Sebastian strode into Park Place in the same foul mood in which he’d left it earlier. But now, he reeked of cigar smoke and whiskey from hours spent in search of distraction at Boodle’s with Robert and Quinn, where he’d gone directly after leaving the museum. And after Miranda’s rejection.
“Good evening, Your Grace.” Saunders greeted him at the door with a stoic nod, the experienced butler knowing better than to comment on either his angry glower or the state of his appearance. “Shall I call for Barlow?”
Sebastian waved the man off. “I’ll undress myself tonight. I don’t want to be disturbed.”
His fingers tore at his cravat as he bounded up the stairs toward his rooms— No, not his rooms. His father’s rooms. He grimaced. Not even his father’s, because Father had occupied Park Place for only two years. The duke’s rooms, that’s all they were, the man who used them as interchangeable as the sheets on the bed. And now Sebastian was simply the one shouldering the weight of it. A weight he’d never wanted less than tonight.
Damn Miranda and her cutting remarks about primroses! Didn’t she realize the impossible situation he’d been placed into? That he had to put the dukedom first before everything, including his own wants and desires? What did the infuriating woman want from him, for God’s sake, to marry him herself?
Miranda Hodgkins as Duchess of Trent. Good God, what would Father say to that?
And that was the problem. Because a part of him that he didn’t dare acknowledge wanted exactly that. Even knowing how wrong Miranda was for him, she was also perfectly right. For those precious few hours when he was with her, he felt liberated from the rest of his life, and carrying on with the title’s demands seemed bearable. When she smiled at him or made him laugh, he relaxed and could be himself, without fear of judgment or recrimination, in a way he could with no one else. She simply made him…happy. And knowing how fleeting that happiness was made him miserable.
He opened the door to his sitting room and stopped.
For a moment, so did his heart.
Miranda sat in his reading chair by the fire, wearing not the masquerade gown this time but a plain, cotton night rail covering her from wrist to neck and surely all the way down to her ankles if not for the cashmere throw draped across her legs as she sat with her bare feet tucked beneath her. Her long hair hung over her shoulder in a loose braid secured with a green ribbon, and she gazed at him through spectacles perched on her pert little nose, reading Miss Bradford’s book on her lap. She couldn’t have appeared more different from both a society lady and Lady Rose if she’d tried. Yet she looked for all the world as if she belonged right there, as if she waited like that every night for him to come home.
His breath hitched at the sight of her, all comfortable and ready for bed. What a fool he was for spending those last hours tolerating his brothers’ antics at Boodle’s when he could have been right here, putting her to bed.
He closed the door and drawled with a half grin, “I didn’t recognize you without your masquerade costume.”
She smiled nervously, but the teasing shine in her eyes made his chest warm. “I can leave a calling card and come back in the morning if you’d like, to be properly announced.”
Not a chance in the world. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight tonight, not for one moment.
“How do you keep getting in here?” He stepped toward her and dropped his unwanted cravat to the floor. Although truly, he didn’t care how she got here. He was simply damn glad that she was. “Should I have a talk with Saunders about security? After all, if a wisp of a woman can keep sneaking inside my bedchamber to torment me, how safe can I be from someone who really wishes to do me harm?”
Her smile brightened at his sardonic teasing, her nervousness vanishing. She gave a soft giggle, and his shoulders lightened with relief. Ah, that was better. That was the Miranda he knew and lov—
No. Not love.
He cared about her; he would admit to that, and even now the warmth of her presence invaded his chest and eased the tension from his shoulders. And certainly he’d felt a reckless desire to be with her tonight, even though he’d promised her that they would do nothing more than talk, if that was what she wanted, although he now prayed that she wanted far more than conversation. But that didn’t mean love. It couldn’t. Because loving Miranda would be torture when he had to pledge his life to another.
“I have a key to the terrace door,” she answered. Unaware of the turmoil churning inside him, her emerald eyes shined in the firelight and only served to draw him even more strongly to her. “Josie thought it would be a good idea to keep a spare one at Audley House since the family is spread across two households for the season.” Private amusement touched her voice as she added, “To make it easier for all of us to come and go as we please.”
He nodded with mock solemnity, appreciating his sister’s foresight more than he could ever tell her. “Wise woman, my sister.”
“Very,” she sighed deeply. The neck of the night rail slipped down her shoulder and revealed barely an inch more of creamy skin, but that was all it took for his cock to stir to life. Her head tilted curiously as she watched him shrug out of his jacket and toss it away after the cravat. “Do you always undress in your sitting room?”
