Page 65 of Making of a Scandal
She turned and leaned into him, hands at his waist, head tipped back invitingly. “Why, Mr. Burke, I do believe I promised to let you seduce me. I think it would be better for us to find a bed this first time, don’t you?”
His hands clenched tight to her arms. The hold wasn’t painful, but she could feel the control he exercised as he searched her gaze, seeming to try to figure out if she was certain.
She began backing toward the doors leading back into the house. The moon was obscured by clouds, the night growing chilly, though she hardly registered the cold. The shivers that wracked her had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the precipice she stood upon.
“It’s as if I was dead before you touched me, and now I’m alive. Now that I know how it feels to surrender to it, and that I only feel this way with you … I need you, Dominick.”
He kissed her, long, slow, and deep, his arms a strong bolster saving her from collapse. She returned the kiss with an ardor that had previously frightened her. Submitting to such feelings had felt trivial before, wrong in some way. But she was kissing the only man she wanted to kiss for the rest of her life. Nothing could be wrong about that.
Tearing his lips from hers, Nick took her hand and set off at a near run. They entered through the library, creeping across the darkened room to find their way to the corridor. Fate seemed to smile on them, and the way was clear as they dashed upstairs as quietly as possible. There was a bit of fumbling as he paused on the landing to pull her back against him and kiss her neck, then a soft whimper when the rasp of his tongue stroked against her beating pulse.
They made their way to her bedchamber, hands grasping, lips meeting and parting between heated breaths. Ekta had followed her instruction not to wait up, so there was no one here to see them as Calliope shut the door and leaned against it, watching Dominick cross to the hearth to stoke the dying fire back to life.
Then, he was ripping off his coat, tossing it over the bench at the foot of her bed and turning to face her, chest heaving with labored breath. His hands clenched, then relaxed at his sides as he stared at her, tongue swiping across his lower lip.
“I have to tell you something that may influence your decision. I’ve never … I mean, with a virgin … I always avoided … damn it, I’m making a mess of this.”
She smiled, pushing away from the door to approach him. “I have something to tell you, as well. I’ve never done this at all. It will be a first time of sorts for us both.”
He scowled, flinching when she began loosening his cravat. “This is no laughing matter.”
“No,” she agreed, tossing the linen aside and marveling at the sight of his exposed throat. “So I think you’d better fulfill your promise of making me scream your name.”
He tipped his head back as she came up on tiptoe to kiss his neck, unable to help herself. His chest went rigid beneath her palms, his hands coming up to clutch her arms.
“Callie.”
“You know what to do, and I am mostly ignorant. I need you to teach me.”
Gaze still connected with hers, he allowed some of the tension to leech from his muscles. His hand slipped around her back, fingers nimbly working the fastenings of her gown. She clung to his biceps, getting lost in his eyes—which had turned dark emerald with desire, solemn and fixed solely on her. Her gown loosened and she shrugged it away, standing in a heap of jonquil satin as he slowly circled her, stroking his fingertip down one arm and pressing a kiss just below her ear before standing at her back.
She began to shake as he worked the laces of her stays, the weight of such a moment overwhelming her in an unforeseen rush. His lips were a soothing balm, tender on the back of her neck as he pulled her stays aside, his hand splayed wide on her belly.
His other hand pulled her chemise off one shoulder, his lips and tongue finding every bare inch of skin. The hard swell of his cock prodded at her lower back, insistent and alive.
The chemise crept down her body in slow increments, Dominick taking his time unveiling her. It was nothing like she had imagined, her mind prepared for a ravenous rake tearing her clothes away and plundering her in a mindless frenzy. For all his insistence that he’d never lain with a virgin, he seemed to understand that she required him to coax her along slowly, sweetly, if only this one time. She squeezed her eyes shut as the thin cotton whispered past her hips and down her legs, leaving her wearing only her stockings and slippers. Dominick’s fingers strummed down her spine, featherlight but sure as he traced a path lower. He palmed her hips, then brought one hand around to cup between her legs.
She stiffened, her thighs clenching together, but he simply pressed his middle finger into the seam of her mons. His lips brushed against the shell of her ear.
“I have you, Callie. Let go.”
She gasped, thighs easing apart as he pressed and circled his finger with just enough pressure to send waves of sensation arcing through her entire body.
“Anni,” she choked out.
He went still. “What?”
She slowly turned to face him, momentarily robbed of speech by his reaction to the sight of her. His fiery gaze seared her to the bone, down her naked breasts and belly, past the thatch of dark hair between her legs, over her stocking-clad legs, the back up again. His jaw flexed, nostrils flaring as he drew in a deep breath.
“My name,” she blurted. “When I was born, my mother named me Anni Manha. Before we undertook the voyage to England, one of my father’s superior officers suggested he change my name. The names of Greek deities were all the rage in England at the time, so I became Calliope Anni Manha, though he still refers to me as Anni in private. Only he and my oldayahcall me by that name.”
He smiled and stroked her cheek, inching closer until the heat of his body sank through the surface of her skin. “Anni Manha. It’s beautiful. Would you prefer me to call you Anni when we are alone?”
“You may call me whatever you like. I simply want you to know me, Dominick. I want you to know me as no one else does.”
Pressing a soft kiss to her lips, he turned his attention to her hair, running a loose strand between his fingers. “My Anni.”
Her Bengali name on his lips was nearly her undoing. It was a part of herself she had never thought to give to Martin, but the choice to offer it to Dominick felt right. It felt like the truest part of her, entrusted into his care.
