How the Earl Entices Page 18

  Her eyes blazed, which only drew him closer, until her softness pressed along the front of his hard body. She shuddered at the contact with a soft little gasp that parted her lips in sensuous invitation. One he couldn’t help staring at, and longing to accept.

  “You hid that ring from me. What other secrets are you keeping?”

  “More than you can count,” she shot back, but the aching breathlessness of her voice undercut whatever indignation she’d been aiming for.

  His lips curled into a wicked smile he couldn’t prevent. He knew why she was trembling and panting. That wasn’t anger.

  He leaned closer, so close that her lips tickled against his as he murmured, “I think there are some secrets you want to share.”

  The heated flare of her eyes proved she knew he didn’t mean her name.

  “In fact, I think you’re aching for it.” He admitted in a rasping half-growl, “God knows I’m aching for you.”

  His arousal pulsed fiercely in his gut, flamed by the way she stared at his mouth. The front of her body moved against his with each panting breath she took, rubbing the towel against his chest and unwittingly sparking a delicious friction that stirred his cock.

  He trailed a single fingertip down her bare arm, from her shoulder to her wrist, when what he wanted to do was grab her into his arms. Yet that slight touch was enough to blossom a trail of goose bumps in its wake and prove to him how much she wanted his hands on her. “Why deny yourself the pleasures you want so badly?”

  “I can’t,” she protested, her hands grasping tightly at the towel.

  “Oh, I very much think you can.”

  Unable to resist, he lowered his mouth to kiss her bare shoulder. When she sighed softly, making no move to stop him, he brushed his mouth over that delectably smooth patch of skin where her shoulder curved into her neck.

  “You want me inside you, making you writhe in pleasure until you shatter from it.” He smiled sinfully against her throat, reveling in the sensation of her pulse racing furiously against his lips in arousal. “You’re craving it, so much that you’re trembling.” He placed a soft kiss against the tender flesh behind her ear, and she shuddered with longing. “Say yes and let me give you that pleasure.”

  “I can’t…endanger Ethan.” Her whisper came between soft pants, her breasts rising and falling rapidly beneath the towel.

  “This has nothing to do with him.” He dared to caress his hand over her bare shoulder in a featherlight touch. Then lower, to stroke his fingers teasingly across the top of her chest, where he could feel her racing heartbeat. “This is only about you and me, and letting ourselves have what we both want.” His lowered his head to trace an open-mouth kiss along her jaw. “And I want you, so very much.”

  “But we—we don’t trust each other.”

  “I do trust you. I trust you with my life.” He nuzzled his mouth against her cheek, her jagged scar rough beneath his lips. He kissed it reverently. “So trust me enough to make yourself vulnerable to me, in every way.”

  His lips found hers. When her mouth softened with a sigh, he slipped inside to take sweeping licks into the delicious depths of her kiss, to tauntingly joust with her tongue and arouse her to give over to the hot ache he knew burned inside her. To the undeniable attraction that had crackled like electricity between them since the night of the storm.

  “Say yes.” He took her bottom lip between his and gently sucked. “Say yes and let me give you every pleasure you deserve.”

  “Ross.” His name was a tortured whimper of capitulation as a hot shudder of permission swept through her.

  She slowly opened the towel.

  Chapter 18

  Grace caught her breath as the rush of cool evening air swept over her naked body, followed immediately by the heat of his predacious gaze. It raked over her with agonizing deliberateness, taking her in, from her breasts with her nipples puckered hard and aching with arousal, across the flat of her belly to the curls between her thighs, and down her bare legs. Dear God, he was like a wolf, contemplating which parts of her to devour first.

  “So beautiful,” he rasped out as he swept his hand down her front, teasingly stroking over her breasts before resting on her lower belly, his fingertips mere inches from the throbbing that sprang up at her core. He lowered his mouth to hers and murmured against her lips. “And finally mine.”