“No.” The faster to ravish you tonight…but he thought better of admitting that aloud, for fear of frightening her away. “I have a dressing room off my bedroom.” He nodded toward the open pocket doors to the left and the room beyond, where he could just make out the outline of his bed in the shadows. And then, because something dark and punishing inside him couldn’t help it, he motioned to a set of closed connecting doors on the opposite wall from his bedroom. “That will be the duchess’s room through there, which also has a dressing room of its own.” He was thrilled to the point of aching that she was here tonight, but best to remind her of the rules upfront. Before she expected what he could never give. “Which also happens to be bigger than mine.”
“As well it should be,” she agreed quietly. “After all, she’ll be the duchess. You’re only the duke.”
He gave her his best arrogant grin. “I think you missed something when you read Debrett’s. I’ll outrank my duchess.”
She shook her head at his naïveté. “Your father was a duke. Did he outrank your mother?”
He paused, the negative answer on the tip of his tongue. Then he admitted the truth with a lift of his brow. “Touché.”
When he reached to unbutton his waistcoat, she sat up. The cashmere throw slipped to the floor at her feet. “Do you need Barlow to undress you? Should I wait in another room—”
“No.” He held her gaze, then his shoulders slumped as the weight of the title, the fortune, and the family’s reputation slid away and left him nothing more than a man beneath her soft eyes, if only for the night. At that moment, he knew exactly what she meant earlier at the lecture about wanting to be with only the man and not the duke. He answered gently, “I want you right here.”
Slowly, she sat back and watched as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, her eyes following each movement of his fingers. His heart raced beneath her close scrutiny as his blood began to heat. Who knew simply letting a woman watch him undress could be as much fun as undressing her? But that was Miranda’s doing, all right. The woman had inverted his world.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” he admitted quietly as he slipped off the waistcoat.
“I didn’t expect to be here, either. But I couldn’t settle down and sleep. I kept thinking about you and what I said to you tonight at the lecture—I regret it.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.” He shouldn’t have surprised her at the lecture like that. But he couldn’t help himself. As long as there was a possibility that she would say yes to being with him tonight, he’d had to try.
And thankfully, he’d succeeded.
“I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” she continued, “unless I spoke to you tonight to tell you that.”
He fought down the smile of pleasure that threatened at his lips. “Have you been waiting here long?” He pulled loose the linen shirt tucked into his trousers. “Looking like that.”
His gaze roamed over her, enjoying the deliciously comfortable and oddly arousing sight of her. He should have been angry to find her here wearing her nightgown. Had she been wearing a regular muslin dress, he could have managed some kind of excuse for her presence if they were found together. But in that—scandalous. Yet he grinned, finding a new appreciation for her sense of impropriety.
“Two hours,” she answered.
Guilt tightened his gut as he pulled the shirt off over his head. “If I had known, I would have returned sooner.” Hell, he never would have left.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, her eyes shamelessly drinking in his bare chest and the flat ridges of his stomach. “It gave me time to read.” She pushed the glasses into place on her nose in order to see him better.
He laughed at her eagerness, his chest warming with affection.
He approached her then, carefully removed her spectacles and set them on the fireplace mantel, placed both hands on the chair arms on either side of her, and leaned in for a soft kiss. Her lips parted beneath his with a welcoming sigh.
Home, he thought as contentment fell through him. She felt like home…
Pulling away, he sat on the floor at her feet and tugged off his boots, then leaned back against the chair, his shoulder resting against her leg, and closed his eyes. “That’s better,” he murmured when she reached down to brush her fingers through the hair at his temple.
“Which,” she whispered when he rested his head back against the chair cushion, “being undressed or me combing your hair?”
“Yes.” He turned his head and placed a kiss against her palm.
She laughed lightly, and the comfort of the soft sound soothed him. How had he managed these past two years without her? And dear God, what would he do without her once they returned to Islingham? Already the pain of separation ached in his bones. And his heart.
Leaning forward, she reached down to place her hands on his shoulders and massaged at the knots in his muscles. “Did you have a good time at Boodle’s?”
