To Sin With A Stranger (19 page)

His feet were used to turning about quickly to avoid a combatant’s coming blow, but this time he doubted his speed was enough to rescue him. Sterling backed against the bookcase and edged silently toward the corner, where the room was darkest.

“I know you are in here…and what you have done,” Isobel said, but her voice was thin, as though she was not entirely sure of her words.

Sterling could not see her in the blackness of the library, and knew he would not until she crossed before the muted moonlight breaking through the window. She did not speak further, and her nervous breathing became his only clue.

Silence was his only protection now. He felt like a fool, hiding in the darkness. It eluded him why he so desperately needed to shield his charity from her. He only knew that, for some reason, his meager donations were almost an embarrassment.

In his heart, he wanted to do so much more for her, for what she believed in so passionately, but now, when he wished it most, he did not have it to give. His greed had won out, as it always did, and what coin he owned was held in escrow on a wager that belittled and cheapened Isobel and what he felt for her. He pressed hard into the corner into which he had backed himself.

Isobel’s heart pounded against her ribs. He was here, if not Leake,
someone
, a stranger whose heart was larger than his need to be recognized for the good he was doing.

She could smell the polish of the leather book bindings, see the faintest impressions of ceiling-high shelves, but she could not see
him
. The one who believed in her work. Believed in her ability to help others with what coin he could spare. Believed in her.

Walking to the nearest bookcase she could see, Isobel ran her hands along it, hoping that if she only continued around the four corners of the library, she might come upon the man, the good, generous man, she was compelled to thank for believing in her when so many others did not.

Her fingers slid over the humps of book spines, her lead hand feeling the air before her. “
Please
, I know you are here. Answer me. I only wish to thank you for what you are doing for those who would otherwise do without.”

A cool stream of air touched the back of her neck and made her shiver. She turned her attention to the soft light slipping through the gap between the window sash and sill, and her spirits plummeted.

“No, please,
no
.” Isobel bisected the library to reach the source. Her hands slid down the window until she felt the air pressing into the room from outside. She peered out onto the lawn just outside the window. Very likely he had escaped through the low window and was in the process of reaching up to close it when she entered the library. Her hopes of learning the true identity of the generous stranger were dashed. Her delay in following him had cost her.

Isobel rested her palms on the window sash and sighed forlornly. Pressing her forehead against the cool windowpane, she closed her eyes. “If only you knew what your support meant to me.” She exhaled a long breath. “If only you knew.”

Unexpectedly, she heard the door latch jiggle, startling her. She tensed, not moving from the glass, and waited for some moments for it to open, but it didn’t. She exhaled in relief at not being discovered alone in the library where she clearly did not belong. She blinked and waited for her eyes to adjust to dim moonlight icing the lawn, then peered hard through the window, looking for the stranger.

The heat of large hands was suddenly gripping her shoulders, the warmth of a body pressed close against hers from behind.

“Shhh” came a hot breath against her ear.

“
Sterling
.” She did not need to hear another word. His firm touch was enough to assure her it was he. When she heard the door handle, it was Sterling entering the room. Not some guest or servant testing the door, Sterling. “I was looking for you,” she whispered.

“I know, lass.” His simple words, his voice alone, made her nipples tighten.

His hands skated over her arms, skimming seductively along the sides of her breasts, then wrapping around her waist and pulling her harder against him.

Her body shivered with excitement as she felt his cock pressing stone-hard against her bottom, but another part of her throbbed madly. She spun around, maintaining contact between their bodies, until his hardness prodded her where she most wanted to feel it.

He started to pull back from her then, knowing as she did, but evidently caring more, that though their bodies craved the succor of the other, this was not the time and definitely not the place to quench their bodily thirsts.

But Isobel’s need for him ranked above her worry of discovery, and she wriggled her fingers beneath his breeches, wrapping them around his stiff shaft. Never removing his mouth from hers, he gasped at the surprise of her touch, drawing what little air hovered inside her mouth into his own.

