Man of My Dreams (15 page)

She’d said it, but Megan knew she’d never stick to it. Staying away from Devlin was an impossibility. Not that she couldn’t arrange it. It would be a simple matter to avoid the stable altogether. She need only have her horse brought to her when she wanted to ride, and returned when she was through. Any one of the footmen would be happy to oblige her in that. That she had always done the fetching and grooming herself was actually an abnormal habit, though one she could break if necessary.

The impossibility was that she didn’t want to stay away from Devlin.

’Bout time you admitted it
.

But tell me why it’s so?

Maybe you’re falling in love with him after all
.

Don’t be absurd. There’s not a thing about him worth loving
.

What about his concern for you?

Not a good enough reason
.

His kisses? You can’t say you don’t adore them
.

He can’t be the only good kisser around
.

What about his unique charm?

What charm? He hasn’t any. He’s a damned grouch, is what he is
.

That’s just it. He’s not a happy man. He needs a woman to soften him
.

I’m not a reformer
.

What about what he makes you feel?

I don’t know what that is any more than you do. Now forget it. I am not falling in love with that man. Do you think I want to live in a stable the rest of my life?

With someone like him to share it, I doubt you’d mind all that much. What do you love more than horses anyway—besides his kisses?

That doesn’t mean I want to live among horses. Good God, do you know what you’re suggesting?

Yes
.

Megan looked around almost guiltily, but the footman escorting her home wasn’t paying the least attention to her, wouldn’t know that she was having an argument with herself anyway.

I don’t know why I still talk to you. Tiffany puts me in a good mood, and you put me right back into a rotten one. Just because I’ve agreed to let Devlin teach me how to kiss—

He didn’t offer to
.

But he will—doesn’t mean I would consider marrying the man. I won’t consider it. I’m going to marry an earl at the very least
.

Stepping down already, are we?

Just being a little more realistic. There aren’t that many dukes to chose from, at least not young ones
.

Is that grand house to outdo Lady O’s still all that important?

Yes
.

Stubborn. He hit it on the nose. Too stubborn for your own good
.

So now you’re agreeing with him, too? I suppose you also think I’m spoiled
.

Well, aren’t you?

Megan didn’t say another word, simmering silently the rest of the way home. When she reached the manor, she thanked her escort and waved him off before dismounting and walking Sir Ambrose back to the stable. Amazingly, considering the conversation she’d just had with herself, she wasn’t thinking about Devlin or possibly encountering him.

But he was there, and he wasn’t alone.

“…but my mum got worried when you didn’t come for your dinner,” Cora was saying, “so I brung you this basket. Big man like yourself has to eat, don’t he?”

“So sweet of you, but food isn’t what I need right now.” Cora giggled at that, causing Devlin to exclaim, “Good God, when’d you start doing that?”

“What?”

“Never mind. C’mere.”

Megan stood rooted to the spot just inside the doors. She couldn’t see them, but she knew both voices well enough, and if she thought she’d been angry with herself earlier, that was nothing compared with what she felt right then, imagining Devlin kissing the kitchen maid.

“Cora Lamb,” Megan intoned sternly, “just what do you think you’re doing?”

There was a muffled shriek, then Cora came stumbling out from behind the hayrick, trying hastily to right her uniform as well as herself.

“Oh, it’s you, miss,” she said breathlessly. “I swear you sounded like me mum.”

“Perhaps your mum ought to be apprised of what you’re doing out here.”

“No need to do that, Miss Megan. I only brung Mr. Jefferys a bite to eat, is all. And I’ll be getting back to the house now.”

“You do that, and next time remember that your duties don’t extend to the stable. If Mr. Jefferys wants to eat, he can find his way to the kitchen. Don’t let me catch you waiting on him again, Cora.”

With a bob and a hasty “No, miss, I won’t,” Cora all but ran out of the stable.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Devlin said at Megan’s back.

She swung around to glare at him. “Is that so? I’m supposed to turn a blind eye while you seduce the servants? I don’t think so.”