“No.” He hung his head forward to give her access to his shoulders, enjoying having her hands on him in even so innocent a touch. Her kneading fingers felt wonderful, and he knew he could easily grow used to such spoiling. “But Quinton and Robert had a marvelous time.” They still were, in fact. Quinn hadn’t lied. The way those two were carrying on tonight, they would be there until dawn. Good.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” She pressed her thumbs along the vertebrae in his neck and released the tension he carried there. “You’re so different from them, you always have been.” She lowered her head to bring her lips close to his ear, and a hot shiver of longing curled down his spine. “You were always the serious one, even as a boy. Even when I first met you, when you must have been fourteen or fifteen, you seemed so much older.” Her hands stilled on his back as she asked, “Why are you so different from your brothers?”
“Because someone had to keep those two from killing themselves.” He reached for her hand, drew it down over his shoulder, and kissed her fingertips.
When she didn’t laugh at his teasing, he tilted his head back to look up at her. Concern darkened her pretty face, and it pained him that she should be so worried about him. He didn’t dare let himself consider that her feelings for him might go beyond friendship. He couldn’t. Not without hating himself for never being able to return those affections.
“Because I was the firstborn,” he admitted, saying aloud to her what he’d never uttered to anyone else in his life, not even to his parents. Yet confiding in Miranda like this was easy, and with each word of his confession, his shoulders lightened. “Because I knew that I was the heir, that someday I would be responsible for the title, for Chestnut Hill and the estate, for my family’s well-being.” He reflected soberly, “If a man cares about his family and his reputation, the responsibility of all that changes him.”
He knew plenty of peers who cared nothing for their families nor the estates they owned. They were spoiled and arrogant men who spent their days wasting time on one frivolous pursuit after another and their nights whoring, drinking, and gambling away not only their fortunes but the inheritance of their progeny. He would never allow himself to be one of them.
“Everything he does, every decision he makes, it all has ramifications not just for himself but for those he loves. And the weight of that…” He shook his head, unable to articulate the heaviness that constantly plagued him and always would, the knot in his chest that never seemed to ease, the responsibility he felt not just for his family but every one of the villagers and tenant farmers on Trent land. Oddly enough, except when he was with Miranda. “It wears.”
She placed a soft kiss at his temple, and he closed his eyes, drinking in the sympathy and solace she offered.
“I understand,” she whispered. He was certain she did. Miranda had a way of understanding him better than anyone else. But when she slipped her arms around his neck to pull herself closer, guilt surged through him that even now she worried about him slipping away and leaving her. “But something tells me it’s more than that which troubles you.” She brushed her fingertips through his hair at his temple. “What is it? What’s making you so unhappy?”
He sucked in a deep breath, suddenly shaken that she was able to see into his heart so easily. “I made a promise to my father when he was awarded the dukedom that I would do everything in my power to make myself worthy of the Carlisle legacy.”
“You have,” she told him softly. “Your father was always so proud of you. Oh, he loved Robert and Quinn, and Josie was always precious to him, but you, Sebastian…” She trailed her fingertips along the side of his face. “When he looked at you, his eyes would shine with pride, and his chest would swell. If he could see you now, he would be so proud of the respect you’ve brought to your family, all the good you’ve done for the estate tenants and the villagers, the responsibilities you’re taking on in Parliament for England.”
Instead of comforting him, her words only stirred a wretchedness inside him, one he’d been fighting to quell since his father died and his life ceased being his own. “You don’t understand. He expected me to be selfless in every decision, to put the dukedom before everything else, including my own wants.”
“He didn’t mean before your happiness.” She shook her head. “He certainly never thought that holding you to that promise would make you unhappy or—” Her voice broke, and she finished softly, “Marry a woman you don’t love.”
He took her hand and brought it down to his chest, pressing it over his heart, where he was certain she could feel its beat beneath her fingertips. And where he hoped she would ease his anguish as he admitted bitterly, “Perhaps not…but he certainly wanted respectability. At all costs.”
Her fingers tensed in his, and he felt her draw a sharp breath.
“Right after he was awarded the dukedom, Mother fell ill, do you remember?” he asked gently.
“Yes.” She squeezed his hand in empathy, and a rush of comfort seeped through him from that small gesture. But not nearly enough to compensate for the anguish of the memories he was sharing with her.
“When Father came to tell me, he found me with a woman. One he did not approve of, and one he thought was not worthy of our family.”
“You were planning on marrying her?”
“No,” he told her as gently as possible, knowing how much this might damn him in her eyes, “because she was already married.”
Sebastian held his breath and waited for her response, but thankfully, she said nothing, although he deserved any disparaging remark she might have leveled on him. But of course, Miranda would never have done that. She was always kind, especially when he didn’t deserve it.
