Page 54 of Unmasked By a Captivating Lady
She let out a strangled gasp, almost clawing at his back. He felt the fierce stab of his own desire for her almost overwhelming him. With difficulty, he kept it on a leash, straining and panting. It wasn’t about him at the moment. It was about reaffirming their connection and making her believe that it was authentic. That the words that he spoke were real and true.
He sought out one nipple with his mouth, suckling fiercely. She arched against him, moaning, almost whimpering in her pleasure. At the same time, he slid a hand between her legs, gently parting them.
He knew the moment that he had found the core of her pleasure. She bucked beneath his hand fiercely, straining against him. His hand gloried in the soft, silky smoothness of her, so wet that his fingers almost couldn’t grasp her. Then, with sure, even strokes, he brought her to the pinnacle, sucking her nipple at the same time.
She bucked wildly beneath him, raising her hips to meet his hand, moaning in ecstasy. He felt the sudden, sharp paroxysm of her muscles, as wave after wave of pleasure was unleashed beneath his hand. With a final, sudden twist, her hips fell back down onto the bed, spent.
Slowly, he withdrew his hand, and her nipple popped out of his mouth. He gazed up at her, lovingly, tenderly, stroking her face, which was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
“How?” she whispered, frowning slightly. “How is it possible that you can do this to me, every time? How?”
He kept gazing at her. “It is only possible because of what is between us, Ara. It is not the same with everyone. You would not feel the same with just any man, nor would I feel the same with just any woman.” He paused. “Yes, it is passion, but it is much more than that. Surely, by now, you must know that it is love?”
She gazed at him, looking so bewildered that his heart lurched. She was struggling so hard with it. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that she still didn’t trust him after what he had done, in pretending to be the Duke. Could sheeverput it behind them and move on?
Suddenly, there was a soft voice, drifting towards them, from outside the room.
“Ara?” it called. “Where are you?”
Ara sat bolt upright, pulling down her nightdress hastily.
“Sweet Lord, it is Ruth,” she whispered frantically.
The next minute she was up and out of the door, before he even had a chance to say farewell.
Chapter 27
Ara smoothed down her nightdress with shaking hands. Her heart was beating so wildly it sounded like a drum in her chest.
Ruth was standing there, almost at the bottom of the staircase, holding a candle aloft. Ara rushed towards her, almost stumbling in her haste.
Ruth frowned, staring at her. “Ara,” she said slowly. “Where have you been? I had a bad dream and went into your room, but you were not there…”
Ara forced a smile onto her face. “I am sorry, Ruth,” she whispered. “I could not sleep, and decided to come down to the kitchen to have a snack.” She paused, then plunged on, her voice quickening. “You know me! Sometimes, fooddoessettle me, strangely enough…”
Ruth’s frown deepened. She kept staring at Ara, her blue eyes flickering over her face.
“You look flushed,” she said slowly. “Like you have just been running…”
Ara felt her heart lurch. She hated lying to Ruth, but what was the alternative? It wasn’t as if she could tell her that she had just been quivering with ecstasy beneath the hands of Lord Miles Comerford. It wasn’t something that Ruth would understand at all. Ara doubted that her cousin even suspected that such a thing was possible.
But besides that, she was supposed todespiseLord Miles Comerford after what he had done. Ruth would never, in a thousand years, understand her ambivalence about the man. The fact that she hated him, and loved him, in almost equal measures.
She didn’t understand it at all herself. Not in the least.
“It is late,” she said quickly. “We should go back to bed.”
She brushed past Ruth, climbing the staircase. Ruth didn’t move. She was still staring at Ara in a speculative way. Ara suddenly knew that her cousin suspected something, but simply didn’t know how to ask her. She probably didn’t even have the words.
***
The next day Ara woke to blinding sunshine streaming through the still unopened curtains. She sat up, slowly, in the bed, feeling more confused than she had ever felt in her life.
It had taken her hours to get to sleep after what had happened with Miles, and being so suddenly and shockingly interrupted by Ruth. It had been a close call, and she could only imagine how her cousin would have reacted if she had found them on that bed together, with Ara’s nightgown up, his hand between her legs, and his mouth suckling her nipple.
She shuddered with the horror of it. Ruth would have been simply shocked and sickened that Ara could do such things with a man she claimed she despised. Her cousin dideverythingby the book, and she was a milk and roses innocent, besides. There was no way that Ara could ever have satisfactorily explained it to her, and then there was the strong possibility that she would have told her parents.
She shuddered again. She had been so very close to exposure. And it was all because she simply could not stay away from the man, no matter how hard she tried.
