Page 49 of Taming of the Rake
The nightgown she had borrowed from Constantia was too long, for the other woman topped her by about two inches. Regina had to hold the hem aloft while traversing the corridor with lamp in hand. The passage remained empty and quiet, leaving Regina confident she wouldn’t be caught traipsing about this time of night. She reached David’s door without being accosted, and lightly rapped it with her knuckles.
“Come,” David’s voice called from the other side, soft and muffled.
She obeyed, and found herself in a neat study that smelled of brandy, leather, and furniture polish. David sat behind a large desk, his slouched body and the heaviness of his eyelids hinting at relaxed indolence. But as she closed the door and drew closer, Regina could see it was a façade. His eyes were sharp and unwavering when they met hers, and the clench of his fingers around a tumbler denoted thinly-veiled tension.
He had removed his coat and cravat. His shirtsleeves were rolled back to reveal the riveting sight of his forearms, taut with sinews and rippling here and there with prominent veins.
“David,” she began, setting her lamp on the mantel before approaching the desk. “I need to—”
“I think I know what you’ve come to tell me,” he said, holding one hand up to silence her. “If it’s what I suspect, I am not quite ready to hear it. Not yet.”
What an interesting coincidence; Regina was not ready to say it.
“Oh?” she murmured, staring down at the one hand he braced on the desk. Would her child have that same olive skin, or would he be fair like Regina? She imagined an infant with a thick cap of inky black hair and felt her throat tighten.
“Will you give me tonight?” he asked, staring down at his brandy as he toyed with his glass. “I realize what you have to tell me will put an end to what we have shared these past months. But … I am not quite ready for that.”
“Neither am I.”
Regina barely managed to get the words out, but he’d heard her rough whisper. A muscle twitched in his jaw when he glanced up at her again. Then, he set his glass aside and pushed his chair back before crooking a finger to summon her closer. She rounded the desk as if pulled by an invisible tether—some unseen thing linking her to him. Soon would come the time to cut and run, but not now. Not yet.
David took hold of her waist once she was in reach, moving her to stand between his spread legs. For a while he simply stared at her. Regina took the opportunity to drink him in, committing him to memory. As if one could ever forget the magnificence of David Graham. The riveting eyes so clear and blue God must regret not using the color to paint the sky. Those sooty lashes so long and full women everywhere must despise him for what they lacked. The lips so plush and perfectly formed, capable of the sweetest or wickedest of kisses depending on his mood.
He had given her so much, and Regina could never express her gratitude. But she could show him. She could try to give him back some of what he had so selflessly offered her.
She made quick work of the buttons running between her breasts. David’s eyes sparked with interest, and he sat up straighter as he watched her slip the nightgown off one shoulder, then the other. The garment slipped off with a soft whisper to land at her feet, leaving Regina stripped bare and vulnerable. His lips parted on a slow exhale, and he shifted in his chair to accommodate his growing erection. She could see the outline of it at the front of his breeches, calling to her with promises of pleasure and connection to the only man she’d ever desired in this way.
It was quite exhilarating to stand nude before him and realize that her desire was matched with equal potency.
There was too much air between them, too many things unsaid, so many experiences untouched. Regina closed the gap, bracing both hands on his chest and climbing up to straddle him. His eyes widened, presumably at her boldness, but Regina couldn’t explain what had come over her when she hardly understood it herself.
“Regina,” he mumbled against her lips, just before she kissed him, tangling her fingers in his hair.
His hands skimmed her thighs to grip her hips, pressing her down onto his rigid cock as he returned her kiss. He tasted of brandy and the cake they’d had after dinner, the rasping strokes of his tongue making her dizzy with lust and want. She tore at his shirt, ripping loose the remaining buttons and combing her fingers through the whorls of his chest hair, tracing her way up his neck and jaw, drinking from his lips with growing desperation. She whimpered into his mouth and he answered with a low groan, fingers tightening on her buttocks as he ground against her. His hardness and the rough fabric of his breeches teased the sensitive bud of her clit, and she shamelessly squirmed and rutted against him, telling him without words what she needed, wild with the urgency of it.