He let out his breath in a long sigh. “Mother recovered, and Father and I had a long talk about my responsibility to the family and our legacy, to the title and its responsibilities. That was when I made my promise to him, but even then I didn’t realize the full meaning behind it, or the effect it would come to have on my life. I was a Carlisle, after all. I wasn’t going to listen to reason, not when it concerned the women with whom I was intimate. So I kept doing what I did before, only I was much more careful to hide my tracks.” He folded his hand around hers and held tight as he murmured, “So careful, in fact, that the night my father fell from his horse and hit his head, no one could find me. I was hidden away for the evening, this time with an actress I’d met at Covent Garden. By the time I arrived back here at Park Place, Father was dead, and I never had the chance to say good-bye.”
“Oh, Sebastian,” she breathed, so grief-stricken for him that she couldn’t find her voice. She wrapped both of her arms tightly around him and rested her cheek against his. He felt the wet of her tears on his cheek, but instead of increasing the guilt and anguish inside him, her tears were an absolution for the raw wounds he’d carried inside him for the past two years.
“His death changed everything.” He paused, then repeated gravely, “Everything.”
Her fingers stiffened in his, and he knew she understood his underlying meaning as she slowly sat back and swiped at her eyes with her free hand. “That’s why you think you have to marry someone like Lady Jane,” she breathed, so softly he could barely hear her, but each word ripped into his heart as painfully as if she’d sunk her fingernails into his chest. “Because of what happened that night.”
“I owe it to my father to find a good duchess,” he said quietly.
“You owe it to yourself to be happy, no matter whom you marry.” She inhaled a deep, ragged breath and offered, as if trying to convince both of them, “Your father would want that.”
“I’ll be happy enough.” His happiness was not a consideration. Robert could court and marry Diana Morgan simply because he fancied her, and Quinn could spend his life as a confirmed bachelor. But not him. Even before he decided to find a wife this season, he knew the choice in brides would not be his own. Happiness, and certainly not love, would never enter into his decision.
“You’ve settled on Jane Sheridan, then.” Her whisper was not a question.
When she tried to slip her hand from his, his fingers tightened around hers, refusing to let her go. For tonight, at least, she was his. “No. I’ve decided not to pursue her.”
Her lips parted with surprise. “You’ve given up looking for a wife?” Her voice held a timbre of hope, and that pierced him with more shame than anything she’d said before.
“No.” Then, because he wanted no secrets between them, owing her at least that much respect, he added, “I still need to find a wife by season’s end.”
And then Miranda would be lost to him forever. He wouldn’t make her his mistress, and once he took his vows, he would never go outside his marriage. He wanted the same kind of marriage his parents had, one of loyalty and fidelity, trust and comfort, and if he didn’t love his wife when he married her, well, that would come in time. But he would have the marriage that the title needed.
So why did he feel as if he were about to lose everything?
When he saw the crestfallen expression flit across her face, he told her, “Enough—I don’t want to talk about marriage anymore.” He squeezed her hand. “Not tonight.”
Gratefully, a soft happiness returned to her eyes as she gazed down at him. “What do you want to talk about, then?”
“Well, if we have to talk,” he teased seductively as he turned toward her, “then I’d much rather talk about you.”
“I’m not very interesting.” Then she tried to chase away that self-deprecation by wryly commenting, “Perhaps we should discuss salmon fishing instead.”
With a laugh, grateful for her teasing that chased away the somber turn that their conversation had taken, he rose up on his knees to bring his face even with hers and brushed his knuckles against her cheek.
Her eyes closed at the soft caress, as if it was too much to bear, and his heart panged. She was unbelievably sensitive to his touch…And those lips, full and pink, so sweet— When he took her chin and tilted her face up to his, they parted with a breathless sigh so inviting that he couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her. Just a gentle touch of lips to lips, a caress so soft as to be barely a caress at all, but the innocence of it stole his breath away.
“Miranda,” he admitted, his voice a hoarse rasp, “you are the most interesting woman I know.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she gazed dubiously up at him as she bit her lip, somehow shy and wanton at the same time. A delectable mix of contradiction, just like the woman behind the stare.
“For instance.” He ran his fingers over the edge of her night rail’s neckline. “You wore this to seduce a man.”