She slid her fingers down to the base of his penis, beckoning his tightening orbs below with a stroke of two fingers, maddening him, hardening him further.

Sterling grabbed a fistful of her silk skirt and drew it up along her thigh, fumbling through layers of fabric until his fingers met the moist heat between her slick folds. He slid his forefinger over her engorged core, circling it until she writhed against him with the want of him inside her.

She twisted until his touch found her entrance, then she pushed down, driving his finger into her depths and making her pulse with pleasure. It wasn’t what she wanted, though, not really, and from the way his cock throbbed in her palm, she knew he needed more as well.

“Isobel.” His mouth moved against her lips in a raspy whisper. “Not now.” She circled the head of his maleness with her thumb, and felt a droplet of heat emerge. His breath hitched. “Christ, love, I want you more than I know words to express it. But now is not the time. I want you for my own, and though my body craves you, my heart longs for you, sating my need for you this night risks too much.”

His finger slid from within her, drawing her dew to the bud of her desire and stroking her there for a moment more.

Isobel whimpered. She thrust her tongue deep inside his mouth in protest, but she knew too that Sterling was right, though she wished he was not.

“Siusan will send a card upon the morrow. Do as she asks, please. For me.” Sterling nipped at her full lower lip, then let her silk gown slide back down her leg.

She withdrew her hand from his shaft, but chased his mouth with hers one last time. “I will. I promise.”

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

Kierkegaard

The next day
The Garden of Eden
Marylebone

The footman had barely raised his hand to direct Isobel to the table where the two Sinclair ladies waited for her, when she pushed past him and raced to the third chair. “Is everything well? I admit, I am greatly surprised by this invitation to take tea at the garden with you.”

“Everything is wonderful,” Ivy said louder than she ought. Clearly she was saying it for the ears of those around them. Then she lowered her voice to a mere whisper. “Are you hungry, dear?” Ivy asked, lifting the reddish slash of her eyebrow.

Isobel nodded. “A bit.” She looked down at the plates of biscuits, cakes, and cream, and her stomach growled.

“Good. I have had the Garden cooks prepare a basket to take.” Siusan signaled for the waiter and disappeared behind a painted silk screen to emerge with a small hamper of woven willow.

Isobel did not know what to make of this. “Are we leaving?”

Priscilla laughed. “Nay, dear.
You
are.” She inclined her head and saw that a hackney had drawn up at the entrance. In the shadow inside, she saw a large man beckoning to her. “It’s Sterling. He thought perhaps something was amiss. Your father clearly did not wish for the two of you to be together last evening at the musicale.”

“He was right about that.” Isobel stared down at the hamper, then let her gaze flit around the crowded tea garden.

“Just go. You know you wish it. As does he.” Siusan smiled at her.

“Thank you, Lady Siusan.” She curtsied. Turning to the two Sinclair ladies, she blew happy kisses to their cheeks, then turned and walked as slowly as might appear to be normal to the hackney waiting for her.

Her heart hammered inside her as the driver handed her up into the carriage and into Sterling’s arms. He settled her beside him on the bench, then tossed the hamper to the seat across from them.

“Beauchamp Grange,” Sterling called out to the driver. The cab door closed and latched, and the carriage jolted forward, casting Isobel into Sterling’s embrace.

He peered into her eyes, and then he kissed her softly. “It is a long drive to Beauchamp Grange. At least a full hour outside of Town.” He kissed her harder, deeper, and she verily melted in his arms.

“Thankfully, you brought sustenance.”

Isobel laughed with surprise as Sterling grasped her waist and lifted her high, her skirts billowing up as he spread her knees and sat her down, straddled upon his lap. Her breasts began to ache and her feminine furl throbbed as she became increasingly aware of his hardness straining against his breeches just beneath her core.

The carriage ran through a hole in the road, making the cab, and Isobel as well, bounce hard again and again as the front then back wheels dipped in and out of the gap.

A groaning sound rose up from deep inside Sterling’s throat as Isobel clung to his lapels, moving her hips against his, riding him like a horse for balance. Moist heat rushed between her legs, and instinctively she bore down on him, needing so badly to feel him deep inside her, filling her.

