Page 34 of Taming of the Rake
Her legs began to shake as he neared, that enticing scent of sandalwood emanating from him as if he’d washed and shaved just before coming to her. There was something savage in his eyes that shook Regina to her core; something that inspired both fear and intrigue in her at once. The fear was calmed as she realized he was in complete control. His eyes spoke of conquering lust, but his every motion was slow and careful, calculated.
David cupped her face in his hands. Their bodies did not touch, yet a palpable energy thrummed in the space between them, making Regina feel as if invisible hands touched her everywhere.
“Before we begin, I need you to understand that you can tell me to stop at any time. There is no point of no return here. Comfort first, pleasure second. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she whispered, overwhelmed by the security his words provided. It went a long way toward easing the anxiety twisting and writhing in her belly like a nest of snakes. It also rendered Powell’s knife an unnecessary safeguard.
His lips brushed the bridge of her nose, then pressed to her brow. “Will you go to the bed?”
A sudden memory stabbed through her mind—Randolph standing in this same room, face hard and unsympathetic.Go to the bed.A command, not a request. David’s question put the control in her hands, giving her permission to accept or deny. What a novel concept.
“Yes.”
Her voice had come out stronger that time, and her steps were sure as they guided her toward the place where she would begin to erase the trauma of her past. Regina had been deflowered in this bed. The sheets had been stained by both her blood and her tears. Tonight, she was determined for all of that to be washed away.
Perching on the edge of the mattress, she watched him shrug out of his coat and lay it in its usual place. Then, he was coming toward her, one hand braced at the top button of his waistcoat.
“Should I stop here … or keep going?”
Regina dragged her gaze over the width and breadth of him, seized yet again with curiosity over how he was shaped beneath those clothes. She wanted to see it all.
“Please … keep going.”
David flicked the buttons loose without breaking eye contact, letting the garment hang open while he snatched at his cravat. The waistcoat fell to the floor and then he was moving faster, jerking the tails of his shirt free of his breeches and attacking the buttons. Regina’s breath hitched at the sight of his throat—a strong, thick column of flesh revealing the thump of his pulse.
She could only watch in stunned silence as the garment came off over his head, her rapt attention fixed on the expanse of his torso as he bared it to her. A thick mat of black hair covered the swells of his chest, arrowing down into his breeches in a sleek line. He represented a duality of hard and soft, strength and gentle beauty. The contrast left her breathless and weak. No wonder he’d needed her to sit down before he started taking his clothes off. Had all his past lovers felt as if they might faint from simply looking at him?
He crouched to yank off one boot, then the other, and his stockings followed. Before he could go to work on his breeches, Regina reached out a tentative hand.
“Wait. Let me?”
One dark eyebrow winged up in pleased surprise. “Of course.”
She stilled her shaking hands to work at the buttons. The first proved hardest to slip free, but she grew steadier with each one, until the breeches sagged around his hips and the fall dropped to reveal his cock. Seeing it with her own eyes was a different experience than feeling it inside her. He took her breath away, straining and swelling as if in reaction to her stare. He bent to release the buttons at his knees, then helped her ease them down. The sight of him completely unclothed took her breath away, so beautiful that it almost hurt to look at him. It didn’t seem natural for someone to be so utterly perfect, but Regina’s roaming eyes couldn’t find a single physical flaw.
The deep olive coloring of his face and hands extended everywhere, proving that the hue was one he had been born with, not caused by time spent in this sun. He remained still and silent as if understanding her need to look her fill, everything about him radiating ease except for the growing shaft of his cock.
He looked as if he’d been carved of marble, yet there was nothing cold about him. He gave off a heat she found enthralling, making her want to place her hand against his chest. More of the inky black hair graced his arms and legs, the plane of his groin. Regina had been repulsed by everything about her husband, and because of that she could not fathom the way David’s nudity made her feel. On a basic level, the two men had all the same parts, the same anatomical structure. But David wasn’t just a bundle of parts sewn together to make a man. He was almost godlike in his beauty, yet his actions toward her—his patience, gentleness, and grace—balanced him out with a much-needed dose of humanity.
The sudden movement of his hands snapped Regina out of her stupor. They came to her shoulders, running down the length of her arms in a soothing gesture. She hadn’t realized how tense she was until that touch suffused through her, allowing her to draw steady breaths. David stared at the powder blue ribbon threaded through the eyelets between her breasts, ending in a bow at the base of her throat.
“May I?”
He hooked his finger in one of the loops of the bow, but didn’t so much as tug until she had nodded to grant her permission. The gown loosened, David’s deft motions revealing her sternum inch by inch. His fingertips whispered over her skin as he pushed the gown down her arms to pool at her waist. The rise and fall of his chest quickened as he locked eyes on her bared breasts, making her nipples pucker as if begging for his touch. He urged her to her feet, sinking to one knee with his hands wrapped in the flimsy fabric of her gown. It slid along her hips and legs as he eased it down, gazing up at her from beneath his lashes. Regina held deathly still as he ran his hands lightly over her calves and thighs, pausing to cradle her hips.
His dark head lowered, and he rested against her leg with a heavy sigh. “You are so beautiful. Have you any idea?”
The earnestness in his voice stirred her, leaving her with no doubt that he spoke the truth. How could she do anything other than meet him with the same honesty?
“No,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’ve never felt beautiful. My hair is unfashionable, I have freckles, my body—”
“Is perfect,” he murmured against her skin, his breath warm and teasing. “Your hair is perfect, your freckles are perfect. Never let anyone make you feel as if they aren’t. Youarebeautiful, Regina. If it’s the last thing I do, I will make you believe it.”
Regina lacked the words to respond, because then he was lifting her foot and bracing it on his thigh, his lips pressing to the inside of her knee. It struck her as a decidedly odd place for him to kiss her, until his mouth began to move. Her mind quieted, her head falling back and her eyes sliding closed as he skimmed his lips along the inside of her thigh, leaving a trail of foreign, tingling sensation. Regina leaned against the bed for purchase as he kissed his way up, up—until his mouth rested right over the core of her. She panted, head spinning as he planted a short kiss right against her mons, his breaths tickling through her curls. Then, heat and wetness flared at her lower belly, the hot, rough stroke of his tongue around her navel forcing a shocked cry from her lips.
Dear God, he was kissing her in places she never knew possessed such sensitive nerve endings. She jolted and quaked with each press of his mouth, each sweep of his searching tongue, her back arching as he worked his way up her body. Her leg wrapped around his hip as he inched upward, dragging his tongue up the center of her abdomen and along her breastbone in one long, hot drag. His hands braced her back just before she collapsed, as if he had expected her reaction to the befuddling things he was doing. It was all so unexpected that Regina could only go limp in his arms and try to anticipate what might be next.
His wicked tongue stroked at her pulse now, lapping and swirling as if he’d found some sweet delicacy there and wanted to savor it. She whimpered and clung to him, fingers wrapping around biceps that bulged and hummed with barely-contained power. Yet, despite such hardness his hands at her back were so tender, the press of his body against hers light and yielding, as if to show her that she could part from him at any moment. He lit a trail of fire along her neck, then his teeth nipped the line of her jaw, and she nearly swooned.