“I didn’t wear this to seduce you, silly.” A smile played at her lips at the absurdity of that. “This is what I wear to sleep in every night, and I needed to see you so badly that I didn’t stop to change.” She shrugged a shoulder. “And anyway, I assumed that eventually I would end up in bed, so what was the point in changing only to have to change back again?”
He fought down a smile. Only Miranda could make that logic make sense. “Well, if you’re tired, I won’t stop you from taking one of the guestrooms,” he answered, keeping his face carefully stoic as he tried to suss out her intentions for the rest of the night, “or going home in a carriage to your own bed.”
A flash of grim knowing crossed her face, as if she’d expected that response. Closing her eyes, she nodded. “After everything you shared tonight, I understand if you—”
He leaned in to kiss her. “But not before I ravish you.” Unadulterated heat poured through his voice despite his earnestness as he added, “Several times, in fact.”
Her eyes darted up to his in a mix of wonder, excitement, and quick arousal. He heard the soft catch of her breath in surprise. “You still…want me?”
The vulnerability underlying her whisper nearly broke his heart. Want her? Good Lord, she had no idea what he felt for her. It went far beyond simple want to something he could barely fathom. Something that terrified him with its intensity.
“Yes,” he admitted, cupping her face against his palm and brushing his lips across her cheek. “Very much. And I hate to correct you,” he admitted as he shifted away just far enough to rake a lecherous gaze across her, stirring up a blush in his wake, “but I find you surprisingly seductive in this night rail.” He trailed his finger down from her neck, between her breasts and down to her lower belly, making her squirm. “Because I know how beautiful you are beneath, inside and out.”
Her eyes glistened in the firelight with telltale tears, and the sight clenched at his chest. “So I can stay?”
“If you’d like.”
She smiled. “I’d like it very much.”
So would he. But they had one more piece of unfinished business to settle tonight.
Ignoring the hot stab of jealousy in his gut when he thought of Robert and the feelings she held for his brother, he drew a deep breath and said quietly, “There’s something I need to know.” He lifted her hand to his lips to suck at her fingertips. She tasted like vanilla icing, sweet and addictive. “You love Robert, but you came to me. Why?”
“I don’t love Robert,” she confessed softly, in little more than a breath. “I thought I did, but it wasn’t love. I know now that it was only infatuation and habit.”
“And me?” When she hesitated in her answer, he touched the tip of his tongue to her palm, and she trembled.
Her answer was so brutally honest when it came that it sliced through him, leaving him raw and wounded. “I can’t help myself.”
“Neither can I,” he whispered, then reached up to unfasten her hair.
* * *
Miranda’s pulse fluttered at the heated look he gave her as he untied the ribbon and slowly unbraided her hair. She closed her eyes to revel in the wonderfully decadent sensation of his fingers sifting through her strands, loosing the waves until they lay in a thick curtain around her shoulders.
When he reached for the hem of her night rail and peeled it slowly up her body to reveal her to the firelight, she raised her arms above her head to help him remove it. She sat still and let him look his fill of her, bathed in the soft light. A proper society lady would have been embarrassed, she supposed, to display herself so audaciously. But she wasn’t a society lady. She was simply Miranda. And she would never be embarrassed in front of him for this.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered as his hands roamed languidly over her, up her body from her bare toes to her neck and slowly back down. He was touching her as if discovering her for the first time, and she trembled at the intensity of it. “How did I never notice that before this season?” he murmured, his fingertips lightly tracing down her arms, over the curve of her hips and along her thighs.
“You weren’t looking,” she whispered, heat rising beneath her skin.
“I’m certainly looking now,” he assured her. Goose bumps sprang up on her skin wherever he touched, like magic. And when he lowered his mouth and placed his lips against her bare shoulder, all of her shivered with liquid heat. The sensation was pure heaven.
Releasing her, he slid down to kneel before her on the floor, his hands splayed wide as they slowly caressed down her thighs. When he gently nudged apart her knees, her hands shot out to grab his shoulders and stop him.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, sudden alarm knotting her belly.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he explained gently, lowering his mouth to caress his lips across her knee.
Heavens, he wanted to kiss her there! She shook her head adamantly, her hands clenched into fists against his bare shoulders. Oh no, he simply couldn’t! “I don’t— I mean, I don’t think that you want…” Embarrassment choked off her words.
“But I do,” he assured her, taking another caress of his lips against her leg, this time moving higher up her thigh. “Very much. You are lovely, Miranda, and I want to kiss you everywhere.” When she shuddered with nervousness so intense that all of her stiffened, he rested his head on her lap to gaze up at her. “I won’t if you don’t want me to, but…” His blue eyes softened with understanding. “Why don’t you want to, sweet?”
