Twice a Rake (18 page)

“Niles.” Aurora smiled. There was something pleasing about saying his name aloud, about the way it rolled off her tongue.

There was something infinitely more pleasing about the manner in which he slid his thumb along her lips just then, tracing the lower lip first, and then the upper lip, and then moving back to the lower. Not to mention the almost inhuman growl sounding deep in his throat. He settled his thumb in the center of her lip and pulled it down, just a touch, until his thumb slipped through and touched her teeth.

Gads, her body did inexplicable things in his presence. Just from that minuscule contact, her breath came in short, heavy bursts like she’d just swum the length of the Thames and her heart pounded so loudly he must hear it.

Her mouth felt like a desert. She licked her lips and tasted his essence—salty and heady and masculine.

Almost as soon as her tongue returned to her mouth,
his
tongue followed it inside. He tasted of brandy and sin.

He left her mouth and nibbled along her jaw and ears and throat. Every little bite elicited a sigh or a moan. His coarse whiskers scraped against her tender flesh until Aurora thought she would fall straight to the floor from shock.

She let loose the blanket, wrapping her arms about his neck and allowing her fingers to roam through his hair. When the blanket pooled at her feet, his hands were instantly upon her, kneading her derrière and pulling her close. So close. Too close.

That wonderfully fascinating length throbbed and pulsed against her belly, then lower, against the core of her womanhood, when he lifted her by her thighs and pulled her legs apart, wrapping them around his hips. Her shift and drawers were made of such a sheer material, there might as well have been nothing between them save his breeches.

Oh, dear good Lord, this body part fascinated her, with the way it pushed against his breeches as though fighting to be set free. She moved slightly, rolling her hips, and could have sworn she felt it grow.

She wanted to touch it. To see it. Her curiosity knew no bounds under ordinary circumstances, and this entire situation was far from ordinary at least in terms of her life. “Will you teach me now?” she asked, though she knew not how she’d found her voice. She’d simply die if he wouldn’t.

Quin didn’t answer her.

For that matter, Aurora doubted him capable of formulating an answer. He was too busy with lifting her up and tossing her over his shoulder and practically darting from the sitting room into another chamber.

His chamber.

Quin tossed her on the bed on her back and peeled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it aside without a care. Those hairs she had seen peeking out over the top trailed down the center of his bare chest, darker than the hair on his head, curling and crawling their way to disappear in a thin line below the top of his breeches.

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel the power of his arms beneath her fingertips, those same arms that lifted her with seemingly no effort at all. She wanted to trail her fingers along the path of hair, following them beyond where her eyes could see. She wanted to spread her hands over the wide expanse of his shoulders and marvel at the fact that her entire body could fit over just one of them.

Just from looking at him, a strange tautness came over the tips of her breasts as though they were pulling closer to him. Her womanhood—that same part of her that had rubbed against him only moments before—heated to the point of melting. What else could explain the sudden, embarrassing wetness accumulating between her thighs?

He sat on the edge of the bed and ripped his Hessian boots off, tossing them blindly over his shoulder. Before she knew what to expect, he threw himself on top of her, his weight pinning her to the mattress.

She felt glorious with him atop her, like a goddess, despite her vulnerable position.

His hands—those strong hands—moved over her, laying claim to her, branding her everywhere they touched. Possessive. And they touched her everywhere.

He pulled the sleeves of her shift down, exposing her bosom to his gaze. Aurora’s breasts stood at attention, the tips hard and straining—for what she didn’t know, until his mouth landed upon one. Then she knew very well, indeed.

Quin nipped and stroked and suckled and blew until she was half mad with need. Then he did it all over again to the other breast. The coarse prickles covering his jaw scraped against her sensitized flesh, pushed her beyond the limits of reason.

And still, she wanted more. Needed more. She arched her back, pressing her breasts into him, drove her hips against him, searching, moaning, sighing. But instead of doing whatever he must do to satisfy her need, Quin lifted himself off her.

For God’s sake, he would be the death of her.

Without his considerable weight pressing her down into the mattress, Aurora felt exposed. Empty. Cold.

She reached for him, only to have her hand impatiently brushed aside. “This is far from over, love,” Quin said. He stood at the edge of the bed, impatiently fumbling with the buttons holding the flap of his breeches in place. Before he had them all undone, he pulled them down and stepped free.

With the afternoon sun pouring in through the window, she wanted to look at him, to revel in the beauty that were his thighs, to gape at the sheer strength displayed by his muscles. He had to look like an Adonis, with all his muscular perfection and arrogant swagger.

Aurora could not. All she could see was that
thing
at the junction of his thighs. Big and protruding, and drawing her eye there and nowhere else. “Oh, dear good Lord,” she breathed.

Never in a million years would she be able to dream up what he intended to do with it. Her imagination was vivid, and entirely too overactive, but God had to have a sense of humor to have created such an object. A sick sense of humor. A very sick and deranged and fiendish sense of humor.

Her mind screamed at her to flee, to run back to her own chamber and lock the door. Instead, she laid there ogling him.

For just a moment too long.

