Page 66 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
She put aside the heavy beating of her heart just long enough for confusion to help her whisper. “What? What are you…?”
His fingers pressed into the hollows behind her knees then caressed upward on her inner thigh.
Her head fell backward against the wall, and she bit her lip to keep quiet. She dared not look down. How absurd they must look, him kneeling before her, her skirt pooled over his shoulders, hiding his head, but leaving his back and legs revealed. But how intoxicating his touch felt, those fingers stroking gently on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs and—
“Oh!” She could not bite off that reaction. She curled her hands in her hair, tethering herself to something, anything, as he stroked his clever fingers into the very center of her body.
She’d not thought… she’d never imagined! It hardly seemed right, but clearly, he knew what to do because pleasure built inside her, a gentle sensation at first, like the playful flow of water in a small stream.
Then his tongue joined his fingers. “Cass!”
He whipped her skirts away from his head and grinned up at her. “Shh.” Then he disappeared once more and continued his ministrations.
Oh, how absurd.
Heavenly.
Exactly what she’d wanted.
Her legs fast lost the ability to hold her up, and yet every muscle in her body felt taut, ready for… what? She moaned.
He bit, softly, her inner thigh.
Her body shook with pleasure, filled with wildness she could not contain. She arched her back as she split apart, his strong hands gripping her thighs. She bit her lip to keep her silence, but still she sounded out her joy. She’d been dismantled, felt utterly and entirely emptied out, ready for new feelings and sensations, a new self possibly, to enter into her body and make her anew.
He rose, gathered her into his arms, and held her against his chest. Good thing, too. Her legs seemed to have stopped working. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
“What did I just experience?” she whispered.
“A declaration, love.” He kissed the top of her head again. One of his arms wrapped low around her back and the other surrounded her shoulders like the warmest shawl. Better because a shawl would not secure her, hold her up, keep her tight against this lovely man’s frenzied beating heart.
A declaration? She did not wish to know. It would complicate the warmth, the strength, the frantic heart. She wanted only these physicalities.
She nuzzled his chest. She liked the simple smell of him—soap and sweat. “Humph. A Spanish poet I’ve read talks about the strange ethereal convulsions he experiences in his lover’s arms. I thought it an odd metaphor or bad translation. But I think I understand it now.” She also understood a desperate need for sleep. She burrowed into his chest and closed her eyes, dropping, drifting…
“Ada, love, I’d like nothing more than for you to give way to slumber in my arms, but this is neither the time nor the place.”
She rubbed her face against his chest. “Mmff.”
He hugged her tight and slid down the wall until they both sat on the floor. “Ada, I must tell you something. Can you wake up?”
“No.” What energy had she to do so? He’d stolen it all.
“I adore that I’ve put you into some sort of pleasure-induced sleep state but do listen.”
She heaved a breath. His voice sounded so sincere. She had to face him, to see what the tone of voice looked like on his face. She straightened, looked him in the eye.
Oh no. He wore a serious expression. One she’d seen on Lucas’s face many times after their night together—the expression of responsibility. She pushed out of his arms and sat beside him on the floor, her feet twisted up underneath her.
He straightened his cravat and cleared his throat. “Ada, Miss Cavendish, I’d like to court you.”
She jumped to her feet. Devil take it! She’d interpreted correctly. Responsibility. Marriage. Locking her up. Keeping her home.
He jumped up after her, his eyebrows hurtling toward one another. She knew that masculine, determined look. For the last week, she’d have said Cassius could be no more different from Lucas if he tried, but now she saw the similarities.
“Why do you wish to marry me?” she asked. “Do you think that because of what we just did, I have no choice?”
He shook his head.