“It’s different from what we’ve done before,” she whispered. She was certain that every other woman he’d been with knew exactly how to please him, but she simply didn’t know how. The frustration and jealousy of that mixed with her embarrassment and sent a hot blush into her cheeks. “What if I disappoint you?”
“You could never disappointment me,” he answered, his voice strangely hoarse.
She gazed down into his eyes, wanting desperately to believe him. And yet…“I don’t know what to do.”
“Then I’ll teach you.”
“But you’re—” You’re never going to spend another night with me like this. But she couldn’t bear to admit that aloud. The pain would be insufferable. “You’re not very patient,” she amended, not wanting to spoil the night by voicing truths better left unsaid. After all, dawn would come soon enough and expose them all.
“Trust me, sweet.” He lowered his mouth to her thigh, continuing his path toward the ache throbbing at her center. “I am very—” He placed a kiss at the top of her inner thigh. “Very.” The tip of his tongue traced along the crease where her thigh met her pelvis. “Patient.”
His seeking lips found her, and her breath tore from her throat. A shiver of nervousness and excitement sped through her, making her gasp at this incredibly intimate kiss that electrified her to the ends of her hair and tips of her toes. This scandalously wanton contact made all they’d done last night pale by comparison, and she couldn’t help tensing in nervousness.
But when his lips continued to softly kiss her, all her doubts seeped away, and she relaxed beneath his mouth with a shuddering sigh. What he was doing to her was absolute heaven! And from the way he made soft sounds of appreciation against her, he also liked it. Very much.
“Sebastian,” she whispered. Her hands, which had been pushing at his shoulders to hold him back, now dug into his muscles to encourage him. Never in all her fantasies of what men and women did together, how their bodies came together to give pleasure, had she ever imagined anything as decadent as this. This new type of kissing made her entire body shiver and shake, and she slumped boneless in the chair.
“You are delicious,” he murmured against her between soft kisses, “and very delectable. Like icing on a cake.”
Her arousal-fogged mind could barely understand…“Icing?”
He licked her, his tongue sinking deep into her cleft.
Her hips bucked beneath him. “Sebastian!”
But he only chuckled at her protest, refusing to relent in this sweet torture, and his large hands on her thighs held her legs open wide as he continued to take swirling licks. She closed her eyes, and all her existence faded until she was nothing more than the heat of his soft mouth against her, his tongue sweeping across her and delving deeper in slow, teasing circles.
“That feels…oh, that’s nice,” she panted out. “That’s…” Rendered speechless, she moaned as his tongue plunged deep and sent the aching between her thighs flaring out to her toes and fingertips. Oh, it was simply wonderful!
The need for him flamed inside her, stoked even higher by all those wet noises his mouth made against her. She couldn’t keep her own whimpers of need and moans of pleasure silent, not when her desire pulsed so hard that she couldn’t breathe beyond rapid panting, not when she could no longer sit still in the chair and writhed herself against his mouth. Every inch of her pulsed, electric and alive.
His lips found the aching little nub buried in her folds, closed around it, sucked—
The soft sensation pounded through her. She gasped, losing what little breath she had left.
Then he sucked again, longer and harder, and the pleasure that shot through her was paralyzing. Her body tensed instantly, then released so hard that she cried out. Helpless, she crumpled in the chair, her body shuddering with each undulating pulse of pleasure that passed through her.
He rested his cheek against her thigh as she slowly regained her breath. She had the strength to do nothing more than lift a hand to touch his cheek in gratitude as the love she felt for him blossomed hot inside her and grew until it filled every inch of her, right down to her soul. If giving herself to him tonight was her last opportunity to show him how much he meant to her, how deep her feelings for him ran, then she would do it. She couldn’t bear not to.
“Sebastian,” she breathed softly as she blinked back the hot tears at her lashes, “make love to me.”
“Whatever you want, sweet.” He lifted her from the chair and lowered her melting body onto the floor with him.
He laid her on her back across the thick rug in front of the fire and moved away only long enough to strip off his trousers, then he covered her with his naked body and gently parted her legs. She tensed as he lowered himself into her, remembering the pain of last night, but his erection slid smoothly inside in one deep stroke. This time there was no pain. There was only the wonderful sensation of being filled by his warmth and strength as her body expanded knowingly to take him in. And this time, when he began to stroke inside her, she moaned in complete capitulation.
