Page 23 of Avoiding the Merry Viscount
Bringing his other hand between them, he grazed his fingers across the globe of her breast. Breaking their kiss, he kissed along her jaw and neck as he cupped her breast in his hand.
She drew a deep breath. “Yes. My lord,” she whispered.
“Elias,” he whispered against her ear.
“Elias,” she repeated.
The sound of his name on her lips almost made him come undone. But he regained control of himself and held both of his hands up, releasing her.
“I don’t know what came over me, Miss Cary,” he said. Although she had been the one who had kissed him, right?
She stepped against him again. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she whispered.
“I overstepped.” Hadn’t he just chastised himself that very evening for his rakish behavior and then there he was mauling an innocent miss in his family’s library?Even if she did start it.
“If I were to ask you to do something for me, would you do so?” she asked, pressing her palms to his chest.
His skin heated where she touched, and he drew a deep breath. “Yes,” he whispered. It was the truth. There wasn’t much she could ask of him in that moment that he would decline. He realized thatsomehow she managed a hold that no one, save the ones related to him, had over him.
Her soft voice whispered to him in the moonlit library. “Will you touch me?”
Chapter Eight
Lydia
Lydia wasn’t surewhen she worked up the nerve to make such a bold request. Her body had been on fire the entire day after their kiss. She had avoided him as much as she could throughout the afternoon and evening, hoping that putting distance between them would ease the intensity of her desire.
When she lay in her bed that evening, all she could think about was how she wanted him to kiss her again and so much more. Even if she knew he was a rake and she would wind up with a broken heart once she allowed herself to do and feel more toward him.
She stared at the canopy and felt the place between her legs ache with need. No matter how many times she tossed and turned, she couldn’t get the urge to subside. After that, she took to pacing her chamber, hoping that the activity might tire her out enough to sleep.
That hadn’t worked, so she had the idea to select a book, hoping that reading might help her sleep. What she hadn’t expected was for the very man, and the object of her intense desire, to appear in the library. Nor had she expected the pull to be so great that she would throw herself at him.
“Miss Cary?” The way he responded to her request was more of a question, and even in the barely lit room, she could see the confusion marring his expression.
“Lydia,” she said, drawing another breath. “Will you do as I asked?”
“I’m not certain I know what you mean, Lydia.”
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. She had already gone that far, and there was no turning back now. Either he would give her what she desperately wanted and she could put the urge behind her, or he wouldn’t and she’d avoid him for the rest of the house party.
“Elias,” she said, enjoying the intimacy of using his given name. She stepped forward and grabbed his hand, pressing it against where she had fantasized about him touching. “Will you touch me here?”
He gulped, and it made her want to kiss his throat.
“You don’t know what you ask.”
She nodded, noting he hadn’t pulled his hand away. “I do.”
“But—” he started, before she cut him off.
“I expect nothing from you, and no one ever has to know.”
She saw how he warred with himself, which surprised her. Given his status as a known rake, she half expected him to throw her onto the settee and maul her with far less of an invitation. His reaction cracked open a bit of her heart to him, which would be disastrous, so she forced herself to push such thoughts aside.
“Are you not a virgin?” he asked, without a hint of judgment in his tone, but he shifted his hand to grip her hip.
“I am,” Lydia said quickly. “What I mean to say is that no man has ever entered me with his…” She trailed off, assuming he knew what she meant. Her mama hadn’t been one to leave her daughter in the dark about what occurred between a man and a woman. She hadn’t wanted Lydia to go into marriage unaware of such things, but part of her wondered if she wouldn’t have allowed certain liberties if she had been less informed. But it was far too late for that.
