Louise Allen – Regency Scoundrels And Scandals (страница 73)

‘I know.’ Bel nodded, rubbing her cheek against the warmth of his shirt front. ‘It is all right now.’ She had dissembled for all the years of her marriage, feigning interest and obedience. But that was a very different thing to hiding desire and the intimate knowledge of another person.

‘I am not sure that it is all right,’ Ashe said gravely, running his hands up and down her back. ‘What on earth are you wearing, Bel? I thought I had strayed into a nunnery.’

‘I did not think you would be coming and this is the most boringly respectable nightgown I have. I didn’t want to think about you, you see.’

He gave a snort of laughter and stepped back to study her. Then he frowned. ‘We have a problem. You want to make love, I imagine, but I am very much afraid that garment has killed my passion quite dead, which was obviously the intention of the designer. There is only one thing for it, unless you wish me to leave or to spend the night reading poetry with you.’

‘What?’ Bel enquired, heat pooling inside her. Ashe was teasing her, of course. No man wearing thin skintight knit breeches could pretend he was not aroused when he was.

‘You will just have to seduce me.’ He looked rueful.

‘Seduce you?’ Bel heard her voice squeak. Me? How?

‘Yes, seduce me. On the bearskin rug, I think. The novelty will, perhaps, arouse my jaded appetites.’ Ashe leaned negligently against the bedpost and waited for her reaction.

Jaded appetites, indeed! This was a game. Bel suppressed her immediate reaction, which was to blush and stammer that she did not know how. He probably expected her to do that, but she would not. The sight of him, elegant and hard and all of him—every inch—hers, made her blood sing and her breath come short. She wanted him desperately, she wanted to learn more about lovemaking, she wanted to please him, and herself.

‘Very well, but you must promise to do as I say,’ she ordered boldly. She waited for his nod, noticing with interest the effect her agreement had on him. The pulse under the sharp line of his jaw was very visible, the skin at the base of his throat was flushed and his pupils had begun to dilate, turning the deep sea blue a darker, stormier purple.

Very deliberately Bel undid the top two buttons on her nightgown, but that was all. Then she folded her arms, knowing the action pushed up her breasts, and stood there, considering. If Ashe thought she was going to drape herself all over him like a cat begging for caresses, he was mistaken. ‘Take off your shirt.’

He pulled it over his head, giving her a view of the muscles of his back rippling as he bent right over, then stretched upright, magnificently unselfconscious. Bel stood looking, studying the way his muscles strapped over his ribs, the way his chest hair changed texture as it narrowed down towards his navel. She saw his nipples harden under the caress of her gaze. Power. Such power.

‘And now the rest of your clothes,’ she said, making her voice indifferent. He kept his eyes locked with hers as he undressed and Bel toyed with one more button on her gown. He was so beautiful she found it desperately hard to keep her hands off him. Her own nipples were peaking painfully against the thick cotton, her breasts ached into heaviness; the intensity of his gaze seemed to bore through her to hit at the base of her spine.

‘Now lie down,’ she ordered, gesturing towards the thick white fur at her feet. Seduce him? As if he needs it! If he becomes any more aroused, I will refuse to believe it physically possible.

Ashe stretched out on the great pelt of fur, a magnificent barbarian in his shameless nudity. He moved sensuously on it, his broad shoulders shrugging into the softness, the movement of his hips a demonstration of lithe masculinity.

‘Am I arousing your interest yet?’ Bel enquired huskily.

‘Mmm? This is very comfortable, I may go to sleep.’ He was watching her like a hawk from beneath hooded lids, his very focus a contradiction to his words.

Bel moved to stand at his feet and let her gaze wander up the length of him from the high arches, up the straight shin bones, up the trained muscles of his thighs, up—lingeringly—past the slim hips. She let her tongue tip run over her lower lip and saw him shift restlessly as she did so. Bel stepped forward so her feet were either side of Ashe’s knees and started to undo the rest of her buttons.