“If they want to be seduced, it’s none of your bloody business, is it?”

She finally noted the slight slur in his words, as well as his appalling condition. Hay clung to his clothes and hair. His white shirt was open to the waist and only half tucked into his trousers. He was minus his boots. And he couldn’t seem to stand there without weaving a bit.

“You look disgraceful,” she said scathingly.

“I was sleeping when that female started yoo-hooing me. I came out because I thought she was you.”

“I don’t yoo-hoo, you wretched man.”

“You don’t giggle either, thank God. All you do is drive a man to drink.” He was distracted then by her horse wandering toward the back of the stable. “And what are you doing with that mare?”

Her chin rose defensively. “I was exercising her—with Mr. Browne’s permission.”

His head swiveled to the open doors to note the darkness outside. Megan could almost read his mind, especially when those blue-green eyes came back to her, narrowed and starting to fill with heat.

She forestalled him coldly. “I spent most of the day at Tiffany’s, but I had an escort home, so don’t start in on me.
I’m
not the guilty party here who was cavorting in the hay with the wrong woman.”

It must have been the contempt in her tone that set him off, because suddenly he was quite furious. “The wrong woman? Let me assure you that I have reached such a state of need, thanks to you, that
any
woman will do!”

“You’re blaming
me
for your licentious behavior?” she asked incredulously.

“You’re damned right I am!”

Having said it, or more to the point, snarled it, he surprised Megan by turning away. But he must have moved too quickly because he swayed again, and it was no straight line that he walked to the stable entrance.

He’s still foxed
, Megan thought smugly. She almost smiled, wondering if she ought to tell him he was going in the wrong direction. But he stopped on his own, and her eyes widened as she watched him close the stable doors and drop the bolt into place.

Amusement fled, replaced by wariness as she remembered what had happened to her the last time he’d been this angry, just last night. There might not have been any lingering evidence this morning that she’d suffered his wrath, but she’d gone to bed with her bottom still smarting. And the man wasn’t himself right now. He’d been drinking a good part of the day, if Mortimer could be believed. He couldn’t be thinking clearly if he’d thought
she
was Cora. By God, if he spanked her for interrupting his lovemaking, she’d—she’d shoot him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, backing up as he started in her direction again.

“You should have turned about and gone back to the house without interfering. Should have stayed away from me today altogether. But I suppose I should thank you, since I didn’t really want her, and now that you’ve sent her
off, you can bloody well take her place.”

Megan backed into the hayrick, losing her balance against it. She was only lying back on it at a slightly slanted angle, but that allowed Devlin to lean over her, one hand placed on either side of her shoulders. She shook her head wordlessly. He smiled down at her.

“What, you no longer want a lesson in kissing?” he asked lazily. “Or did I dream that, your asking me to teach you how to do it?”

Was that all he was talking about? Suddenly there were new possibilities to this situation, and the mere thought of these sent a warm thrill straight to Megan’s belly.

“You’re willing to teach me now?”

“If you tell me why you want to learn.”

“I don’t want my future husband to be disappointed in me,” she said truthfully.

She thought for a moment he was going to laugh. Instead he leaned closer until his lips were just a hairsbreadth away from hers. She could smell brandy, but mixed with the scent of hay and musk, it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Open your mouth, brat.”

For once she didn’t mind the name he persisted in calling her, because he said it tenderly this time, giving it almost the sound of an endearment. And she really couldn’t think about that now, when his lips were so close to touching hers.

“Do you want to start slow, or do you want to find out what a real kiss is like?”

He had to be teasing her. What had he been doing those other times if not really kissing her?

“I want to know all there is to know about it,” she assured him.

“Remember you said that if this shocks you,” he warned just before his tongue invaded her mouth.

Megan would have gasped if her breath weren’t locked in her throat, not from shock, but from a deluge of unanticipated sensations converging on her all at once. It felt like her blood was soaring, her legs were melting, her insides were coming apart. This was that pleasant feeling she’d felt before, only now it was magnified a hundred times, and she didn’t know if she could withstand so much feeling all at once. Then there was more.

