he’d ever had, he’d lost a family he’d come to rely on to replace his own rather fractured one. He and Ren were still close, but that closeness was changed. He saw Ren only when the two of them were in Town or if they corresponded by letters. He knew Ren chalked up the change to Ren’s father’s death and their friend Kitt Sherard’s departure from London. Life was changing and they were changing with it. Benedict had taken solace in the knowledge Ren didn’t guess the real reason for his distance.

Now Ren was gone to the Caribbean and Sarah was in his arms. Life had shifted yet again. He had a second chance. All he had to do was break a promise to a dead man. Sarah stirred against him, lifting her head and looking into his eyes with a smile. “You’re awake.”

A length of hair had fallen forward over her shoulder. Benedict reached out and pushed it back behind her ear. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t dream of wasting a second of a night with you in sleep.”

She gave a throaty laugh and rose up on an elbow. “You’re an expert flatterer, Benedict DeBreed. I bet you say that to all the girls.” Her free hand drew idle circles on his chest. He could feel himself begin to rouse at her touch.

“Only you, Sarah.” She brought out the honesty in him, the emotion, the
real
Benedict DeBreed, not the rake London saw but the man he wanted to be, the man he’d planned to be before he’d become someone else. She made him better, made him whole.

Her hand stopped tracing. She shook her head. “Don’t, Benedict. When you say those things, you make me believe they’re true. I can’t do that again.”

Benedict gripped her hand. “They are true, Sarah. And you do believe them. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here with me right now.” He drew her hand down beneath the sheets to the hot length of him. “You can feel the truth of it beneath your hand. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.” God, her hand felt like heaven on him. How many nights had he dreamed of this? He felt her start to relent, felt her hand start to move on its own accord up and down the length of him.

“They can only be true for tonight, Benedict.” He wasn’t sure if that was a warning, an apology, a regret. Maybe it was all three.

He pushed his luck. “Why?” If she was going to refuse him, he would not make it easy.

“Because in the morning, I have a job to do.” Her thumb skimmed the tender head of his phallus and he sucked in his breath.

“Ah, so we all turn back into pumpkins?”

She gave him a soft smile, and rose up over him, sitting on him astride. “Something like that.”

Benedict placed his hands on her hips. “Then you’d better make the night count.” His gaze bored into hers, reading her desire and her despair in their depths. “It’s your turn. Make me yours as I made you mine. Come, mark me with your mouth, brand me with your lips. I’m yours, Sarah, I’ve always been yours.”

She bent her mouth to his and took his command to heart. She kissed his lips, his throat, she teased his nipples with her teeth, and trailed kisses down to his navel. He thought he’d go mad from the feel of her mouth on his naked skin. That was before she’d tossed back the covers and slid between his legs and put her mouth on that most sensitive part of him. Then he did go mad. He buried his hands in her hair for an anchor, he bucked hard, a groan escaping him as she stroked him with her tongue, her name a moaned litany until she rose above him, her own desire riding her hard as she took him inside. It was not long after that climax took them both in shaking, heady spasms, Sarah collapsing against him, that the only thought his mind could hold on to in those moments was
mine.
Mine.
She is mine and the morning be damned.