“Enough of this,” Sterling growled, then cupped his hand behind her head and dragged her mouth to his.

Her lips were warm, sweet, and vaguely salty as he tasted them while his hands skimmed over her walking gown. Closing her eyes, she parted her lips to his kiss, opening herself to his tongue’s exploration of her soft flesh. She moaned softly, seeming almost entirely unaware that he pulled at bows, loosened her lacings, and within a few moments, her gown was left bunched around her waist and her soft breasts were bared to him.

He felt her nipples harden to the rush of cool air upon them, and so he cupped the weight of her breasts in his hands, brushing the pebbled pink buds with his thumbs, until they softened pertly from his warm touch.

Isobel wriggled against him with a whimper of frustration, and suddenly became more assertive in making her wants known. She kissed him more urgently then, teasing him, nipping at his lower lip as she unwound his neck cloth. She opened her lids more fully and stared directly into his eyes as she purposively fumbled with his waistcoat, not bothering to remove it, but instead shoving it out of her way. Opening the ties of his lawn shirt, she exposed a deep V of his chest. She released the buttons of his breeches and opened his front fall, easing his throbbing cock into her palm.

A pleased smile stole over her lips. The heat of her hand was searing, and his erection twitched as she ran her curious fingers up and down his shaft before encircling its head with her forefinger and thumb.

She closed her eyes again as she leaned up onto her knees, looped one arm around his neck, leaving her other hand pumping his penis, making him ache for her. She flicked her tongue teasingly over his upper lip as she pressed her breasts against his chest and brushed the tip of the plum-shaped head between her legs, across her heated opening. He leaned into her and kissed her neck, breathing in the scent of her, savoring it.

Christ
. She was going to drive him mad. She had to slow down.

Breaking her kiss and then leaning back, Isobel licked her full lips and looked drowsily up at him. Sterling’s pupils grew impossibly dark, reducing the pale blue of his eyes to a thin ring of color.

His breath came fast, driving Isobel’s heart to pound with excitement. Suddenly he jerked her arm from his neck and took her hand from his pulsing penis, pinned her hands behind her back in the grasp of one strong hand. “I need you to slow down, Isobel. You aren’t playing fairly.”

She smiled and nodded, somewhat ashamed of her aggressiveness, and expected that he would release her hands then…but he didn’t.

Instead he moved his thighs against her knees, opening them wider. She felt his fingers parting the cotton of her pantalettes, and then his forefinger running between her moist plump lips. He dipped it deep inside her, wetting it before slipping his fingertips over the small bud between her folds, and rubbed in slow circles. Isobel gasped and pulled against his hold on her, but he only tightened it and pulled down a bit, tilting her breasts up to him. Her nipples hardened almost painfully and she threw her head back, nearly crying out when he took one into his hot mouth and flicked it with his slippery tongue.

His thumb rubbed her now in ever tightening circles as he plunged two fingers into her depths, pumping her harder and harder, making her head dizzy with sensation.

His mouth moved from one nipple to the other, teasing her breasts. Her thighs began to quiver uncontrollably. “Sterling, oh God.” His fingers slid from inside her then, and she felt the thick head of his member parting her lips, warming its tip in her essence. Sterling started moving his thumb against her again, making her hips writhe.

Tension wound tight inside her core. She couldn’t endure any more of this sweet torture. She couldn’t, she just couldn’t!

Sterling freed her hands suddenly, and at once caught her hips and pulled her down hard on top of him. His cock burned inside her, and her muscles closed around it, as his hands slid down and lifted her buttocks, and he slammed into Isobel again and again.

Her mind was spinning, and so she grasped his broad, solid shoulders to balance herself as she began to ride him. She was aflame with sensation, matching his thrusts stroke for stroke. They made love fiercely, feverishly as the carriage bumped through the countryside.

He plunged deeper yet inside her, then lifted her. She felt the bench cushion against her back, and Sterling pounding inside her, kissing her, running his hands over her breasts.