Quin sat next to her on the bed, and his hands were on her again—this time pulling her shift and her drawers down her length, tossing them aside before she could stop him. Then he smoothed his hands over her, starting at her breasts and trailing a painstakingly torturous path over her stomach to her thighs, and then back up again.

Still, Aurora could not remove her eyes from him. Or more specifically, from that one part of him.

His hands never stopped moving over her, stroking her, building a heat inside her that she felt would burn her alive if he didn’t stop soon. His eyes laughed down at her. “You look terrified. It will only hurt for a moment.”

Hurt? There would be pain involved in this? Why had no one told her any of this? She silently cursed Aunt Sedgewick for her prudishness. But that wasn’t enough. Then she cursed her mother for having the effrontery to die and leave her alone to fend for herself against this
thing,
before Aurora had the opportunity to ask all the questions which required answers.

“What do you intend to do with that?” she asked, her voice shaking a bit more than she would have liked.

He didn’t answer her. At least not with his words, but with his hands. Or more specifically, with his fingers.

They moved over her woman’s part, cupping and stroking. Aurora’s eyes felt like they would fall out, they were open so wide. Was this even legal? She wasn’t entirely certain. But even though it scandalized her, she could not bear the thought of stopping him.

His fingers slipped inside her, moving in and out and about. “Oh, God. You’re so wet,” he said, moving faster, more urgently.

“Is that bad?” Aurora asked. She hoped not. She didn’t know what had caused the moisture, let alone how to prevent it. Especially since the more he stroked her, the more the slickness built.

Quin smiled at her then, a devilish smile. “No. Stop thinking.”

Stop thinking? Blast, the man had no idea what he was asking of her. Once her mind was traveling down a certain path, there was no stopping it.

Then he stroked against her with his thumb, light pressure at first and then rough, still sliding his fingers in and out at a rapid pace, and it suddenly became impossible to think at all. Her hips rose to meet him and her hands fisted in the sheets. “I need…I need…” She didn’t know what she needed. But if she didn’t get it in the next five seconds, someone would have to answer to her. Likely Quin.

He answered before that came to pass. “I know,” he said, his voice gruff. His mouth again came down upon her breast, grazing his teeth against the tip.

Aurora nearly came off the bed. She surely ripped the sheets from beneath her. Every nerve in her body, from the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet, sang out. It was almost operatic. Her moan, however, was most decidedly not. Operatic, that was. It sounded like a tortured animal finally giving in to death. But oh, how that death had been worth it.

She’d gladly repeat this death every day.

Before she’d regained her ability to think clearly, Quin was atop her again, with that divine pressure of his frame sinking into her curves as he pressed her into the mattress. He kissed her and nudged her legs apart, settling himself between her thighs.

Then she felt it again. That thing. Right where his fingers had been performing such wickedly delightful antics to her womanhood.

He couldn’t. Surely he wouldn’t. There was simply no earthly way
that
could fit. Not there. At least not if she intended to live through the ordeal.

But he placed his hand between their bodies and guided
it
to her opening, and then he
was.

“Oh, dear good Lord,” she said into his mouth, pushing with all her might against his shoulders, but to no avail. “You’ll kill me.”

Instead of stopping, Quin pushed further into her. “Hush,” he admonished her.
 
“Don’t fight with me. It will be all right.”

With every inch he moved inside her, she felt her core stretch wider—and her eyes followed suit. Still, it was not an entirely unpleasant sensation. Not at all, really. Not if she was being honest with herself. It just seemed as though it should be painful.

Aurora tried to relax, to let him do as he would. After all, hadn’t she just told herself only moments before she’d gladly die that same death every day? Perhaps this could give her a similar sensation.

Then he stopped moving and took her chin in one hand, forcing her to look directly into his eyes—eyes almost black with emotion. “I promise you. It will not hurt long.”

He was being so tender with her. Aurora wanted to reassure him. “Oh, but it doesn’t—sweet Jesus! Oh, my.”

It did. It hurt like the dickens. Like she was being split in two and would never be put back together again. Like an entire flock of pigeons were pecking her from the inside out. Like a cat using her insides for sharpening its claws. She could only hope that the scream she let out had merely been in her imagination.

But almost as soon as the pain started, it eased. Aurora started to breathe again, only then realizing that she’d been holding her breath captive.

“Better now?” Quin asked, with a pained, studious expression furrowing his brows together. His jaw clenched, causing his dimple to twitch. Gracious, if it hurt him
and
it hurt her, why were they doing it?

She nodded. Speaking would require entirely too much effort for her mind, at the moment. It was too busy being occupied by analyzing the rather odd sensation of Quin moving fervently in and out of her womb. First she felt stretched to her limits, to be followed by a contracting emptiness—and all of it enveloped by a strangely addictive friction.

He rose up on his elbows, staring down at her. “You’re so tight,” he ground out, increasing the pace of his thrusts.

Aurora’s body seemed to match him of its own accord, her hips rising to meet with his and then falling. “Is that bad?” She hoped not. How on earth was she supposed to change that? Even if she knew what it meant.