Despite the expression of languid uninterest he was maintaining the heavy lids rose, dragged up to follow her slowly moving hands. Bel fought her own eagerness as she made herself free each button with finicking care until the entire gown to below her waist was open. Then she shrugged one shoulder free. Ashe’s tongue slid between his lips and she saw his hands fist into the fur at his sides. Another shoulder, then she let go and the entire garment slipped down to pool around her feet.

She kicked it aside as Ashe came up on to his elbows. ‘No, my lord, I am sorry if you are bored, but I must insist you lie down. Do try to sleep if you wish.’

He fell back with a growl as Bel knelt, her knees either side of his hips. The power of what she was doing felt incredible. It was like sitting astride a thoroughbred horse; she could feel the leashed strength beneath her, knew she could not control it, that only his will was keeping him tame, biddable to her.

Her hand slipped between her thighs, found him, hot, hard, impossibly aroused, and positioned herself. ‘Now,’ she whispered and slowly sank down, taking him within her, stroking every inch of him with her heat and her slickness and her desire.

He growled, reached for her and she caught his wrists, leaning into him so she pressed them to the ground on either side of his head and the tips of her breasts caressed his chest. ‘Awake yet?’ she teased, her lips hovering an inch above his.

‘Ride me.’ And he surged up against her. Bel heard herself cry out, knew her body was responding, plunging, demanding, but it all became a blur, a wonderful, intense, heated blur with the only reality the deep blue-black eyes holding hers, the beat of his pulse under her fingers, the musk of their lovemaking as potent as drugged incense in her nostrils.

Ashe bucked beneath her, then she was beneath him, her own wrists trapped, and she cried out again and again as she fell into a whirlpool of velvet darkness and he finally left her body.

Some incalculable time later Bel felt Ashe roll away from her and reached for him. He was back in a moment, carrying pillows and the bedcover. ‘I like it on this fur. Here, these will make us more comfortable and preserve your chaste bed from disturbance.’

Bel snuggled up against his chest again. Horace’s soft fur was warm and sensual beneath her, Ashe’s body was hot and smooth under her hand. ‘This is nice.’ This is Heaven.

‘You are addictive Bel,’ Ashe said ruefully, gathering her snugly against himself. Other women had curled against him like this, but none had ever seemed to fit so well. ‘But I am going to have to leave you for a few days.’

‘Leave? Why?’ Bel wriggled free and sat up, shaking her head at her own vehemence. ‘No, I am sorry, I did not mean to sound so demanding, or to pry. Will you be away long?’

‘Ten days, perhaps.’ He reached up and traced a finger round the curve of her jaw, enjoying the way she turned her head into his hand for more caresses. Bel was so sweet, so formal somehow—when she wasn’t in the throes of passion. She had even managed to be jealous in a polite manner. Ashe could recall mistresses and lovers who would have thrown ornaments at his head for less provocation than he had given her that morning. ‘I am going home. I should have gone at once, but somehow—’ How to explain to her?

‘Somehow what you had just experienced abroad was too raw?’ Bel suggested.

‘Yes.’ She understood what he sometimes had difficulty articulating to himself. Ashe lifted her hand and kissed the knuckles, then turned them against his cheek. ‘Exactly. But if I stay away any longer, they will start worrying that I am hiding something after all.’

‘And you can make arrangements for the house party you are going to give,’ Bel suggested slyly.

‘I had no intention of doing any such thing, although if you would come to it, I might be persuaded to change my mind.’

Bel looked deliciously ruffled by the suggestion. ‘I could not bear to be so close to you and have to behave properly all the time.’

‘Who said anything about behaving? That is the whole point of house parties—camouflage for misbehaviour.’

‘I…I find I am shocked.’ She shook her head in wonderment at her own reaction. ‘How very hypocritical of me!’

‘You are not being uniquely wicked in taking a lover, you know, ma belle, other people have liaisons too.’ But in a way she was unique, Ashe realised. Bel would not move from him to another lover when this was over. This was an experience for her that she would sample because she had needed so badly to understand physical love, then put aside, never to be repeated.

‘What are you frowning about?’ She reached out and massaged the crease between his brows with the pads of two fingers. Ashe fought not to close his eyes and simply purr.