His body pressed slowly into hers and liquid heat spread into her loins. He groaned deep in his throat and her breasts responded by tightening. His hand came to assuage the feeling there and her heart slammed against her chest.

“Don’t hide your tongue from me,” he said against her lips. “Give it to me, Megan. Taste me.”

It seemed like she no longer had a will of her own, she obeyed him with such eagerness. But then she wanted to taste him. She simply hadn’t known that she could until he ordered it. But if she could copy him in the kissing, could she also copy him in the touching? Because that
was another overwhelming urge she had, and this time she didn’t wait to be directed.

When her hand slipped between them as his had done, he moved slightly to the side to give her access, which gave him more access as well, which he took swift advantage of. Suddenly there was no cloth between his hand and her breasts. He’d somehow worked her blouse open and got beneath her camisole, and she discovered fire. Good God, his hand couldn’t be that warm, but it was. His chest under her own palm couldn’t be that hot either, but it was. He’d talked of burning to a cinder last night. Was it possible?

Megan didn’t care at the moment, not one little bit. She felt as if she were falling, falling…Good God, they
were
falling!

Devlin tore his mouth away from hers to say, “Bloody hell, we’re—” He landed with a grunt, mostly because Megan landed on top of him. “—Falling,” he finished after the fact.

At which point he started to laugh, deep laughter of the like she’d never heard from him. It was infectious, especially in light of what had happened. This was not precisely the best time to slip off a hayrick. Fortunately, they’d fallen onto a bed of hay, the remainder of what had been pitched earlier in the day. Still, it wasn’t how she would have imagined a lesson in kissing to end.

She was laughing as hard as he was, then harder when the shaking of his chest caused her to slip off him as well. She rolled onto her
back, holding her belly until her humor finally wound down. But her eyes had watered, and she tried to find the pocket of her jacket to get a kerchief when she noticed one dangling in front of her.

She made quick use of it, then lowered it to see that Devlin had rolled onto his side and was leaning on one elbow, grinning at her.

“That fall was not part of the lesson.”

She grinned back at him. “Thank you for telling me. I wasn’t quite sure.”

He chuckled, but then his eyes lit on her open blouse and they seemed to kindle with heat again instantly. “Actually,” he said in the most sensuous tone, “we’re in a much better position now for kissing. Do you want to learn more?”

“There’s more?” she replied in wonder.

“Most definitely.”

“Show me.”

He bent toward her, but then he stopped and shook his head as if to clear it, and suddenly he was frowning. “No, I—good God, I must be mad. Go home, Megan, and do it now. This lesson is over.”

Her disappointment was almost too keen to bear. “Why?” she whispered.

“Because I lost myself in that last kiss. I forgot for a moment that you’re an innocent miss with too much curiosity for her own good.”

“Are you saying you would have made love to me?” she ventured.

“Yes, damn it.”

She hoped that was all that was bothering him. “But I wouldn’t have let you. I would have stopped you. You
would
stop if I told you to, wouldn’t you?”

“Certainly,” he said indignantly.

“Then I don’t see a problem.”

“Don’t you? I’m not exactly sober, you know,” he said, as if she hadn’t noticed.

“I don’t mind.” She leaned toward him then and implored softly, “Show me.”

He groaned and gathered her close. “Give me your tongue again.” She did, but this time he didn’t let her explore with it, but gently sucked on it instead for a while, then said, “There are other places to do that.”

“Where?”

He moved to draw her earlobe between his lips for the same tantalizing treatment. She shivered deliciously, gasping. “Where else?”

She tried to concentrate on the path his mouth was taking so she could anticipate his destination, but she was enjoying the sensations that he was evoking on the way too much. And then she sucked in her breath as one nipple was drawn deeply into the heat of his mouth. She was incredulous and a little shocked that this could be part of kissing, but she didn’t stop him. God, no, she wasn’t about to stop him—not yet.