Tearing his mouth away from hers, he worked his way down her throat. Regina threw her head back, eyes sliding shut as he nibbled and licked his way up to her ear. The man ought to be knighted for the deadly precision with which he wielded that tongue of his, never failing to find the places that curled her toes or forced moans of delight from between her lips.
He reached toward the desk and lifted his tumbler, salacious purpose gleaming in his eyes as he tipped it toward her. Regina gasped at the first splash and trickle of brandy over one breast, but then she moaned her shocked delight as his tongue chased the rivulet toward her nipple. He lapped and sucked, bathing her clean before going back for more. Wantonness held her in its thrall, and she arched her back to offer herself up as his chalice, another cool splash preceding the warmth of his tongue. He doused both her breasts and her belly, then braced a hand at her back and devoured her, drinking the brandy from her skin.
Regina clung to the edge of his desk and tried not to collapse when his mouth closed over a nipple, his teeth scraping the tip. She was far more sensitive than usual, a sure sign of the truth that lingered between them unsaid. The changes in her were subtle, but very much real and impossible to ignore. He seemed to notice the increased tenderness of her nipples, lingering there to hungrily suck and lick and nip, driving her closer and closer to the edge of her tolerance.
David grunted when she pushed against his chest, forcing him back in his chair so she could yank his shirttails free of his breeches. His chest heaved with every breath, and his hands shook as he helped her open his fall. His eyes were wild and glassy when he met her gaze, as if he’d lost complete control of himself and now acted purely on animal instinct. They slid closed when she took him in her palm, stroking her thumb over his swollen tip … but then flew open again when she began sliding down his body. Their gazes met and held, surprise lighting in David’s as she went to her knees on the floor, her mouth poised over his cock.
He stroked her cheek, then his thumb traced the curve of her lower lip. “You don’t have to do that.”
The note of sympathy in his voice set her teeth on edge, though not because of anything he’d done. She had confided in him that Randolph forced her to suck him off a few times and she had found it off-putting. David had never asked such a thing of her, and when she’d mentioned it he simply shrugged and reminded her that their arrangement was about her needs anyway, not his. But, she would not let Randolph ruin even this for her. In the past, thoughts of intercourse had made her ill because of memories of him. Now, she knew what it was like to feel someone inside her and take pleasure from it. Why shouldn’t David also replace these other horrid memories? Now, when she thought of performing such an act on a man, she would remember the naked desire in David’s eyes as he stared down at her, the restless twitch of his fingers against his thighs as he waited for her to press her lips to him.
“I want to,” she insisted. “Ineedto.”
Regina acted before she could lose her nerve. Angling his cock toward her lips, she surged her tongue against the head. His sharp intake of breath preceded a rough groan as Regina took him as deep as she could, determination driving her. She kept her eyes open and fixed on him, determined not to let the ghost of someone she hated encroach upon her moment of triumph. His flesh was rigid and unrelenting at the back of her throat, the taste of him salty and pleasantly male. Funny, how her perspective on all things ‘masculine’ had been changed by this man.
He shook with what she assumed was a great deal of control as she bobbed her head, taking him in and out, her tongue sliding along the underside of his shaft. Pushing his shirt farther up, she noted the tension in his abdomen as he kept from thrusting his hips. His hands curled into fists, the tendons in his wrists pulled taut as if he wanted to touch her, to guide her with his hands in her hair.
Fear spiked in her at the thought of a fist clenched in her hair, ruthless and dominating. But all it took was a look at David for her to remember who she knelt before and the choice she had made. She refused to regret it.
His fingers were a featherlight whisper on the shell of her ear and the side of her neck—questioning, tentative, and seeking. She sucked him harder in response, moaning around the thick length of him in encouragement. And still he held back, gritting his teeth and grunting at the pulls of her mouth around him.
“Yes?” he asked while gently threading his fingers in the hair at her nape. When she nodded and circled her tongue around his head, David shut his eyes and tightened his hold, surging his cock deeper into her mouth. “Yes!”
