Page 245 of The Ladies Least Likely
“I am not protesting,” he said as she set to work on the buttons of his coat. This was like when she had undressed him to sketch him, only this time he aided her by tugging at his neckcloth and twining his hands under hers to work on his waistcoat. “But I had thought you said we couldn’t—because of Fr?—”
He regretted even hinting at the man’s name. “Because you are to be m-m-married.”
The word came out with difficulty. The very thought that she would belong to another made his mind rebel.
She bent and pressed her lips to his temple, his ear, his jaw as her clever fingers loosened his buttons.
“I know. I thought that I owed it to him. But it occurred to me today, as I was sorting through my mother’s things, that once the vows are spoken, he will have legal control over my body. And I won’t. I will be afemme covert,invisible to the eyes of the law. He will speak for me, own my property, and use me to beget heirs for the duchy.”
She shuddered and pressed her forehead against Ren’s shoulder, growing still. Her palm pressed against his chest, over his heart, as if she were listening to its erratic beat.
“When he marries me, I will disappear.” Her voice cracked on the whisper. “So I will do what I wish and take every pleasure I can before that happens. And I wish,” she said against his neck, “foryou.”
Ren shook with the raw, ferocious heat that seared through him at her confession. “I wish that as well.”
He tore off his coat and shed his waistcoat, tossing the expensive fabric aside heedlessly. Harriette pulled his shirttails from his breeches and whisked the large, loose linen shirt over his head.
“God, Rhette, I’ve dreamed—so many t-t-times—” His cursed tongue was swelling, throttling his mouth. He couldn’t even tell her what this meant to him, whatshemeant to him.
“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve dreamed of it, too.”
She slid down his body to kneel on the floor and patted the top of her thigh. Obligingly he braced his boot on her leg and she began working the leather and wood framing free of his mauled foot. Once again she showed not a hint of revulsion as she set the boot aside and rolled down his stockings. Instead her mouth quirked in a smile.
“Worsted wool?” she questioned. “No silk hose for his lordship?”
“Absorbs the sweat,” he answered. “And prevents chafing from the leather.”
She set to work on the boot of his good leg. “I shall make you a set of blue worsted,” she said. “And you can be like Mr. Stillingfleet, who came to Mrs. Montagu’s salons in his blue stockings and gave name to the whole circle.”
It felt absurd to be having this conversation with his erection so blatantly in evidence between them. She’d noticed, he could tell. She rolled down his second stocking and tossed it aside, then climbed up his body to attend to his breeches. He leaned back and closed his eyes as she unbuttoned the front flap, andsudden memories of his many previous failures assailed him. He reached out and grasped one of her hands before she could slide his breeches over his hips.
“Rhette—I need to tell you?—”
“Tell me what?” she asked in a throaty purr. The hand he wasn’t holding slipped inside the fall of his breeches, inching toward his cock. He gasped for air.
“I’ve—I’ve had?—”
“I know.” Her voice changed. “All the courtesans. The legends preceded you back to London. The long, very long list of women you’d pleasured.”
“Lies.” Shamefully, he kept his face in the shadow of the canopy. He squeezed her wrist, willing her to understand, to forgive him. “I paid those women to brag of my prowess. In truth, I’m—I’m rubbish at this.”
His face burned, and he wondered why he, who dreaded talking, couldn’t seem to stop words from tumbling out, even mangled. “I f-f-f-inish too—too early, or I dr-dr-droop and c-c-can’t…” He stammered to a halt, but even then he wasn’t done humiliating himself. “I—I’m g-going to d-disappoint you, Rhette.”
“Sssh.” She pressed herself along his body and laid her lips to his. “You won’t disappoint me, my love,” she whispered between kisses. “I want to touch you so badly. I want you to touch me. Even if we’re both rubbish at this—and I think I might be, too—there are ways we can bring each other pleasure.”
She settled against him, bringing one hand to cradle his face. With the other she touched the old pendant around his neck.
“Think how old this is.” She traced the intertwined Greek letters. “And we found it ages ago.”
“Your first gift to me. My sign that I would conquer.”
“Ren.” She turned her face into his neck, hiding the vulnerability that fleeted across her features. “My Ren. I’ll becontent if you do nothing but kiss me all night. I want nothing but to be with you.”
He fisted his hand in her hair and kissed her, hard and devouring. “I wish to do more than kiss you,” he growled.
“Good.” Her throaty laugh thrummed inside his chest, like their bodies were already in tune. He shoved his breeches down his hips, lips never leaving hers, and she gave a happy sigh of satisfaction as she nestled against his nude body. He sucked in air, nearly choking, when she settled herself over his erection. He could feel her, hot silken flesh and the tickle of soft hair, but she was still draped in swaths of fabric.
“I can’tfindyou in all this,” he growled, trying to plunge his hands in her neckline to access her breasts.
