Page 89 of A Gentleman's Wager
Jealous! As if she had been the one raging and not simply a witness to Vaughan’s tempest. “That is not at all what I am saying.”
Lucerne humoured her with a smile that suggested he rather thought otherwise. “Are you staying?” he asked.
Bella chewed the possibility over for barely a heartbeat. “That could prove rather scandalous.”
“Only if it were made known, and who here would reveal it?”
She almost named Vaughan but realised her mistake at once. If what she suspected was true, it would be the last thing he would do, for it would hasten her and Lucerne into wedlock. No, he would most assuredly hold his tongue over where she’d spent the night and all her other indiscretions.
“A little coaxing would not go amiss,” she said coquettishly.
Lucerne chuckled and raised her hand to his lips once more. He kissed first her fingers, then her palm, followed by her inner wrist.
“That is not what I meant. Kiss me properly, Lucerne.”
“Properly?” He pressed his lips to the furrow in her brows. “Whatever does that mean?”
“I mean upon my lips.”
“Ah, but surely an aperitif is in order.” He took hold of her as if he meant them to dance and swirled her around on the spot. Then kissed her on the tip of her nose. Bella tilted her head, eager to deepen their connection, but he pecked her on both cheeks instead. “Perhaps I’ll kiss you everywhere else first, saving your lips for last.”
His next kiss he pressed to the swell of her left breast. His tongue tickled as he briefly licked beneath the edge of her stays. Bella swayed in his arms, eager for every caress, but desperate for his mouth and the connection of their tongues dancing with one another.
“If you were to do that, then it would make you as big a tease as he is.”
Lucerne raised his head. His cheeks were flushed and his lips red from the kissing of her breasts. “Is that so?” he averred, raising his eyebrow an eloquent quarter inch. “And if by he, I suppose you to mean Vaughan, then one might wonder when you became so intimately acquainted?”
Bella scoffed. “I recall to you what we did last night, since it seems you have forgotten.”
“Oh, Bella. Trust me. That still fills my thoughts. You were perfection itself. Everything I hoped and more.” His expression took on a dreamy aspect, as he meandered in the memory. “I had no notion that I would find a woman such as you in these parts or I would have removed myself to the Dales much sooner.”
“And having now found me, what is it you intend to do with me, my lord?”
“Why what any rake worth his salt does to a wily and improper nymph: make thorough and proper love to her, of course? Shall we?” He took her by the hand. “The sheets are already warmed.”
He danced them in that direction, turning her first one way and then the other, folding her into his arms, and then spinning her away, only to catch her fast within his embrace once again.
Bella spied the bed through the crack as the door swung inwards. It was an oak affair, probably as old as the house, canopied in red, with four stout posts, and a headboard carved with basketmaking couples. Was she truly going to spend the night with him? Lord knows, she’d dreamed of being invited to do so, and it was way past time to be fretting over the promises they’d both made to Joshua and thoroughly broken. They had made love on the floor before two separate fireplaces, and shared intimate moments all over the house, but, Bella had never spent a whole night with a man before, nor made love in a bed.
Lucerne guided her over the threshold, and spun her around, pressing her fast against the rear of the door, while he dropped the latch. He bowed his head to hers and breathed her in as if he could fill his very lungs with her essence. “Bella,” he moaned. Then he was kissing her. Kissing her as she’d desired. Until she was breathless. Breathless and light-headed, and the yards of fabric between them became an irritating hinderance.
Bella tugged at the tie of his dressing gown. It was simply looped, and easily unfastened. The edges of the patterned silk parted. Beneath it, he wore only his nightshirt. It fell almost to his knees, but there was a gratifying tenting in the centre front of it.
“Is that all for me?” She fisted his length through the cloth, and grinned at the feel of him long, hot, and hard in her hand.
“Who else would it be for?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Every inch of it is for you. Wholly for you.”
Bella wanted that so much she chose to believe it. She rode the palm of her hand up over his crown and delighted in his groaned response. She felt the wetness of his arousal dampen the fabric.
“Help me disrobe.” She began plucking pins from her dress front. Lucerne assisted with her stays, though he made no rush of it, content to remove each item one by one, and to explore each part of her body as it was revealed. He sat her on the bed while he rolled down her stockings. Her garters, he twirled about his fingertips, before casting each aside. When she was finally nude, he sat back on his haunches and admired her.
“How prettily you bloom.” He divested himself of his shirt, displaying to her his long wiry body. In the candlelight, he was a vision of marble contours. Soft where she was hard. Angular where she was curved. Best of all his cock pointed at her like an arrow ready to impale her heart.
Bella wriggled back towards the centre of the bed, sinking deep into the soft mattress. Lucerne followed on hands and knees, rising over her. “We could make this quick, or we could make this slow?”