  His hand lowered possessively between her legs. When she gasped at the intimate touch, he drank in the soft sound. Then he smiled against her mouth when his fingers caressed her and the gasp became a throaty moan.

  Grace closed her eyes and clung to him, the world around her falling away until all she knew was the delicious teasing of his fingers. For once, she didn’t let herself consider the risk she was taking by letting herself be vulnerable like this, or if wanting this touch made her wanton. If stepping her legs apart so he could stroke more deeply and moaning when his mouth slid down her body to kiss at her breasts made her just another one of those merry widows who threw themselves at him. If the pleading whimper that fell from her lips when he pulled her nipple deep into his mouth and suckled hard acknowledged exactly how much she longed to be ravished by him.

  None of that mattered as she arched herself against him. The need to be in his arms, to wrap herself around him until his strong body was both surrounding and surrounded by hers, had nothing to do with any of that. Just as it had nothing to do with the past ten years of loneliness and fear.

  This desire was only for Ross and for the way he awakened the woman sleeping inside her. It was only his touch she craved, only his strong arms she wanted around her. His mouth caressing its way down her body, the same mouth that challenged her to such verbal sparring that her blood heated from it. His heroism and inner strength, his goodness. All of him aroused her and made her yearn for the pleasures she knew he could give her, every brilliant, dedicated, daring inch of him.

  When he sank to his knees, she opened her eyes to find him staring up at her. His blue eyes gleamed like the devil’s own, not leaving hers even when he placed a tender kiss against her soft belly. Not even when he nuzzled his mouth and chin against her feminine curls, as if daring her to stop him.

  But she didn’t—oh, how could she? She wanted this with every ounce of her being. When a knowing smile curved at his lips as his hands stroked up the backs of her legs and squeezed her bare bottom, Grace bit her lip to choke back a moan.

  “You smell like jasmine.” He nuzzled her again, this time slipping his mouth shamelessly lower until his warm lips tickled against her wet folds. “Everywhere.”

  His words spun through her, winding more tightly the throbbing need coiling inside her. She clutched at his broad shoulders to keep her knees from buckling beneath her.

  Still, his gaze didn’t leave hers, and a sinful glint shined in his eyes. “I wonder,” he murmured against her, placing a kiss to her inner thigh, just below her aching center. “Do you taste like jasmine, too?”

  She tensed with pulsating longing. “If you—”

  He licked her. The sensation of his tongue stroking along the seam of her sex tore a shuddering gasp from her. Her fingernails dug into his hard shoulders as she fought to regain her breath.

  When he did it again, this time stroking deeper into her folds and flicking across the aching nub hidden within, her hips bucked. “Ross!”

  A pleased groan rose from the back of his throat. The soft sound rumbled into her, and her sex tightened reflexively, eagerly yearning for more. He obliged, this time swirling the tip of his tongue down into the hollow at her throbbing core. The rush of pleasure was so intense that she moaned, shamelessly not bothering to even attempt to silence herself.

  He nudged her thighs farther apart with his shoulder until she stood wide-legged, all of her open to his seeking mouth that continued to kiss, lick, and nibble in turns, sometimes taking great greedy mouthfuls, other times only a tiny suck. Heavens, how good it felt! He had a hot ache pulsating inside her, her fingers and toes ti
ngling, and her hair standing on end. Never had she experienced an intimacy as powerful as this. Never. And only, she knew, because it was Ross who was bringing her this pleasure.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it was to sleep with you in the same room all those nights, wanting my mouth on you like this?” he murmured against her. Each hot word tickled over her wet folds and intensified the tightening tension. “Fantasizing about how good you’d taste beneath my lips, how soft you’d feel beneath my hands? You drove me mad.”

  “You deserved…to be tortured,” she panted out.

  She felt the tickling rumble of his laughter against the lips of her sex, which only increased the heated ache for him there. “Almost begged you to tie me up again.”