“Miranda,” he groaned in her ear, careful to keep his weight from crushing her even as she wrapped her arms and legs around him to pull him closer. “You feel so good…you have no idea how much.”
Oh, but she did know, because if she felt half as good to him as his body did to hers—heaven. And she never wanted to come back to earth.
“So warm and tight,” he murmured. She wiggled beneath him, and he laughingly growled his pleasure. “So damnably eager.”
She laughed with happiness, unable to stop herself. Sebastian was making love to her, and she wanted to impress on her mind every detail of this moment…the musky scent of their bodies uniting, the rippling of the hard muscles in his back beneath her fingertips, the masculine groans that he breathed into her ear each time he plunged deep inside her and made her folds quiver around his thick length.
But she wanted even more. She wanted to find some way to brand him onto herself so she could carry him with her beyond the dawn. “Teach me something new,” she whispered, caressing her hand across his cheek. “Something special.”
He stilled and gazed down at her, his blue eyes dark with pleasure as he searched her face in the firelight. “All right.” He placed a kiss against her palm. “Something special.”
Without pulling out of her warmth, he clasped his arms around her and rolled onto his back, bringing her up on top. Surprised at the quick movement, she straddled his waist as she perched on him, his manhood still inside her.
She stared down at him, and her lips parted in a stunned O.
As the realization slowly sank through her for why this was special, that in this new position they would be able to see the sheer happiness each brought to the other, her lips curled into a smile. With a gleeful laugh, she began to move, at first only in testing little swivels of her hips that elicited low pants of pleasure from him, then bolder thrusts that had his hands gripping at her hips to fight for restraint. Tucking her legs beneath her for leverage, she lifted up and down, raising and lowering herself along his hard length in a smooth slide that nearly brought him out of her, only to plunge down and bury him fully within her warmth again.
She tossed back her head with joy, her hands on his chest curling her fingers into the hard muscle. Oh, what a devilish position! The pounding of his heart beneath her fingertips, the pulsing of his manhood between her legs—she wanted to be wicked, wanton, and wonderful, and all for him. There was no hesitation now, only freedom to tease with her body and be teased in return, not satisfying the need for release but flaming it.
He leaned up on his forearms, raising his back from the floor until he kissed her. “Come now, sweet,” he urged as his hips continued to roll and rock beneath her, his voice a hot whisper. He licked across her lips. “I want to see you find your pleasure.”
His words cascaded through her, spilling into a thousand fingers of heat that swirled through her and lit her on fire. With a soft cry of desperate need, she began to ride furiously over him. Each thrust was sheer pleasure and greed, demanding and hungry, and she galloped hard, racing toward the oncoming release—
She shattered. Tossing back her head, she cried out his name as the wave of release took her, only to moan again as she felt him thrust up deep inside her and grind his hips against her to prolong the moment for her. Her folds quivered around his still-hard manhood as her body milked his to claim each pulse of shivering pleasure.
He thrust up beneath her in a plunge so forceful that he lifted her off the floor. She clung to him, desperate to join her soul with his, desperate for him to feel how much she loved him. A second release gripped her, a second cry of surrender tearing from her throat. Then he joined her, slipping from her warmth to shudder out his own release a heartbeat later.
He fell back onto the rug, and she collapsed onto his chest, utterly spent and completely satiated. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, not from exertion but from the overwhelming emotions swirling through her. Engulfing her, sending her spinning through space and somersaulting her heart beyond control…
When her breath returned and she opened her eyes, she was again on her back, with Sebastian once more lying over her, as if he, too, didn’t want this moment to end. With his fingers entwined in hers, he held her arms out from her sides, pinning her there beneath him. He stared down at her. His eyes were bright in the shadows, and his lips were parted, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
For a long moment, they remained like that, the only sound their heartbeats echoing into each other.
Then a sob tore from her.
“Oh God, Miranda,” he whispered gently, rolling his weight off her and turning her in his arms to cup her face in his hands with concern as she cried softly. Self-recrimination darkened his face. “I’ve hurt you.” He tenderly kissed her lips and her cheeks, as if trying to take all her pain onto himself. “I’m so sorry—”
“You didn’t hurt me.” She pressed her eyes closed but couldn’t stop the tears, no longer able to hold back the torrent of emotions cascading through her. Her heart simply hadn’t been prepared for him, for the rush of happiness being with him brought. And the terrible anguish. “You were wonderful.”