  She tossed back her head to laugh and was rewarded with a plunge of his tongue deep inside her, then another and another as he thrust into her, mimicking with his mouth the sexual act she was certain he wanted to perform with his body. She trembled as that tempting thought settled wantonly over her and flamed her fire to an all-consuming blaze.

  His gaze lifted to hers, as if making certain she was watching his mouth working against her as he gave her the most intense sexual pleasure of her life. That same connection to him that she’d felt since the night of the storm engulfed her, only now so much stronger, so much more powerful. All of her shook wildly, and she grasped at his shoulders, desperate to keep his mouth on her as he drove her toward bliss.

  He murmured soft words of encouragement against her as he circled her throbbing clitoris with his thumb, teasing but not fully touching. Such a wicked tease! To hold back from her what he knew she needed—

  She needed him. She thrust her hips against him, begging in incoherent mewlings and whimpers for release.

  He closed his lips around the aching point and sucked.

  An exquisite pleasure shot through her, straight out to the tips of her fingers and toes. She bucked violently, and he grabbed onto her hips to hold her still, so he could suck again, harder and longer than before—

  “Ross…Dear God.” She arched herself into him, her hands clenching around his head, her fingers wrapping in his silky hair. “Ross!”

  A hoarse cry tore from her as she broke against his mouth. The ruby ring fell out of her hand and dropped unwanted to the floor with a soft ping. She shuddered as a wave of pleasure crashed over her with such force that it knocked the air from her lungs.

  She crumpled against the wall, her upper body sagging as his large hands around her hips kept her pinned there on her feet, his mouth still against her. She quivered helplessly against his lips in a series of soft tremors as the intensity of the pleasure ebbed, leaving bliss behind.

  She reached a hand down to stroke his cheek as he continued to kiss her tenderly, the soothing softness of his lips helping her come down from the heights he’d shot her to. Hot tears stung at her lashes and blurred his handsome face, and she choked back words of affection poised on her tongue. She’d given her body, but she wasn’t yet ready to open her heart. There was still too much at risk.

  When she’d finally caught her breath, he placed one last reverent kiss against her inner thigh and rose to his feet. He gathered her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.

  “I’ll bring you that pleasure again, if you let me.” He shifted his hips until he pressed the hard length of his erection against her soft belly. There was no mistaking how much he wanted her. “This time, I’ll be inside you when I do.”

  She clung to him, wanting exactly that. Now that he’d awoken the yearning woman inside her, she was far from satiated. If he could devastate her with only his mouth, she shivered to think of what his hard body could do.

  “Grace,” he whispered, his hands stroking over her as she pressed against him. “My beautiful Grace.”

  Grace.

  Instantly, her blood turned cold. The fires he’d set only moments before were doused, and remorse replaced her desire.

  “No.” She tried to pull away, but his arms tightened around her. “I can’t! I can’t—I won’t—no!”

  He froze, as startled as if she’d struck him. Then he cupped her cheek against his palm and lifted her chin until he could search her face. Confusion flickered briefly in his eyes.

  Then they darkened as his face grew hard. “Why not?”

  She shook her head and pushed against his chest, but he refused to release her. “Ross, please—”

  “You want me as much as I want you.” He strummed his thumb over her bottom lip, and she closed her eyes against the sweet torture of that touch. “I felt your desire for me.” He leaned in, brushing his mouth along her cheek to her ear. “For God’s sake, I tasted it.”

  She choked back a sob. He had no idea how his whispers affected her, how the mix of arousal and anguish warred within her.

  When she could no longer stop a tear from sliding down her cheek, she pulled away, turned her back to him, and reached down for the towel. Her hands shook as she wrapped it around herself.

  He took her shoulders from behind, his mouth lowering close to her ear, so close that his warm breath tickled across her cheek. “You want this, too.”

  “More than you know.” She ached to let him make love to her—but it wouldn’t be with her. It would be with the woman she was pretending to be.

  She couldn’t have borne it.

  The harsh edge to his voice cut like a blade of ice—“You still don’t trust me.”