He kissed away her tears, but his distress for her was still palpable. “Then what is it? Tell me.”
She shook her head, fresh embarrassment surging through her and coloring her cheeks. “I’m just being a silly cake,” she whispered. She buried her face against his shoulder to hide from him, afraid he would see the truth in her…that she loved him, despite knowing that he would never love her in return. “I wasn’t prepared for that.”
“Are you certain that’s all?” Concern sounded thick in his voice as he encircled her with his arms and drew her protectively against him. “You’re trembling.”
“I’m cold,” she lied, unable to bear telling him the truth. Even now, with the masculine scent of him imprinted on her body and the physical pleasure he brought to her still lingering inside her, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“What can I do to help?” He caressed his warm lips against her forehead in a gesture so tender that new tears formed at her lashes.
She touched his cheek, trying to ignore the unbearable desolation clawing at her heart. “Put me to bed? I’ll be warmer beneath the covers.”
He gathered her into his arms and lifted her from the floor. “You’re not leaving tonight,” he told her gently but firmly as he carried her into his bedroom. “You’re spending the entire night this time, understand?”
“I can’t,” she whispered regrettably, resting her cheek against his shoulder. “I have to return to Audley House before the household wakes and notices I’m gone.”
“There will be plenty of time to take you home.” He murmured possessively against her temple, “But I want to greet the dawn with you in my arms, Rose.”
Rose. She warmed with love. For the first time, he’d used the nickname not mockingly, not in tempting seduction, but in affection, and her heart pounded so fiercely for him that her chest ached.
She nodded against his shoulder, not wanting to leave him. Not tonight, not tomorrow…
Pulling back the coverlet with one hand, he placed her onto the bed. He leaned over and kissed her, his lips nibbling at the corner of her mouth in promise of more pleasures yet to come before the night was over.
“Sebastian?” she whispered tentatively.
“Hmm?” He nuzzled the nape of her neck as he settled in behind her and tucked the coverlet over them, her back along his front, his large body enveloping hers in its warmth and strength.
“You should be happy.”
“I am,” he murmured, his hand stroking possessively over her hip. “Very happy.”
“No, I mean…” She pulled in a deep breath and whispered, “I love you, and I want you to be happy.”
She felt him tense against her, although his body never moved. His arms kept their same, secure hold around her, his lips still resting against her nape, but she sensed the change in him, so well did she know him.
“I don’t expect you to feel the same,” she whispered, hoping that if she kept talking that her heart wouldn’t break from the silence that came from him. “I know you don’t, but—” Her voice choked.
Slowly, he rolled her onto her back so that he could look down at her. His expression was inscrutable in the shadows, but his bright eyes matched the glowing coals in the fireplace for intensity as they searched her face. For a painfully long moment, neither of them moved, and the only sound was the pounding of her heart and the rush of blood through her ears. She held her breath. Oh, she’d made a terrible mistake! So utterly foolish to tell him…
Then he lowered his head and kissed her so tenderly, with such affection and sweetness, that she trembled from the intensity of it. He’d never kissed her like this before, and her silly heart didn’t know whether to leap for joy or shatter irreparably.
“No one has ever…not once…” he murmured against her mouth, and she could taste the surprise on his lips.
He lifted his mouth from hers just far enough to trace his fingertips affectionately over her lips, as if he didn’t dare let himself believe that she’d uttered those words. Then he grinned at her, a boyish smile of pure delight, one that melted away her worry and replaced it with warmth. And hope.
He cupped her face against his palm and languidly brushed his mouth back and forth across hers. “You make me happy, my sweet Rose.”
Her heart soared, this time because she knew she didn’t have to worry any longer about coming in second to Lady Jane or any of the other society ladies from his list. She could love him now, freely and openly, and he would realize that she would make as fine a wife for him as any society daughter. More—because she truly loved him, the man beneath the title.
“You have no idea how special you are, do you?” His hands stroked lovingly down her body. “And you are special to me, Miranda, more than you realize.”
As he continued to kiss and caress her, she closed her eyes against fresh tears. Her heart filled so completely with love for him that it burned, with a pleasure-pain that threatened to consume her.
“Then show me,” she whispered.
As he murmured her name and lowered himself over her to make love to her, the world around them faded away, until only the two of them existed. The shared rhythms of their hearts heralded in her joy like the pounding tattoo of drums, and she clung to him, never wanting to let go.