  “I do trust you.” She trusted him with her life. But she couldn’t yet trust him with her son’s future. Until she did, she couldn’t give herself—her true self—to him.

  His hands dropped away. “Apparently, not enough.”

  Chapter 19

  Ross glanced out the window of the carriage as Piccadilly passed by in the darkness. “Almost there.”

  Grace gave a tight nod. Whether because she was becoming more nervous the closer they drew to the ambassador’s townhouse or because she was still upset over their earlier argument, he couldn’t have said. Not that it mattered. He knew the rules between them now. He wouldn’t attempt to touch her again.

  He grimaced into the darkness. If tonight didn’t go as planned, he wouldn’t have the chance to.

  “If we’re caught,” she said softly, “Ellsworth will be arrested for helping us.”

  Us. His damnable heart skipped, even though he knew it was nothing more than a slip of her tongue. He’d like to believe that she thought they were still in this together, but he knew better.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” he muttered. The Ellsworth town coach that they traveled in was unmistakable, with its gold coat of arms emblazed on the doors, but they’d had no choice. Ross was Ellsworth to everyone in attendance tonight, and they couldn’t very well arrive in a hired hackney or on foot. “Don’t worry about Mercer. He knows what he’s doing.”

  Ellsworth was already in their mess up to his noose-clad neck if they were caught, but Ross had made certain that he couldn’t be implicated. Amid the commotion and confusion that would surely happen, there would be enough wiggle room for the marquess to claim that he had attended the masquerade himself, that it was him and not Ross who had handed over his invitation, with his paramour wearing a similar gold brocade gown to the one draped over Grace.

  What a magnificent gown it was, too. He didn’t have to look at her to see it—the vision of her in it had already imprinted itself upon his mind.

  When she’d stepped from her room and grudgingly asked for his help in fastening the last of the tiny hooks on the bodice, he’d been so struck by the sight of her that he’d been speechless. He let her believe his silence was lingering pique over their earlier encounter. No. It was because of the way the brocade shimmered like gold foil over her hips, how the sculpted bodice pushed up her breasts against the low-cut neckline and displayed their top swells. The gold color accentuated the highlights in her toffee-colored hair, piled in a riot of barely controlled curls on top her head. Midway through fastening her up
, when she commented that the dress was so tight that she’d not had room beneath for a chemise, he nearly said to hell with the masquerade and scooped her into his arms to ravish her. Her true identity be damned.

  Frustration flared hotly. For Christ’s sake, he could still taste the tangy-sweet cream of her on his tongue, still feel her hot passion and pulsating pleasure when she broke. Having experienced that, he couldn’t regret claiming that taste of her. Or wanting to feast on her until he was fully satiated, until the unbearable craving for her was satisfied.

  But she refused to let herself share in that pleasure.

  He bit back an aggravated laugh. How ironic that the most beautiful creature he’d ever known, one of the most inherently passionate and enthralling, had erected a wall of ice between them. And how fitting that his mystery woman now wore a mask that hid her completely from the world, except for her sensuous mouth, making her even more delectably enigmatic.

  Fate was surely laughing at him.

  When the carriage stopped in front of the townhouse, he sucked in a mouthful of air and checked his own mask. Time to focus.

  Ross stepped to the ground, then turned back to offer his hand to Grace. She hesitated.

  “I’ll tell the coachman to take you back if you’ve changed your mind.” He hoped she would ask for exactly that. He didn’t want her here. Despite all that had happened between them—and all that hadn’t—he still wanted to protect her. “You don’t have to do this.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Yes, I do.”

  Then she took his hand and descended gracefully to the footpath.

  As he led her toward the front door, he leaned over to bring his mouth close to her ear, his hand on her elbow pulling back to slow their approach. “If you’re going to do this,” he said, resigning himself to her involvement, “then you’ve got to do it for all you’re worth, understand? Play the part as if you were born to it.”